‘You want me to do as I first promised. Deactivate the necron power core.’ He had intended to do that all along, but there was no point in revealing so to the Battle Sister. ‘I will.’
‘Do it,’ she said solemnly, ‘and I promise you salvation.’
‘I will,’ he repeated, moderating his voice-synth, imitating the tones that would best convince her he was not lying.
She did not respond; finally Tegas gave a nervous bow and set off back the way they had come. His tertiary sensors registered a flash of leather-bound pages and iron chain, there beneath the woman’s combat cloak.
The machines came in through the yawning doorway and met a cascade of bolter fire with viridian counterblasts. The atmosphere inside the Great Chapel became a humming, crackling thing that vibrated with sundered air molecules. Flayer beams, tesla gun discharges and bright particle streams washed out in murderous waves. The heavy scents of ozone, cordite and promethium coiled in wisps of white vapour, the effluent of the gun-chorus that screamed defiance against the alien invaders.
Verity had never witnessed such savage combat in so confined a space. Even though the chapel proper was big enough to hangar a dozen bulk landers, it was still too small for the battle that raged within it. A war had been bottled up inside this chamber, poured in and left to rage against itself.
She heard the death-cries of Battle Sisters as they were reduced to cinders by the concentrated fire of the xenos. Necron soldiers widened the entrance with heavy beam blasts and they surged forwards. The fallen of their number vanished in snarling crackles of energy – although she could not be sure if they were self-destructing at the final moment, or being swept away by some form of teleporter. When they died – if one could call it that – the necrons emitted a piercing howl that seemed deliberately pitched to grate on the spirit and chill the blood. At all other times, they were voiceless, silent in the face of the Battle Sisters as Canoness Sepherina exhorted her troops to heights of pious fury.
Verity was behind a heavy oaken pew, with both hands holding the bolt pistol Sepherina had given her. So far, the hospitaller had missed more times than she had hit with the shots she had taken. Verity silently vowed that if she lived to survive this horror, she would work to improve her skill with a weapon.
Her training with firearms was only the most basic. As a medicae in the Imperial Church’s service she was often in harm’s way, but always in the company of true warriors, never expecting to be called on to fight the enemy face to face. Verity was not squeamish about the weapon, but she lacked the cold ability to kill that women like Sepherina had. Her calling was to life, not to death; but the necrons were something between those two extremes. They were hollow and soulless – one look into those glowing eyes and that could not be denied.
Not for the first time, Verity turned inwards and called on her own faith to steel herself… And by the God-Emperor’s grace, she found it.
The great wooden bench in front of her upended and spun away, as if it had been reeled in by an invisible line. A metal statue rose up and threw a shadow over the kneeling woman.
It was a lychguard. Stocky and heavy-set where necron warriors and immortals were thin of line and skeletal, the machine was plated with silver armour accented in platinum and copper. A fanned crest of intricate design emerged from the back of its metal skull, and it advanced with a tall kite shield sheathed in sparks of energy. In its other hand, the alien held an axe-like weapon made from dark blue metals, the cutting edge mirror-bright.
On impulse, Verity jerked the trigger of the bolt pistol and spent the rounds in the clip harmlessly against the spatial dispersion effect surrounding the shield. As the breech snapped open on the empty magazine, she fell backwards, desperately trying to put distance between them. All around, the chaos of the battle continued, ignorant of this small drama among the greater conflict.
The axe – a warscythe – moved, falling towards her face. She jerked away, and felt the wind of the blade’s passing brush her lips. The very end of the curved axe-head met the chest-plate of her duty armour and sliced through it as if it were smoke. Panic flooded Verity as she stumbled, expecting a gusher of blood to emerge from the cut; but only desultory impact fibres bled through from within. She had out-stepped the blow by a tiny fraction. A centimetre less and it would have cut her open through the breastbone.
The lychguard shifted its stance, taking its time. The pitiless gaze of the machine-form glared down on her. The next blow would not be in error.
The axe rose, just as a blur of motion came from the shadows nearby. With a grunt of very human effort, Decima came racing into the fray, her black-bladed sword flashing. The necron turned to meet her attack, bringing up the kite shield, but she was already leaning into the blow.
