Hammer and Anvil

by James Swallow

  At the next landing she came to a halt and lifted her gun, aiming back the way she had come. How dare they make me run, she told herself. The faithless have no rule over the faithful.

  The first two that emerged she put down with shots to the head, but there had to be a whole platoon of them marching up after her, and Imogen did not have enough shells for them all.

  ‘Aside!’ Strong hands shoved her to the wall and a figure in armour lurched past, emerging from a doorway across the landing. Imogen saw the other Battle Sister hurl a cluster of fragmentation grenades down the mouth of the stairwell and then dive for cover. She dropped to the stone floor as the grenades detonated almost immediately, the fuses dialled down to their shortest setting.

  The concussion deafened her and blasted the necrons into pieces, choking the spiral staircase with broken rock and broken machines.

  Then Imogen realised who had come to her aid and her expression soured. ‘Sister Miriya. Where is the canoness? You left her side in the midst of an attack, in the company of that hybrid?’

  The other woman’s voice was woolly and difficult to understand, but Imogen could read lips well enough. ‘No need to thank me, Sister,’ Miriya replied, coughing at the thick dust in the air. ‘Sepherina is safe. And Decima is not our enemy. She sensed the necron approach…’

  ‘But not soon enough to make a difference!’ She pushed the other woman aside and strode out onto the upper level of the keep. ‘Begone. Get to your post.’

  ‘The canoness bid me to ensure you were safe–’

  Imogen rounded on her with sudden fury. ‘I do not need your help, Sister Militant!’ She turned Miriya’s low rank into an insult.

  She expected an angry reaction, but Miriya’s manner was sombre. ‘Why do you challenge me at every turn?’ asked the other woman. ‘Why do you make everything between us a contest that only you can win? I obey your orders and you show me nothing but contempt!’

  ‘Now is not the time for this.’ Imogen turned to walk away, but Miriya grabbed her arm.

  ‘We may perish at the enemy’s hand at any moment,’ said the Battle Sister, ‘and I would rather go to the God-Emperor’s side knowing what insult I have done to you, for I can see no other explanation!’

  Imogen shrugged off her hand. ‘You dare give me commands? But of course you do! You swan about as if you are of high rank and noble status. You are Sister Miriya, the woman who defied the orders of her canoness on Neva, and was allowed to escape chastisement for it!’

  Miriya held up her broken chaplet. ‘I was punished for that. And you punish me still, for something you know nothing of!’

  ‘I know you disobeyed your commander!’ Imogen shot back. ‘We are an Order, Sister! And Order means we obey, without question. I am the instrument of the Imperial Church! But you are an unprincipled opportunist, forgiven by a mistress too weak to see you executed!’

  The other woman stepped back, her expression one of shock. ‘Is… is that what you think of me? That I would put myself before my Sisters?’ Miriya’s manner hardened once more. ‘You have no idea what happened on Neva. I was ordered to leave my squad behind to die, when I still had the chance to save them! I chose otherwise!’ Distant gunfire cracked, echoing down the long corridor.

  Imogen hesitated. Something in the other woman’s tone made her moderate her own. ‘That is not what is said in the convent, and among the Sisterhood. It is said that you allowed women under your command to die.’

  ‘I allowed nothing,’ Miriya replied, a note of pain in her words. ‘But I was responsible for lives lost… And I did not wish to see more die for nothing.’ She glared at the Sister Superior. ‘The words of those who do not know the truth mean nothing to me. But would you have done otherwise, Imogen? Let your Sisters die, even if there was the slimmest chance you could prevent it?’

  I would obey my orders. Imogen wanted that to be her answer, but she knew it could not be. Finally, her lip curled in a sneer and she turned away. ‘I will not argue with you. Come. I’ll not allow the canoness to fight without my arm at her side.’

  Miriya’s expression remained unchanged as she followed the Sister Superior down the corridor at a run.

  Out in the tunnel beyond the cell-crypts the sounds of conflict were deafening, the noise of the necrons now joined by cries of pain from human mouths and the dull drumming growl of heavy autoguns. One of the surviving Mechanicus weapon-slaves must have been freed and shrugged off its concealment, reverting back to battle mode to engage the aliens.

