The priests of that mechanical brotherhood were as jealous of their prerogatives as the Mechanics of the Factorum Guild back on Belial.

I climbed up a metal cliff and dropped into the Baneblade’s innards. It smelled of oil and plasteel and recycled air. But at least it was cooler than outside. I fell into a tanker’s stoop and scuttled along the corridor heading for the cockpit. I was surprised to find a stranger there checking the controls. He had the well-scrubbed appearance of the new intake. He fidgeted nervously, fingers drumming on the control altar. He looked like he was contemplating a particularly difficult mathematical problem. There was an abstracted, scholarly air to him.

‘That’s my chair,’ I said. He looked up, startled.

‘Sorry,’ he said, rising up so fast he banged his head on the ceiling where it sloped above the driver’s chair. I winced with sympathy. I’ve been known to do the same thing myself. He was a tall kid, a little taller than me. His hair was curly and dirty-blond. His eyes were a pale, pale blue. He smiled nervously, showing surprisingly good teeth.

I slumped down into my bucket seat and inspected the controls. It did not look like he had made any invocations, but it’s always a good idea to check. One of our Russ went off a cliff once because a new boy had set the drives into reverse and the driver was too drunk on coolant fluid to check. Or so the story goes.

The boy stuck out a clean hand, with well-manicured nails. ‘Matosek,’ he said. ‘Adrian Adrianovitch Matosek.’

I looked at his hand till it withdrew. ‘Sit down, New Boy,’ I said. ‘And don’t touch anything until I say you can.’

I muttered the first driver’s prayer, pulled the periscope down into position and locked it. I twisted my driver’s cap sideways so the brim would not hit the eyepiece. Looking through it I got a clear view of the tortured sky above us, and another look at the lava sea on the horizon. I adjusted the view angle until I saw the slope around us and all the other tanks and artillery lined up there, getting ready to move.

I closed my eyes, asked the blessing of the machine-spirits and sent my hands dancing across the control altar in the ritual gestures of invocation and control. The spirit of the great war engine was still quiescent.

I watched the needles on the volt gauges rise and fall in response to my devotions. I touched the engine pedals with my feet and heard the big drives roar. I checked the lock toggles on the control sticks to make sure they were still in place then invoked the Baneblade’s tutelary spirit to watch over them.

‘I never touched anything,’ New Boy said.