by Danie Ware
The canoness didn’t pause. ‘Nikaya!’
‘Milady.’ Through the rain, the movement of the Seraphim was clearly visible – five ascending flares of determined flame marking the Sisters as they went forwards to assess the damage. Caia tracked them with her auspex, saw them hover at what must now be the edge of the road.
Ianthe called, ‘Mikaela!’
Nothing.
‘Sister Mikaela!’
Still nothing.
‘Sister Damari.’
‘Canoness.’ The voice that came back was new, and edged with a tight strain of self-control. ‘We’ve lost the lead Immolator, it went over the edge of the road. Most of the road has followed it into the water.’
‘Understood.’ Her response was bleak, but solid. ‘Sister Nikaya is coming to you – what is your situation?’
‘We’re hanging by prayer alone, milady. The other two Immolators have successfully reversed.’
‘Good. Hold to your faith, Sister. Do you need to abandon the vehicle?’
An ongoing creaking came back through the smoke, and echoed like a ghost over the open vox-channel. ‘I fear so. We do not have enough traction to pull back.’
‘Then do so, you may board with Sister Salva. Nikaya, is the roadway passable?’
‘We are blessed,’ the Seraphim Superior said grimly. ‘Truly, the Emperor is with us – the road is damaged, but has not collapsed completely. We must traverse this bridgehead carefully, and one vehicle at a time.’
Following the erratic whims of Lycheate’s weather, the wind was high and the visibility poor. As if angered by the Sisters’ impertinence, the spray roared and crashed like some furious creature, and the broken roadway groaned with strain. Gyres of garbage swilled about upon its remaining surface – jagged and rusting armaments, lost weapons, pieces of bodies where even the bone had been eaten down to its final porous fragments.
But Sister Nikaya had been right; a thin path remained visible. The twin gleaming rails of the servohauler tracks had better support and reinforcement than the rest of the roadway. They had been warped by the detonation, but Caia could see them, their lines leading onwards like a promise.
Like a holy light in the darkness, He had shown them the way.
The canoness offered a prayer of thanks.
In the lash of wind and water, Caia could see Nikaya and her squad, their flaring jump packs buffeted back and forth. They were scanning the solidity of the road and its supports, making sure.
Over the vox, Nikaya almost shouted. ‘The going is poor, but in His name, the uprights have held!’ Caia had a brief memory of the rock bridge upon Lautis, of the daemons waiting below. With a shudder, she shut the memory down. Nikaya continued, ‘We will not be stopped! Rayos and her forces await us!’
‘It will take more than mines and poor weather,’ Ianthe agreed. She seemed to be thinking, assessing the trouble ahead. ‘Sister Caia? Your thoughts?’
‘I fear I can see little more than you,’ Caia answered carefully. The green light of her auspex flickered in the rain, showing the chemical composition of the water, the heavy humidity of the air. ‘We must cross.’
‘Luceat nobis, Sister,’ the canoness told her. ‘The dark holds no terrors for those who carry the light.’
‘I carry no fear,’ Caia told her.
‘You would not be here if you did, Sister.’ The words were blunt enough to make Caia blink, but Ianthe was already giving more commands. ‘Roku, you will disembark from your Repressor and take position within the Immolator of Sister Cerena. Sister Maria,’ – this to Roku’s driver – ‘you will first traverse the bridge with your unladen vehicle. Sisters Mikaela and Damari, you will embark upon the final Immolator. If the unladen vehicle makes the crossing successfully, we will proceed.’
‘In His name, canoness.’ Sister Mikaela had hauled herself bodily from her sinking tank, and had been heaved ashore by two of the flying Seraphim, hovering precariously in the battering winds. Her driver had not been so blessed, and had drowned with the vehicle.
Mikaela sounded vicious, like she wanted the chance to strike back.
‘We will not be intimidated, Sisters, and we will not falter,’ Ianthe said. ‘We will do as He commands.’
And so, the unladen Repressor dared the road.