  Finally, Tegas heard the clash of xenos blade on forged steel as the axe-head upon a gauss flayer barrel met the door to his cell-crypt. The metal around the hinges deformed and bent, before the axe bit and sliced, the monomolecular edge cutting it cleanly.

  With a thunderous crash, the cell door fell inwards and kicked up puffs of rust and dirt. The questor saw the glitter of the necron axe-blade, and his limbs, his servo-arm, his serpentine mechadendrites, all came up to defend him in a flurry of claws and talons.

  Adept Lumik entered the cell with the gauss flayer in her hands, holding it like a child given a las-rifle to toy with. She found him where he cowered and spoke without any judgement or emotion. ‘The necrons killed the g-guards,’ she told him, anticipating his first question. ‘The gun-servitor k-killed the necrons.’

  He peered past her and saw a mess of death. The ashen remains of the murdered Battle Sisters and some of Lumik’s fellow adepts, pieces of molten slag surrounding a mortally wounded servitor lying on its side, legs kicking pathetically. ‘We should not have been able to defeat them,’ he said quietly.

  ‘They broke their attack pattern unexpectedly,’ the adept explained. ‘We t-took advantage of it.’

  Tegas looked back at Lumik, and on an impulse he couldn’t identify, he snatched the alien gun from her. It was surprisingly light, almost as if it were hollow inside, and it felt wrong somehow in his grip. The questor was immediately overcome with a desire to be away from the weapon, a physical repulsion that shocked him with its potency.

  It wasn’t time for him to be playing with these things. Not now. Not yet.

  He threw the flayer gun into the corner of the cell and pushed past Lumik. ‘Strip the autoguns from the helot, take what the Sororitas carried. Then follow me.’ He lurched into the smoke-filled stone corridor, his lung filters wheezing.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Lumik asked.

  Tegas kept walking and didn’t answer her.

  For one moment, it seemed as if the necron assault would close around the throat of the convent’s defenders like a steel hawser pulled tight. They came in from three points of the compass, some emerging as if from nowhere directly among the blockade points manned by Sepherina’s best fighters. Weapons blazed on both sides, but it was human casualties that escalated fastest. The Battle Sisters were spread too widely, covering every angle of attack, redundant or not. They reconfigured quickly, squad by squad responding to the enemy sortie, but the necrons were precise with their kills, carving into the convent’s defences with a scalpel’s precision.

  The Sisters met them with massed firepower. They weathered their blows and some died, but those who lived, wounded mortally or not, mocked the machines by rising on sheer force of will to fight on. With prayers and acts of faith upon their souls, the Adepta Sororitas let the love of their God-Emperor drive them into the fight, and let their hatred of the alien propel them beyond reason and mere endurance.

  The necron line cracked in places as it had before Deacon Zeyn’s impassioned rally. It cracked and it broke, and the wave of steel marching forth suddenly fell into retreat.

  Warriors and immortals began to phase out by the dozen, squad after squad dissipating into crackling sheets of energetic expulsion as space-time warped about them. The ripple effect echoed down their lines and it was only a matter of moments before no xenos soldiers stood within the walls of the Sanctuary 101 outpost.

  Silence fell upon the Battle Sisters; silence and the slow, sullen rise o
f the Kavir dawn.

  ‘The enemy have fully disengaged,’ Cassandra told the canoness. ‘Danae and Helena report in from the primary and secondary contact points. The necrons gave up and retreated.’ Her voice was caught in the wind. Up here on the gently sloped roof of the main donjon, they could see the full spread of the stronghold and the valley beyond the walls. She searched for the glitter of sunlight off silver and did not find it.

  ‘No,’ muttered Decima, standing to one side, next to the hospitaller. Verity had remained with them while Sister Zara had left to aid the wounded.

  Sepherina did not acknowledge the other woman’s utterance. ‘This is certain?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Cassandra, unable to keep a measure of incredulity from her voice. ‘If fate blesses us, I think we may have bloodied their noses and sent them reeling.’ She glanced at the revenant. ‘They expected the rout they faced last time they came here, but this time we were ready for them.’ For a moment, the Battle Sister dared to hope that she might be right; but then that hope faded and died as Cassandra met Decima’s cold, empty eyes and remembered the endless army she had witnessed inside the necron orbital complex.

