With no warning, the factorum was gone.
Augusta was young, and wide-eyed, and in the grey robes of a novitiate. She was walking into the font-waters of her Ordination, but they were black and filthy, and the bodies of lost Sisters bobbed past her. On the far side, there waited a brand new set of armour, glistening like blood – her first. She’d trained for it, worked for it, and it was finally, really hers – yet she couldn’t reach it. The waters about her were covered in oil, and even as she struggled through their viscosity, her Sisters’ hymns about her congealed into a sour, minor key.
The font burst into flame.
The water burned, hot and raw, biting at her robed flesh. It was the flame of Lycheate’s pollution, of the Lautis daemon; it was the exultation of her combat-rage, and the darkness in her heart.
It was glorious, and brutal.
But, amidst the whirl and the heat and the pain, the Sister Superior clung on. In her head, the image from the chapel on the Kyrus – His face, stern and unforgiving. She could not perish, not like this – He would not permit her failure.
Her anger – the thing with which Subul had tormented her, the thing she’d seen reflected in the daemon – that anger was her ally.
And it was not darkness. It was good.
Augusta’s hand was burned through to the bone, but still, she closed it on the grip of her bolter. She raised her voice, trying to sing the litany, coughing and tuneless in the midst of the smoking, suffocating heat:
‘A spiritu dominatus…’
As the Sister Superior fell, Melia’s thoughts spasmed with genuine fear.
Around Augusta’s downed figure, the battle raged on. The kastelans were protecting Zale; one ground to a halt as a bolter took out its knee. It tried to take a further step and fell like a colossus, crushing friend and foe alike.
One of the Militarum soldiers gave a final, awful scream.
From somewhere beside her, Melia heard the strange tick-ticking intensify…
Rayos.
But the Sister’s head was clearing and the memories were coming back fast now, flooding the fog with new light – the shattered moons, the rust-brown planet, the crazed inquisitor.
A spiritu dominatus
Domine, libra nos.
Only the litany…
Only the lifeline…
In her head, the fog was dissipating – stretching, thinning, fading. She shook herself, trying to clear her thoughts. The hand in her lap moved with more urgency. It was looking for a weapon.
Jatoya’s flamer.
Her flamer.
Her flamer that she had earned, by virtue of her experience and wisdom; her flamer that she knew.
Then she heard the ticking cease, heard Rayos say, ‘Sister Melia Kaliyan is seventy-eight point one per cent recovered. She will commence motion in two point two seconds.’
Startled, the gangers moved.
But they were too late.
‘Domine, libra nos!’
From somewhere, the Sisters’ hymn was answering Augusta’s half-croaked words with the twinned sounds of prayer and gunfire. She heard the crash as the second kastelan went over, shaking the floor.
And then, another voice – weak, but singing with them.
Contralto.
Familiar.
Sister Viola, too damned stubborn to lose her life to anything as foolish as a fallen door.
The surprise of it was like an influx of strength, like the music of a waterfall, putting out the flames.
‘I see you, Zale.’
She couldn’t see him – her eyes had melted in her skull. But she knew he was there, wrecker and manipulator, traitor and betrayer. Player of games.
He had lured Istrix here, lured all of them here…
For what?
The thought was sharp, like a sudden hook of faith and clarity. Caught, her mind began to focus.
All of this, was it just some impassioned connection between mistress and pupil?
Or was it something more?
Somewhere above her, the corporal slammed a final thug in the face with the butt of his rifle. He was shouting, and he was standing at an angle that was somehow all wrong.
‘Sister! Sister! Can you hear me? Sister!’
She was on the floor.
‘Sister!’
How…?
Domine, libra nos.
The flames had gone. She was herself, and unhurt – except for her broken shoulder. If Zale had been trying to control her, as he had controlled Istrix, he had failed.
Her bolter was still in her grip.
Slowly, Sister Superior Augusta Santorus got back to her feet.
The two gangers were local toughs – heavy and filthy.
They were decent enough as Lycheate enforcers, but they were no match for a fully-armoured member of the Adepta Sororitas.
Melia downed one with a gauntlet to the face, brought the elbow sharply back to break the nose of the other. He stumbled, cursing and spitting, then tried for a grapple.
But her other hand had drawn her flamer and she cracked him sharply on the head with the butt.
He went down like a sack of rocks.
‘Ssss.’ Rayos had backed up, all her limbs mantling over her head. Her eyes – one red and one blue – were both fixed on Melia. Her mechadendrites rippled, tasting air and opportunity.
There was a one hundred per cent chance that Melia was going to end her heretek existence.
But there was data in the air, both prayer and plea; there were a hundred streams of information coming from somewhere beneath that oil-black cloak…
What was down here? What was she trying to reach?
