Thin fingers held me tight by both hands. The strangers, veiled in a constantly shifting haze, talked in barely audible anxious squeaks, their long guns aimed at us. Little was known about the Hrud apart from the bits included in our manuals but their outlook was easy to recall by blurred picts in the paragraphs about the most dangerous threats. I expected the cyber-mastiffs to sense the intrusion but the mechanical guards froze up at the wall, their eye-lamps blinking. Fluffster stood in a circle of strangers towering over them like a teacher surrounded by children. Even the marines had hung the bolters on their belts and crossed their arms.

'Newcomers,' a high-pitched voice spoke inside my mind. 'Don't stand in our way. A hundred years will pass for you in a second.'

'Nocturnal Warriors,' I sent back, 'you're after the man taken captive.'

'Captive by the iron men. The iron men will demolish our juunlak.'

They knew what happened here. It was the right moment to act. 'He's a man of the Inquisition. So am I. Lord Kryptopterus who sent him is a friend of mine.'

Their grip loosened. The distortion field disappeared, the psychic wind calmed down. One of the Hrud walked out of the circle and pulled back the dusty hood of their robe. A pair of large round eyes stared at me.

'You have the sigil.'

I showed him the rosette. 'The iron men will kill you. Only I stand between them and their captive.'

'The cold death from the underneath will come for them.'

'The man told me about it. That was why you destroyed the machines.'

The Hrud nodded. 'We must take the man away before the cold death takes us. He is sworn to the Elders.'

'Well, I will let you free him without a fight. The iron men won't give up otherwise. But for a bargain.'

The Hrud paused clutching the fusil. 'What do you want?'

'To know more about the cold death. I'll tell it to Lord Kryptopterus.' There had been reasons for the sorcerer to steal the excavated relic. To choose this long desolate place and run away right before the mess.

The other xenos started squeaking at an even higher pitch, their joint aura got electrified with tension.

'You should ask Magos Tetraodon first,' said Fluffster.

I rubbed my temple. 'I doubt he allows it.'

'He'll keep the Iron Hands at bay,' said Imudon. 'They don't feel like battling his Skitarii.'

'I'll promise him some useful info to study then.'

'Why shall we trust you?' the Hrud's voice cheeped in my head. 'You will lead the iron men to the juunlak.'

'If you fear the cold death, it's indeed dangerous for us as well.'

'Dawnspark will go with you,' the choir of other Hrud squeaked as one. 'He will bring the zanhaad here. Your fighters stay here. We show you the cold our deceived kin brought to the juunlak.'

The Hrud who had spoken to me closed his eyes, his mind lit up. I touched his shoulder. 'Wait a bit. I need to rap it up with the tech-priest. He's not of a chattering kind.'

I breathed in and out listening to long beeps in the vox, then there was a light crack, and I heard Tetraodon's relaxed voice. 'Hope you like your rooms, ma'am. I'll be glad to answer your questions if you feel curious.'

'Well, Magos… Are the marines still around?'

'They need to tinker with the damaged excavators I'm afraid. You may call them up, the password of their channel is in the list of documents I sent you.'

'Actually, I need the opposite. The Hrud have come for the captive.'

A sigh echoed in the vox. 'Good Omnissiah, I told the Iron Hands that wasn't the best idea. The xenos are in the living blocks if they're around you. My storages are on the way to the cells.'

'If you take care of the Iron Hands, I'll find out why the Hrud blew your shaft.'

'Don't you mean…'

'There's some great shit down there, to put it short. I guess the sorcerer was there because of that shit.'

Tetraodon's machinery gave out a screech. 'This might be of more value than all our loot combined. But scandals of that scale are what I need the least anyway.'

'Lord Crinitus is totally for exploring.' I waved my hand. Fluffster came closer and said a long phrase in the binary.

'If you manage to come back till tomorrow afternoon,' said Tetraodon. 'But I cannot guarantee the Iron Hands won't chase you. Well, wait a bit. I'll send Chi-Zeta my Alpha ranger to your place. He'll wait for you before the cells and will turn off the security systems without you being noticed. If the shit has material proofs, bring at least something. Chi-Zeta will have three fortified containers.'

