Few men ever truly knew what the great general was thinking.

Ahead of us was the command sphere for the world we currently orbited. On its flowing surface was a representation of the continent we could see through the dome above us. Instead of being lit by the fires of burning forests, this showed representations of armies as glowing patterns. Ours were green. The enemy forces were red. Various runes indicated the composition of the units, ours glowing steadily to show we were certain of their composition. The enemy forces pulsed with varying speed to indicate the margin for error in our scouts’ reports on their position and strength.

Around the table stood a variety of ranking commanders and Drake. He was in theory an observer but stood with the air of a man who was actually in charge, at least until Macharius arrived. The high inquisitor was tall and slim, with a pale, cold face and dark hair which now had a tinge of grey in it. Obviously the juvenat treatments had not taken so well with him, or perhaps he was simply much older than he had appeared when we first met and the drugs’ effects had started to weaken.

I did not know much of the inquisitor’s personal history, and he never volunteered anything to anyone in my hearing, even Macharius. He was a man much more used to asking questions than answering them. Uneasiness radiated from his person to those around him, in the same way as confidence emanated like solar rays from Macharius.

The high inquisitor looked up as Macharius approached and smiled. I suspect that Macharius was as close a thing to a friend as Drake ever had, if friend is a word you can ever use in the context of an inquisitor. I had seen too much of his business in the past ten years to believe that he looked at the world with any more humanity than the Undertaker did.

Macharius nodded a greeting and went over to stand beside the inquisitor. The two men were of a height but otherwise were as different as two people could be. Macharius was physically powerful, Drake slender and ascetic and deceptively frail looking. Macharius wore the gorgeously braided uniform of the highest ranking Imperial Guard officer. Drake wore a plain black tunic and a scarlet cloak with cowl. Around him, a group of storm trooper bodyguards lounged like attack dogs. They eyed us as warily as we eyed them.

Drake nodded to me, which was not something calculated to make me feel any easier in my skin. He had taken an interest in me since Karsk, as he took an interest in all those close to Macharius. Often I had been summoned to his presence to answer questions about the general’s moods and health. I had reported these conversations to Macharius, of course, and he had told me to answer truthfully. He clearly believed that I had no secrets about him to reveal to the Inquisition that they did not already know, and I suspect he was right.

Macharius turned to the tech-adept who stood by the command altar. ‘Give me a view of sector alpha twelve,’ he said. ‘Close magnification.’

‘In the Emperor’s name, Lord Macharius,’ the adept responded. He intoned a litany and moved his hands in some ritual gestures over the altar. We looked now at a three-dimensional map of a strange city. All around it was a clear, flat zone, where the forest had been burned early to provide a fire-break. The buildings were ziggurats, sheathed in metal, glittering in the light of twin suns.