Celestine - Andy Clark

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Faith?’ asked Celestine. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Saint, it is I,’ came the reply. ‘Emperor be praised! We thought you lost for sure.’

  With a few swift adjustments, Celestine routed Faith’s transmission into her armour’s basic auspex unit and triangulated her location – perhaps a mile ahead, through the wastes.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ said Celestine. ‘I will come to you. Is Duty with you?’

  ‘I am, Saint,’ came Duty’s reply. ‘We have searched for you for many days amidst this grim place. Where have you been?’

  ‘For me it has been but a matter of hours,’ said Celestine, picking her way through the desiccated ruins of a battle long since fought. She skirted a rusted tank, something hulking and Imperial whose blasted remains were lodged amidst a mound of rubble. ‘As to where I was…’ She found she could not bring herself to speak of it. She didn’t want to. The forest and the beach were hers.

  Hope was hers.

  Within minutes Celestine and her comrades were reunited. Faith laughed in unalloyed joy when she saw Celestine through the smoke, while Duty’s frown gave way to a wolfish grin.

  ‘My sisters,’ said Celestine, observing that neither of the angelic women showed any sign of the hardships they had endured. They were unmarked by the foulness of the worm’s lair, and their robes and armour were unsullied by dirt or blood. Their brands burned bright, as did their eyes.

  ‘Saint,’ said Faith. ‘You are here at last.’

  ‘But where is here?’ asked Celestine.

  ‘Why, it is the end,’ said Duty. ‘And it is the beginning. It is that which we have sought together, which you have sought for yourself. Whatever your last trial was, you have passed through it.’

  With that, the smoke began to roll back, billowing away from them as though driven by a wild gale and revealing a cracked plain that sprawled away for mile upon mile. At the same instant Celestine felt again the candle’s warmth upon her skin, but this time it swelled to a simmering heat and then to a roaring fire, a searing star, and its light and heat bathed her in a way that the saturating glare from before had not. This felt right, it felt wrathful, and she felt her heart beat faster as the call to war filled her.

  ‘The Emperor’s light,’ she said as golden rays fell upon them from on high. She looked to her sisters. She thought, briefly, of Hope where she sat atop her dune, waiting. Then Celestine locked Hope away, deep in her heart where nothing could touch her, and drew her blade.

  ‘Do you know who you are?’ asked Duty.

  ‘I am the Emperor’s blade, and His guiding light,’ said Celestine. ‘I am the candle flame in the darkness when all other light has failed His faithful servants. I am Faith, and Duty, and Hope.’

  ‘We’re ready, Saint,’ said Faith approvingly.

  ‘We are as ready as you,’ said Duty.

  ‘Then let us do the Emperor’s will,’ said Celestine, launching herself skywards. As she beat her wings powerfully and soared upwards into the light with her sisters at her side, she wondered whether this time would be her last.

  The light of the Emperor swelled.

  Golden and pure, it filled Celestine’s world.

  Celestine soared upwards, into the Emperor’s light. Faith and Duty spiralled ever closer to her until the three of them swept upwards as one, their eyes alight with the magnificent radiance of the Master of Mankind. For an instant, Celestine felt the feather touch of small fingers upon her cheek and saw again a small figure sat atop a dune as the waves rolled in and out below.

  ‘We will see one another again,’ she said, and to her ears it sounded like a promise.

  Celestine felt etheric winds lifting her higher and higher, speeding her ever faster towards the light. The light from Faith’s and Duty’s wings swelled and engulfed them in fiery haloes of ruby and amethyst. As one, their ethereal forms shimmered and folded into Celestine’s own. She felt their strength flow into her and whispered silent thanks as she hurtled towards the light of a searing star that grew closer with every passing breath.

  The veil shimmered around her. She both was, and was not. She both knew, and did not know. She died. She was reborn. And for one glorious moment she perceived all that she had done, and all that she had fought for, and saw all the millions of candles that she had lit across the galaxy as their light burned ever brighter against the encroaching night.

  Then the veil parted before her, and the winds of eternity swept her on towards rebirth, towards her destiny.

  She flew.

  She fell.

  She was Celestine.

