by Danie Ware
Still, they had seen no servitors, no guards, not so much as a cogitator or a floating servo-skull…
But the sweat that slid down Augusta’s spine left a shudder as it passed. Unlike the headless corpse of the great cathedral upon Lautis, this space did not feel empty. It felt full, full of heat, full of potential and hostility, full of data, full of writhing streams of information that still moved across the air–
It felt like it was watching them.
‘There.’ Rhea’s indication was unnecessary, they could all see the wide stone steps that led up to the central altar. It was not a stone plinth, a place of electro-candles and effigies; it looked more like a construction, a great layering of furnaces and walkways and steel steps, a tech-priest-made machine-spirit that should have been the Omnissiah’s strength on this, His distant world…
But it lay dead, its furnaces cold, its walkways sagging. Like Lycheate itself.
And then, a piece of it moved.
The third rank of Rayos’ defences.
Still no sign of the heretek herself, just her massed machines, line after line of them, ranks of foes that the Sisters must cut their way through.
Yet these, Caia thought, looked different. They were clean-lined, and better made. They stood straight, their weapons strong. They lacked the writhing of wires, the exposed joints, the poorly made tracks, and the old welds across their steel bodies.
Almost instinctively, Caia understood that the previous two ranks had been built in haste – that, for the weeks since the Sisters’ arrival, Rayos had been concentrating on massing her force.
These machines had been made correctly, with more care, and time. As if they had been made by something–
‘These are older,’ the canoness said, finishing Caia’s thought. ‘Rayos could not have built–’
They did not have time to discuss the fact.
The air was alive, and the massed machines were opening fire.
Rayos.
Augusta recognised the heretek from their previous mission – small, for a tech-priest, malign and misshapen. Her half-human face bore a slick of recent burn scars and one blue eye, and she wore a familiar black-shimmer cloak. She moved to the head of the steps as if she could deny the Sisters access to anything she chose.
‘Sister Superior,’ she said.
Her voice, too, was recognisable, that same chill, analytical scorn. When Rayos spoke in human words, it felt like the heretek was lowering herself to the level of inferior beings.
In response, Viola aimed the heavy bolter, the weapon the best answer she could give. Melia’s flamer gouted a belch of fire, as if it were eager for a second try.
‘Heretek,’ Augusta answered.
The tech-priest shifted, clicking. ‘You have come far, Sisters. Two-hundred-point-one-four miles. We have watched you. We have calculated your every move. Your every response has been within expected parameters. And you have arrived precisely on schedule.’
Augusta was aware of Sister Rhea, auspex in hand, searching for the mechanism. She saw Rayos note the motion; saw the minute tilt of her head, its angle exact. It looked almost like amusement.
‘Your questing will avail you nothing,’ Rayos said. ‘You will perish here, all of you. And your weapons and equipment will be valuable.’
Augusta closed her hand on her chainsword. She wanted this over, wanted to slay this accursed heretek, but she dare not make a mistake. Alcina’s eyes were on her, and Rayos…
The fallen tech-priest knew how to calculate the odds.
She must know that she could not take on all six Sisters by herself.
And she’d said, ‘we’.
The Sister Superior came forwards, right to the bottom of the steps. She was looking for the concealed force, the gun emplacements, the backup or reinforcements that were giving Rayos this mathematical confidence. She said, pushing, ‘We are cutting your army to pieces.’
‘Not my army, Sister,’ Rayos said. Again, that tilt of almost amusement. ‘My vanguard.’
What?
Augusta felt Alcina tense; the clatter of her armour was audible.
Rayos said, ‘You have erred. Your assault is destroyed. There is a ninety-four-point-eight per cent chance that your canoness will perish.’
‘By the light!’ Alcina’s voice. Her boots sounded on the stone. She was moving, but Augusta did not turn. The Sister Superior was fixed on Rayos at the top of the steps, her black cloak glistening like a living thing.
‘Your odds are nothing, heretek,’ Augusta said. ‘We will bring His light back to the darkness. Viola!’
The younger Sister shifted, and Augusta could feel her eagerness to fire – a crackle of faith and fury that defied the pure logic of the corrupted temple. One directed burst from the thrice-blessed heavy bolter would splatter Rayos’ remains across the forge-works behind her.
Then something said, ‘Sororitas.’
The Order’s tanks were losing.
Drawn forwards by the machines ahead, they had allowed a flanking manoeuvre to close in about them. Their line was enveloped at both ends, and they did not have the weapons to face a front that long.
Still standing, still broadcasting righteousness and ferocity, the canoness was a one-woman army, the bright blasts of her plasma pistol taking down machine after machine. Caia stayed behind her, her smaller bolter seeming to do no damage, but she kept firing nonetheless.