Melia didn’t care.
She pulled the trigger.
Screaming in both human tongue and machine-code, the tech-priest became a torch.
The city’s thugs were beaten, the kastelans ruined.
Around Augusta, her Sisters were moving. Caia and Akemi were methodically executing the injured; Viola was shoving the door sideways with an angry curse – the red-haired Sister had not appreciated missing half the battle. Rufus had gone to help her. The corporal, the only other member of the squad surviving, had his lasrifle trained on the doorway above, though the last of the figures had gone.
In the midst of destruction, Zale stood like an icon. He was losing his composure, now; he looked rattled and angry.
Caia pulled the trigger on the final, protesting thug. It jerked, and was still. She turned to him, and said, ‘Where’s Melia?’
He replied, almost petulant, ‘You spoiled my game. All that work, everything I’ve planned and plotted – and she died!’ Suddenly, he was shouting, his fists clenched at his sides. ‘I needed her to see this! To see what I have done!’
‘And what have you done, Zale?’ Augusta’s adrenaline was fading, now, and the pain in her shoulder was making her nauseous. ‘What is this wonder that you brought us all here to behold?’
‘No.’ He stepped forwards, still the performer; despite his tight and twisted rage, he had an air of a man wanting to deliver a masterstroke. ‘I am still winning. I know how you think. I can tear you open, all of you. Do you know what a powerful psyker can do to a human mind? I can hollow you out like an egg. I can play upon your fears. I can conjure xenos, terrors from the warp, a hundred tortures to deliver pain to the cores of your souls. I can make you die, over and over again. I can make you fail. I can take your faith. I can give you despair, disaster and depression–’
‘You’re as mad as your mistress,’ Augusta told him.
‘We are the servants of the God-Emperor,’ Caia said. ‘We can stand against your tricks, witch.’
‘Can you?’ He rounded on the taller Sister. ‘I have already broken Sister Melia. She was weak, plagued by doubts. I know what you fear.’
Caia gave a single, piercing scream, a sharp, high sound that split the air like a siren. She crashed over sideways, her body wracked by spasms. Viola swore. The red-haired Sister was not yet on her feet, but she brought the heavy bolter up anyway.
‘I wouldn’t.’ Zale was trying to smile, but his expression had lost its elegance, and it was edged like a blade. ‘You want to know why I’m here?’ He laughed, brittle and crazed. ‘You think I just lured you, Sister Superior? I have Lycheate completely under my control. And I can lure all of them – every last member of the Inquisition can be called here, to their death! You think I just wanted revenge on Istrix?’ His laughter scaled upwards. ‘I will kill every one of them – every last one! – until they muster enough force to stop me.’
‘That was what you wanted her to know,’ Augusta said. ‘That she had brought death upon her fellows. So that she would die, knowing exactly what she’d done.’
‘She would have died in horror.’ Zale’s eyes shone like pyrite, the gold of a fool. ‘Knowing she was damned. Don’t try to stop me, Sister Augusta, or I will torture your entire squad, rip out their minds. Rayos will tear Melia to pieces.’ His grin spread. ‘And then we will rebuild her.’
‘Try it,’ Augusta said, ‘and I will shoot every one of them myself.’
She raised her bolter.
‘Hold!’
The word came from a familiar, red-armoured figure, stepping from the shadows with her flamer in her hand.
Augusta almost laughed; she raised her voice in a prayer like a celebration.
But Sister Melia wasn’t finished.
‘Rayos is dead.’ Walking forwards, her helmet off, her flamer in hand, she had every bit as much presence as the witch.
‘Tear us open, will you? Hollow us out like eggs? Conjure monsters, xenos, a hundred tortures? You cannot make me die, witch, or lose my faith, or fail. And the only doubts are yours.’
‘No!’ Zale was screaming now, rage and denial. ‘This can’t happen! You can’t–!’
There was a whoosh, and a flare.
And the witch burned, just like Rayos had done.
The factorum floor was covered in bodies.
Sickened by the rich, thick smell of charred flesh, Augusta made sure that neither Melia nor Caia had been harmed, then she sent them to retrieve Rayos’ corpse. She wanted the heretek’s data – wanted to know what Rayos had been doing.
What she’d found.
What this ‘force’ really was that she had been assembling for Scafidis Zale.
She put a round through the witch’s skull herself – just to make sure – and then turned to consider the fallen form of the inquisitor.
Because, now that the mission was over, they had a very serious problem.
‘Corporal Mors.’
The corporal and Rufus had been paying what respects they could to their fallen comrades. At the order, Mors came to his feet and offered Augusta a salute.
‘Sister Superior.’
