Bleeding Chalice Part 3

The rear ramp of the Thunderhawk opened and the sound of the engines flooded in, punctuated byexplo-sions and gunfire from below. Cold air rolled in, too, for the outpost was on a planetoid of frozen tundra too far from its parent sun to be hospitable. The restraints on the grav-couches snapped open and with practiced speed the ten-strong squad of Soul Drinkers s.p.a.ce Marines dropped out of the ship on rappel lines, bolters slung.

Korvax was amongst the last to drop out of the Thun-derhawk. He saw Marines from the force's other gunships doing the same - he counted five ships in total and a small black shape trailing smoke and heading upwards, meaning one of the Thunderhawks had sus-tained damage and was heading back to the Carnivore. That still left fifty s.p.a.ce Marines making landfall.

Fifty against three hundred plus. Though pride was sinful in the eyes of the Emperor, Korvax still admitted to himself that those were the kind of odds he liked.

The battlefield yawed below him, and as the rappel line hissed through the clip he grasped it with his right hand. The outpost was surrounded by smoke and gunfire. Tech-guard on the roof had formed fire points and were firing at the eldar now moving to surround it.

The Mechanicus had access to the most advanced of weapons, Korvax saw a form of rapid-firing missile launcher send volleys of frag missiles into the eldar lines, and glimpsed the unmistakable liquid fire of a heavy plasma gun bursting amongst the aliens. The eldar were in many forms - as was the way of this heathen species - some wore bone-white bodysuits with tall masks which shrieked horribly as they cartwheeled through the gunfire to use their power swords against the tech-guard up close. Others had plumed helmets and shuriken Weapons, and were covering green-armoured eldar with buzzing heavy chainswords and masks with mandibles that spat laser fire at the tech-guard manning the for-ward defences. The first wave of eldar had easily swarmed over the first lines of sandbags and barricades and, though many of their number lay broken and burned by the tech-guard fire, several hundred of them were surrounding the outpost and moving in for the kill.

Korvax hit the ground in the centre of his squad. A quick hand signal told them all they needed to know -advance and engage. The safest place on the barren bat-tlefield was toe-to-toe with the eldar.

The aliens were quick and skilled, but pile on enough pressure and they would break. Korvax had fought them before on Quixian Obscura and broken them, too.

The squad rapid-fired as they ran, spattering bolter fire into the defences. Blue-armoured eldar, seeing this new threat landing behind them, turned to man the defences they had just overrun. Their shuriken guns spat volleys of shining silver at Korvax and his squad, studding the Soul Drinkers'

purple armour with razor-sharp discs. One Marine - Solus, the squad's flamer-bearer - went down, crimson spurting from the disk embedded in his knee joint. The bolter and shuriken fire met in a storm of metal, the Soul Drinkers closing quickly as the other squads did the same along that whole side of the defences.

The night sky above was clear and cold, and through it streaked a missile from Squad Veiyal, cracking in a flash of fire into the centre of the eldar sword-bearers. Two of them died, blown apart.

Bolter fire ripped into them as they tried to regroup, and by the time Squad Veiyal reached the defences the xenos manning it were dead.

Korvax's squad hit the eldar on their section of the line. Korvax tore up the edge of the sandbag parapet with full-auto fire and deftly drew the power sword from its scabbard on his armour's backpack. The power field jumped into life as his gauntlet closed around the hilt and it shrieked as he brought it down towards the first eldar he saw. Eldar reflexes were notoriously quick and the alien jinked to the side, but the blade still caught its shoulder and sheared the arm clear off. Korvax vaulted into the ditch behind the parapet, kicking the eldar to the floor as he did so and bringing his bolter, like a club, cracking into the side of its skull.

Bolter fire spattered like rain into the ditch. Eldar died, or stopped firing to scramble out of the way.

The ditch was deep but the far edge had collapsed into a crumbling slope where the frozen earth had been pulverised by explosive fire - the eldar retreated up this, attempting to fire as they went.

