More stories of the Sisters of Battle from Black Library

THE BLOODIED ROSE
A novella by Danie Ware

WRECK AND RUIN
A novella by Danie Ware

MERCY
A short story by Danie Ware

MARK OF FAITH
A novel by Rachel Harrison

OUR MARTYRED LADY
An audio drama by Gav Thorpe

REQUIEM INFERNAL
A novel by Peter Fehervari

CELESTINE: THE LIVING SAINT
A novel by Andy Clark

SISTERS OF BATTLE
An omnibus by James Swallow
featuring the novels Faith & Fire and Hammer & Anvil
plus many short stories

SHROUD OF NIGHT
A novel by Andy Clark

CULT OF THE WARMASON
A novel by C L Werner

IMPERIAL CREED
A novel by David Annandale

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Mark of Faith’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind. By the might of His inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.

Yet, He is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so that His may continue to burn.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.

This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.

There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

Chapter One

A lone red star, cold and swollen with age.

A single satellite planet, ringed by a tumble of debris.

In the limitless data-vaults of the Adeptus Mechanicus, it was designated Forge World Vastum-01 – a place of industry and production, of flexsteel and ferrocrete, of the sparking towers of forge temples and the smoothly flowing code of its living machinery. Its moons were reported as abundant with mines, its surface crawling with every kind of manufactorum.

But Vastum was old. Finally stripped of its resources during the advance of the Iron Duke Glevan, it had been abandoned by its tech-priests centuries before. Their final act: to detonate the planet’s moons at their cores, and to claw free the last of that ore-rich rock.

Vastum was a world dying, valueless and lost.

But not – as yet – quite dead.

A tiny figure under the filthy ochre sky, her oil-black cloak flowing like liquid, the heretek 05-Ray knew more about Vastum’s contemporary history than did the databanks of the long-absent Mechanicus. 05-Ray had come here as a questor, two decades before, seeking the dormant secrets of the planet’s technology, and she had found many things.

To 05-Ray, this was not Vastum, abandoned and bereft of worth.

To 05-Ray, this was Lycheate, and a wealth of waste.

She knew it intimately.

As the old red sun sank slowly into brown dust, she moved swiftly, the rusting steel causeway creaking beneath her claws. Her form was wary and alert, her array of augmetic limbs deployed and ready. She was two-point-zero-four miles from the nearest manufacturing platform here, and taking care to ensure her own safety. 05-Ray may have abandoned her people and her home world of Incaladion, yet the sleeping might of this production planet still coaxed from her a silent binary prayer.

Her claw caught on a weld, and she paused.

Fault designation three-point-zero-six. Servitor call enabled. ETA five solar minutes and seventeen seconds.

She flicked through her files, closely analysing the structure of the metalwork below. Lycheate was a water world, built over by an endless fractal of elevated steel podia, the same efficient mathematical patterns repeated over and over again.

But she was far from their solidity, out here, and the waters below her were polluted with centuries of effluvium. Chemical composition – N, NO3-N, NH4-N, S2-, SO42-, PO43-, COD, dissolved solids (TDS), heavy metals. They ate at the causeway’s supports, corroding the ancient metal. If it gave way, her weak and human flesh – what there was left of it – would not survive the immersion.

Bodies floated past her, their skin eaten away.

The fault in the weld, however, was not serious. The servitor sent back its confirmation, and 05-Ray was freed to continue her mission.

The thought sent a spark through her nerve-clusters. Knowing what awaited her, her vestigial humanity shuddered with one of the few emotions she had remaining…

Hope.

Or possibly: Ambition.

She looked up.

Ahead of her, detectable by her human eye as a dark blur against the low umber clouds, her target rose into the sky.

Her other eye extended from the steel side of her skull, its telescopic lens closing focus.

Heading: ninety-four degrees south-south-west. Direct distance: one-point-eight-three miles. Actual distance: one-point-eight-five miles. Chances of interception: zero-point-zero-zero-one per cent.

Lycheate’s watery surface was broken by occasional scatterings of semi-active volcanic islands – the only landfall offered by this lost, corroding world. The largest of these now lay before her: a headless cone of black rock, basalt and granite. It seemed featureless, rising harsh from the flat metallic stillness of the sea, yet 05-Ray knew what waited within.

The holiest place on this battered world. Its designation: Vastum Forge Temple-01.

Now almost empty.

Gone were its tech-priests and enginseers, gone its worshippers and servitors. Its smoothly glittering black steps no longer felt feet or claws; its great columns and huge portico had long since been left to crumble. And purposeless spiked its endless, glinting vox-antennae…

Well, not quite.

05-Ray sent the greeting-code that announced her arrival, and flitted like a data-ghost up the black ash beach.

<01-Vius.>

She waited for the response to her call.

The old temple hung over her, huge and hollow, its ceiling riddled with stalactites, like fangs. Fear was a lost emotion to 05-Ray – only the faint memory-ghosts of childhood terrors – but still, this place made her human skin prickle, and interrupted the smooth flow of her data retrieval.

The building was broken, cracked through to its core. Its central aisle was buckled, and its interior columns stood half-tumbled, sagging against each other like tired streaks of black severity. Scattered fragments of mica and obsidian glittered scarlet with the hunger of the lava-light below.

But still, there lingered a presence here.

<05-Ray.>

The reply did not come through her ears, nor was it her name – that was a human thing, frail and foolish. Rather, it was the string of binary that she had earned for herself, the record of her skills and discoveries. It came to her in a data-stream, a pulse like recognition.

<Your mission is successful.>

<Affirm.>

She uploaded the images readily – the planet’s multiple factoria, their assembled machines all standing in rows. When the Litany of Activation was finally broadcast, they would flow with new life.

01-Vius accepted and assessed everything – their numbers and positions, their deployments of weaponry. He ran the full tactical analysis: in the space of milliseconds, he had extrapolated every eventuality, and secured the most functional.

<Assessment complete.>

His outline came back to her – their deployment, their speeds and routes.

Their muster point.

<Chance of success. Eighty-nine-point-eight per cent,> 01-Vius told her, as she processed the progression of information. <It is acceptable. You will proceed.>

She answered him with a query. There was a piece of data that he had omitted from his calculations, but it was one that had stayed with her, like a bullet fragment lodged in her human skin.

At the upload, 01-Vius paused. The stream of his code halted as he considered the shifted parameters.

Greatly daring, 05-Ray sent the query again.

He did not respond.

Instead, in the deepest darkness of the temple, something moved.

Almost in spite of herself, 05-Ray backed up a step. She miscalculated the movements of her cloak and caught a claw on its hem, as clumsy as some newly augmented novice. The air around her was quiet now, emptier of information than the dead moons themselves.

A shadow-fragment detached itself from the darkness at the head of the altar steps.

Her telescopic twitched, but the analysis was redundant – she knew who this was.

<Master.>

Like her, he wore an oil-black cloak. Like her, he still carried the cog-and-skull of Incaladion – though upon 01-Vius, that mark was embossed in the pitted flexsteel of his face.

Unlike her, he had never defaced that mark.

It waited like a promise.

Air wheezed through the bellows in his chest, his jaw moved as he tested the cogs and cables of his vocal array. He was older than she, far older, and he reflected the rust and corrosion of Lycheate itself, almost like he had become a part of the planet’s machine-soul.

05-Ray wondered how long it had been since he had spoken aloud.

He said, ‘Sororitas.’

The word had no accompanying data – it hissed through the lava-glow of the temple like a threat.

‘Correct.’ Her response, too, was aloud, though she spoke more easily. 05-Ray still had business with normal humans, and she better remembered this ungainly, ineffectual communication.

They’d even had their own name for her – they’d called her ‘Rayos’.

01-Vius forced the air out of his chest. It was a moment before she understood that he was laughing.

She who had no fear – it chilled her to the core.

‘The Sisters of Battle will come,’ he said, the words grinding like rust. ‘And in numbers.’ She knew that he was calculating those numbers, running battle plans and assessing consequences, but he did not offer her the new data.

She waited.

Slowly, 01-Vius creaked down the stairs, his great shoulders hunched, his joints grinding. Beneath his cloak, his metal chest was scarred with rust and old wounds, and his multiple limbs were held folded, almost as if, like his voice, he no longer had need of them.

He came to stand before her, towering over her smaller form. The temple’s close heat radiated from his body.

Upon 01-Vius, there was no flesh remaining.

The word was out before she could stop it, ‘Master?’

‘The Sisters of Battle will come,’ he said again.

Holo-images flickered in the lava-light – red armour and righteous wrath, the faith and fury of the Adepta Sororitas.

05-Ray said, ‘Affirm.’

Again, that amused exhalation. Yet there was still no upload, and the info-vacuum was loud as a shout.

‘Let them,’ 01-Vius said. ‘My force is assembled. My data is correct. My extrapolations are without error. If they come, then they will die.’

The huge sun sank, its sullen light fading to a low glare.

An old doorway ground open against a layer of metallic dust. An expanding arc of illumination swelled across a silent floor.

Within it, a red boot came down, ceramite ringing on stone. It was followed by a second, both caked with the filth of Lycheate’s rusting evening; a black-and-white cloak fluttered above them, its hem newly repaired.

Sister Superior Augusta Santorus closed the heavy door behind her and stood silent, looking up a long, central aisle towards a set of unfamiliar steps.

A twenty-year veteran of the Adepta Sororitas, Augusta had spent her life in the chapels and cathedrals of the God-Emperor of Mankind, her head bared in humility, her weapons laid aside.

Yet this place felt…

Strange.

Ahead of her, the aisle was lit by huge metal bowls, electro-furnaces, a series of them marching up either side of a black stone path. They warmed the air, and they lit the walls pipes to a brassy, hellish glare. At the aisle’s far end, the steps led up, not to a chancel or altar, but to an intricate seethe of forgeworks, their twists and angles now glinting with the life of the flames.

At their centre, their holy symbol was still visible: a half-human, half-augmented skull, surrounded by its square-toothed cog.

The symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and of the Omnissiah.

Behind it, where the great glassaic window should have been, there hung a long banner, black and red and white – the mark of Augusta’s Order, the Bloody Rose. It had been raised by their canoness, Elvorix Ianthe, with a powerful service of hymns and prayers, and it had appropriated this ancient building to a whole new purpose…

This was no longer a forge temple.

This was a muster point.

Domine deduc me mi Imperatoris.

Guide me, my Emperor.

The Litany for Divine Guidance in her heart, Augusta reflexively looked for the servitor – for its borne trays upon which to lay her weapons – but there would be no such demand, not here. Her bolter and chainsword still at her hips, she walked up the aisle.

‘Sister Superior.’

She had taken barely six steps before there was a figure at her side, a young woman in scarlet armour that still squeaked with newness. Her helm was off, revealing a smoothly tanned face of barely twenty years, its fleur-de-lys tattoo still sharp.

‘I’m Kirah, Sister,’ she said. ‘The canoness is expecting you. Please, follow me.’

Augusta did as she was asked, following the younger Sister as she ducked between the furnaces, and out towards a narrow split in the pipes. There were no novices to attend the canoness’ orders, and Kirah must be running her messages…

And her summons.

Not showing her tension, the Sister Superior continued to pray.

Levis est mihi…

Show me to the light.

She had been waiting almost two weeks for this audience, cooling her heels in her squad’s temporary dormitorium – and she knew full well that the wait had been deliberate.

That the canoness was making her think about the consequences of her previous mission.

And Augusta understood its severity. There was every possibility that she would be stripped of her rank, her merits, her armour, and that she would find herself with the slavering fervour and eviscerator blade of the Sisters Repentia…

The thought sent a shudder up her spine.

But it was no more than she deserved.

As they approached the split, Sister Kirah glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Just a reminder, Sister, that we’re unable to use the vox until the full security procedure is completed. This is a heretek planet, its spirits unknown to us, and we cannot be sure that our information is… untainted. For now, please only use the vox in an emergency, and use only channel epsilon.’

‘Aye,’ Augusta said. She wondered if the words were a warning – telling her not to speak to her squad until she had been given permission.

The implied lack of trust made her shiver of tension worse, but she kept her chin lifted and her shoulders square.

Whatever the canoness’ judgement, she would face it like a warrior.

‘In here, Sister.’ The young woman stopped at the gap, and gestured for the Sister Superior to move ahead.

Steadying herself to stern discipline, Augusta stepped through the doorway.

And stopped.

The gap opened onto a small balcony, and a set of narrow steel steps leading around and down into a perfectly circular pit. The walls were one huge data-loom, a great ring of banks and wires and platforms, all now sleeping and covered with dust – but they were not what caught the Sister Superior’s attention.

In the middle of the floor, there was a hololith projector, currently showing the planet itself, turning slow and semi-transparent in the centre of the room. It was surrounded by red-armoured figures, every one of them bareheaded and heavily armed – Augusta knew many of them from the Convent Sanctorum, or from previous missions. The taciturn, dark-skinned Seraphim commander, Sister Nikaya. Eleni and Roku, Sisters Superior, both veterans like herself. The single unarmoured figure, grey-haired and stoop-shouldered – Rhene, the ageing Hospitaller. There were other figures that she did not know, but there was a glint of adamantine to every chaplet, a zealous flare to every gaze.

To the last woman, every one of them had stopped and looked up.

The holo-planet winked out; the silence was heavy as judgement. Augusta paused, still praying.

For truth, for strength.

For justice, in whatever manner He may decree.

Then she followed the metal stairway, around and down, and into the room. In the silence, her bootsteps clanged like bells.

‘Dismissed,’ came the canoness’ voice, clipped and commanding. ‘All except you two.’ She pointed at two of the unfamiliar figures, who stopped where they were. ‘The rest of you, the briefing will continue after Terce.’

‘Milady.’

Retrieving electro-quills and dataslates, the Order’s senior Sisters retreated from the room.

Once they had gone, the tall, ice-haired figure of the canoness emerged from behind the hololith table and stood waiting, her arms folded, her feet apart, her red armour looking almost bloodstained in the light. Her lined face was aged, but it showed no compromise; her tattoo, though blurred to blue, rested upon an expression of cold calm.

Elvorix Ianthe was a stern disciplinarian, and a warrior without peer. Augusta felt her heart contract, already knowing the fate that awaited her.

Before the Emperor I have sinned. Beyond forgiveness. Beyond forbearance. Beyond mercy…

But she reached the bottom of the steps, and saluted.

‘Your eminence.’

‘Sister Superior,’ Ianthe said, her tone acid. ‘Once again, you complete your mission, and you leave me with a headache.’ The word was a ruler-slap, a strike like pure discipline.

Augusta caught her breath, but said nothing. She stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the data-loom of the far wall.

‘Your orders were very simple, Sister – to locate and slay the witch, and to obey the mission’s commander.’ Ianthe’s voice was biting, absolutely merciless.

‘Yes, milady.’

Ianthe flexed on her toes, her armour creaking. ‘And the mission’s commander. Was shot dead. While under your protection.’ Each phrase was clearly enunciated, hitting like a fist.

‘Yes, milady.’ Her pulse pounding, the Sister Superior did not flinch.

She did not dare.

‘That fact alone would necessitate a significant reprimand.’ Ianthe paused, studying Augusta’s stone-steady expression. ‘But the commander of your mission was a member of the Emperor’s Inquisition.’ Like an irate parade-ground sergeant, she leaned in close to deliver the final word.

Her chin up, her blood thundering, Augusta continued to stare straight ahead. A hundred explanations crowded to the front of her thoughts, but she would not speak until permitted. And the canoness already knew the full story – Augusta’s report had been both detailed and thorough.

Stepping back, Ianthe let out her breath, apparently considering her next words. ‘Sister Superior. You have given your sworn oath, by the blade of Saint Mina and by the God-Emperor Himself, that Inquisitor Istrix had fallen to the Ruinous Powers. Do you stand by this oath?’

‘As He is my witness, I stand by my oath.’ Augusta’s voice was flat, her words certain. ‘The witch, Scafidis Zale, had been the inquisitor’s interrogator and he had… charmed… his way into her thoughts. While she did not know it, Istrix had herself fallen to heresy. Corporal Mors shot her to save my life.’

‘From your report, Sister,’ the canoness said, ‘he shot her to save your reputation.’

‘That is also true,’ she said. ‘As Astra Militarum, he considered himself expendable.’ She recalled Mors’ words – But you… you’re Sororitas – and continued, ‘Corporal Mors is a good man, milady, honourable and courageous. Truly, he serves the Emperor.’

‘Mors,’ the omission of the ex-soldier’s rank was both pointed and deliberate, ‘is a deserter. His life is forfeit. Why did you not just shoot him?’

The words were like a rope, lowering about her throat. Carefully, she answered, ‘He was under Istrix’s command, milady–’

‘He was under Istrix’s command.’ The canoness repeated her words; let them hang in the air like the raised whip of the Repentia mistress.

Still, Augusta did not flinch.

Ianthe watched her, then, slowly, nodded at her discipline.

‘And that single fact, Sister Superior,’ she said, ‘has secured your rank, your armour, your merits, and your continued service to this Order.’

Service…!

At the word, the Sister Superior’s belly turned over, her knees went to water. She, who had faced twenty years of combat, faced witch and xenos and heretic, faced a greater daemon on her own two feet… she found herself shaking with the shock of her reprieve.

Our Emperor, deliver us!

She wanted to sing her thanks aloud, but she held herself still.

‘I will make sure,’ and the canoness’ smile was grim, ‘to pass your gratitude to the prioress.’ The word was a warning – perhaps indicating just how close Augusta had really come to that eviscerator blade.

Sternly controlling her tone, Augusta said, ‘Yes, milady.’

‘Which,’ the canoness went on, ‘brings me, rather neatly, to her orders.’

The Sister Superior blinked. ‘Milady?’

‘Your squad is under-strength, Sister,’ Ianthe said. She indicated the two women who had remained in the room, one tall, slim and golden-haired, the other heavily built and square-jawed. ‘This is Sister Rhea, and Sister Alcina. They will be joining you for the remainder of this mission. Due to her seniority and length of service, Sister Alcina,’ – the square-jawed woman gave Augusta a curt nod – ‘will be replacing Sister Melia as your second-in-command.’

‘Permission to–’

‘Denied.’ The canoness cut across her question. ‘Since my adjutant remained upon Ophelia VII, Sister Caia de Musa will be serving me in that role. Both these Sisters will be joining your squad.’ The grim smile faded. ‘And I strongly suggest that you don’t make any further mistakes.’

Chapter Two

In the Solidarities of Saint Mina, it is written that the God-Emperor sees all. That He walks with every Sister as she carries His name into the void, that He hears the words of every hymn, the thunder of every weapon, the battle cry of every warrior.

It is also written that wherever forces are gathered in His name, there He shall be.

‘Ubi autem ambulat, ibi non potest esse deficiendi.’

Wherever He walks, there can be no failure.

After the canoness’ briefing, Sister Augusta returned to her squad in their makeshift dormitorium – an abandoned hopper-trench now warmed by the richly decorated rose banners of their Order. Pipes and conduits wove their way down a long, half-cylindrical ceiling and, at the far end, an altar now stood to His might and presence. Standing before it, the Sisters recited, softly and together:

‘That Thou wouldst bring them only death,

That Thou shouldst spare none,

That Thou shouldst pardon none,

We beseech Thee, destroy them.’

As the Litany came to a close, the newly reformed squad stood in silence, heads bowed and armour gleaming. Electro-candles glinted from their scarlet armour and from the weave of wires through the walls.

Augusta looked at each of them. Like her, her Sisters had been kept waiting while the canoness had decided their fate, and now she could feel their nervousness, like a tightly pulled wire. She looked down their line, from face to face.

Sister Melia Kaliyan, dusky and dark-eyed and, until the canoness’ recent orders, the squad’s second-in-command. The implication of her replacement was all too clear – the witch, Scafidis Zale, had touched Melia’s mind and her trustworthiness could be compromised.

Augusta trusted her Sisters completely, but the insinuation was making her flesh creep – like the nightmares left by the daemon, the witch’s mental trickery was too recent, and they needed to be wary of its residue.

Next to Melia, Sister Viola Taenaris, red-haired and freckle-skinned. In her gauntleted hands she bore the exquisitely decorated, thrice-blessed heavy bolter that, here, she carried at all times. Viola was still young, and she could be both undisciplined and unpredictable, but her courage was truly ferocious.

By Viola, Sister Akemi Hirari, with her black hair and pale skin and her dataslate already in her hand. Though the youngest of the squad, Akemi’s insight and education were unparalleled, and often she understood things that the others did not.

Beyond them, at the far end of the line, stood the newcomer Sister Rhea, tall and elegant, her blue eyes downcast. Rhea was young enough for her tattoo to be crisp, but experienced enough to already carry three merit beads on her chaplet. She bore her auspex close to hand, as Sister Caia had always done.

And behind them all stood the big, heavy-shouldered form of Sister Alcina, her arms crossed and her chaplet heavy with adamantine. She, too, was scanning the squad.

Her gaze crossed Augusta’s, and stopped.

Alcina, Augusta realised with a cold shock, was not just watching Melia.

But the Sister Superior did not permit herself a reaction, and she opened their briefing as usual.

‘My Sisters,’ she said. ‘In the name of Holy Terra and the God-Emperor of Mankind, I entreat your attention and your vigilance.’

‘Our vigilance is constant.’ The squad’s answers were clear and strong – they had done this many times. ‘We stand against the heretic, the xenos and the traitor. We carry His word and His light to every corner of the Imperium, and beyond. Cave ne saltem arce hostes. Let our foes beware.’

‘Let our foes beware,’ the Sister Superior returned the salutation, and said, ‘We have been issued our orders, Sisters. As of this moment, we are in a full-combat situation.’ Carefully, she outlined the details. ‘We will observe vox silence until the command is given otherwise. We will bear full armour and weapons at all times. We will sleep in shifts, until the order is given to mobilise.’ She nodded at the pallets down one side of the trench. ‘All combat directives will come directly from the canoness to her Sisters Superior, from whom they will be relayed.’ She paused, feeling the strength of the moment – an uplift of hope and favour. ‘Truly, the Emperor has blessed us. It has been many years since our Order stood at muster. We will carry His name, His rage, and His glory out to the coming battle.’

‘Ave Imperator.’ Alcina voiced the salute, her tone severe.

‘Ave Imperator.’ The others echoed her, but Augusta could hear their tension – they were waiting for the canoness’ verdict.

For the news of their fate.

Akemi was frowning, and her lips moved in silent prayer.

‘Sisters,’ Augusta said. ‘Before I begin the briefing proper, I bring word of the Order’s decision.’

