by C. L. Werner
Miriya shot Lethe a look. ‘Your candour is appreciated, Sister Dione. We will ensure the criminal reaches Neva without delay.’
More servitors took up the confinement capsule and marched into the tunnel back to the Mercutio. As Vaun was taken away, Dione relaxed a little. ‘Lord LaHayn was most insistent that this witch be brought to his court for execution. It is my understanding the honoured deacon called in several favours with the Adeptus Terra to ensure it was so.’
Miriya nodded, recalling the message from Galatea. The Canoness would be waiting in Noroc City for their arrival with the criminal. ‘Vaun is a Nevan himself, correct? One might consider it just that he be put to the sword on the soil of his birthworld, given that he created so much anarchy there.’ She threw a glance at Lethe, and her second marshalled the rest of the Celestians to flank the prisoner as he vanished into the docking tube. Miriya turned to follow. ‘Ave Imperator, Sister.’
Dione’s armoured gauntlet clasped Miriya’s wrist and held her for a moment. ‘Don’t underestimate him,’ she hissed, her eyes glittering in the murkiness. ‘I did, and six good women paid the price.’
‘Of course.’
Dione released her grip and faded back into the blackness.
From the rendezvous point, the Mercutio came about and made space for the Neva system. The Black Ship vanished from her sensorium screen like a lost dream, so quickly and so completely that it seemed as if the dark vessel had never been there.
The frigate’s entry to the empyrean went poorly, and a momentary spasm in the warship’s Geller Field killed a handful of deckhands on the gunnery platforms. The crew spoke in hushed tones behind guarded expressions, never within earshot of the Battle Sisters. None of them knew what it was that Miriya’s squad had brought back from the Black Ship, but all of them were afraid of it.
Over the days that followed, prayer meetings in the frigate’s sparse chapel had a sudden increase in attendance and there were more hymns being played over the vox-nets on the lower decks. Most of the crew had never seen Battle Sisters in the flesh before. In dozens of ports across the sector they had heard the stories about them, just like every other Navy swab. There were things that men of low character would think of women such as these, thoughts that ran the spectrum from lustful fantasy to violent distrust. Some said they lived off the flesh of the males they killed, like a jungle mantis. Others swore they were as much concubines as they were soldiers, able to bring pleasure and damnation to the unwary in equal measure. The crewmen were as scared by the Sororitas as they were fascinated by them, but there were some who watched the women wherever they went, compelled by something deeper and darker.
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For Lindsey, who has sharp eyes and cunning wit.
A Black Library Publication
First published in Great Britain in 2017
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Cover illustration by Raymond Swanland.
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-562-3
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