As Thane turned around to address them directly once more, Vangorich and the Fabricator General reached the bottom of the atrium steps. Both turned crisply in their red and black robes to regard the Council, flanking the looming magnificence of the Chapter Master. The High Lords grew still, the violent indignation screwing up their faces remaining fixed. Wienand and the Provost Marshal looked grave. Standing with Thane, Vangorich saw that the High Lords were looking at him. Usually they averted their gaze but now they stared at the Grand Master of Assassins with horror and dread. While the Legions of the Adeptus Astartes and the might of the Mechanicus caused hearts to hammer in chests, it was the declaration of Vangorich’s intentions that chilled the blood pumping through them.
Several members of the Council went to speak, but Wienand silenced them with a gesture. Nothing would stop High Admiral Lansung and Abel Verreault. With a swish of their heavy cloaks and the creak of boots, the pair left the atrium by a side-arch, to be joined by storm troopers and a Naval honour guard. From there, Lansung and the Lord Militant made their way off the Plaza Decamerata and back into the labyrinthine safety of the Palace.
Vangorich looked to Thane. Like Kubik, the Chapter Master didn’t take his eyes off the remaining High Lords. He nodded. Vangorich obeyed. Turning, the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum strode after Verreault and the High Admiral, his black robes swishing after him like a ill wind. As he left the plaza and the dumbfounded Council, Vangorich activated the vox-bead in his hood.
‘Krule?’
‘I have them,’ the Assassin told him. ‘They are going by way of the Tortestrian Gate.’
‘We shall engage them in the Vangora Quarter,’ Vangorich told Beast Krule. ‘Meet me there.’
It did not take the Grand Master long to reach Krule and the High Lords. He found them walking through a cluster of little-used halls in the upper east wing of the Bastile-Autronomica. The boots of the High Lords echoed with urgency through the vaulted chambers, while the pair blustered their indignation and self-importance.
Like one of the many spectres rumoured to haunt the Bastile-Autronomica, Vangorich appeared in a grand archway. Verreault’s storm troopers saw him first and ran forward to encompass the Lord Militant in a canopy formation. Verreault and the High Admiral slowed to a stop in the middle of the hall. The Naval armsmen took position around Lansung, levelling their las-carbines at Vangorich. The High Lords looked the way they had come, back along the footprints they had left in the dust. There they found Beast Krule, leaning against the pillars of the grand entranceway from which the prints led.
‘You dare to bar our way?’ Verreault shouted across the hall at Vangorich.
‘I dare to walk the corridors and halls of the Emperor’s mighty Palace,’ Vangorich said, ‘and speak to whom I find there.’
‘We have nothing to say to you,’ Lansung told him, ‘or your Adeptus Astartes compatriots.’
‘You can both make all the high-minded speeches you like,’ Abel Verreault warned him, ‘but the great armies of the Imperium — their lord marshals and regimental commanders — answer to me and me alone.’
‘And even if they didn’t,’ Lansung said, ‘you couldn’t possibly muster their strength. Not without the might of the Imperial Fleet. Thane may conjure the ghosts of the Imperial Fists but he seeks death among the ruins of Ullanor alone. For without the Astra Militarum and the vessels to transport them, he condemns his Imperial Fists to an early doom.’
‘I whole-heartedly agree,’ Vangorich told them, approaching. ‘That is why the Chapter Master has engaged me. To impress upon you the importance of your role in the great victory to come. You are going to save the Imperium, my lords: for your God-Emperor and for us all.’
Verreault kept turning. As he swept his cloak around he looked between Krule and the Grand Master of Assassins.
‘Call off your dog,’ the Lord Militant said, ‘or I will order my men to put him down.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about my man,’ Vangorich said as he walked towards the High Lords. ‘I would worry about your own.’
Panic spread across the faces of Lansung and Verreault. Armsmen and storm troopers became twitchy, moving their high-powered weaponry off Beast Krule and tracking it across both their own ranks and the ones opposite.
‘Vangorich!’ the Lord Militant roared, drawing a master-crafted pistol from beneath his cloak. It was all baroque barrels and antique finery. As it hummed at the Grand Master, Lansung pulled an extravagant dress blade from his scabbard.
It was all over in moments, the flash of lasguns lighting up the hall. It was unclear who fired first. Either a storm trooper or an armsman opened fire upon members of the opposite party. Beams proceeded to criss-cross the open space, searing into troopers and the High Admiral’s honour guard. Peerless marksmanship on both sides and the close range ensured that the firefight was brief. Bodies dropped to the dusty floor all about the two High Lords, the craters in their chest carapace glowing.
Unfazed by the fury of the blinding exchange, Beast Krule had unslipped a pistol of his own and blazed away. Aiming through the gunfire and confusion, the Assassin blasted Verreault’s pistol into a shower of scorched components. His second shot took a storm trooper through both helm and head. As the Guardsman fell away, Krule sent his final blast at Lansung’s ridiculous blade. With a blinding flash, the ornate sword was knocked from the High Admiral’s hand and sent skidding across the hall floor. As the whoosh of las-fire died away, Lansung and Verreault looked down at their dead men and then at each other. Both were of advancing years, but they were still at their hearts military men. Seeing abandoned las-carbines on the floor, the pair went for the weapons.
‘Rise,’ Vangorich commanded.
The High Lords staggered back as a storm trooper and a Navy armsman got back to their feet. Scooping up their weapons and kicking away others, the two bore no evidence of damage or injury. Whereas the other bodies on the floor displayed searing blasts to the chest and helm, the two standing before them remained untouched.
‘What in the damnable Eye is going on?’ Lansung rumbled.
‘Vangorich,’ Abel Verreault spat, ‘what is the meaning of this?’
‘It is a demonstration, my lords,’ the Grand Master of Assassins told them. ‘Sleeper cadre Black Glass: identify.’
The armsman’s patrician features began to ripple and twist. To Lansung and the Lord Militant’s revulsion, his face began to change. Muscles spasmed and rearranged under face-flesh, while the stature of the honour guard became slight and shapely. With the las-carbine still held upon Lansung, the armsman became an armswoman before the High Admiral’s eyes. From beneath the severity of a regulation haircut, dark eyes burned with lethal intelligence.
‘Augustra Phex, my lord,’ the Assassin said. ‘Temple Callidus.’
By the time the storm trooper had removed his helm, the features beneath had also transformed into those of a young woman. She leant into her las-carbine and pointed the weapon at Abel Verreault.
‘Kitrid Vaunce, Grand Master,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the Lord Militant. ‘Temple Callidus.’
‘You dare to place your monstrous infiltrators in my ranks?’ the Lord Militant growled.
‘Damn you, sir,’ Lansung said.
‘As the pair of you dare to monitor the comings and goings of my Temples from orbit,’ Vangorich said, ‘and try to stalk my clade snipers with inferior marksmen of your own.’
‘We will not be intimidated,’ Verreault told the Grand Master. ‘You cannot threaten us, Vangorich. We are beyond your reach, especially with the segmentum in peril.’