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Sacrifice – Danie Ware

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Mark of Faith’

A Black Library Publication

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Sacrifice

Danie Ware

The detonation hit the Aquila like the fist of a Titan.

The lander bucked and shuddered with the force of the strike. Alarms blared, lights flashed, but there was no need for the warnings…

One of the vehicle’s engines coughed, guttered and died.

The pilot cried, ‘We’re hit!’

And then they were slewing sideways, broken, tumbling from the sky. Never one for heights, Augusta felt her stomach slam hard into the back of her throat.

Throne!

Caught, helpless, the Sister Superior controlled both nausea and outburst. She barked the order ‘Helmets on!’ and braced herself in her seat, praying for the pilot’s courage, and for the little machine-spirit that was guiding them down to the chem-hell below. Her squad were in full armour, and should survive a crash – but their charge, the Hospitaller Cerene, was not.

In the ruddy flash of the lights, however, the woman’s round, tanned face was completely calm. She held her bolter and case in her lap, and she too prayed, her faith in the God-Emperor complete.

Thankful for the Hospitaller’s composure, Augusta breathed the Litany over the vox.

‘From the lightning and the tempest…’

Around her, her Sisters took up the prayer.

‘Our Emperor, deliver us!’

And they plunged.

Wind screamed. Something struck the shuttle’s hull, clattering backwards along its body. A burst of turbulence caught at them, making them lurch and bounce. And then they were smashing, nose down, through a series of obstacles – roofs, fences, pipes, chimneys, they had no way of knowing. A long rent tore in one side, and air and dust were sucked out through the gap. Cargo banged, rattled, fell. Still praying, the Sisters clung to their seats as the shuttle picked up speed, careering downwards, wild and lopsided.

Its remaining engine screeched in protest.

The pilot’s voice came through the vox, cursing viciously. ‘Hold on!’ he said. ‘We’re going… shit!’

Something struck them, head-on, throwing them forwards in their seats.

Augusta continued to pray, striving to ignore the sickness, the knot in her throat. They were slowing now, and they bounced, twisted, rocked, skidded. The pilot was still swearing.

For a split second of pure tension, the injured Aquila seemed to stop, to hang in mid-air…

Domine libra nos!

And then it crashed, broken and belly down, dropping like a dead thing upon the planet’s surface.

Around the Sister Superior, there was stillness.

No alarms, no lights.

Smoke billowed, thick and black and full of grit. From somewhere, spark-flashes spasmed, tiny fragments of fire that lit crumpled steel, bent supports, fallen cargo…

But, by His grace and mercy, they were alive. They had landed safely.

A prayer under her breath, Augusta was already moving, reaching for her bolter with one hand, her seat-harness with the other. ‘Sisters,’ she said. ‘Roll call.’

Four voices answered her: Jatoya, Melia, Caia, Kimura. Her squad, all of them responsive. A moment later, Melia said, ‘Cerene is alive, Sister Superior. She’s injured, and has lost consciousness.’

‘Rouse her,’ Augusta said. ‘Then lower the crew compartment and deploy a full perimeter defence. Caia, check the fuselage – a pool of spilled promethium could send all of us to the Golden Throne. Pilot, can you hear me?’

The vox crackled and spat. ‘Yes, Sister, I hear you. I… I fear I can’t move.’

As Augusta got to her feet, the squad reached for their weapons, checking their gear. In the soup-thick smoke, they were glints of smooth, glistening scarlet, their armour faceless and efficient, their black-and-white robes bearing the Bloody Rose like a badge of defiance. In their midst, the Hospitaller was a ghost-white apparition, her face and garments streaked with filth.

There was a jagged cut across her forehead, but she was coughing, conscious.

‘Thank you, Melia,’ she said. ‘Your time with the Order of Serenity taught you much, I see.’

‘Compartment lowering,’ Jatoya said. ‘Kimura!’

‘Aye!’ The cocking of the heavy bolter was unmistakeable.

There was a hiss, the whine of hydraulics. The smoke eddied and swirled, but no fresh air came into the hold.

It was thicker and fouler than the air in the shuttle.

Leaving the outside to her Sisters’ competence, Augusta forced her way past the wreckage and up to the cockpit.

‘Pilot?’

‘Here!’ His voice was strained with pain. ‘I’m sorry, Sister. I did my best.’

‘You did well,’ she told him.

And he had. The shuttle’s armourglass viewport had been completely shattered, its control panel was cracked clean through, and the hololith projector was as black as the sky outside.

As Augusta reached the man, he didn’t look up. Instead, he stared at his thigh, at the thick red gore that oozed through his clenched fingers, at the piece of broken armourglass that stuck, glittering, from the wound.

‘Our Sister Hospitaller will see to your injury.’

He nodded, sweat beading his temples.

‘What happened?’

‘We took fire,’ he said. ‘Something on the surface, a missile–’

‘Jatoya! Full vigilance. There will be hostile activity.’

‘I hear you.’

‘Cerene, I need you up here.’

‘Sister Superior.’

From somewhere, sparks flared again, flashing like threats. They had to get clear of the vehicle – whatever had brought this lander down would be incoming on their location.

