When the governor had come round, she had raged at the cell door, kicking and screaming oaths that would have made a stevedore blush.

Barzano had pulled her away, calming her with promises of rescue and retribution. He was unsure how he was going to fulfil these promises, but knew they still had options open to them.

He returned to the bed and mopped Jenna Sharben's brow with his sleeve. She was cold to the touch and her skin was grey, already the colour of a corpse.

'I promise you won't die, Judge Sharben,' whispered Barzano.

'Another promise you're not sure you can keep?' asked Shonai.

'Not at all, Mykola. I never make promises I can't keep,' assured Barzano. He placed a hand across his heart. 'I promise.'

Despite herself, Mykola Shonai smiled, 'Do you really think we can get out of here? I mean, there are at least three regiments' worth of soldiers in the city, probably over two hundred on this level alone, and the Emperor alone knows how many prowling the palace.'

Barzano winked, 'Do not forget the three Space Marines.'

'I haven't, but surely Sergeant Learchus and his men must be dead?'

'I seriously doubt that, my dear Mykola. I'm sure de Valtos would have enjoyed parading them past us by now if they were. No, I do not believe Sergeant Learchus will be an easy man to kill, and he will have found a way to communicate with the Vae Victus.'

'And you think Captain Ventris will attempt to rescue us?'

'I am sure that even the daemons of the warp would not prevent him.'

'It would be a virtual suicide mission to break us out.'

'Possibly,' agreed Barzano, 'but can you see that stopping Uriel?'

'No, I suppose not,' said Mykola, leaning her head back against the stonework of the cell. She closed her eyes and Barzano thought she had fallen asleep. But without opening her eyes, she said, 'This ship you think de Valtos is after - can he really get it?'

'I'm not sure. My ordo know that one of an ancient race of beings we know as the C'tan went into a form of stasis somewhere in this sector, but not exactly where. We think that the Nightbringer was once his, for want of a better word, flagship. There are ancient writings and hints about the ship and its master scattered throughout history, but we still know next to nothing about it. It is of a time before the ascendancy of man and little is known for sure.'

'This… C'tan, what was it like?'

'No one can say for certain. It has probably been dormant for millions of years and records are unclear to say the least. I've read every fragment I could lay my hands on concerning the Bringer of Darkness, but I still know almost nothing about it, save one thing.'

'And that is?' asked Mykola hesitantly.

'The Nightbringer is death incarnate. Its dreams are the stuff of every race's nightmares, becoming the very image of their doom. Every thought you have ever had regarding the horror of death and mortality comes from this creature. When it walked between the stars in aeons past, it left that legacy in the collective racial psyche of almost every species in the galaxy.'

'Can we defeat such a creature?'

'Do you want the truth?'

'Of course.'

Barzano waited until the echoes of a fresh clutch of screams torn from Almerz Chanda's throat had died away before answering. 'No,' he said softly, 'I do not think we can.'

The majestic form of the Vae Victus slowly angled its massive bulk towards the surface of Pavonis, powerful energies building in her forward linear accelerators. Few men knew the awesome power of destruction the captain of a starship possessed: the power to level cities and crack continents. For all that the captains of the Imperial Navy might strut and boast of the capabilities of their ponderous warships, there was nothing that could compete with the sheer destructive speed and efficiency of a Space Marine strike cruiser.

Defence lasers periodically stabbed upwards from armoured silos far below on the planet's surface. None of the mighty guns could match the speed of the strike cruiser and though their powerful beams pierced the sky with their colossal energies, there was a desperation to the fire. So long as the Vae Victus remained in high orbit, the guns below were impotent.

Closer in, however, the smaller, aerial defence batteries were a different matter. Scores of such silos were scattered around Brandon Gate and incorporated into the planet's surface. Though these were incapable of harming a starship, even one in low orbit, they could shred any aircraft that came within fifteen kilometres of the city. All were crewed by lobotomised servitors, hard-wired into their weapons, and controlled from the defence control bunker secreted somewhere within the palace grounds.

While the guns cast their protective cover over the city, any airborne assault was doomed to failure.

Kasimir de Valtos Rubbed the bridge of his nose, growling at the image on the vox-holo before him.

'Lasko, if you don't give me a straight answer then I will have you buried in one of your precious mines. Now tell me, in words of two syllables or less, have you breached the door yet? I do not have time to waste.'

The flickering image of his mine overseer, Jakob Lasko, appeared furtive even through the heavy distortion of the encrypted signal from Tembra Ridge nearly one hundred kilometres from the palace.

'Well, the last cutter made it through the door, but we're having trouble moving it.'

'And why is that?' pressed de Valtos, leaning forward, his features predatory.

'We're not sure, my lord. The tech-priests say that the density of the door far exceeds what should be possible for something of its dimensions. We've had to disassemble one of our heaviest rigs and transport it down the main shaft in pieces. The techs are putting the last parts together now, and once they've blessed it, we'll be ready to go.'

'When?' hissed de Valtos, incessantly rubbing at his forehead.

'Later today, I expect.'

'It had better be,' said de Valtos snapping off the link and reclining in the ex-governor's sagging leather chair. He massaged his temples and took a gulping breath before hawking a froth of black phlegm onto the floor. The pain was getting worse and the Surgeon's specialised facilities and equipment had been destroyed by the Ultramarines. There would be no more stripping his body down to its bare bones and reassembling it in its temporarily healthy form again. He had to succeed, and soon. If that damn fool Lasko could not break into the underground tomb complex soon, then he was a dead man.

But once within, he would know the twin joys of revenge and immortality.

He remembered the day he had first learned of the C'tan from the scrolls of Corteswain. Most of his fortune had since been ploughed into the search for its resting place, but the final irony was that it had been below him all this time. Surely the hand of fate was at work that it should turn out to be below the mountains of Pavonis.

It had been a revelation the day he had finally discovered the forgotten tomb, buried beneath the world when it was nothing but an uninhabited ball of lifeless rock.

De Valtos chuckled mirthlessly as he realised soon it would be that way again.

Soon he would walk in the halls of a god! Not the pitiful, dust filled corridors of Terra that was home to a rotting corpse masquerading as a god, but a living, breathing creature with the power of creation and eternal life at its fingertips.

When had the Emperor last walked among his people? Ten thousand years ago! Where was the Emperor when the Apostate Cardinal Bucharis plunged whole sectors into war in His name? Where was the Emperor when the tyranids devoured world after world?

Where was the Emperor when the eldar boarded his ship and tortured him to the brink of death? Where was He then?