'A tech-ranger will accompany us,' I said to Dawnspark. 'To keep the iron men away.'

Dawnspark darted to the closest tunnel so swiftly he blurred into a blob of haze. 'Show us the way.'

'I'm not a wall climber. We need to take the elevator.'

'You get into the cabin, I climb the shaft.'

Augurs didn't react to the Hrud or malfunctioned in their distortion fields but the crepuscular xenos' paranoia forced them to choose the most discreet routes and nooks. Their legends told they used to live under the bright sun of their lost homeworld but had had to leave it during the War in Heaven to wander from place to place hiding from some unknown threats. Some even say the Hrud run through time as easily as through space. Their juunlaks, tunnel-cities of junk and salvaged machines, attracted scavengers and outcasts of many races who often chose to live among the Hrud as zanhaads, something between a thrall and a sponger. It was still claimed to be dangerous as many zanhaads got a chemical addiction to juunlak pheromone trails.

The elevator cabin stopped on the prison floor. Dawnspark's blurred silhouette crawled out on the top of the cabin, clinging to cables and rockcrete ledges with all four limbs. He jumped down to the frost-covered floor and grabbed the fusil from behind his back.

'It's ok,' I said and pressed on the vox bead. 'The ranger will warn me anyway.'

'Inquisitor, I am here,' a mechanical voice answered after a signal. 'Three minutes to lead the captive out.'

I ran along the corridor after the Hrud to the end where the cloaked ranger stood by an open door with a bundle in his metal hands. The captive lay on the floor in the same tormented position but his arms were free of the fetters. Dawnspark leaned over the captive squeaking and took a small vial from under his robes.

'The iron men poisoned him,' he said.

'Magos Tetraodon has given me a robe for the captive.' Chi-Zeta handed me the bundle, and Dawnspark snatched it from my hands at once.

The acolyte gave out a wheeze when Dawnspark tried to seat him up. Blood streamed down the wounded leg. Chi-Zeta picked the acolyte up, wrapped him in the robe and secured the leg with a mechadendrite. 'A splintered fracture of the tibia detected. Probably caused by the fall.'

'Back,' said Dawnspark. 'A long way to go.'

Dark tunnels behind the living quarters formed a vast maze of streets, dried canals and barricades of destroyed hab-blocks and sidewalk arches. Planned and built better than many Imperial hives, the city buildings survived the heavy bombings and millennia of desolation, nearly intact long after the bones of their dwellers had turned to dust. Formless piles of decayed rubbish lay in cracked show-windows of former shops, molten glass splinters cracked under our feet.

'You've got an unusual name for one who lives in the dark,' I told Dawnspark on the way.

He blinked under the hood. 'Our kind hopes to find the way up to the sun one day. Many name their children Sunflash, or Dayglow, or Starfleck.'

'Are you living there for all the centuries since the world's death?'

'The Elders chose the place to settle. If they knew about the cold down below, they would have avoided not only the system, but the whole region.' He severed the psychic link abruptly and ran forward with the fusil ready.

'Foes ahead.' Aphedron's kineblades left their sheaths, glimmering around him like a swarm of bees in the crossed beams of our flashlights.

'The place is abandoned but for the Nocturnal Warriors,' said Chi-Zeta. 'Magos Tetraodon has scanned the vicinity.'

The acolyte stirred in Chi-Zeta's arms. 'They fear the call of the cold abyss. An old curse. It draws them to the edge.'

'That was the purpose of your mission?' I asked him.

'Ten of us were sent to different Hrud raheeds when they started moving at once twenty years ago as if fleeing something. The Elders thought the place to be safe and bountiful away from both the Imperium and the Aeldari. The call of the abyss has deceived them.'

His eyes were closing as fatigue and pain had worn him.

'Hey, just a second before you fall asleep!' I raised my voice. 'What about your chip?'

'Your rosette,' he whispered through the overwhelming drowse. 'Hold it to the chip, then download…' His head bent to Chi-Zeta's shoulder.

I pulled out the rosette and the dataslate. The connection was weak, less than one per cent of the data in a couple minutes, so I left the download in the 'active' status and put both things back to deal with the information in our rooms.