Augusta’s contemplation was interrupted as Cerene entered the cockpit and knelt carefully by the pilot’s side.

‘His femoral artery is damaged,’ the Hospitaller said, after a moment. ‘I can preserve his life, but he will need more care than I bear with me. He cannot be moved.’

The pilot’s face contorted. ‘Sister, I… I can walk if I must.’ His voice sounded like a plea, as if he thought they might abandon him – punishment for his failure.

‘You will stay where you are,’ Augusta told him.

Across a tight-beam vox-channel, the Hospitaller said, ‘I can grant him the Emperor’s peace, if that is your wish. It will be a gentler end than awaiting this planet’s denizens.’

Augusta responded, with some feeling, ‘Let us take stock of our surroundings. Whatever is down here, it means us ill.’

Outside the broken shuttle, the thick black fog of a hellscape awaited them.

Adrion.

A chem-planet, a planet of darkness. These were the filthiest of worlds, the Imperium’s oubliettes, places choked by their own fumes, where the waste of billions was discarded.

Both industrial and human.

Augusta, bolter and chainsword in hand, tuned her preysight and took a long, careful scan.

Lines of belching chimney stacks rose into the low, smog-
clouded sky above them, their heat shimmering the air. Between them were tessellated factoria, huge and grey, all flickering with tiny points of light. The ground below them was lined with ferrocrete ditches, thick with still-warm putrescence. Walkways stretched from building to building, like some vast web. Vox-antennae jagged at the sky, and everything was choked with filth. The Sisters’ helms were sealed, and both Cerene and the pilot had respirators, but still, the place was deeply unpleasant.

Again, Augusta stopped herself cursing. They had been returning from liberating a nearby Chaos stronghold, ready to deliver Sister Cerene safely back to the Convent Sanctorum, where they would pick up their newest squad member and be assigned a fresh task. And that was all.

Beside her, a purity seal clattered loudly to the ground. It read Quaecumque est religio.

Every mission is a sacred duty.

And thus, Augusta thought, does the Emperor chastise me for my arrogance. She picked it up and offered a prayer in penitence.

Beside her, Melia said, ‘I’ve never seen such a terrible place.’

‘This too,’ Augusta told her, ‘is a part of the Emperor’s design. It is necessary, and must be preserved. Why else do we come here?’

‘Yes, Sister Superior.’ Melia accepted the rebuke and fell silent.

‘Caia, I need a full scan. What do we face? Do we have hostiles?’

‘I see no movement,’ Caia answered. ‘But we are fully exposed, surrounded by sniper positions and servitor walkways. I fear it will not be long.’

Augusta thought for a moment, made her decision. ‘Very well. Cerene, you will hold a fallback position within the lander, and ensure the safety of vehicle and pilot both. Let none approach. The rest of you, compass defence. Kimura, take the nose. Caia, on lookout. Jatoya, Melia, left and right. I will contact command. We must defend this location at all costs.’

Melia offered a salute and took cover within the shuttle’s doorway; the rest of the squad moved into tight formation, bolters bristling.

Because, out there, something was waiting for them.

The ambush came swiftly.

Caia saw them first, a dozen blips, more, crossing the walkways and skirting the edges of the grimly towering factoria. The air was thick with pollution, and the Sisters’ visibility was poor – even their preysight was rendered hazy by the heat of the ditches below.

The lander had come to rest upon a single, huge platform, a wide space precariously suspended between six separate exits, and with a glinting array of antennae at its centre. Even as Augusta was checking their surroundings, boots thumped on steel, and the movement was all round them.

‘Hold your defence!’ Jatoya barked. ‘Wait for the order!’

‘Aye!’

Below them, a hunkering of shapes rose from the filthy ditches. More figures lurked on the rooftops, or waited like spiders upon the walkways above.

They loomed, their hooded forms predatory in the heavy black fog.

‘Come no closer,’ Augusta told them. ‘We are the Adepta Sororitas, and we will return any hostility, in the Emperor’s name.’

But the mob did not care. They were still coming forwards, as silent as an unmarked death.

‘Sister Superior!’ Kimura was waiting for the order to fire.

‘Wait.’

Bolter in hand, Augusta struggled to see. The figures were cloaked and swaddled, their garments ragged and rancid. Some bore pieces of armour, or odd augmetics; others seemed to be only flesh. Still more bore tools or weapons, rough extensions of their arms or elbows, or had faces that were sloughing into ripples like sliding mud.

Mutants.

Perhaps Adrion’s workers, perhaps its outcast and defiled. Whatever they were, there were dozens of them – and they were still coming.

She barked the order, ‘Heavy bolter – fire!’, and the weapon voiced its thunder-roar of death.

From the curse…!

Leaning back, the weapon braced against her armoured hip, Kimura muttered the Litany through gritted teeth – the words like pure, cold determination. Metal spanged, gore and fluids spattered. Bodies reeled and fell, tumbling to the walkways below.

But the mutants did not care. Still utterly silent, unworried by their own dead, they came forwards, closer and closer, their twisted hands outstretched.