Melia looked up sharply. Akemi bit her lip.

‘We must offer our thanks for His justice and mercy,’ Augusta told them. ‘We will be keeping our–’

‘We’re not going to be…?’ Viola left the word ‘Repentia’ unsaid, as if it were too terrible to voice.

Sister Alcina shifted, letting her armour scrape. She gave the back of Viola’s head a glare, then raised an eyebrow at Augusta.

‘You permit your squad to interrupt you?’

Her tone was harsh, and Augusta tensed. She continued to speak, her voice carefully neutral. ‘Due to her seniority, Sister Alcina will be taking the position of my second-in-command.’ She glanced at Melia, saw the dark flash that passed across her gaze, though she said nothing. ‘Sister Rhea will be acting as lookout, as Sister Caia is attending the canoness. And in answer to your query,’ Augusta addressed her new second, her tone firm, ‘my squad have waited two solar weeks for the canoness’ verdict, and the courage they have shown has been admirable.’ She flicked a warning glance at Viola. ‘You are correct, however – I do not tolerate an interruption at a briefing.’ Viola twitched and lowered her gaze, and Augusta went on. ‘Under normal circumstances, I would likewise not field new Sisters in this squad until we had trained together. Here, however, such indulgence is not practical. I expect you to follow my orders, Sisters.’

Sister Alcina paused as if weighing what Augusta had said, and then responded, her tone measured, ‘Ave Imperator, Sister Superior.’

‘Ave Imperator,’ Augusta returned. ‘I trust that this squad, with its new members, will carry the name of Saint Mina and the Emperor’s light as it has always done, and that we will discover our discipline and unity in the face of the enemy.’

Sister Rhea repeated, ‘Ave Imperator.’

‘Very well.’ Augusta nodded. ‘I will continue.’

Carefully, she moved the electro-candles and the small refectorium effigy aside and laid her dataslate on the narrow central table. The slate’s glassy surface was already flowing with slowly scrolling maps.

The squad moved closer to look.

Using her quill, the Sister Superior pointed at the screen. For the benefit of the two new members, she said, ‘You are already aware that Vastum was a forge world, stripped of its resources, and then abandoned. During our prior mission here we discovered a concealed force that the departing Mechanicus had somehow overlooked.’ From somewhere, further out in the complex, the Terce hymnal rose into the pipework, making the metal sing, high and pure.

Augusta continued, ‘The Imperial frigate Kyrus has been watching this force. She has also been scanning Vastum’s surface for any further caches of machines.’

The hymn rose to a crystal crescendo, a rise of thanks for the day, and for the coming confrontation. Augusta felt herself shiver – that familiar, glorious rush of battle-anticipation.

She said, ‘And she has found them.’

‘There are more?’ Akemi breathed.

‘In total,’ Augusta said, ‘six of Vastum’s one hundred and forty-four factoria have been found to contain a substantial force.’ For the benefit of the two new Sisters, she outlined, ‘Kataphrons – Breachers and Destroyers. Kastelans. A few Ironstriders. The Kyrus estimates two hundred single operational units.’

She paused, letting the squad catch up.

‘That’s quite an army,’ Melia commented, thoughtfully. ‘How do you overlook a force that large?’

Augusta said, ‘We are familiar with the enemy commander. We encountered the heretek Questor Rayos on our previous mission. And we have already witnessed that her machines are scratch-built, frequently lacking their full or correct armament.’ Augusta paused, looking around at her Sisters, their red shoulders framed by the Order’s banners.

‘Rayos was a trader in machine-parts and information,’ Akemi said, nodding. ‘She’s been building them.’

‘Do not underestimate Rayos’ resources, or abilities,’ Augusta said. She nudged the dataslate and the map shifted.

The squad leaned forwards, the screen’s illumination bathing their faces.

Now, the illustration had changed. In close-up it was showing a ragged scatter of rough, dark blotches, tracing their way across the planet’s watery surface like a disease. Connecting several of these was a series of long and slowly curving black stripes.

‘This is a volcanic island chain,’ Augusta said, ‘connected by a series of roads. As we can see, this cluster here intersects with one of our occupied factoria. We,’ – she tapped the slate with the quill, indicating one of the dark islands at the cluster’s outermost edge – ‘are here. Forge temple and administratum zero-point-seven-seven.’

A whisper of hymn came through the pipes, ethereal and stirring. The hairs on Augusta’s neck stood on end.

‘At the other end of this island chain,’ Augusta said, ‘waits this planet’s primary citadel.’ A new light flared on the screen’s surface. ‘It covers approximately three square miles, and encompasses the main factorum as well as the central forge temple. It is also the only place upon this cesspit of a world that still holds an operational orbital launch–point. For the last two weeks, Rayos’ forces have been converging upon this location.’

‘If they’re all in one place,’ Viola asked, ‘why doesn’t the Kyrus just launch an orbital strike?’

Alcina gave the red-haired Sister a sharp look, but Viola ignored her, still studying the screen.

The Sister Superior answered, her words pointed. ‘The citadel is defended by an Emanatus force field. Our duty is to take that force field down. Sister Rhea,’ Augusta nodded at the newcomer, ‘has seen this device before, and will be able to identify and disable it.’

‘In His name,’ Rhea said, ‘I will not fail.’

‘We pray for His blessing, Sister,’ Augusta said. ‘The road between us and the citadel is over two hundred miles. The Kyrus reports that it is currently empty, but it may not remain so once we begin our advance. Please remember that we expect to be heavily outnumbered.’ She looked around at her Sisters, meeting each gaze, making sure they understood. ‘This is why the canoness’ adjutant, Sister Aitamah, has remained at the convent.’

Silence followed her words, and a chill breath stole through the metal room, stirring the hangings. The hymn had stopped, and its absence was suddenly echoing-loud.

Viola’s hands tightened on the heavy bolter, and Akemi scribbled frantically on her dataslate.

In the quiet, Sister Rhea was muttering the words of the Litany, ‘A morte perpetua…’

Melia asked, her velvet voice cool, ‘Does Rayos have ships incoming?’

Augusta said, ‘Neither the Kyrus nor the Lux Sancta have reported incoming ships – but the canoness suspects it will not be long. The Lux Sancta has left orbit, and the Kyrus does not carry the armament for a battle, so we must move with speed.’

‘Sister, may I ask a question?’ Akemi was running the numbers, assembling her data like she was a tech-priest herself. ‘We have seen that Rayos’ forces are scratch-built – do we have further details of her army?’

‘We have the last known data from the Kyrus’ scans,’ Augusta told her. ‘We do not have the data from the citadel itself, as our scanners cannot penetrate the rock.’

The youngest Sister frowned at her dataslate, trying to work it out.

‘The canoness’ brief is very clear.’ Augusta picked up the screen and looked round at the five faces, her new squad, their armour glinting in the electro-candlelight. ‘We must reach the orbital platform before Rayos’ force can leave the planet. And if we must fight our way along every mile of road, then that is His will.

‘We face a trying battle, my Sisters. And may He be with us.’

Following the briefing, Augusta went to the Order’s chapel, one of the old forge temple’s transepts, now decorated with a full-sized embroidered banner depicting the God-Emperor Himself, His head haloed in Sol’s light, His flaming blade in hand. Around Him, the brass pipes had been cleaned, and carefully placed electro-candles made them shine like a promise.

There was no servitor to take her weapons and she was under combat orders, but carrying them in His presence still felt wrong. Augusta walked up the short aisle and dropped to one knee, her head bowed.

Her steel-grey hair fell forwards, hiding her face.

‘Tibi gratias ago tibi Imperatore.’

Thank you, my Emperor.

With the briefings over and her orders clear, she had come to offer the Litany of Thanksgiving – for His judgment, and for the justice and wisdom of her Order.

She had not realised how much she had feared the loss of her armour, and her honour. And there was no place for fear – or pride – in His presence.

Only for service.

She stayed kneeling for a moment, then came back to her feet, her head still bowed.

A deep voice behind her said, ‘Sister Superior?’

The words were quiet, respectful.

She turned, her boots scraping on the stone.

Behind her, at the very edge of the transept, two figures were also rising. They were very young, their battered gear was brown and green and Militarum, and their lasrifles were held tight at their sides, like some third limb. One of them was long and lean and dark-skinned, the other shorter and stockier with a scar through his eyebrow.

‘Mors,’ she said, to the man who had spoken. ‘Rufus.’

The two soldiers were the last survivors of the deserter squad that had been guarding the doomed inquisitor. It had been Mors who had pulled the trigger and sent the sizzle of his lasrifle through Istrix’s unwary skull.

Both men offered her the sign of the aquila.

Gravely, she returned the salute.

They glanced at each other with a flicker of awkwardness – they obviously wanted to say something, but they were two lone soldiers in the centre of a full deployment of the Adepta Sororitas, and they were both self-conscious and very out of place.

Augusta said, ‘You wish to ask me a question, corporal?’

‘No longer corporal, Sister,’ Mors said, ‘though the canoness has let us keep our gear.’

She stopped herself smiling at his rueful tone. ‘What do you need?’

‘Sister…’ Mors glanced up at the embroidered banner and straightened his shoulders. ‘Rufus and I are assigned to your squad.’

‘So I understand,’ she said. ‘And I’m glad to have you, both of you. You have proven your courage and faith many times.’

‘Our orders are clear,’ Mors said. He pulled his shoulders back even further, let out his breath. ‘We’re still deserters, Sister, and we’re to offer our lives in the service of the Emperor.’

‘Aye.’ Augusta nodded slowly, understanding. ‘You have been given the opportunity to attain redemption. To serve Holy Terra, and to die with honour. You should be proud.’

‘We are,’ Rufus said. ‘We shot an inquisitor. It’s more than we deserve.’

Both men relapsed to their slightly awkward silence, and Augusta said, ‘The Order musters at Lauds, and we will commence our advance along the roadway. My squad have been assigned a Repressor, and we will take our position at the second line of the left flank. You will report to that location.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Return to your prayers, both of you,’ she told them. ‘I will expect you in the morning.’

As the soldiers returned to their kneel, Augusta squared her shoulders and turned to look up at the banner, its gold embroidery glittering like the pipework that surrounded it.

He stared out over the transept, His face severe.

To serve Holy Terra, and to die with honour.

And the Sister Superior wondered…

Had her squad been offered the same?

Chapter Three

A filthy, rust-red dawn.

The hymn of Lauds, its close harmonies rising into the early morning dirt.

‘O Imperator, et Sol Iustitiae…’

O Emperor, the Sun of Justice…

Lycheate’s aged, bloated star was still below the horizon, and the grubby brown sky was layered with clouds like brass and blood. Scoured by dusty wind, the Sisters’ muster point was a small black stone island, little more than an upthrust rock. Foul waters battered its jagged coastline, and all of its surrounding walkways had been collapsed, bar one.

Its last metal bridge stood alone, creaking in the dawn wind.

In front of the old forge temple steps, however, there stretched a flat expanse of hard standing, and, as the sun’s leading edge brought a flare to the sky, so an answering flash of scarlet came from the force that was assembled beneath it.

Immolators, Repressors and Exorcists; twelve vehicles in perfect formation.

Waiting.

The hymn rose to a crescendo.

‘Imperator, nos hic ut laudis declate Tua!’

Emperor, hear us as we declare Your praise!

Augusta, standing with her squad beside the hard red flank of their assigned Repressor, let her hands fall to her weapons. This was a celebration of the Emperor’s dawn, of the rise of Sol over distant Terra – a sight she had never seen, but one that still began her every day.

Perhaps, one day, she would make the Pilgrimage…

…if she were blessed enough.

But today, she had another calling.

To Augusta’s right, on the far side of their Repressor’s steel solidity, stood the Order of the Bloody Rose, its red banners flapping. In the lead, the four Immolators, commanded by Sister Mikaela. Behind them, the Immolator of the canoness herself, its pipes and banners shouting loud colours into the brown dawn. Then the rank of three Repressors, Augusta’s squad on the left flank, Eleni’s on the right, and Roku’s in the centre. Behind the Repressors, there waited Sister Nikaya and the Seraphim, their jump packs ready and rumbling. And lastly, at the very rear, four of the Sanctorum-pattern Exorcists, built on Ophelia VII and more reliable than the older Prioris models.

The vehicles’ blaze of scarlet was powerful, as bright as new blood. This was the Rose, and it was ready for war.

The Hymn of Lauds came to an end, the note like an expectation; the canoness’ vox-coder blasted clear trumpets, the clarion call of muster and battle. The assembled tanks began to growl, like canids on leashes. They sounded like they, too, were eager to encounter resistance.

Feeling her adrenaline rise, Augusta uttered a prayer of her own…

‘We beseech Thee, destroy them!’

Standing in the back of her Immolator, her banner aloft, the canoness lifted her arms and her voice.

‘My Sisters!’ Across the vox-coder, her shout carried like a tantara. ‘Though we walk far from Terra, still we see His glorious dawn! Even at the farthest reaches of the Imperium, His light touches us and fills us with fire! We are His word, His will, His blade!’

Augusta felt her heart rate rise, felt the filthy wind sting her skin. Her breath was catching, now, on the metal tang that was Lycheate’s bitter atmosphere, that was war and retribution.

Ianthe’s cry was a beacon. ‘And no foe – not heretic, not witch, not xenos – can withstand our wrath!’

As one, the company thundered, ‘We fear no heretic! We fear no witch! We fear no xenos!’

The tanks snarled their eagerness. Ahead of them waited the ferrocrete roadway, stretching long and bleak between the scatters of islands. Water lashed and clawed at its edges, and along its left-hand side ran a double line of servohauler tracks, rusted and unusable.

The sun rose further, making the far horizon glitter, though its angles of metal were too distant to see clearly. The light swelled across the tanks’ scarlet gleam, and touched the canoness herself.

Her ice-white hair became a pure, cold blaze.

She was still shouting, calling out to their hearts and to their faith. ‘The lost forces of this forge world have been uncovered, and scavenged, and twisted to the powers of darkness! The war machines of Vastum, once warriors of the Omnissiah, now stand corrupted! And we will overcome them, Sisters. We will not permit the heretek Rayos to take her stolen army outwards to the void!’

Ianthe’s voice was absolute power, unassailable. Beneath it, now, music rose – the rousing sound of the Dies Irae.

‘We will not permit this heresy!’

The word emerged with the first drum-crash of the music. Augusta could see the flare of flame in the eyes of her Sisters; feel the light that lifted them all from within. The two soldiers stood at rigid attention, their rifles by their sides, their chins raised to the wind.

‘My Sisters!’ Ianthe gave one last, great shout. ‘We stand here by the Accords of Hydraphur – by the word of Saint Mina, by her blade and her courage. By the blessing of the God-Emperor and by His guidance! We are the Adepta Sororitas, and since the Age of Apostasy, our Sisters and we have stood at the gates to hell. Only we can stand sentinel here. And we say – enough!’

At the shout, hydraulics whined and the hatch of Augusta’s Repressor came down to provide a ramp.

‘Let this corroding world know the wrath of the Rose!’

One resounding response came from every throat. The Order, in unison, returned, ‘Ave Imperator!’

The sheer strength of it brought a shiver to the Sister Superior’s skin. She saw that Viola’s green eyes blazed; alight with ferocity.

A final, held note from the vox-coder, and then a moment of prayer and quiet. The banners danced and snapped; water splashed at the rocks and hissed as it withdrew.

At last, the canoness shouted, ‘Sisters… embark!’

‘Ave Imperator!’

There was a single unified stamp of boots as the Order broke formation.

And the mission began.

Augusta’s squad knew the drill; they banged up the ramp to the cold metal of the Repressor’s belly. Metal seats lined its outside; tiny slits in the walls offered them a limited view and allowed them to fire at the enemy.

Pauldrons scraped on steel as they sat.

It was dim in there, and it smelled of oil and fervour. Between the window-slits the walls were inscribed with battle-prayers, and the engine’s zealous grumble reverberated through the metal.

In the front of the vehicle sat a figure in scarlet underarmour, the padding overlain by plates of flexsteel that defended the wearer’s chest, shoulders and belly – drivers’ armour. She was not someone that Augusta knew.

‘Sister Superior,’ the young woman nodded, then turned back to the controls. ‘I’m Sister Cindal. May His grace and strength ride with us.’

‘Ave Imperator, Sister Cindal,’ Augusta returned. ‘We place ourselves in your hands, and in His.’

In the vox-coder, the blare of trumpets sounded again.

Ianthe’s voice: ‘Order… forward!’

And in the dirty red flare of the early morning light, the Sisters rolled onwards to war.

At first, they met no resistance.

The roadway was long, stretching silent over the wind-blown water, and it was desolate in its emptiness.

This far from their target the tanks were moving at an easy three-quarter speed, fast enough to eat the distance but slow enough to react to an ambush, should one occur.

The Seraphim jumped and swooped, short bursts of hit-and-run energy that conserved their fuel and allowed them to keep pace with the vehicles. Augusta would catch occasional flashes of scarlet as they came into view and then vanished again. As a younger woman she had harboured a deep wish to be amongst their number and had trained hard to hone her skills – but her dislike of heights had undone her.

Her twinge of envy was unbecoming, and her place was His will. She turned back to the prayers along the inside of the tank.

Slowly, the hours moved from Lauds to Prime, and the sun struggled upwards, weary and swollen. Slowly, lines of light from the window-slots moved across the tank’s interior. Outside, the filthy waters grew as wide as the horizon; they rolled and sloshed at the roadside, splashing garbage and remains.

At the front of the company, the Immolators’ auspex searched for mines, and found nothing; above them, the Kyrus’ scans were constant and thorough. And the formation rolled onwards, keeping the dead servohauler tracks to its left.

Augusta could only wait, and pray. She sat in the back of the Repressor, her Godwyn De’az-pattern bolter rested across her lap, her eyes watching the tiny passing slice of Lycheate’s polluted sea. This was the part of the battle that the Sister Superior disliked – she was restless, impatient. She wanted to be outside, singing, chainsword in hand, and cutting through the ranks of the enemy.

‘A spiritu dominatus…’

But that moment would come. She held herself still, calmly reciting the words of the Litany and hearing her Sisters echo her, one line at a time.

‘Domine, libra nos.’

The tank rolled on, and the soft rumble of its tracks was like a heartbeat.

Nothing, it seemed, was daring to stand in their way.

‘Company, halt.’

The vehicles stopped at the canoness’ vox command.

Caught in the semi-dark, stuck in the chill belly of the Repressor, there was nothing Augusta could do. She could see a narrow slice of road and water, nothing else – no enemy, no target. Frustrated, she held her position, her bolter at the weapon-port, listening to the voices in her vox-bead.

Mikaela reported from the lead Immolator, ‘Enemy sighted – two kastelans. Both stationary. One armed. They’re standing in the water, flanking the roadway. At a guess, milady, they’re lookout duty.’

‘We will send Rayos a message of intent. Immolators, advance to heavy-bolter range, and halt,’ the canoness replied.

Augusta’s Repressor was a transport and comparatively lightly armed – it held its position, its engine grumbling in protest.

In its belly, the squad sat poised, their tension almost crackling in the air.

Sister Mikaela’s voice came through the vox once more. ‘Within range. Enemy still motionless.’

‘Immolators, heavy bolters, target the armed machine. Controlled, directed bursts. Conserve your ammunition, Sisters. And fire!’ the canoness ordered.

Muffled by the Repressor’s steel shell, Augusta heard the heavy bolters’ booms and rattles, heard the hard, explosive detonations as the rounds struck their target.

The air shook with repeated impacts. Her hands tight on her bolter, she craned to see, needed to know what was happening.

But her only knowledge of the battle came from Mikaela over the vox.

‘Right-hand kastelan damaged. Both machines now in motion.’

‘Same target. Fire!’ the canoness ordered.

The bolters fired again, the sounds seeming to echo like ricochets through the inside of the tank. Augusta sat still, her shoulders tight, and saw that the others were doing the same. Viola, crouched at her weapon-port, moved her heavy bolter in an arc, seeking something – anything – to put in her sights. She wanted to fight; her recitation of the Litany was full of suppressed rage.

Mors and Rufus, likewise, had lasrifles ready to fire. They did not share the Sisters’ prayer, but they were remarkably steady, watching and waiting.

‘Incoming!’

Augusta held her breath.

Somewhere ahead of them: one colossal boom. It struck the roadway, shaking their Repressor where it stood.

She found herself trying to calculate – how far away the Immolators were, how much damage the kastelan could inflict. She knew the drill well enough – the Immolators would draw the enemy’s fire, ensuring the safety of the transports…

Until the foot-troops could be effectively deployed.

By the Throne!

She wanted to be out there, not held helpless here in the half-light. In the vox, she could hear Mikaela praying, her voice livid with courage and fury. Annoyed by her enforced idleness, the Sister Superior echoed Mikaela’s words…

That thou shouldst bring them only death!

‘Damage?’ the canoness asked.

‘Incendiary damage to the front plates, solidity still at eighty per cent,’ Mikaela replied. ‘The roadway has a crater, but the supports are holding – it’s shooting directly for us.’

‘He is with you, Sister – trust in His wisdom,’ the canoness said, her words like the call of trumpets: ‘Same target. Fire!’

Again, the heavy rattle of bolters. There was the rasping grumble of tank tracks – the Immolators were moving, but Augusta couldn’t tell if it was forward or back. Her blindness was infuriating; her hand tightened even harder on the bolter. She needed to be out there, fighting for her Sisters, but still, she could feel the rush of His presence in the sounds of the battle, in her Order’s manoeuvring, and in the canoness’ experience…

Someone behind Augusta – Rufus, she thought – muttered a savage expletive.

She knew how he felt.

‘Machine down! Both legs damaged, it’s crashed into the water. Now fully submerged. The other one’s climbing onto the roadway.’

Once more, Ianthe thundered the command.

‘Fire!’

The rattle of the bolters sounded again, then Mikaela cried a prayer – pure, savage, celebration: ‘In nomine Eius!’

In His name!

A second later, her report followed. ‘Machine down! I think we caught them by surprise.’

‘Or they’re a warning, testing our mettle.’ The canoness’ tone was wry. ‘Either way, the enemy knows that we’re on the move, and it knows where we are – we must maintain full alertness. Is the roadway compromised, Sister?’

‘No, milady,’ Mikaela said. ‘The damage is surface only and both kastelans are down. They’re fully submerged.’

‘You’re strong, Mikaela. He walks at your side.’ The edge in Ianthe’s voice was keen. ‘Sisters, we must still expect to encounter the foe. Keep all scanners open. And may our hymns bring fear to the heart of the heretek.’