‘I asked you in the lift, corporal,’ Augusta said, ‘how you came to be upon Lycheate.’ Her words were considered, thoughtful. Melia had set her shoulder and offered her a painkilling injection, and the Sister Superior had removed her helm. The young man watched her expression, his face tense. ‘But you did not have time to answer.’
It wasn’t a question, and Mors’ lifted his chin.
She went on, ‘You have no insignia, corporal, none of you. No platoon, no company, no regiment. It has been scrubbed from your armour.’
‘Sister, we–’
‘You’re a good man, Mors.’ She turned from Istrix’s fallen form to look the young man in the face. ‘Your courage and swift thinking have been exceptional. But.’
Mors straightened his shoulders, held Augusta’s gaze.
‘You know the penalty for desertion.’
Rufus, crouched by the fallen Lucio, looked up sharply.
‘Yes, Sister. But…’ The corporal swallowed. ‘I request your permission to say one thing.’
‘Granted.’
He looked at the body at their feet. Its eyes were glassy, and it was already starting to bloat. ‘I’m Astra Militarum, Sister – my individual life is worth nothing. And I’m a deserter, a coward and a traitor. But you… all of you… you’re Sororitas. I’ve heard stories about the Sisters of Battle – about how you halt entire wars with just your presence. About how the God-Emperor Himself gifted you the arts of combat.’ He offered a flicker of a smile. ‘About how you bite men’s heads from their shoulders–’
‘Only when I’m really hungry,’ Augusta told him, straight-faced.
The corporal blinked, almost laughed. Then he sobered, and said, ‘I pulled the trigger, Sister, so that you wouldn’t have to.’
Augusta eyed him thoughtfully. From anyone else, the words might have sounded like a lie, calculated to flatter, but she found that she believed him. ‘Sadly,’ she said, ‘I must still make answer for Istrix’s death. The responsibility is mine, whether I pulled the trigger or not.’ She watched him until he looked back up, met her gaze. ‘I believe you made the right choice, corporal. But the repercussions of this are out of my hands.’
Rufus had stood up, and had come to stand at Mors’ shoulder.
Akemi said to him, ‘You still haven’t told us where you came from.’
‘Tallus VII,’ Mors said. ‘We were left behind when our regiment pulled out. They didn’t come back for us, left us for the tyranids. But the Emperor blessed us – we escaped with the planet’s refugees, and that’s how we came here. I’d kind of hoped that, if we worked for Istrix, she would take us home.’ He shrugged, philosophical. ‘But now, I guess you’re going to execute us after all.’
Augusta tapped her boot.
‘I cannot take that decision,’ she said. ‘I must speak with my canoness, and upload a full and detailed report. And we must – all – face whatever comes in its wake.’ The thought was not a comfortable one. ‘Mors, is there somewhere we can secure an off-planet signal?’
Trying to hide his relief, the corporal said, ‘Back at the depot, Sister. Istrix’s shuttle is still there.’
‘Good.’ She nodded. ‘We will return to the Kyrus, all of us, and await the canoness’ orders – and her punishment.’ The word was bitterly dark. ‘You will both be confined to quarters, and held under guard.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ Mors said. ‘Thank you.’
Augusta nodded, and turned as Caia and Melia came back to the factorum floor. They had weapons in their hands, and their expressions were concerned.
‘Tell me you found Rayos,’ Augusta said.
‘No, Sister,’ Caia told her. ‘We did not. We tracked her by the trail of blood and oil, but she must self-repair – it led only as far as the next hangar.’ Her tone was worried. ‘Sister, that hangar was full.’
‘What?’
Melia said, ‘You know the old saying – the Mechanicus never delete anything?’
Augusta said, a statement of realisation, ‘There’s an army in there.’
‘Aye.’ Melia said. ‘They all bear the mark of Incaladion, but they’re hundreds of years old. How the Mechanicus missed them, I cannot guess – but Rayos must have found them. Maybe the heretek Vius found them, on his original quest.’
‘And they’re what Zale wanted,’ Augusta said. ‘An army of his own.’ Augusta shook her head, some part of her baffled by his and Istrix’s obsessive connection. ‘How strange, to be that consumed with another human.’ She dwelled on the oddity of it for a moment, then dismissed the whimsy. ‘We must assess this army.’
‘We should destroy it,’ Viola muttered.
‘That is not our call to make,’ Augusta said. ‘While I have had enough of Lycheate’s filth, the presence of this force must be reported. We will speak to the canoness. This situation has become larger than we can face alone.’
‘Sister?’ Melia asked her.
‘I suspect,’ Augusta said, ‘that the Mechanicus will request the data. They may come here themselves, and retrieve their forces.’
‘And if they don’t?’ Akemi asked.
‘Then,’ the Sister Superior told her, ‘our situation may escalate. I suspect… if Rayos lives, our Order will call for war.’