Fearing some curse of Nurgle, Augusta gave more orders. ‘Sisters! Controlled bursts! And fire!’

Bolters sang. In the midst of their music, the roar of flame was Jatoya, her deep voice calling the Litany, and her weapon spitting and flaring like a holy purge.

Burning, semi-human figures staggered and reeled. One, its arms a-flail, tumbled from the platform down towards the ditch. And then the waste itself was in flames, bright and green and blue and fierce. Chemical fire blazed hungrily upwards, reflected in the Sisters’ visors. It devoured yet more of the oncoming force, but still they made no
sound.

Melia, closest to the lander, took careful, single shots. Caia kept her auspex in one hand, her bolter in the other. She, too, cut the mutants down, shot after shot to the head or the chest.

But there seemed no end to them – there were more, and yet more. The platform was piling with the dead and the dying; they had too many limbs, or too few, or mandibles, or tentacles, or eyes in all the wrong places. And they were…

What?

For a moment, Augusta thought she was imagining it, some apparition conjured by the chemical flames, but no, she could hear them, now – a murmur, like the steady thrum of an engine. It flowed between the figures as if they chanted.

Were they… were they trying to say something?

By the Light!

Cultists? The Sister Superior’s flesh crawled. She aimed her bolter at the closest one, tall and shambling. It had two faces on its head. A single round, and both of them vanished in a haze of gore.

She shot another, and another, tumbling them to the raging flame below. Her other hand closed on her chainsword, but she did not start the mechanism.

Not yet.

Beside her, Caia muttered, ‘Dominica’s eyes! Is there no end to them?’ With a split-second look, the Sister Superior saw that Caia’s auspex was still swarming with incoming green lights, more and more of them. Not just dozens. Hundreds.

And the Sisters were completely exposed; there were far too many angles from which the mutants could reach them. They could have fought their way out of a smaller ambush, but hundreds? This was madness – they couldn’t stay here, they were far too vulnerable.

Across the vox, Sister Cerene said, ‘Sister Superior, I do not like this. This behaviour is not normal.’

Augusta closed her teeth on a biting response, and kept firing. ‘Sister Hospitaller?’

‘I have seen mutants before, Sister,’ Cerene said. ‘And these are accursed indeed. But why do they not shoot back? They must have weapons – firearms, perhaps chemicals. Why do they throw themselves thus, into a pointless death?’

‘Perhaps they seek the mercy of the Throne,’ Augusta told her, the words short as she kept firing.

‘Pardon my blasphemy, Sister, but I do not think so.’

There were more and more of them, everywhere Augusta looked – they lined every rooftop, every walkway. The squad shot, and shot again, but they could not stop them all.

How long before they ran out of ammunition?

‘What are you suggesting, Sister? Make this quick, we do not have time to tarry.’

‘I do not know,’ Cerene answered her. ‘Not yet. Truly, I will pray for both insight and wisdom.’

‘Then pray swiftly, Sister.’

The thrum grew louder, a sinister hum that rose to the belly-down clouds. Rising through its menace, the Hospitaller’s prayer came over the vox – words asking not for mercy, but for illumination.

Amazed that the woman could be so utterly tranquil in the middle of the yammering, flaming madness of the battle, Augusta controlled a flare of impatience. She shot another, another, two more. Beside her, the muzzle of Caia’s bolter flashed. The flamer gouted again, its red fire melding with the green flames of the ditch. The mutants had no armour, no defences; they made no effort to get out of the way. They died in scores, but still they kept coming. As their dead blocked the platform, they retained enough sense to use the corpses as cover, but that was all.

And their chant still rose, a tone like contrition.

‘Help us… help us… help us…!’

Augusta gave a deep, visceral shudder – she knew of only one way to help such as these. But the Hospitaller was still praying.

‘Levis est mihi!’

Show me the Light!

And He answered.

From the seethe and roil of the sky, vivid yellow lightning jagged like pure wrath. Startled, the Sister Superior swore aloud, and a moment later, a thick grey rain came hissing out of the heavy clouds. Thunder rumbled, threat and rage.

A chill went up the Sister Superior’s spine – truly, He was watching them.

And then, at the lander’s nose, the heavy bolter clunked to a stop. Moving with pure reflex, Kimura ejected the spent magazine and pulled a second from her belt, slamming it into place…

But the pause was enough.

The nearest pile of dead toppled over – there were things in there, still moving – and a surge of mutants came forwards in a wave, the grey water sheeting from their warped bodies.

And then stopped.

Augusta snapped her bolter back on her belt, started the chainsword with its distinctive, mechanical scream. She saw its teeth glitter; saw that gleam reflected in the eyes and augmetics of the things that stood there, waiting for them.

They were close enough, now, for her to see them clearly, despite the rain that ran in rivulets over her visor.

These were not cultists, not that she could see.

They looked like workers, some of them augmented, many of them still in the tattered uniforms of the factoria. Some were missing limbs, or bore festering injuries, or were badly corroding where metal met flesh. Their skin was white and suppurating, or festering purple as though it was bruised. Their eyes were black and empty, or sealed over by the bulbous growths of their faces. Appendages twitched under their garments as they stretched out hands and claws. All of them had been warped, twisted by this chemical hell into things no longer human.

