Loken forced his eyes open. A slice of light where the drop-pod had broken open provided the only illumination, but it was enough for him to check that he was still in once piece.
He was battered, but could feel no evidence of anything more than that.
'Locasta, sound off!' ordered Vipus. The warriors of Locasta shouted their names, and Loken was relieved to hear that none appeared to have been injured in the impact. He undid the buckle of his grav-harness and rolled to his feet, the drop-pod canted at an unnatural angle. He pulled his bolter
from the rack and pushed his way through the narВrow opening broken in the side of the drop-pod.
As he emerged into the bright sunshine, he saw that they had struck a projecting pier of stone on one of the towers, the rubble of its destruction scatВtered around the ruined drop-pod. He circled the wreckage, seeing that they were at least two hunВdred metres above the ground, wedged amongst the massive battlements of the Sirenhold.
To his left he saw spectacular tomb-spires encrusted with statues, while to his right was the Choral City itself, its magnificent structures bathed in the rosy glow of the sunrise. From this vantage point Loken could see the whole city, the extraordiВnary stone flower of the palace and the western defences like scars across the landscape.
Loken could hear gunfire from the direction of the palace and realised that the Emperor's Children and World Eaters were already fighting the enemy. Gunfire echoed from below, Sons of Horus units fighting in the tangle of shrines and statuary that filled the canyons between the tomb-spires.
'We need a way down,’ said Loken as Locasta pulled themselves from the wreckage of the drop-pod. Vipus jogged over with his gun at the ready.
'Bloody ground surveyors must have missed the projections,' he grumbled.
'That's what it looks like,’ agreed Loken, as he saw another drop-pod ricochet from the side of a tomb-spire and careen downwards in a shower of broken statues.
'Our warriors are dying,’ he said bitterly. 'SomeВone's going to pay for this,’
"We look spread out,’ said Vipus, glancing down into the Sirenhold. Between the tomb-spires, smaller shrines and temples butted against one another in a complex jigsaw.
Plumes of black smoke and explosions were already rising from the fighting.
'We need a place to regroup,’ said Loken. He flicked to Torgaddon's vox-channel. Tarik? Loken here, where are you?' A burst of static was his only reply. He looked across the Sirenhold and saw one tomb-spire close to the wall, its many levels supВported by columns wrought into the shapes of monsters and its top sheared off by the impact of a drop-pod. 'Damn. If you can hear me, Tarik, make for the spire by the western wall, the one with the smashed top. Regroup there. I'm heading down to you,’ 'Anything?' asked Vipus.
'No. The vox is a mess. Something's interrupting it.
The spires?'
'It would take more than that,’ said Loken. 'Come on. Let's find a way off this damn wall,’
Vipus nodded and turned to his men. 'Locasta, start looking for a way down,’
Loken leaned over the battlements as Locasta fanned out to obey their leader's command. Beneath him he could^ee the diminutive figures of
Astartes fighting black-armoured warriors in streaming firefight. He turned away, desperate to find a way down. 'Here!' shouted Brother Casto, Locasta's flamer
bearer. 'A stairway'
'Good work,’ said Loken, making his way over to see what Casto had found. Sure enough, hidden behind a tall, eroded statue of an ancient warrior was a dark stairway cut into the sand-coloured stone.
The passageway looked rough and unfinished, the stone pitted and crumbling with age. 'Move,’ said Vipus. 'Casto, lead the way,’ "Yes, captain,’ replied Casto, plunging into the gloom of the passageway. Loken and Vipus folВlowed him, the entrance barely wide enough for their armoured bodies. The stairs descended for roughly ten metres before opening into a wide, low-ceilinged gallery. 'The wall must be riddled,’ said Vipus. 'Catacombs,’ said Loken, pointing to niches cut into the walls that held the mouldering remains of skeletons, some still swaddled in tattered cloth.
Casto led them along the gallery, the bodies becoming more numerous the deeper they went, the skeletal remains piled two or three deep.
Vipus snapped around suddenly, bolter up and finger on the trigger. Vipus?'
'I thought I heard something,’ "We're clear behind,’ said Loken. 'Keep moving and focus. This could.
'Movement!' said Casto, sending a blast of
orange-yellow fire from his flamer into the darkness
ahead of him.
'Casto!' barked Vipus. 'Report! What do you see?'
Casto paused. 'I don't know. Whatever it was, it's
gone now,’
The niches ahead guttered with flames, hungrily devouring the bare bones. Loken could see that there was no enemy up ahead, only Isstvanian dead.
'There's nothing there now,’ said Vipus. 'Stay focused, Locasta, and no jumping at shadows! You are Sons of Horns!'
The squad picked up the pace, shaking thoughts of hidden enemies from their minds, as they moved rapidly past the burning grave-niches.
The gallery opened into a large chamber, Loken guessing that it must have filled the width of the wall. The only light was from the dancing flame at the end of Casto's flamer, the yellow light picking out the massive stone blocks of a tomb.
Loken saw a sarcophagus of black granite, surВrounded by statues of kneeling people with their heads bowed and hands chained before them. PanВels set into the walls were covered in carvings where human forms acted out ceremonial scenes of war.
'Casto, move up,’ said Vipus. 'Find us a way down,’
Loken approached the sarcophagus, running his hand down its vast length. Its lid was carved to repВresent a human figure, but he knew that it could
not be a literal portrait of the body inside; its face had no features save for a pair of triangular eyes fashioned from chips of coloured glass.
Loken could hear the song from the Sirenhold outside, even through the layers of stone, a single mournful tone that rose and fell, winding its way from the tomb-spires.
'Warsinger,’ said Loken bitterly. They're fighting back. We need to get down there,’
The silver-armoured palace guards started flying.
Surrounded by burning arcs of white energy, they leapt over the advancing Emperor's Children, gleaming, leaf shaped blades slicing downwards from wrist-mounted weapons.
Lucius rolled to avoid a hail of blades, the silver guard swooping low to behead two of Squad Que-mondil, the charged blades cutting through their armour with horrific ease.
He slid into the water, finding that it only reached his waist. Above him, the halberd-guns of the palace guard were spraying silver fire at the Emperor's Children, but the Astartes were moving and firing with their customary discipline Even the bizarre sight of the palace's defenders did not disВsuade them from their patterns of movement and covering fire. A body fell into the water next to him, its head blasted away by bolter fire and blood pourВing into the water in a scarlet bloom.
Lucius saw that the silver guards were too quick and turned too nimbly for conventional
engagement. He would just have to engage them unconventionally.
One of the silver guards dived towards him and Lucius could see the intricate filigree on the man's armour, the tiny gold threads like veins on the breastplate and greaves and the scrollwork that covВered his face.