prize/
I tried to answer, but my mouth refused to obey me. Spittle bubbled between my clenched teeth.
Molitor looked around at his cowled companions. 'Let him speak/ he said.
The psychic constraints on my voice slackened. Speech was still an effort. W- what are you d-doing, Molitor?'
'Recovering the priceless Necroteuch, of course. We really, really can't have you destroying another copy now, can we?'
'W-we?'
There are many who believe mankind will benefit more from the study of this artefact than from its destruction. I have come to safeguard those interests/
'R-rorken will n-never allow… y-you will b-burn for-'
'My estimable Lord Brother Rorken will never know. Feel how this place quakes. See how the roof splinters and collapses? Ten minutes ago, I signalled to the fleet that the primary objective was achieved. I gave the code for Sanction Extremis. They believe the Necroteuch had been found and safely disposed of. Our forces are withdrawing, with all haste. The batteries of the fleet have begun to level these xenos places. No one will know that the divine Necroteuch has been carried off safely. Not a shred of evidence will survive the bombardment. Not a shred of evidence… nor any voice of dissent/
His yellow-pupilled eyes regarded me. 'How brave of you to give your life in the assault on 56-Izar. Your name will be remembered on the roll of honour. I assure you, I'll see to that myself/
'B-b-b-bastard…' I fought with my mind to break free, but it was impossible. This was not Molitor's hold on me. One of his retainers, or all three in concert, supremely powerful.
'Fetch it for me/ Molitor said to one of his men, gesturing to the Necroteuch with a wave of his checked sleeve. We would be well to leave promptly/
The hammering bombardment was now a perpetual shaking roar. The robed figure slid forward and took down the blue octahedron, cupping it
in elegant, long-nailed fingers. He seemed to study it, and looked round at Molitor.
'It is useless/ he said.
'What?'
'Unreadable. Locked within an impenetrable xenos language code.'
Molitor stammered. 'No! Impossible! Break the code!'
'Would that I could. It is beyond even my ability'
'There must be a means of translation!'
The hooded man holding the Necroteuch looked round at me.
'He has a primer. The only primer. He's trying not to think about it, but I can see it in his mind. Look in his coat pocket.'
The smile returned to Molitor's face. He came close to me, reaching out a hand towards my coat. 'Devious to the last, Gregor. You whoreson wretch.'
A las-round blew his hand off at the wrist.
Molitor screamed and stumbled back, clutching his smoking stump.
Bequin, her face pursed grimly, her las-carbine at her shoulder and aimed at his heart, appeared beside me.
'Kill them! Kill them!' Molitor screamed. I felt the immediate pressure of the psychic vice tightening to finish me. Then I reeled away, freed. The psychic blank of Bequin's untouchable nature shielded me now she was at my side. The servant holding the Necroteuch took a step backwards in surprise.
Molitor, frantic with pain and anger, saw that his powerful psychic was thwarted somehow and yelled 'Albaara! T'harth!'
Code words. Trigger words. The pair of servants who had remained by his side sprang forward, their robes shredding away.
Out of their robes, they were foul, hunched things, encrusted with crude surgical implants and sacred charms. Their hands were lashing clutches of electrowhips, their eyes dull, bulbous orbits under the rims of the tarnished pacifier helmets bolted to their skulls.
Midas, Bequin and I fired our weapons together, raking them with punishment as they charged forward. The damage they suffered was immense, but still they came on, their bodies pumped with intoxicating adrenal fluid, pain-blockers and frenzy-inducing chemical stimulants. They didn't feel what we were doing to them.
One was just an arm's length from me when my desperate rain of bolts finally defeated it. A shot exploded the armoured matrix of chemical dispensers on its shoulder, spraying fluid into the air. In a second, it fell convulsing to the ground at our feet as the damage robbed it of its drug-source and left nothing but agony behind.
The other barely felt the punctures of Midas's too subtle needles. Frantically, we split to either side, out of its path. Braying and thrashing its
whip-limbs, it pounded after Midas, who ducked left and right between pillars, trying to evade it. Only his Glavian-bred grace and speed kept him out of its inexorably advancing grip.
He knew he had seconds left. Bequin and I were moving, but there was precious little we could do.
Midas pulled off his pouch of grenades, priming one as he twisted and side- stepped between the pillars, scarcely avoiding a withering lash of flexible metal whips that scored gouges in the stone.
Midas feinted left and then threw himself directly at the beast, snagging the strap of his pouch around its neck as he vaulted over its shoulder head first.
The grenades detonated in one stunning flash and atomised the ravening man- beast. Caught in the Shockwave, Midas was thrown into a pillar and dropped unconscious.
'Eisenhorn! Eisenhorn!' Molitor was wailing as he and his remaining servant hunted for me. His voice was cracking with pain and fury.
'Stay at my side,' I told Bequin as we ran deeper into the chamber. That psychic can't touch me while I'm close to you.'
Half the ceiling and a significant part of the wall blew in. For a second the air was solid with billowing orange fire.
Deafened, our skins scorched by the blast, Bequin and I were back on our feet in a moment. The chamber was open to the sky now, and cold white light poured in, heavy with smoke.
'Come on!' Together we scrambled towards the blast-damaged wall, picking our way up the smouldering slope of broken stone and whatever material the saruthi used for construction. This material was fused and bubbling, like plastic or flesh.
We headed for the light.
We emerged high on the curving upper face of the saruthi edifice. It was cold, and the wind that came across the segmented ridges of the polished white roof was brisk and full of the odours of smoke, fyceline and prome-thium.
We were at a dizzying height. The pearly flanks of the vast structure arced away to a ground far below and the surface was hard and polished like ice. Bequin slipped, and I managed to grab her before she slid away down the curve.
From up here, high in the alien sky, we could see across the lakes of fire and the vast smoke banks that roiled away for hundreds of kilometres. We could see flocks of troopships soaring up and away through the smoke cover towards the parent ships in orbit. On the flats of white mud far beneath us, Imperial troops ran to waiting dropships, discarding packs and helmets and even weapons in their haste to leave.