Uncaring, Kimura’s bolter echoed the thundering sky.

On the vox, Cerene’s soft voice said, ‘Sisters! I beg of you, wait! Hold your fire!’

Augusta blinked. The chainsword was running in her hand, eager and snarling. The vibration spread up her arm like warmth.

‘Do as she says.’ The order was guarded, but was Cerene too not a Daughter of the Emperor?

‘Do you not hear them?’ Cerene said. ‘They plead for pity.’

Tightening her grip on the blade Augusta said, ‘There is no pity for such as these.’

The whine of hydraulics heralded the lowering of the lander’s compartment, and then Cerene was pushing between Augusta and Caia, coming to the front of the compass formation. She looked like a saviour, but the Sister Superior noticed that she still carried her bolter.

Cerene said, ‘Is there one among your number who will speak to me?’

Over a tight-beam channel, Jatoya muttered, ‘What’s she doing? This is madness.’

‘She’s right,’ Augusta said quietly. She shut down the chainsword, though she did not let it go. ‘There is something strange here. The Emperor has seen fit to grant her His illumination – perhaps we should find out what she intends.’

The wave of creatures waited, poised.

And then it shifted, and a figure came to the forefront.

Augusta stared.

It was – had been – a woman, possibly in middle age. She was full-fleshed, but that flesh was red and raw and spotted, like some vast infection. A white cataract covered one eye, her nose was missing – just two holes in her face – and there was something growing out of her chest, hidden by the remnant of a supervisor’s uniform.

The chant tumbled from the air, leaving stillness.

A second jag of lightning cracked across the sky.

‘I will speak,’ the woman said. ‘If you will listen.’

Over the vox, Cerene said, ‘These are the Emperor’s workers, Sister, not the denizens of Chaos.’

The squad had moved to the lee side of the lander, where its cold and twisted fuselage offered shelter. Overhead, the storm still raged, spitting coloured lightning and harsh, chemical rain; the Hospitaller’s hood and hair were plastered to her skin. In places, the tan of her cheeks was marked with burns, but she made no complaint.

‘You understand what they want, Sister Superior?’ Cerene continued. ‘They did this for a reason.’

‘They shot us from the sky.’ Augusta had not released her weapons – or her anger. ‘They have endangered our lives–’

‘Yes.’ Cerene’s voice was still absolutely calm, and it was getting on Augusta’s nerves. ‘I realise that you are angry, Sister Superior, but sometimes the Emperor moves in ways we cannot understand. These people need help, they need treatment, they need the mercy of the Sisters Hospitaller and the Order of Serenity. Did you not say yourself that this chem-hell, too, has a part in His design?’

‘They’re mutants,’ Augusta said. ‘We return them to His grace.’

‘The planet needs workers, Sister.’ The Hospitaller’s logic was flawless. ‘If you slay these people, there will be more. And more. Will you return, with your bolters and your swords, and slay the next ones? And the next?’

The lightning spasmed again, bands of sick colour flashing under the clouds. There was a long, silent pause before the thunder rumbled in its wake – the storm was moving away.

In the rain, the mutants waited silently, their twisted bodies, their rotting uniforms, all now blackened by the downpour.

Cerene’s robes, too, had completely changed colour – from the pure white of her order to a mucky, filthy grey.

But Augusta was still standing, her chainsword in her hand. ‘Do not play word games with me, Sister Hospitaller. The Litany is clear, and our path righteous. These…’ a nod of her helm indicated the waiting figures, ‘…cannot be suffered to live. They have betrayed us, opened fire upon our shuttle–’

‘Yet they have not shot at us, Sister, despite the fact that we have slain them in their scores. They have thrown themselves at our guns, welcoming death. Do you not think that they deserve an end to their pain?’

‘We brought you here to help us.’ The spokeswoman came forwards, her hands outstretched. ‘We have weapons – phosphex. It’s old, but effective.’ Her mutated face was carved in stone, determined and ice cold. ‘If you refuse, we will detonate it. You cannot leave this world.’

Distantly, the thunder grumbled again.

Through the vox, Kimura spoke, her voice low and lethal. ‘They threaten the Adepta Sororitas? We should kill them all. And if we perish, then we will at least die with our honour intact.’

‘I hear you,’ Augusta said. Then, to Cerene, ‘This is blasphemy, Sister. We will not tolerate this… manipulation. It is the schola’s first lesson – be you novice, warrior, Hospitaller or Saint Mina herself.’

The lightning jagged again, red as blood.

Cerene paused, looking from Augusta’s scarlet-armoured frame to the sick body of the mutants’ spokeswoman. And then, over a personal vox-channel, she said, ‘Sister Superior, you misunderstand. Perhaps I can have a word in private?’

The conversation was brief, and backed by the retreating grumble of the storm. As it came to an end, Augusta fastened the chainsword back to her belt. ‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘We are agreed.’ She turned to the mutant woman. ‘You have your wish. The Hospitaller will stay.’

