The fulcrum of the combat had moved away. The melee swirled around us but we were in the clear, surrounded by corpses and those who would soon be corpses.

Something sticky hit me on the arm, and I realised Anton had slapped synthi-flesh on my wound.

There was cheering. Macharius’s banner flowed back towards us, borne by a tide of newly arrived Imperial Guard. I realised Anton must have let it fall or given it to someone else when he had come to aid me. Ivan looked up. All around his mouth was red gore. His metal teeth were red too. It looked as if he had been in a terrible accident but, of course, all the blood belonged to the man whose throat he had bitten out.

All three of us moved towards Macharius. Inquisitor Drake gave us a long hard look. I wondered if he thought Anton and Ivan should have stuck with the Lord High Commander. There was a chilly moment while his cold blue eyes rested on me, then he turned away. His storm troopers kept looking, though, as if they had noticed their master’s gaze and decided that they needed to pay special attention to anyone it studied so. It was hard to tell. I could not see their expressions through the face-masks of their helmets.

Macharius himself did not seem to care. His face was alight with triumph and the pleasure that victory in physical combat always gave him. I was sure that he had noticed everything, though. He always did, and he never forgot.

A field medic came rushing up. First he went to check on Macharius and Drake. I saw Macharius point in my direction, and the adept came over and began to patch me up. In minutes he had adjusted the synthi-flesh sealant. My arm was cool and numb. For the moment I could not use my shotgun, so I hung it over my shoulder and drew a sidearm.

More and more of our troops came into view. Valkyrie troop-carriers were starting to drop storm troopers on the roof of the central step of the ziggurat now that all of the anti-aircraft weapons on the structure had been silenced.

Ahead of us lay the massive ebonwood door of the complex and, beyond it, the ominously silent halls within which the ancient wonder Macharius and Drake sought was said to lie.

There was still resistance within the temple, but it was sporadic and all the heart had gone out of the defenders. I suppose that even they knew it was hopeless now. Their sacred wolf-apes were all slaughtered. Their elite guards had given their lives to no avail. The priests themselves did not appear as keen as their soldiers to go and greet their gods. We caught sight of a number of them scuttling off into the distance as we approached.

Once again Drake had come well prepared. The layout of the temple interior already seemed familiar to him. His spies must have briefed him well or fed records from the local datacores into the technical slate he carried.