>>96305381
>She felt her heart beat faster. She hugged her knees, and resisted the urge to rock on her haunches.

>She knew what was coming. She’d gleaned enough information from the others to know that the Angels of Death had finally turned their attention to those who had been too slow, too scared or too confused to make the appropriate level of sacrifice for Shardenus. She knew that they’d spent two whole weeks scouring the Capitolis, cleansing it with fire. Then they’d moved on to the outer spires, sweeping through them one at a time, delivering their justice, executing those who hadn’t resisted the traitor with enough fervour.

>Khadi wondered how they knew who had been a hero and who had been a coward. Surely it was almost impossible to tell, except for the fact that most of those who’d joined them, like Marivo, were dead.

>So it was that she’d speculated that they were killing everyone, perhaps in some petulant rage against the perceived weaknesses of mortal men. She’d heard other figures bandied around, too – one old man who’d escaped from the Axis hive across the wasteland and had nearly gone blind from the poisons reckoned they were killing one out of every three survivors they found.

>‘One out of three,’ he’d rasped, struggling to breathe from his bleeding mouth. ‘They’re making an example, to stiffen the resolve of other systems.’

>He’d laughed then, coughing up blood in the process.

>‘We will be famous,’ he’d said, and Khadi had seen the tears in his eyes. ‘They will whisper our name on a thousand worlds.’