There were no pews, nothing that could offer the squad good cover.
And the heretek dominus knew it.
His limbs were widely deployed with a horrific selection of weaponry – a vintage stubber, a steel axe, other things that Augusta did not recognise. She was already turning away, barking orders, telling her Sisters to spread out and flank him–
A bright ball of energy struck her full in the chest and stuck there, like some guiding light.
And every skull in the temple opened fire, aiming at the illuminated spot.
Her armour denting under the onslaught, Augusta was battered backwards, her feet skidding on the stone. She raised her bolter.
But Viola had just been waiting for the chance.
Switching targets, and with a prayer like a paean, she hit the heretek dominus with the full rate of fire of her thrice-blessed heavy bolter.
It did nothing.
Static crackled about his frame, a flashing wash of brilliance that simply stopped the rounds in mid-air. They hit, detonated, surrounded him in a corona of fire…
But they did not touch his metal body.
Swearing, she tried again.
Seeing the force field, however, Augusta was already changing her orders. She was unhurt, but her armour was dented hard enough to restrict her breathing; she checked for cracks in the floor, faults in the ceiling, anything that Viola could shoot that was not the tech-priest himself.
But Vius was too cunning, and he was moving too swiftly. One strike of the axe took Viola’s feet from under her and she crashed over sideways, her armour crunching as she hit the floor.
Augusta shouted, ‘Melia! Take Rhea, and target Rayos! Find this mechanism! The rest of you, the skulls!’
‘Aye!’ Both Sisters ran for the steps.
The temple was filled with noise – the crash of metal boots on stone, the hammer and blast of bolter fire, the chiming rise of anger and song. The skulls hovered and faltered and fell, echoing hollowly as they cracked against the floor.
But, even as Augusta turned her attention back to the heretek, they were rising again, answering to the endless data-stream of Vius’ commands.
Augusta barked, ‘Concentrate your fire, Sisters! Keep them down!’
Bolters thundered.
The heretek dominus had been right about one thing – if they did not bring him down, and swiftly, then they would not be able to deactivate the field.
And if that happened…
Focused now, Augusta freed her chainsword. Rasping it to full motion, she took one skull, then a second, clean out of the air. As one of them twitched back to life, she brought her boot down upon it, smashing it.
She was shouting in the vox, ‘Rhea!’ and sparing the briefest of glances for the top of the steps.
Framed by the lava-gleam of the forge-works, Rhea and Melia had parted to flank Rayos. The younger tech-priest’s movements were swift and fluid, her claws and tools keeping both Sisters back. She had been hit by Melia’s flamer once before, and was staying well out of its range.
But Augusta had no time to bark further orders – Vius was still moving, now focused on Viola as the greatest threat. Even as the younger Sister rolled back to her feet, the axe struck her again, hard across the belly.
Vius’ strength was incredible. Viola’s chestplate cracked clean through, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs. Her song fell from the air. Halfway to her feet, she went over once more, metal screeching on stone as she skidded backwards across the floor.
Augusta’s sword took out another skull.
‘Rhea!’
Rhea’s voice in the vox: ‘I have it! It’s up there, Sister, behind the altar! It’s the pull switch on the right! We…’ Her words suddenly faltered, then faded to a crushed softness, like pure horror. ‘By the Light, he’s right. We cannot reach it.’
‘What?’
Augusta took a split second to look, and to see what the Sister had meant.
Along the back wall of the temple, high above the forge-works of the altar, there ran a steel gantry. It allowed a priest or servitor access to an array of prayer-screens, diagnostics, switches, levers, and gauges. But to reach it…
To reach it, they would have to ascend a narrow metal ladder, covered by a cylindrical cage. Rhea – or Akemi – might have been able to fit through the cage’s gap…
But not in full armour.
And Rayos was still in the way.
You will not…
Augusta felt her heart freeze. Her mind turned over options – could she cut through it, perhaps? Could they occupy Vius and Rayos for long enough for one of the lighter Sisters to drop her wargear?
But she knew the answer – Vius had anticipated this, all of this. The heretek dominus had calculated his ploy flawlessly, knowing they were helpless, drawing them in.
So he could kill them all.
