‘And when was the last time any in First Eradicant submitted to these obligatory sessions?’

  The shake of Daviland’s head was nearly imperceptible.

  ‘Regrettable,’ Fennech said without the slightest hint of melancholy. The servitor released its grip on his head, and the commissar flexed his neck. ‘Ordinarily, such problems could be served by the direct application of a bolt to the skull, but Traxel’s uninterrupted string of successes have ensured his star waxes ever brighter in Lord General Trenchard’s eyes – especially after Tecerriot. Say what you will of the man, but Traxel gets results.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Per my recommendations, and thanks in no small part to your reports, Thirty-Sixth Xian’s eradicant formations are being shifted from the regiment proper to the Scholam Tempestus, as they are in the Fifty-Fifth Alphic Hydras. It is a change I expect the whole of the Militarum Tempestus will one day embrace.’

  Daviland felt a quick flash of pride. ‘That is excellent news, commissar.’

  ‘To appease the lord general, command of the Scholam Tempestus is being given to Traxel.’

  The blush of pride paled as suddenly as it had appeared. Daviland’s lips parted in quiet amazement.

  ‘This episode, as you called it, marks a singularly appropriate time for Traxel to be retired from active service and settle into a comfortable semi-retirement. His experience will doubtless benefit the next generation of Xian Tigers.’

  ‘Is Traxel aware?’ Daviland asked. ‘Of the position waiting for him at the Scholam Tempestus?’

  ‘He is. I daresay he is not at all pleased, but he cannot continue as he does now. If Traxel will not take the Scholam Tempestus, his only recourse is death.’

  Daviland swallowed her sudden, unexpected dispiritedness. ‘What if he suffers another episode when we encounter the Adeptus Astartes again?’

  An icy grin crept across Fennech’s lips.

  ‘That evaluation you will leave to me.’

  The supply crates and ammo cans the Scions sat upon shifted ever so slightly as the Taurox powered into a deep crater which had shattered the eastbound highway’s surface. Durlo had outdone himself in his resupply efforts, enlisting the aid of the entire eradicant to help him lug it all back to the vehicle. They perched atop their spoil in silent trances, save for Traxel and Quisse in the cab and Fennech and Daviland on either side of the rear hatch.

  Norroll manned the twin gatling cannons. He had volunteered for the first shift in the hatch to give the others a chance to trance along the way, but Daviland had opted to use the time to catch up with her old mentor.

  Norroll sat at chest defilade in the turret, traversing it to and fro at irregular intervals, panning across a waterlogged landscape that was gradually more rolling and densely forested than the broad flats that lay along the Zholm. The recon trooper had patched his servo-skull into the Taurox’s power supply, extending its augurs to a horizon-wide sweep that the onboard generator in Norroll’s backpack could never match. The radial display mounted to the skull’s right side swept around every two seconds, giving them advanced warning of any enemy or potential obstacles that lay in their way. An identical readout played on the Taurox’s cab, giving Quisse ample time to react to any threats as he drove.

  At the back of the Taurox, Daviland and Fennech faced each other on opposite sides of the Taurox’s rear hatch, each sitting atop several layers of hastily piled supply crates. Beneath the visor of his peaked cap, the commissar’s augmetic left eye emitted a dim glow that gave the pale, papery skin of his face a ruddy tint in the low light of the troop compartment. The reinstallation of his bionics had restored Fennech’s missing left arm and his mobility. A power fist of glossy black durasteel, trimmed in scarlet and adorned with a golden Imperialis, rested on his left knee. He wore his carapace armour’s gleaming black cuirass and pauldrons over the oiled leather of his greatcoat, another Imperialis proudly displayed in the centre of his plastron. Like his greatcoat and cap, Fennech’s visible armour plates were edged in scarlet.

  Norroll couldn’t hear them over inter-vox, which likely meant they were talking over a private channel – ordinary conversation was rendered unintelligible by the grinding of the gun truck’s tracks and the roar of its engine.

  Traxel sat in the cab, poring over the printed topographic map he had spread across the Taurox’s front instrument panel. He compared their location on the map to the gun truck’s navigational display.