Verity watched Decima force the voidblade into the crackling field around the shield with all her might – and through it. Decima carried the strike all the way, ripping across the long guard. The shield broke in two, necron technology cut cleanly by necron technology.
Verity wondered if she saw a moment of anger as the lychguard discarded its now useless wargear. It swung the warscythe at the other woman, and the two alien blades met with a discordant clang. The necron was a head taller than the gangly survivor, and at least twice Decima’s mass. She did not let that halt her attack, however, and sword and axe met again and again.
Verity dragged her attention from the wild melee and fumbled a fresh ammunition clip into the bolt pistol, before bringing it up to take aim. She hesitated, her finger tight on the trigger. Decima and the lychguard were in a lethal dance, in close, blade leading blade, searching for a breach in the other’s defence. Verity was suddenly afraid to take the shot. One mistake and Decima would die.
Then the choice was made for her. The necron found the opening it needed and slammed Decima in the head with the butt of its warscythe. She rocked and fell back, losing her footing. The lychguard seemed to pause, as if it were calculating the perfect plane of the blow it would make, the single, flawless killing strike that would end the life of the tattered Battle Sister.
Verity opened fire, shouting wordlessly as she pumped the pistol’s trigger, letting the muzzle rise with the slamming recoil of the rounds leaving the barrel. The necron tried to protect its head with its armoured hand, distracted and off-balance for a brief instant.
Decima took the moment and made her riposte. With a piercing cry of anger, the woman spun in a lethal pirouette and leapt, coming back down with both hands on the hilt of the voidblade. The black sword entered the lychguard’s torso where a human being would have its clavicle, and rotated with the force of the blow. Decima pushed all her might into it, and took the alien’s crested skull from its shoulders. The headless necron sank slowly to its knees and trembled, sparks gushing from the neck stump.
Decima withdrew her stolen weapon and took a step towards Verity. ‘Sister,’ she began. ‘I will keep you–’
Safe. The word died on her lips as the tip of the warscythe burst through her stomach, dark arterial blood splashing on the stones. At her back, the beheaded lychguard was still twitching, the last action communicated from its dying machine-mind to stab her in the spine.
Verity screamed as Decima’s legs went dead and she fell forwards off the axe-head, crashing to the floor in a heap. Amid the raging gunfire, no one heard her.
‘Sis-ter.’ Decima managed the word through a mouthful of bloody spittle. She reached up with her bony, malnourished fingers and touched the tears on Verity’s cheeks. ‘I never heard…’ she gasped. ‘Before, I could always hear them. In my head. The Watched… I was always watched… But this time… I am free.’
‘Decima, I am so sorry…’ Verity wanted to reach in and seal the cut with her own hands, even as she knew that was impossible. The hospitaller recognised a mortal wound all too well.
‘Will you forgive me?’
She felt a jolt of shock. ‘For… what?’
‘I could not protect the relic.’ Each wor
d was a labour for Decima. ‘Katherine will hate me for that.’
‘No. No!’ Verity shook her head. ‘She will love you for it, Sister. You gave up so much to survive. To warn us.’ Bitter sorrow welled up inside the hospitaller. She felt powerless and broken as she watched the woman fall into the arms of death.
‘Sister,’ she gasped. ‘I had forgotten that we are kindred. But I remember now.’
‘I will not forget,’ promised Verity; but Decima did not hear her.
Danae, Cassandra and the others stood among a drift of smashed necron scarabs, the charred and blasted remains of the machines carpeting the stone floor. Miriya heard the Sister Retributor speaking in low tones as she came closer.
‘Imogen Nal, Sister Superior of the Order of Our Martyred Lady, honoured soldier of the Golden Throne, and daughter of Ophelia VII and the Convent Sanctorum. We remember your name and lay you to rest in this place. The sight of the God-Emperor finds you even here.’ Imogen’s ruined body lay in front of Danae, and she held her meltagun trained on the woman’s corpse. ‘Ave Imperator,’ she concluded.
‘Ave Imperator,’ repeated Miriya, drawing hard looks from the rest of the unit as she dragged Tegas along with her.
‘You left us,’ Pandora accused. ‘Imogen died because of–’
‘She was dead already, and she knew it,’ Ananke spoke over her, silencing the other woman. ‘But the girl is right. You fled in the middle of an ambush.’
