The Rose At War, page 35
The pipes’ metal glowed red with the heat, but by some Mechanicus wonder that she could not begin to comprehend, it had neither melted nor faltered – and it lit the great building with a glow like pure hellfire.
‘Forge temple,’ she said, not hiding the awe in her tone. ‘In His name, I could never have imagined one so huge. Truly, this is a place of the Omnissiah, now fallen to the heretek’s corruption.’
Viola muttered a savage expletive, and Alcina silenced her with a snap. Akemi was still looking at the last set of numbers, consulting the dataslate she held in her hand. Mors had sagged against the wall, and was struggling to breathe.
‘Can we pass here?’ Alcina asked, her tone flat and unimpressed.
‘Akemi,’ Augusta ignored her second, and asked the obvious question. ‘Is there another route to the temple, or is this our only access?’
Akemi started to answer, but Alcina cut across her. ‘We must move swiftly. Our Sisters are dying while we dally.’
‘And it will avail them nothing if we also perish,’ Augusta told her shortly. ‘We have been tasked with a mission, and the success of that mission is our only purpose. Akemi?’
Akemi said, ‘There is a final junction, to corridor zero-zero-one, but it is very long. And I am not certain of its success.’
Alcina restated, ‘Sister Superior, we do not have the time for this. We must pass here.’
‘That decision is mine to take, Sister.’ Augusta’s tone was severe. ‘While offering our lives to the Golden Throne is the greatest honour a Sister may hope for, we are here to complete a mission.’
Alcina stepped forwards, her shoulders seeming to fill the tunnel.
‘It is my…’ she stopped herself, ‘…advice that we should seek passage at this point.’
Augusta did not permit herself the acid retort – such things were childish, left behind in the schola’s earliest years. But this was outright insubordination. She said, her tone flat, ‘You will do as you are commanded, Sister.’
Alcina loomed, her stance angry, but she did not push the point. Over a tight-beam channel on the vox, Melia’s voice said, ‘She is watching us. Waiting to see if we stumble.’
Augusta answered her, ‘I am aware of this. The witch touched us all too closely, and our loyalty is in question. Such doubt would insult both our honour and service, were it not based in reason. The success of this mission is imperative.’
‘Aye.’ Melia said nothing more.
At the front of the company, Rhea said, ‘Sisters, there is a way across the rift.’
Augusta turned back to the tunnel mouth. Beside her, leaning forwards over the gap, Viola muttered an epithet even more unsuitable than the first.
‘Enough,’ Augusta told her.
A distance to their right, hung above the red glow like some narrow and suspended shadow, there was a walkway, the same black stone as the wall. Heavy chains, like a drawbridge, held it, but even from here they could see that the chains were sorely corroded.
The fire lit its underside like pure, glowing hunger.
‘Sister Akemi,’ Augusta said, ‘can you give me a solid reason to not accept this alternative?’
‘I fear not, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said. Her voice carried the faintest twinge – guilt or regret – but she made no apology, and she faced the chasm without fear.
Augusta paused, aware of the eyes of the others, awaiting her decision. She had a very clear memory of the demented inquisitor, leading the squad into ambushes, traps, and probable death. Propelled by her insane belief, Istrix had sacrificed not only her faith, but her very reason…
‘Very well,’ Augusta said. ‘Once again, He has shown us the way. Three times, we have paused, and three times, we have been blessed with His guidance. Let us continue.’
Rhea nodded, and Viola stepped back, hissing through her teeth. Akemi reattached the dataslate to her hip, and Augusta was aware of Mors and Rufus, shoulder to shoulder, and all but leaning on each other for strength. With their lighter gear, they had a better chance of reaching the far side than did the Sisters, however the heat and the fumes were taking a heavy toll upon them both.
Rufus caught her looking, and offered her the sign of the aquila. ‘We will walk, Sister. We have no fear.’
‘Aye,’ Augusta said.
It was only as she offered the prayer for their courage and safety that she became aware of something else…
At some point, while they’d been discussing how to proceed, the sound of gunfire had stopped.