  ‘Right here,’ he said as the Taurox approached an intersection. Quisse complied, and the Taurox headed east.

  ‘Is there a problem, Tempestor?’ Daviland asked over the squad’s inter-vox.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘I thought Pokol Armoury was practically due north from the command centre,’ she said. ‘Are we diverting?’

  ‘We are not going to Pokol Armoury,’ Traxel said. ‘We are going to the Foretrak Gap.’

  ‘Have we received new orders?’

  ‘No.’

  Norroll smirked. Typical Traxel.

  ‘Tempestor,’ Daviland began, ‘our orders–’

  ‘Our standing orders,’ Traxel said, turning to look back at her, ‘are to break the back of the insurrection on Rilis by the most expeditious means available, short of causing irreparable damage to the world itself. Those are the orders given to us by Tempestor-Prime Bassoumeh, passed directly from Lord General Trenchard himself. Having allied themselves with a Traitor Legion, the apostasy of the Rilisian traitors is incontestable. As Traitor legionaries are not magnanimous with their power, we assume that they are at the centre of the rebellion and are the gauntlet holding the traitors’ leash. Their elimination is our highest priority.’

  ‘I am not disputing our standing orders, sir,’ Daviland said. ‘Has our change of mission been coordinated with the Hundred-and-Thirty-Ninth?’

  ‘It has not, because there has been no change to our mission.’

  Daviland paused. ‘We have our orders from the senior ground force commander, Tempestor. We’re expected at Pokol.’ She glanced over to Fennech, whose expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts.

  ‘Don’t look to Commissar Fennech for support, Daviland,’ Traxel said. ‘He does not command First Eradicant.’

  ‘The Hundred-and-Thirty-Ninth will need to divert a formation from their main force to secure–’

  ‘We cut the head from this insurrection by eliminating the Iron Warriors,’ Traxel said, and his tone indicated that was the end of the discussion. The eradicant remained silent for several minutes afterwards.

  ‘You make a fair point, Daviland,’ the Tempestor finally said. ‘Given the scope of potential disciplinary and doctrinal violations inherent in my intent, I would have your input, commissar.’

  Norroll could practically feel how much it galled Traxel to make such a request. The Tempestor had done his best to studiously ignore Fennech since the commissar had joined them. While he was a maverick, Traxel was no fool – flouting the senior ground force commander’s orders in the presence of a commissar would have already seen most officers earn a bolt through the skull. It was a prudence Norroll had never yet encountered with him.

  Prudence, or fear.

  Fennech collected his thoughts for several seconds before replying. ‘I agree with Medicae-Adept Daviland, Tempestor. I find abdicating Colonel Zheev’s orders, which he understood you to accept in good faith, distasteful. Not giving the Hundred-and-Thirty-Ninth time to appropriately respond to our absence will very likely result in the loss of many faithful Imperial souls at Pokol, and may likewise result in the armoury’s resources falling into the traitors’ hands. I don’t believe we will fully understand the magnitude of our delinquency’s impact until the after-action reports and butcher’s bills are compiled.’

  Daviland straightened up in her seat.

  ‘I have taken this into account,’ Traxel said. ‘My failure to coordinate with the senior ground force commander has been considered within this mission’s risk matrix. I have deemed it an inappropriate use of our time to argue the point with Colonel Zheev, as he proved unwilling to accept my position before. Moreover, having such a discussion over the vox, post facto, bears too great a risk of information leakage that the enemy could exploit.’

  Fennech flexed the thick fingers of his power fist. ‘You are correct, Tempestor Traxel. Despite my stated misgivings, I support your decision to divert to the Foretrak Gap. As you said, our orders come from the lord general himself. As Rilis’ contributions to the God-Emperor’s war effort are critical to military operations across the segmentum, our course is clear.’

  Daviland said nothing further.

  VI

  They ground eastward for several hours, stopping only to refuel using the blitz cans requisitioned from the 139th. Behind them, the sun set, casting the forested ridges ahead in brilliant gold. The curve of the orbital ring above had become stark and bright in the sun’s reflected light, bisecting the darkening skies to the south-east.

