to the Destroyer. Gammadin would have none of it. He has always been hungry for greater power, greater recognition.’
Hazareth thought judiciously. ‘What is wrong with power?’
‘It will come at the cost of Blood Gorgon autonomy.’
The captain nudged a pile of swords, but had clearly given up searching for anything.
‘It will cost us our identity,’ Sabtah continued. ‘We may not be a Legion, we may not have a dominion, but we are free. We have always been free. Alliances with any greater force would not bode well for our independence. The Death Guard, the Black Legion, the Renegades Undivided. It would all be the same.’
Sabtah could tell Hazareth was still suspicious. ‘But why would he harm Hauts Bassiq?’asked the captain.
‘Because his patron wishes to claim Bassiq for himself. Muhr is simply serving a purpose, weakening us from the inside, so that his Overlord can claim the world with minimal losses. In exchange for his aid, his overlord will accept Muhr under his patronage.
It is a pact, but not one that I wish this Chapter to fall under.’
Hazareth didn’t reply. He had spotted something amongst the disorganised piles. He picked it up. ‘Is this it?’ he asked.
He held in his hands a dagger. Its handle was polished black wood and its blade was dirty steel. Chipped and worn, the serrated blade was engraved with an arcane script.
Sabtah had claimed the weapon six centuries ago from an agent of the hated Ordo Malleus.
With its ordinary appearance, Sabtah had initially regarded the piece as nothing more than a trinket. It had taken some four centuries before he ascertained its true nature, and since 98
then it had collected dust in Sabtah’s weapon vault, lost between forty‐metre‐high stacks of plundered weaponry.
‘That’s what we came here for,’ Sabtah said. He kicked his way through the vault and took hold of the knife. Rifles and lasguns scattered like dry leaves before his boots.
‘A fine weapon,’ Hazareth said, handing it to him.
‘A daemon weapon. A she‐bitch,’ Sabtah said, tossing the knife from palm to palm. The haft vibrated as the daemon within became agitated.
‘You think you will need it at the summoning?’ Hazareth asked.
‘I believe Muhr will show his hand there. Yes.’
Hazareth plucked a warhammer down from a nearby wall mount. ‘Then you have First Company’s support, Sabtah. You were Gammadin’s bond and I uphold my fealty to you.’
Sabtah smiled. ‘If something should happen to me, Hazareth, I need you to kill Muhr.
The Blood Gorgons must remain as we are and always have been. We are nothing without our history and our tradition. Don’t let Muhr change that.’
‘I will punish him,’ Hazareth promised.
‘Good.’ Sabtah drew from beneath his nail a sliver of black, no larger than a splinter.
‘This is my genecode. It will access most of the vessel’s defence systems and security scans.
I am bonded to Gammadin and whatever Gammadin can access, you will be able to too.’
Hazareth received it in the tip of his index finger. The splinter curled like a dying earthworm before burrowing beneath his cuticle with a slight sting. ‘When will I need this?’
‘As long as I live, never,’ Sabtah began. He paused, his brows knitting. ‘But one day, I have no doubt you will. Keep it close and tell no one.’
THE SHIP’S BAY sirens wailed with the passing of a new cycle. A new day.
Deep in the temple pit, Muhr and his nine were completing the last of their monophonic liturgy. The coven surrounded the wide dais, their vox‐speakers generating a constant, steady drone of plainchant. The rims of silver bowls were rubbed, letting their harmonics peal and stretch.
The wards had been drawn by morning. A spider’s web of interlocking, overlapping polygons and flat geometry radiated outwards in mutually supporting glyph work. Several external seals, large pentagrammic stars, reinforced the initial containments and spread up into the walls with sharp, linear lines.
Only thirty hand‐picked Blood Gorgons and their slave retinues formed a circle around the pit. They each carried a black tapestry. Thirty black tapestries in all, one for each of the warriors lost on Hauts Bassiq.
Slowly, the air grew cold. A wind began to gather as the chants climbed in rhythm. Frost settled down on them like a coarse fog. The wind boomed, thrashing against the interior.
The chanting stopped. The wind stilled abruptly.
Slowly, at the centre of the dais, the air began to bend and tear. It buckled.
Wet frost was coating the dome, running in sheets down the walls and collecting in droplets across the domed ceiling. The coven of Chirurgeon‐witches sounded their