‘I did not flee.’ Miriya looked to Danae. ‘Finish the rite, Sister. We cannot leave Imogen’s body to these creatures.’
The Retributor said nothing for a long moment, a silent challenge in her eyes. Then at last she looked away. Imogen’s wargear had already been stripped of equipment, grenades and ammunition, leaving only her armour, her chaplet and personal votives. On the battlefield, the corpse would have been recovered for a proper burial, but here such attention was impossible. Instead, her funerary would be concluded by the most expedient means.
Danae bowed, and pulled the meltagun’s trigger. Plasma-bright fire hummed from the weapon as she used it to immolate the Sister Superior’s body, turning metal, bone, flesh and ceramite into an ashen mass.
‘It’s done,’ said Cassandra, grimly dressing a fierce wound at her neck. She nodded towards Tegas, who stood shifting his weight from foot to foot. ‘An execution next?’
‘He lives,’ Miriya replied. ‘We need him.’
‘You decide this?’ said Pandora. ‘You abandon us in a fight to rescue a worthless cog, and now you give out orders?’ Her face creased as the acrid smell of burnt human flesh reached them.
‘That is her right,’ Danae noted. ‘She may take seniority if she wishes. She has the laurels.’
‘I gave my oath to Imogen,’ Pandora retorted, ‘not to her.’ He looked at Danae and Ananke in turn. ‘So did you!’
‘You gave your oath to the Order,’ Miriya corrected. ‘Imogen understood what was at stake here. This is not about anything else.’
‘No?’ Pandora stepped closer, glaring at her from under her thin tresses of red. ‘She did not think you fit to be in command. We have all seen the broken links of your chaplet. What gives you the right to take the Sister Superior’s place now?’
‘You don’t need to follow me,’ Miriya told her, a weariness in her words. ‘But you will follow this.’ She reached into the folds of her crimson combat cloak and produced the book.
She dropped it into Pandora’s stunned grasp. The young Battle Sister’s expression transformed in a heartbeat. ‘It… it is real.’
‘Take it, if you think you are worthy,’ Miriya told her. ‘Guard it until it can be placed in the hands of the canoness.’
The others made the sign of the aquila over their armour. ‘They told us the book was held in the Convent Sanctorum,’ said Ananke, disbelief in her tone. ‘How can it be here?’
‘Saint Katherine’s words have been in transit across the galaxy for decades, hidden behind a falsehood,’ said Miriya. ‘Going from outpost to convent, chapel to colony. Giving secret blessing.’ She nodded to Pandora. ‘Open it. Read.’
Her hands shaking, the Sororitas did so. Her eyes glistened with tears as she gave voice to the first words she saw. ‘Our greatest strength is the steel that lines the heart of every woman. The mother, the daughter, the sister. Her love is eternal and unbreakable. It is the blade that cannot be blunted.’ Pandora’s voice turned husky with emotion. ‘Throne and Blood… These are the Saint’s words.’
‘This is why we came back to Sanctuary 101, this is the real reason we returned.’ Miriya gave a grave nod. ‘Not just to lay the ghosts of the dead to rest, not for the convent or in the name of the God-Emperor. We came for that.’ She pointed at the holy tome.
‘If we have the book,’ began Ananke, ‘then is not the mission ended? We should quit this alien mausoleum and abandon it to the xenos.’ She gave Tegas a level look. ‘And leave the questor for them to toy with.’
‘We’re not done here,’ Danae said, before Miriya could speak the words. ‘Book or no book, too much blood has been shed. The necrons have to pay the butcher’s bill.’
‘Aye,’ Miriya agreed. ‘We need ask ourselves only one question of how we are to proceed. What would Katherine do?’
With great care, Pandora closed the book and secured it beneath her cloak. ‘The Saint would kill them all,’ she replied.
Miriya nodded and turned to Tegas. ‘The power chamber above the Dolmen Gate. You will lead us.’
The adept gave a jerky nod and moved off, the Battle Sisters falling into a skirmish line behind him.
