by Alec Worley
The perfume of pine and earth was a welcome change from the dank odour of sweat and sacramental oil that permeated the inside of the Rhino. The Battle Sisters had set up a perimeter around their two idling transports and were scanning the surrounding trees.
Marcus sniffed and wiped his nose. Twilight was an hour away but the air was already freezing. White vapour wrapped itself around the trees, swallowed the towering pines, reaching up, up into the high branches where it framed beams of dying sunlight. The silence here was so intense that Marcus thought he could detect a strange hiss, like static in the air.
His bodyguard nudged him up the road and he clutched his lasrifle, making a show of looking alert to his surroundings as he approached Sister Adamanthea. The Dominon Superior was conversing with two of her squad beside the hunting trail, which terminated in a crumbling ledge that had halted their progress. Marcus gazed across the gloomy expanse beyond. Then, shivering with involuntary excitement, he scrambled to higher ground as he realised what lay before him.
The City of Whispers. A dead metropolis of ruined Imperial basilica. Domed roofs like shattered skulls, rubble impaled by the prevailing trees. The splendid wreckage lay strewn for miles, drowning in a sea of boiling mist that merged into the distant grey horizon. A landscape of once-proud pinnacles stood strangled and splintered by the cloying vegetation, interspersed by a grave community of immense statues, silently contemplating eternity as they disintegrated into the murk. Everywhere Marcus looked he saw the detritus of faith fighting a slow and hopeless war against the creeping advance of nature.
But might not someone turn the tide of this conflict… retrieve these stones from the pagan earth and re-consecrate them in the name of the Emperor?
Marcus saw before him not a city lost to ruin, but a grand opportunity. Glory for the taking. Once the Sisters had driven out whatever nuisance lurked here, Marcus himself could resurrect this holy site and welcome all those whom he enlightened to come and pay tribute. They would raise statues of him in gratitude, of course. Proof indeed of his worth. How might he be known? Amouris the Intrepid? The Beneficent? Father of the Faithful?
The young Battle Sister caught Marcus’ arm, pulling him back down the steep bank of trees he had climbed to gain a better view of the ruined city. He went to protest when he saw just how close he had been standing to the edge of the steep cliffs that encircled the city; perhaps the remains of some monumental moat that had encircled this place an aeon ago. Looking back at the crumbled ledge that had halted the Rhinos’ progress, he saw it was the remains of a stone bridge, a section of which had collapsed and disappeared into the misty canyon below. The bridge appeared to have once been part of a grand pavilion leading into the upper tier of an extravagant cathedral. The building appeared relatively intact from what Marcus could see through the mist. Was that a flight of stairs leading up to an open archway, and high above it the remains of a circular lattice where an immense rose window had once stood?
He suddenly ached to see what was inside and once again felt that sense of something seething in the air, like ghostly rain. Was it some trick of the wind? Of climate or air pressure? It was easy to see why the local tribes shunned this place.
‘Are you sure this is the correct trail, brother?’
Marcus jumped at the sound of Sister Adamanthea’s sonorous voice. Before he could answer, two Battle Sisters trudged into view from a steep rocky slope that descended nearby into the canyon beneath the ruined bridge.
‘It came down recently, Sister,’ panted one of them. ‘Likely within the last day.’
Adamanthea immediately snatched the lasrifle from Marcus’ hands. Before he realised what she had done, she had tossed the weapon to his bodyguard and slammed him against the side of the Rhino, pinning his throat with her forearm.
‘Who have you been talking to?’ Her voice was cool and measured as it rang through the vox-grille at her throat.
‘I don’t know what–’
Adamanthea jammed her forearm deeper into Marcus’ throat, her face impassive as he choked and squirmed.
‘No animal did this. Someone knows we’re coming,’ she said. ‘What do you hope to lead us into?’
She held him a moment longer, watching him with those languid green eyes as he gasped. She stepped back, releasing his frantic reply.
‘I swear by the Throne,’ he coughed, his words impassioned with fear and confusion. ‘I have no idea.’
Several other Sisters now surrounded him, their bolters aimed at his chest.