One of them moved with sudden, supernatural speed, seeming to flip over trails of bolter fire. It had a sword that looked like it was made of bone in one hand and a shuriken pistol in the other - the pistol flashed and a shuriken took Brother Brisias through the eye.

Korvax crunched through the body of the eldar he had killed and drove up the slope towards the eldar with the sword - part of their leadership caste, he guessed. They said eldar followed many paths of war, each type of sol-dier the result of a different path - those who became trapped on those paths became their leaders on the bat-tlefield. They were considered priority targets in a.s.saults.The eldar saw Korvax approach, and fixed the black gla.s.s of its helmet eyepieces on him for a moment. As if acting on some warrior code, the alien paused for a split second, raised its blade, and somersaulted towards him.

Korvax followed no code save that of the Emperor and the sacred place of the Soul Drinkers in his plan for the Imperium. In the shadow of the beleaguered outpost he duelled with the eldar leader, matching the alien's speed with his own strength. Many times the eldar struck home with a blow that would have killed a normal man, but Korvax knew the protection that power armour offered and he knocked each blow aside with a shoulder pad or an armoured forearm.

The alien tried to flip away from him, but Korvax reached out with his free hand, grasped the plume of its helmet, pulled its head down and slammed his knee into its faceplate. The eldar reeled and Korvax slashed a deep gouge across its torso, cutting through the armour plates set into its deep blue bodysuit. He felt its thin ribs give way and drove forward, hacking at it as each parry from its bone sword became weaker. With one final slash Kor-vax brought the blade down through the eldar's guard and the power blade cut right through the alien's torso, shearing the spine. The alien froze for a moment, then fell limp. The sword dropped from its hand.

The power field around the blade burned away the tis-sue it touched and the corpse slid off the sword with a flick of Korvax's wrist. The blue-armoured eldar were dead. The Soul Drinkers had taken the aliens by sur-prise, catching them as they themselves were trying to storm the outpost with speed and skill. Korvax saw Squad Veiyal was almost at the outpost's front blast doors - he also saw that the doors were wide open and smok-ing. The xenos must have got inside.

The Adeptus Mechanicus Biologis outpost was a cru-cial research station. The experiments it housed were vital to the Imperium. Korvax did not know the exact nature of the work done here, but for the Adeptus Terra to ask the Soul Drinkers to defend it from alien raiders must mean that the work was of the greatest importance. If the eldar got inside and destroyed - or, worse, stole -the Mechanicus research, the consequences would be great.

They were too late. The heathen xenos had breached the outpost. It was time to make amends.

Korvax quickly voxed round his squads. Veiyal was the furthest forward while two other squads were busy pin-ning down the eldar reinforcements landing nearby. a.s.sault Squad Livris was on Korvax's flank, clashing chainswords with the green-armoured eldar. They had lost a couple of Marines but they had cut their way through most of the eldar. That left Korvax three squads for the a.s.sault, with two more keeping the emerging eldar support units at bay.

"Veiyal, Livris, rush the doors!' voxed Korvax on the all-squads channel and he waved his squad forward, the Tactical Marines firing volleys sweeping across the defences in front of them as they advanced. More blue-armoured eldar tried to dig in and hold off Kor-vax's squad, but he led his men charging into their flank and drove them against Squad Livris. Many more eldar died between Korvax's bolter fire and Livris 5 chainswords.

That was how the Soul Drinkers fought. Hard and fast, never stopping.

Korvax saw Squad Veiyal at the doors, using the mas-sive plasteel construction of the blast doors as a firepoint, as they gave covering fire to the two squads approaching. Explosive fire suddenly streaked over from the eldar heavy weapons units trying to reach the outpost. Bursts of fire and shattered earth fountained up where they hit, and several Marines were thrown off their feet. The autosenses of Korvax's helmet cut out for a second then juddered back. A warning icon flashing on his retina told Korvax the pict-recorder on his backpack was dam-aged, and was no longer recording the view over his shoulder for the mission's debriefing.