Kimura and Caia both turned, their faceless, water-streaked helms pointed at the Sister Superior. Kimura’s voice was all cold rage. ‘What? Sister Superior, if I may–’

‘You may not.’ Augusta’s words were a direct order, and Kimura fell back. She and Caia exchanged a glance.

Jatoya had not moved. The squad’s second was looking from the mutant woman to the Sister Superior and back, and then at the serenely regal Hospitaller. Whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself.

‘This is what will happen,’ Augusta said. ‘We are awaiting a response for aid. Cerene will wait with us. If you,’ she looked at the mutant woman, ‘or any of your people assault us in any way, the Hospitaller dies. If you do not control your forces, the Hospitaller dies. If anything happens to interrupt us, the Hospitaller dies. Do you understand me?’

‘I…’ The woman seemed taken aback, she stumbled over her words. ‘You would grant us this… this clemency?’

Cerene said, ‘The Sister Superior has great compassion. I have explained things to her, and she understands. He walks here, as He does upon all worlds, and He watches. Even you.’

The thunder muttered, distantly now. The grey rain was starting to slacken.

Almost sobbing, the mutant woman fell to her knees. ‘Thank you. Thank you, Sisters, thank you. Many of us… we didn’t used to be like this. We have come here from many places, and we work until we can work no longer. And then… we come out here. We do… do not usually last very
long.’

‘Very well.’ Augusta’s voice caught in her throat, and she coughed. ‘Let us end this.’

The wait was a short one. Cerene stood at Augusta’s side, the Sister Superior’s raised bolter pressed hard to her ear. They did not speak.

There was no need.

The vertically descending Valkyrie came swiftly – a gleam of lights through the smoke, a roar of noise and wind and heat. The squad remained upright as the thick fog blew around them. Augusta supported the unarmoured Cerene; the planet’s mutants staggered and stared.

The new pilot’s voice came over the vox. ‘Sisters? We have come on the captain’s orders. What do you need?’

‘There is no need to deploy your troops, or to shut down your engines,’ Augusta said shortly. ‘You will simply land, and let us board.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

With surprising elegance the Valkyrie touched down.

The Sister Superior turned to the Hospitaller. ‘You are resolved upon this course of action?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Cerene’s calm remained unruffled.

‘Then I commend your courage, and I will take that commendation back to the Convent Sanctorum on Ophelia VII. Your canoness will know of this.’

The mutant woman was watching the vehicle, her eyes, one blind and one blue, huge. Her throngs of followers had come after her, and they all stared, transfixed.

‘I have heard of these,’ she said softly. There was a longing in her voice, a desire for the freedom that the Valkyrie offered, the need to go back to the stars. Back to her home, wherever that had been. ‘I wish…’ She let it go, unable to voice it aloud.

‘Melia, retrieve our injured pilot. We must embark swiftly, Sisters,’ Augusta said. ‘I will explain once we are aboard.’

‘Sister Superior.’ Kimura had planted both boots, and the butt of the heavy bolter, firmly on the ground. ‘This cannot be accepted. We cannot leave Cerene here. We do not show this leniency – this weakness – to such as these!’

‘I gave you an order, Sister Kimura.’

‘Sister Superior–’

‘I gave you an order!’ The word was a snap, and Kimura visibly flinched.

Her deep voice quiet, Jatoya said, ‘Board the Valkyrie, Sister, and do not cause further trouble.’

Kimura paused, thinking about it, then picked up the heavy bolter and slung it on her shoulder. She followed Caia into the vehicle. Jatoya gave the Sister Superior a long look, then went after her. Melia came from the Aquila, carrying the injured and semi-conscious pilot in her arms.

Augusta and Cerene stood together, surrounded by the thickly billowing smoke and the crowd of mutants.

The Valkyrie’s engines were still in full roar. The noise was incredible, drowning out the last of the storm; the air shimmered with warmth and promethium fumes.

Over the vox, Augusta said, ‘Ave Imperator, Sister.’

Still poised and completely calm, Cerene offered her the sign of the aquila. ‘Ave Imperator. May this be swift.’

‘It will be.’

The mutant woman was still watching the vehicle, her rotted face filled with wonder.

Augusta ducked into the vehicle, the hem of her robe snapping in the wind. From the cockpit, the pilot said, ‘Sister?’

‘Hover at a height of ten feet,’ said Augusta.

‘Aye.’

The Valkyrie shifted, leaving the ground.

‘Change heading, forty-five degrees.’

It turned, its nose now facing Cerene, the mutant woman and her followers. Augusta could not see them, but their faces were fixed in her mind.

She took a breath, let it out, said, ‘Aim lascannon.’

‘Sister?’

‘Follow your orders, pilot.’

In the back of the vehicle, the others stared at her, their helms now off. She unclipped her own, heard the vacuum seal hiss. In her mind, she repeated the words of the Litany, the words that were the rules of all she was, all she had striven to be.

That thou wouldst bring them only death,

That thou shouldst spare none,

That thou shouldst pardon none,

We beseech thee, destroy them.

Her Sister Hospitaller may not be a warrior, but she understood honour, and she understood compassion – not just the compassion of the nursemaid, but as a soldier would comprehend the word.