  415TH DAY OF THE WAR – 2240 HOURS

  IMPERIUM NIHILUS – PLANET KOPHYN

  SHAMBACH ORE DISTRICT – LO:800-8/LA:631-2

  The Taurox juddered to a halt. Blaskaine could hear small arms fire ringing from the hull. Something exploded nearby, rocking the vehicle on its tracks and almost throwing him from his feet as he put out a hand he no longer owned to steady himself. Kasyrgeldt caught him. He shot her a grateful look.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, now we come to it,’ said Blaskaine. One-handed, he awkwardly checked the load on his laspistol. Three-quarter charge remained. That would be enough. He looked around at the soldiers crammed into the bay. Kasyrgeldt, holding the shotgun that she had sworn by for as long as he’d known her. Two comms officers who had set aside their headsets for bulky portable vox-packs, the medicae – even the vehicle’s two drivers, who stood with lasguns humming. In the mines, there would be no room for armoured vehicles, or for non-combatants.

  ‘We stand ready, sir,’ said Kasyrgeldt.

  ‘Damned right we do,’ said one of the drivers. Jans, Blaskaine thought. The man’s name was Jans. It was better to know the names of those he would die beside.

  ‘The Saint has led us this far, and now we must follow her again,’ said Blaskaine. ‘She is spearheading attack force alpha, going in through the Holy Lode workings. Sister Meritorius has force beta and the Sainted Seam workings. That leaves us with force charon and the Gilded Depths. Anyone that penetrates the enemy sanctum at the mines’ heart…’ He paused.

  What would they do if they got that far? What would they find? Saint Celestine had been vague on that point. ‘We are Cadians. We will know what to do when we get there,’ he finished.

  ‘Kill every heretic in sight, sir?’ ventured Kasyrgeldt, racking the slide of her shotgun.

  ‘That would be a damned good start,’ agreed Blaskaine. ‘And we’ll work from there. Cadia stands!’

  ‘Cadia stands,’ they barked back at him. Then Blaskaine hit the release rune. The Taurox’s back hatch swung open to admit the din of battle, and he led the way out into the streets beyond.

  In a nearby courtyard, Anekwa Meritorius stood and stared into the mouth of damnation. Her twelve remaining Battle Sisters stood at her side, and behind them several hundred battle-weary Cadians knelt in prayer on the worn flagstones. She had commanded them to make their obeisance to the Emperor, and they had gladly obliged.

  Before them, the mountainside rose monolithic into the night sky. Las-cut into its flank was the cavernous entrance to Sainted Seam working, a huge rocky tunnel-mouth ringed by industrial machinery. Servitor-cart tracks ran from massive ore-hoppers dotted around the courtyard and vanished into the unnatural crimson glow that pulsed from the mine’s maw. A droning note echoed from within, an unnatural sound that set Meritorius’ teeth on edge.

  From behind her came the thump of cannon fire as the Astorosian Leman Russ transports of the rearguard engaged again. The tanks were parked in the street beyond the courtyard, forming a bulwark of plasteel and iron that the enemy militia would not quickly breach. Back there, through the gloom, Meritorius could see smoke rising from the fires that spread through the city streets. Fires they had lit as they fought their way through. Cleansing fires.

  ‘It is not an inviting sight, is it?�
�� said Sister Absolom, indicating the mine entrance.

  ‘When has the Emperor ever asked us to walk into paradise to do His will?’ replied Sister Meritorius with a humourless chuckle.

  ‘There is no worth without suffering,’ said Sister Penitence. ‘But today, it will be the heretics that suffer.’

  ‘Truly,’ said Sister Meritorius, slamming a fresh clip into her boltgun. She turned to the Cadians, who were even now rising to their feet and readying their weaponry. They looked battle-weary, she thought, but their eyes shone with zeal. Few of them had truly believed that they would make it this far, and that they had done so only stoked the fires of their faith.

  Faith, Meritorius could use.

  ‘Brothers and sisters, loyal servants of the Emperor! The Saint has led us to the very gates of victory,’ she began, her gorget amplifying her voice to a magnificent boom. ‘Do you have the strength to pass through them and into the everlasting light of the Master of Mankind?’

  They cried their assent.

