A flare went up, bursting like a star, and damning us all with its invasive light.
'The fence! Come on!' I cursed.
Behind us, by the light of die flare, I could see dark figures wading mrough the nettles and emerging from the trees. Every few moments, one of the figures would halt and raise his weapon, spitting dazzling pulses at us.
Further away, back at the bright pyre of Spaeton House, 1 saw two white blobs of light rise and disengage themselves from the fireglow. Speeders, called in, heading this way, chasing their beams across the paddocks and woods.
We were at the fence. I channeled my fury into Barbarisater and slashed open a hole two metres wide.
'Get through!' I yelled. Aemos went through the gap. Sastre stumbled and fell, losing his grip on Eleena's arm. I pushed her through the gap too and went back for the wounded man.
Sastre had trained his pistol at the advancing killers, and was firing. He was sitting down, leaning his back against the fence. He made two kills as
I remember, cutting down figures struggling forward in the weeds and undergrowth fifty metres away.
'Go, sir!' he said.
'Not without you!'
'Go, damn it! You won't get far unless someone slows them down!'
A rain of las-fire fell around us, puncturing the fence and throwing up wet clods of earth. I was forced to turn and use Barbarisater to deflect several shots. The blade hummed as it twitched and soaked up the power.
'Go!' Sastre repeated. I realised he had been hit again and was trying to hide it. He coughed blood.
'I can't leave you like this-'
'Of course you can't!' he snapped. 'Give me a bloody weapon! This damn las-cell is nearly spent/
I crouched beside him and handed him my boltgun and my spare clips.
The Emperor will remember you, even if I don't live to/ I told him.
'You damn well better had, sir, or I'm wasting my efforts/
There was no time for anything further, no time even to take his hand. As I clambered through the fence, I heard the first roaring blasts of the boltgun.
Eleena and Aemos were waiting for me on the far side of the road in the fringes of the wild woods. I gathered them up and we ran into the darkness, stumbling over gnarled roots, clambering up loamy slopes, surrounded by the midnight blackness of the primordial forest.
The boltgun continued to fire for some time. Then it fell silent.
May the God-Emperor rest Xel Sastre and show him peace.
MINE
The Storm Oak.
Going back.
Making Midas proud.
For almost an hour, we plunged into the great darkness of the forest, blind and desperate. In what seemed an alarmingly short time, we lost all sight of the great conflagration we had left behind. The woodland, dense and ancient, blocked it out.