And the Emperor had shown her His solution.

There would be no compromise.

Laying her helmet in her lap, Augusta gave the mission’s final command.

‘Fire.’

About the Author

Danie Ware is the author of the novellas The Bloodied Rose, 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.

The sky overhead is raining fire.

I stand beneath it with my limbs aching and my lips parted just so that I can breathe. Blood runs in rivulets down my face and into the collar of my blessed armour. I hurt from countless cutting edges and the touch of warpfire. From the scorching, whispering wind that stings my skin and tears at the oath seals affixed to my shoulder guards and weapons. But most of all, I hurt because of what lies before me. Because of what lies ahead. I tear my eyes from the nightmare sky and look at my surroundings.

At my home.

Before me, Ophelia VII burns. The grand, gothic buildings of the Convent Sanctorum and its surrounding city-state are fractured and aflame. Smoke rolls up towards me in thick plumes from the tiered city-levels, as if the world is trying to exhale. Trying to breathe, just as I am. The smoke smells of perfume and rotting flowers. It makes me want to spit. To scream. The sounds of battle roll up with the smoke. Of bolters and battle tanks and bellowing. Of other squads of Sisters, fighting to defend their own corner of our Convent Sanctorum – our home. Many-coloured bolts of lightning twist up from the ground in answer, tethering themselves to the underside of the bleeding sky. Each bolt landing makes a sound like laughter.

‘Evangeline.’

I look away from my despoiled home at the sound of my Sister Superior’s voice. Adelynn’s armour is as much a ruin as the cardinal city. The gilding has all but flaked away, and the ceramite is split. Adelynn’s face is painted with blood that settles into her old scars and the lines around her eyes. It mars the beautiful, intricate faith-brands on her part-shaved scalp. Her emerald eyes are clear, though. Clear and furious.

‘They draw near once more,’ Adelynn says, in her accented, rasping voice.

She is right. I can hear them. The vile enemy, gibbering and chattering in tongues. Heretics and fanatics and things wrought from smoke and shadow and hate. My heart burns with rage now, as well as pain. Adelynn puts her gauntleted hand on my shoulder guard and locks me with her emerald eyes.

‘Are you ready?’ she asks.

It is a question that Adelynn has asked me countless times since she made a warrior of me. A question that there is only ever one answer to.

I nod my head. ‘I am ready,’ I tell her.

Adelynn draws me close and presses her forehead to mine, eyes closed. For a moment, I cannot hear the laughter of lightning or the wicked words of the enemy. All is still, and I catch the scent of sacred oils, even over the ruination.

‘Stand until you cannot,’ Adelynn says to me softly.

‘I will,’ I reply.

‘Good,’ she says, then lets me go.

Together, we turn and walk back to where the rest of my Sisters wait under the shattered spine of a cathedral. They number just three, now. The last defenders of the eighty-fifth preceptory’s upper tier, together with myself and Adelynn. Like me, my Sisters are all hurting, their blades broken and their weapons all but spent. Their black armour is peeled back to the bare ceramite, and their crimson vestments are tattered and torn. I catch the eyes of each of them in turn. First Gytha, who bears our Simulacrum Imperialis, and who has been wounded near to death in the name of protecting it. Her shorn head is split open, and her bionic eye has long since failed, but even so, she still smiles at me. Gytha always smiles. Then I look to Ashava, as much a knight as anything. She offers me a solemn nod. Ashava’s dark brown skin is bruised, and she holds her snarling chainsword in an easy grip. Isidora is last. She does not smile, nor does she nod. She holds her meltagun at ease, her pale face bloodied and her ice-blue eyes still locked on the burning sky and on the massive shapes moving beyond the clouds. Devils, in the heavens.

When I fall in step beside her, Isidora speaks. Her voice is sing-song, and softer than you would expect, given her severity.

‘It looks to be the Last of Days, after all,’ she says.

It is a story that Isidora carries with her from the world where she was born. It says that on the Last of Days, the sky will catch fire and the Emperor will return from His seat in the heavens to take every worthy soul to His side. It is a story I have asked her to tell countless times, but one that I never believed I would witness myself.

‘It does,’ I tell her.

A tear traces from the corner of Isidora’s eye, cutting through the drying blood on her face.

‘Will you sing once more, culfre,’ she says. ‘At the end?’

It is what she has always called me. Never ‘Evangeline’, like Adelynn does, or ‘Eva’ like Gytha and Ashava, but ‘culfre’. It is a word Isidora brought with her from the world where she was born, just like her story of the Last of Days. It means dawning bird. She calls me that because I am the youngest. Because she finds comfort when I sing the praises.

‘I will,’ I promise.

We walk through the ruins until we emerge from the shattered spine of the cathedral onto a vast marble dais inlaid with gold.

‘Here,’ Adelynn says. We all nod.

The dais is one of the convent’s many Contemplations. A place usually used for reflection and meditation. For prayer. Today, though, it will be used for vengeance.

For our last stand.