Korvax would have to survive. He ran on through the pall of falling earth as a rune winked out, indicating Brother Severian's lifesigns had ceased in the midst of the barrage. Korvas ducked into the doorway and his squad barrelled in behind him. Blue-armoured eldar fired shuriken shots after them but were shredded by Livris's charge, and the a.s.sault Marines joined the rest of the spearhead at the outpost entrance.

Korvax checked the runes on his retina display. There were about half a dozen Marines down, maybe dead, but definitely out of action. Not bad losses. But the eldar had got inside the outpost and could even now be wrecking research vital to the Imperium.

Korvax slammed a new magazine into his bolter and heard half his squad doing the same. He glanced at Sergeant Veiyal - his helmet had been damaged and he was bareheaded, his breath coiling white in the cold.'The others have our backs,' said Korvax. 'Sergeant Livris, your squad has the point. Veiyal, with me. Advance!

Korvas levelled his bolter and followed the a.s.sault Marines as they charged into the darkened heart of the outpost...

The image winked out to be replaced by static. Thaddeus frowned and tapped the controls on the data-slate, rewinding the recording past the point where the feed cut out. It was the view over the s.p.a.ce Marine commander's shoulder from a recorder on his backpack, showing a screen full of showering earth and sharp white lines of gunfire. The recording rewound and the Soul Drinker com-mander's charge played out in reverse. Implosions sucked Marines back onto their feet.

The holomat was set up in the centre of the librar-ium. Salvage teams and tech-priests from the Obedience had carefully swept the librarium and lost several men rooting through trapped bookshelves. Once it had been established that the librarium was that of the Soul Drinkers Chapter, Thaddeus had ordered the salvage teams to be confined to the hulk and to secure the immediate area. Corridors had been sealed off with rockcrete to prevent decompression traps from emptying the librarium sector of air. The teams slowly spreading out into the hulk were locating dormitories and meditation cells, weapons lockers and infirmaries, all converted from ancient, empty sections of Imperial ships welded into the ma.s.s of the hulk.

The datacubes recovered had mostly been wiped. The truly crucial information had probably been portable enough for the Soul Drinkers to take with them before they abandoned the hulk. But there was some residual information in the glossy black monoliths of data-slate and the cogitators of the various intact ships.

The Soul Drinkers had referred to the hulk as the Brokenback, and had clearly adopted the craft as a home after the scuttling of their fleet. There were records of journeys across the galaxy, often to apparently dead sectors, and hints of ma.s.sive Marine losses in a battle on some unnamed world.

And then, there was the pict-file that Thaddeus had just played, showing the a.s.sault.

'It had been accessed repeatedly.' came a voice from across the library. It was Interrogator Shen, a tall and handsome man who still carried an air of the tribal warrior about him in spite of the archaic carapace armour he wore and the inferno pistol holstered at his waist. His voice was clipped and somehow artificial, for he had been sleep-taught Imperial Gothic relatively late in life. 'Whatever its significance, the Soul Drinkers scrutinised this file extensively before they left. That was why the tech-priests were able to piece it together from the various cogitators.'

'Do they know what it depicts?' Thaddeus was cycling slowly backwards through the file, watching the a.s.sault unfold in reverse.

'We presume it is some former operation. The location is uncertain. It could be the event that cost them so many of their own, but the Adeptus Mechanicus were the first organisation they turned against and here they are helping them.'

Thaddeus shook his head. He pointed towards the weapon now sucking bullets back out of the eldar aspect warriors. 'That's a Centauri pattern bolter. The Soul Drinkers' equipment was well up to date when they turned, this file must have been shot a decade ago at least. Before their heresy. We need to find out where this is, have the tech-priests begun forensic scrutiny?'

