60. Late Judgment (24)

Seraphax crouched down and grabbed a handful of so-called soil. A few seconds later, his visor's analytical functions delivered their conclusion: forty-two percent flesh mixture, seventeen percent bone fragments, twenty percent armor debris.

But that was not the end of it. The remaining twenty-one percent contained many mixed substances whose mass was difficult to calculate, such as vicious toxic dust created when poisonous gas mutated together with flesh, or tiny scraps of metal left behind after enduring violent explosions at the heart of the bombardment.

Only after all of those had been completely removed would the tiny residue left behind qualify as Terra's "soil."

The Dark Angel silently straightened up and placed that handful of bloody earth into his utility belt.

According to his less-than-accurate map, he was already close to the entrance of the Himalazian Plateau.

Records and memory indicated that great numbers of pilgrims from across the galaxy gathered here at all times. Hundreds of camps, endlessly subdivided according to their religious factions, were scattered haphazardly around this entrance.

Above them stood a fortress garrisoned and guarded by the Imperial Fists, but they were not responsible for dealing with the pilgrims.

The ones truly handling those matters were a bureaucratic force two thousand strong, specially drawn from Terra's complicated administrative system for the sole purpose of maintaining stability.

The things and authority contained within those four words were terrifying to contemplate. Thus, ten years after this force was established, they used the pilgrims' name and the money they had donated to build a bridge spanning the entrance to the plateau. It allowed anyone arriving afterward to avoid crossing mountains and ridges, traveling directly to the prosperous city beneath the Imperial Palace.

Of course, Seraphax could see none of that now. The pilgrims, the fortress, the bridge, the sentry