A prayer formed in her heart, almost like a plea.
She did not get the time to voice it.
Vius lowered one limb, and there was a flare of rippling heat.
Viola screamed in the vox, a noise that made Augusta’s hair stand on end. She did not move again.
Without pause, he turned the arm on Akemi. Again, the air shimmered. She reeled backwards, throwing up her arms, then staggered and fell.
Thin smoke stole from the joints in her armour.
Dominica’s eyes!
Augusta mouthed a horrified curse. Alcina, spitting the words of the litany, strode forwards as if she would take Vius apart with her gauntleted hands. At the top of the steps there was a burst of flame and a semi-mechanical hiss. The Sister Superior did not dare look.
They were out of time; the squad was being taken to pieces. But they had to take down that force field, even if it cost them their lives.
Our Emperor, deliver us!
By the Light – Vius had known this, all of this. From the beginning, he’d known their numbers, their deployments, their plans. He had extrapolated their every move with the efficiency of pure critical analysis. Nothing they had done had surprised him, and here he was, at the last, mocking them with their failure. Knowing that he could take them down, one at a time, and that they could not touch him.
That they could not reach the force field.
That they must leave their Order to die.
But there was no room for hopelessness, no option for despair.
They would succeed, or they would perish trying.
With unspoken agreement, Augusta and Alcina parted to divide Vius’ targeting, but the heretek dominus was pure, metallic symmetry, insectile and graceful, unassailable. Two-handed, now, Augusta slashed at his weapon arm with the running chainsword, but the effect was the same – the field sparked with energy and the blade simply bounced, the after-shock travelling up her arm.
Alcina was still shooting, firing single shots at Vius’ back, but to no effect. She was knotted with anger, fearsome and furious. In the clash and the clatter, Augusta realised Alcina was a truly powerful fighter.
But it was not enough. They had no weapon that could touch him, no way of reaching that switch. They were going to fail, not only themselves but the entirety of their Order…
And then, Augusta realised something, like a shaft of pure light striking down through the red glow of the temple. His touch, in the heart of the heretek’s corrupted power.
An answer.
The thing that Vius had missed, the one variable that he had not calculated.
The single member of this force that was not supposed to be here.
Mors.
As the realisation hit her, she flared with hope and defiance. She gave the squad a single command – alpha strike! – to concentrate everything they had on Rayos at the top of the steps.
They had to get her out of the way.
She said to Mors, ‘Can you get up there? Pull that switch?’
‘Yes, Sister.’ Mors didn’t argue, and he didn’t waste time. He slung his rifle – he’d need both hands to climb – then ran for the altar.
They both knew that as soon as either tech-priest saw him, he was dead.
It was just a matter of time.
Howling, Augusta drove at Vius with the chainsword, battering him back, holding his attention. Vius hissed. He seemed to retract into himself, then he lashed back out again like some coiled spring, that huge axe hammering with incredible mechanical force. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flare of Melia’s flamer, saw Rayos go over; she saw Mors reach the ladder and swing himself onto it with a wiry and long-limbed strength. He shot upwards, in and under the cage, then out and onto the gantry.
As his boots banged on the metal walkway, Vius turned.
Augusta saw the tech-priest pause, saw his shock, saw all his limbs shift to aim at the running figure. She could taste his dismay, his split-second understanding of his error.
The one thing he had not calculated.
The thing that was about to bring him down.
Vius raised the heat-weapon.
Mors threw himself at the switch.
The Sister Superior had barely a moment to understand that he’d made it, before the air of the temple shimmered.
And Mors died instantly, in a hiss of superheated steam, much like Rufus had done.
At the cave mouth, Captain Mulier’s words came through Caia’s vox-bead: ‘The field is down. Countdown begins at ninety… Eighty-nine…’
‘Retreat!’ Even as the canoness gave the order, she was up and over the side of the Immolator. In the smoke and the noise, Caia heard the rumble as the vehicles started to turn.
But there were machines still standing. The Sisters’ force had cut scores of them down and the canoness herself had slain too many to count. Still aloft, the three remaining Seraphim covered the retreat – as the tanks turned, the airborne Sisters swooped and hammered, keeping the foes’ ranks back.