They have begun, Master Thaddeus.' replied Shen. 'But there is little to work with. The outpost build-ing is apparently a common STC construction and there are no landmarks. It is a Mechanicus outpost and the world is one of tundra, but there are thou-sands such. And if the events are as old as you say, it may not even be there any more.'

Thaddeus paused the image. The recorder cap-tured the instant when the tactical squad had leapt over the first barricades into the Dire Avenger defences. Dire Avengers were the most disciplined of the eldar aspects, diligent and dependable, the mainstay of the eldar elite. But the Soul Drinkers had smashed through them and other aspects alike, though outnumbered and unsupported. They had been most admirable in their time, thought Thaddeus. Great warriors, and fearless, but they had been proud. Their pride had led them to a terrible heresy, to break with the Imperium itself. It was a shame that they would have to be destroyed, but Thaddeus would see that they were.

'If it was important to them,' said Thaddeus, 'then it is important to us. If we find the location of this recording we may well find the Soul Drinkers. Shen, you may have to follow up other leads on your own. It is no little responsibility.'

'I accept, Master Thaddeus.' Shen had served Thaddeus for seven years, the latter few as a solid interrogator. Unlike Thaddeus, Shen was a warrior first, but Thaddeus had put most of his efforts into training the man's mind, and Shen could be trusted to look after himself.'Good. Bring the astropathic choir aboard the Bro-kenback and have them take up their vigil again. I want to hear of any further sightings of the Soul Drinkers, no matter how trivial or unlikely. We may be able to use them to pin down this location. Take some of the Obedience's astropaths, too. Use my authority. The Brokenback will be our base of opera-tions until I say otherwise.'

Shen bowed neatly to the inquisitor, and strode off to fulfil his duties. Thaddeus wondered if Shen ever really thought he would be an inquisitor one day In truth, Shen didn't have the patience or imag-ination to hunt down the enemies that threatened mankind from within. Thaddeus knew his own strengths, and Shen didn't come close. He was, however, as fine an interrogator as Thaddeus could wish for - loyal, diligent, and able to summon a deadly streak of violence in a tight spot.

Thaddeus looked once more at the holo image, where purple-armoured giants charged fearlessly into a storm of gunfire. He had never truly under-stood how s.p.a.ce Marines, particularly the a.s.sault-oriented Soul Drinkers, could make a tactic of a headlong, suicidal attack and somehow attain victory after victory when mere men would be cut to pieces. It was as if their conditioning and sheer faith carried them through when physics and logic should bring them low.

And now that faith had been perverted until a whole Chapter of such giants had declared them-selves the enemies of the Imperium. Thaddeus found it difficult to imagine a more dangerous enemy.

It was a beautiful day. It was always beautiful in House Jena.s.sis. The dome under which the habitat was built had been constructed of electroreactive materials that always created a flawless blue sky overhead no matter what the conditions on the planetoid outside. The atmosphere was perma-nently stabilised at an even summer's day, allowing the impressive alien plants of the gardens to flour-ish. Phrantis Jena.s.sis always made time every day to walk the gardens, until he lost sight of the palace's golden minarets between the spreading boughs of imported alien trees.

House Jena.s.sis was a colony several kilometres across, housed in an atmospheric dome and con-sisting of the palace itself, the grounds with their lakes and greenhouses, a cl.u.s.ter of simple rustic habs for the retainers, and the temple-like complex that housed the Grand Galactarium. House Jenas-sis was also the name of a Navigator family that had served the Imperium for more than ten thou-sand years, since before the Horus Heresy. Phrantis Jena.s.sis, the current patriarch of the House, had himself taken the Emperor's starships through the warp where only his warp eye could see the way, but had returned after a long career to take over the House. It was a good life, especially considering how so many less fortunate billions suffered to sur-vive. But it was a life deserved, of that Phrantis Jena.s.sis was sure, for without the Navigators the Imperium would be no more than a vulnerable collection of isolated star systems at the mercy of its enemies.

