by C. L. Werner
The three-armed genestealer uttered a low hiss when it spotted Trishala walking through the gateway. It wasn’t anger that provoked the creature’s snarl, but rather warning. The others of its pack could feel its agitation and through that empathic bond they were aware of the menace this enemy posed. She was the one who had forced the Great Father to advance the cult’s plans through her interference. She was the one who’d proven herself bold and resourceful enough to survive combat with a pure-strain. She represented a threat that had to be disposed of. Such were the impulses the maimed alien passed to its fellows.
Silently, the aliens crept forwards. The mental stimulus passed into their minds by Bakasur gave them a greater awareness of what they could expect. The cult had been active around the cathedral and only the most direct and overt of those activities had been discovered by the Sisters. Some of the obstacles that appeared before the genestealers could be safely bypassed. It was the Sisters themselves that would represent the biggest menace. Yet there were ways to blunt even their threat.
Once the pack was at the very edge of the plaza they lunged forwards in a shrieking mass. They charged onto the plaza, slashing a path through the masses of refugees. No opportunity was given them to escape the rushing genestealers. The creatures kept close to the crowds, weaving among the screaming humans. With the incredible precision of their shared consciousness, the genestealers guided the panicked mob, steering it towards the steps.
The efforts of the defenders were thwarted at every turn. The Leman Russ tanks rumbled into life, their crews trying to ready their weapons in case the genestealers tried to rush their vehicles. Suddenly the tank on the left side of the plaza burst open in a cloud of flames and shrapnel, ripped apart by an internal explosion. The right-hand tank fared better, only a plume of smoke billowing up from its engine. The fearsome machine shuddered and fell silent, its crew leaping out of its hatches as smoke began to fill their compartment. The infantry gazed at the burning tanks in disbelief – their heaviest weapons destroyed just when they were needed. Sabotage was a word that invoked anger and fear in equal measure.
The soldiers in the plaza had no time to consider sabotage as they were trampled by the panicked crowd, dragged under by the sheer numbers of crazed humanity that stampeded towards them. Some few spared themselves by forsaking any pretext of maintaining control and simply allowing themselves to be swept away by the terrified throng. The sentries high upon the walls refrained from firing down into the plaza, unable to pick friend from foe in the confusion.
On the steps outside the Great Gate, the Battle Sisters likewise hesitated, none of them favouring the idea of being the first to shoot into the swirling morass of refugees. Trishala rushed out from the gateway, shouting commands to her warriors. ‘Open fire!’ she cried, putting action to words as she sent a burst from her pistol down into the plaza. ‘We can’t let even one xenos get inside! Prelate Azad, you have to close the Great Gate now!’
Grimly the Sisters blazed away, dropping the panicked refugees being herded towards the steps. From behind the falling bodies, the aliens sprang at their attackers, rushing them in a blur of scything claws and gnashing fangs. Less resolute soldiers than the Order of the Sombre Vow would have broken before the xenos assault, overcome by horror of the creatures. Trishala and her warriors stood their ground, loosing bursts of bolter-fire into the oncoming pure-strains.
One of the genestealers staggered, its carapace shattered by the explosive shells. Then the rest of the pack was amongst the black-armoured women. Sharp claws lashed out, digging through ceramite to rip at flesh and bone. One genestealer, leaping up from the bottommost step, landed on one of the Sisters, knocking her to the ground. Before she could rise, the alien’s jaw closed on her helm, crunching through the armour and burying its sharp fangs in her skull. A second and third warrior fell as the xenos tore through them and rushed the doorway. A volley from the Sisters inside drove the creatures back onto the steps.
‘Close the gate! Close the gate!’ Trishala shouted as a repulsed genestealer came at her. The last round from the clip in her pistol cracked against one of the creature’s legs, its impact partly deflected by its carapace. It charged her, weaving around the flare of her power sword, trying to strike her from the side. Trishala met its rush by the merest margin. The energised field of the blade went crunching down through the thing’s shoulder and into the organs buried deep beneath its exoskeleton.