  ‘For the Emperor!’

  ‘The Emperor protects!’

  ‘Cadia stands!’

  ‘Beyond this threshold the full might of the heretic, the daemon and the abomination shall be set against us,’ shouted Meritorius. ‘Do you have the faith and the courage to face them? Do you have the fortitude to prevail?’

  More cries and shouts, louder and more vehement than before. Meritorius felt the hot winds of their conviction fanning the embers of her faith into flames. Energy coursed through her, a sense of purpose purer and more ferocious than any she could remember.

  ‘Here, on this day, in this place, we have our chance to strike a blow against the Dark Gods themselves!’ she roared. ‘Here, by the grace of the Emperor, we shall raise our blades and our guns and we shall tell the daemon “no more!” Here, now, we will cleanse the taint of Chaos from this world with our blood so that when the new day dawns over Kophyn, it shall dawn upon a world that is loyal and pure!’

  Frenzied cheers met her words. The Leman Russ gunners let fly again and explosions billowed beyond the buildings that ringed the courtyard. Sister Superior Meritorius turned to face the hellish maw and levelled her crackling blade at it.

  ‘Forward, in the name of the Emperor and Saint Celestine!’ she cried, and as one they advanced.

  Unctorian Gofrey hastened down a red-lit tunnel with his laspistol glowing hot in his hand. Around him advanced the sons and daughters of murdered Cadia. The tunnels had narrowed as they pushed into the mines, funnelling the soldiery until only a handful of warriors could fight abreast. They moved up with well-drilled efficiency, dashing between the cover of side passages and burned out generators, overturned servitor-carts and makeshift sandbag barricades. Their lasguns and support weaponry howled as they sprayed fire at the cultists moving through the crimson glow. Dead from both sides layered the stone floor, Cadians in blackened flak armour and fatigues, cultists in cannibalised mining garb, crude face masks and foul robes of flayed skin.

  Gofrey bellowed his hate as he marched through the press. He shoved Cadians aside where they impeded his progress and fired his laspistol as though hurling the bolts of energy by hand. Each shot found another cultist, punching through faces and chests and leaving them sprawled in the dirt. Return fire whined around him, bullets finding homes in Cadian bodies or blasting stone shrapnel from the walls. Gofrey was plying his mindcraft to its fullest, a raging headache building behind his eyes as he nudged the enemy into changing their aim or panicking just as they pulled the trigger.

  He didn’t care. The spectacle of a priest walking miraculously untouched through a hail of fire was worth the pain for it would inspire and terrify in equal measure, and thus ease his passage. He would burn out his own mind if he had to, just so long as he did his duty first.

  ‘And lo, though the hordes of the unclean and the unworthy did stand before them, and though the hordes were many and the faithful men were few, still did the Emperor’s servants prevail, for their hearts were pure!’ he bellowed, his deep voice booming over the howl of gunfire and the sawing warp-note on the air. The Cadians who heard it rallied and fought all the harder, while their heretical enemies quailed in fear.

  Another heretic burst from behind a barricade and charged at Gofrey, screaming and brandishing a revving rock-cutter. Gofrey adjusted his aim without breaking stride and shot the man through the knee. The cultist fell with a cry and his rock-cutter landed on top of him in a snarling spray of blood and bone chips.

  Gofrey barked a cruel laugh and marched on.

  ‘To me!’ he shouted and sent a nudge to those Cadians whose wills he had suborned. A handful of soldiers broke from their positions and hastened to his side, ignoring the shouts of surprise and anger that came from their sergeants.

  One such officer tried to stop two of her soldiers from breaking ranks, grabbing one of them by the arm. Gofrey shot the sergeant in the face, throwing her body back against the stone wall.

  ‘Do not impede the Emperor’s work, witch!’ he hissed. Gofrey ducked down a side passage before the startled Cadians could react, and his thralls – a dozen in all – followed. Their expressions were blank and slack, but their lasguns kept firing just as well, scything down the handful of cultists that dashed up the passage to meet them.