The duties for the day were many. Phrantis had to negotiate with the Departmento Munitorum to contract Imperial Guardsmen to guard the many scions of House Jena.s.sis on their travels. There were reciprocal arrangements to make that bound Navi-gators to particular individuals or Imperial organisations. New births would have to be regis-tered and Phrantis would have to sign the examiners' reports to confirm that the new bearers of the Navigator gene were free from corruptive mutation. The House's accounts were due to be reviewed and a long and tortuous process that would become. Yes, the House retainers would doubtless thrust many sheets of parchment under his nose to be read or signed or acted upon, but that was for the rest of the day. The morning would be spent enjoying the gardens, for why else would Phrantis Jena.s.sis have worked so hard if not to earn some deserved leisure time in old age?

Past the old summerhouse was one of the habi-tat's prettiest lakes, where crested devilfish swam between trailing branches of silver-barked fin-gertrees.

Phrantis wandered across the quaint little bridge that spanned the lake and watched a captive flock of jewelbirds wheeling beneath the clear blue dome.

The jewelbirds scattered as if in fright. Then the sounds reached Phrantis - reverberating booms like some huge hammer striking the surface of the dome. Ugly black cracks suddenly ran across a section of the dome and, with a sound like thunder, the section shattered.

Huge sheets of gla.s.s like giant knife blades fell, embedding themselves in the ground within sight of the lake. There was a growl of rushing wind as the heat within the dome rushed out into the cooler atmosphere beyond. A ma.s.sive tear had been gouged out of the dome and Phrantis saw with hor-ror the roiling grey-white clouds of the planetoid outside. The trees shook and -the water rippled. Phrantis's jewelled robes ruffled in the wind and he felt a sudden cold wash over him.

A tiny black shape dropped from the storm clouds towards the tear in the dome. As it plummeted closer Phrantis could see that it was like a bulb of metal, ringed with restraints, segmented like the unopened bud of an ugly grey flower. Bright flares ripped from its underside to decelerate it but when it landed, maybe three hundred metres from Phran-tis, it still hit the manicured lawn in a fountain of earth. Two morefollowed, then a fourth, and Phrantis realised the last one was heading for the lake.

He turned to run, but his old frame had barely lurched a few steps when something ma.s.sive thud-ded into the lake, drenching him in a wave of spray. He turned to see the metal seed pod bursting open and the purple-armoured soldiers inside - ten of them - snapped off their restraints and waded out into the water of the lake! The lake was quite deep but their heads still showed above the water, indi-cating they must be a good metre taller than Phrantis himself. Phrantis knew of the Adeptus Astartes - he had occasionally come across those superhuman warriors in his career - and he had no doubt that s.p.a.ce Marines were invading House Jena.s.sis.

The House had been loyal. It had served the Imperium with all its energy, asking only grat.i.tude in return.

Why would s.p.a.ce Marines be attacking a House that had helped the Imperium maintain its grip on the galaxy?

The Marines were already clambering up the bank, each with a pistol in one hand and an out-sized chainsword in the other. Each wore the emblem of a chalice on his shoulder pad. One had some kind of attachment for a hand - Phrantis realised with a start that it was not a bionic but the grotesquely warped hand itself, with long muscular multi-jointed fingers gripping the haft of a power axe. The helmetless Marine wielding it was a griz-zled veteran, face battered and scarred, and he had spotted Phrantis.

Phrantis didn't run. He was old, and they would easily outpace him. Either that, or his long and dis-tinguished life would end with a bolter sh.e.l.l in the back. The closest Marine clambered up the bank, covered the distance in a few long strides, and dragged Phrantis to the ground by the scruff of his neck.

The sergeant with the mutant hand ran over. The power field around the blade of his axe was acti-vated and droplets of water were hissing on the metal.

'You. What is your name?'