By His grace, the bridge held – He had demanded the fulfilment of their mission, and not even the tech-priest’s carefully calculated ambushes were enough to stop His will.
The canoness stood like a pillar of blood and scarlet, her arms folded, her orders absolute.
‘Advance!’
Following the empty vehicle, first one, then two, Immolators crept carefully out along the servohauler tracks. One at a time, they arrived at the far side and stopped, defending the remainder of the company as it traversed the gap.
Augusta’s Repressor followed.
Caia watched it with her heart in her mouth, praying for her Sisters. She had missed them at her side; she was used to her squad’s familial unity, to Augusta’s authority, to Viola’s heavy bolter, always beside her. To Melia’s friendship, and to Akemi’s knowledge.
She did not want to leave them.
Out in the raging weather, the rails were grinding as if they would give at any moment. Caia could almost hear the groaning of the already-stressed uprights, threatening to drop their support.
Yet the gleam of the parallel lines remained, a clear path through the ordeal, and the canoness stood undaunted, holding them all with the strength of her faith. Her prayers did not falter, and her voice showed nothing but pure and fervent certainty.
They would make the far side of this break.
Caia continued to pray, watching Augusta’s Repressor as it vanished into the weather. After minutes that felt like hours, the word came back over the vox that she and the squad were safe.
Caia breathed her thanks. By the light!
The canoness said, ‘Close the hatch, Sister. We must make this crossing ourselves.’
She did as she was asked, felt the Immolator rumble forwards. As it did so, the canoness’ voice changed, reciting the Litany with the strength and warmth of a chapel electro-candle. Caia found herself clinging to her seat, trying not to think about the teetering, twisting-dark road, the creaking supports, the rage of the water. If the tank went over, was it watertight? She should know this, but suddenly, she wasn’t sure. If they did fall, would they be able to open the hatch, as Mikaela had done, and reach the surface?
Inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, they advanced along the bridge.
The Immolator was blown and buffeted. The wind slammed at its side like the batter of incoming ammunition. It lurched sideways, making Caia’s belly follow it, but she continued to pray.
She wondered what would happen if Rayos’ forces attacked…
But there was no attack – perhaps even the heretek could not target through this – and they reached the far side in safety.
Following it, one at a time, came the Exorcists.
And, at last, the great and headless volcano rose blackly before them, almost as if it were waiting.
Chapter Seven
The waters’ hunger, however, had not been quite sated.
As if they demanded some final sacrifice, the very last vehicle – the Exorcist at the rear of the Order – fell as it had almost reached safety. The edge of the road gave way beneath its tracks, the ferrocrete crumbling with a thundering splash. The rails themselves held, two thin lines of steel stretching out over the water, but the roadway between them had given its last.
Yards from safety, the vehicle had teetered, rocked backwards, and then splashed to its death.
Its commanding Sister had called one final prayer before the density of the water had cut off her vox.
Watching through the weapon-ports, hating her own enforced helplessness, August
a had prayed for the drivers, and for the spirits of the tanks that they had lost. It would be a slow and horrifying end, the polluted sea steadily eating its way inwards, and inwards, but her fallen Sisters would show no fear, even in the face of such an ordeal. Each knew, as she did, that His light and blessing awaited her.
What awaited the company was something else entirely.
And Augusta held hard to her prayers, as their objective loomed ahead.
A very short time later, they reached the shoreline of the citadel.
The road and the tracks continued, now supported above a grey and ashen beach. Here, the wind-driven water frothed and hissed, dumping a tidemark of bubbles, dirt and rubbish, but that was not what pulled the Sister Superior’s attention.
Through the weapon-port, she could just about see the outskirts of Lycheate’s central citadel: rock and beach both curved slowly upwards and into the dark, harsh side of a huge and headless mountain.
And somewhere, in there, there waited the controls for the Emanatus force field.
Borne by His blessing and courage, the Order had reached its target. The canoness’ prayer of thanks came over the vox, and was repeated vehemently by the surviving Sisters.