Trishala kicked the mutilated alien off her blade. Around her she could hear the screams of the crowd, the shrieks of the genestealers and the chatter of bolters. The one sound she expected, however, was absent. The thunderous rumble of the gate being closed.
She looked for the other xenos that had been driven away from the doorway, watching as the genestealer leaped at the cathedral’s facade. With incredible speed the agile creature scrambled up towards the balcony overhead. The soldiers posted there fired away at the enemy, but their panicked shots were far from the mark. Snarling, the alien climbed onto the balcony and tore its way through the troopers as it rushed the door behind them. The portal was ripped from its mounting by the powerful claws and the next instant the creature was inside the cathedral.
Trishala shouted into her vox, alerting her Sisters to the enemy that was now inside. She raced towards the entrance to the narthex. As she did she was struck from the side, sent tumbling down the steps. In her fall, her sword was knocked from her grip, sliding away towards the plaza below. Above her she could see a genestealer racing after her. One of the alien’s claws was missing, but from the other dangled shreds of black armour.
The xenos sprang at the fallen warrior, but as it pounced, Trishala brought both her legs kicking up. Strength enhanced by her power armour, the Sister Superior’s kick propelled the beast backwards, hurling it back up the steps. She watched it only long enough to see it land in a tangle of thrashing limbs, then Trishala was scrambling down to the plaza to recover her sword.
At any moment Trishala expected to feel the genestealer’s claw tearing into her, but the threatened attack never came. Instead, when she looked up from the foot of the steps, she saw Kashibai leading a pair of Battle Sisters towards her. There was no sign of the xenos she’d kicked away. Indeed, the only aliens that were visible were dead ones.
‘Where are they?’ Trishala demanded.
The expression on Kashibai’s face was dour. ‘The one you were fighting scrabbled back towards the Ladder after you kicked it. We don’t know where it is now. We’re still looking for the one that got in through the balcony.’
‘The gate should have been closed,’ Trishala said.
‘Prelate Azad didn’t approve the order, Sister Superior,’ Kashibai said. ‘The acolytes refused to act without his approval. Before you ask, no one has been able to raise him on the vox.’
Trishala shook her head. ‘Then we have two searches to organise. One for the xenos and the other for the prelate.’ She looked across the dead Battle Sisters lying on the steps. ‘First, however, we’re going to speak with the acolytes in the gatehouse. With or without the prelate’s permission, we’re closing the Great Gate.’
A grinding shudder passed through the narthex as the Great Gate rumbled closed. An armaplas sheet nearly as thick as the bronze doors themselves, the gate set a shiver through the cathedral walls as it sealed off the entrance. Faintly the pleas and cries of the crowds outside in the plaza could be heard. The reaction of refugees already inside was more subdued, a quiet and guilty kind of relief. They weren’t without sympathy for those outside, but fear of the genestealers returning had a much stronger hold on them.
Only when the Great Gate was sealed did Trishala exit the narthex and withdraw to the antechamber that had become surrogate headquarters for the Order of the Sombre Vow. She bowed her head and whispered a solemn prayer when she saw the shrouded bodies lying against one wall. After a moment of quiet reflection on the sacrifice of her Sisters, she
walked to where Kashibai waited for her.
‘What were our own losses?’ Trishala asked.
‘Six dead,’ Kashibai said. ‘Perhaps seven given how grievous Sister Mohana’s wounds are. There are three others with lesser wounds. Prelate Azad is still missing.’
‘And one of these things is at large in the cathedral,’ Trishala cursed.
‘I’ve sent every available squad to hunt it down,’ Kashibai reported. ‘So far there hasn’t been a trace of it.’
‘The xenos is clever,’ Trishala said. ‘It is much worse than a mindless killer. There is some purpose to its actions. It hides because it is trying to accomplish something.’
‘Perhaps it is simply wary of our bolters,’ Kashibai suggested.
Trishala nodded to the dead Battle Sisters under the shrouds. ‘Out there we were able to confront them at a distance and they still mauled us. In here, we’ll have to come at them. Close quarters. Sword to claw.’