Caia hung on as the Immolator reached full speed. Looking around, she counted the remaining tanks – one surviving Immolator, as well as their own, both Repressors, two Exorcists. If she glanced back, she could see the two fallen Seraphim, still and broken – her Sisters, fallen in battle, and never to be recovered.
She offered a silent prayer, but the canoness was still barking orders.
‘Roll call!’
The responses were coming in – Eleni, Roku, Jolantra. Briefly, Caia wondered about her own squad. She offered her thanks for their success, and prayed that they were still standing.
Behind them, the machines lumbered forwards. If they had previous orders not to leave the cavern, those orders had been superseded; as the tanks came out into the open and thundered, full-speed, back down towards the beach, the rattle and rumble of the mobile force followed them, harrying them all the way.
In the back of the Immolator, Ianthe prayed, her words rising to the brass-clouded sky.
Up there, somewhere, Captain Mulier was getting ready to fire.
Ninety seconds.
Augusta had not heard the broadcast, but she knew. And she knew that they would not have time.
At the top of the steps, Rayos was down – her fallen form was smouldering under the burned remains of her cloak. This time, it seemed, Sister Melia had finished the task.
But Vius was still upright, still fighting.
And, though it would be the last thing she did, Augusta was going to take the heretek dominus down before the Kyrus killed them all.
‘Alcina!’ She barked the order. ‘Take the squad and go! Get clear if you can!’
Despite his failure, Vius was still focused, calculated and cold. His combat strikes remained implacable, relentless, one after another…
Slash, slash, slash.
Systematically, he pursued Augusta with the axe, constantly reversing his grip so he could strike from both sides. She snarled at him, parrying the blows, her arms jarring, her feet skidding, her chainsword reaching a high-pitched scream as the teeth caught on the axe-haft. In his other hands, targeting flawlessly, the stubber and the heat weapon still struck out at the squad.
From somewhere, Rhea was shouting something, her tone urgent, but Augusta did not hear her, she was intent on Vius, looking for the opening, trying to get a strike through the tech-priest’s thought-swift defences. She was aware of the shimmer of the heat-weapon, of a dive-and-clatter as a figure in red armour rolled out of the way.
And then, something in her crystallised – pure concentrated rage.
In that split second, time seemed to slow. Her heart rate became a booming bass thrum in her ears; a new strength uncurled like light through her limbs. She would pay this heretek for every life he had taken, for her fallen Sisters, for Rufus, and for Mors. She would pay him for thinking he could take down her squad, and mock the Adepta Sororitas.
Domine, libra nos!
Despite the force field, she was gaining ground, pushing him back. The repeated strikes of the chainsword seemed to flow from her like pure song, like she had become a conduit for the entire fury of her Order. He was parrying almost frantically, sparks flying from the axe-haft.
Alcina had not left; she was kneeling beside the fallen Viola. She, too, was shouting, but Augusta could not hear through the roar of blood in her ears. The Sister Superior was reciting the words of the litany like a drum-pulse chant, rhythmic and furious with the systematic, relentless attacks of the chainsword. She let her rage fill her with pure scarlet light, with the fire that was battle-focus and absolute certainty – this thing would die.
Vius switched his axe again, striking from the other side. As he did so, she slammed it with her foot and knocked it sideways – he missed the blow and paused, just for a moment, but it was enough.
There – there! – was the opening she sought!
She slammed with the chainsword straight through his defences; his force field sparked and failed.
The blade bit home, screaming its song of destruction.
It was not enough to kill him, but his defences were down, now, and he could not free himself enough to move.
He hissed at her, all his limbs mantling high over her shoulders…
But it was too late.
Alcina was moving; Rhea and Melia were still on their feet.
Her Sisters had not left her.
And they did the rest.
Black ash, billowing in a bitter, metallic wind.
This was the limit of the tanks’ retreat – the roadway was collapsed and they could not leave the island.
The last of the machines were still behind them, lumbering down the road like monsters of nightmare, but they were not fast enough.
Ianthe shoved herself and Caia both into the Immolator’s belly, and slammed the hatch.
Over the vox, the canoness offered a prayer.
And from the clouds, there came the pure white blaze of the Emperor’s light.