‘Sister Clarice.’ Adamanthea gestured to Marcus’ bodyguard. The young Battle Sister with the broken nose grabbed Marcus’ arm and twisted him onto his knees, pinning his face against the Rhino’s muddy flanks as she stripped him of his backpack. A knot of impotent rage tightened in his chest as she rummaged inside his flak jacket.
‘The remains of the bridge show no sign of explosives.’ One of the other Sisters was speaking. ‘From what we can see, it looks like someone removed the keystone, demolished the supports with tools.’
Marcus’ thoughts raced. How could anyone know they were coming? Was there a conspiracy afoot in the village? The shaman perhaps? Unlikely. They were half-starved simpletons terrified of this place. So who destroyed the bridge? And if they wanted the squad dead why not loosen the stones and wait for the transports to drive across? Did someone want them – or him – alive?
‘No vox-caster, Sister Superior,’ said Clarice, concluding her search of Marcus’ pack. ‘Nothing.’
Marcus wiped the mud from his face and clambered to his feet.
‘Watch him,’ said Adamanthea.
Clarice nodded and Adamanthea ordered the rest of the squad to move down the slope, into the misty canyon beneath the crumbled bridge. They murmured a prayer of sanctity in eerie unison as they marched towards the mouth of the slope.
Sister Clarice slung Marcus’ lasrifle over her shoulder as she shoved him into line.
Marcus turned to her, imploring. ‘Sister, there must be other bridges, other entrances further along these cliffs. We are clearly walking into an ambush. Why?’
‘Because,’ Adamanthea cut in, the trace of a smile on her frozen lips. ‘I am impatient to meet those who believe they can challenge the will of the Emperor.’
Marcus couldn’t stop shivering. It was even colder down here on the swampy floor of the canyon, the mist even more impenetrable as evening neared. The fog seemed to swallow up every sound beyond the clink of the squad’s war gear and the squelch of their boots. Several Battle Sisters probed the path ahead, searching for tracks while the Dominions trudged several feet behind them, clutching their storm bolters. Adamanthea stalked beside them, her bolt pistol drawn. Marcus plodded among the rear guard, young Sister Clarice close by his side as the squad advanced towards the distant cathedral, following the course of the shattered pavilion high above.
The ruins rose about them like colossal tombstones. Marcus felt miniaturised, like something out of an absurd dream. The air stank of mulch and stagnant water, seeming to crackle and tighten like freezing ice, writhing with whispers that seemed to hiss at him from among the flooded rubble.
Some malign intelligence was at work here. Something the Battle Sisters would have to eradicate before he could fully enlighten this world, before he could cleanse this place and secure his legacy. He felt borne up by faith: a faith, if not in the holy Emperor, then in himself, in his own ability, his own talent for survival. Although he missed his lasrifle, he felt a strange absence of fear.
Prove your worth, Marcus Amouris.
Marcus repeated the thought over and over, like a mantra. So immersed was he in his benediction that he was slow to realise a murmur of activity had taken place at the head of the column. Subtle gestures had been exchanged and the Battle Sisters’ formation was now shifting. He watched curiously as one of them threw something at a line of toppled masonry ahead.
He realised she had thrown a grenade only a split-second before it detonated with a boom of sundered rock that filled the air with smoke and a rain of spinning leaves. Screaming figures bounded through the pall as though the blast had released them from the earth. The Dominions answered their appearance instantly, with a deafening battery of storm bolter fire that sent Marcus’ heart into a spasm of fright.
Panic electrified him as a second storm of bolter fire erupted. The Battle Sisters guarding him were blasting at howling figures leaping at them from the mist, muzzle-flare sending shadows capering about the ruins. One of the fur-clad figures dashed in as a bolter round obliterated its shoulder, flinging its right arm back into the mist. The ghastly wound failed to slow him as he and another crashed into Sister Clarice, driving her onto the ground. As the three of them fought like maddened animals, something landed nearby. Marcus’ lasrifle.