The Sister Superior pressed a hand against her side, feeling the rent in her armour, a series of scratches that were dug so deep she could feel the fabric of the shift she wore. A tiny bit deeper and the xenos would have ripped into her flesh.
‘We take no chances,’ Trishala ordered. ‘The squads looking for these xenos are to be called back and issued flamers. When they find them, we burn them out. I don’t care who or what is in the way.
‘Understand, anyone around one of these things may already be infected with their taint, degenerating into one of those hybrid cultists. We’ll need to use the acolytes, have them check for anyone who has been injured by a genestealer. Anyone they find will need to be quarantined, confined in one of the under-cellars.’ Trishala pressed her hand to the rent in her armour, reassuring herself that the attack hadn’t reached her.
Kashibai pointed to Trishala’s gouged armour. ‘What of the Sisters who weren’t so fortunate as you? What about Sister Mohana and the others?’
‘There can’t be any exceptions,’ Trishala declared. ‘Our Sisters must be confined and observed for any sign of corruption. Just like anyone else. It is better to perish in the Emperor’s grace than exist as something beyond His light.
‘Carry out my orders, Sister,’ Trishala said. ‘Believe me when I say it is the best way.’
Cornak could feel the psychic vibrations of a powerful intellect observing him as he strode down the rubble-choked avenues of the prayer-wrights’ district. It was cautious, this invisible spy. Rather than setting telepathic probes directly against the sorcerer, the unseen psyker was only brushing against his consciousness, trying to draw out impressions in the most unobtrusive fashion.
The talismans dangling from Cornak’s staff acted not merely to focus and magnify his powers, but also to surround him in a perpetual shell of psychic energy. The telepathic emanations of the spy could only scratch against that shell, unable to reach into the mind guarded by it. Perhaps, with a more direct effort, the spy could have forced an entry.
Cornak decided to discover for himself the nature of the psychic intruder. Deliberately he opened a gap in the shell that enclosed him. Like some lurking predator, he waited for the telepath to discover the opening. When he felt the outsider’s awareness reaching into his own, the sorcerer pounced, seizing hold of the mental vibration in an arcane trap.
The sorcerer hadn’t anticipated the kind of mind with which he now contested. Cornak had considered the intruder to be some psyker enslaved by the Imperial authorities, perhaps even the same astropath that had issued the distress call. Some renegade mutant with psychic abilities serving a rebel force that was trying to gain control of Tharsis was another possibility. He hadn’t been prepared for something so utterly alien.
The probing mind was an insane admixture of human understanding and xenos comprehension, a riotous discord of sensation and impulse. This alone wasn’t enough to discomfit Cornak. His eldritch powers had burned their way into the brains of eldar and loxatl, even the spectral essence of daemons, without any disruption of his own faculties. This was something beyond anything he’d encountered before.
The individual consciousness of the telepath was more veneer than actuality, independent in the sense that an organ was independent of the body around it. The intruding mind had purpose, function, even desire – but it was only a component of a larger whole. The trap Cornak had raised to seize hold of the probing mentality now turned itself upon the sorcerer. He felt himself being drawn out, his mind fracturing into dozens of shards, sinking into a labyrinth of awarenesses. The sorcerer’s consciousness fragmented still further, draining down into hundreds of alien minds. He could feel himself being pulled even farther, towards a precipice that would break him into thousands of tiny motes amongst xenos brains.
Hurriedly, gasping with the last essence of his diminishing self, Cornak closed the gap he’d created in the psychic shell. Instantly the connection was severed. His mind recoiled back into his corporeal frame, blazing through his brain with the rage of a dying star. The sorcerer clutched at his staff to keep himself standing.
Dimly, Cornak was aware of the Iron Warriors around him. He heard Turu shout, alerting Rhodaan to the sudden distress of the warband’s sorcerer.
The Iron Warriors had been marching for nearly an hour through the desolate, darkened streets of Tharsis, the warsmith maintaining the pace from near the front of the column. Rhodaan arrested the advance when Turu’s shout sounded over the vox. Immediately he sent his warriors to cover the rubble that littered the avenue, calling on them to watch for enemies. While the Space Marines took position, their commander drew back to the sorcerer.