Around the Contemplation stands a circle of saints wrought in stone. They are depicted holding swords and shields and wearing defiant, solemn expressions. As we walk into the centre of the dais, I catch their gilded eyes, just as I did those of my Sisters. I look upon Alicia Dominica. Silvana and Lucia, Arabella and Mina and, last of all, Saint Katherine.

Our Martyred Lady.

Adelynn looks to Saint Katherine too before she speaks again.

‘We have suffered greatly here, my Sisters,’ she says. ‘As we suffered at Okassis, and at Armageddon, and on one hundred other battlefields.’ Adelynn looks at me. Her emerald eyes are alight. ‘But suffering is not to be lamented,’ she says. ‘Suffering is to be celebrated. Where there is suffering, there is life. There is spirit and fire and all of the things for which He made us. Where there is suffering, that is where we must fight with every ounce of the strength He gave us until it is time to join Him in eternal glory.’

Gytha roars a cheer, as she always does. In the wake of it I hear the enemy, even closer now. Perfumed, reflective smoke begins to steal between the statues. Adelynn raises her sword.

‘Fight,’ she says. ‘Suffer. Stand, until you cannot.’

We all roar together then, as the enemy finally show themselves. There are dozens of the warp-spawned horrors, all wide-mawed and amorphous and ever-changing, with their ruddy skin shifting and burning.

‘In His name,’ Adelynn cries.

We echo her together, and we charge into the tide.

In. His. Name.

I raise my bolter and fire it into the swell of horrors. The holy shells impact one of the creatures and detonate with bursts of flame. Daemonflesh disintegrates with a hiss and a spray of glittering ashes. The horror comes apart at the seams, unravelling until it is extinguished altogether, like a candle flame. The laughter only seems to grow louder. I turn and fire again as another of the horrors conjures a boiling tide of warpfire. It spills across my armour, stinking and burning. For a moment, I cannot breathe. Despite that, I fire on the horrors again and again, my bolter kicking in my hands until the magazine empties with a cough. Several of the horrors unravel, torn asunder by my bolter fire. Yet more are banished by the crackling edge of Adelynn’s power sword as my Sister Superior cuts open a space around me.

‘It is not time, Evangeline,’ she says to me.

I eject my bolter’s spent magazine and replace it with the last spare that I carry.

‘No, it is not,’ I say, and plunge back into the fray.

Amid the tide, my Sisters fight and bleed with me. Isidora’s meltagun gasps with pure, cleansing heat, tearing horrors asunder. Gytha is bellowing scripture. She has one hand on the banner pole of the Simulacrum Imperialis, curled tightly around the fingerbones of martyrs. The enemy cannot touch the standard, nor can they touch Gytha. She fires her bolter one-handed, obliterating them before they get close. Ashava lays about herself with her chainsword. She uses the churning blade with deft strokes, so quick they are hard to see. Her armour is coated in that otherworldly, glittering ash. Adelynn is a light in the darkness, carving her way into the tide, banishing the horrors left and right. Every movement is exacting, and deliberate. Every blow direct and deadly. Her rasping voice echoes across the Contemplation.

‘We stand, and He stands with us,’ she shouts. ‘Do not falter, my Sisters.’

My heart lifts. It always does when Adelynn speaks. And together we keep fighting and bellowing and pushing against the horrors, no matter how they sing and chatter and burn us. We do so until the air is thick with ashes and smoke. Until the tide starts to recede.

In the quiet that follows, Isidora speaks.

‘Perhaps the Last of Days will wait, after all,’ she says between gasping breaths.

But then something large and shadowed moves in the smoke. It laughs, like the lightning does, and I feel a peculiar sort of calm fall over me like a shroud.

‘Perhaps not,’ I tell her softly.

The shadow moves closer. Silence falls.

‘Hold,’ Adelynn says, as the smoke parts.

The beast that steps onto the dais is monstrous. A creature cast not from flesh and blood, but from wickedness. From the warp itself. All of mankind’s madnesses and murders, manifested together and channelled in terrible unity. Vast wings unfold from its back with a crack, scattering smoking feathers. Its toes are clawed and feverishly tapping. In one gnarled hand it holds a hooked, mirrored sword. The other is locked around a staff topped with an ever-shifting, wicked sigil. The creature tilts its avian head, opens its beak and laughs again. Its voice is the chorus of a whole world’s suffering. Its scent is that of a charnel house. The mere presence of the creature prickles at my heart and my soul. It makes my ears ache and my nose bleed thickly down my face. But I do not look away. Instead, I stare up at this hateful, wicked creature that has taken my home from me and settle my bolter’s sights between the greater daemon’s depthless eyes.

‘No,’ I tell it simply.

I squeeze my bolter’s trigger, firing on the greater daemon as Gytha and Ashava and Adelynn charge to meet it. Isidora’s meltagun breathes heat, and the greater daemon catches fire, its iridescent feathers deforming and tearing and snapping at the quills. Where they break away, the beast bleeds thick ribbons of molten silver, droplets scattering like a handful of half-crown coins.

But it does not stop laughing.