The vox crackled again, and went silent.

In the semi-darkness of the back of the Repressor, Augusta commented to her squad, ‘Maintain your vigilance, my Sisters. The canoness is right – this is only the beginning.’

Standing in the back of the canoness’ Immolator, Sister Caia had heard every word.

She stood at Ianthe’s shoulder, the glittering organ pipes and the Order’s blood-red banner rising behind her. The heavy reinforced fabric occasionally buffeted her shoulders, as if to remind her of this new duty, of its weight and seriousness. The wind was dirty and full of grit, and everything stank of cordite and promethium.

Watching the rumble and muzzle-flash of the advancing tanks, Sister Caia gripped the edge of the cupola with one scarlet gauntlet, held her auspex in the other. She should be down there, alongside her Sisters. She should be waiting to disembark, to rage and fight and fire…

But no. She had to stand here, above it, like she was forbidden to take part. And something about this new role was giving her a terrible and growing apprehension…

Surely, not now, not after this long… They couldn’t… Could they?

Even as far back as the schola, Caia had never spoken of her childhood, her family. She’d only ever wanted to be a warrior.

I want to fight, to use my bolter for His glory, not…

Ianthe, however, had offered her only a basic briefing: Caia had previous experience of the Lycheate forces, and she was here to observe.

And that was all.

Dominica’s eyes! Caia thought to herself. If my calling has changed, would it be blasphemy to refuse?

Before the Immolator’s rumbling tracks the roadway was black and pitted, and stretched onwards as far as she could see. The kastelans had been stood like some sort of ancient guardians, one to either side of the road, and up to their knees in the water. The first one had been stubborn, refusing to fall despite significant damage – but its incendiary weapon had not penetrated the lead tank’s armour and it had proved no match for the Immolators’ heavy bolters. Both machines had been shot down and had splashed backwards, there to rot away.

The Order’s first skirmish had been flawlessly executed, and it had brought courage to Caia’s heart.

The canoness, however, was more thoughtful.

Ianthe said, ‘Sister Caia. What is your assessment of the confrontation?’

Without hesitation, Caia answered, ‘Its execution was precise, milady.’

‘And the enemy?’ Ianthe said.

‘Perimeter lookout. By their corrosion marks, they’ve been stood there for many years.’

‘Good.’ She said nothing else, just turned back to the road.

In the belly of the vehicle, Rhene, the old Hospitaller, cackled aloud. Her voice floated up to them, ‘You keep your eyes open, Sister Caia de Musa!’

Carefully, Caia answered her, ‘I will do my best, Sister.’

‘You’d better!’ The old Hospitaller cackled again. ‘You never know what He might have in store for you!’ She tapped the side of her nose, and then, snorting with humour, dissolved into random mutterings.

Caia’s tension twisted harder, becoming dark with fear.

No, they can’t do this to me… Not now… Not after this long…

The tanks rolled on.

Caia stayed silent, watching her auspex.

She must follow His calling, wherever it may lead.

Yet, deny it though she might, the thin smoke of her tension remained.

Lycheate’s metallic weather was capricious, and the wind had dropped as if torn from the sky. Around them, the water lay like dirty brass, still and flat. It stretched in all directions, oil-slicks gleaming like rainbows upon its surface; in places, the dead supports of fallen roadways emerged to spike at the sky. On the far horizon, the rusting metal silhouettes of the main factoria could just be seen, flashing in the light of the still-rising sun.

The ruin of this place was huge, and hollow, and it stank.

They rolled on. Slowly, the roadway broadened and became pocked with craters. More and more great scalloped bites had been taken from its edges, places where the ferrocrete had crumbled from the forces ranged about it. At one point, one of the supports had sagged completely and the road dipped almost to the waterline, though it remained intact.

Here, the canoness gave orders to slow and progress with caution. As the vehicles dared the dip she prayed ceaselessly, her words strong and urgent – almost as if the vehicles’ grumbling spirits could hear her, and take courage. Her eyes were constantly narrowed; she watched the company’s formation intently, alert for the ambush.

But there was nothing.

Rayos, Caia knew, had complete confidence in her own calculations. However the Sisters advanced, the heretek would surely have factored it into her data. So, when the ambush came, it would be in the most effective place.

The company traversed the dip successfully, and moved on.

As Prime rose to Terce, however, and to midmorning prayers, they closed on the first factorum.

Over the vox, Ianthe gave orders: ‘Distance: one mile. Slow to one-quarter speed, all scanners.’ As the vehicles slowed, she said, ‘Sister Caia?’

‘Milady?’

The clouds were clearing now, but the air was still bitterly cold. Before them, the roadway had become significantly wider, flattening onto an island and encircled by jagged, volcanic spikes. Here, there was a junction – one side of the road turned right, and stopped at a clearly defined building, with distinct, square corners of glittering basalt. The other side, the main route, curved left and continued onwards over the water.

The lines of the servohauler tracks likewise branched to follow both roads, and here, they gleamed with the oil of recent repair.

Clearly, this was where the enemy’s territory began.

The canoness said, ‘Your assessment please.’

Caia immediately responded: ‘They have cover, and the possibility of a flanking manoeuvre if we move forwards too far. If we are to be assaulted, then this is where that assault will take place.’

‘My thoughts also,’ Ianthe said. ‘Captain?’

‘Regrettably, canoness, the debris field is interfering with the Kyrus’ scans. I can see nothing in motion, but I fear I cannot give you more assurance.’

Ianthe nodded grimly, then said, over the vox, ‘Sister Mikaela. Situation?’

‘My auspex shows nothing. Roadway and waters all reading as empty.’

‘There may be a stationary force,’ Caia said. ‘The larger machines may be concealed by the water. Or perhaps something smaller and lighter, that the Kyrus would miss.’

‘I agree,’ Ianthe said. Then, over the vox, she said, ‘Company, weapons ready, all scanners. Sister Nikaya, hold your position, be ready to jump on my command.’

‘Milady,’ the Seraphim Superior answered.

The company slowed further, crawling along the road.

Below where Caia stood, Rhene began to sing the Litany, her old voice thin and querulous.

Unease prickled through Caia’s shoulders. The water glittered; the rocks were black as Ruin.

In her ten years with her squad, Caia had developed an almost instinctive knowledge of these situations, a real awareness as to where the ambushes would occur…

Her heart pounded. The banner flapped at her, nudging her shoulders as if taunting her with her new role.

Rhene continued to sing.

And then…

There!

‘Contact! Multiple signals!’ shouted Mikaela.

Caia’s estimation had been correct.

Rayos, it seemed, had marshalled her first ambush.

Chapter Four

Sister Caia didn’t know what the machines were, but they were bipedal, long-legged and fast.

The tanks were crawling slowly around the long curve in the road, and the Immolators had almost reached the junction. The servohauler tracks gleamed with intent, and upthrust jags of black rock were scattered to each side of the roadway, like a hill-range of spikes that protected the road from the water.

Watching for the attack, the Sisters’ voices carried on the brown air – a bugle of challenge.

And with them, a powerful counterpoint to their rising harmony, the canoness prayed, her voice a strong contralto, broadcasting the Litany out through the vox-coder.

‘From the lightning and the tempest!’

The Immolators’ weapon-muzzles tracked back and forth, waiting.

Then Caia said, like a breath of realisation, ‘Got them!’

Her auspex had blipped contact – four, no five, moving dots, all hidden among the rocks. Simultaneously, the Immolators caught the motion. As the machines came at them, the tanks’ weapons were already aiming.

Caia had never seen their attackers before, but the canoness knew what they were.

‘Ironstriders.’ She said the word aloud, like a curse, then snapped into the vox, ‘Mikaela! Heavy bolters. Wide, continuous suppression, take as many of them down as you can. Repressors, halt and prepare to disembark!’ Reaching for her helmet, indicating for Caia to do likewise, she called down into the transport, ‘Rhene!’

The old Hospitaller creaked and grumbled. ‘Aye. I’ve seen autocannons before.’ Her tone sounded like resignation – as if she knew full well the damage these guns could do.

And, as Caia closed the seal on her helm, she saw them open fire.

She closed her teeth on a curse.

Fast repeated muzzle flashes, oddly pale in the burnished ochre of the Lycheate morning. The weapons were heavy and long, their muzzles tracking from raised shields. An energy crackled about them, a mist of data that must surely be coming from Rayos herself; they shot at the Sisters while the machines were still running. It made their aim erratic, but–

Throne!

Heavy explosive rounds chewed up the roadway directly in front of the canoness’ Immolator. Ianthe snarled the Litany in return, raging at them, almost as if she could deflect the ammunition by her faith alone. The other machines were aiming at the front rank, rounds hitting and detonating on thick ceramite armour. One hit a heavy bolter with perfect accuracy, and the weapon blossomed in flame.

Metal graunched, plates buckled, tracks split and broke.

On the right flank, Eleni’s Repressor took a clean hit. Even as its emergency ramp crashed to the floor, one of its twin thermic reactors ignited and blew. The force of the explosion rocked Caia where she stood; she made an effort not to duck. Shrapnel whistled past her; black smoke rose and billowed, obscuring her view.

‘Squad! Roll call!’ Eleni said over the vox.

The canoness barked, ‘Watch your auspex, Sister Caia! There may be more.’

‘Aye.’ Prayer and adrenaline thundered through Caia’s blood. She was trying to see Eleni through the smoke, but it was heavy and thick, and it hung like a shroud over the dead vehicle.

She saw only isolated flashes of scarlet.

In the fog, though, her auspex continued to track. Five blips were rapidly closing their distance on the assembled Sisters, and the Immolators had a swiftly shortening field of fire.

Rayos, Caia realised, had calculated her ambush perfectly.

‘Mikaela!’ The canoness called the order. ‘Fire!’

A booming rattle as the tanks’ heavy bolters opened up. The smoke was billowing across the roadway now, limiting visibility, but Caia could see that the weapons were turning in an arc, hitting the enemy in the legs. Machine-armour sparked, rounds missed and exploded on the rocks. A rush of stone rumbled to the ground; the noise and dust were tremendous. As the smoke closed over the scene completely, she caught one machine toppling sideways, kicking and twitching.

But the other four were still running, straight at the assembled Order.

They had pilots, she thought, and she wondered briefly where the servitors had come from…

But there was no time. Another order boomed through the vox: ‘Repressors, disembark!’

Behind them, the vehicles’ ramps crashed to the ground. Voices shouted, boots clanged on metal, and two armed squads of Sisters deployed in perfect formation, heavy bolter first, covering the others as they took position.

Seeing them move, Eleni’s squad formed with them – a single line, five paces apart, heavy bolter at one end, flamer at the other.

Spreading the machines’ targets, and making the autocannons’ success that much harder.

In just a moment, the enemy would be past the front rank of vehicles, and closing on the Sisters.

Caia found herself holding her breath. She felt very exposed, standing up there in the open, but the canoness showed no inclination to move. Ianthe stood like an icon, fire-red and furious, her plasma pistol ready in her hand as if she would wield pure destruction.

She thundered, out over the vox-coder, ‘We beseech Thee, destroy them!’

A single shot from her pistol and an Ironstrider was toppling over itself, its entire head removed.

Molten metal spread out across the roadway.

Above it, the air was filling with trumpets and dirt and noise – the ongoing clatter of the tanks’ bolters, the heavy blasts of the explosive ammunition. The canoness was broadcasting the full Litany, now, hard and strong, defiant. Her rage was palpable, and Caia breathed a prayer, feeling her own blood surge and roar.

She wanted to be down there, bolter in hand. She looked for her squad; saw them at the outer left flank, their line made distinctive by the las-streaks of the two young soldiers. Mors and Rufus had their rifles tucked into their shoulders and aimed clean at the incoming enemy.

Two figures of green in the centre of all that blood-red ceramite – but neither of them so much as twitched.

Caia had only a split second to take all of this in, and then the command rang out, ‘Immolators, cease! Infantry, target the servitors. And fire!’

One solid volley: three squads, in unison, shot upwards at the running machines. In the onslaught of noise, Caia could pick out the deep, thunderous battering that was Viola’s thrice-blessed heavy bolter, the weapon raging as the Litany came from the Sisters themselves. The canoness was pistol-in-hand, her voice lifted, and Caia found her hackles rising with the force of the moment.

Another machine staggered under the incoming fire. It lurched, sparks racing across its surface, but it didn’t fall. Amid the confusion, Caia saw the twin streaks of red light that came from Mors and Rufus both; saw one of them hit a servitor, clean to the head.

The figure rocked in its gunnery seat, toppled, and fell. Blood and oil splashed outwards as it struck the roadway. More smoke billowed in Caia’s face, and she lost her vision. As it cleared again, she saw that the machine had run two more paces and then had lost its heading, barging into its fellows and knocking them aside.

Mors, Caia realised, blinking, was an extremely good shot.

Watching, her breath held, she prayed that the staggering machine would falter, take its comrades with it when it fell, but it rapidly regained its trajectory and continued to run, straight at the Sisters.

Its autocannon, however, had slumped forwards and ceased to fire.

All three of the surviving machines were now closing on the standing lines of infantry.

Before them, a red line across the black road, Sisters stood fearless and fast, still shooting, still singing, their close harmonics edged with focused rage.

‘That Thou wouldst bring them only death!’

Caia found herself echoing their words, repeating them over and over again – only death, only death – like a mantra. She had never seen a battle from a tank’s vantage, and she found her heart thumping hard in her chest. She wanted to be shooting, wanted to be on the ground. She wanted to be out there, amid the smoke and the noise and the slaughter; she wanted to stain her armour with the blood of her foe…

She wanted to rage denial against this feared, final fate that was finally closing down upon her, the thing she’d dreaded since she’d been a wet-eared novitiate…

I was called to be a warrior, and a warrior I will stay!

As two of the three incoming machines opened fire, she saw one red-armoured figure fall, then another – but not her own squad, they were still on their feet. The smallest figure, Akemi, had stopped to change her magazine, the movement smooth as reflex. A second later, she was firing again, her bolter held hard in both hands, her aim true.

Caia’s hands tightened on her auspex and bolter both…

‘That Thou shouldst pardon none!’

In front of her, the canoness shot again; she broadcast anger and defiance with her every sung note. In the belly of the tank, however, Rhene had stopped singing. She was muttering aloud, almost to herself, ‘Ironstriders. They’re sharpshooters, seen ’em before. On Melecantha. They ambushed us. So why are they running?’

Without thinking, Caia replied, ‘They’re trying to get behind us. There must be another wave!’

Ianthe barked, ‘Exorcists, on my command. Caia, watch that auspex!’

‘Aye.’ Caia’s acknowledgement was echoed over the vox, and she lifted the auspex, watching. And it seemed her hunch had been right – the attacking machines weren’t slowing down. Two autocannons tracked round as they ran, and again, opened fire.

One targeted the canoness.

The other aimed straight for Sister Viola.

On the ground, Augusta held her position, bolter and chainsword in hand.

She stood at the centre of her squad’s line, Mors on one side, Alcina on the other. Viola stood on the line’s inside, and Melia at its outermost edge – this was not a battle for flamers.

Echoing the canoness’ thundered song, the Sister Superior’s voice reached a crescendo as Mors hit the servitor, but the machine was still running with its fellows, through the rising smoke and straight at them.

In all the clouds of dirt, it took Augusta a split second to realise that the machine that had been hit was not firing. Without its pilot, it was simply following its last command, and, with His blessing, it would run straight off the edge of the road.

She dismissed it, concentrating on the one closest.

If that turning autocannon hit them, they would all be facing the Emperor.

But Viola was still shooting, the booming clattering of the heavy bolter filling the filthy air. Shouting the words of the Litany, she raised her aim as the thing came closer, shooting upwards and almost into its belly.

It juddered under the bombardment, explosions opening like wounds all over its frame, but still, it kept coming. Its feet were big enough to crush Viola clean to the ground. Mors shot it again, his aim not as blessed, and his streak of fire went wide. Rufus was shouting something at him, though Augusta couldn’t hear.

She said to Alcina, beside her, ‘Give me room.’

Alcina shot her a sharp look, but moved.

As the thing readied itself to fire, the Sister Superior held her chainsword ready. To their right, the other running machines were keeping pace with their fellow. One was closing on the canoness’ Immolator, the other on the far flank. Augusta could only see them as a blur from the corner of her eye, but she knew what was coming.

The running machines opened fire together, the autocannons seeming to shake the very sky.

On the far flank, scarlet armour scattered, figures were thrown in the air like toys. In the centre, the machine chewed more holes in the roadway; the canoness’ Immolator rocked, but that was all.

And in front of the squad…

The autocannon was aimed at Viola, identifying the greatest threat. As it fired, its muzzle flaring with light, Viola hurled herself bodily backwards, still shooting.

In front of her, the roadway became a series of craters, and steam and debris leapt into the air. Cursing, Viola rolled into a kneel.

Still, she kept shooting.

In the vox, the canoness: ‘Roku, right-hand machine, all bolters. Nikaya, right flank!’

Augusta heard the order, and understood that the Seraphim were moving to protect Eleni’s weakened squad, but the machine was almost on them now. She watched its foot rise, timed it as it came down, its impact shaking the road…

Lashed out with the chainsword, straight at its ankle.

The blade hit, bit, and got stuck.

A second later the running foot raised once more, wrenching her shoulder and elbow and tearing the weapon from her grip.

Grit scattered; she bit back a curse. She raised the bolter with the other hand, opened fire. Beside her, Alcina did the same. Rounds thundered; twin streaks of lasgun fire cut through the smoke. The combined shooting of the whole squad battered the thing as it ran through them, and closed on the Exorcists behind.

And then, the damage was just too much. Its armour dented and blackened, its autocannon now blocked by its own body, it lurched and began to stagger.

‘It’s going to fall!’ The shout was Akemi, as the Ironstrider twitched, rocked, and then slowly toppled away from them.

Augusta breathed a prayer of gratitude.

As it fell, the crash was tremendous. Its servitor rolled free, but Melia was already there and a single flaming whoosh melted flesh and metal alike.

A sickening, smoking smear was left on the roadway.

Ash blew on the wind.

Augusta went to retrieve her chainsword. With servitor and machine both down, she was already thinking about the rest of the battle.

‘Incoming!’ Caia cried the word aloud as five more contacts blipped on her auspex. ‘No – not incoming, they’ve stopped.’

The first wave of machines was down; the sheer, continuous onslaught of the combined bolter fire had just proved too much. Around the company, the roadway was devastation, pitted with craters, smeared by smoke and drifting with rising dirt. Four machines lay in ruins, their armour and pieces scattered. The fifth had simply run straight over the outermost curve of the roadway and vanished into the water.

Not one of them had made it through the company to reach the other side – but the inflicted damage had been severe.

At the right flank, Eleni’s squad had lost their Repressor, its driver, and two Sisters; a third was badly injured. Covered by the Seraphim, Eleni and her surviving squad-member had picked up the injured woman and had run for the canoness’ Immolator.

Rhene, still grumbling, had lowered the ramp for long enough to let them embark, and then closed it again. Her muttering continued as she tended to the downed Sister.

‘Sister Roku.’ The canoness’ bark was unaffected by the damage. ‘Move outwards, defend the right flank. We’ll hold the centre.’

‘Understood.’

On the left flank, Augusta’s squad was unhurt, but in the centre, the canoness’ vehicle had taken significant fire – its top and front armour plates were badly damaged, and although the storm bolter was still operational, it would no longer turn fully through its right-hand arc. The brass pipes of the organ were a mess, and the company’s banner was in shreds – but these seemed the least of the canoness’ concerns.

‘Locations,’ she said. ‘Caia?’

‘They’re on the rocks,’ Caia told her. ‘Two on the right, three on the left.’ She could see them – just – perched like predators, and silhouetted against the sky.

‘Extreme range.’ The canoness’ words were a statement, and rapidly followed by an order, ‘Immolators and Repressors, hold your locations. Exorcists, on my command.’

Wryly, Caia looked at the mess ahead of them. The various fallen machines had all but blocked the roadway – not Rayos’ original plan, perhaps, but effective nonetheless.

But the canoness, it seemed, was unworried. ‘Sister Jolantra! Ready missiles.’

Sister Jolantra was the commander of the Exorcist unit that guarded the company’s rear. It also, Caia knew, had the range to strike.

But, as the vox-coders began to broadcast again, the trumpet call that was the muster, the call to battle, the five waiting Ironstriders raised their autocannons at the company.

And they opened fire.

Chapter Five

The Ironstriders had the range, the vantage, and a clear field of fire.

The assembled Order had no cover.

The canoness barked at Caia to duck, shoving both of them into the belly of the Immolator and slamming the hatch as the echoing boom of autocannons filled the air.

Assailed by the noise, rocks cracked, rumbled and fell. They hit the roadway, splintering into fragments; the metal-flat water geysered with repeated impacts.

On the right flank, Sister Roku’s squad had barely re-embarked before their Repressor was slammed with explosive incoming rounds.

Roku was not intimidated. Her voice rang furious, singing the Dies Irae.

On the left, Augusta and her squad were knocked to the floor of their vehicle, falling on top of one another as the thing lurched into motion through a thundering hail of fire.

In the centre, Caia likewise hit the floor of the Immolator, nearly knocking Rhene to the ground. Kneeling over the injured Sister, Rhene snapped at her to watch herself and went back to her charge.

The injured woman had caught a spray of shrapnel in her belly, and the wound was bleeding heavily. She made no sound, but her chestplate was off, and gore seeped out through her underarmour. It leaked, steaming, across the cold metal floor.

Oblivious of the blood, Sister Superior Eleni knelt at the woman’s other side, gripping her gauntleted hand in both of her own. Her helm was off, and sweat matted her blonde hair. It slid down her skin, glittering, outlining the edges of her tattoo. She was praying for strength, for His light and mercy, and she was echoed by her squad’s only other survivor, who sat against the vehicle’s side, her flamer over her knees.

Caia joined them, the prayer bringing a flare of anger. She felt almost guilty at the woman’s injury, felt that she should have done more, been out there to defend her. By the Throne, she didn’t want to be in here, hiding – she wanted to be fighting, firing, bringing wrath and retribution…

Her nervousness was crystallising, becoming anger about its edges. Not only anger at the enemy, but anger at her situation. Questions plagued her, flickering like prayers.

Was this because of Zale, the witch? Had he touched her, too, with his heresy?

Were her squad really here to redeem themselves in death, like the two doomed soldiers?

And if so, then why had she been separated? If they were to die, then surely, she should be with them!