He ran to retrieve the weapon as the cascade of bolter fire continued like a thunderous choir, mingled with the oaths of the Sisters and the bellows of the monstrous things they fought. Something charged into his side, winding him, smothering him with its huge arms. As Marcus struggled to free himself, he caught sight of his attacker’s wild, lidless eyes. A drooling mouth bore a sneer of ruined teeth. The creature’s flesh was mottled, smeared as though scarred by fire, a gaping nasal cavity puffing strings of mucus as it fought to drag him from the fray.
Around its neck, it wore the claw totem of a tribal hunter.
Sister Clarice rose before him, eyes wide in a mask of blood and filth as she slammed her bolter into the skull of Marcus’ misshapen kidnapper. The hunter staggered forward, releasing him. As the missionary scrambled for his lasrifle, Sister Clarice fired a torrent of bolter rounds into the stricken creature, the blaze illuminating a look of terrible ecstasy on her mud-splattered face. The sound of joyous, sonorous prayer had now joined the surrounding clamour.
Marcus snatched the lasrifle and turned, seeking targets. He saw another of the malformed hunters thrust the butt of his pickaxe into Sister Clarice’s face, breaking her nose anew. The Battle Sister staggered back, snorting through the blood bubbling over her lips as the hunter gathered himself for an overhead swing, aiming to bury the point of his weapon in Clarice’s head while she was still dazed. Marcus already had the lasrifle to his shoulder and fired a blistering red bolt through the back of the creature’s skull.
Sister Clarice looked up. Spraying blood as she sang, she joined her Sisters in prayer, her eyes wide, enraptured. Their resounding hymn drowned the cries of the retreating hunters fleeing into the mist-shrouded trees. Marcus fired wildly after their routed attackers. His heart soared as he joined the Sisters in song, the air thick with reeking gunsmoke. Sister Clarice gestured for him to cease fire as the hunters disappeared back into the mist.
But Marcus could hear them howling anew. They had rallied and were charging once more, darting through the cover of the mist and trees back towards the squad. The Battle Sisters did not return fire. Another figure was already running through the mist towards the hunters; a figure wielding a snarling eviscerator with both hands.
Sister Adamanthea surged through the trees like a crashing wave, twirling the chainsword, guiding its immense weight, sweeping through trees and bodies alike and casting a crimson trail in her wake. She fought without fear, reckless as the hunters’ mattocks struck sparks from her armour. She struck back like a maddened serpent, making no effort to parry, only to kill, hurling herself into the fray as if to embrace death.
Marcus was reminded of the Sisters Repentia, those of the Adepta Sororitas exiled for terrible transgressions of the Imperial Creed. These disgraced souls took up the red rags of the penitent and sought redemption on the battlefield. Armed with nothing but faith and a ceremonial eviscerator, they fought in the very teeth of every conflict, drawn to the most desperate of odds. Berserk martyrs gambling their survival upon the omnipotent Emperor’s infrequent willingness to see them spared.
Seeing her in combat, Marcus couldn’t help but wonder whether Sister Adamanthea had once walked the path of the Repentia. Absolution – let alone survival – was so rare it was considered a miracle.
Adamanthea’s squad murmured blessings and prayers of reverence, some kneeling, some thumbing the beads of their rosariuses as Adamanthea spun her chainsword from victim to victim, each body parting like curtains to reveal the next. To her fellow Sisters of Battle, the Dominion Superior was a living embodiment of the Emperor’s grace. This woman enacted the holy miracles about which Marcus merely preached.
Prove your worth.
The thought came, and he felt himself bolstered once again. He would help the Sisters purge this place of evil. He would battle alongside Sister Adamanthea, comrades in faith and arms. He would return to the tribe victorious, living proof that the Emperor’s will had prevailed. He would be revered by the tribe as a prophet, and, as the Imperial Creed spread, his legend would surpass Adamanthea’s own. His legs shook with adrenaline. His breath tightened, making him giddy. Yes, his own legend was almost within reach.
‘Casualties?’ said Adamanthea, her face drenched in gore, her hair dripping. Marcus realised the hunters were all dead and she had returned to her squad.
‘Nothing prayer cannot mend,’ reported one of the Sisters.
Adamanthea’s sense of stillness had returned. It was as though she had spent all her living energy on combat and ossified once more into a woman of stone. She was staring at one of the hunters’ bodies.