  ‘I have never believed in fate,’ Sepherina replied, glancing around as Sister Miriya and Sister Imogen emerged from inside the keep. ‘Report,’ she demanded.

  Imogen shared a wary look with Miriya and bowed briefly. ‘Multiple vectors of attack. Casualties were high, but we held the line. The fight was in the balance until…’

  ‘Until they left.’

  ‘You mean, they retreated,’ Verity corrected.

  Miriya shook her head. ‘Retreat suggests they were giving ground. This was nothing of the like. They made a tactical withdrawal. They are regrouping.’

  ‘Why would they do so?’ Cassandra asked. ‘They could have kept up the pressure.’ She did not want to say the rest. We would have lost, eventually.

  ‘A probe,’ Sepherina told them. ‘The xenos were testing us.’

  ‘Khaygis is their nemesor. Their commander,’ Decima offered. She ran a bony finger over one of the implants in her face. ‘I think I heard him.’

  ‘Is this… nemesor… still out there?’ Imogen strode boldly to the edge of the roof and glared out into the desert.

  ‘They never left,’ whispered the ragged woman, her gaze turning inwards, weighed down by brutal memory. ‘They never, never left…’

  ‘That much appears clear now,’ said a new voice. Guns were raised as Questor Tegas and a few of his Mechanicus adepts stepped up onto the windswept roof.

  Imogen scowled. ‘How did you get free?’

  ‘Your Sisters fought bravely,’ Tegas said, with solemnity. ‘They saved my life.’

  Sepherina took a warning step towards the adepts. ‘Or perhaps you killed them in the confusion.’

  ‘Then why would I be here, now?’ he shot back at her. ‘You are wilfully blind to my knowledge in all of this, canoness. You do not want to associate with me because you cannot see past your prejudice for all that is not of the Sororitas.’

  ‘You dare?’ Imogen went for the haft of her power maul, but Sepherina stopped her with a gesture. Cassandra watched as the canoness gave Tegas permission to continue with a terse incline of her head.

  ‘Speak on,’ she said. ‘I will let you talk yourself into an execution.’

  Tegas sniffed. ‘I know more about the necrontyr than any other human on this blighted rock, more even than this broken toy.’ He pointed his servo-arm at Decima. ‘The deaths here, among your Sisters in the year eight-nine-seven? Those were not the first of our species to be executed by these xenos monstrosities. They were merely the first to be widely known. Human eyes laid gaze on the necrontyr more than two centuries before that day.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Verity, although she spoke as if she were trying to convince herself. ‘A threat so grave… The Adeptus Terra would not have remained silent over such a danger to the Imperium.’

  The questor snorted at her. ‘Are you all so naïve?’ He paused, and Cassandra realised he was accessing some internal reservoir of memory. ‘Solemnace. Morrigor. Lazar and Bellicas. Have any of you heard of those worlds?’ When none of them answered, he nodded and went on. ‘And you never will. The Imperium faces so many threats from within and without. The common people need not know how close the necron claw is to their throats.’

  ‘How many attacks have there been like this one?’ Sepherina demanded. ‘Tell me what other knowledge Inquisitor Hoth imparted to you!’

  ‘I will tell you this.’ Tegas nodded again. ‘This is a false dawn. A probe, as you yourself said, canoness. It is a pattern repeated by the necrons on dozens of battlefields. The xenos have fallen back to repair and rearm. And when they return, it will be in numbers so great they will shake the earth with their passage.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  There was a moment when Miriya thought that the canoness would give the kill-command, then and there atop the roof of the central keep.

  The Battle Sister saw the moment unfold in her mind: Sepherina snarling the order, the other Sororitas bringing up their guns. A howl of shots. Tegas, his arms wheeling as the impacts blew him over the lip of the roof.

  It was all he deserved, after all. He had lied to the Order of Our Martyred Lady, perhaps for years, first about the secret Mechanicus explorator base in the canyons, and then about the deadly threat of the necrontyr themselves.

  ‘You should die for what you have done,’ said the canoness, giving voice to Miriya’s thoughts. ‘I would be remiss to let you draw breath a moment longer.’