Or have I not proven myself worthy enough?

Ianthe’s voice cut across her thoughts. ‘They have excellent aim,’ she said. ‘If they wanted to, they could take both of us, clean from the top of the vehicle.’

Raising her voice, she called out across the vox-coder: ‘Stand fast, my Sisters! His light is with us! We do not fear death! We do not fear pain! We will fight with the last round in every weapon, with the last breath in every body! For the Emperor!’

‘The debris field is clearing. Full scan of the factorum in ninety solar seconds,’ Captain Mulier announced aboard the Kyrus.

‘Ninety seconds.’ The canoness muttered the words aloud. She had a grin like a blade, sharp and gleaming and utterly mirthless; one fist was clenched like she could take on the Ironstriders with her gauntlet alone.

She snapped, ‘Exorcists! Fire!’

Caia couldn’t see the missiles as they streaked across the filthy brown sky, but she could hear the detonations as they hit. And she could imagine the machines rocking and falling, the explosive craters blown in the basalt, the debris and rock and metal and flesh as it was flung in every direction, the plumes of superheated smoke…

She continued to pray with Sister Eleni, listening, and watching the auspex in her hand.

The explosions were moving past them, backwards through the company. She heard her Sisters curse as the shells found their new targets, and fell upon the Exorcists.

And then, from almost directly behind them, came the unmistakeable detonation of promethium fuel. A brief scream sounded in the vox, half-shriek, half-prayer.

Livid with fury, the canoness’ voice grew louder, thunderous and proud. Caia, too, prayed like a woman demented.

‘We beseech Thee!’

On her feet, her pistol still in her hand, Ianthe barked, ‘Reload! Again!’

A rumble of rubble seemed to shake the roadway.

Sister Jolantra, in the leading Exorcist, remarked, ‘One down!’ Then paused. ‘Two!’ Another pause, letting the music fill the almost breathless wait. ‘And by His grace – another one crushed by the rocks. Three!’

The canoness’ grin grew.

Caia kept praying, feeling the words surge in her blood; Ianthe was looking up at the hatch as though she would leap out of it, descending on the machines with weapon in hand and the wrath of the Saint herself…

The heavy boom of the remaining autocannons continued, now focused exclusively on the Exorcists as the greatest threat.

A third volley of missiles arced over their heads, and Sister Jolantra snarled, ‘Four!’

Briefly, the last autocannon rattled on alone. There was a rumble of falling rocks, and it fell silent.

‘Five!’ Jolantra’s voice rose in a shout, a savage paean of victory and thanks.

The gunfire had stopped, and the grumble of the Immolator’s engine seemed suddenly loud. Caia stood up, but Ianthe was already moving, opening the hatch above her head and scrambling up to look out at the battle.

Captain Mulier said, ‘Scan in twenty seconds… Nineteen…’

‘The roadway looks clear. Sister Caia?’ the canoness asked.

‘Nothing moving,’ Caia said. She jumped up, and looked round to assess the damage. ‘By His light!’ The words were a breath.

Sister Caia was no neophyte. She and Melia had served together as novitiates, and they had taken their Oath of Ordination at the same time. They had joined Augusta’s squad ten years before, had seen the savage death-green glow of the necrons at Psamitek, and the clicking seethe of massed tyranids, their rip and claw and hunger. They’d seen the graceful fury of the aeldari on Basilissica, the muscle and mockery of the orks on Lautis. They’d faced the slaver of daemons, their whips and teeth and laughter; they’d seen the roil and flare of the very warp itself…

But Caia had never been to war alongside her assembled Order, never seen her Sisters dying in numbers, nor such devastation as Rayos’ machines could inflict…

She steadied herself on the edge of the hatch.

‘We are strong, Sister,’ Ianthe said. ‘He is with us. Can you not feel His anger? Taste it in the smoke on the air? Understand His joy and wrath in the exaltation of pure combat?’ The canoness’ voice was like a plucked string, deep and strong and vibrant, and laden with blood and power.

The vox-coder broadcast, ‘Sisters! We claim victory in the name of the God-Emperor! We will not let these defiled machines stand in our way!’

The ruined banner at her back, Caia answered, along with her Sisters, ‘Ave Imperator!’

The shout carried skywards, its force almost enough to make a whorl of currents in the floating dirt.

The roadway, however, was a jumble of confusion.

Amid the drifting smoke, Caia could see the devastation – the pieces of red armour, the strewn fragments of the downed Ironstriders. The damage to the ferrocrete road was severe, pockmarks and craters marking where multiple rockfalls had tumbled after the Exorcists’ missiles had hit.

Sister Jolantra, it seemed, had been targeting the overhanging stone as much as the attackers themselves.

Mikaela’s Immolator was already rumbling over the top of the mess, crushing all beneath the vehicle’s relentless tracks.

Caia checked her auspex, but there was nothing else in motion.

Captain Mulier barked. ‘Five… Four… Three…’

She breathed a prayer…

‘And clear,’ Mulier said. ‘As far as I can tell, milady, the factorum is empty.’

‘The Ironstriders must have waited, and then run out to meet us,’ Ianthe answered grimly. ‘But, as the Treatise says, He defends those best who defend themselves… we will pause to make sure.’

Augusta’s orders were clear – the vehicles would secure and hold the junction, and she and her squad were to disembark and scout the empty factorum on foot. They were not to engage, they were just to observe and report. If there were any threat remaining, they would ensure its final destruction.

As the Order closed the gap upon its mission target, nothing could be left at its back.

‘Understood.’ In the back of their Repressor, Augusta relayed the new orders to her squad, and to the two waiting soldiers.

Viola pulled a face, thought better of it, and stayed quiet.

‘We move in three solar minutes,’ Augusta said, shooting a warning look at the red-haired Sister.

‘Aye,’ Viola replied.

The Sister Superior was very aware of Sister Alcina, standing with her arms folded and her expression flat. Alcina had not been impressed by Augusta’s attempt to take down the Ironstrider by striking at its foot, though she was disciplined enough to say nothing. Augusta had the uncomfortable sensation, however, that Alcina was still watching her.

Watching all of them.

‘Sister?’ she asked.

The Repressor jerked untidily sideways as it crushed rock and machine beneath its progress. Augusta caught at the roof to keep her feet. From the front, Sister Cindal called, ‘Auspex still clear, advancing on target. Ramp will drop in two minutes.’

Alcina said, ‘I will speak to you privately, Sister. When we have a moment. The enemy is our first priority.’

Augusta gave her a long, steady look, but offered no further response – this was a combat situation, and not the time. When Alcina finally dropped her gaze, the Sister Superior nodded, then said, ‘Viola and Rhea, take point. Melia, take rear. Mors, with me. Rufus, with Sister Akemi. We will enter by the side access and follow the left-hand wall, staying under cover of the balcony and the empty hoppers. If anything moves, we observe and report, and we await further orders.’

The Repressor’s engines slowed, and the vehicle came to a stop. Cindal said, ‘Still nothing, Sisters. Twenty seconds ’til I drop the ramp.’

‘Helmets on,’ Augusta said. ‘May His light follow us into the darkness. May His wisdom watch our pathway.’

Cindal said, ‘Three seconds, Sisters.’

The ramp’s green light flashed, its hydraulics whined. And even before it hit the ground, Viola and Rhea were moving, their cohesion smooth and easy.

But a new problem had developed.

The factorum’s concourse was gritty with black ash and fine, metallic sand. In the aftermath of the battle, it had been stirred to wakefulness by the ripples of rising heat, obscuring the Sisters’ preysight and limiting their field of vision. Viola reached the bottom of the ramp with a curse, and dropped to a kneel, her heavy bolter aimed out across the factorum’s foreground – what she could see of it. Rhea followed the motion, letting Viola run forwards once more. Their deployment was faultless, a movement completed a thousand times.

‘Can’t see a damned thing.’ The curse was Rufus. ‘Could be anything moving in all this!’

Augusta barked, ‘Suit-lights!’

Six beams of light glimmered through the billowing dirt as the squad followed, weapons in hands.

Atop the Repressor, the storm bolter was tracking, covering them, but there was nothing to see.

Augusta said, ‘Sister Rhea?’

Her long form like a bloodied smear, Rhea returned, ‘Nothing, Sister Superior. No motion.’

‘Keep scanning,’ Augusta said.

Six Sisters and two soldiers moved swiftly – five paces, and kneel, five paces, and kneel. Dependent completely upon Rhea and her auspex, they moved towards the left-hand side of the building, their suit-lights picking out the glimmers of mica and obsidian, buried in the rock, the twin gleam of the servohauler rails.

‘Still nothing,’ Rhea said.

The building loomed high, identical in shape to the previous factorum, the one in which they’d caught Scafidis Zale. This time, however, it lacked the attaching metal walkways, and its left-hand side was butted up hard against the rock. The area provided a lee of shelter, and as they came closer, their vision cleared and they could make out the door that Augusta had meant. It bore a line of binary numerals and a cog-and-skull symbol that they’d seen before.

‘Incaladion,’ Akemi said. The word seemed heavy, its syllables like rocks, rolling onwards through the dust.

‘Rayos’ home forge world,’ Augusta commented.

‘She must have known all this was here,’ Melia said. ‘Why else did she come to this planet?’

‘Aye,’ Augusta responded. ‘Many of these machine-parts must be centuries old.’ They moved onwards, and saw that the servohauler tracks ended at a huge and echoing depot, empty and dug backwards into the cold rock wall. ‘She must have worked hard, to rebuild this army.’

‘We estimate that Rayos has been here for maybe two decades,’ Akemi said. ‘I do not clearly understand the ways of machine-spirits, but she must have worked hard indeed to build this many machines in that short a time.’

The air in the depot was still; there were no engines, nothing. The lines of tracks gleamed in mockery and an odd chill went down the Sister Superior’s spine.

This many machines…

It was a glint of suspicion like the tip of a blade, caught in a poorly healed wound…

That short a time.

But the depot offered no answers. At Augusta’s order, Viola and Rhea reached the door to the factorum, and stopped.

Unlike the various heavy double doors that allowed the machines themselves into and out of the building, this one was normal size – for servitors, helots and tech-priests.

‘Still nothing,’ Rhea said. ‘If the Kyrus’ scans are correct, this factorum was emptied more than two weeks ago.’

Sister Alcina muttered in the vox, ‘I dislike this, Sister.’

‘I hear you,’ Augusta agreed. Then, ‘Quietly if you can, Sisters. The Emperor rewards caution.’

Carefully, Rhea reached out. The door didn’t move. She tried again, then stepped back, and, with little effort, struck it with one red boot. It sprang open, slamming backwards, and Viola was already through it, her heavy bolter and suit-light covering the space inside.

But there was nothing there. Nothing moved. Nothing opened fire. No lights glared, no sirens wailed…

‘Of course,’ Augusta commented, straight-faced, ‘He also rewards audacity.’

Muttering the words of the Litany, she gave the order to advance.

The factorum was empty.

The space was huge, covered in the dust of centuries. And yet that dust had been tracked with recent movements and shifted into patterns – there had been something here, and not very long ago.

The squad spread out in twos, taking Rufus with them. Augusta kept Mors at her shoulder – the young ex-corporal had more experience of this planet than any of the Sisters, and he may offer insight where they could not.

Confronted with the deserted expanse of the factorum floor, however, he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ he said. ‘I can only offer what we already know. Rayos has removed her force from this location.’ He paused, then added, ‘Permission to speak freely?’

‘Of course.’

‘Sister, her force is fully assembled. I fear… I feel that we are wasting our time. We should strive to reach our target before Rayos’ force can be moved off-world.’

‘Aye.’ Augusta nodded, thinking. ‘But the Kyrus will warn us if anything else enters orbit above the platform.’

Mors did not argue. ‘Yes, Sister.’

They went back to pacing the vast and empty space, trying to piece together the movements from the marks in the dust – but it was almost impossible. The exploring Sisters answered their roll calls, one pair after another.

They, too, were finding nothing.

At last, Augusta and Mors came to a stop before the one point in the factorum that had really caught their interest.

A shrine.

A Mechanicus shrine, clearly the factorum’s main place of worship – to Augusta it looked more like a miniature workshop, a place of pict-screens and pipes and furnaces and maintenance. Binary prayers were embossed in its metal walls and, under them, there were other marks that were clearly machine dialect, something that she could not read.

She called for Akemi, and continued to look.

The area was clean, clear of the ever-present metallic dust; it had recent oil stains where machines had been assembled or repaired. It also bore a cog-and-skull, one that they were starting to find familiar.

‘Incaladion,’ Augusta said. ‘Again.’ She stood looking at it, and then realised something else. ‘This one is more recent than the mark on the door.’

‘By some considerable time.’ Mors ventured an agreement, his hands gripped round his lasrifle, the weapon tucked hard into his shoulder. He was watching the empty factorum, as if convinced that they’d missed something.

‘Am I correct in recalling, Mors,’ Augusta said, ‘that Rayos had scarred over the mark of her home world?’

‘Yes, Sister,’ he said. ‘I recall the same thing.’

‘She is a heretek. She has abandoned her world, denied it. So why would she make its mark in her workshop?’

He blinked. ‘I do not know.’

Augusta said nothing, and continued to examine the shrine. There was little else to see – a small stacked data-bank, a forgotten cogitator, a hanging line of basic tools and attachments, all of them clean and recently used.

Akemi arrived at a run, Rufus with her. The young medicae had caught a shrapnel-cut across the side of his face, and the field-dressing seeped with red.

‘Sister Superior?’

Augusta pointed a red-armoured finger. ‘The machine dialect, Sister Akemi, what does it say?’

Akemi had almost taken her Oath of Ordination to the Order of the Quill, and her linguistic skills were formidable. Machine dialect, however, was a difficult task for a human, no matter how good their education. She said, ‘I fear I can read very little of it, Sister–’

‘Try.’ Augusta’s word was an order.

Akemi turned her suit-light on the text, and frowned. After a moment, she said, ‘Toll the great bell… Sing praise… the God of all… It’s a prayer for maintenance, for the reconstruction and accession of broken machine-spirits…’ She paused, then said, ‘No – not reconstruction. Creation.’ She started to explain the difference in phraseology, but Augusta stopped her with a raised hand, and she finished, ‘This is a birth-prayer.’

‘A birth-prayer?’

‘Yes, Sister,’ Akemi said. ‘This shrine was not created by this world’s original tech-priests. It’s a place for remaking, for joining parts of a spirit to make a new whole.’ She paused. ‘I do not know if this is heresy.’

‘That surely depends on the parts,’ Augusta said, her tone bleak – though she, too, did not understand enough of the ways of the Omnissiah, nor of the heretek.

Akemi had confirmed her suspicion, however, acknowledged that blade-spike of aggravation that was biting into her thoughts…

‘There is something else here,’ she said. ‘And I am beginning to suspect that it, too, once came from Incaladion.’

Chapter Six

With the factorum declared secure, the canoness called muster.

Leaving two of the Exorcists to watch the road, the company moved to take advantage of the empty depot. The vehicles turned around, the manoeuvre smooth and practised, and then halted, their engines still running.

Sister Nikaya and the Seraphim paused to refuel, and then moved from squad to squad, assessing their damage and speaking to each Sister Superior in turn. And, as they did so, Ianthe addressed them all from the top of her Immolator, the stone roof making the vox-coder echo like thunder.

‘My Sisters! This road is bleak and long, but with His blessing, we have come far! The God-Emperor strides at our side, and the corrupted machines cannot stop us! We bring wrath, and fire! We bring the light of Holy Terra to the darkness that is Lycheate! Stand fast, my Sisters, and walk tall!’ She paused, looking round at the waiting tanks. ‘The heretek Rayos has tested our mettle, and she will test us again. We may face another ambush, or mines along the roadway. And if, by the Emperor’s grace, we reach the citadel without mishap, then we will still face a considerable assembled force. Captain Mulier, aboard the Kyrus, is watching the roadway with orbital eyes, and we will be ready for any eventuality!’ She paused, and Caia looked out at the red ranks of vehicles – two now missing where the Ironstriders had struck, many more showing the char-marks and buckled plates of the autocannons’ impacts.

The canoness went on, ‘Thanks to the wisdom of Sister Superior Augusta, we also now believe that Rayos is not working alone – she is likely to be working for, or with, an older power, possibly another Incaladion heretek.’ Another pause, but the only response was engine noise – vehicles snarling with the eagerness to be off. ‘We will identify and execute both Rayos and her collaborator.

‘Show courage, my Sisters! Unfurl your faith like a banner and carry it high in the wind!’ Ianthe spread her arms and turned to take in all of them, as if she led and offered courage to each Sister, to each vehicle, individually. ‘We carry the heart and the torch of the Order of the Bloody Rose! We carry the courage of Mina herself. We carry the faith and fury of the Adepta Sororitas. We carry His name, and His glory, and we know no fear! Ave Imperator!’

In response, the Sisters gave a single, thundered, ‘Ave Imperator!’

Echoing the salute, Sister Nikaya gave the Repressor a stern nod as she passed – her personal check of each squad had been completed.

The information, Caia guessed, would be communicated over a tight-beam link to the canoness alone.

Vox-coder trumpets blared, and Ianthe blazed, ‘Forward!’

The engines rumbled their anger, and the company rolled onwards once more.

Caia stood in the cupola, her auspex in her hand.

Leaving the junction and the empty factorum behind them, the ranks of the Order, still in formation, drove out along the curving black road. The enemy knew that they were coming, and the Sisters raged their defiance.

They broadcast the Dies Irae like a dare.

Quantus tremor est futurus!

The vehicles kept a strong but steady speed, the lead vehicle’s auspex constantly scanning the roadway ahead. There were fewer islands now, just a scattering of upthrust rocks, and the road itself hung over the limitless foul waters like some vast and endless bridge, a long line of industry and achievement that led onwards to the distant horizon. The Seraphim returned to their jump-pattern, and the hard chant of the hymn was a known thing – it rang out with wrath, solid and reassuring.

To Caia, it felt powerful, lifting her chin and her heart and reminding her that, no matter how huge the acid sea, His presence travelled with them, in word, in deed, and in weapon.

Their enemy awaited them, and they would not fail.

As they rolled onwards, however, they began to encounter a new difficulty.

Following another of its impulsive mood swings, the planet’s weather was deteriorating. The fat Lycheate sun had struggled its way to past mid-morning, and now the roiling brown cloud was rolling back in to smother its light. Corrosive, glutinous rain was beginning to scatter across tank and roadway alike.

And where it struck, it hissed.

Defended by their armour, both the canoness and Sister Caia remained standing in the back of the Immolator, the banner behind them now hanging in soggy tatters. Steadily, the rainwater ate at the fabric.

Below them, in the belly of the vehicle, the injured Sister was sitting up and away from the hatch – and stridently declaring her fitness.

‘I can sit unassisted, thank you, Sister Hospitaller. Where is my weapon?’

Caia could hear Rhene grumbling, ‘You young women, never think to duck. What do they teach you in the schola? The Emperor is all-seeing, Sister Abril, but even He won’t stop an autocannon if it hits you square in the chest. How does that Treatise of yours go?’ The muttering continued, and Caia, startled by the old Hospitaller’s near-blasphemy, was even more surprised to see Ianthe turn and almost smile.

Catching Caia’s expression, the canoness elegantly smoothed her own. She said, without apology, ‘Rhene deserves your respect, Sister. There are few, even within our own Order, who have seen the wars, and the deaths, and the horrors, witnessed by Sister Rhene. She may bear no armour, but she is fully combat-trained – and her bolter has slain many a slavering foe, even as she has saved the lives of the Sisters in her charge. Trust in her faith, and her knowledge, and her sanguinator.’

‘Yes, milady.’ Caia said nothing further. For any Sister to have reached the age of the grumbling Hospitaller, and still be in the field of combat rather than teaching at the schola… it deserved veneration.

And Rhene, Caia was learning, saw a great deal more than she voiced.

Briefly, she thought about asking the old Hospitaller if she knew more about Caia’s own situation – what the canoness had planned for her.

She considered the option, then, reluctantly, dismissed it. Much as Caia suspected an old friendship between the two women, her inquiry would be improper. Frustrated, she looked back out across the endless rain-spattered water, and continued to pray.

Slowly, the hour climbed towards midday. They had covered over two-thirds of the waiting roadway, almost a hundred and fifty miles from their original muster-point…

Yet still, nothing had been laid in their path.

As the noontide chimes began, and the canoness broadcast the prayer for the Hour, Caia found herself becoming increasingly suspicious. She, and the others in the Immolator, recited their responses, and yet she kept one eye on the auspex, compelled and wary – almost as if Rayos could reach out to corrupt its spirit, and it would feed them false information.

But the Hour’s prayers were completed without mishap, and the rain grew heavier still, limiting their visibility to barely five yards in front of the still-moving vehicles.

The crumbled parts of the roadway were beginning to flood, now, and the tanks were forced to slow, navigating the puddles carefully, and washing up a great wall of water to either side.

After another hour, Caia began to realise that the horizon was changing. Somewhere, out through the rain, she could make out a shadow – a wide and rising blur, like the base of some vast and jagged cone.

‘Witness the citadel,’ the canoness told her. ‘Our target – and our enemy – lie ahead. We must take extreme care, in this poor visibility. If we can see them…’

Caia, reflexively, recited one of the schola’s earliest combat lessons, ‘…then they can also see us.’

‘Just so.’ Ianthe, her words thoughtful, made no further comment. She began to pray, not the familiar rhythm of the day’s Hours, or the bugled wrath of the Dies Irae, but something darker, low and soft, a rumble like a bared threat. It was the words of the Reflections ex Testamento Eius, one of the Order’s oldest and most sacred texts, and it felt like the sliding strop of a whetstone. Listening to it made the hairs on Caia’s arms stand on end, as if He stood close, right over her, watching her every breath, her every movement.

Caia found herself anticipating the coming battle with a shudder that felt like eagerness.

She was a warrior born, and she would not have this taken away, not for all the wealth in the world. And certainly not for a long robe, and a set of false and affected manners…

Spare me, she prayed. Let me serve You with fist and bolter, as I have always done.

They rolled on. The glutinous rain grew heavier still, driving sideways across a rising wind. It lashed at the waters at the edge of the endlessly long road, driving them to froth and anger. It covered the tanks in spray, and occasionally in things less pleasant. The clouds grew thicker, and lower, and soon, the island was lost.

But they still knew it lay ahead of them.

Waiting, in the gloom.

The first tank-tread triggered the detonation. There was no warning; the air filled with force and noise and smoke and the whistle of flying fragments. Startled, Caia bit back a curse.

