The Rose At War, page 2
It brought her back to herself and she stopped, holding her breath to listen.
But still, nothing moved.
Only the cold.
Only the darkness.
And only the things that bumped against her shins…
By the Light! Where am I? What have I–?
With a wrench of effort, she ground herself back into motion. She tried to keep praying, but the words were hollowing, now, and slowly, slowly, they bled from her like the dark was full of leeches.
Her hand tightened on her dagger until her gauntleted fingers hurt.
Soon, she began to hear other noises – noises like voices, like echoes of remembered hymns, like splashes in the limitless murk. Once, she thought she heard gunfire, and she almost ran in the direction of the sound, but it faded before she’d gone very far. The things in the water bumped and bumped at her; she had to stop herself shuddering and kicking back at them, shoving them away. Sometimes, her suitlight picked up odd gleams under the surface, as if some eyeless, deep-dwelling creature were baring its hungry teeth…
How could there be no end to this? Surely, even if she were in the very bottom of the ship’s hull, there would be…?
And then, she saw something.
It was a support, a mighty, riveted pillar of steel that stretched upwards, high into the dark. It was pitch-black, utterly smooth and completely devoid of ladders, or of identification. It was ice-cold, glittering with frost.
And it bore words.
What?
Augusta blinked, wondered if the darkness was playing some trick, but no, she was not seeing things. The words were like shadows in the pale chill; they looked like they’d been made with a finger.
They said, ‘Imperatoris meum dereliquit nos’.
The Emperor has forsaken us.
Pure, stark cold went down her back.
Forsaken.
She turned, put her back to the metal and raised the dagger, but she could see nothing. Beyond her tiny suitlight, the darkness concealed a thousand eyes, a thousand questions. A thousand unseen tentacles uncoiled like Ruin from the water.
Forsaken.
What had happened to the ship? They had seen no sign of her crew, no signs of combat, not even bodies. She tried to tell herself that this was surely some lost crew member, scared and alone, but what if it wasn’t? What if the words had been written by something else? Something forsaken?
She stayed where she was, her heart racing. Slowly, the ripples of her passage flattened and she watched the water, alert for any shine or swell. Again, she tried the vox, but it crackled at her, the noise filling her head and chest with static. Adrenaline screamed at her, told her to move – move! – but she could not.
There was something out there.
Something that knew exactly where she was.
A thought came at her as if it were not her own, a tiny sliver of doubt in her adamantine faith.
What if…
What if He really had abandoned her? Punished her for her foolishness? She had no Sisters to guard her back, no bolter to slay her foe.
Imperatoris meum dereliquit nos.
Another splash, now closer, the noise unmistakeable…
There really was something down here!
Her blood thumped hard in her ears. She strained to hear past it. She was sure that, this time, the sound had been real, not the yammering of her doubts, not these monsters internal that threatened to undermine and betray her. She held the blade like a talisman, praying for His light, for His forgiveness. For His wisdom in the dark.
Her every nerve shivered with–
There!
And another splash. The faintest of ripples, like a windless whisper across the black water’s surface. They teased at the very limits of her suitlight’s range.
That thou shouldst pardon none…
The litany came back to her in a flood, the words almost frantic. Her mind filled with the white fuzz of tension, her tongue seemed cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Doubts hammered at her heart like weapons… she struggled to force them down.
She had fallen, disgraced herself. She had lost her bolter, an unthinkable sin. Forsaken. There was uncertainty in her heart and mind and chest, where there should be only strength and courage…
Splash!
Again.
The noises were somewhere to her right. The sounds were too light for the heavy-booted orks, too slow for the gretchin. Her dread crystallised, shattered.
I am Adepta Sororitas, and I fear nothing, not xenos, not heretic, not creature of Ruin…
She closed her hand on the tiny blade, and forced herself to move.
Her hips still spasmed with pain, but she followed the sounds. As she moved, the darkness seemed to shift about her like unheard laughter; it blew through her, mocking her weakness, and she strove to shut it out. She focused her mind on searching for markings or discrepancies, for anything that would tell her where she was.
She had not gone much further before she found a second, colossal support and a second finger-mark, this one jagged with anger and pain, and much shorter.
It said only, ‘Salva nos’.
Save us.
From what?
Again, she turned, putting her back to the metal. The darkness howled back to its full strength, invading her thoughts like a plague. What had taken place upon this empty ship? Slain her crew and left her to drift, alone and abandoned? Striving for calm, she reviewed her orders and the information that Veradis had given them, but there were no answers.
Only… only that they’d found no bodies.
At least, not in the ship itself.
Because… because they were all down here?
Her nausea rose again, bitter in the back of her throat. A image of eyeless, rotting, bumping things came flooding into her mind, all bared bone and trailing wires and rancid, bloating flesh–
Again, that splash, closer this time; she could see the ripples as they spread, hear them as they lapped gently against the column’s cold steel. Whatever it was, it was near.
That nearness honed her fears down to a single, hard target – there! She moved towards the sound, her blade ready.
And then, at last, she saw the faintest glimmering of the light.
