Watchers in Death

by David Annandale

  ‘Because I must,’ Thane said. His face was lined with sorrow. He looked over at the stained-glass portrait of Dorn. ‘Do you think, when this war has run its course, we will have destroyed all the myths that were left to us?’

  ‘If we do,’ Koorland said, ‘we will create new ones. If we have to embody them ourselves.’

  On the landing pad of the pocket space port, Wienand approached the warriors of Squad Gladius. ‘Politics,’ she said, ‘is a disease.’

  The Space Marines were preparing the Penitent Wrath to leave from the only launching facility within kilometres of the barracks that had not been devastated by the meteor storm. They would be departing within hours. Veritus had not joined them yet. Wienand had guessed he would not arrive until shortly before the launch.

  Thane and the warriors in black looked at her, motionless.

  ‘You have no love for politicians,’ Wienand continued. ‘Look where the Council has brought us. But politics are inevitable. There is no cure for the plague, and no immunity. Look at yourselves. The Deathwatch is political in its elements, and deeply so in its effect.’

  ‘Why are you here, inquisitor?’ Thane asked.

  ‘I’m here to contain the damage of your current infection.’

  Warfist growled. ‘You think we would accept a second inquisitor on this mission?’

  ‘When that inquisitor is myself, yes.’ She walked across the launch pad, stopping near the gunship’s ramp. ‘I notice you take for granted that I know the nature of your mission.’

  ‘If you’re here,’ Abathar said, ‘then you know.’

  ‘No games,’ said Warfist. ‘State your intent or leave us.’

  ‘I’ve already stated my intent. And you are all playing the political game whether you admit it to yourself or not. But you’re right, I should be clear. You know Inquisitor Veritus and I do not work hand in glove.’

  ‘You are both inquisitors,’ said Forcas.

  ‘Which did not stop him from attempting to have me assassinated. He did succeed in having me deposed as Inquisitorial Representative.’

  ‘And?’ said Thane.

  ‘You should think of me as a check against his game.’

  There was silence as the Space Marines exchanged glances. She waited in their midst. She did not withdraw to give them privacy. They would have to grow used to her presence. She watched them think through what she proposed. She had no authority here. She could only be invited. But if Thane, as mission commander, requested her presence, Veritus would not be able to overrule him.

  ‘Why do you wish to come?’ Straton asked.

  Because there is great potential in what the Deathwatch is and does, she thought. Because I won’t let Veritus seize that potential for himself. What she said was, ‘Because I need to see what you will find.’ That, too, was the truth.

  Vangorich had told her what Koorland planned. ‘The Sisters of Silence,’ she had said. She had never expected to speak those words. Years before, in the vaults of the Inquisition’s fortress, she had read about them, and many other organisations that might or might not have existed in the far reaches of time. She had never believed the order still endured. There was no reason to do so. The Sisters had vanished into a myth-shrouded past. What they represented…

  She had not yet allowed herself to articulate what they meant, because the hope of their reality still felt like a forbidden one. Yet when she had spoken to Rendenstein about what Vangorich had told her, and what she planned, she had seen in her bodyguard’s face the same need, the same desire to hope, and the same caution. Rendenstein understood.

  Thane was wearing his helmet. Wienand could not see his expression. But in the slight cocking of his head, she thought there was understanding.

  ‘You found one legend,’ she told him. ‘I need to be there when you find another.’

  A low, weary chuckle emerged from the helm’s vox-grille. ‘Is that all?’

  She grinned. ‘What do you think?’

  Seven

  Sacratus

  The Sacratus System was a dark one. It was in an isolated sector in the eastern region of the Segmentum Pacificus, far from trade routes. It lacked any strategic value. The sun that shone on Sacratus was so distant, the light that reached the shrine world was frozen. It was the glint of ice, and the memory of solitude. The sluggish winds of the planet’s thin atmosphere stirred nitrogen snows over the roofs of mausoleums as large as manufactoria. The architecture reminded Thane more of an encrustation than of solemn remembrance. Sepulchres and vaults and chapels were built into and atop one another, tumours of granite and marble connected by tendrils of staircases.