The noise was followed by a heart-stopping silence, and then a huge ferrocrete rumble. A cry of prayer sounded across the vox. There was creaking, metal twisting and groaning; there was the rumble of desperate engines.

There was a single, massive splash.

A wave of water sloshed back along the roadway.

‘Reverse!’ Ianthe was barking the order even as Caia heard the grind of the vehicle’s gears. It backed up so rapidly that it threw them both against the front of the hatch.

The canoness didn’t pause. ‘Nikaya!’

‘Milady.’ Through the rain, the movement of the Seraphim was clearly visible – five ascending flares of determined flame marking the Sisters as they went forwards to assess the damage. Caia tracked them with her auspex, saw them hover at what must now be the edge of the road.

Ianthe called, ‘Mikaela!’

Nothing.

‘Sister Mikaela!’

Still nothing.

‘Sister Damari.’

‘Canoness.’ The voice that came back was new, and edged with a tight strain of self-control. ‘We’ve lost the lead Immolator, it went over the edge of the road. Most of the road has followed it into the water.’

‘Understood.’ Her response was bleak, but solid. ‘Sister Nikaya is coming to you – what is your situation?’

‘We’re hanging by prayer alone, milady. The other two Immolators have successfully reversed.’

‘Good. Hold to your faith, Sister. Do you need to abandon the vehicle?’

An ongoing creaking came back through the smoke, and echoed like a ghost over the open vox-channel. ‘I fear so. We do not have enough traction to pull back.’

‘Then do so, you may board with Sister Salva. Nikaya, is the roadway passable?’

‘We are blessed,’ the Seraphim Superior said grimly. ‘Truly, the Emperor is with us – the road is damaged, but has not collapsed completely. We must traverse this bridgehead carefully, and one vehicle at a time.’

Following the erratic whims of Lycheate’s weather, the wind was high and the visibility poor. As if angered by the Sisters’ impertinence, the spray roared and crashed like some furious creature, and the broken roadway groaned with strain. Gyres of garbage swilled about upon its remaining surface – jagged and rusting armaments, lost weapons, pieces of bodies where even the bone had been eaten down to its final porous fragments.

But Sister Nikaya had been right; a thin path remained visible. The twin gleaming rails of the servohauler tracks had better support and reinforcement than the rest of the roadway. They had been warped by the detonation, but Caia could see them, their lines leading onwards like a promise.

Like a holy light in the darkness, He had shown them the way.

The canoness offered a prayer of thanks.

In the lash of wind and water, Caia could see Nikaya and her squad, their flaring jump packs buffeted back and forth. They were scanning the solidity of the road and its supports, making sure.

Over the vox, Nikaya almost shouted. ‘The going is poor, but in His name, the uprights have held!’ Caia had a brief memory of the rock bridge upon Lautis, of the daemons waiting below. With a shudder, she shut the memory down. Nikaya continued, ‘We will not be stopped! Rayos and her forces await us!’

‘It will take more than mines and poor weather,’ Ianthe agreed. She seemed to be thinking, assessing the trouble ahead. ‘Sister Caia? Your thoughts?’

‘I fear I can see little more than you,’ Caia answered carefully. The green light of her auspex flickered in the rain, showing the chemical composition of the water, the heavy humidity of the air. ‘We must cross.’

‘Luceat nobis, Sister,’ the canoness told her. ‘The dark holds no terrors for those who carry the light.’

‘I carry no fear,’ Caia told her.

‘You would not be here if you did, Sister.’ The words were blunt enough to make Caia blink, but Ianthe was already giving more commands. ‘Roku, you will disembark from your Repressor and take position within the Immolator of Sister Cerena. Sister Maria,’ – this to Roku’s driver – ‘you will first traverse the bridge with your unladen vehicle. Sisters Mikaela and Damari, you will embark upon the final Immolator. If the unladen vehicle makes the crossing successfully, we will proceed.’

‘In His name, canoness.’ Sister Mikaela had hauled herself bodily from her sinking tank, and had been heaved ashore by two of the flying Seraphim, hovering precariously in the battering winds. Her driver had not been so blessed, and had drowned with the vehicle.

Mikaela sounded vicious, like she wanted the chance to strike back.

‘We will not be intimidated, Sisters, and we will not falter,’ Ianthe said. ‘We will do as He commands.’

And so, the unladen Repressor dared the road.

By His grace, the bridge held – He had demanded the fulfilment of their mission, and not even the tech-priest’s carefully calculated ambushes were enough to stop His will.

The canoness stood like a pillar of blood and scarlet, her arms folded, her orders absolute.

‘Advance!’

Following the empty vehicle, first one, then two, Immolators crept carefully out along the servohauler tracks. One at a time, they arrived at the far side and stopped, defending the remainder of the company as it traversed the gap.

Augusta’s Repressor followed.

Caia watched it with her heart in her mouth, praying for her Sisters. She had missed them at her side; she was used to her squad’s familial unity, to Augusta’s authority, to Viola’s heavy bolter, always beside her. To Melia’s friendship, and to Akemi’s knowledge.

She did not want to leave them.

Out in the raging weather, the rails were grinding as if they would give at any moment. Caia could almost hear the groaning of the already-stressed uprights, threatening to drop their support.

Yet the gleam of the parallel lines remained, a clear path through the ordeal, and the canoness stood undaunted, holding them all with the strength of her faith. Her prayers did not falter, and her voice showed nothing but pure and fervent certainty.

They would make the far side of this break.

Caia continued to pray, watching Augusta’s Repressor as it vanished into the weather. After minutes that felt like hours, the word came back over the vox that she and the squad were safe.

Caia breathed her thanks. By the light!

The canoness said, ‘Close the hatch, Sister. We must make this crossing ourselves.’

She did as she was asked, felt the Immolator rumble forwards. As it did so, the canoness’ voice changed, reciting the Litany with the strength and warmth of a chapel electro-candle. Caia found herself clinging to her seat, trying not to think about the teetering, twisting-dark road, the creaking supports, the rage of the water. If the tank went over, was it watertight? She should know this, but suddenly, she wasn’t sure. If they did fall, would they be able to open the hatch, as Mikaela had done, and reach the surface?

Inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, they advanced along the bridge.

The Immolator was blown and buffeted. The wind slammed at its side like the batter of incoming ammunition. It lurched sideways, making Caia’s belly follow it, but she continued to pray.

She wondered what would happen if Rayos’ forces attacked…

But there was no attack – perhaps even the heretek could not target through this – and they reached the far side in safety.

Following it, one at a time, came the Exorcists.

And, at last, the great and headless volcano rose blackly before them, almost as if it were waiting.

Chapter Seven

The waters’ hunger, however, had not been quite sated.

As if they demanded some final sacrifice, the very last vehicle – the Exorcist at the rear of the Order – fell as it had almost reached safety. The edge of the road gave way beneath its tracks, the ferrocrete crumbling with a thundering splash. The rails themselves held, two thin lines of steel stretching out over the water, but the roadway between them had given its last.

Yards from safety, the vehicle had teetered, rocked backwards, and then splashed to its death.

Its commanding Sister had called one final prayer before the density of the water had cut off her vox.

Watching through the weapon-ports, hating her own enforced helplessness, Augusta had prayed for the drivers, and for the spirits of the tanks that they had lost. It would be a slow and horrifying end, the polluted sea steadily eating its way inwards, and inwards, but her fallen Sisters would show no fear, even in the face of such an ordeal. Each knew, as she did, that His light and blessing awaited her.

What awaited the company was something else entirely.

And Augusta held hard to her prayers, as their objective loomed ahead.

A very short time later, they reached the shoreline of the citadel.

The road and the tracks continued, now supported above a grey and ashen beach. Here, the wind-driven water frothed and hissed, dumping a tidemark of bubbles, dirt and rubbish, but that was not what pulled the Sister Superior’s attention.

Through the weapon-port, she could just about see the outskirts of Lycheate’s central citadel: rock and beach both curved slowly upwards and into the dark, harsh side of a huge and headless mountain.

And somewhere, in there, there waited the controls for the Emanatus force field.

Borne by His blessing and courage, the Order had reached its target. The canoness’ prayer of thanks came over the vox, and was repeated vehemently by the surviving Sisters.

‘Nos gratias ago nomen Eius!’

We give thanks to His name!

Repeating the stanzas, one after another, just as she had for so many years, Augusta shifted in her seat to scan the mountainside. Beside her, Mors and Rufus exchanged a glance – this was the place of their redemption, their final stand, and they both knew it.

Once they entered the citadel, neither of them would ever see the light again.

Augusta wondered if her own squad faced the same fate.

The black stone was disturbingly familiar, reminding her of the jungle-planet Lautis. It was porous and severe, glittering with dark stars of scattered obsidian…

…and, just like before, it concealed horrors within its depths.

One thing, however, was immediately apparent.

From the Kyrus’ orbital scans, Augusta knew that the main entranceway waited some half a mile ahead of them, a colossal cave mouth that swallowed the road, and that allowed the servohaulers, and the waiting machines, access to the factorum complex.

Looking at their situation, she felt the hairs on her neck prickle with tension.

Their route back was shattered, and they could only move ahead. And somewhere, behind that vast and unseen doorway, the heretek’s assembled forces would be waiting.

The canoness, however, did not so much as pause.

‘Sister Augusta,’ she said, over the vox. ‘I have a new mission for you. Report.’

Augusta’s briefing was short and to the point.

The rain had slackened, thinning to a misty drizzle. And Sister Superior Augusta, accompanied by her squad and by the two ex-Militarum, both doing their best not to shiver with the cold, had followed their new mission orders and disembarked from their Repressor. They were moving on foot, following the dirty ash beach around the long outside of the mountain.

The soft surface was shifting and treacherous, hard to walk upon, but they dared not slacken their pace.

They did not have time.

Behind them, the surviving vehicles were continuing along the road, ready to face whatever the citadel may spit forth at them – and to ensure that Rayos’ attention was fully occupied.

Augusta was following the mission brief that had come direct from the prioress herself. And, the Sister Superior was sure, this was what Sister Alcina was here to observe.

If Augusta got this wrong, like her blade in the Ironstrider’s foot…

What had Mors said, in the chapel?

To serve Holy Terra, and to die with honour.

Mors himself had pulled his face veil up over his nose, protecting his skin from the rain. He and Rufus both had been very quiet, their lasrifles never leaving their hands, their gazes always at the weapon-ports of the Repressor. Their deaths awaited them, but they still showed no fear, and they forged on as best they could through the clumps of infuriating sand.

Perhaps, Augusta thought, Alcina was here to ensure the ex-soldiers’ deaths. One way or the other…

As if Augusta herself could not be entirely trusted.

A last breath of rain gusted across the wind, and slowly the clouds began to clear.

Guided by the scans of the Kyrus, the squad continued to follow the long curve of the beach. It was desolate and cold, but nothing came out at them, and as the visibility increased, they began to pick up the pace.

And then, they found a miracle.

Following the base of a heavy spur, their route taking them back down almost to the waterline, they stopped.

A distance ahead of them, a great billow of steam blurred the air, a continuous gusting rise of long grey smoke like the exhalations of some vast machine-spirit. And, as they crested the spur, they saw it: a wide red run of lava that came sliding down the mountainside, a flaring river of fire sloughing through the dense black stone. And, where its front edge met the water, it slowly solidified into great static waves of cooling, hissing rock, one piling upon another.

Flames licked over the water’s surface – the lingering patches of oil ignited by the heat.

The squad paused. Their suits protected them, but the air shimmered with thermal currents. Augusta had never seen such a thing, never even imagined it – this meeting of fire and water. It seemed almost to contain a spirit all of its own.

But she dared not pause long.

Stepping forwards with her auspex, Rhea said, ‘We cannot pass here, the temperature is too great. To reach the fissure that the Kyrus has identified, we must ascend the slope.’

‘Mors?’ Augusta asked. ‘How do you fare?’

The ex-corporal had left his face veil in place. He was muttering back down the line at Rufus, ‘Damned air must be eighty per cent sulphur.’ At the Sister Superior’s words, though, he straightened his shoulders and replied, ‘We fare well, though the temperature is high. And we are fortunate that the rain has eased.’

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Walk with courage, we will not be in the open for much longer.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ He paused. Then at a nudge from his squadmate, he said, ’Sister, before we enter this place, may I say something?’

Augusta stopped, indicated for the squad to do likewise. ‘Of course. But swiftly.’

‘I… we… would like you to take this.’ He held out one hand, something folded in his gloved fist. ‘It is true that we’re deserters, Sister, and we deserve only death. But we still hope to redeem ourselves, somewhere within this great citadel.’ He faltered, and Rufus stepped forwards.

‘It’s our insignia, Sister,’ he said. ‘I know we have no right to ask, but if you could take it back to our captain…’

He ran out of words, dropped his gaze, and stepped back.

Augusta held out her gauntlet, let Mors drop the insignia into her fist – the winged skull of the Militarum, a star upon its forehead.

She looked at it, and then back at the two young men, so weary and resolved.

‘Conduct yourselves with honour,’ she said, ‘and I will do so. Your tale will not go unremembered.’

The squad turned to head upwards, the mountainside treacherous and the going slippery. But here, too, a path had been laid out for them just as it had been over the water – the rocks had formed into a peculiar, regular pattern of hexagonal pillars, just as if He had been here, carving miraculous steps in the stone, and showing them the way.

‘Truly,’ Augusta muttered, ‘we are blessed. Twice now, He has left us a clear path.’

Red boots skidded, but the squad went on. Viola, her heavy bolter slung over her back, cursed as she heaved herself bodily upwards. Mors and Rufus ascended more easily, their kit a lighter load. And, as the squad climbed higher, they began to find holes in the slope – splits and cracks and fissures, places where the pressure of the volcano within had just proven too much, and had broken out through the ancient stone.

Following Rhea’s auspex, Augusta paused at the largest of these.

‘From this point,’ she said to her squad, ‘we will know little. We do not bear maps of this location, and the density of the stone will prevent communication with either the Kyrus, or with the canoness.’ She took a moment to look around at them. ‘I am proud of you, Sisters, every one of you. And you, Mors and Rufus both. This is a test of our faith and our resourcefulness, and one we will not fail. The entire Order is depending upon our success.’ The split in the stone was blacker than the mountainside, and wide enough for their armour – but only just. ‘Sister Rhea, Sister Viola. Let us proceed.’

‘Aye.’

With the auspex and the heavy bolter at their head, they left the brown Lycheate sun behind them.

From here, they would be walking blind.

But He had shown them the way, and the light they carried was illumination enough.

The tunnels were tight, and treacherous.

Augusta’s feet slipped on the cold stone. It was irregular and it tripped her constantly – it seemed that she skidded with every fourth step. In places, outcrops snagged at her shoulders or elbows, or on the tip of her chainsword. The claustrophobic sensation was uncomfortable, and the crackling in the vox reminded her, very clearly, of the hard black density of the rock.

The faint light of the tunnel mouth soon faded to a line, and then vanished completely. She had a shuddering memory of the Lautis daemon – curse it for still being able to haunt her!

This was no place to harbour such thoughts.

Their suit-lights flared hope on the rock face, and they moved on.

With the vox now quiet, Augusta began to hear the constant drip-drip of water, the noise distant and oddly hollow, and then, from somewhere else, the heavy rattle of something distinctly metallic.

Like a gate, or an overhead door.

They moved on, the green glint of Rhea’s auspex at their head. The tunnels seemed natural, jagged and angled – they looked as if some great force had struck the stone, sending splintering cracks in every direction. The spaces were narrow and irregular, unsupported by scaffolding, and yet they steadily ate their way downwards, deeper and deeper into the mountain’s heart.

Slowly, the passages grew wider… and the air grew steadily hotter.

And then, Rhea stopped.

‘We have reached the end of the fissure, Sister. This crack opens out onto a smooth-bore tunnel.’

‘Anything in motion? Any security?’

‘Not that I can detect.’

‘Be sure. Rayos’ attention will be on the tanks on her doorstep, but I do not wish to attract her notice.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Over Viola’s shoulder, Augusta could see the opening that Rhea had found – the rough, ragged split of the tunnel-edge opening out onto smoothly worked stone, and then continuing on its other side. She thought she could see the walls, engraved with the same prayers that they had seen upon the metal of the Lycheate city.

She counted the awareness check in her head, Five seconds. Four… Three…

She reached zero. Nothing had moved.

‘Very well. We will proceed with caution.’

Still, they found nothing. Out in the corridors, the security scanners lay dormant, and not so much as a servo-skull hummed across their path. Strips of lumens worked erratically, sending flickering data-ghosts along the long-abandoned walkways of the departed Mechanicus’ citadel.

‘These are not mining tunnels,’ Augusta commented. ‘They must be for maintenance, for servitors or helots, perhaps.’

Maintenance or not, the corridors were precise; their angles exact. As the squad moved on, Augusta began to see old pict-screens, vents and data-banks, and cog-marks engraved in the walls. The corroded remains of pipes wove in and out of the stone, and between them lay prayers that she could not decipher.

The air grew warmer still.

A little further, and each turning began to carry markings, denominations in both binary and machine-code.

‘Akemi,’ Augusta said, over the vox.

‘The numbers are very clear, Sister,’ Akemi responded. ‘This is conservation and maintenance level four-point-zero-six-five, and the tunnels are worked to a routine hexagonal pattern. The progression of numbers does suggest a single central control point. I would guess that it’s an identical layout to that of the factoria themselves, just on a smaller scale.’ She paused, then added, almost amused, ‘We are blessed that the Mechanicus remain so predictable.’

‘We must offer our thanks, Sister Akemi,’ Augusta said. ‘Can we follow these numbers to the central location?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Then you will join Sister Rhea, and we will continue. Viola, pull back.’

It grew hotter. The temperature readout in Augusta’s armour was climbing higher with every turning they made. Behind her, Mors was sweating profusely; he’d dropped the face veil and his dark skin shone in the suit-lights.

Soon, the air began to shimmer with the thickness of the heat.

Another turning, and another, Akemi counting as they went. A third, and they saw their first lava flow – a thin, sliding trickle that broke through the tunnel wall and oozed down towards the smoothly worked floor, cooling as it descended. It left a swelling growth like a tumour, rippling and bulbous, and slowly, slowly growing.

It also obscured the old Mechanicus wall markings.

‘So, these fissures are more recent than the tunnels themselves,’ Augusta commented. ‘It may explain why they are abandoned – and why the Mechanicus have been so reluctant to return to this world.’

‘There is no current evidence of seismic or volcanic activity,’ Rhea answered, from the front. ‘These fissures are old, and they read as stable. We are secure. Certainly for the moment.’

They continued, passing more and more of the tiny, fissured flows, some of them beginning to run together, others steadily eating through the floor. None of them were large – the Sisters could step across every one – but the temperature was still climbing.

Mors and Rufus were beginning to struggle with the relentlessness of the heat. Unspeaking, Augusta passed Mors back her water bottle.

And then Rhea told them to halt. ‘Sisters,’ she said. ‘There is a large space ahead of us. We have found the central factorum.’

The door was vast, and utterly impassable.

It was a rusted sheet of steel in the side of the mountain. It cut dead across the roadway, and across the gleaming servohauler tracks. A march of sagging pillars flanked its approach, all linked by aged steel chains; empty flame-bowls stood to either side. Turret emplacements had been long bereft of their weapons, and some huge ferrocrete statue had crumbled until only the last few feet remained.

Upon the door itself, the colossal cog-and-skull was leeringly familiar.

‘Incaladion,’ Caia said, without surprise.

Above the gate’s silent threat, the black wall of the volcano rose both faceless and headless, and the brown clouds seemed to rest upon its top. Tiny red flares shifted across its surface as Sister Nikaya and the Seraphim rose aloft to assess its defences.

‘The Emanatus force field covers only the very top of the volcano,’ Nikaya said. ‘There are multiple defence ports, but they’re sealed.’

‘Hold fast, my Sisters.’ The canoness’ tone was cautious, but contained no fear. Caia knew that they would be facing overwhelming numbers, as well as the point-defences of the citadel itself, but these things were of no consequence. Their task was to draw the fire of the enemy, while Augusta and her squad penetrated the depths of the mountain.

She prayed for them, for her fallen Sisters, for herself. Standing in the back of the Immolator, looking up at that huge and grinning skull, Caia wondered if Rayos had calculated every probability of their advance, of their every movement and choice. Wondered if the heretek had drawn them here, knowing that they would be defeated–

The auspex blipped movement.

Not much, barely a flicker – a single contact. It moved as if a sergeant walked along his ranks of troops, inspecting and commanding them, as if–

As if they were expected.

She was about to speak – some sort of warning – but the great door rattled, grumbled, and began to rise. The rasping noise of rust was teeth-gratingly painful.

Sister Caia stared forwards, and into the gaping dark.

‘How many?’ Augusta asked.

In Rhea’s hand, the glowing green screen of the auspex was still. ‘None.’

They had come to a balcony, a high viewpoint above an echoingly empty space – Vastum Factorum-01, and Rayos’ muster point.

And this one did not follow the layout of its fellows.

There were no hoppers here, no facilities for construction or creation. This was surely just a storage facility, yet it seemed endless, stretching away from them, further than they could see. It was floored with smooth black stone – the great basalt plug of the volcano. And within that stone were laid long parallel lines of gleaming steel, one after another after another, all of them vanishing into its cavernous limits. An identical series of upright supports, looming like gibbets in the half-light, rose from each one – lines and lines and lines of static mini-shrines, each one a prayer point where the stored machine-spirit could find its rest.

And every one of them stood empty.

‘The canoness’ plan has been successful.’ Augusta’s tone was quiet, and swallowed by the hugeness of the room. ‘The heretek’s force is distracted.’

Alcina answered, her voice grim, ‘Our Sisters will be paying for every moment we delay.’

‘Aye,’ Augusta said. ‘We must locate the central control node. Sister Rhea, does anything remain in this location?’

Rhea held her auspex, moving it slowly in an arc.

‘Nothing, Sister.’

‘Then we will proceed with our mission brief. We will follow the numerals to the central location, and there, we will disable the force field. And may the Emperor stand with our Sisters as they face Rayos’ army.’

Chapter Eight

Somewhere in the darkness there moved weapons, and metal, and flesh.

Sister Caia had seen the Lycheate machines before – the Breacher that had assaulted them upon their arrival, the kastelans that had answered to Rayos, and to Scafidis Zale.

She had never seen anything like this.