It came from above, from some walkway, impossibly high above her head, but it did not shine upon the bilge-water. There was something in the way.
Something big.
At first, she couldn’t make it out – it seemed like some huge, lumpish blur – but as she grew closer, she realised what it was.
It was a pile, pointing roughly upwards at that glimmer of illumination. It was–
She stopped, her mouth full of revulsion, her suitlight illuminating something grotesque: corpses, bloated, blank-faced and rotting. Hundreds of them.
Even as she looked, craning up and up towards the light above, something fell and tumbled slowly down the side of the pile. It hit the water.
Splash.
Augusta stood there, transfixed. She could see the rotting insignias of the Xenia’s crew, and her mind struggled to find a prayer – for them, for herself – but her words were lost.
Splash.
She stepped closer, dagger still in hand. Where her suitlight shone, she could see pieces of faces almost intact – a young officer, barely more than a boy; a man in the rank remains of Ecclesiarchy robes; a servitor, rusted and still.
Forsaken.
By the rot of their remaining flesh, they’d all been dead some time.
Then a deep growl of laughter made her turn.
It was an ork.
Just the one, and at first, Augusta struggled to believe what she was seeing. It was far bigger than she was, armour and all, a hulking, muscled monstrosity with a wide and toothy grin.
But this one bore no metal – no augmetics or ornamentation of any kind, not a single shiny or reflective surface. And it was not green. In her suitlight, it looked… it looked purple.
Seeing her raise her little dagger, it gave an audible snort and grinned wider. Shreds of flesh and fabric were still caught between its fangs.
Forsaken.
The fate of the Xenia’s crew… some of them must have been still alive, thrown down here in despair and desolation, knowing they had no escape, and waiting for the orks to…
Her nerves spiked with revulsion. With fury.
And this, she understood.
She lunged and struck, her feet hampered by the water. Her blade struck the hollow of the beast’s throat, but the ork wore thick, grox-leather armour. Its grin broadened further.
Her doubts, her fears, shattered.
We beseech Thee, destroy them!
Red-hot rage went through her – cleansing like fire. She raised her voice, sang the litany straight at the ork, heard the words ring back from the darkness as if the Xenia sang with her, finding its own faith and courage.
She punched it, dagger between her fingers, full in the face.
One eye popped and ran down its hide.
Snarling, it pounced forwards.
As the punches came in, she threw up her arms, blocking them as she had been taught. She was fast enough, but by the Light, the thing was immensely strong. It hammered at her with fists the size of rams, battering at her head and shoulders. One connected and her ears rang; the force of it snapped her neck over with a painful wrench. The hurt in her hips was climbing her spine like a live thing, all claws and spikes; she could feel something twanging, but she could not stop. Seeing a gap, she struck out with the dagger. It hit, but she might as well have been stabbing a training dummy.
The ork snarled, pressing her back, into the pile of bodies behind her. If they fell…
How many had died, thrown down here? Lost to the Light, and to their own faith? Watching as the orks ate their shipmates? Knowing they would be next? The thought fuelled her rage, and she surged forwards.
She missed a block and the thing pummelled her faceplate. Missed another and one huge fist connected with her chest, sending her backwards with a crunch of crumpled armour. She kicked down at its knee, hard enough to break the bone. It growled and stumbled.
Then it came back upright, and hit her with a full-charge body slam, its shoulder to her gut.
They both went over, into the pile of dead. Her back wrenched, she gritted her teeth against a cry of pain. The corpses were a sliding cascade, a splashing avalanche of bodies that smothered her and the ork both. She struggled and rolled, found herself on her belly with the ork on top of her; she could see nothing but corpses, and the soup-thick mess of the bilge.
The ork was upright first; it drove a knee into her back, hard. Pain exploded across her vision. It had a hand on her wrist, was trying to her wrench her armoured shoulder around and back. She struggled, almost crying aloud as her spine crunched with every motion. The thing was so powerful – how could it be so powerful?
‘Sister.’ The word was a hiss, laden with hate. ‘You – not so strong.’
This was not the ribald scorn of the foot-troops upstairs. This beast was something completely else, something dark and sharp and sinister.
It said, ‘He – is not here. You die – hopeless.’
She got one arm under her, tried to push herself up. She reached for a prayer, for His courage and Light to fill her body, for the battle-rage that came with the song of His name, but there was no squad, and no harmony.
She was alone. Bereft. No Sisters to sing His praises, no weapons to thunder His name…
He – is not here.
You die – hopeless.
Forsaken.
The ork drove its weight downwards, knee first. It was still wrenching at her arm. Impossibly, she heard the crack as her armour started to crumple. She must get back to her feet, stop this beast from killing and eating her…
Salva nos!
Her backplate cracked further. There was a whoosh as the seal gave, and the first freezing touch of the toxic water. She struggled furiously, but could not move.
The ork paused, relishing the moment. She could almost hear it grin. Any second now, it would stamp down with its full weight and crush her back like a wet stick.