  Squad Gladius and Wienand followed Veritus down the staircases. The route was labyrinthine and patchwork, flights descending for hundreds of metres or less than five. Sometimes Veritus chose a direction that climbed back upwards for a few minutes, then he would take a sudden turn downwards again. Sometimes he would pause and consult his data-slate. For the most part he walked without hesitation.

  ‘He is sure of his way,’ Straton said.

  ‘Very,’ Thane agreed. ‘What do you know of this world?’ he asked Wienand.

  She walked just ahead of the squad, a few steps behind Veritus.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I had never heard of it before now.’

  ‘You have not been looking at the correct records,’ Veritus said without looking back. The old man took the stairs with a surprisingly limber gait, even in his environmental suit.

  ‘Oh? And which ones were those?’

  Veritus didn’t answer.

  Eventually the staircases were no longer in the open air. The Deathwatch moved past and through shrines that had been buried by the others.

  ‘This is an underhive of remembrance,’ said Forcas.

  Thane shone his light over the statuary. ‘What era is this from?’ he asked Veritus.

  ‘The Great Crusade,’ Veritus said, ‘and a few centuries after. Then it was forgotten.’

  Thane supposed he should not be surprised. Sacratus was off the trade routes. There were no habitable planets in the system and it had no strategic value. He could imagine the memory of the world fading until it was a name on mouldering lists. That did not explain how Veritus knew of its existence.

  At last they reached a door guarded by two caryatids in ancient armour. Their mouths were covered by grilles in the form of Imperial eagles.

  ‘You’ve been here before,’ said Wienand.

  ‘No,’ Veritus replied.

  They passed through the high arch between the caryatids. A domed space lay beyond. Sarcophagi ringed the periphery, and statues lay in repose on each tomb. They wore the same armour as the tomb’s guardians. Veritus pointed upward.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘That is what we’ve come to see.’

  The Space Marines directed their lamps at the dome. Its fresco, dim with age and frost, depicted a group of female warriors. Cloaks billowed behind their armour, blending together, becoming thunderclouds edged with fire. The women held their swords upraised, converging towards the centre of the dome, where a red sun blazed.

  ‘The stars,’ Abathar said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Veritus. ‘That is what we came here to learn.’

  The red sun was at the centre of a pattern of stars, Thane now saw. ‘A chart,’ he said.

  ‘Of where?’ said Wienand.

  ‘Of the location of Vultus,’ Veritus said. ‘One of the principal fortresses of the Sisters of Silence. This one is close to the edge of Imperial space. If unsanctioned psykers hoped to find refuge at the frontier, they were mistaken.’

  ‘What makes you think we’ll find them there?’ Thane asked.

  ‘I have accounted for the other, less remote fortresses. They are all abandoned.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why this one won’t be,’ said Wienand.

>   Veritus shrugged. ‘That is where we must go,’ he said.

  The Herald of Night’s Navigator identified Vultus’ system as Extorris. When the strike cruiser translated from the warp, the red giant filled the oculus with sullen crimson light.

  ‘Hostile contacts!’ the Master of the Auspex called out.

  ‘The orks are here?’ said Adnachiel.

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  Thane stood with the rest of the squad and the two inquisitors around the tacticarium table. He watched the pict-screens light up with the configurations of the enemy deployment. The orks had a small fleet stationed above a moon of the gas giant fourth from the star.

  ‘Two battleships,’ Adnachiel said from the pulpit. ‘Five cruisers.’

  ‘What are they doing out here?’ Wienand wondered.

  ‘Saving us time in our search,’ said Adnachiel. ‘We know where we are heading now.’

  ‘Lord,’ said the auspex officer, ‘the vessels are not attacking.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We are picking up heat emissions suggesting launches, but no bombardment. We are also detecting some launches from the moon’s surface.’

  ‘Missiles?’

  ‘No, too slow. I would suggest orks returning to the motherships.’

  Adnachiel turned around to face Thane. ‘This is your search,’ he said. ‘Your determination.’