These things were horror-spawned, from the corrupt mind of the heretek. They were wrong, somehow – their weapons lopsided or crudely built, their bodies twisted, their feet or tracks dragging sparks that flashed like the meetings of wires. She knew little about machine-spirits, but her heart understood: these were abominations.

The red lines of tanks had formed into an inverse arc, grouped before the now-open doorway. At the centre, now, the canoness stood in her Immolator with one hand aloft, holding back her troops’ desire to fire, and waiting for the enemy to fully reveal itself, sliding and grinding like corruption from the dark.

More sounds came from above them – the defence ports were sliding open. But Nikaya and the Seraphim were waiting, their jump packs holding them tight to the rock face and out of range of fire.

From the assembled Sisters, the unified words of the Litany were like the threatening rumble of an avalanche – as if, once these machines entered the doorway itself, the might of the God-Emperor would bring the entire side of the mountain down upon them…

But Rayos was not that foolish.

Her force stopped, pausing just inside the cave’s huge mouth. It waited in the semi-dark, ragged and misshapen, listing and slumping, just as if the Ruinous Powers themselves had taken a hand in its formation.

And a voice, so familiar to Sister Caia, echoed from the stone, from the metal, from the twitching, jerking skulls of the Breachers and Destroyers…

‘Sisters,’ Rayos’ voice said. It was logic-cold, yet it somehow seemed to hiss with that same thin, cold humour that Caia remembered from their previous meeting. ‘You have erred. There is an eighty-nine-point-eight per cent chance that you will lose this confrontation. You, with your faith, and your weak and human flesh.’

The canoness did not respond, except with the continuing thud and threat of the Litany, booming like military drums.

It echoed back from the mountainside.

Caia’s hand tightened on her bolter, though it was her auspex that she watched. She said, quietly, ‘There are more of them, waiting out of our line of sight.’

Ianthe gave a single, grave nod. ‘Estimation of total numbers, Sister Caia.’

Caia replied, ‘Maybe two hundred and fifty individual units.’

‘Their greatest concentration?’

‘At the very rear.’

‘Very well. Then let us finish this.’

Her shout came over the vox-coder, blasted through the pipes that still stood upon the top of her Immolator.

‘Immolators, Seraphim! Fire!’

And the Sisters’ wrath was loosed upon the enemy.

Deep in the mountain tunnels, that first rumble of gunfire echoed like the boom of some distant heartbeat.

Augusta felt Alcina, behind her, tense; heard Rhea catch her breath. Whatever happened down here, their Sisters were fighting and dying to give them time to achieve their goal.

And they dared not falter.

‘We must move,’ she said, a thrum of urgency to her tone. ‘This mission will not permit us to dawdle.’

Beside her, Mors nodded. His nose and cheeks had taken scattered burn damage from the acid drizzle, but he’d made no complaint, and they had not stopped.

Led only by Rhea’s scan and Akemi’s counting, they began to move more swiftly.

The distant thunder of weapons continued, and the crackling of the empty vox told the Sister Superior, more clearly than any shout of urgency, that they could not afford to delay.

She reviewed her new mission orders: once they had eliminated the force field, they were to retreat. The Kyrus would be beginning her countdown the moment she had a clear line of fire.

The citadel was large enough that the massed tanks of the Order would survive…

But Augusta’s squad were on foot.

Offer your lives to the Emperor.

She silenced the flicker of doubt with a flare of annoyance. Neither Mors nor Rufus had flinched, had shown the slightest fear. And she was Sororitas – if she were to perish in the line of her duty, then it would be with courage. Despite Istrix’s death, she would face the Golden Throne knowing she had died with her honour intact.

If it were possible, however, she would uphold her responsibilities. Her squad were blameless, following her orders, and she would allow her Sisters to retreat, survive…

Spare them Your wrath, she prayed. They have done nothing wrong.

She would face her fate alone.

Alone, or with these two young soldiers that had come so far.

Akemi paused by another marker, and told them to turn left.

They seemed to be moving in an arc, heading inwards, and still down. It was a long haul, but the corridors were steadily widening and the Sisters were beginning to watch for servitors, for skitarii, or for wherever Rayos may have left here to guard her main force.

Yet still, there was nothing. If there were foot-troops, then perhaps they, too, had been mustered outside to face the canoness.

And Ianthe would show them no mercy.

Then Sister Rhea said, ‘Wait.’

In the silence of the corridor, they paused.

The tunnels were still. Brass pipes ran like veins along their ceilings; wires clung to the stone, now bereft of information or power. The pict-screens flickered with vestiges of life, their half-formed data-ghosts striving to manifest. They sent odd, eerie lighting down the empty stone.

Mors said, his deep voice quiet, ‘It’s still getting warmer–’

‘The temperature has significantly risen,’ Sister Rhea confirmed, cutting him off. ‘I suspect there will be another lava flow ahead – a large one.’

‘We are very close now,’ Akemi said. ‘The central forge temple lies ahead.’

In the distance, the boom and rattle of gunfire continued.

‘Do not pause,’ Sister Alcina said sternly. ‘Our Sisters fight for our time, and we must achieve our target.’

Alcina’s repetition was unnecessary, but Augusta said nothing. Her new second was not wrong, and the Sister Superior was beginning to suspect that there might be another reason why there were no defences down there.

Rayos had no need of them.

‘Head right, then left, then right again,’ Akemi said.

‘Sister Rhea,’ Augusta commented. ‘You are familiar with the device that we seek?’

‘Yes, Sister,’ Rhea said. ‘I do not possess Sister Akemi’s literacy, but I have seen such things before, on Mete, and the Mechanicus remain obsessively consistent. I will be able to shut down the force field.’

‘We will proceed,’ Augusta said. ‘Walk swiftly, but with caution.’

‘Aye.’

They moved onwards. Augusta could not read the machine dialect that was now flickering on the half-dead pict-screens, but she could see that the strings of binary were becoming shorter.

Akemi was surely right – they were closing in on the central facility.

Mors had pulled his face veil back up over his nose – the air was becoming more sulphurous. And Augusta was beginning to see it: the light was changing. Amid the flickers of the pict-screens, there was a deeper, steadier illumination, a soft red glow that was gradually growing stronger.

The Sisters had seen this glow before.

The ruddy colour of bare lava, somewhere ahead of them.

Weapons roared alongside the vocal thunder of unified prayer. The air was thick with smoke and debris, with the flow and spark of living data, with the groaning and grinding of the strange, lopsided machines.

Surrounded by the rage of battle, the Sisters’ tanks held their position. Their stationary formation was intended to pull Rayos’ forces out of the mountain, and then bring the stone down upon them, but Rayos was too wily, and her lines did not advance.

Instead, her front rank opened fire.

Caia, still standing behind the canoness in the lead Immolator, wondered why she did not deign to duck back inside the vehicle – but the moment Ianthe raised her pistol and opened fire herself, Caia understood. A streak of yellow light hit the end Breacher and its chest simply exploded, spattering its tracked base with gore. In the remaining mess, its exposed cogs spun for a startled second, and then were still.

Caia opened her bolter to a full suppression, her rounds chewing holes in the next Breacher along. Its twisted human face showed no pain, no emotion, nothing – but it raised its shoulder and the weapon attached, and Caia knew that it would shoot straight at them.

Ianthe sang the Litany like a call of trumpets, and dared it to even consider the action.

To either side of them, the surviving two Immolators were shooting with their heavy bolters, the weapons turning in suppression arcs. The two Repressors had remained still, waiting for the moment that the Order would roll forwards and into the cave mouth, but, for now, Ianthe was still holding them where they were. At the rear, the Exorcists were loaded and ready, but Rayos had been too clever. Calculating exactly the amount to raise the door, the arcing missiles did not have the necessary clearance, and their bolters could not shoot past the vehicles in the front.

Above her, Caia was aware of the Seraphim, flitting across the rock face. With her focus on the enemy, she caught them from the corners of her vision, each one holding her place below a shielded gun port, then jumping upwards to shoot clean through the slit and eliminate the servitor, or gunner, that had been about to fire. Four of the Seraphim defeated their static targets with almost perfect flying manoeuvres; the fifth was less blessed.

She missed, and the autocannon swivelled, catching her full in the chest.

She spasmed backwards, then fell, plummeting with a streak of flame behind her.

When she hit the ground, she crumpled like a broken thing. She did not move again.

For a split second, Caia blinked at the broken corpse, appalled at how suddenly a Sister could perish, torn from the air and the battle with the brief blast of a weapon…

But she stood before the Throne, her service completed.

Blessed be her memory.

Despite the loss, however, the Order was doing damage – the machines in the front were juddering under the heavy combined fire of the two Immolators and under the huge impacts of the canoness’ shooting.

It was only as the first rank tumbled, however, that Caia realised they’d been bolter-fodder.

And that the main attack was still to come.

‘Sisters,’ Akemi said. ‘We have reached corridor zero-zero-two, and the final junction. The side of the forge temple lies directly ahead.’

‘Hold.’ Augusta’s command brought both Akemi and Rhea to a stop.

Rhea, reflexively, responded, ‘Nothing moving, Sister, but the temperature is extreme.’

The squad had paused just short of the tunnel’s smooth and open mouth. Somewhere ahead of them, red light shone up from below, bathing the rock ceiling in a rich, ruddy sheen. Beside the Sister Superior, Mors was sagging, sheeted in sweat. His clothing was stained with it, but he still made no word of complaint.

Rhea added, her voice soft in the vox, ‘Sisters, we have reached our goal.’

Domine deduc me mi Imperatoris…

A prayer in her heart, Augusta moved forwards to see for herself.

And stopped.

Their tunnel opened out at the lip of a massive rift.

No, not a rift, a chasm. A great, jagged moat that cracked clean down through the stone – an abyss from which the lava-light rose like fire, before losing itself in the vast darkness overhead.

But that wasn’t all.

By the light!

The Sister Superior held back the exclamation – she would show no fear, no doubt. But, out there ahead of her, on the far side of the rift, there rose a huge and mighty wall, black as basalt, and carved into vast square oriels and heavy, angled buttresses. It was clearly the wall of some immense cathedral, and yet it was layered with wheeled cogs, with folded cranes, with openings like vents and waste-chutes, and with colossal pipes, layered one upon another like a writhing mass of creeper. It stretched up and up, to the heights of the unseen roof, and down and down, far into the firepit below.

The pipes’ metal glowed red with the heat, but by some Mechanicus wonder that she could not begin to comprehend, it had neither melted nor faltered – and it lit the great building with a glow like pure hellfire.

‘Forge temple,’ she said, not hiding the awe in her tone. ‘In His name, I could never have imagined one so huge. Truly, this is a place of the Omnissiah, now fallen to the heretek’s corruption.’

Viola muttered a savage expletive, and Alcina silenced her with a snap. Akemi was still looking at the last set of numbers, consulting the dataslate she held in her hand. Mors had sagged against the wall, and was struggling to breathe.

‘Can we pass here?’ Alcina asked, her tone flat and unimpressed.

‘Akemi,’ Augusta ignored her second, and asked the obvious question. ‘Is there another route to the temple, or is this our only access?’

Akemi started to answer, but Alcina cut across her. ‘We must move swiftly. Our Sisters are dying while we dally.’

‘And it will avail them nothing if we also perish,’ Augusta told her shortly. ‘We have been tasked with a mission, and the success of that mission is our only purpose. Akemi?’

Akemi said, ‘There is a final junction, to corridor zero-zero-one, but it is very long. And I am not certain of its success.’

Alcina restated, ‘Sister Superior, we do not have the time for this. We must pass here.’

‘That decision is mine to take, Sister.’ Augusta’s tone was severe. ‘While offering our lives to the Golden Throne is the greatest honour a Sister may hope for, we are here to complete a mission.’

Alcina stepped forwards, her shoulders seeming to fill the tunnel.

‘It is my…’ she stopped herself, ‘…advice that we should seek passage at this point.’

Augusta did not permit herself the acid retort – such things were childish, left behind in the schola’s earliest years. But this was outright insubordination. She said, her tone flat, ‘You will do as you are commanded, Sister.’

Alcina loomed, her stance angry, but she did not push the point. Over a tight-beam channel on the vox, Melia’s voice said, ‘She is watching us. Waiting to see if we stumble.’

Augusta answered her, ‘I am aware of this. The witch touched us all too closely, and our loyalty is in question. Such doubt would insult both our honour and service, were it not based in reason. The success of this mission is imperative.’

‘Aye.’ Melia said nothing more.

At the front of the company, Rhea said, ‘Sisters, there is a way across the rift.’

Augusta turned back to the tunnel mouth. Beside her, leaning forwards over the gap, Viola muttered an epithet even more unsuitable than the first.

‘Enough,’ Augusta told her.

A distance to their right, hung above the red glow like some narrow and suspended shadow, there was a walkway, the same black stone as the wall. Heavy chains, like a drawbridge, held it, but even from here they could see that the chains were sorely corroded.

The fire lit its underside like pure, glowing hunger.

‘Sister Akemi,’ Augusta said, ‘can you give me a solid reason to not accept this alternative?’

‘I fear not, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said. Her voice carried the faintest twinge – guilt or regret – but she made no apology, and she faced the chasm without fear.

Augusta paused, aware of the eyes of the others, awaiting her decision. She had a very clear memory of the demented inquisitor, leading the squad into ambushes, traps, and probable death. Propelled by her insane belief, Istrix had sacrificed not only her faith, but her very reason…

‘Very well,’ Augusta said. ‘Once again, He has shown us the way. Three times, we have paused, and three times, we have been blessed with His guidance. Let us continue.’

Rhea nodded, and Viola stepped back, hissing through her teeth. Akemi reattached the dataslate to her hip, and Augusta was aware of Mors and Rufus, shoulder to shoulder, and all but leaning on each other for strength. With their lighter gear, they had a better chance of reaching the far side than did the Sisters, however the heat and the fumes were taking a heavy toll upon them both.

Rufus caught her looking, and offered her the sign of the aquila. ‘We will walk, Sister. We have no fear.’

‘Aye,’ Augusta said.

It was only as she offered the prayer for their courage and safety that she became aware of something else…

At some point, while they’d been discussing how to proceed, the sound of gunfire had stopped.

Chapter Nine

Augusta did not see Rufus fall.

In the continuous shimmer of the rising heat, the Sister Superior had done her best to watch both the ex-soldiers, their shoulders shaking now, their breathing straining with sulphur and exhaustion. But she could not be everywhere, and the shout from Melia made her turn.

It was already too late.

The young medicae made no sound; he did not have time. He was a tiny tumbling silhouette, black against the firelight below.

And then he was a flash.

And then he was gone.

Augusta saw Mors stumble as the last member of his squad died before his eyes.

‘Decidit gloria.’ She answered his shock, his grief, with a gauntleted hand under his elbow, holding him up, with the words she’d learned when she’d seen for the first time a fellow Sister offer her life.

Decidit gloria…

Mors was shaking, she could feel it, but he took his own weight, picked the words up and repeated them, calm above the slavering heat.

Fall with honour.

Alcina gave a low impatient growl. ‘We must not pause here.’

A flare of ire rose in Augusta’s heart, just like the flare of fire they’d seen from below – they were warriors all, fighting servants of the God-Emperor, and they were stronger together. There was always a moment to find or pool their courage.

Yet Alcina was right, they could not linger here. Augusta ended her prayer, glanced at Mors, and gave the order to go onwards.

And so, with Rhea and Viola still at their head, they reached the end of the drawbridge, and the great, black wall that was Vastum’s central forge temple.

‘In times of fear,’ Augusta’s schola tutor had once told her, ‘you may rely upon two things. What are they? Your armour and your weapons? Yes? Anyone else have an answer? Your faith, Sisters, and your training.’

The old woman had been a warrior herself, and her lesson had stayed in Augusta’s heart – reflex was a powerful motivator. And now, as they moved carefully, skirmish formation, through a black stone archway and down through hollow corridors, she understood the wisdom of those words. Their faith was unquestioned, and it was manifest in every single one of these well-known actions, in the smooth operations of her assembled Sisters. Rhea and Viola worked well together – they had slotted into their roles as Sisters should. But Alcina…

Augusta was aware of her second’s eyes, always upon her back. They made her itch.

And that itch shamed her, despite its persistence – were they not all Sisters, in the service of the same light?

They went onwards.

Very soon, the corridor turned through an angle, the exact same sixty degrees as the outer tunnels – it seemed the temple, too, was crafted to hexagonal design. There were no numbers here, however, and Rhea and Akemi seemed to be moving on pure instinct, following the pipes and the stonework, as they headed for the building’s heart.

As they moved on inwards, they began to encounter cloisters, though nothing like Augusta had known before. Great arcs of conduits surrounded hexagonal spaces, each one with a rusting metal shrine at the centre, and its cog-and-skull engraved in the underlying stone. In other places, short steps led them upwards, and great steel portcullises were long rusted into place. They hung above the Sisters’ heads like teeth, ready to descend.

And then, at last, they came to the side door and the transept, and the heart of Vastum’s might and power.

The place where that central control node would be waiting for them.

Rifles, cannons, blasters.

The bright-white glow of phosphor and the blossoming red detonations of high-calibre rounds.

Half-hidden by the shadows of the doorway, the second rank of Rayos’ force laid down their fire.

Caia’s auspex was telling her – though the canoness already knew – that they would not advance.

But Ianthe was calling orders, pulling the Exorcists up, extended file, alongside the Immolators, and commanding the whole single rank to roll forwards, protecting the troop-bearers behind the advancing front.

This was not a battle for infantry.

Not yet.

It was, however, a battle for the Seraphim.

Down to four, the airborne Sisters swooped in under the edge of the door, and flew a straight strafing run all along the stationary line, each hammering down rounds from her twin bolters as she passed swiftly overhead.

The line of machines did not react. It was not human, it could not flinch or be distracted – but the damage was being done.

The Breachers and Destroyers, out at the flanks, were more vulnerable. Shots to their human heads took a severe toll, and already their fire was lessening. As the Seraphim reached the far end of the line, four of the waiting machines had been destroyed.

And the red tanks rolled in, relentless, trumpets blaring from the vox-coder, towards the standing line of their foes.

Any conscious enemy would surely have baulked, but the machines did not move. The canoness took cover, then shot a standing kastelan clean to the face, and watched it topple sideways, taking its nearest neighbour down with it. Blazing with righteousness, she targeted a second, and her streak of yellow fire struck its shoulder. It did not fall, but its cannon misfired and exploded, and sent a flash of light outwards through the black stone.

It let Caia see one thing very clearly – the height of the roof.

And it seemed Ianthe had seen it also.

The canoness’ voice snapped the order, ‘Exorcists! Missiles, on my word!’

The greatest concentration of numbers was at the very back. Caia didn’t know if Rayos was here with her troops, or simply picking up the projected data as they fought, but wherever she was, she must surely be defended.

Perhaps she was still human enough to wish to see this for herself.

But the line of machines was still shooting, and the incoming barrage was taking a toll.

Their own Immolator crunched and buckled at the impacts of heavy arc rifles and torsion cannons. One lopsided Kataphron was armed with a colossal plasma weapon – Caia had not seen its like before, but the glow of its power and the spit of its fire were tremendous. It struck one of the advancing Exorcists clean to the nose and the vehicle simply detonated, the blast immense in the enclosed space.

Above the blast, one of the Seraphim was caught in the updraft, but she rode the current with extreme skill, came back down swooping at the Breacher and spattered its head across its metal shoulders.

Still, the tanks rolled on. Still, the line facing them neither moved nor recoiled. Overhead, the arcs of the two surviving Exorcists’ missiles seemed like shooting stars in the darkness.

And where they struck, the damage was immediate. Explosions rocked the cavern; Caia’s lenses flicked in their antidazzle as the confusion of noise and pressure almost knocked her back.

The air was full of blood and smoke and oil and death.

Still, the tanks did not stop. And as they reached full speed, the canoness shouted, ‘All drivers! Ram!’

Their own Immolator struck the legs of the kastelan before it. It was slow, like some lumbering giant; its great fist went to grab and crush them, but the strike missed as they rolled onwards. As it tried to balance and turn, the blast of Ianthe’s plasma pistol hit it in the side and it twisted into a complete fall, crushing the Breacher beside it to metal and pulp.

In the vox, Caia could hear Sister Nikaya, the power of her hymn carrying her and the Seraphim forwards on another swoop-and-kill. They were sticking to the far flanks, out of the line of fire of the incoming vehicles.

But another kastelan was ready for them. Sharper than its fellow, it timed Nikaya’s strafe and it met her, head-on, with one massive fist.

Steel met steel; the jump pack coughed and guttered. At the noise, Ianthe’s voice caught on a furious crescendo. For a split second, nothing seemed to happen, Nikaya seemed to almost hang in the air… and then her jump pack flickered and went out completely, and she fell, down and down, and into the darkness. In the turmoil, Caia could not see where she’d landed, and the auspex was too confused to pick one contact out of the mess.

The canoness was shouting, now, livid and furious, snapping orders of war and retribution.

Rhene was moving, but Ianthe took a moment to bark, ‘No! Stay where you are! You are necessary and I cannot lose you!’

To Caia’s either side, the other two Immolators were still rumbling on, their heavy tracks carrying them insistently forward, and aiming their full rate of fire at the standing machines. They could hardly miss, and the machines were taking significant damage, but they were close, now, almost upon them. One of the Breachers coughed flame, but the fire fell back from the Immolator’s armour. The other one lowered its heavy cannon to shoot point-blank.

The impact crunched the Immolator to a dead stop. Still shooting, straining to see, Caia thought that something had come loose from the front of the vehicle and was jammed in its tracks. The cannon was already powering up to shoot again, but the Breacher jerked and faltered under a hail of incoming rounds.

‘Their flesh is their weakness!’ Belatedly, Caia realised that the canoness had been giving commands for the last few moments. ‘Strike them in the head if you can!’

Fervently, Caia lifted her voice and continued to shoot, her smaller bolter seeming to do little damage. By contrast, the canoness’ pistol was ferocious, every hit a kill, every kill a celebration, every celebration a prayer.

The second line of machines was almost down, and the Order was still moving, still pressing forwards.

But Rayos, it seemed, had not finished with them yet.

The forge temple was silent, and ruddy with the sullen glow of lava-light. It was a great vaulted hollow, cracked to the core, isolated by the yawning depths of its moat, and by the huge, hollow height of the mountain that encased it… and it carried an odd sense of unease that was making the Sister Superior sweat.

‘Rhea,’ Augusta said, her tone showing nothing of her tension. ‘Do you know what you seek?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Rhea sounded edgy, but she showed no hesitation. ‘We must find the focus of this building’s lost faith.’