  They encountered no other living soul along the way, and though such a situation might lull an ordinary soldier to relax his guard, it only served to make Norroll uneasy. He swept the gatling cannons across abandoned lots and yards, searching for threats as they rolled past another seemingly deserted town. He checked Actis’ augurs but noted no motion pings or active power sources in the vicinity. Nevertheless, Akraatumo, who had replaced Quisse as driver, kept the Taurox at a manageable distance – no point wasting resources on an avoidable firefight.

  It had been the thirteenth such abandoned village they had skirted around since their departure from the Zholm valley. There were no signs of fighting here, nearly a hundred miles removed from the polluted, artillery-churned wastes of the battlefield they had left behind. Every farm, residence and business visible from the road bore the signs of long-term neglect. Fields stretched along the rolling hillsides and narrow valleys surrounding the town, fallow and overgrown. Crumbling low walls of grey stone, discoloured by russet mosses and dull brown patches of lichen, demarked the fields’ borders. Impenetrable masses of thorny hedge and unmanaged thickets of daekki and quaroak trees sprouted near the walls’ edges, creeping to infiltrate the broad, weed-choked wastelands of unkempt farmland. Weeds strangled the remains of small garden plots and sprouted through cracks in the rutted pavement. The doors and windows of every weather-stained, plastek-sided building had been boarded up with plates of flakboard.

  Norroll had volunteered for a second shift in the turret, ostensibly because he preferred to read the terrain with his own eyes rather than rely solely upon Actis’ augurs. In the cab below, Akraatumo drove, while Rybak had relieved Traxel on command and navigation – and Norroll had no desire to talk to Rybak.

  He intensified his scan on the surrounding terrain as darkness fell. Every structure, tree stump or scarp of rock along their route could potentially conceal an enemy position, and every bit of roadside detritus might hide a booby trap. His senses corroborated Actis’ readings – there really was nothing here. He took a long draw on his helmet’s feeder pipe, sucking in a mouthful of gritty, vaguely salty nutri-paste, unsettled by the calm.

  Actis pinged.

  Norroll glanced at his augur feeds. ‘Akraatumo, stop!’ he called down from behind the gatling cannons.

  The Taurox clattered to a halt, shifting the Scions forward as the supply crates they sat upon slid towards the cab.

  ‘Status, Norroll,’ Traxel requested.

  ‘Got a ping from Actis.’ He reviewed his slate. ‘Active power source, metal. One-fifty yards, bearing six-six.’

  ‘Size?’

  ‘Small. If he hadn’t caught it, we might have missed it.’

  ‘Check it out,’ Traxel ordered. ‘Durlo, go with him. Atebe, in the turret.’

  Norroll disconnected Actis from the Taurox and waited for the few seconds it took for the servo-skull to connect to his power supply and data feeds. Durlo was already unsealing the portside hatch as Norroll released his security harness and dropped into the crew bay. A few more seconds and the Scions were out, low-crawling across a field with an abundant crop of weeds and briars in the direction indicated by Actis’ augurs. They slipped forward by turns, advancing between grassy mounds and thickets to avoid detection, covering one another as they moved through the thick vegetation and heavily furrowed soil.

  Norroll scanned the area indicated by Actis with his magnoculars from beneath the concealment of a knot of brambles. Less than fifty yards away, a Tarantula sentry gun pivoted back and forth on its squat four-legged base, concealed beneath a canopy of camo netting. It was emplaced at the top of a low steel-frame tower just inside the edge of the forest, ten to twelve feet off the ground. Its machine spirit endlessly sought targets for its twin heavy bolters through the small rectangular aperture atop it, which housed its optics and sensors. The centre of its mass was a metal block, featureless and blunt, the aquila once bolted to it roughly pried off.

  ‘Tarantula, boss. Heavy bolter configuration,’ Norroll called back to the Taurox.

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘Just one here. We’ll probably find more entertainment up that hill.’

  ‘Likelihood of tripping an alarm if we engage it?’