  ‘That would be a grave mistake,’ Tegas replied. His voice was level and lacked any note of fear, but Miriya imagined that too was just one more trick in his arsenal of subterfuge. Inwardly, the questor had to be terrified. One misstep now and he would be executed where he stood. ‘I have no reason to keep anything from you any more, milady. Events on the ground have exceeded the remit I was given. We now all find ourselves on the horns of the same dilemma.’

  Sepherina looked away, disgusted with him. Her gaze ranged up into the pale dawn, and she found the hazy ghost-shape of the Obsidian Moon, still visible high in the sky.

  Finally, she spoke again. ‘If what you say is so, we need to reformulate our defensive strategy.’ The canoness glanced at Cassandra. ‘Pass orders to the defence squads to move the force wall generators surrounding the convent’s genatorium chamber. Shift them out to the edges of the keep.’

  ‘That will leave our power systems unprotected,’ said Verity.

  ‘If the xenos get that far inside again, it won’t matter,’ Imogen offered grimly, as Cassandra spoke quietly into her vox-bead.

  ‘And him?’ Miriya pointed at Tegas with the muzzle of her bolter.

  ‘I will allow the questor to live, for the moment,’ said Sepherina, and Tegas visibly relaxed. ‘His skills and insight may provide use to me.’ She stepped closer to him. ‘Do you understand that, cog?’ Tegas flinched at the pejorative. ‘The second you fail to be of any tactical value, you are deadweight.’

  Miriya shouldered her weapon and glared at the questor. ‘So this is what we will do?’ She turned to the canoness. ‘Stand and die?’

  ‘Sister Miriya!’ Imogen snapped harshly. ‘You forget yourself! You will speak with deference to the mistress!’

  She bit her lip and bowed. ‘Of course… I meant no disrespect…’ Miriya looked up. ‘But my question stands. We must find a new strategy, my lady. If we do not take the fight to the xenos, they will overwhelm us!’

  ‘It is not your place to question the orders of your superiors,’ Imogen went on. ‘I would think that lesson would have been made abundantly clear to you since Neva!’

  Miriya ignored her, concentrating on holding Sepherina’s gaze. ‘We must deal with this threat at its source. We must go back to the Obsidian Moon…’ She trailed off. ‘We all understand the reasons why.’

  ‘I do not disagree,’ said the canoness, ‘but such a raid would be suicidal
, given the countless numbers of enemy troops you reported in the alien stronghold.’ She glanced up again. ‘We have no vessels to make the trip, no way of entering the chamber you spoke of in the canyons…’

  ‘There is always another path,’ Tegas spoke up, pulling his cloak closer about him as the wind rose. ‘I can offer a solution.’

  ‘The iron scroll,’ said Decima, breaking her silence at last. ‘It turns to many functions.’ She glanced away, muttering at nothing, her voice low and harsh.

  The questor pressed on, suddenly animated by the challenge. ‘Now I have seen it in operation, I believe it is possible for me to conjure the portal configuration from the device’s matrix. All that would be needed is an active necron gateway within the Obsidian Moon to connect to. I could open a pathway into the complex.’

  ‘But can we destroy it?’ Cassandra asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  ‘He lies still,’ murmured Decima. ‘Shut up!’ she spat, whispering at voices only she could hear.

  Tegas paid no attention to the revenant. ‘As we have a reactor core inside this outpost, so the xenos have a dimensional-phase device to provide power to their largest facilities. Yes, Sisters, I can deactivate it if you take me there.’

  Imogen heard the avarice as it finally bled into his voice and raised her gun again. ‘The hybrid is right! He lies again, and even now I do not doubt he is scheming, to find the ends of this that will most benefit him!’

  ‘The ends?’ Tegas echoed. ‘Even my most favourable probability equations give us a success ratio of one in five thousand iterations! At this moment, what benefits me most, Sister Superior, is not dying!’

  The winds carried the questor’s angry words away, and for a time there was only the low howl of the sand over the stone.

  ‘We will stand and fight,’ Sepherina said, at length. ‘It is our way. We are the unbreakable bulwark ranged against the enemies of mankind. It has ever been so.’ She glanced at Miriya. ‘Our Sisters perished here and in their memory we will stand their posts. We will fight to the last bolt-shell if the God-Emperor decrees it.’ She took a step towards the edge of the roof. ‘And while we fight, Sisters, you will go into the catacombs of the alien machine and cut its throat.’