was right in the thing’s face. He could do nothing but lunge with his chainsword, driving the shrieking blade deep into the Chaos Marine’s armoured torso. The toothed blade screamed and protested, and then whined and smoked as the serrated, whirling cutting edge meshed and glued as it ate into the monster’s viscous and toughened innards.
The Iron Warrior stumbled back, bellowing in pain and rage. The chainsword, smoking and shorting as it finally jammed, impaled its chest. Reeking ichor and tissue sprayed across the commissar and the elevator doorway.
Gaunt knew he could do no more. He dropped to the floor as the stricken creature rose again, hoping against hope.
His prayers were answered. The rearing thing was struck once, twice… four or five times by carefully placed las-shots which tore into it and spun it around. Gaunt somehow knew it was the sniper Larkin who had provided these marksman blasts.
On one knee, the creature rose and raged again, most of its upper armour punctured or shredded, smoke rising and black fluid spilling from the grisly wounds to its face, neck and chest.
A final, powerful las-blast, close range and full-power, took its head off.
Gaunt looked round to see the wounded Corporal Zeezo standing on the barricade.
The Vitrian grinned, despite the pain from his wound. ‘I went against orders, I’m afraid,’ he began. ‘I reset my gun for full charge.’
‘Noted… and excused. Good work!’
Gaunt got to his feet, wet and wretched with blood and fouller stuff. His Ghosts, and Zoren’s Vitrians, were moving up the ramp to secure the position. Above them, at the top of the elevator shaft, were maybe a million Shriven, secure in their battery bunkers. Gaunt’s expeditionary force was inside, right in the heart of the enemy stronghold.
Ibram Gaunt smiled.
Ten
IT TOOK ANOTHER precious half hour to regroup and secure the bomb deck. Gaunt’s scouts located all the entranceways and blocked them, checking even ventilation access and drainage gullies.
Gaunt paced, tense. The clock was ticking and it wouldn’t take long for the massive forces above them to start wondering why the shell supply from below had dried up. And come looking for a reason.
There was the place itself too: the gloom, the taste of the air, the blasphemous iconography scrawled on the walls. It was as if they were inside some sacred place, sacred but unholy. Everyone was bathed in cold sweat and there was fear in everyone’s eyes.
The comm-link chimed and Gaunt responded, hurrying through to the control room of the bomb bays. Zoren, Rawne and others were waiting for him. Someone had managed to raise the shutters on the vast window ports.
‘What in the name of the Emperor is that?’ Colonel Zoren asked.
‘I think that’s what we’ve come to stop,’ Gaunt said, turning away from the stained glass viewing ports.
Far below them, in the depths of the newly-revealed hollowed cavern, stood a vast megalith, a menhir stone maybe fifty metres tall that smoked with building Chaos energy. Its essence filled the bay and made all the humans present edgy and distracted. None could look at it comfortably. It seemed to be bedded in a pile of… blackened bodies. Or body parts.
Major Rawne scowled and flicked a thumb upwards.
‘It won’t take them long to notice the bomb levels aren’t supplying them with shells any more. Then we can expect serious deployment against us.’
Gaunt nodded but said nothing. He crossed to the control suite where Feygor and a Vitrian sergeant named Zolex were attempting to access data. Gaunt didn’t like Feygor. The tall, thin Tanith was Rawne’s adjutant and shared the major’s bitter outlook. But Gaunt knew how to use him and his skills, particularly in the area of cogitators and other thinking machines.
‘Plot it for me,’ he told the adjutant. ‘I have a feeling there may be more of these stone things.’
Feygor touched several rune keys of the glass and brass machined device.
‘We’re there…’ Feygor said, pointing at the glowing map sigils. ‘And here’s a larger scale map. You were right. That menhir down there is part of a system buried in these hills. Seven all told, in a star pattern. Seven fething abominations! I don’t know what they mean to do with them, but they’re all charging with power right now.’
‘How many?’ Gaunt asked too quickly.
‘Seven,’ Feygor repeated. ‘Why?’
Ibram Gaunt felt light-headed. ‘Seven stones of power…’ he murmured. A voice from years ago lilted in his mind. The girl. The girl back on Darendara. He could never remember her name, try as hard as he could. But he