'Apothecary!' shouted Uriel again.

'The governor…' gasped Barzano, through clenched teeth, 'Look after her, she trusts you. She'll listen to you… others will too… she will need your counsel and support. Do this for me, Uriel?'

'You know I will, Ario.'

Inquisitor Ario Barzano nodded, slowly shut his eyes and died in Uriel's arms.

Having gathered their dead, the Ultramarines left the chamber of the Nightbringer. The only other survivor of the carnage was Vendare Taloun, whose unconsciousness had prevented the Nightbringer's visions from driving him insane. Uriel personally marched the man back to the elevator car at gunpoint. There was little need for force: Taloun was a broken man. It irked the Space Marine to have to hand his prisoner a rebreather mask for fear he would succumb to the fumes and escape just punishment for his treachery.

Along with their honoured dead, Uriel took the piece of metal he had removed from the alien's tomb, its glimmering surface still unblemished despite the none too tender ministrations of his power knife. It would go back to Macragge, to be sealed forever within the deepest vault in the mountains.

When his men had returned to the worker elevator that had brought Barzano to the bottom of the mine, Uriel handed Taloun over to a white-faced Pasanius and said, 'Wait.'

He returned the way he had come, picturing the faces of all the men he had lost on this mission, but knowing that their sacrifice had not been in vain.

Standing alone in the alien's tomb, he watched the earth of Pavonis pouring into the chamber, knowing that soon it would be buried once more. But Uriel needed more.

He knelt and placed a cluster of melta bombs on the slab the metal had come from and set the timers.

As he had promised the Nightbringer this blasphemous place would be buried forever under ten kilometres of rock.

Uriel turned and marched wearily from the chamber.

NINETEEN

Three months later…

Vendare Taloun was executed three months to the day after the battle at Tembra Ridge. During a very public trial, he confessed to his alliance with Kasimir de Valtos, the murder of his brother and a number of other appalling acts in his time as head of the Taloun cartel. He had been led, weeping and soiled, to the wreckage of Liberation Square, where he was hanged from the outstretched arm of the Emperor's statue.

Several more battles were fought before Imperial rule was restored to Pavonis, most between the squabbling PDF units whose cartel affiliations overcame any sense of loyalty to the cause they had supposedly been fighting for. Deprived of leadership, the cartel followers had soon reverted to their natural prejudices and suspicions.

When the deaths of Solana Vergen, Taryn Honan, Kasimir de Valtos and Beauchamp Abrogas became public knowledge, the cartels were thrown into disarray, paralysed by inaction as the scions and heirs fought for political and financial control.

The battalion commanders who had managed to retain a semblance of order amongst their units pulled back to their barracks to await whatever retribution might come their way. The tanks and soldiers of the Shonai cartel fought several actions to bring those men who had betrayed their oaths of loyalty to justice.

But when the Vae Victus lent her support to an attack on the de Valtos-sponsored barracks with devastating orbital barrages, the flags of surrender were raised as soon as the Shonai tanks came in sight of every other enemy stronghold. The Space Marine vessel had also hunted down the damaged eldar starship and, much to Lord Admiral Tiberius's delight, blasted it to atoms as it attempted to escape the Pavonis system.

When Mykola Shonai returned to Pavonis it was alongside Lortuen Perjed and at the head of the Ultramarines, their armour repaired and wounds dressed (though the Chapter's artificers would never be able to remove the cruciform shape burned into the back of Uriel's armour).

As she took her seat in the Chamber of Righteous Commerce after Vendare Taloun's execution there were shouts of approval and support from every section of the chamber.

Uriel sat on a marble bench, its surface cracked and pitted. This was the only portion of the palace gardens to have escaped the devastation of the shelling and the annihilation of the underground arsenal. Pasanius waited by the far entrance to the gardens, his bolter gripped tightly in his new bionic arm.

The grass was freshly cut, the scent of its fragrance reminding Uriel of the mountains back on Macragge. A simple headstone marked the final resting place of Inquisitor Ario Barzano. Beneath his name, a short inscription was engraved in a flowing script:

Each man is a spark in the darkness. Would that we all burn as bright.

Uriel had carved it himself: he hoped that Barzano would have approved.

He rose to his feet as Mykola Shonai entered the garden. The wounds he had suffered fighting in the deep of the world were healing, but it would be some weeks yet before he would be fully fit.

Shonai's hair spilled around her shoulders and she clutched a small garland of flowers in her hands.

Three guards accompanied her, but kept a respectful distance as she approached the headstone.

She nodded to Uriel and knelt beside grave, placing the flowers gently beside the stone. She straightened, brushing the folds from her long dress and turned to face him.

'Captain Ventris, it is good to see you,' she smiled, sitting on the marble bench. 'Please, sit with me awhile.'

Uriel joined the governor on the bench and they sat in a companionable silence together for several minutes, neither willing to spoil this moment of peace. Eventually Shonai inclined her head towards Uriel.

'So you are leaving today?'

'Yes. Our work here is done and there are more than enough Imperial forces to maintain order.'

'Yes, there are,' agreed Mykola Shonai sadly. Imperial Guard transports had landed four days ago, the soldiers and tanks of the 44th Lavrentian Hussars turning the city into an armed camp. Ships of the Adeptus Administratum and Adeptus Ministorum had also arrived, their purpose to restore a measure of political and spiritual stability to Pavonis.

Preachers and confessors filled the streets with their words, taking renewed pledges of piety and devotion from the populace.

At the recommendation of Lortuen Perjed, the Administratum had permitted Shonai to remain as governor of Pavonis, on condition that at the end of her contract of service, she never again stand for political office. Lortuen Perjed was appointed permanent Administratum observer to Pavonis, replacing the criminally negligent Ballion Varle, who Jenna Sharben, the last surviving judge in Brandon Gate, had arrested and shot.

The rebel PDF troopers rounded up by the Shonai cartel were even now being transported onto a freshly arrived penal barge, bound for warzones in the Segmentum Obscurus.

The future of Pavonis had been assured, but it would no longer be under the autonomous regime of the cartels. The governmental system of Pavonis had been found lacking and would now fall under the watchful gaze of the Administratum.

Uriel could understand Shonai's frustration. She had come through the worst ordeal of her life and now, when they had won the final victory, everything was being taken from her.

'I did mean to come here before now,' explained Shonai, staring at the grave, 'but I was never sure quite what I would feel if I did.'

'In what way?'

'I owe my world's survival to you and Ario, but had things been different, he would have destroyed Pavonis and killed everything I hold dear.'

'Yes, but he did not. He gave his life in defence of you and your world. Remember him for that.'