‘We will stay together,’ Augusta said. ‘I do not trust this place enough to split our strength. Viola, stay with Rhea. Akemi, Mors, with me. Alcina, Melia, watch our backs.’

‘Aye.’ The formation closed tight, weapons bristling in every direction. At Rhea’s indication, they headed through the transept for the wide space visible ahead.

Still, they had seen no servitors, no guards, not so much as a cogitator or a floating servo-skull…

But the sweat that slid down Augusta’s spine left a shudder as it passed. Unlike the headless corpse of the great cathedral upon Lautis, this space did not feel empty. It felt full, full of heat, full of potential and hostility, full of data, full of writhing streams of information that still moved across the air–

It felt like it was watching them.

‘There.’ Rhea’s indication was unnecessary, they could all see the wide stone steps that led up to the central altar. It was not a stone plinth, a place of electro-candles and effigies; it looked more like a construction, a great layering of furnaces and walkways and steel steps, a tech-priest-made machine-spirit that should have been the Omnissiah’s strength on this, His distant world…

But it lay dead, its furnaces cold, its walkways sagging. Like Lycheate itself.

And then, a piece of it moved.

The third rank of Rayos’ defences.

Still no sign of the heretek herself, just her massed machines, line after line of them, ranks of foes that the Sisters must cut their way through.

Yet these, Caia thought, looked different. They were clean-lined, and better made. They stood straight, their weapons strong. They lacked the writhing of wires, the exposed joints, the poorly made tracks, and the old welds across their steel bodies.

Almost instinctively, Caia understood that the previous two ranks had been built in haste – that, for the weeks since the Sisters’ arrival, Rayos had been concentrating on massing her force.

These machines had been made correctly, with more care, and time. As if they had been made by something–

‘These are older,’ the canoness said, finishing Caia’s thought. ‘Rayos could not have built–’

They did not have time to discuss the fact.

The air was alive, and the massed machines were opening fire.

Rayos.

Augusta recognised the heretek from their previous mission – small, for a tech-priest, malign and misshapen. Her half-human face bore a slick of recent burn scars and one blue eye, and she wore a familiar black-shimmer cloak. She moved to the head of the steps as if she could deny the Sisters access to anything she chose.

‘Sister Superior,’ she said.

Her voice, too, was recognisable, that same chill, analytical scorn. When Rayos spoke in human words, it felt like the heretek was lowering herself to the level of inferior beings.

In response, Viola aimed the heavy bolter, the weapon the best answer she could give. Melia’s flamer gouted a belch of fire, as if it were eager for a second try.

‘Heretek,’ Augusta answered.

The tech-priest shifted, clicking. ‘You have come far, Sisters. Two-hundred-point-one-four miles. We have watched you. We have calculated your every move. Your every response has been within expected parameters. And you have arrived precisely on schedule.’

Augusta was aware of Sister Rhea, auspex in hand, searching for the mechanism. She saw Rayos note the motion; saw the minute tilt of her head, its angle exact. It looked almost like amusement.

‘Your questing will avail you nothing,’ Rayos said. ‘You will perish here, all of you. And your weapons and equipment will be valuable.’

Augusta closed her hand on her chainsword. She wanted this over, wanted to slay this accursed heretek, but she dare not make a mistake. Alcina’s eyes were on her, and Rayos…

The fallen tech-priest knew how to calculate the odds.

She must know that she could not take on all six Sisters by herself.

And she’d said, ‘we’.

The Sister Superior came forwards, right to the bottom of the steps. She was looking for the concealed force, the gun emplacements, the backup or reinforcements that were giving Rayos this mathematical confidence. She said, pushing, ‘We are cutting your army to pieces.’

‘Not my army, Sister,’ Rayos said. Again, that tilt of almost amusement. ‘My vanguard.’

What?

Augusta felt Alcina tense; the clatter of her armour was audible.

Rayos said, ‘You have erred. Your assault is destroyed. There is a ninety-four-point-eight per cent chance that your canoness will perish.’

‘By the light!’ Alcina’s voice. Her boots sounded on the stone. She was moving, but Augusta did not turn. The Sister Superior was fixed on Rayos at the top of the steps, her black cloak glistening like a living thing.

‘Your odds are nothing, heretek,’ Augusta said. ‘We will bring His light back to the darkness. Viola!’

The younger Sister shifted, and Augusta could feel her eagerness to fire – a crackle of faith and fury that defied the pure logic of the corrupted temple. One directed burst from the thrice-blessed heavy bolter would splatter Rayos’ remains across the forge-works behind her.

Then something said, ‘Sororitas.’

The Order’s tanks were losing.

Drawn forwards by the machines ahead, they had allowed a flanking manoeuvre to close in about them. Their line was enveloped at both ends, and they did not have the weapons to face a front that long.

Still standing, still broadcasting righteousness and ferocity, the canoness was a one-woman army, the bright blasts of her plasma pistol taking down machine after machine. Caia stayed behind her, her smaller bolter seeming to do no damage, but she kept firing nonetheless.

Another Immolator lost, another detonation that made after-images spark across the Sisters’ vision. And there were foot-troops, now, skitarii and servitors, faster than the lumbering machines and moving in close.

But the Repressors, too, were firing – the Sisters inside were opening up through the weapon-ports even as the storm bolters on the vehicles’ tops moved to keep the skitarii at bay.

As the foot-troops closed about the lead Immolator, the canoness was over the edge of the hatch and right in the middle of them, her chainsword now in her other hand and whipping through two of them at a time. She sent them toppling and reeling, sparking as they fell.

She sang as she cut them to pieces, her voice incensed with fury.

In her ten years of service, Caia had never seen anything fight like Elvorix Ianthe.

She shot at them herself, those that were close enough – the battle was rapidly becoming a blur. The vehicles were still driving slowly forwards, clean over the top of anything foolish enough to get under their tracks, but the sheer weight of numbers was proving too much. Aloft, three Seraphim were changing tactics and picking careful targets – swooping in to alpha-strike a single machine and bring it down, and then moving onto the next.

Steadily, they stopped one end of the line.

But it was not enough.

The canoness, in the vox: ‘Where are your squad, Sister Caia? They should have reached the temple!’

‘I do not know!’ Caia had no answer, and could only pray. ‘I do not know!’

‘Sororitas.’

The voice was rusted with age, strained with disuse.

It made a shock of pure cold go down Augusta’s spine.

Almost on top of them, something was moving.

The Sister Superior turned, bringing blade and bolter to cover the motion.

And stopped.

By the Throne!

The thing was big – huge – and it loomed like part of the shadows. As it shifted, it creaked and groaned as if it were somehow unused to motion. The temple’s sense of data, unseen in the air, coalesced about it like some invisible aura.

Viola glanced, but she kept her heavy bolter on Rayos, ready to fire.

‘Hold your fire.’ Augusta’s command was swift. The new figure was strange, oddly hunched. It moved sideways, one step at a time, almost as if it were in pain. And it seemed wrong, somehow, twisted with age and rust.

‘Sororitas,’ it said, again. The word was a machine-whisper, a flicker through the empty temple. It was a hiss like a bellows, like the escaping of steam. It sounded as if it were decaying from the inside.

Augusta stared. Watching it, she had a leap of understanding, a sudden sensation of everything making sense – as if the Emperor Himself had revealed to her the answer…

She said, ‘Vius.’

The figure stopped. It said, its voice scraping, ‘Designation Incaladion Tech-priest Dominus 01-Vius.’ It wheezed like metal laughter, like fingernails rasped down a new set of armour. ‘Vastum belongs to me.’

‘Vius.’ The echo was Akemi. ‘The inquisitor told us. After the Mechanicus abandoned Vastum, it was Vius who first landed–’

‘That would make him two centuries old,’ Viola answered her sceptically.

‘Data – uploaded and preserved,’ Vius said. ‘Metal – worked and preserved. Only flesh falters. Incaladion awaits my return.’

‘You want to go home,’ Augusta said. ‘That’s why everything still bears the Incaladion mark.’

Again, that rusted wheeze that might have been laughter. Unlike Rayos, Augusta could see no flesh upon this figure, nothing that remained of his once-human body. She wondered how he retained his emotions… such as they were.

Humour…

…and vengeance.

‘You will not leave here,’ she told him.

Vius hissed. ‘You err, Sister Superior. Your every move has already been calculated. You are here to shut down the Emanatus field.’

‘And what’s to stop us?’ Viola asked him, her tone harsh. ‘You?’

There was a long, full pause. In the far distance, the sound of gunfire had started up again. Vius twitched his metal skull to one side, a mocking parody of listening, and came further forwards, his huge frame looming over them.

An odd heat radiated from his cloaked body. This close, he was genuinely daunting, his hunched figure far bigger than the Sister Superior, bigger even than Alcina, armour and all. And when he shrugged his multiple shoulders, letting his black cloak puddle to the ground, his vast array of limbs and weapons made him look like some colossal stalk-eyed insect, poised and ready to strike.

The air of the temple seemed to move around him, ready to do his bidding.

‘Flesh is weak,’ he said. ‘You cannot reach the control panel. You will not leave here.’

He lifted one arm, and a surge of gunnery skulls rose with the motion, surrounding the Sisters with their broad and toothy grins. Rayos still stood at the top of the steps, and her cloak, too, had puddled to the floor.

You cannot reach the control panel.

You will not leave here.

The heretek dominus would tear them all to screaming pieces.

Chapter Ten

There were no pews, nothing that could offer the squad good cover.

And the heretek dominus knew it.

His limbs were widely deployed with a horrific selection of weaponry – a vintage stubber, a steel axe, other things that Augusta did not recognise. She was already turning away, barking orders, telling her Sisters to spread out and flank him–

A bright ball of energy struck her full in the chest and stuck there, like some guiding light.

And every skull in the temple opened fire, aiming at the illuminated spot.

Her armour denting under the onslaught, Augusta was battered backwards, her feet skidding on the stone. She raised her bolter.

But Viola had just been waiting for the chance.

Switching targets, and with a prayer like a paean, she hit the heretek dominus with the full rate of fire of her thrice-blessed heavy bolter.

It did nothing.

Static crackled about his frame, a flashing wash of brilliance that simply stopped the rounds in mid-air. They hit, detonated, surrounded him in a corona of fire…

But they did not touch his metal body.

Swearing, she tried again.

Seeing the force field, however, Augusta was already changing her orders. She was unhurt, but her armour was dented hard enough to restrict her breathing; she checked for cracks in the floor, faults in the ceiling, anything that Viola could shoot that was not the tech-priest himself.

But Vius was too cunning, and he was moving too swiftly. One strike of the axe took Viola’s feet from under her and she crashed over sideways, her armour crunching as she hit the floor.

Augusta shouted, ‘Melia! Take Rhea, and target Rayos! Find this mechanism! The rest of you, the skulls!’

‘Aye!’ Both Sisters ran for the steps.

The temple was filled with noise – the crash of metal boots on stone, the hammer and blast of bolter fire, the chiming rise of anger and song. The skulls hovered and faltered and fell, echoing hollowly as they cracked against the floor.

But, even as Augusta turned her attention back to the heretek, they were rising again, answering to the endless data-stream of Vius’ commands.

Augusta barked, ‘Concentrate your fire, Sisters! Keep them down!’

Bolters thundered.

The heretek dominus had been right about one thing – if they did not bring him down, and swiftly, then they would not be able to deactivate the field.

And if that happened…

Focused now, Augusta freed her chainsword. Rasping it to full motion, she took one skull, then a second, clean out of the air. As one of them twitched back to life, she brought her boot down upon it, smashing it.

She was shouting in the vox, ‘Rhea!’ and sparing the briefest of glances for the top of the steps.

Framed by the lava-gleam of the forge-works, Rhea and Melia had parted to flank Rayos. The younger tech-priest’s movements were swift and fluid, her claws and tools keeping both Sisters back. She had been hit by Melia’s flamer once before, and was staying well out of its range.

But Augusta had no time to bark further orders – Vius was still moving, now focused on Viola as the greatest threat. Even as the younger Sister rolled back to her feet, the axe struck her again, hard across the belly.

Vius’ strength was incredible. Viola’s chestplate cracked clean through, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs. Her song fell from the air. Halfway to her feet, she went over once more, metal screeching on stone as she skidded backwards across the floor.

Augusta’s sword took out another skull.

‘Rhea!’

Rhea’s voice in the vox: ‘I have it! It’s up there, Sister, behind the altar! It’s the pull switch on the right! We…’ Her words suddenly faltered, then faded to a crushed softness, like pure horror. ‘By the light, he’s right. We cannot reach it.’

‘What?’

Augusta took a split second to look, and to see what the Sister had meant.

Along the back wall of the temple, high above the forge-works of the altar, there ran a steel gantry. It allowed a priest or servitor access to an array of prayer-screens, diagnostics, switches, levers, and gauges. But to reach it…

To reach it, they would have to ascend a narrow metal ladder, covered by a cylindrical cage. Rhea – or Akemi – might have been able to fit through the cage’s gap…

But not in full armour.

And Rayos was still in the way.

You will not…

Augusta felt her heart freeze. Her mind turned over options – could she cut through it, perhaps? Could they occupy Vius and Rayos for long enough for one of the lighter Sisters to drop her wargear?

But she knew the answer – Vius had anticipated this, all of this. The heretek dominus had calculated his ploy flawlessly, knowing they were helpless, drawing them in.

So he could kill them all.

A prayer formed in her heart, almost like a plea.

She did not get the time to voice it.

Vius lowered one limb, and there was a flare of rippling heat.

Viola screamed in the vox, a noise that made Augusta’s hair stand on end. She did not move again.

Without pause, he turned the arm on Akemi. Again, the air shimmered. She reeled backwards, throwing up her arms, then staggered and fell.

Thin smoke stole from the joints in her armour.

Dominica’s eyes!

Augusta mouthed a horrified curse. Alcina, spitting the words of the Litany, strode forwards as if she would take Vius apart with her gauntleted hands. At the top of the steps there was a burst of flame and a semi-mechanical hiss. The Sister Superior did not dare look.

They were out of time; the squad was being taken to pieces. But they had to take down that force field, even if it cost them their lives.

Our Emperor, deliver us!

By the light – Vius had known this, all of this. From the beginning, he’d known their numbers, their deployments, their plans. He had extrapolated their every move with the efficiency of pure critical analysis. Nothing they had done had surprised him, and here he was, at the last, mocking them with their failure. Knowing that he could take them down, one at a time, and that they could not touch him.

That they could not reach the force field.

That they must leave their Order to die.

But there was no room for hopelessness, no option for despair.

They would succeed, or they would perish trying.

With unspoken agreement, Augusta and Alcina parted to divide Vius’ targeting, but the heretek dominus was pure, metallic symmetry, insectile and graceful, unassailable. Two-handed, now, Augusta slashed at his weapon arm with the running chainsword, but the effect was the same – the field sparked with energy and the blade simply bounced, the after-shock travelling up her arm.

Alcina was still shooting, firing single shots at Vius’ back, but to no effect. She was knotted with anger, fearsome and furious. In the clash and the clatter, Augusta realised Alcina was a truly powerful fighter.

But it was not enough. They had no weapon that could touch him, no way of reaching that switch. They were going to fail, not only themselves but the entirety of their Order…

And then, Augusta realised something, like a shaft of pure light striking down through the red glow of the temple. His touch, in the heart of the heretek’s corrupted power.

An answer.

The thing that Vius had missed, the one variable that he had not calculated.

The single member of this force that was not supposed to be here.

Mors.

As the realisation hit her, she flared with hope and defiance. She gave the squad a single command – alpha strike! – to concentrate everything they had on Rayos at the top of the steps.

They had to get her out of the way.

She said to Mors, ‘Can you get up there? Pull that switch?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Mors didn’t argue, and he didn’t waste time. He slung his rifle – he’d need both hands to climb – then ran for the altar.

They both knew that as soon as either tech-priest saw him, he was dead.

It was just a matter of time.

Howling, Augusta drove at Vius with the chainsword, battering him back, holding his attention. Vius hissed. He seemed to retract into himself, then he lashed back out again like some coiled spring, that huge axe hammering with incredible mechanical force. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flare of Melia’s flamer, saw Rayos go over; she saw Mors reach the ladder and swing himself onto it with a wiry and long-limbed strength. He shot upwards, in and under the cage, then out and onto the gantry.

As his boots banged on the metal walkway, Vius turned.

Augusta saw the tech-priest pause, saw his shock, saw all his limbs shift to aim at the running figure. She could taste his dismay, his split-second understanding of his error.

The one thing he had not calculated.

The thing that was about to bring him down.

Vius raised the heat-weapon.

Mors threw himself at the switch.

The Sister Superior had barely a moment to understand that he’d made it, before the air of the temple shimmered.

And Mors died instantly, in a hiss of superheated steam, much like Rufus had done.

At the cave mouth, Captain Mulier’s words came through Caia’s vox-bead: ‘The field is down. Countdown begins at ninety… Eighty-nine…’

‘Retreat!’ Even as the canoness gave the order, she was up and over the side of the Immolator. In the smoke and the noise, Caia heard the rumble as the vehicles started to turn.

But there were machines still standing. The Sisters’ force had cut scores of them down and the canoness herself had slain too many to count. Still aloft, the three remaining Seraphim covered the retreat – as the tanks turned, the airborne Sisters swooped and hammered, keeping the foes’ ranks back.

Caia hung on as the Immolator reached full speed. Looking around, she counted the remaining tanks – one surviving Immolator, as well as their own, both Repressors, two Exorcists. If she glanced back, she could see the two fallen Seraphim, still and broken – her Sisters, fallen in battle, and never to be recovered.

She offered a silent prayer, but the canoness was still barking orders.

‘Roll call!’

The responses were coming in – Eleni, Roku, Jolantra. Briefly, Caia wondered about her own squad. She offered her thanks for their success, and prayed that they were still standing.

Behind them, the machines lumbered forwards. If they had previous orders not to leave the cavern, those orders had been superseded; as the tanks came out into the open and thundered, full-speed, back down towards the beach, the rattle and rumble of the mobile force followed them, harrying them all the way.

In the back of the Immolator, Ianthe prayed, her words rising to the brass-clouded sky.

Up there, somewhere, Captain Mulier was getting ready to fire.

Ninety seconds.

Augusta had not heard the broadcast, but she knew. And she knew that they would not have time.

At the top of the steps, Rayos was down – her fallen form was smouldering under the burned remains of her cloak. This time, it seemed, Sister Melia had finished the task.

But Vius was still upright, still fighting.

And, though it would be the last thing she did, Augusta was going to take the heretek dominus down before the Kyrus killed them all.

‘Alcina!’ She barked the order. ‘Take the squad and go! Get clear if you can!’

Despite his failure, Vius was still focused, calculated and cold. His combat strikes remained implacable, relentless, one after another…

Slash, slash, slash.

Systematically, he pursued Augusta with the axe, constantly reversing his grip so he could strike from both sides. She snarled at him, parrying the blows, her arms jarring, her feet skidding, her chainsword reaching a high-pitched scream as the teeth caught on the axe-haft. In his other hands, targeting flawlessly, the stubber and the heat weapon still struck out at the squad.

From somewhere, Rhea was shouting something, her tone urgent, but Augusta did not hear her, she was intent on Vius, looking for the opening, trying to get a strike through the tech-priest’s thought-swift defences. She was aware of the shimmer of the heat-weapon, of a dive-and-clatter as a figure in red armour rolled out of the way.

And then, something in her crystallised – pure concentrated rage.

In that split second, time seemed to slow. Her heart rate became a booming bass thrum in her ears; a new strength uncurled like light through her limbs. She would pay this heretek for every life he had taken, for her fallen Sisters, for Rufus, and for Mors. She would pay him for thinking he could take down her squad, and mock the Adepta Sororitas.

Domine, libra nos!

Despite the force field, she was gaining ground, pushing him back. The repeated strikes of the chainsword seemed to flow from her like pure song, like she had become a conduit for the entire fury of her Order. He was parrying almost frantically, sparks flying from the axe-haft.

Alcina had not left; she was kneeling beside the fallen Viola. She, too, was shouting, but Augusta could not hear through the roar of blood in her ears. The Sister Superior was reciting the words of the Litany like a drum-pulse chant, rhythmic and furious with the systematic, relentless attacks of the chainsword. She let her rage fill her with pure scarlet light, with the fire that was battle-focus and absolute certainty – this thing would die.

Vius switched his axe again, striking from the other side. As he did so, she slammed it with her foot and knocked it sideways – he missed the blow and paused, just for a moment, but it was enough.

There – there! – was the opening she sought!

She slammed with the chainsword straight through his defences; his force field sparked and failed.

The blade bit home, screaming its song of destruction.

It was not enough to kill him, but his defences were down, now, and he could not free himself enough to move.

He hissed at her, all his limbs mantling high over her shoulders…

But it was too late.

Alcina was moving; Rhea and Melia were still on their feet.

Her Sisters had not left her.

And they did the rest.

Black ash, billowing in a bitter, metallic wind.

This was the limit of the tanks’ retreat – the roadway was collapsed and they could not leave the island.

The last of the machines were still behind them, lumbering down the road like monsters of nightmare, but they were not fast enough.

Ianthe shoved herself and Caia both into the Immolator’s belly, and slammed the hatch.

Over the vox, the canoness offered a prayer.

And from the clouds, there came the pure white blaze of the Emperor’s light.

Chapter Eleven

Rubble.

It steamed in extreme heat; smoke and dirt billowed over its charred and mountainous ruin.

But the tanks remained, tiny red fortresses at the edge of the destruction.

Rayos’ machines had not been so blessed.

Too slow, they had been caught by the wave of devastation. They lay twisted and blackened, their flesh melted, their metal crushed. A few had survived, but they had been easy to despatch.

In the belly of the Immolator, the canoness was offering her thanks for His protection.

Surrounded by the tank’s metal walls, Caia sat by Sister Rhene, her helm off, and swallowing tears – though there was no shame in grief, now the battle was over.

Rhene sat with her, the old Hospitaller’s voice gentle. She said, ‘Your Sisters died with honour, Caia de Musa. They stand before the Golden Throne, and they stand blessed. They have succeeded in their mission, and shown great courage.’

‘I know.’ Caia nodded, though she could say no more.

Rhene touched her knee, gentle, like an elderly aunt. ‘I have seen many things, Sister Caia – battles and horrors, the rot and disease of the deepest mines, creations of warp and Ruin. I understand that there are greater wounds than battle injuries – and I know He sees them also. You worship Him with warfare, but to me, He is a figure of great healing. His peace be upon you, and His light in your soul.’

