by Darius Hinks
The crowd roared wildly, but Antros wondered why Dravus even bothered mentioning the Emperor. It was clear he had shifted his faith to darker gods, and the hordes of lunatics crammed into the amphitheatre would have leapt to join any slaughter he willed, without the pretence that the fight was a righteous one.
He looked at Mephiston, sure that Dravus’ infuriating lies would drive him over the edge and unleash the Gift.
The Chief Librarian was watching his garish foe with calm dispassion.
Dravus’ smile faltered as he saw how unruffled Mephiston was by his words. ‘Go now!’ he howled, jabbing his spear at the heavens and eliciting another wild roar from below.
The crowd poured towards the two gates that led out of the arena, but Antros quickly saw the reason for Mephiston’s composure. Rather than flooding out into the city streets, the thousands of mutants piled up against the gates, forming a swaying crush of bodies. As they started to die under the weight of their fellow cultists, violence erupted across the amphitheatre – gunshots and howls rang out through the terraces.
‘He’s locked the gates,’ breathed Antros.
Captain Vatrenus locked the gates,+ said a voice in Antros’ head.
Antros looked up at the broken statue and saw that Mephiston was looking directly at him.
I had originally hoped to save these poor souls, but I see now that they were damned before I could act. I knew that the enemy was here, in the city, but my auguries were unclear. I did not realise it was Dravus himself. He doomed his people long before we arrived. Their torments will be brief, at least. The information I gained from Father Orsuf will ensure that much.+
Dravus’ grin was entirely absent now and he was pacing back and forth, watching the mayhem below and then glaring at Mephiston.
He levelled his spear at the distant gates and spat in rage as his sorcery had no effect.
‘How?’ he yelled, lunging at Mephiston with his spear. ‘How did you do this? Those gates have not been locked for centuries! They have no locks!’
Mephiston easily parried the blow, allowing Dravus to stumble past him, almost falling from the crumbling statue before he whirled around to face the Chief Librarian, his features twisted by a look of childish petulance.
‘There are locks,’ said Mephiston, dodging another spear strike. ‘It’s surprising what you learn if you read more than prayer books. The existence of the locks was not the most interesting thing I learned about this building.’
The violence below was becoming more ferocious as the cultists at the centre of the amphitheatre continued pushing out towards the gates, unaware of the carnage they were creating.
Dravus howled in fury and jabbed his spear at Mephiston again. All of his grace had been stolen by anger. He struck so wildly that Mephiston was able to step aside and gently shove Dravus as he stumbled past, causing him to stagger and then fall from the top of the enormous shield, plunging down to the terraces below. His body detonated like a flask of wine as it crashed against the old stone, hundreds of feet below.
Mephiston did not even bother to look at the corpse; he looked instead at the object he had snatched from Dravus’ neck as he fell – the iron bolt.
The cultists nearby howled in outrage but Mephiston continued speaking.
‘History can teach us so much, if we allow it the chance to speak,’ he said, his words lost on the heaving crowds below. ‘This temple was built in tribute to a long-forgotten pantheon. The people of this world believed in many things we might now disdain, but their ingenuity cannot be denied.’
He nodded at the distant Techmarine, crouched in the upper reaches of the amphitheatre. Brother Gallus pulled a lever on the outlet pipe he was standing beside. The mechanism was so corroded that even the Techmarine’s massive servo-arm strained to ratchet the arm down into its cradle.
For a moment nothing happened. Then a trickle of black liquid began coughing from the pipe. After a few moments, the splutter became a stream and then a thick column of oil that arced out over the toiling masses below.
‘This is no amphitheatre,’ said Mephiston, as the jet of oil smashed into the ranks of cultists, cutting black lines through the crowds and knocking hundreds of mutants off their feet. ‘It is a beacon.’ He looked up at the circle of faceless statues. ‘A tribute to the ancient gods of this world.’
The oil was gushing from the pipe at such a rate that it was already spreading out through the crowds.
‘Their names may be forgotten,’ said Mephiston, aiming his plasma pistol at the quickly spreading lake of tar, ‘but perhaps they will find some use for these wretched souls.’