'Patriarch Phrantis Jena.s.sis of House Jena.s.sis.' Phrantis was amazed he had been able to answer.

'A Navigator?'

Phrantis nodded.

'Bind his hands.' said the sergeant to the Marine holding Phrantis down. 'Don't let him take his tur-ban off.

His warp eye'll kill you.'

Phrantis's hands were pulled behind his back and a plastic restraint tied around his wrists.

'What do you want?' gasped Phrantis. 'We are loyal here. We have been loyal since the days the Emperor still walked amongst us! Our warrant of binding was signed by his hand! We are loyal!'

The sergeant grinned, showing broken teeth. We're not.' he said.

Phrantis was hauled to his feet. Not loyal? Phran-tis had heard dark tales of s.p.a.ce Marines who fell from grace and joined the great enemy, the powers of Chaos that could not be named by righteous lips. Chaos Marines, all the pride and vigour of s.p.a.ce Marines turned to cruelty, bloodl.u.s.t and desecra-tion.

A warzone, where the Chaos Warlord Teturact was carving out an empire, was only a couple of subsec-tors from House Jena.s.sis. Phrantis had been a.s.sured that the warfleets ma.s.sing on the border of the war-zone protected House Jena.s.sis from Chaos raiders, but perhaps those raiders had found a way through. Had these Marines come from the Teturact's hordes?

What could they want with House Jena.s.sis? Navigators for their fleets? Slaves? Or just the despoiling of somewhere beautiful?

Phrantis saw other purple-armoured giants mov-ing away from the other pods that had fallen, taking up firing positions amongst the trees. With the breach in the dome the sky was darker and a chill wind was blowing down from above. Beautiful House Jena.s.sis was already imperfect.

'Commander?' the sergeant was saying into his communicator. 'We've taken the patriarch. I'm heading to your position now. No other contacts. Over.' There was a pause as someone made a reply Phrantis couldn't hear. 'I see you. Graevus out.'

Phrantis followed Sergeant Graevus's gaze, and saw a nightmare.

Commander Sarpedon, Chief Librarian and Chap-ter Master of the Soul Drinkers, was a half arachnid mutant renegade. His eight legs - seven chitinous limbs and one bionic - skittered rapidly as he moved with Squad Hastis across the rolling lawns towards where Squad Graevus was advancing with their prisoner.

The boots of Hastis's Marines churned up the manicured grounds.

Sarpedon met up with Graevus in the shadow of a spreading alien tree with scarlet leaves that cast a dim shadow beneath the darkening sky. Graevus, like most of the Chapter, was a mutant - his hand had deformed to give him greater strength and reach with the power axe he carried. Squads Hastis and Krydel were setting up a perimeter in case the planet's Arbites or Navigator House retainers arrived quickly.

Techmarine Solun, the Marine whose machine-skills would make the difference between success and failure here on Kytellion Prime, was with Squad Krydel, the mem-plates cov-ering his armour glinting black.Phrantis Jena.s.sis was a grey-haired, thin-faced slip of a man in ruby-red robes embroidered with gold and gemstones. A turban wrapped around his head concealed the third eye, the warp eye, in the centre of his forehead. It could look out on the warp itself but also, they said, kill a man with a glance.

'He's unhurt,' said Graevus. 'We found him alone.'

'He will not be alone for long.' said Sarpedon. He turned to the shivering patriarch. "Where is the Galactarium?'

Phrantis looked up blankly for a moment. 'I will not yield, Chaos filth.' he stuttered.

Sarpedon reached down and grabbed Phrantis by the chin. 'Do not waste our time, old man. We do the work of the Emperor. Where is the Galactarium?'

'The... the Arbites will be here, we have a precinct dedicated to our protection...'