  Something exploded close by and a rush of smoke billowed. Gofrey’s robes danced in the furnace winds. The lumen globes strung by wires along the ceiling clinked together and flickered on and off. Gofrey didn’t care; even should the lumens go out, the diffuse crimson glare that suffused the passages would be enough to navigate by. Even if he lost that light, he had the burning beacon of his faith to guide him.

  She was up ahead somewhere. Somewhere close. He could sense the false star of her soul amidst the gloom.

  ‘I am coming for you, deceiver,’ he muttered, and clutched that which hung about his neck, that which lay always close against his skin.

  His secret, hidden for so long, soon to be revealed.

  ‘Major Blaskaine, how far has your assault group progressed?’ The Saint’s voice came through on one of the voxmen’s backpack sets. Just hearing it filled Blaskaine with new strength.

  That was fortunate, he reflected, because his original store was fading fast.

  Blaskaine was still technically convalescent, sorely wounded and hobbling into battle on a leg full of pins while fluids gurgled through the pipes of his compression harness. It was painful and exhausting, but now here came the voice of the Saint, as soothing as any healing balm.

  ‘Saint Celestine, we have progressed–’ He paused to check the auspex that Kasyrgeldt held out for him. ‘Just over half a mile from the entrance of Gilded Depths workings. Cultist resistance is stiffening rapidly, my lady. Our advance has slowed to a crawl.’

  But they were still advancing, dammit.

  Blaskaine and his command squad ducked into a side-chamber, a claustrophobic rest space for miners with a few rusty metal benches, some bare lumen globes and a rack of hooks protruding from the wall for respirator masks to hang on. Outside, the fury of gunfire echoed amidst battle cries and the screams of the wounded and dying.

  ‘Keep pushing forward, major,’ replied Celestine. ‘My group has progressed almost a mile into the workings, as have Sister Meritorius’ warriors. I believe that we are nearing the enemy’s inner sanctum. The Emperor requires heroism of us all in this darkest hour.’

  Blaskaine should have felt anger or perhaps resentment at the implication that his forces were lagging. Instead he felt only an intense desire to do better, not to let the Saint down.

  ‘We shall redouble our efforts,’ he voxed.

  ‘The Emperor guides your path this day. You will make him proud,’ said Celestine before cutting the vox-link.

  ‘You heard the Saint,’ said Blaskaine, looking around at his command staff. ‘It’s time we broke this damn deadlock. Kasyr
geldt, appraisal.’

  The lieutenant set her auspex on one of the metal benches with its screen visible to them all. She laid a data-slate next to it, on which updating estimates of their and the enemy’s strengths scrolled constantly in runic script.

  ‘As you can see, this section of the workings has a single primary tunnel that runs south-west to north-east, away from the entrance and towards where the Saint believes our destination to be. We’ve the strength in numbers to force our way up the tunnel, but only slowly. Worse, the enemy are using side-tunnels here, here and here,’ she pointed to skull runes flashing on the auspex, ‘to move flanking forces in from the levels below us each time we threaten a meaningful breakthrough.’

  ‘Can we outmanoeuvre them, or block those tunnels?’ asked driver Jans, leaning intently over the auspex with his knuckles on the table.

  ‘Our enemy has a greater native knowledge of these workings than we do,’ said Kasyrgeldt. ‘Our chances of catching them out through manoeuvre are slim. As for blocking the tunnels, that would require careful application of explosives. Our sappers would have to–’

  ‘We’re not blocking the tunnels,’ said Blaskaine. A strange calm had settled on him, an acceptance.

  ‘Sir? You have a plan?’ asked Kasyrgeldt.

  ‘Simpler than that, Astryd. I have faith,’ said Blaskaine.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Our enemy are fanatical, and what they lack in concentration of force, they make up for in delaying tactics and a steady stream of reinforcements,’ said Blaskaine. ‘Our numbers, meanwhile, are finite, our time even more so. The Saint requires every warrior that can do so to break through to the heart of this complex, for that is where the only battle of any import will take place. We are not going to make it in time if we continue to fight this battle of attrition, and if we fail her now then it won’t matter what else we do. Lieutenant, what is this tunnel here?’

  ‘That’s a crawlway, sir,’ said Kasyrgeldt. ‘A conduit for cabling and gas-transference when the servitors are at the rockfaces.’