'Fluffster.' I caught the cricetid by the paw. 'I bet you know what the crap is happening.'

'There are things more ancient than human lore,' he answered reluctantly.

'Did you discover anything strange or creepy in the shaft?' I asked Chi-Zeta.

'The data seem to contradict the usual excavation pattern. There were many inconsistencies as if the machinery had been exposed to radiation. But the only excavated piece from the nethermost area was peculated by the sorcerer you are pursuing. Other samples were destroyed by the xenos-inflicted disruption.'

'The marines surely went bonkers.'

'This colloquial expression is the exact description of their preferred behavioural patterns. They name themselves devoted adepts of the Machine Cult but their reaction does not comply with the ways of the Omnissiah. They lack equanimity and place personal antipathies before the importance of knowledge.' His inset speakers were unable to modulate emotions but his dislike for rash actions seemed sincere.

'They try to turn themselves into machines but even their machines adopt their spiteful character,' Aphedron said. 'It has got even worse since the years when we fought side by side.'

'Organism and machine, both have spirit,' Chi-Zeta argued. 'Intemperance damages both. The Land-Behemoth of Clan Vurgaan is renowned for its malicious temper but the Clan does not bother to pacify it, feeding it xenotech and other impure trophies instead.'

Corridors crossed and twisted through the ruins until we stopped before a solid wall of rockcrete. The Hrud threw their fusils behind their backs and started climbing, their limbs bending in all directions under the robes as they flickered from ledge to ledge. Chi-Zeta followed them holding the acolyte in place with his mechadendrites. I shrugged my shoulders and put my foot on the lowest ledge trying to reach for a piece of reinforcement bar that stuck out over my head.

Aphedron shook his head and gave me his hand. 'That's what jump packs are for.'

Like many times with my old crew, I grabbed his forearms. The engine roared. The darkness above rushed down on us. I blinked, and a moment later my boots thudded on pavement plates. I leaned over to look at Fluffster and Imudon crawling up metre after metre.

The Hrud huddled up in a narrow passage squeaking. I touched Dawnspark's mind.

'Is it nearby?'

'Right there, human. We won't go far inside. The Elders are roused by the waking abyss. Some call for a peh-ha, a great journey to leave the system, some are drawn by the voice of the cold death.'

The acolyte woke up in Chi-Zeta's grip. He tapped his finger on my shoulder. 'I told you about the curse, Inquisitor. Dawnspark's people take it as a sign of great change coming. They believe temptations and dangers are harbingers of raheed-skeh, the final reunion of their tribes to find new worlds under bright suns. Or, as many think, the sure signs of the Great Reckoning, the time to die.'

'He who lingers calls to us.' Dawnspark's aura calmed down, his psychic voice was but a whisper. 'But many prefer listening to the abyss instead. To hurl themselves down into the cold murk to fall asleep forever.'

'Who's the one who lingers?' I asked him.

'The one of the Slah-haii who still remembers us cherishing old memories in a tower beyond the material world. The Red-handed speaks to the First only, the Jester, the laughing twin of the Lingering One, chooses whom to talk to for his own obscure goals.'

A tower of memories Scalaria had found to hide from the horrors of sorcery. A soft sad voice who had spoken to me in the blackstone quarry.

I walked up to Fluffster who was shaking dust off his fur on the edge. 'These are all Old Ones who remained alive. The Lingering One, the Great Fool.'

'I doubt they can be killed. They've existed in the universe since its first seconds.'

'We have to set off for the tower,' said Dawnspark. 'To find the way among the visions stored in the Lingering One's chambers.'

Warm yellowish lights were glowing ahead in the distant end of the passage. The juunlak occupied a former hab-block of the town, rooms connected with bunches of cables and pyramids of weird machinery assembled from all kinds of spare parts. Tiny lamps in the windows shone like marshland wisps through the distortion haze that veiled the junk-town.

'These lamps are the memory of our ancient sun.' Dawnspark slipped between soot-covered walls to a half-ruined stairway gallery that led to the upper blocks. There were many soul-lights of juunlak dwellers sparkling inside the rooms, their psychic voices rustled around like falling leaves. Gusts of wind brought eerie subtle smells from the districts, and the acolyte drew in the air, looking right and left.