Another Immolator lost, another detonation that made after-images spark across the Sisters’ vision. And there were foot-troops, now, skitarii and servitors, faster than the lumbering machines and moving in close.
But the Repressors, too, were firing – the Sisters inside were opening up through the weapon-ports even as the storm bolters on the vehicles’ tops moved to keep the skitarii at bay.
As the foot-troops closed about the lead Immolator, the canoness was over the edge of the hatch and right in the middle of them, her chainsword now in her other hand and whipping through two of them at a time. She sent them toppling and reeling, sparking as they fell.
She sang as she cut them to pieces, her voice incensed with fury.
In her ten years of service, Caia had never seen anything fight like Elvorix Ianthe.
She shot at them herself, those that were close enough – the battle was rapidly becoming a blur. The vehicles were still driving slowly forwards, clean over the top of anything foolish enough to get under their tracks, but the sheer weight of numbers was proving too much. Aloft, three Seraphim were changing tactics and picking careful targets – swooping in to alpha-strike a single machine and bring it down, and then moving onto the next.
Steadily, they stopped one end of the line.
But it was not enough.
The canoness, in the vox: ‘Where are your squad, Sister Caia? They should have reached the temple!’
‘I do not know!’ Caia had no answer, and could only pray. ‘I do not know!’
‘Sororitas.’
The voice was rusted with age, strained with disuse.
It made a shock of pure cold go down Augusta’s spine.
Almost on top of them, something was moving.
The Sister Superior turned, bringing blade and bolter to cover the motion.
And stopped.
By the Throne!
The thing was big – huge – and it loomed like part of the shadows. As it shifted, it creaked and groaned as if it were somehow unused to motion. The temple’s sense of data, unseen in the air, coalesced about it like some invisible aura.
Viola glanced, but she kept her heavy bolter on Rayos, ready to fire.
‘Hold your fire.’ Augusta’s command was swift. The new figure was strange, oddly hunched. It moved sideways, one step at a time, almost as if it were in pain. And it seemed wrong, somehow, twisted with age and rust.
‘Sororitas
,’ it said, again. The word was a machine-whisper, a flicker through the empty temple. It was a hiss like a bellows, like the escaping of steam. It sounded as if it were decaying from the inside.
Augusta stared. Watching it, she had a leap of understanding, a sudden sensation of everything making sense – as if the Emperor Himself had revealed to her the answer…
She said, ‘Vius.’
The figure stopped. It said, its voice scraping, ‘Designation Incaladion Tech-priest Dominus 01-Vius.’ It wheezed like metal laughter, like fingernails rasped down a new set of armour. ‘Vastum belongs to me.’
‘Vius.’ The echo was Akemi. ‘The inquisitor told us. After the Mechanicus abandoned Vastum, it was Vius who first landed–’
‘That would make him two centuries old,’ Viola answered her sceptically.
‘Data – uploaded and preserved,’ Vius said. ‘Metal – worked and preserved. Only flesh falters. Incaladion awaits my return.’
‘You want to go home,’ Augusta said. ‘That’s why everything still bears the Incaladion mark.’
Again, that rusted wheeze that might have been laughter. Unlike Rayos, Augusta could see no flesh upon this figure, nothing that remained of his once-human body. She wondered how he retained his emotions… such as they were.
Humour…
…and vengeance.
‘You will not leave here,’ she told him.
Vius hissed. ‘You err, Sister Superior. Your every move has already been calculated. You are here to shut down the Emanatus field.’
‘And what’s to stop us?’ Viola asked him, her tone harsh. ‘You?’
There was a long, full pause. In the far distance, the sound of gunfire had started up again. Vius twitched his metal skull to one side, a mocking parody of listening, and came further forwards, his huge frame looming over them.
An odd heat radiated from his cloaked body. This close, he was genuinely daunting, his hunched figure far bigger than the Sister Superior, bigger even than Alcina, armour and all. And when he shrugged his multiple shoulders, letting his black cloak puddle to the ground, his vast array of limbs and weapons made him look like some colossal stalk-eyed insect, poised and ready to strike.
The air of the temple seemed to move around him, ready to do his bidding.
‘Flesh is weak,’ he said. ‘You cannot reach the control panel. You will not leave here.’
He lifted one arm, and a surge of gunnery skulls rose with the motion, surrounding the Sisters with their broad and toothy grins. Rayos still stood at the top of the steps, and her cloak, too, had puddled to the floor.
You cannot reach the control panel.
You will not leave here.
The heretek dominus would tear them all to screaming pieces.
Chapter Ten
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 he
at.
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.