‘Your missing tribesmen,’ she said without looking up at Marcus. ‘As I expected.’
‘But did you expect this?’ said Marcus, pointing at the corpse’s face.
The flesh looked as though it had been somehow creamed onto the skull like clay. Fish-like eyes gazed in opposite directions, the mouth impossibly crooked, the features in disarray as though clumsily assembled. No natural predator had done this. Something had corrupted these hunters, mutated them, bent them to its will.
Once again, Marcus could sense that whispering static in the air. The more he focused upon it, the more it seemed to somehow emanate from within the cathedral ahead. His mouth felt suddenly dry. His limbs trembled as if eager to carry him up those stairs and destroy whatever lurked beyond. He felt fear only as a distant thing, trivial next to the grand destiny the Emperor was offering him.
One of the Dominions called to Adamanthea, relaying a message from her vox-feed. ‘It seems the Rhinos have located another bridge. It’s intact, a few miles to the south. They’ve requested permission to join us.’
‘No,’ cried Marcus before Adamanthea could reply. Her eyebrows peaked in rare surprise.
‘We need no such aid against these wretches,’ he told her, breathless with excitement. ‘Hunters from the other tribes have disappeared as well. We face a mere few dozen more. That’s all. I’m sure of it!’
‘Stray animals was your last hypothesis, brother,’ said Adamanthea.
Marcus stemmed an angry retort. ‘We must move now. Strike before they can gather.’
‘I saw one of them try to capture him, Sister,’ said Clarice, gesturing towards Marcus. The lower half of her face was still caked with blood from her ruined nose. ‘It could have killed him. Instead it tried to carry him away, like it wanted him alive.’
Adamanthea silenced Marcus as he went to respond. ‘Return to the transports, Sister Clarice,’ she said. ‘And take Brother Marcus with you.’
A chill shot through him. He stammered, the inside of his head hissing with static, words of protest refusing to form.
‘Do not fear, brother,’ said Adamanthea, her metallic voice as cold as ever. ‘We shall clear the site for you, but the honour shall remain yours, for the sake of your oath to the tribe.’
Marcus touched the painted claw dangling from the cord around his throat, suddenly reminded of its presence.
‘If you truly wish to ensur
e this world be brought into the light,’ she added. ‘If you truly serve the Throne above all else, then you will return with Sister Clarice and do so without argument.’
Marcus felt her words strip him of his destiny. He felt it as keenly as though he were being skinned. The zealot despised him, wanted an excuse to claim his glory for her own. She turned away, her voice amplified to a brazen roar that galvanised all who heard it.
‘Sororitas! The Emperor’s grace is mysterious indeed. He sent us to this world to hunt beasts. Instead we find corruption and heresy. The Sisters of the Valorous Heart shall purge these sacred walls of the mutant’s presence, and that of his progenitor, whatever it may be.’
She cradled her dripping eviscerator as though it were her child, her eyes glazing as she envisioned some murderous rapture.
‘For by Lucia, we shall not suffer the mutant to live!’
‘Ave Imperator!’ cried her squad, clutching their rosariuses, voices ecstatic. Sister Clarice took Marcus’ shoulder, her touch sending a current of terror through his body, rousing him.
He jerked his elbow into her face, pulverising her wounded nose. He heard her gasp with surprise and pain as he bolted towards the cathedral, gripping his lasrifle. The squad gave chase. Power-armoured bodies pounded after him as he sprinted through mud, vaulted over broken stone, dodged every root that threatened to snare his feet. It was as though the Emperor’s will was guiding him past every obstacle, ensuring nothing impeded him from grasping his destiny, a destiny that Sister Adamanthea – in her arrogance – had tried to deny him. He heard her synthesised yell ring through the fog. She was far behind him now. He felt like laughing, his limbs trembling, electrified.
His rosarius bounced at his thigh, flashing in the evening gloom. Armed with nothing but faith and lasfire, Marcus Amouris would prove his worth indeed. He would draw the mutants to him, engage them in time for the Battle Sisters to join him. Together, they would cleanse this place – but the fight would be instigated by him, not her. Tonight’s triumph would be the cornerstone of his legend on this world.