'If you live here for long enough, the trails turn into a living map and a news bulletin,' he said to my surprised stare.

'There are no borderlines or wards around the town,' I said as we were climbing the stairs.

'The streets react to the intentions of those who come in. The mind-eyes watch the newcomers. If any dares to attack, the walls will fight them.'

When we stopped by a low arch leading to a small living room, I noticed miniature fusil muzzles hidden in the metal tangles of wall constructions. The inside of the room, dimly lit by a wall garland of tiny lamps, was packed with scrap-metal and crude-looking makeshift machines. In the corner of the improvised workshop there was a sleeping berth made of plastic and rags.

Dawnspark laid down his fusil and took off his hood. His large eyes looked even bigger with mask-like dark grey circles on his thick silvery fur. He laid back his rounded ears and exchanged nods with Chi-Zeta, and the ranger got down to one knee to put the acolyte in the berth.

'The healers will treat him once you leave,' Dawnspark sent me.

Fluffster squeaked a phrase in the aliens' tongue. The Hrud answered with a cacophony of anxious chirps but Dawnspark rushed up to the ceiling in silence. On the top he hung down holding to the metal frame of a buzzing machine with one foot and opened a small glowing window. He hurled something at Fluffster, and the cricetid caught it in mid-air.

'The pieces I showed to the Elders,' I heard Dawnspark's mind-voice at once. 'They will hold a council to decide whether to leave the planet.'

I looked out of a crumbling window to the quiet street where swift shadows of juunlak dwellers flitted from door to door. Machine noises were coming from behind the walls, tools scraped on metal.

Fluffster touched my hand. 'Let's say goodbye to the hosts.'

I raised my eyebrows. 'That's all?'

'Strangers aren't welcome in juunlaks for long. There will be other days when we can have a look at the life of the Nocturnal Warriors.'

'I need to ask more about the danger underneath.'

'The bits in this box will tell us everything we need to know.'

I turned to Dawnspark who was taking toolcases from under the machines. 'Thank you for your trust. We will examine the place.'

He flinched. 'Take care. Take care. The cold death is luring souls to the abyss.'

Fluffster squeaked again. Dawnspark's eyes widened even more but he nodded after a pause. I glimpsed at the acolyte who had fallen asleep with a rag bandage over his wound and followed the marines out to the stairway.

Down at the foot of the giant wall I finally asked Fluffster, 'Wonder why we had to take the entire crew along. There are no monsters for the marines to fight in the passages.'

'You'll see.' He strode at the head with Chi-Zeta by his side, clutching the box. Though the Alpha had already taken out one of his containers, Fluffster only shook his head.

I looked at his paws so similar to the tenacious Hrud limbs. 'After seeing the xenos' true outlook, I can guess where you found the material for your new body.'

He chuckled. 'I'm not that eccentric. It's just the image of ancient Terran rodents that lived in deserts and steppes before the Dark Age of Technology.'

I looked at the minimap of my dataslate. The application traced our route back to the living blocks. We had five hours ahead to be back by the afternoon and pacify the Iron Hands who hadn't suspected anything yet. Once we're close to the camp, I shall erase the data from our trip to avoid further problems with the furious marines.

Worn by hours of walking, we stopped for a respite among petrified trees of an ancient park. I sat down on a boulder and unscrewed the cap of my flask. Fluffster was spinning the box in his paws with nervous moves I hadn't noticed in him earlier.

'You know what it is,' I said.

He sighed. 'The thing wrecked quite a lot in the place I come from. Luckily, I had already left it for my service to the Emperor.'

The box was cold to the touch, and pale glow oozed through the solid metal.

'Aren't you afraid the malignant aura will escape the case?'

'The Hrud tribes keep the storage technology since the Old War. Scavengers they might seem to an outsider but they assemble wonders from scrap they gather in underhives and ruins.'

My vox bleeped. I put the flask down by my feet and pressed on the bead.

'Ma'am, I hope you're not too far away from the camp,' Tetraodon spoke a bit quicker than usually, distant rumble and bellowing in the background.

My heart sank with feeling of a disaster about to happen. 'The horror buried in the shaft. It has broken through the debris.'