  ‘This doesn’t sound like combat,’ said Thane.

  ‘It does not,’ Adnachiel agreed. ‘It sounds like the end of an engagement.’

  We can’t be too late, Thane told himself. If the orks had won so easily, their search had been pointless from the start.

  ‘We need to see for ourselves,’ he said.

  ‘Why are the orks here?’ said Abathar. ‘The question is significant.’

  Thane nodded. ‘We need to go in.’

  Adnachiel kept the huge orb of the gas giant between the Herald of Night and the ork fleet. Shipmaster Aelia brought the strike cruiser as close to the atmosphere as possible, deep within the planet’s ferocious magnetosphere. The Penitent Wrath launched just over the horizon from the greenskin ships. Qaphsiel, the Thunderhawk’s pilot, skimmed the cauldron of the emerald atmosphere until he had a straight shot up to the planetside face of the tidally locked moon.

  The satellite was a small one, a craggy barren rock not much more than a hundred kilometres in diameter. Qaphsiel flew low above the surface, twisting through jagged canyons.

  ‘If you have any knowledge of the fortress,’ Thane said to Veritus, ‘it would be useful to hear it.’

  ‘You know as much as I do,’ the inquisitor said. ‘My knowledge ended on Sacratus.’

  ‘Then you will remain with the Penitent Wrath until we have a secured position.’

  ‘No,’ Wienand said. ‘We will follow with all due caution, but we’re coming with you.’

  ‘Why?’ Thane asked. He indulged in some heavy irony. ‘Don’t you trust us?’

  ‘We need to see,’ Wienand said, and Veritus nodded.

  Thane disliked the unanimity the inquisitors were showing. Wienand’s tone, though, was more urgent. When she said we, it sounded like I. He thought about trying to force them to stay. He decided against it. If they got themselves killed, he would not mourn the loss.

  The surface of the moon became more deeply scarred as the Thunderhawk drew nearer the fortress. The canyons were narrow, deep and interconnected. Soon the Penitent Wrath was flying through a landscape as cracked and shattered as glass, as if the gunship were approaching the site of a great blow.

  Qaphsiel took the Thunderhawk up out of one gorge, then immediately dropped into a crevice no more than fifteen metres wide and hundreds deep. It cut almost directly towards the coordinates where the Herald of Night’s long-range auspex scans indicated Vultus stood. Thane felt the webbing of his grav-harness strain as Qaphsiel took hard turns between the rock walls.

  A few minutes later, the crevice opened up into a deep, narrow bowl.

  Looking through a viewing block, Wienand said, ‘This was a world shaped to their purpose.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Thane agreed.

  Rising from the bowl was an immense column. It towered a hundred metres above the lip of the bowl, and it was over a kilometre wide. Vultus sat like a bird of prey on its peak. The fortress had been carved out of the rock of the column, the dark stone shaped into harsh towers. Their facades were perfectly vertical. Their angles, little eroded after a thousand years, were sharp as blades.

  Qaphsiel flew just above the floor of the bowl as he closed in on the column. The orks appeared to have landed in the area beyond the bowl and on the launch pads Thane could see projecting from the column and the base of the fortress. As he watched, a ship lifted off one of the platforms. It trailed a long stream of fire in the thin atmosphere.

  ‘They’re leaving,’ Wienand said.

  ‘Some of them.’ Qaphsiel had gone into a steep climb. The features of Vultus were becoming clearer. So were the shapes of other ork vessels, their wings overhanging the edges of the platforms.

  ‘They can’t help but see us soon,’ said Veritus.

  ‘If they look,’ said Abathar.

  ‘I have a target for insertion,’ Qaphsiel said over the gunship’s vox. ‘The defence batteries directly above us.’

  ‘A good choice,’ Straton said. ‘There are no landing platforms on this face of the fortress.’

  Unless the orks were using the guns. Thane brushed away the pessimistic thought. Whatever the orks wanted with Vultus, he did not believe they had come to seize it and hold it against non-existent enemies.