‘Nos gratias ago nomen Eius!’
We give thanks to His name!
Repeating the stanzas, one after another, just as she had for so many years, Augusta shifted in her seat to scan the mountainside. Beside her, Mors and Rufus exchanged a glance – this was the place of their redemption, their final stand, and they both knew it.
Once they entered the citadel, neither of them would ever see the light again.
Augusta wondered if her own squad faced the same fate.
The black stone was disturbingly familiar, reminding her of the jungle-planet Lautis. It was porous and severe, glittering with dark stars of scattered obsidian…
…and, just like before, it concealed horrors within its depths.
One thing, however, was immediately apparent.
From the Kyrus’ orbital scans, Augusta knew that the main entranceway waited some half a mile ahead of them, a colossal cave mouth that swallowed the road, and that allowed the servohaulers, and the waiting machines, access to the factorum complex.
Looking at their situation, she felt the hairs on her neck prickle with tension.
Their route back was shattered, and they could only move ahead. And somewhere, behind that vast and unseen doorway, the heretek’s assembled forces would be waiting.
The canoness, however, did not so much as pause.
‘Sister Augusta,’ she said, over the vox. ‘I have a new mission for you. Report.’
Augusta’s briefing was short and to the point.
The rain had slackened, thinning to a misty drizzle. And Sister Superior Augusta, accompanied by her squad and by the two ex-Militarum, both doing their best not to shiver with the cold, had followed their new mission orders and disembarked from their Repressor. They were moving on foot, following the dirty ash beach around the long outside of the mountain.
The soft surface was shifting and treacherous, hard to walk upon, but they dared not slacken their pace.
They did not have time.
Behind them, the surviving vehicles were continuing along the road, ready to face whatever the citadel may spit forth at them – and to ensure that Rayos’ attention was fully occupied.
Augusta was following the mission brief that had come direct from the prioress herself. And, the Sister Superior was sure, this was what Sister Alcina was here to observe.
If Augusta got this wrong, like her blade in the Ironstrider’s foot…
What had Mors said, in the chapel?
To serve Holy Terra, and to die with honour.
Mors himself had pulled his face veil up over his nose, protecting his skin from the rain. He and Rufus both had been very quiet, their lasrifles never leaving their hands, their gazes always at the weapon-ports of the Repressor. Their deaths awaited them, but they still showed no fear, and they forged on as best they could through the clumps of infuriating sand.
Perhaps, Augusta thought, Alcina was here to ensure the ex-soldiers’ deaths. One way or the other…
As if Augusta herself could not be entirely trusted.
A last breath of rain gusted across the wind, and slowly the clouds began to clear.
Guided by the scans of the Kyrus, the squad continued to follow the long curve of the beach. It was desolate and cold, but nothing came out at them, and as the visibility increased, they began to pick up the pace.
And then, they found a miracle.
Following the base of a heavy spur, their route taking them back down almost to the waterline, they stopped.
A distance ahead of them, a great billow of steam blurred the air, a continuous gusting rise of long grey smoke like the exhalations of some vast machine-spirit. And, as they crested the spur, they saw it: a wide red run of lava that came sliding down the mountainside, a flaring river of fire sloughing through the dense black stone. And, where its front edge met the water, it slowly solidified into great static waves of cooling, hissing rock, one piling upon another.
Flames licked over the water’s surface – the lingering patches of oil ignited by the heat.
The squad paused. Their suits protected them, but the air shimmered with thermal currents. Augusta had never seen such a thing, never even imagined it – this meeting of fire and water. It seemed almost to contain a spirit all of its own.
But she dared not pause long.
Stepping forwards with her auspex, Rhea said, ‘We cannot pass here, the temperature is too great. To reach the fissure that the Kyrus has identified, we must ascend the slope.’
‘Mors?’ Augusta asked. ‘How do you fare?’