Sarpedon cursed the fragmented intelligence he had been able to muster on House Jena.s.sis. The Soul Drinkers knew the Galactarium was here - one of the wonders of the Imperium, by all accounts -but there had been no map of the house environs to plan the a.s.sault properly. 'We will kill them all if we have to.'

said Sarpedon, knowing they would if it came down to it. 'That does not have to happen. All we want is access to the Galactarium, then we will go. House Jena.s.sis can run back to the Imperium in safety if you just give us what we want.'

Phrantis Jena.s.sis closed his eyes and whimpered, trying to shut out the cold, dangerous place his home had suddenly become.

"We have no time for this.' said Sarpedon, irritated. Time was an enemy here, as were so many factors.

He switched to the all-squads vox. 'Squads Hastis, Krydel, spread out and find me the Galactarium building, then report back and hold tight. Squad Graevus, hold this location with me. Post forward troopers to spot contacts. Move out.'

House Jena.s.sis was located on Kytellion Prime, a planetoid with a superdense core (and hence Earth-standard gravity). Other settlements, undomed and exposed to the planetoid's cruel weather, dotted the barren landscape, mostly isolated trading settlements that had been founded by retainers released from House service. One of them, however, was a mas-sively built compound with walls of sheer ferrocrete and watchtowers on every corner. This was the Kytel-lion Prime Adeptus Arbites precinct, where several squads of Arbites judges and suppression units were responsible for the protection of House Jena.s.sis. Their presence next to the habitat was one of the many ways in which the Navigator House was repaid for its diligent service to the Emperor's fleets.

There were several events that would cause the Arbites to be mobilised. The breaching of the dome over House Jena.s.sis was one of them, signifying as it did a potential meteorite strike or other disaster, or even an almost unthinkable direct a.s.sault on the House. Within minutes of the alarm going up, a col-umn of riot control vehicles and APCs, loaded with heavily armed Arbites officers and judge comman-ders, was snaking rapidly along the short road towards the entrance to the dome ready to defend the estate of the Navigator House they had sworn to protect.

The precinct astropath, as per the protocols that had been in place since House Jena.s.sis had come to Kytellion Prime, transmitted the distress call across the ether, alerting the highest authorities that the ancient and holy House Jena.s.sis was violated.

A few scant minutes afterwards, it was answered.

Squad Hastis had come across a few retainers with hunting rifles, and scattered them with a volley of bolter fire before moving into the palace itself. Without engaging the palace's automated servitor defences, the squad ascertained that the palace con-tained plenty of marbled galleries and lavish quarters, but no Galactarium.

Squad Krydel, heading the other way, had located the low building of marble with deep crimson lac-quered panels and battlements plated with gold. It was located in a shallow depression in the land-scaped gardens, surrounded by a ring of trees and with a marble-paved road winding to its collon-naded entrance.

The Soul Drinkers' enhanced senses had picked out handfuls of retainers from families bound into service by House Jena.s.sis, straggling from their pic-turesque village on the other side of the grounds. They would be little more than a nuisance if any of them proved brave enough to attack, but they were not the ones Sarpedon was worried about.

'Ready to secure the structure.' said Sergeant Kry-del. His squad was crouched by the columns at the front of the building. Techmarine Solun was beside the sergeant.

'No time,' replied Sarpedon. 'We'll go in together.'

Sarpedon, Squad Graevus and the captive patri-arch moved rapidly through the trees and up to the threshold of the temple-like building.'Squad Hastis.' voxed Sarpedon to the squad by the palace, 'advance to this position and maintain a perimeter.'

An acknowledgement rune flashed on Sarpe-don's retina. Hastis was a good, solid soldier, and Sarpedon feared the a.s.saulting squads would need backing up soon.

With a gesture, Sarpedon sent the three squads into the building. It was dark and cool inside, and with the breach in the dome there was a new chill in the air. The walls were of huge blocks of multi-coloured marble bordered with plated gold and shiny lacquered panels. Banners representing the branches of the Jena.s.sis family hung from the ceil-ing, which got higher as the floor sloped downward. Most of the building was beneath the level of the surrounding landscape.