  ‘Low,’ Durlo replied from his position. ‘Communication with the slaved servitor brain that controls a Tarantula is one-way. Tell it to point and shoot, and it will search for targets until the stars go cold.’

  ‘Atebe, can you see the turret?’ Traxel asked.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Norroll, light it up.’

  Norroll fished out a black metal tube from his right cargo pocket. He unscrewed the end cap, flipping it up to form an iron sight that he used to aim at the turret. He pressed a rubberised red button on its base, projecting an intense beam, invisible to human sight, that marked the turret.

  Though human eyes could not perceive the beam, the Tarantula’s sensors took note of it immediately. Its turret swivelled to target the source, bringing its heavy bolters to bear on Norroll.

  Norroll was moving the moment he saw the turret spin in his direction, unconsciously reacting to the threat with reflexes honed over a lifetime’s training and combat experience. He tore across the thicket as he displaced, powering through the tangle of knotted growth and thorns that clutched at his armour as he threw himself to the ground near Durlo’s position.

  A flash of red light speared across the field, followed a split second later by the crack of Atebe’s long-las. A shower of sparks burst from the Tarantula’s sensor array as the turret began to fire, shredding the hedge as it churned the ground where Norroll had been an instant before with a flurry of large-calibre mass-reactive shells.

  Blinded, the turret responded in the direction of attack, swinging towards the Taurox and firing wildly in erratic sweeps.

  Durlo laid down covering fire, rapid-firing at the Tarantula as Norroll crawled up beside him.

  ‘Did you know it would be able to see the marking las?’ Norroll asked.

  Durlo continued to fire. ‘Nobody asked.’

  A second shot from Atebe’s long-las struck the turret in the centre of its flat frontal assembly, the high-powered round boring through armour plating and shredding the surgically mutilated servitor brain housed within. The heavy bolters went immediately inert.

  Norroll picked himself up from the ground, rising to one knee behind the grassy rise he sheltered behind, cautiously watching the turret as the thin plumes of smoke trickling from its bolter muzzles dissipated. Checking his augur display after his visual sweep, he thumped Durlo on the top of his helmet and jogged back to the Taurox, still bent low as he continued to hug the available cover.

  Blodt walked the perimeter of his fortress, crushing the cushion of pine needles into the soft soil beneath his armoured boots. He held his chaincannon in his right hand, using his left to steady himself as he clambered up a narrow plasteel ladder to walk along the interior battlements.

  Beneath him, his bodyguard of four armoured servitors milled about the base of the ladder. One attempted to follow, nearly losing its balance beneath the weight of the heavy bolter replacing its right arm at the shoulder.

  Loiter, Blodt pulsed, and the servitors formed a perimeter about the ladder’s base.

  He could have overridden their standard movement protocols, limiting their combat engrams in favour of greater surefootedness, but he didn’t feel like reprogramming them again when they reached the top. He didn’t need them up here now, and he enjoyed having the time to survey his domain privately.

  He looked westward across the bare ridges of the Foretrak Gap and smiled beneath the brass-fanged vox-grille of his snarling Sarum-pattern faceplate, thinking proudly on the past three months’ toil. Foretrak had been the perfect spot for him to put his concepts into practice, and with the labour of the thousand serfs he had brought down from Ganspur, he had made it a reality.

  The regiment of Imperial Guard which had wandered into the Gap at the beginning of the civil war had been a veritable godsend – their efforts to displace him proved invaluable to the never-ending refinement of his design. Blodt had made no direct effort to eliminate the survivors, preferring to keep the rats trapped in his maze, where they could continue to provide more data for his unending improvements.

  Another group had entered the Gap two hours earlier, triggering the passive augurs on the western end as they blundered forwards. They were only eleven strong, merely a squad, but had already made it past the first ridge’s defences entirely intact.

  Blodt heard the juddering fire of his automated turrets two valleys away. Rapt, he closed his eyes and listened to the pulse of heavy bolters and autocannons in the dusk – rising legato transitioned to prolonged staccato and back again in a never-repeating symphony of war.