The greater daemon crashes its staff against the dais, and everything changes. Time itself seems to slow. I see everything with absolute, painful clarity. Every coil of smoke. Every mote of idling flame cascading from the greater daemon’s hateful form. I see the teeth of Ashava’s chainsword turning slowly, and the firelight reflecting from the Simulacrum Imperialis. Then I see the greater daemon move, exempt from this slower stream of time. It raises its gnarled, feathered hand and conjures a torrent of hellfire.

Then it turns and immolates Isidora.

My scream of rage is locked inside me by the slowing of time. I cannot go to her. All I can do is watch her burn, her armour melting and running like candle-wax. She turns, slowly, and catches my eyes with her own.

‘S-sing,’ Isidora manages to say.

Time releases its hold on us, then. Isidora falls to her knees with a crash of armour plates. I want to scream rage, but I cannot. I made a promise. So instead I sing as Isidora breathes her last. It is an old hymnal. One that Isidora would ask for, again and again.

‘O God-Emperor, who is strength. I devote this life to you.’

I fire on the greater daemon, sending feathers and oil bursting into the air. The beast bellows at me in reply and kaleidoscopic colours flood my vision. My armour cracks along the seams and my vestments burn and tear. I feel my bones flex inside my skin and blood boil up my throat and I cannot help but stagger and slow. But I do not stop singing. Hurling the words at this hateful creature that has broken my home, and broken my Sisters.

‘O God-Emperor, who is grace. I devote this life to you,’ I sing as Ashava slips through the greater daemon’s guard and leaps to meet it, despite her injuries and her armour’s weight. Her chainsword cuts deep along the creature’s flank, scattering ashes. It clacks its beak and catches hold of her in a clawed hand before slamming her down against the dais. My heart breaks as her bones do. As Ashava falls still, not to rise again, Adelynn roars, all rage. Her power sword blazes as she strikes at the greater daemon, scattering blood that is black like tar.

I keep singing. Keep firing my bolter, the holy shells tearing daemonflesh. Gytha does the same beside me. Smoke rolls out from the creature like a tide. The smell of it is choking. My lungs feel as though they are trying to collapse and my bolter clicks empty a second and final time as the greater daemon turns on Gytha. Magick roils from the staff it carries and washes over her. The Simulacrum Imperialis is obliterated, turned to slag and molten bone. Gytha’s armour boils, too. She screams in pain as it runs and melts and reshapes itself.

As it changes, and her flesh changes with it.

Dread halts the song in my throat as the infernal magicks turn Gytha’s hands to claws. As her spine breaks and resets itself and her jaws open wider and wider until there is nothing left of her save for her screaming. Gytha lets the standard fall and turns to look at me with multi-faceted, hungry eyes. She lunges towards me and my limbs and mind and heart freeze. I freeze. The maw that’s left of her face opens wide. Wider. Then it tears apart with a boom and a burst of ashes that scatter over me like an anointing rite. The creature that was once Gytha crashes to the ground, and I see Adelynn, her bolter held tightly in her fist, the barrel trailing smoke.

‘Sing, Evangeline,’ Adelynn says, a tear tracking through the blood and dirt on her face. ‘Do not stop.’

I take a breath that tastes of blood and of death. Of the ashes that are all that remains of my Sister. A tear traces down my face, too. A mirror of Adelynn’s.

‘O God-Emperor, who is valour,’ I sing. ‘I devote this life to you.’

Adelynn nods, and turns away from me, levelling her sword at the devil on the dais. The creature raises its hooked, barbed sword in answer. It looms over her, sloughing crystalline feathers and molten silver. Laughing through its jagged beak. I stagger towards Adelynn on fractured legs, but I am too slow. The greater daemon’s sword comes down with a scream, and there is a flare of blinding, blue light.

‘No,’ I say, through the blood in my mouth.

But when the light fades and my vision clears, Adelynn is still standing. Her power sword is broken in her hands.

She turned the blow aside.

‘Adelynn!’

I shout her name over the clamour of the Last of Days, and my Sister Superior looks at me. Her emerald eyes are clear even now.

‘Stand,’ I somehow hear her say. ‘Until you cannot.’

And then the greater daemon’s sword descends, and Adelynn falls. Her broken blade clatters to the ground.

‘No!’ I shout the word this time. ‘No!’

I stumble forwards, half blind with agony, and take up what remains of Adelynn’s sword, before turning to face down the greater daemon. Magicks course along its staff and warpfire blooms along my limbs, coursing over my skin. The remnants of the sword melt and flow away over my gauntlets, painting them silver and gold. That peculiar calm descends over me once more as I burn, awaiting the fall of the sword. I am ready to join my Sisters in death. I want it.

‘O God-Emperor, who is light,’ I murmur through blood and smoke and agony, as a golden light blooms on the Contemplation, filling my failing vision edge to edge. Thunderclaps resound, buffeting me, and I think that perhaps Isidora is right. That this is the God-Emperor returning from the heavens to claim my soul.

Despite the agony, I smile. I finish my song.

‘I devote this death to you,’ I sing, raising my hands in the shape of the aquila.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in the Black Library Events Anthology 2019/2020 in Great Britain in 2019.
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 Grant Griffin.

Sacrifice © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Sacrifice, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-80026-394-9

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