'Toramino hung you out to dry and laughed while he did it. Even if you had succeeded here, do you think the spoils of Khalan-Ghol would be yours to plunder? Toramino has betrayed you, just as the Emperor betrayed the Iron Warriors in the ancient days. Will you be used like that or are you men of iron?'

'We are men of iron!' shouted Cadaras Grendel, the shout taken up by his surviving warriors.

'Then join me!' bellowed Honsou, gripping Grendel's shoulder guards. 'Join me and avenge this betrayal!'

Months of bitterness at the deaths of his men rose to the surface on Grendel's face and he nodded. 'Aye. Toramino will pay for this. My warriors and I are yours to command!'

Honsou turned and with Cadaras Grendel beside him roared, 'Iron within!'

'Iron without!' came the answering bellow from every Iron Warrior, shouted over and over again.

And Honsou knew he had them.

Uriel watched the two Titans collapse and, amazingly, heard the sounds of battle fade away. Had Khalan-Ghol fallen or had Honsou defeated the escalade? It was impossible to tell, and they would only know when they reached the top.

Their ascent up the cliff-face had been heart-poundingly fraught, as the Unfleshed had carried them swiftly up slopes Uriel would have sworn were unclimbable. Their strength was prodigious and their endurance phenomenal.

In the sudden silence, Uriel could hear the crackling flames from the burning vehicles at the foot of the mountain and the occasional explosion from a shell as it detonated in the heat. The infrastructure of Berossus's army burned and as the quietness stretched on, Uriel guessed that die attack had failed to take the fortress. Warriors who had fought their way through a breach were so fuelled on adrenaline and rage that looting and slaughter usually followed in the wake of a successful storming.

But silence… that was new to Uriel.

The Lord of the Unfleshed clambered over an overhanging splinter of rock, swinging his massive body up and over the lip of the plateau and Uriel had his first look at the bloody ruin of the final assault.

'Emperor preserve us!' breathed Pasanius as he joined Uriel.

'Even the storm of the citadel was nothing compared to this…' added Leonid as the fused twins deposited him next to the Space Marines.

The wreckage of a destroyed army lay strewn before the shattered remains of the spire's defensive wall, itself no more than jagged stumps of black stone jutting from the ground like rotten teeth in a diseased gum. Blazing tanks and bodies were strewn about the plateau: some crushed flat, others hollowed out by explosions. Pyres of ammunition sparked and blew, and the remains of the Titans burned with a bright glare of plasma.

Gun barrels the size of cooling towers lay cracked and useless amid the debris and even had anyone been keeping watch on the battlefield, the smoke and flames would conceal them from detection.

'Who won?' asked Leonid.

'I'm not sure…' said Pasanius, following Uriel through the corpse-choked rubble.

He bent to retrieve a fallen bolter with his remaining hand and checked its load before saying, 'Find yourself a weapon, colonel, and scavenge as much ammunition as you can carry.'

Leonid nodded and scooped up a battered, but serviceable lasgun, some charged clips and a bandolier of grenades. As he did so, his chest hiked in pain and he was bent double by a coughing fit. He wiped his hand across his mouth, seeing brackish, matter-flecked blood coat his palm before wiping it clear on what remained of his dusty, sky-blue uniform jacket.

The Unfleshed capered across the battlefield, stooping to feed amid the cadavers, tearing limbs from bodies and devouring the still-warm meat straight from the bone. The Lord of the Unfleshed lifted the limbless corpse of an Iron Warrior and tore off its breastplate, biting into the chest and tearing off a great mouthful of flesh.

Even though it was the body of an enemy, Uriel was appalled and said, 'No, do not eat this meat.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed turned, his face alight with horrid appetite and savage glee at this chance to feast on an Iron Warrior. 'Is meat. Fresh.'

'No!' said Uriel, more forcefully.

'No?' replied the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Why?'

'It is corrupt.'

Seeing the creature's incomprehension, he said, 'It is bad.'

'No… is good,' said the Lord of the Unfleshed, holding out the opened corpse of the Iron Warrior. The ribcage had been bitten through and the warrior's internal organs were laid bare.

Uriel shook his head. 'If you love the Emperor, you will not eat this meat.'

'Love the Emperor!' bellowed the Lord of the Unfleshed and Uriel winced, thinking that the creature's voice could be heard even through the fury of a battle.

'Many iron men dead,' growled the Lord of the Unfleshed, angrily. 'Much meat.'

'Yes, but we are not here for meat,' said Uriel. 'We are here to kill iron men and flesh mothers, yes?'

The Lord of the Unfleshed looked set to argue the point, but with an angry snarl dropped the half-eaten body and said, 'Kill iron men now?'

'Yes, kill iron men,' said Uriel as he heard the sound of approaching engines from within the fortress. 'But we need to get to the heart of the fortress first.'

Uriel turned as Pasanius and Leonid approached, bearing guns, ammunition and grenades. Pasanius unslung a bolter from his shoulder and handed it to Uriel together with several magazines of shells.

'It galls me that we must use the weapons of the Enemy,' said Uriel as he slammed a magazine home in the bolter.

'I suppose there's a certain poetic justice in using their own guns against them,' said Pasanius as he awkwardly loaded and cocked the weapon.

'What's that noise?' asked Leonid as he finally heard the rumbling engine sound drawing yet closer.

'It is our way in,' said Uriel, gesturing to the bodies surrounding them. 'I want you to conceal yourself amongst the dead Iron Warriors. We will lie close to one another, but must make sure we're amongst the dead.'

Uriel turned to face the Lord of the Unfleshed and hurriedly said, 'Have the tribe lie down with the dead iron men. You understand? Lie with the dead.'

'Lie down with meat?'

'Yes,' confirmed Uriel. 'Lie down with the iron men, and when we get up we will be where we need to be.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed nodded slowly and made his way through the tribe, grunting and pointing to piles of corpses.

As the Unfleshed began lying down amongst the dead Chaos Space Marines, Pasanius said, 'You know they'll feed on the bodies.'

'I know,' said Uriel, 'but there is little we can do about it.'

'Truly the Emperor does work in mysterious ways,' added Leonid.

Uriel tried to put aside the thought of the Unfleshed's cannibalistic tendencies as they located a group of shredded Iron Warriors arranged on the edges of a shell crater, and secreted themselves amongst their corpses.

Even as he dragged an Iron Warrior's body over his own he saw their way into the fortress emerge from the rolling banks of smoke that hugged the ground.

Huge bulldozers, red and hateful, with tall banner poles hung with eight-pointed stars and iron tenders hitched behind them came from the Halls of the Savage Morticians.

They came to gather up the dead for crushing and feeding to the daemonculaba.