The humming from beyond the trembling stone walls of the chapel grew into a roar, and Verity looked up from Decima’s corpse to see a slab-sided shadow pass over the taller of the stained-glass windows. The shape moved with slow, deliberate menace, and for an instant she was reminded of an ancient battle galleon gliding across a calm ocean. She heard Sister Helena cry out a warning, but the words were lost to her in the din.
Then the fire came. A stream of purple-white flames burst through the wall high above her head, and lashed out in a shuddering line. The flaring rope of energy sliced horizontally through the supports, the windows it touched puffing into clouds of brittle shards. It moved from right to left in a single sweep, stonework losing all coherence and collapsing in its wake.
A great gust of wind and rock dust rolled in across the chapel proper as the eastern wall came apart in jagged chunks and the thunder of cracking stone. Verity shielded her eyes and saw the looming shadow framed in the breach it had just created. A great, hovering ziggurat made of black stone drifted closer on a haze of anti-gravity force, and it shouldered its way through the opening. With its presence in the chapel alone, the necron Monolith committed the worst blasphemy imaginable.
Gauss flayer arcs on each corner of the floating pyramid twitched and moved, seeking targets. They laid down pulses of energy that ripped up the intricate mosaics across the tiled floor, flash-blasting discarded prayer books and Battle Sisters alike into embers and ash. Verity went low, dropping into the lee of a fallen pillar, and she dared to look up once again.
Atop the Monolith, before the towering crystal emitter of a particle whip, there was a throne that appeared to be woven out of thick brass cables. A necron bedecked in a metal cloak rose from it, glaring out imperiously over the war his kind had brought to the convent. It raised its hands and pointed them into the battle. From one leapt pulses of green fire, boiling through the smoky air to set stone melting where they impacted; from the other, projectiles trailing lines of energetic particles hissed across the chamber. Verity saw one such arrowhead strike a Sister Dominion with such force that it picked her up and carried her off her feet, into the shadows.
The machine paused, scanning the chamber with its cold gaze.
‘What is it?’ she asked aloud. ‘Looking for something?’
‘Stay down, nursemaid!’ A muscled hand grabbed at her and dragged her out of sight. Verity found
herself next to Sister Isabel, who worked at the slide of a bolter jammed by a misfire. ‘It’s some kind of commander unit,’ she added. ‘In all the hells, what else could it be? He’s come to end us personally.’
The idea that the robotic, artificial killers would even be capable of such a want or a need seemed jarring to the hospitaller. Even after the confrontation with the cryptek back on the Obsidian Moon, she found it hard to imagine the aliens as anything other than sophisticated automata. Verity could only see them as clockwork, bereft of anything like human sentience or emotion. They were like the uncommon minions of the Legio Cybernetica, things that mimicked the shape of life but bereft of the essence that animated a living thing. She said as much to the grim-faced Battle Sister.
Isabel shot her a look, made fierce by her augmetic eye implant. ‘They have no soul, aye. But they live, that is certain. Just don’t ask me how.’ She hefted her bolter. ‘Stay here,’ said the Sororitas, as she made to rejoin the fight. Isabel turned back and glanced at the pistol in Verity’s hand. ‘Count your rounds, Sister,’ she told her, ‘and keep the last for yourself.’
The Battle Sister vaulted over the fallen pillar and vanished into the haze, firing as she went.
The Monolith’s particle whip discharged, and in the confines of the breached chapel it was a sound like the end of the world. Huge pieces of the majestic dome overhead were sliced apart, and they crashed to the floor with earthshaking impacts, kicking up more dust to clog the thickening air. Verity reeled, and saw a glimpse of the pale blue sky overhead, framed in a ragged tear across the ceiling. Up there, pallid with the reflected light of the Kavir sun, she could make out the ghostly curve of the Obsidian Moon, still visible after the dawn.
She thought of Miriya, and felt afraid for her friend and Sister. There was no way to know if she was still alive up there, or if Imogen’s strike team had failed in their mission to penetrate the heart of the necron complex. Verity’s thoughts were touched by the horrible certainty of her own imminent death, and as the screaming and the firestorm rolled on, she worked the slide of the bolt pistol to eject a single round into her hand. Verity rolled it between her fingers, touching the shell to her forehead and then the fleur-de-lys on her duty armour. She pocketed it, and dashed from cover.
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