  ‘Make ready,’ Thane said. He detached the grav-harness. He stood. Leaning against the sharp angle of the ascent, he moved to the side door and slid it back. A hot wind raged through the troop compartment. The Deathwatch squad gathered behind him.

  The Penitent Wrath levelled off as it reached the height of the fortress. A domed building hulking in the centre of the complex gave Thane the impression of a structure closed in on itself. Its nature seemed to float ambiguously between refuge and prison.

  There were windows in the towers. They had all been smashed. Wedges of armourglass glinted like teeth in the red light of the sun.

  Qaphsiel lowered the Thunderhawk over a gun emplacement halfway up. The platform was wide, and ran most of the length of the facade. Silent cannons waited to destroy any enemy who would dare approach Vultus. The enemy had come, though. The enemy was doing what it willed, and the guns remained silent.

  Squad Gladius jumped from the gunship. The Penitent Wrath dropped back down the column, and Thane led the way at a swift march to the nearest entrance. The plasteel door had been smashed down from the inside.

  The passageway beyond was dark. The fortress had no power. It was inert as dead as the rock of its walls. Aggressive life moved through the tomb, though. Brutes growled in the distance. Things smashed. But there was no gunfire. There was no battle.

  ‘The Sisters of Silence are not here,’ Forcas said.

  ‘There would be fighting,’ Wienand agreed.

  ‘And I would feel them,’ said Forcas. ‘I would feel the pressure of the psychical null.’

  ‘This is futile,’ said Warfist.

  ‘The cannons we passed have not been serviced for a long time,’ Abathar put in. ‘It is highly unlikely the orks have defeated the Sisters. Vultus has been abandoned. Perhaps for centuries.’

  ‘Our search ends here, then?’ Straton asked.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Wienand. ‘The dome on Sacratus showed us the way here. Maybe this dome has a similar message.’

  The chances seemed remote to Thane. But we have to find them, he thought. Any possibility was worth exploring. ‘We make for the dome, then,’ he said. ‘Silent kills. We have not come to fight an entire ork fleet.’

  Warfist
growled low in his chest, the sound predatory in anticipation. He took point, lightning claws extended. The rest of Squad Gladius drew blades. Wienand took out her laspistol. ‘I’ll use it only if we are discovered,’ she said.

  Veritus carried no weapon.

  ‘You are not very formidable, inquisitor,’ Warfist said.

  ‘In combat, no,’ said Veritus. ‘Nor am I a fool.’

  Yet here we are, Thane thought.

  They moved into the corridor. The walls were bare, the shredded remains of tapestries lying at their base. The first intersection was littered with overturned pedestals and smashed statuary. A severed head, its mouth covered by the same eagle grille as the caryatids of Sacratus, stared at the ceiling, judgement hard as the void in its blank eyes.

  The route to the dome was obvious. The passageway from the gun emplacements ended at a corridor wide as an avenue. Traffic would once have moved rapidly from one end of the citadel to the other, down great halls radiating like spokes from the dome. Vehicles had come down this route very recently. The air stank of spent fuel. The walls were marred by wide scorch marks, and for as far as Thane could see in the light cast by their helms, broken statues lay on the floor.

  ‘The vandalism is systematic,’ Forcas said. ‘There is hatred here.’

  ‘The orks recognise the threat of the Sisters of Silence,’ said Veritus.

  ‘How?’ Wienand asked. ‘Have they encountered them before?’

  ‘These ork witches are powerful,’ said Forcas. ‘Perhaps, as a collective, they can sense the presence of a threat somewhere. They’re searching too. Seeking to destroy the threat, and any trace that it ever existed.’

  From far down the corridor came growls and the sounds of smashing stone.

  ‘We will not surprise them on this route,’ Warfist said. He turned off the wide hall at the first opportunity, finding a narrow passage running parallel, and loped ahead of the rest of the squad. He had removed his helm, and he paused at intersections to sniff the air.

  The further the Deathwatch went, the louder the ork din became. The sounds bounced off the stones of Vultus, redirected by the whims of the architecture.