He fired a single shot and, for a second time, the amphitheatre blossomed into flame. This was not a magical glow, however, transforming the crowd through sorcery; it was real fire, blazing white-hot as it ignited the thousands who were trying to reach the gates. Immense heat rushed up through the cup-shaped building and even Antros had to raise his hand against the glare.
Mephiston’s voice crackled over the vox-network, speaking to all of the Blood Angels, both inside and outside the amphitheatre. ‘We have a destination,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the city gates.’ He summoned wings and launched himself up into the thick plumes of smoke rising from the fire. ‘We leave for Volgatis in the hour.’
Chapter Fifteen
Volgatis, Divinus Prime
Even after years of discord and violence, Volgatis was unsullied by war. Only the most desperate souls would brave the wrath of its protectors. As Livia rode around the final bend of the treacherous mountain path, she reined in her horse, giving Dharmia a chance to admire the magnificence of the holy fortress. The convent knifed up from a spur of the mountain, hung out over a sheer drop, thousands of feet high. The bottom of the chasm was hidden beneath the clouds that drifted far below. The gleaming white talon soared up out of sight, but also plunged down into the mountainside, its myriad lights glittering in the dark like seams of gold. It looked like an ice blade, thrust into the mountain by a god.
Dharmia looked back down the moonlit path and saw the others riding up towards them. The men were all swaying in their saddles, exhausted by the furious ride and coated in a glittering layer of frost.
‘Will they just let us in?’ Dharmia asked, pounding her frozen arms, trying to recover some feeling in her limbs. She looked up at the pinpricks of light that covered the tower. ‘Do Seraphim like unexpected guests?’
‘They are Children of the Vow, just as we are,’ replied Livia. ‘Besides,’ she said, nodding down the mountainside, ‘they will be glad of the extra guns.’ Livia was wearing her usual, sardonic smile, but Dharmia noticed it was not quite as convincing as usual.
Dharmia looked where she was pointing and saw the long, coiling snake of lights that lay across the plains. Pieter Zorambus was less than a day behind them and his army had grown even larger as he marched towards Volgatis, the new converts inspired by the miracle of Hesbon’s wings. Dharmia guessed that the apostates now numbered several thousand.
Livia clicked the horse into motion and they crunched across the ice towards the gates of the fortress. The doors were hundreds of feet tall and the final approach was covered by an enormous portico. Rather than columns, the vast porch was supported by four colossal statues, each of them kneeling, heads bowed, with the gabled roof of the portico in their huge hands. ‘The Seraphim will have heard of our losses,’ said Livia as they rode into the shadows beneath the porch, ‘and our refusal to join with the Unbegotten Prince. They will not question our loyalty. They will know what we have endured to honour the Vow, so it would not occur to them that we might wish to remove the blade.’
The gates were closed. They reached up into the night sky like another limb of the mountain, blocking out the stars as Dharmia and Livia rode towards them.
‘We bring our faith and our guns!’ cried Livia, rising up in her saddle as the others rode up beh
ind them, gathering before the gates. ‘We are Children of the Vow and we have come to preserve that which must be preserved.’
Her words echoed strangely around the gulley and there was no reply. Livia pursed her lips and glanced back down the mountain at the approaching army.
‘The Emperor has seen fit to share your secret with us!’ she cried, turning back to the gates. ‘We understand your sacred duty. We will offer our lives to aid you.’
Lights flickered, high overhead behind the battlements. Then, with a roar of promethium, figures began hurtling towards them: winged, armour-clad warriors that screamed down the sheer, impregnable edifice with their bolt pistols trained on Livia and her men.
As they landed, Dharmia saw that their wings were just the ornamental cowls of jump packs, built of thick ceramite, the same as their polished black-and-white armour. The hard edges of their battleplate were softened by a flurry of crimson robes, stitched with complex tracts and litanies, and bearing the fleur-de-lys symbol of their order. All of the Seraphim wore domed helmets that obscured their faces, apart from the leader, a towering, powerful-looking woman who strode towards them with her chin raised defiantly. Her power armour was even more decorated than her Sisters’. It was covered in purity seals, and gilt-edged phylacteries, hung on chains, clattered against her armour. Her bolt pistol was holstered, but she held a brutal-looking morning star in her hands, its thick iron chains filigreed with the same holy texts that adorned her robes.
