"Greetings , Brother Sky Warriors," he said.

'Greetings , Brother Ezekiel,' said the Marine Leader suspiciously.

Cloud Runner rubbed his facial scar-tattoos with one gnarled hand, then grinned. 'So they made you a Captain. eh

Broken Knife?"

"Yes , Brother Ezekiel. They made me a Captain when you failed to return." He paused, obviously waiting for an explanation.

"It took you ten years to come looking for the Dark Angels' honour suits?" the old man asked with a hint of mockery.

"There has been war: a great migration of Orks through the Segmentum Obscura. The Chapter was called to serve. During that time the absence of our Terminators was felt grievously. You have an explanation for this, of course."

The Marines stared at Cloud Runner coldly. It was as if he was a stranger to these grim youths, or worse, a traitor. He remembered the first time he had stood among Marines and, for the first time in long years, became aware of their uncanny quality. He felt isolated and uneasy.

"These are not our people. Cloud Runner. What happened here?" asked a deep rolling voice. He recognised it as the dreadnought's. Suddenly, he did not feel so alone, Hawk Talon was there, hooked into the life-support systems of the

dreadnought . There was at least one person present who was on his side, who was old enough to understand. It was like their first meeting under the shadow of Deathwing, when he had sighted that one familiar face among strangers.

"No , honoured forefather. they are not. They are the untainted survivors of the Genestealer conquest."

He heard the shocked murmur of the Marines, saw the way that they instinctively brought their weapons to bear on the lodge people.

"You had better explain, Brother Ezekiel,' said Broken Knife.

Cloud Runner found himself telling his tale to the astonished Marines. He told them of the Terminator company's landing and of their discovery of the devastation that had been wrought by the Genestealers. He told them of the Gathering and of the choice the warriors had made - of Two Heads Talking's spirit walk and the Terminators' final march on the city. He spoke to them in the intricate syntax of the Imperial tongue, not the language of the Plains People.

"We marched through the black gates and were assaulted by Stealers. At first they seemed confused, as if they had suffered a great shock. They attacked in small groups with no pattern and no guiding intelligence, and we cut them down.

"We pushed through crowds of screaming people as we followed our Librarian's locator beacon toward the city centre. Huge purestrain Stealers erupted from buildings as we advanced. They attacked with insane fury, but without thought, and so we bested them easily.

"In the centre of the city we found a temple - a building that obscenely parodied the Imperial cult, dominated by a huge four-armed statue of what was intended to be the Emperor. We toppled it into the street and beneath it found an entrance into the underworld.

"Down we went into the cold, metal corridors. We passed through airlocks and bulkheads. It was like a buried spacecraft. We still followed the locator fix, determined to reclaim Two Heads Talking's armour and avenge his death.

"At first we made easy progress against isolated Stealer attacks, but then a change occurred. For a while, there was peace.

'We exchanged wary looks. Bloody Moon asked if we could possibly have killed them all. I can even now picture the puzzled look on his face. It was still there when a Stealer dropped through an air vent and took his head off. I blasted the thing with bolter fire, reducing it to bloody mush.

"Now the Stealers began to attack again. But this time their attacks were co-ordinated, guided by some malign intelligence. It was as if they had been leaderless for a time, but a new fiend had now taken charge.

"They flanked us through parallel corridors, dropped through vents in the ceiling. Hordes of Stealers and their human brood attacked from all sides. Waves of them scuttled forward with blinding speed, threatening to overwhelm us with sheer numbers. It was a horrible sight, watching those great armoured beasts race closer, ignoring their kin as they