With the factorum declared secure, the canoness called muster.
Leaving two of the Exorcists to watch the road, the company moved to take advantage of the empty depot. The vehicles turned around, the manoeuvre smooth and practised, and then halted, their engines still running.
Sister Nikaya and the Seraphim paused to refuel, and then moved from squad to squad, assessing their damage and speaking to each Sister Superior in turn. And, as they did so, Ianthe addressed them all from the top of her Immolator, the stone roof making the vox-coder echo like thunder.
‘My Sisters! This road is bleak and long, but with His blessing, we have come far! The God-Emperor strides at our side, and the corrupted machines cannot stop us! We bring wrath, and fire! We bring the light of Holy Terra to the darkness that is Lycheate! Stand fast, my Sisters, and walk tall!’ She paused, looking round at the waiting tanks. ‘The heretek Rayos has tested our mettle, and she will test us again. We may face another ambush, or mines along the roadway. And if, by the Emperor’s grace, we reach the citadel without mishap, then we will still face a considerable assembled force. Captain Mulier, aboard the Kyrus, is watching the roadway with orbital eyes, and we will be ready for any eventuality!’ She paused, and Caia looked out at the red ranks of vehicles – two now missing where the Ironstriders had struck, many more showing the char-marks and buckled plates of the autocannons’ impacts.
The canoness went on, ‘Thanks to the wisdom of Sister Superior Augusta, we also now believe that Rayos is not working alone – she is likely to be working for, or with, an older power, possibly another Incaladion heretek.’ Another pause, but the only response was engine noise – vehicles snarling with the eagerness to be off. ‘We will identify and execute both Rayos and her collaborator.
‘Show courage, my Sisters! Unfurl your faith like a banner and carry it high in the wind!’ Ianthe spread her arms and turned to take in all of them, as if she led and offered courage to each Sister, to each vehicle, individually. ‘We carry the heart and the torch of the Order of the Bloody Rose! We carry the courage of Mina herself. We carry the faith and fury of the Adepta Sororitas. We carry His name, and His glory, and we know no fear! Ave Imperator!’
In response, the Sisters gave a single, thundered, ‘Ave Imperator!’
Echoing the salute, Sister Nikaya gave the Repressor a stern nod as she passed – her personal check of each squad had been completed.
The information, Caia guessed, would be communicated over a tight-beam link to the canoness alone.
Vox-coder trumpets blared, and Ianthe blazed, ‘Forward!’
The engines rumbled their anger, and the company rolled onwards once more.
Caia stood in the cupola, her auspex in her hand.
Leaving the junction and the empty factorum behind them, the ranks of the Order, still in formation, drove out along the curving black road. The enemy knew that they were coming, and the Sisters raged their defiance.
They broadcast the Dies Irae like a dare.
Quantus tremor est futurus!
The vehicles kept a strong but steady speed, the lead vehicle’s auspex constantly scanning the roadway ahead. There were fewer islands now, just a scattering of upthrust rocks, and the road itself hung over the limitless foul waters like some vast and endless bridge, a long line of industry and achievement that led onwards to the distant horizon. The Seraphim returned to their jump-pattern, and the hard chant of the hymn was a known thing – it rang out with wrath, solid and reassuring.
To Caia, it felt powerful, lifting her chin and her heart and reminding her that, no matter how huge the acid sea, His presence travelled with them, in word, in deed, and in weapon.
Their enemy awaited them, and they would not fail.
As they rolled onwards, however, they began to encounter a new difficulty.
Following another of its impulsive mood swings, the planet’s weather was deteriorating. The fat Lycheate sun had struggled its way to past mid-morning, and now the roiling brown cloud was rolling back in to smother its light. Corrosive, glutinous rain was beginning to scatter across tank and roadway alike.
And where it struck, it hissed.
Defended by their armour, both the canoness and Sister Caia remained standing in the back of the Immolator, the banner behind them now hanging in soggy tatters. Steadily, the rainwater ate at the fabric.
Below them, in the belly of the vehicle, the injured Sister was sitting up and away from the hatch – and stridently declaring her fitness.
‘I can sit unassisted, thank you, Sister Hospitaller. Where is my weapon?’