'Just as obnoxious,' he grunted. 'Good you've taken Chi-Zeta along. Verrox is on the rampage for half an hour running around.'

'We've got three hours till the afternoon.' I clenched my jaws.

'He just can't stay put. Arothron's trying to reason with him but it's a lost cause. Take care and head right to my lab. Verrox is a loose cannon but not dumb enough to jump on my Skitarii.'

I closed my eyes and hung up. Imudon put his hand on my shoulder. ' You're white as a sheet. What's up?'

'We're late. The Iron Hands are already nuts.'

'So we'll be of use though you doubted it.' Aphedron hurled up three kineblades and caught them one by one.

'The Carcharodons have a better temper.' I looked at Fluffster and Chi-Zeta talking in the binary. 'At least Fluffster's status is a warranty of safety.'

Fluffster turned to me when he heard his name. 'Not always. The Iron Hands, with their painful hubris, are a piece of the Old Night themselves. The Gorgon tried to beat some sense into the clans but his early death cast a shadow quite worse than the Black Rage of the Blood Angels.'

'It's damn stupid to scandal over petty revenge with such taint right below. Obtaining the only clues was worth it.'

Before deleting the older data, I built a new route to the lab avoiding populated levels. There was a creepy feeling of distress in the plain aura of the place as we were going down the abandoned city railway tracks. My limbs got numb and lazy, my mind was fuzzy as the fatigue of a sleepless night was finally overcoming me. Shadows looked like sinister shapes of beasts slipping away to unlit corners from our flashlights. With every turn my heart skipped a beat as if lurking monsters were to leap at us from the dark but the tunnels were so quiet even footsteps pealed like thunder.

'Warn Magos Tetraodon,' Fluffster said when we entered a kilometre-long tunnel with a cracked roof. 'The lab is ten minutes away from the exit.'

Two full squads of heavily armed Skitarii met us by the collapsing end of the tunnel. They surrounded us and let Chi-Zeta forward to lead our group.

'Like we've been nabbed,' Aphedron chuckled.

'The opposite, the Magos has promised,' said Fluffster.

'The opposite would be nabbing the iron psycho but one needs big balls to dare.'

'Do you see Lord Astronotus or Lady Cichlasoma anywhere near, Aphedron?' I said.

'I'm just pissed off by the sour reputation of my folks, dear. They're no angels but everyone views the Iron Asses as innocent lambs just because their stubborn daddy got a head shorter. The metal bullies can rip my junkie folks to parts without efforts as you saw in your first mission.'

'The Phoenician's influence made the Gorgon a tad more human, I'd better say, humane,' Fluffster suddenly supported Aphedron. 'That's the irony of things. All loyal primarchs used to be way shadier than their brothers gone traitor. Recall what I said you about Horus when you had woken up from the Black Rage nightmare. Chaos has taken the best ones. Such a cruel course of events.'

Chi-Zeta walked under an arch and held his mechadendrite over the sensor screen of the lab gate. It slid open, and Verrox's roar echoed in the corridors.

'Magos, you're trying my patience! You're bloody covering the scoundrels. If not, you would let us deal with them without messing in.'

'Captain, whether the Magos is right or not, we shall not break the guest rules,' Arothron bellowed.

'The Inquisitor violated our right under his roof. He shall give her crew out for an honest trial!' Verrox slammed his fist into the lab wall so the storage cases shivered.

From behind Chi-Zeta's back I saw Marilyna and Pao huddled around Tetraodon tapping on his holograms impassively despite the Iron Hands circling him with clenched fists. Arothron noticed us first and headed to the gate before Verrox could rush out.

He passed by the Skitarii who raised their guns and stopped before me. 'Inquisitor, it's utterly dishonorable to doublecross your allies.'

I straightened up between Aphedron and Imudon. 'You were the first to break the conditions of our agreement. Is it already afternoon?'

'You think your deed would be worth redeeming if we went upstairs two hours later? We would find the cell as empty.'

'You would find the samples retrieved by the xenos from the dangerous abyss. A single man from the Ordos can be pardoned for the sake of important knowledge.'