The ex-corporal had left his face veil in place. He was muttering back down the line at Rufus, ‘Damned air must be eighty per cent sulphur.’ At the Sister Superior’s words, though, he straightened his shoulders and replied, ‘We fare well, though the temperature is high. And we are fortunate that the rain has eased.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Walk with courage, we will not be in the open for much longer.’
‘Yes, Sister.’ He paused. Then at a nudge from his squadmate, he said, ’Sister, before we enter this place, may I say something?’
Augusta stopped, indicated for the squad to do likewise. ‘Of course. But swiftly.’
‘I… we… would like you to take this.’ He held out one hand, something folded in his gloved fist. ‘It is true that we’re deserters, Sister, and we deserve only death. But we still hope to redeem ourselves, somewhere within this great citadel.’ He faltered, and Rufus stepped forwards.
‘It’s our insignia, Sister,’ he said. ‘I know we have no right to ask, but if you could take it back to our captain…’
He ran out of words, dropped his gaze, and stepped back.
Augusta held out her gauntlet, let Mors drop the insignia into her fist – the winged skull of the Militarum, a star upon its forehead.
She looked at it, and then back at the two young men, so weary and resolved.
‘Conduct yourselves with honour,’ she said, ‘and I will do so. Your tale will not go unremembered.’
The squad turned to head upwards, the mountainside treacherous and the going slippery. But here, too, a path had been laid out for them just as it had been over the water – the rocks had formed into a peculiar, regular pattern of hexagonal pillars, just as if He had been here, carving miraculous steps in the stone, and showing them the way.
‘Truly,’ Augusta muttered, ‘we are blessed. Twice now, He has left us a clear path.’
Red boots skidded, but the squad went on. Viola, her heavy bolter slung over her back, cursed as she heaved herself bodily upwards. Mors and Rufus ascended more easily, their kit a lighter load. And, as the squad climbed higher, t
hey began to find holes in the slope – splits and cracks and fissures, places where the pressure of the volcano within had just proven too much, and had broken out through the ancient stone.
Following Rhea’s auspex, Augusta paused at the largest of these.
‘From this point,’ she said to her squad, ‘we will know little. We do not bear maps of this location, and the density of the stone will prevent communication with either the Kyrus, or with the canoness.’ She took a moment to look around at them. ‘I am proud of you, Sisters, every one of you. And you, Mors and Rufus both. This is a test of our faith and our resourcefulness, and one we will not fail. The entire Order is depending upon our success.’ The split in the stone was blacker than the mountainside, and wide enough for their armour – but only just. ‘Sister Rhea, Sister Viola. Let us proceed.’
‘Aye.’
With the auspex and the heavy bolter at their head, they left the brown Lycheate sun behind them.
From here, they would be walking blind.
But He had shown them the way, and the light they carried was illumination enough.
The tunnels were tight, and treacherous.
Augusta’s feet slipped on the cold stone. It was irregular and it tripped her constantly – it seemed that she skidded with every fourth step. In places, outcrops snagged at her shoulders or elbows, or on the tip of her chainsword. The claustrophobic sensation was uncomfortable, and the crackling in the vox reminded her, very clearly, of the hard black density of the rock.
The faint light of the tunnel mouth soon faded to a line, and then vanished completely. She had a shuddering memory of the Lautis daemon – curse it for still being able to haunt her!
This was no place to harbour such thoughts.
Their suit-lights flared hope on the rock face, and they moved on.
With the vox now quiet, Augusta began to hear the constant drip-drip of water, the noise distant and oddly hollow, and then, from somewhere else, the heavy rattle of something distinctly metallic.
Like a gate, or an overhead door.
They moved on, the green glint of Rhea’s auspex at their head. The tunnels seemed natural, jagged and angled – they looked as if some great force had struck the stone, sending splintering cracks in every direction. The spaces were narrow and irregular, unsupported by scaffolding, and yet they steadily ate their way downwards, deeper and deeper into the mountain’s heart.