And then…
‘There are times…’ her tutor’s words came back to her, ghosts in the dark, ‘…when He will test you. Pain, dread, death – all of these things are His blessing. And you will face them, Sisters, though they drag barbed hooks through the darkest corners of your soul. When you are at your lowest ebb, facing the very worst of your terrors… that is when He will be watching you.’
Was He here, now, closer than ever, down in these deep, dark depths?
The thought was electric, a crackle of terror and energy. She remembered the lesson fully: that courage, like fear, comes from within.
With a roar like pure, focused faith, she pushed with her free arm and went over sideways, rolling the ork beneath her armoured weight and shoving it under the water. Ignoring the pain, she flipped herself over and came down on its chest with both knees, whooshing the air from its lungs in a trail of exploding bubbles. It thrashed frantically, but she had it now, and the full weight of her body was keeping it under the water.
With a prayer as sharp as the edge of the blade, she brought her punch-dagger down in the thing’s other eye. It spasmed, blood and fluid flowing through the water, but still it struggled on.
She rammed the dagger in under its chin, driving it down with all the force she could muster and through the layer of armour.
In nomine Eius!
And – in His name – the thing, finally, went still.
‘You have faced quite the ordeal, Sister.’ Back on the observer’s deck, Veradis stood with folded arms and a severe expression. ‘For any Sororitas to fight alone in close quarters against an ork – truly, you have faced foe, fear and darkness, and you have been blessed by His strength.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘However.’
The word had a knell of finality to it, and Augusta inhaled, making her back spike with pain. She said, ‘Sister Superior?’
The Sister Superior said nothing. Her armour, like Augusta’s, bore warmarks – clear signs that the squad had fought their way through to the muster point. At the Ritual of Cleansing, these would be beaten and polished, cleaned until the armour shone once more. In the field, they were badges of honour.
Veradis continued, her tone flat. ‘You abandoned your squad, and returned without your weapon.’ Her lean, lined face did not change. ‘Such carelessness is unworthy of an Adepta Sororitas.’
The other members of the squad had closed around them, Lucienne with a brief smile for her friend. They were all ork-battered and sweating, but after Augusta’s ordeal, her feeling of being so lost and alone, she was thankful for every one of them – for their strength and faith, for their closeness and for how much she trusted them.
Augusta lifted her chin. ‘Yes, Sister Superior.’
‘Recite for me,’ Veradis said, ‘the third stanza of the fourth book of the War Treatise of Saint Mina.’
Augusta knew the words, they were etched upon her mind and heart. She said, ‘We are Sisters beneath His light. We obey our orders without question. We do not falter. We do not fear. We do not err.’
‘We do not err,’ Veradis repeated, making the point. ‘There is no excuse for such a lack of vigilance, Sister. We are a family, we work as Sisters should, and our trust in one another must be absolute. If you cannot uphold that trust, you betray yourself, your squad, your commander and your faith. I comprehend that you have faced horrors to return to us – climbing the pile of the dead to reach the light – but to betray the squad’s unity is to leave a hole in our defences. This cannot be borne.’
Augusta could respond only, ‘Yes, Sister Superior.’
Veradis nodded at her contrition. ‘You will undertake the remainder of this mission with your dagger alone. I have no bolter for you, and the combat discipline will serve as a timely reminder – to sharpen your senses, Sister. And to uphold your faith.’
‘Yes, Sister Superior.’ Augusta felt her face flush, but it was the only reply she could give.
Veradis nodded again, her expression softening. ‘Yet, I comprehend what you have faced to return to us. In His name, and in the name of Saint Mina herself, Augusta, I am glad that you are back. I would hate to have lost your strong arm in this most forsaken of places.’ A flicker of a smile crossed her face. ‘See to your armour, Sister, and fear not the lumbering greenskin. We have a mission to complete.’
Sister Augusta Santorus stood at the bottom of the wide stone steps, her scarlet armour gleaming, her head bared to the light. She had entrusted her weapons to the upheld tray of the little brass servitor and she carried only reverence and awe, as was proper in His presence. To bear arms in the house of the Emperor was blasphemy – after all, was His protection not enough?
In a line to her left stood her Sisters, the squad’s black-and-white cloaks stirring faintly, though there was little wind in this carefully carved valley. Its rock walls were almost sheer and they glittered with crystalline fragments, reflecting the blue-green gleam of the planet above, hazed in its own atmosphere and glorious to behold.
But that was not what held the Sisters’ attention.
‘Truly,’ Sister Superior Veradis said softly, from the centre of the line, ‘one finds His miracles in even the darkest of places. Sing with me, my Sisters…’
‘A spiritu dominatus…’ They raised their voices in the litany, their harmonies echoing back at them, chiming from the rock. The acoustics were flawless, and Augusta felt a chill go down her back.
The darkest of places…
This was Caro, the smallest moon of the planet Lena Beta, orbiting its blue-white star. And upon its bleak, rocky surface, there stood a miracle.
Forgotten for a thousand years, encased and defended by this carved, rock-walled gorge, it was a great, dark edifice, its bell towers and arches soaring over their heads. That much was imposing enough.
