I had already drawn the big Hecuter autopistol I had borrowed from the
They'd just been poaching us up until now. This was a full scale ambush. I counted at least fifteen janissaries, as well as an ogryn with a heavy weapon. Nayl went down, hit in the thigh, but he kept blasting. A las round sparked bluntly against the heavy brace on my left leg.
Time to reset the odds.
'Cherabael!' I commanded.
It had been drifting high above the gorge, trailing us like a kite, but now it descended, gathering speed, beginning to shine.
I had been much more careful in my design of this daemonhost. Elaborating on the basic and hasty ritual construction Aemos and I had wrought in those last few minutes aboard the
Of course, there was a price to pay for such security. This Cherubael could manifest much less power, a direct consequence of its reinforced bindings. But it had enough. More than enough.
It swept down the gorge, warp-flame trailing from its upright body, and demolished one group of attackers in a blurry storm of aether. To their credit, the Vessorines didn't scream. But they broke and started to fall back.
The ogryn fired his heavy weapon at the incoming host. The impact fluttered off Cherubael like petals. It punched its talons into the squealing abhuman's chest and lifted the big brute off the ground.
And then threw him. The ogryn went up. Just simply went up and kept
going.
Cherubael changed direction and skimmed across the gorge towards the retreating meres. Our guns had whittled their numbers down by then and we were in pursuit, though Eleena had stayed with the sprawled, cursing
Nayl.
I noticed something else about this new Cherubael. It didn't laugh any more. Ever. Its face was set in an implacable frown. It showed no signs of taking any pleasure in its slaughter.
I was pleased about that. The laughter really did used to get on my nerves.
It was going to take a while to get used to Cherubael's new face, though. Once installed within the flesh host, the daemon had made its usual alterations – the sprouting nub horns, the talons, the smooth, glossy skin, the blank eyes.
But it had not entirely erased the features of Godwyn Fischig.
It killed the last of the ambushers, all save one who reached the gorge wall and accessed the dimension trap they had emerged from.
'Hold it!' I ordered. 'Hold it open!'
Cherubael obeyed. It atomised the last mere as the trap blinked open and then braced its arms wide, preventing the trap from closing. Even for Cherubael, this was an effort.
'Hurry. Up/ it said, as if annoyed with me.
I reached the trap.
There wasn't time to get us all through. Gustine hurled himself in, headlong, and I followed, shouting to the others to stay back and stay together.
The last thing I heard was a loud, liquid impact that must have been the ogryn finally obeying the law of gravity.
The trap blinked shut.
I felt a sickening twist of translation. I landed on top of the sprawled Gustine in a dim, boxy space that smelled musty.
'Ow!' he complained.
I got to my feet. That in itself was ridiculously hard. I was sweating freely by the time I was vertical.
'You okay?' Gustine asked.
'Yes,' I snapped. I wasn't really. My head was throbbing, and the pain in my legs was beginning to overcome the power of the drugs that were self-administering from a dispenser Crezia had fitted to my hip.
'You had better not expect me to carry you/ Cherubael whispered behind me.
'Don't worry. Your dignity isn't in danger/
I drew Barbarisater, holding it in my right hand, and gripped my runestaff in my left.
I stomped forward. Darkness. A wall. I turned. Another wall.
'Gustine?'
He'd switched on a lamp pack, but it was showing him nothing but black walls. There was no sign of a ceiling.
'How far can you see?' I asked Cherubael.
'Forever/ it said, floating alongside me.
'Fine. In practical terms, how far can you see?'
'Not far in here. I can see that the wall ends there. There is a gap beyond it/
Very well/ I plodded ahead. My back really hurt now where the implants went in and my nose was bleeding. Gustine clipped the lamp pack to the bayonet lug of his las.
He tried to reach Nayl on the vox. Dead and silent.
I made an effort to reach Ravenor with my mind. Nothing.
Heavy footed, I moved through the darkness with my odd companions. The runestaff was trembling, sniffing some focus of power.
'You feel that?' I asked the daemon.
It nodded.
I decided we would follow it.
'Have you noticed we can breathe in here too?' Gustine remarked a few minutes later.
'Gosh, I wouldn't have picked up on that/
He frowned at me, put-upon. 'I mean, the air's right, inside and out/
'It's so the enemy can breathe/ Cherubael said.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'They got here first. They got inside. Ghiil made the atmosphere appropriate for them as soon as Ghiil sensed they were there/
'You're talking like Ghiil is alive/
'Ghiil has never been alive/ it said.
'It's never been dead, either/ it added a moment later.
I was about to ask it to expand a little on that alarming notion, but Cherubael suddenly surged forward in the blackness ahead of us. I saw the flash of its light, a laser discharge.
It came back, blood steaming off its talons.
They're hunting for us/ it said.
I have seen wonders in my life. Horrors too. I have witnessed vistas and spectacles that have cowed my mind and dwarfed my imagination.