As the woman approached, Dharmia gasped. She wore only a thin, gauzy veil, held in place by a golden circlet, and the face behind the veil was a crimson mass of scar tissue. The woman’s skin had been entirely burned away, leaving her with the visage of a peeled corpse, complete with a brutal, rictus grin and staring, lidless eyes. The effect was made all the more disturbing by the fact that she had decorated her raw flesh with face paint: an Imperial aquila, its wings spread across her cheeks and its two heads arched over her lidless eyes. The white paint gleamed shockingly against the glistening burgundy of her face.
‘Saint Ophiusa,’ said Livia, dropping to one knee and waving for the others to do the same.
Dharmia dragged her gaze from Ophiusa’s nightmarish face and stared at the rest of the Seraphim. They were figures of legend: an elite warrior caste, the bravest and best Divinus Prime had to offer, chosen by the distant lords of Terra to watch over the planet’s most holy sites. Volgatis was said to house hundreds of the warriors and, after learning that the fortress contained the Blade Petrific, Dharmia no longer found such a claim so preposterous.
‘You have a storm at your back, stranger,’ said Saint Ophiusa. Her voice was a moist growl of ruined vocal cords. She sounded like an animal but carried herself with confidence and dignity.
Livia rose to her feet. ‘It is a slightly smaller storm than it might have been, thanks to the sacrifice of my men.’ Dharmia noticed that she suppressed the mischief that usually filled her voice, speaking with a tone she had not heard her employ before. It was soft and oddly beguiling. ‘We could not save the fortress at Kobella, my lady, but we made the apostates pay heavily for their route to your gates.’ She gripped her lasgun. ‘My name is Livia and I offer you all the strength we have left.’
Saint Ophiusa looked past Livia at the ragtag group of militiamen that surrounded her. Every one of them carried a wound of some kind and their thick furs were tattered and bloodstained. Even without those signs of combat, their hardships would have been clear from their gaunt faces, burned by the glare of the snow and the exhausted droop of their shoulders. The thin, mountain air had robbed them of breath and they gasped as they walked. Their faces remained resolute, though, and they looked back at the Seraphim with expressions of grim determination.
The saint studied them in silence for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice sounded less ferocious.
‘I have heard of your bravery at the battle of Kobella. We are the Order of the Hallowed Gate and it would be an honour to have you fighting at our side.’ She lowered her mace and nodded at the army crossing the moonlit plains below. Even from this far there was no mistaking the shapes of tanks and heavy artillery, trailing dust clouds as they trundled after the columns of dragoons. ‘Tomorrow’s guests are not here on a pilgrimage.’ She raised her voice, as though addressing the stars. ‘We have been waiting for this test since before you were born, Livia, and we will face it with all the strength we have been given, but my visions are all clear on one thing – tomorrow will be a day of blood.’
Livia rose from her knee and stepped closer to the saint. ‘I know what you house here, my lady, and I’m here to offer you a promise – those apostates will not touch the Blade Petrific while I or my men still draw breath. All we ask for is a chance to fight.’
Saint Ophiusa nodded. ‘Those apostates were never in any danger of getting near the Blade Petrific, but your offer is gladly accepted.’ She turned to the nearest of her Seraphim. ‘Sister Superior Melitas will lead you to our dormitories. I advise that you spend what is left of the night in prayer. The morning will certainly bring you a chance to fight.’
At a signal from Ophiusa, engines and pulleys roared into life and the vast gates began to swing open, revealing a moonlit courtyard beyond and a complex of temples and shrines, all wrought in the same ossuary fashion as the rest of the planet’s buildings. The Seraphim strode back through the gates, following Ophiusa as she marched off into the shadows, the jets of her jump pack still glowing as they cooled.
Sister Superior Melitas removed her helmet, revealing a gleaming white bob and a stern, lean face. She had a fleur-de-lys tattooed on her cheek but there was nothing decorative about her appearance. Her gaunt features spoke of an iron-hard will and years of combat. ‘Stay close,’ she snapped. ‘Tomorrow the war reaches Volgatis and we will not be found unprepared.’ She gestured at the figures that were dashing back and forth through the buildings. Torches and braziers lit the bone-work grotesques and tortured colonnades of the convent. ‘Keep out of the way until morning and I will make sure you have a chance to prove your faith.’
