17 Aevum Oblivio Sanctum

Under the jungle, under a shallow lake carved out by nuclear fire during the Age of Judgment, the dead were given their due. Those who would replace them inside the killing-jar of the Focus moved like silent wraiths among the dried-out husks of the departed, binding them in fragrant silks. The martyr’s crypt was always hungry.

The mistress of the Focus watched them as they worked, and it took every ounce of her iron self-discipline to hold back hysteria. They’d been sucked dry, broken by the cruel strictures of altergeometric physics. But worse… they’d volunteered.

She was in no mood to hear the Technical who came running, hunched over in an attitude of respectful horror. She knew exactly who’d sent him, and that was enough to crack her mask of discipline… the thought of him, her bloody master, was more terrible than the ghost-grins of a thousand mummified acolytes.

“The Illuminated One reports success, commander. He says that the Forge has been defeated…”

“At what cost, though? Did he tell you that he’s volunteered for the next watch?”

The Technical flinched, making a sign of holy warding. As if she’d hand-pick him to command the overwatch himself.

“He says… at least we now have proof that the machine is still operational. And that those… those things are up to their usual trickery.”

“Monsters I can handle,” smiled the mistress. “So long as they’re not on our side. So tell me… when do we leave?”

“How… that is… umm…” he was shaken by her use of prescience, eyes wide with fear. But of course, it was only an educated guess. “The warbirds are being fueled. The Illuminated One comman… I mean to say requests your presence at the aerodrome in fifteen minutes. Bring your disciple guard. Those creatures he speaks of… they sound nearly as bad as the Worm’s own spawn!”

“Of course, only our dear leader would know,” she mused, leading the Technical along as she picked her way delicately between the dead and out of the Focus chamber. “But his word, as always, is law. Let us never be said to have known fear, my son…”

Up above, under the shade of the sentinel trees, a vast red aircraft was being prepared for flight, fueled and anointed and loaded with ammunition. This plan of theirs had to work. It just had to. Or else all of those poor doomed souls in the martyr’s crypt, stacked up like cordwood in the incense-heavy dark… they all would have died for nothing.