At the far end of the gallery, a team of two men were wheeling a small gun carriage into position. Agapito aimed at it as soon as Pexx pointed it out. His bolts flew true, but exploded half a metre short of the weapon and its crew. An oily flare of light shivered around the gun.
‘Energy field!’ he said.
The men finished their setup, and aimed the gun at the Raven Guard.
‘Everybody, down!’
The gun was a larger version of the flechette rifles touted by the soldiers, and it did have enough punch to break ceramite.
Magnetic impellers hurled javelin-sized slivers of metal down the length of the gallery. Supersonic whistling overwhelmed the constant rattle-bang of boltguns. Ferr was caught through the shoulder and spun about. Manno was slammed through the chest. Enough force was invested in the hit to hurl him backwards and pin him to the wall. Tenefer took a round through the faceplate. The angled front of his helm crumpled around the shaft. The point emerged from his backpack. Spewing coolant gas, he fell. Agapito saw little more. He sprinted forward to the first booth. The material was some kind of plastek, shattered into pieces and intermingled with the mashed flesh of the enemy. To his surprise, one of these soldiers lived and cowered in the well beneath the booth’s table. Agapito scrambled through the wreckage and smashed the man’s head in, helmet and all, with a blow from his left fist.
Apothecary Otaro answered. ‘Tenefer is dead. Ferr injured. Manno is dying. Three minutes, at the most.’
‘They are reloading,’ shouted Branco over the clatter of flechettes striking metal. He pointed at the heavy weapon. ‘The magazine capacity is limited. Twenty shots, high auto rate. They run through it quickly.

Corax: Lord of Shadows