‘Sometimes,’ the canoness said softly, ‘it takes more courage to survive. Fear not, Sister Caia, He has a plan for you. And He knows where you will–’

‘Please, milady!’ At the canoness’ words, Caia looked up, her grief suddenly congealing into a cold and absolute dread. She had known, all along, that this was coming, known that the canoness had another plan for her. She said, ‘Please don’t expel me from the Order!’

Ianthe blinked. She should discipline Caia significantly, but she seemed almost confused. ‘Expel you, Sister?’

‘I’m a warrior, your eminence. Have I not proven–’

‘And why would you be anything else?’ There was a distinct note of warning in Ianthe’s tone.

Caught, Caia paused, looking from canoness to Hospitaller and back. She said, the words falling over themselves, ‘Please, milady, my bloodline is too faint. I’m a second cousin of a second cousin, a grand-niece of a grand-niece. I know nothing of Spire politics. I could never be–’

‘You forget yourself, Sister.’ The snap was back in the canoness’ voice. ‘I comprehend your grief, and I share it – but you will control your outbursts.’

‘Milady.’ Caia inhaled, steadying herself, then let out a slow breath. During the battle, Ianthe had lost her distant, austere manner, and had become a figure of great passion and strength. Now, she returned to her unquestioned cold authority, and Caia, slightly belatedly, remembered her place.

She lowered her gaze, ‘Your eminence.’

Rhene cackled, and patted Caia’s knee again. ‘You’ve conjured this dread for yourself, Sister Caia,’ she said. ‘Fear not, I do not see you in a decorous robe. Look at the state of you – the Orders Famulous would never accept a Sister so downright grubby.’

She continued to cackle, and Caia, feeling immensely foolish, lowered her head in a prayer.

Augusta’s squad was a mess.

Guided by Sister Rhea’s experiences upon Mete, carrying their injured Sisters, they had taken shelter in the depths of the librarium, a place of vast and crumbling data-banks, of Vastum’s rotting knowledge and forgotten resources. As the countdown had measured their lives in remaining seconds, they’d almost fallen down the long stairway and then, with a desperate prayer, they’d thrown themselves on the floor.

And He had heard them. Shielded by the ancient Mechanicus’ stone and wisdom, scattered with falling dust and debris, the squad had survived the blast.

Battered, exhausted and filthy, Augusta had offered a hymn to His foresight and mercy, and a prayer of thanks for the miracle.

It seemed He was not ready to call them to the Throne – not yet.

They’d stumbled through half-collapsed corridors, through rubble and rock and dust; they’d almost crawled, half-blind, over the burned-black stone, and at last, they’d found the beach where the tanks stood waiting.

The canoness, Sister Caia with her, had come to meet them.

‘Ave Imperator, Sister Augusta.’

‘Ave Imperator, your eminence.’ At the limits of her endurance, Augusta pulled herself to her full height and returned the salute. She had Akemi over her shoulder; Viola was semi-conscious and being half-carried, half-dragged by Alcina and Melia; Rhea had Viola’s weapon as well as her own.

‘Sister Rhene will see to your injured,’ Ianthe said, indicating the Immolator. ‘Report.’

Right there, on the desolate black beach, the smoking ruin of the citadel behind her, Augusta gave that report. Her words were clipped, efficient, but aching with weariness. But when she reached the final battle, and the presence of the heretek dominus, Sister Alcina stepped forwards to stop her.

‘Permission to speak, milady,’ she said.

‘Granted,’ Ianthe answered.

‘Your eminence,’ Alcina said. ‘My orders were to report on the performance of Sister Superior Augusta Santorus, and of her squad. To assess whether the witch Scafidis Zale had left any touch of Ruin upon them, and to analyse their operation in the field.’

Augusta said nothing; she had known this was coming. But the fact that Alcina had spoken it openly…

The canoness, it seemed, had drawn the same conclusion. ‘I take it, Sister Alcina, that your report is positive?’

‘It is positive,’ Alcina said. ‘There is no touch of Ruin upon these Sisters, and they have conducted this mission with great courage.’

‘And what of the deserter? Mors?’

‘Both soldiers,’ Alcina said, ‘gave their lives, with honour, in the service of the Emperor.’ She made no attempt to explain further.

Ianthe nodded, her eyes still scanning Augusta. Augusta noticed that she, too, was filthy, her armour dented, her face and hair covered in smears and grit. Caia, likewise, her armour dirty and battered with impacts.

‘I am glad,’ Ianthe said, at last. ‘Glad that He has blessed you, Sister Superior. You are warriors born, all of you, and I am proud to call you my Sisters. He has blessed us all, this day – we have achieved our mission, slain both the tech-priest and her collaborator, and prevented their corrupted army from leaving this world. We have survived, Sisters, and we will return to the Convent Sanctorum to give our thanks.’ She cast a rueful eyebrow at the beach and the fallen roadway. ‘Though,’ she said, ‘I fear that may be a while. It seems He still has work for us to do.’

About the Author

Danie Ware is the author of the novellas The Bloodied Rose and Wreck and Ruin, and the short story ‘Mercy’, all featuring the Sisters of Battle. She lives in Carshalton, South London, with her son and two cats, and has long-held interests in role-playing, re-enactment, vinyl art toys and personal fitness.

An extract from Mark of Faith.

Darkness surrounds me, complete and heavy. Suffocating. I cannot see. Cannot hear. I cannot remember, either. Not how I came to be here, or where I came from. Not who or what I am. I am nothing, and no one. Little more than a heartbeat, inside a hollow shell. I try to speak. To make a noise of this nothingness, but I am mute as well as blind and deaf. No words will come. No voice, save for that locked tightly inside my mind.

Please.

And then, a sound. A voice, answering my silent plea.

Evangeline.

The name falls across me like a cloak, and I know instinctively that it is mine. I know the voice, too, despite how distant it sounds. How distorted.

‘Adelynn?’

My Sister Superior’s name escapes my throat and disappears into the unbroken darkness. Adelynn answers me once again with my own name, but this time she sounds even more distant. More distorted. I start to run, though I cannot see. Though the darkness mires me and pulls at my limbs like deep, cold water. But then I see it. A tiny pinprick of golden light, growing larger and closer until it resolves into a shape. A stone pedestal, draped in crimson cloth. That is where the light is coming from, only it is not light at all. It is an object. A shield, cast in steel and gold and engraved with the image of an armoured warrior bearing blade and aegis with a ten-pointed halo around her head. My heartbeat grows loud at the sight of it, for it is not a shield at all. It is the Shield. The Praesidium Protectiva.

The Shield of Saint Katherine.

‘Evangeline.’

I look up from the Shield and I see her. Adelynn is standing on the opposite side of the hallowed relic to me. Uplit in gold, she could as well be a statue, were it not for her emerald eyes.

‘Are you ready?’ she asks me, and she gestures to the Shield.

It is a question to which there is only ever one answer, but this time I find that I cannot give it. Because I am not ready. Not for this. I try to tell her so, but even that proves impossible. All that I can manage is an empty oh sound. The very definition of nothing. Adelynn’s face turns wrathful, then.

‘Are you ready?’ she asks, again. ‘Are you ready?’

Adelynn repeats the question over and over and over until the sound of it surrounds me. It suffocates me, just like the darkness. I cannot bear it, nor the disappointment in her emerald eyes, so I scream for her to stop and I thrust out my hands to take up the Shield, but the very instant that my fingertips come into contact with the gold and steel, I catch fire. It blossoms on my fingers first, before blooming across my hands and up my arms, golden yellow and flickering. It tracks over my shoulders and engulfs my body and travels up my throat until I am consumed by it in the same way that the air around me is. The fire burns fiercely, melting my armour and searing my flesh. It blinds me with its brightness, and deafens me anew with a roar that is not the roar of the fire at all, but that same dreadful question rendered in an inferno’s voice.

Are you ready?

I wake with a gasp, lying flat on my back. Still blind, no matter how I blink. Still deaf to everything but the overloud beat of my thundering heart. My teeth are chattering and my body is trembling completely from my head to my toes. I am soaked with sweat. I try to cry out, but no words will come. No sound at all. I get up, but something mires me. I fall hard onto my hands and knees, completely unable to breathe. Someone takes hold of me, firm hands printing cold onto my feverish skin.

And then, a voice.

‘Be still, Sister. You are safe.’

It is a woman’s voice. One that I do not recognise. I try to speak. To fight her. But those hands hold firm and the voice speaks again.

‘Breathe,’ she says. ‘Just breathe.’

Left with little choice, I do as the voice commands me. I breathe. I allow myself to be still. And little by little, my senses return.

Touch, first. The cold floor under my hands and knees. Then sight. Bare steel treadplate, and my own hands, wrapped tightly in blood-speckled bandages. Scent. Incense and blood and the harsh tang of counterseptic. Other sounds filter in. I hear the click and hum of machinery, and the soft murmur of prayer. I am in a hospitaller’s ward. I exhale, slowly.

‘There we are,’ says the voice.

I look up at the owner of the voice. She is of the convents. Non-militant, but a Sister nonetheless. The hospitaller is pale as new marble, clad in robes as white as her hair. I cannot tell the colour of her eyes, because she will not meet mine.

‘You were dreaming,’ she says. ‘That is all.’

I try to tell her that I do not dream. That I haven’t since I was a child. Since before my Sisters and before Adelynn and before the convents. But all that I can make is the shape of the words. A rasp in my throat, like steel on stone.

‘My name is Lourette,’ the Sister Hospitaller says, her voice patient and calm. ‘Let me help you.’

I do not resist as Lourette helps me to my feet and sits me down again on the edge of my cot. This place is not so much a ward as a private room. The walls are clad with whitewashed flakboard and hung with linen drapes. Lourette gives me a plastek cup to drink from. The water is so cold that it makes me cough myself double. Lourette holds out a silvered bowl for me as I spit clots of blood and blackness into it until I can breathe again. When I do, I taste stale air. Recycled. All at once I know that I must be aboard a starship. That I am no longer on Ophelia VII.

At the thought of my home world everything returns to me. The Contemplation. The Last of Days. Losing my Sisters, one by one. I wait for grief to strike me, to sweep over me, but all I feel is emptiness.

‘Are you in pain, Sister?’ Lourette asks.

I wish I were. Pain is honest. It gives you focus. I am not in pain. In its place, all I feel is emptiness. That deceitful nothing. I cannot explain that to Lourette, so I just shake my head and ask a question in return. It takes three attempts, because my throat is so unused to speaking.

‘What ship is this?’

Lourette still does not look me in the eyes. She sets about changing my bloodied bandages with slow and deliberate care. Even that does not hurt.

‘The Unbroken Vow,’ she says. Her voice is soft and patient, with the clipped pronunciation of the convents. ‘It is a Dauntless-class cruiser sworn to the commandery of Canoness Elivia. We are holding at high anchor over Ophelia VII.’

The information sinks in slowly. Canoness Elivia. Like so many of my Order, she was far from Ophelia VII when the Rift opened and the darkness descended.

Very far.

Dread settles over me like a shroud.

‘How long have I been here?’ I ask.

‘You have been under our care for six weeks,’ Lourette says. ‘We kept you dreaming so that you could heal.’

I take a breath that hurts. Six weeks of slumber, as my world burned beneath me. Six. Weeks.

‘Then, the cardinal world?’

I say the cardinal world but I think my home. I steel myself, expecting Lourette to tell me that it is gone. Burned and broken to nothing, like my Sisters. But she doesn’t. Instead, Lourette smiles a small smile.

‘It was spared at the final hour,’ she says.

I remember the thunderclaps. The golden light that I mistook for the God-Emperor’s final mercy. ‘By who?’ I ask.

Lourette stops in her work and makes the sign of the aquila. Her bloody hands begin to shake, and the moment before she speaks seems long and charged, like the quiet before a storm breaks.

‘By Roboute Guilliman,’ she says softly. ‘The God-Emperor’s son is arisen.’

I feel blinded all over again at her words. Unable to catch my breath. My skin begins to burn as though I have a fever. I start to shake, too. From my core outwards.

The God-Emperor’s son.

‘Arisen,’ I say, because it is all that I can say.

Lourette nods. She does not try to prevent me when I pull away to make the sign of the aquila, too.

‘The primarch came from Terra, and brought with him a new crusade to wrest back what has been taken from us by flame and by sword. Countless warriors follow with him. The Adeptus Astartes. The Silent Sisterhood and the God-Emperor’s own Custodian Guard.’ Lourette takes a breath. Another awestruck smile pulls at her scarred face. ‘And our Sainted Sister.’

Her words settle slowly on me. The God-Emperor’s son arisen. The Silent Sisters and the God-Emperor’s watchmen treading the stars. Saint Celestine, returned.

‘It is a miracle,’ I say.

Lourette goes back to removing the bindings around my arms. She still has not looked at me directly. Another long moment passes before she speaks again.

‘I have heard the same word whispered about you, now and then,’ she says.

I blink. My eyelids are still sticking. ‘Why?’

‘Because of how they found you. Ablaze, but alive.’ Lourette finishes unwinding the bandage from my left arm and lets it drop onto a silvered tray in loops. ‘I have never known a soul to be burned the way you were and live, much less heal.’

I look down and see where my skin has run and set again from the touch of the warpfire. In places, I am patchworked to stark white, all of the pigment gone. There is no blood, though.

No pain.

‘And then there is the matter of the mark,’ Lourette says.

‘Which mark?’ I ask, because there are so many.

Lourette finally looks at me, then, and the expression on her face makes me wish she hadn’t. Her limpid eyes are wide with fervour.

‘You do not know,’ she says. ‘Of course you do not know.’

She stops her work and goes to fetch a mirror-glass from one of the equipment trays. She holds it up in front of my face, and I notice that her hands are trembling now too.

‘Do you see?’ Lourette asks.

I take the mirror-glass from her and look at my reflection, and the patchwork that the warpfire has made of my face. All of the pigment is gone from around my eyes and across my cheeks, leaving bright white streaks against my skin that almost look like wings.

‘It is the God-Emperor’s mark,’ Lourette says. ‘A blessing.’

I stare at my reflection. At the shape of the eagle, so clearly writ into my skin. It is the God-Emperor’s mark, just as Lourette says. A blessing.

‘Do you see it?’ she asks.

I nod, because I cannot speak. Because I can see the mark, but I cannot feel it. I cannot feel anything. I am nothing, and no one.

Just a heartbeat, in a hollow shell.

I realise that Lourette is still speaking, her words hurried by zeal.

‘The God-Emperor saw you, Evangeline,’ she says. ‘He sent His son to spare you. Graced you with His mark and His favour.’

I put the mirror-glass face down on the cot and ask Lourette the only question I can think to ask. The only one that matters.

‘And my Sisters?’

Lourette frowns, taken aback by my words, and the implied dismissal in them. ‘They were lost,’ she says. ‘All save for one.’

My thoughts slow to a crawl once more. It is all that I can do to ask her who survived, and Lourette’s frown only deepens when she says the name.

‘Ashava,’ she says.

Lourette is reluctant to let me leave my cot, but I insist on it. Six weeks of sleep is enough for a lifetime, and I will wait no longer to see my Sister. Lourette uncouples the pain relief and fluids before bringing me a set of robes. I stand, for the first time in weeks. My legs buckle and try to give under my weight, but I refuse to fall. I refuse Lourette’s offer of help.

Stand, Adelynn’s voice says, in my head. Until you cannot.

So I do, because I must. Because I want to see my Sister.

‘Where is she?’ I ask.

Lourette’s frown is still in place. ‘The training halls,’ she says.

I blink, surprised. ‘Then, she is healed?’

‘Ashava lives,’ Lourette says, though that is not what I asked, and then she beckons me to follow her.

We leave the quiet and the sanctity of the Vow’s hospitaller ward behind and go out into the ship proper. The Unbroken Vow is ancient. Ironwork shows through the gilding and plaster all along the vaulted corridors. Candles burn in sconces leaving long, overlapping trails of wax to run down and pool and thicken on the deck floor. Cherubim thrum their artificial wings amongst the rafters and iron supports, playing repeated loops of hymnals through their tinny vox-casters. The arterial corridors are long, and made longer by the slowness of my still-waking limbs, and the constant flow of ship’s crew and priests and others of the Orders. Everywhere I go, there are whispers and sideways glances. I catch sight of one of the ship’s crew making the sign of the aquila as I pass, and it takes all of my self-control not to lash out and put him against the wall.

Eventually, we reach the Vow’s training halls. They are vast and vaulted, made to accommodate dozens of Sisters at any one time, but inside Hall Tertius we find only two, standing alone in the middle of the massive space. The first is another Sister Hospitaller, clad this time in the crimson vestments of the Bloody Rose. The other is Ashava. Looking upon her, I understand Lourette’s answer, because my Sister might indeed live, but she is not healed.

Ashava is clad in loose training clothes that are cut short to mid-thigh and shoulder. Both of her legs are encased in brutal wire and steel support frames that catch the candlelight. Long, ridged scars run down the lengths of her arms and her legs, and her skin is marked with fading bruises. Ashava leans heavily on a pair of gnarlwood crutches, limping slowly towards the Sister Hospitaller. The crutches toll against the exposed decking like funerary bells. As we approach across the training hall floor, the Sister Hospitaller turns. Her augmetic eye glows in the dim light.

‘Sister Lourette,’ she says, and then looks at me. Her human eye widens, just a little. That makes me want to lash out, too. ‘Evangeline,’ she says.

Ashava stops limping, but she still does not turn.

‘Melanya,’ Lourette says, in reply. ‘A word, if I may.’

The Sister Hospitaller nods. As she passes Ashava, she puts her hand on my Sister’s shoulder.

‘Keep strong,’ she says to Ashava. ‘All pain must pass.’

I do not know if Melanya is referring to Ashava’s injuries, or to me. The two Sisters Hospitaller leave the training hall, their boots echoing on the deck. The door slides closed behind them with a thud, and only then does Ashava turn to look at me. It is an awkward, unsteady movement. Her crutches toll against the deck again. She locks her eyes with mine. Her scarified face is still and unreadable. For a moment neither of us says a word. I have known Ashava for the better part of a decade. I have fought and trained and prayed with her, but in that moment, I am unsure of what to do.

I am unsure of her.

Ashava limps over to me slowly and stops, less than an arm’s reach away. This close, I can see the way the frames around her legs are secured by pins that go straight into the bones. All that I can think about is how swift she was before, and it makes me want to weep.

‘Sister–’ I begin, but Ashava cuts me short with a sudden and fierce embrace. Her crutches fall against the deck with a clatter. She falls against me a little, too, without them. I hold her up, and hold onto her, and for the first time since waking in the hospitaller’s ward I don’t feel quite so alone, or quite so empty.

‘It is good to see you, Eva,’ she says in her soft, edgeworlds burr.

‘And you, Sister,’ I say, and I mean it.

Then Ashava lets me go, and I stoop down and give her back her crutches. She leans on them anew, and I can see the relief written plainly on her face. Merely standing is agony for her, now.

‘Do you want to rest?’ I ask her.

She shakes her head. ‘As I recall it, Adelynn bade me to stand.’

A small, sad smile finds its way onto my face. ‘Yes, she did.’

‘And Melanya bids me to walk,’ Ashava says. ‘So, let us walk.’

I nod, and together we walk the training hall deck. I slow my pace to match hers. Neither of us acknowledge it.

‘They were set to take my legs,’ Ashava says. ‘To carve me like a kill and replace the broken parts.’ She shakes her head, her face set in a scowl. ‘They said it would be less pain.’

‘And what did you say?’ I ask her, though knowing Ashava I can guess.

‘That it would be kinder to kill me,’ she growls. ‘That I would stand again on flesh and bone or not at all.’

The answer does not surprise me. The world where Ashava was born is far from the galaxy’s heart. Triumph is dominated by a singularly martial understanding of the Faith that sees them raise warriors without peer. Ashava’s people see the body as an extension of the God-Emperor’s will, scars, wounds and weaknesses all. That is their creed, and even after being taken from there and raised in the convents, she has not forgotten it.

‘They could have gone against my wishes,’ she says. ‘But they didn’t.’

‘Do you think that the Canoness intervened?’

Ashava shrugs. ‘Or perhaps they did not wish to take anything more from me.’

‘Perhaps,’ I allow.

We are quiet for a moment then, accompanied only by the rapping of Ashava’s crutches on the deck.

‘The mark,’ she says, after the moment passes. ‘You truly can see the God-Emperor’s sign in it.’

I cannot find words with which to answer her, so I don’t.

‘It troubles you, doesn’t it?’ Ashava asks.

‘The mark does not trouble me. It is everyone else. They watch and whisper and look to me as though I am blessed. As if I am worthy of praise.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Ashava asks. ‘You bear His mark, Eva. You stand where others have fallen, without the aid of cages or crutches or butchery.’

I stop walking, and so does she. I look at the mess that’s left of her.

‘I am sorry, Sister,’ I say. ‘I meant nothing by it.’

‘Neither did I,’ she says. ‘I do not begrudge my injuries. Things are what He shapes them to be, through blade or clay.’

It is another of the Triumphal creeds. One that Ashava has written into her skin in scars.

‘And what of me?’ I ask her, before I can stop myself. ‘What is He shaping me to be?’

Ashava smiles in a patient sort of way, as she often would when we trained. You must be swifter, Eva. Always swifter.

‘Only two can know that,’ she says. ‘You, and Him.’

The door at the far side of the training hall slides open again. I look, expecting to see Lourette and Melanya returning, but the woman who enters the room is clad for war, in ornate black battleplate. A crimson half-cloak stirs at her back like a bloodied shadow, and a gilded longsword is sheathed at her hip. Her face is dominated by a deep, knotted scar that starts at her throat and ends when it reaches her cropped white hair. That alone is enough to tell me who she is, though we have never met. I duck into a shallow bow and Ashava does the same beside me, though it clearly pains her.

Canoness Commander Elivia shakes her head. ‘Please, Sisters,’ she says as she crosses the room to stand before us. Elivia’s voice is warm, and war-torn. ‘We bow for no one save the God-Emperor.’

I know that Ashava smiles at her words without having to look.

‘How may we serve, your grace?’ I ask.

‘That is why I have come,’ she says. ‘I must speak with you, Evangeline.’

I nod my head. ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Though if I may, what is it that you wish to speak of?’

Elivia smiles at me, fractionally. It reminds me of a blade’s edge.

‘The matter concerns a sword,’ she says.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Akim Kaliberda.

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