Dark energies swirled from the destroyed daemon and the Heart of Blood convulsed as it drank of the essence of its ancient foe, its limbs shuddering with the inherited power.

Even as it savoured the spoils of its victory, the red sky that had come into being at the arrival of the Omphalos Daemonium began to fade and the screaming souls trapped in the damned metal of its engine howled with renewed vigour.

Hissing bone-pistons ground upwards as the monstrous daemon engine built power to escape its dying master and the collapsing cavern.

Then, as though the battle and sheer power its victory had unleashed were too much for the terrible creature, it dropped to its knees, sated and overwhelmed with dark energies. The axe and whip fell from the Heart of Blood's clawed hands as it toppled onto its side, the lustre of its red flesh deepening to a hot vermilion that smoked and hissed like that of an electrocution victim.

With the collapse of the two abominations, the discordant shriek of clashing daemon weapons was silenced, replaced by the omnipresent thunder of artillery from outside. The battle within Khalan-Ghol might be over for now, but the violence unleashed by Toramino was still very much ongoing.

Uriel held his breath, afraid that even the slightest motion would bring the daemon surging to their feet again. But nothing of the sort happened and he let out a great, shuddering breath as the Lord of the Unfleshed limped over to him and leaned down so that its head was level with his.

'We kill iron men!' he said.

'Yes,' said Uriel, wearily. 'We did.'

'Emperor happy?'

Uriel looked around the ruins of the Halls of the Savage Morticians, seeing that there was nothing recognisable left of it, everything had been destroyed in the cataclysmic battle of the two daemons. The surgical horrors enacted here were gone, the suffering victims of the bizarre experimentations finally granted the Emperor's peace. The lake of blood was now nothing more than a dusty crater, the gantries where the daemonculaba had been housed reduced to twisted masses of mangled iron.

Of the daemonculaba themselves, there was nothing but sad piles of ruined flesh and Uriel felt a great weight lift from his shoulders as he saw that their death oath had been fulfilled. The creatures Tigurius had seen in his vision and Marneus Calgar had charged them to destroy were no more.

'Oh, yes,' said Uriel. 'The Emperor is happy. You made the Emperor very happy.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed reared up to his full height and beat his chest with his massive fists. The few of his surviving brethren did likewise and howled their joy to the fading red skies.

'Tribe! Tribe! Tribe!' they shouted, over and over.

Uriel nodded and copied the enormous creature, hammering his fists on his chest and yelling, 'Tribe! Tribe! Tribe!' at the top of his voice. Pasanius looked oddly at him, but Uriel was too caught up in the primal exultation of the Unfleshed to care.

As the chant faded, the Lord of the Unfleshed returned his attention to the few surviving Iron Warriors who began picking themselves up now that the fury of the bloodstorm had abated.

The Lord of the Unfleshed twisted his hungry head towards Uriel and asked, 'Meat?'

Uriel's heart hardened as he slowly nodded.

'Meat,' he agreed.

These Iron Warriors had been the mightiest of Honsou's grand company, but even they could not stand before the fully-unleashed savagery of the Unfleshed. The ground was littered with the dead, both Iron Warriors and their monstrous by-blows, but it was only a taster of the slaughter that followed.

Armour was broken open and limbs were torn from their sockets as the Unfleshed feasted on the still-living bodies of their hated creators.

Uriel helped Pasanius to his feet as he saw the daemon-thing, Onyx, surrounded by a pack of the Unfleshed. The dark-armoured warrior cut and stabbed with furious speed, but the Unfleshed fought on, uncaring of wounds that would have slain a lesser opponent thrice over.

Uriel felt no pity for Onyx, it was a thing of the warp, an abomination and, as it was borne to the ground beneath a roaring mass of the Unfleshed, he turned away.

'So what do we do now?' asked Pasanius, leaning against a shattered pile of rockcrete slabs and wiping dust and blood from his face.

'I am not sure,' answered Uriel honestly. 'We did what we set out to do. We fulfilled our death oath.'

Despite his obvious pain, Pasanius smiled, and the sullen weight his friend had carried since the last days on Tarsis Ultra seemed to slide from his face. .

'It is good to see you smile again, my friend,' said Uriel.

'Aye, it's been a while since I've felt like it.'

'Our honour is restored,' said Uriel.

'You know,' said Pasanius. 'I don't think we ever really lost it.'

'Perhaps not,' agreed Uriel. 'If only there was some way we could tell them that on Macragge.'

'I don't suppose they'll ever hear of what happened here.'

'No, I do not suppose they will,' said Uriel. 'But that does not matter. We know, and that is enough.'

'Aye, I think you're right, captain.'

'I told you before, you do not need to call me that.'

'Not before,' pointed out Pasanius, 'but we've honoured our death oath, and you are my captain again.'

Uriel nodded. 'I suppose I am at that.'

The two warriors shook hands, pleased to be alive and enjoying the sensation of having achieved what they set out to do. No matter that they were still trapped on a nightmarish daemon world, thousands of light years from home. Their success felt good by the simple virtue of its accomplishment.

No matter what happened now, they were done. It was over.

The Lord of the Unfleshed approached, thick ropes of clotted blood dangling from his jutting, fanged jaws.

'We go now?' he said. 'Leave now?'

'Leave?' said Uriel. 'How? There is nowhere to go. The passage to the elevator cage is impassable and hundreds of tonnes of rock have shut off the outflow pipe. There is no way out.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed gave him a lopsided look, as though he couldn't believe that Uriel was being so dense. He pointed over Uriel's shoulder and said, 'Big iron man's machine leaves!'

For a second, Uriel was mystified until he followed the Lord of the Unfleshed's pointing finger and saw the dark shape of the armoured leviathan that had carried the Slaughterman here. It ground towards one of the skull-wreathed tunnels it had created to manifest within the cavern. The red-lit door to its interior was still open and though the masterless machine was slowly building speed, there was still time get aboard.

'Brought big iron man here,' said the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Take us away too!'

Uriel shared a look with Pasanius.

'What do you think?' said Uriel, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

'I think that wherever the thing takes us, it's got to better than here, captain,' said Pasanius, pushing off the rocks and clutching his wounds.

'I hope you're right.'

'Well, it's either that or we stay and get flattened by Toramino's artillery.'

'Good point,' agreed Uriel, turning to the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Gather the Tribe. We are leaving.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed nodded, its massive shoulders heaving with the motion. It threw back its head and let out a rising howl.

Within seconds, the Unfleshed broke off from their grisly feasting and joined their leader. Less than a dozen of them still lived, and Uriel was shocked at how few had survived the mission to Khalan-Ghol. Ardaric Vaanes had been right when he said that most, if not all, of them would die here.

Uriel nodded. 'All right, let's get the hell out of here.'

For a moment Honsou thought he was dead. Once he realised he wasn't, he thought he was blind.