She strode on beneath one of the colonnades, climbed some steps and led them into a bustling armoury, warmed by the heat of several braziers. Armourers were working and praying over an impressive array of weapons. ‘I doubt you could lift one of our bolt pistols,’ she said, patting one of the huge guns as though it were a beloved pet, but we have flamers and bladed weapons.’ She glanced at Livia’s men. ‘Some of you may be able to wield those. At the very least, the armourers can see to your own weapons.’ She grimaced at the state of their filthy chainswords and flails. ‘We must face our trials with dignity tomorrow.’ She led them past the weapons to a room crowded with thick coats and plates of flak armour. ‘For Throne’s sake, don’t let Saint Ophiusa see you in her battle lines dressed like that.’
Livia’s men stared in wonder at the piles of gleaming, sacred weaponry and armour.
‘First you must pray, though,’ said Sister Melitas. She scowled. ‘And bathe.’ She led them on to the dormitories – vast halls for bathing, sleeping and prayer. They were almost empty, with all the Seraphim outside on the battlements, preparing for the morning. There were a few priests and servants scuttling through the chambers, though, and Melitas called out for fresh bathwater and prayer mats.
Once they were clean and dressed to the satisfaction of Sister Superior Melitas, she led them to a chapel and left them to pray. Before she could leave, Livia placed a hand on her arm. ‘Sister Superior,’ she said, her voice so low that only Dharmia heard. ‘May I see the Blade Petrific?’
Melitas gave her a wary look. ‘Why?’
‘If we are to die in a few hours, I will never have a chance to see the place where the Emperor’s hand once rested.’ Her voice grew husky with emotion. ‘I will never have a chance to feel His presence on the air.’
The Sister Superior gave her a hard look. ‘His presence is everywher
e.’ She patted the twisted mesh of fossils that made up the wall next to them. ‘This whole world was formed by His will.’
Livia gave Dharmia a discreet shove and the young girl moved forwards, tears glinting in her eyes. ‘I did so hope to see the Blade Petrific once before I died. I have heard such tales of it. Before they died, my parents told me that pilgrims who prayed hard enough heard the Emperor’s voice, resonating through the air.’
The Sister Superior looked sternly at Dharmia, unimpressed by her tears. Then she looked outside at the pre-battle rituals and the strange ballet of heavy ordnance swinging into place on the battlements. She shrugged. ‘I was preparing to pay tribute at the Ædicula Sacrum myself. I suppose there is no harm in you joining me. Only members of our order could ever reach the reliquary, but pilgrims are free to view it from afar.’
Livia frowned at the Sister Superior, speaking in the same soft tones she had deployed at the gate. ‘The Ædicula Sacrum?’
The towering warrior nodded. ‘The shrine that houses the Blade Petrific.’ She gripped Dharmia’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps it would be good for you to see what we are fighting for.’
She led them back outside onto the bitterly cold streets, leaving the men to their prayers. They climbed what seemed to Dharmia to be hundreds of sets of stairs as they headed towards the uppermost reaches of the fortress. As they climbed, Dharmia caught breathtaking glimpses of the mountains that surrounded them. Each time they turned a corner, she saw spines of snow-capped peaks, trailing away into the darkness, hazed by a mantle of clouds. After a while, the air became so thin that Dharmia could barely breathe and her head began to feel oddly light, as though it were tethered to her neck by string and might drift away at any moment. She staggered on and after nearly an hour they reached a structure at the very pinnacle of the convent.
The Ædicula Sacrum was another piece of ossified statuary – an enormous griffon. It loomed over the fortress, magisterial and proud, its vast wings spread out into the night and its feline body rearing defiantly over the top steps. One of its front claws was raised up at the sky, snatching at the stars, and the other was locked around the treasure it guarded: a rectangular vault, more intricately worked than anything Dharmia had ever seen. The bones that made the vault had been sculpted and twisted in such a way that they resembled a roaring fire. It was as though the griffon had been frozen in the act of clutching an explosion of flames.