Caia could hear Rhene grumbling, ‘You young women, never think to duck. What do they teach you in the schola? The Emperor is all-seeing, Sister Abril, but even He won’t stop an autocannon if it hits you square in the chest. How does that Treatise of yours go?’ The muttering continued, and Caia, startled by the old Hospitaller’s near-blasphemy, was even more surprised to see Ianthe turn and almost smile.
Catching Caia’s expression, the canoness elegantly smoothed her own. She said, without apology, ‘Rhene deserves your respect, Sister. There are few, even within our own Order, who have seen the wars, and the deaths, and the horrors, witnessed by Sister Rhene. She may bear no armour, but she is fully combat-trained – and her bolter has slain many a slavering foe, even as she has saved the lives of the Sisters in her charge. Trust in her faith, and her knowledge, and her sanguinator.’
‘Yes, milady.’ Caia said nothing further. For any Sister to have reached the age of the grumbling Hospitaller, and still be in the field of combat rather than teaching at the schola… it deserved veneration.
And Rhene, Caia was learning, saw a great deal more than she voiced.
Briefly, she thought about asking the old Hospitaller if she knew more about Caia’s own situation – what the canoness had planned for her.
She considered the option, then, reluctantly, dismissed it. Much as Caia suspected an old friendship between the two women, her inquiry would be improper. Frustrated, she looked back out across the endless rain-spattered water, and continued to pray.
Slowly, the hour climbed towards midday. They had covered over two-thirds of the waiting roadway, almost a hundred and fifty miles from their original muster-point…
Yet still, nothing had been laid in their path.
As the noontide chimes began, and the canoness broadcast the prayer for the Hour, Caia found herself becoming increasingly suspicious. She, and the others in the Immolator, recited their responses, and yet she kept one eye on the auspex, compelled and wary – almost as if Rayos could reach out to corrupt its spirit, and it would feed them false information.
But the Hour’s prayers were completed without mishap, and the rain grew heavier still, limiting their visibility to barely five yards in front of the still-moving vehicles.
The crumbled parts of the roadway were beginning to flood, now, and the tanks were forced to slow, navigating the puddles carefully, and washing up a great wall of water to either side.
After another hour, Caia began to realise that the horizon was changing. Somewhere, out through the rain, she could make out a shadow – a wide and rising blur, like the base of some vast and jagged cone.
‘Witness the citadel,’ the canoness told her. ‘Our target – and our enemy – lie ahead. We must take extreme care, in this poor visibility. If we can see them…’
Caia, reflexively, recited one of the schola’s earliest combat lessons, ‘…then they can also see us.’
‘Just so.’ Ianthe, her words thoughtful, made no further comment. She began to pray, not the familiar rhythm of the day’s Hours, or the bugled wrath of the Dies Irae, but something darker, low and soft, a rumble like a bared threat. It was the words of the Reflections ex Testamento Eius, one of the Order’s oldest and most sacred texts, and it felt like the sliding strop of a whetstone. Listening to it made the hairs on Caia’s arms stand on end, as if He stood close, right over her, watching her every breath, her every movement.
Caia found herself anticipating the coming battle with a shudder that felt like eagerness.
She was a warrior born, and she would not have this taken away, not for all the wealth in the world. And certainly not for a long robe, and a set of false and affected manners…
Spare me, she prayed. Let me serve You with fist and bolter, as I have always done.
They rolled on. The glutinous rain grew heavier still, driving sideways across a rising wind. It lashed at the waters at the edge of the endlessly long road, driving them to froth and anger. It covered the tanks in spray, and occasionally in things less pleasant. The clouds grew thicker, and lower, and soon, the island was lost.
But they still knew it lay ahead of them.
Waiting, in the gloom.
The first tank-tread triggered the detonation. There was no warning; the air filled with force and noise and smoke and the whistle of flying fragments. Startled, Caia bit back a curse.
The noise was followed by a heart-stopping silence, and then a huge ferrocrete rumble. A cry of prayer sounded across the vox. There was creaking, metal twisting and groaning; there was the rumble of desperate engines.
There was a single, massive splash.
A wave of water sloshed back along the roadway.
‘Reverse!’ Ianthe was barking the order even as Caia heard the grind of the vehicle’s gears. It backed up so rapidly that it threw them both against the front of the hatch.
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.