‘What happened?’ Rhodaan asked, his eyes roving across the empty windows of the buildings above them.
‘I heard nothing, Dread Lord,’ Turu replied. ‘The sorcerer suddenly staggered.’
‘The flesh know they cannot fight us in the open,’ Rhodaan told the Iron Warrior. ‘Their only chance is to strike at us from the shadows and slip away before we find them.’ The motors of his gauntlet growled as he clenched his fist. ‘But we will find them.’
Cornak reached to his helm, unlocking it and lifting it away from his head. The sorcerer’s ashen features were now mottled by splotches of bruised skin. Blood trickled from nose, eyes and ears. Rhodaan grabbed hold of his chin, forcing his face upwards.
‘What’s happened to you?’ Rhodaan demanded.
The sorcerer drew back, trying to summon whatever dignity he could from the circumstances. Cornak could sense the scorn rolling off Rhodaan’s mind. The Iron Warriors had no patience for any sign of weakness, especially from those they were already uncertain of.
Cornak forced any hint of pain from his voice before answering the warsmith. ‘I was subjected to a psychic attack. I was able to fend it off with my sorcery and vanquish my assailant, but there may be others capable of launching a similar assault.’ The lies dripped from the sorcerer’s tongue more easily than the truth would have. If there was one thing he’d learned over the millennia it was the trepidation with which those uninitiated in the black arts regarded anything that threatened to give them a glimpse into the methodology of sorcery.
‘I would advise greater caution as we advance,’ Cornak continued. ‘When he attacked my mind, I was afforded a glimpse into his. The psyker that assailed me belongs to the rebel cult faction that has rampaged through the city. It is likely that the attack on me was but a prelude to a more direct attack against your warriors.’
‘Then they will learn they should have kept to spells and witchery,’ Rhodaan snarled. The warsmith strode back to relay new orders to his Space Marines.
Cornak drew his helm back down over his bruised features. His dubious warning would serve its purpose. The Iron Warriors would be ready when the attack came. There was no need to tell Rhodaan that the sorcerer’s prediction was more than speculation or prophecy, but a certainty.
As he pondered the impre
ssions he’d taken from the xenos, a troubling thought occurred to Cornak. He knew what he’d learned from that brief contact between his mind and the xenos. But what might the xenos have learned during that exchange?
Chapter VII
Screams of horror echoed through the sacred halls of the Warmason’s Cathedral. Trishala raced towards the grisly sounds, a squad of Battle Sisters close on her heels. The tilted corridors of the cathedral were swarming with refugees, a tide of panicked humanity that rolled against the Sisters as they tried to advance. Such was the terror that gripped the crowd that their usual reserve was forgotten. Only the enhanced strength and durability afforded by their power armour enabled Trishala and her followers to gain any ground.
‘Make way!’ Trishala raged at the crowds. ‘Let us through!’ She was certain only one thing could have provoked such terror. The genestealer that had forced its way onto the balcony and then vanished into the labyrinthine passageways of the cathedral. Somewhere beyond this stampede of fear, they would find the alien. At least, if they moved fast enough.
Pressed close against one of the supports that jutted out from the corridor wall, an ashen-faced sacristan looked desperately in Trishala’s direction. He cupped his hand to his mouth, calling to the Sister Superior. It took some time before the Battle Sisters were near enough to hear him over the rumble of the crowd.
‘Sister Superior!’ the sacristan cried. ‘The xenos is in Gauntlet’s Retreat!’
The report set a conflict of emotion coursing through Trishala. Elation, for the Retreat had only a single exit, meaning the genestealer would be trapped if the way were barred quickly. Revulsion when she considered that the priests had opened the room to refugees when the Warmason’s Gauntlet was removed to the Palladion. A score or more could have been crammed into that space, helpless as the xenos burst in upon them with razored teeth and ripping claws.
‘Captain Debdan,’ Trishala called across the vox. ‘The xenos has been spotted in the Gauntlet’s Retreat. We are approaching the site from below. Bring your men down through the hallway connecting to the shrine of Vadok the Architect. If you’re fast, we may catch it between us.’