Verrox stood in the doorway next to Arothron, his slate-grey bloodshot eyes narrowed. He bore striking resemblance to Lord Aspersum, his barbarian cousin from Terra, but he lacked Aspersum's relaxed condescension towards weaker mortals. 'Death to the xenos. Death to xenos-consorters. Fire upon their dens so that the Machine Spirit could feast on their impure belongings.'

'Death will be upon us all one day, Captain.' Tetraodon moved away from the panels reluctantly. 'I mean the thing the xenos name 'cold death' as well.'

'Those who stand in my way will die first!' Verrox clenched the hilt of his bolter.

'Captain, the Emperor, beloved by all, stated that the authority of Holy Ordos surpass every other institution in times of need,' said Fluffster.

Verrox stared into his beady eyes. 'One day your shaggy pelt will lie on my shoulders, Magos, if you dare to challenge my power. The Emperor sits on the Golden Throne on Terra, very far away, while I'm at your arm's reach. Now guess whose physical authority weighs more right now!'

'To insult a great Magos is to insult the whole Mechanicus! It's plain heresy to question the omnipotence of the Master of Mankind, the Omnissiah!' Tetraodon's voice, amplified by his speaker module, swept over the place so I covered my ears. 'Your late primarch is no more the King of Mars to command the Martians. And he was never a Malcador to tell Inquisitors what to do.'

Arothron put his gauntlet on Verrox's pauldron. 'Cool down, Captain! Emotions are a sign of weakness. No warrior of His armies should spill the blood of Throne agents in blind wrath.'

'Lord Stronos, the strongest among us, argues against turning into soulless machines,' Verrox answered in a more reserved tone, his reddened face returning to normal.

'But not to the point that we should give up reason.'

'Come in,' said Tetraodon. 'A shoot-out of underhive teens.'

Already in the lab, Fluffster and Tetraodon leaned over the box rotating in a stasis field over the cogitators. My fingers trembling, I grabbed a cup of tea a servo-drone had placed on the table before me and opened the archive downloaded to my dataslate.

Arothron sat next to me despite Imudon's glare. 'Where's the captive?'

'The Hrud have taken him away. But I managed to copy the archive from his chip. It took most of the card memory. You may use the data if Lord Crinitus and Magos Tetraodon allow you.'

'The xenos already know we're to wage war on them.'

'They're going to leave the sector anyway.'

'Between us.' Arothron squinted at Verrox who was browsing a security system cogitator. 'You should avoid angering the Captain in future. He's wrathful and unforgiving.'

'Lord Crinitus has some knowledge of the 'cold death'. We would have caught unawares if Captain Verrox destroyed the juunlak with the clues. You would have lost many men for a grudge.'

Arothron crooked his lips. 'That's Medusa where the strongest survivors are honoured above all. But if the acolyte let us see his chip…'

'Sorry, Father,' I interrupted him. 'There's no crying over spilt milk. Let's wait for the conclusion of the Magi's investigation.'

In the warmth of the lab it was hard to keep my eyes open. I made another sip and sat back watching the shifting holograms. Arothron got up and silently joined Verrox. They were looking for the Hrud in the records, I thought but couldn't concentrate even on the archive files I had just opened.

'Let us see you to the rooms.' Imudon picked up my dataslate that slipped down to the floor and put it into my pouch.

'There were cases when I spent three or four nights in a row pondering over clues and reports,' I said with a smile. 'Magos Tetraodon surely has necessary chemicals. Most Inquisitors take them in tons.'

'You can't live on drugs forever.'

Aphedron, his helmet under his arm, glanced at Arothron and stroked the hilt of his sword with a grin of contempt. 'I dare them to take revenge for Isstvan. Their nutty predecessors made a scarecrow from their sire's remains, and it was still a better ruler than those wildlings of Medusa.'

'They were the closest brethren to the Emperor's Children before the treason,' said Imudon.

'I preferred the take-it-easy garbagers from the Luna Wolves.'

Five Skitarii followed us out of the room. The slumber got so heavy I staggered and tripped on the threshold of the elevator when we arrived to the level of living blocks. The room felt chilly despite the heating systems turned to the max but I flopped on the cot right on stepping in. To fall asleep without dreams, a quiet voice whispered inside my mind as nothing remained but darkness.