CHAPTER NINE
Augusta did not see Rufus fall.
In the continuous shimmer of the rising heat, the Sister Superior had done her best to watch both the ex-soldiers, their shoulders shaking now, their breathing straining with sulphur and exhaustion. But she could not be everywhere, and the shout from Melia made her turn.
It was already too late.
The young medicae made no sound; he did not have time. He was a tiny tumbling silhouette, black against the firelight below.
And then he was a flash.
And then he was gone.
Augusta saw Mors stumble as the last member of his squad died before his eyes.
‘Decidit gloria.’ She answered his shock, his grief, with a gauntleted hand under his elbow, holding him up, with the words she’d learned when she’d seen for the first time a fellow Sister offer her life.
Decidit gloria…
Mors was shaking, she could feel it, but he took his own weight, picked the words up and repeated them, calm above the slavering heat.
Fall with honour.
Alcina gave a low impatient growl. ‘We must not pause here.’
A flare of ire rose in Augusta’s heart, just like the flare of fire they’d seen from below – they were warriors all, fighting servants of the God-Emperor, and they were stronger together. There was always a moment to find or pool their courage.
Yet Alcina was right, they could not linger here. Augusta ended her prayer, glanced at Mors, and gave the order to go onwards.
And so, with Rhea and Viola still at their head, they reached the end of the drawbridge, and the great, black wall that was Vastum’s central forge temple.
‘In times of fear,’ Augusta’s schola tutor had once told her, ‘you may rely upon two things. What are they? Your armour and your weapons? Yes? Anyone else have an answer? Your faith, Sisters, and your training.’
The old woman had been a warrior herself, and her lesson had stayed in Augusta’s heart – reflex was a powerful motivator. And now, as they moved carefully, skirmish formation, through a black stone archway and down through hollow corridors, she understood the wisdom of those words. Their faith was unquestioned, and it was manifest in every single one of these well-known actions, in the smooth operations of her assembled Sisters. Rhea and Viola worked well together – they had slotted into their roles as Sisters should. But Alcina…
Augusta was aware of her second’s eyes, always upon her back. They made her itch.
And that itch shamed her, despite its persistence – were they not all Sisters, in the service of the same light?
They went onwards.
Very soon, the corridor turned through an angle, the exact same sixty degrees as the outer tunnels – it seemed the temple, too, was crafted to hexagonal design. There were no numbers here, however, and Rhea and Akemi seemed to be moving on pure instinct, following the pipes and the stonework, as they headed for the building’s heart.
As they moved on inwards, they began to encounter cloisters, though nothing like Augusta had known before. Great arcs of conduits surrounded hexagonal spaces, each one with a rusting metal shrine at the centre, and its cog-and-skull engraved in the underlying stone. In other places, short steps led them upwards, and great steel portcullises were long rusted into place. They hung above the Sisters’ heads like teeth, ready to descend.
And then, at last, they came to the side door and the transept, and the heart of Vastum’s might and power.
The place where that central control node would be waiting for them.
Rifles, cannons, blasters.
The bright-white glow of phosphor and the blossoming red detonations of high-calibre rounds.
Half-hidden by the shadows of the doorway, the second rank of Rayos’ force laid down their fire.
Caia’s auspex was telling her – though the canoness already knew – that they would not advance.
But Ianthe was calling orders, pulling the Exorcists up, extended file, alongside the Immolators, and commanding the whole single rank to roll forwards, protecting the troop-bearers behind the advancing front.
This was not a battle for infantry.
Not yet.
It was, however, a battle for the Seraphim.
Down to four, the airborne Sisters swooped in under the edge of the door, and flew a straight strafing run all along the stationary line, each hammering down rounds from her twin bolters as she passed swiftly overhead.
The line of machines did not react. It was not human, it could not flinch or be distracted – but the damage was being done.
The Breachers and Destroyers, out at the flanks, were more vulnerable. Shots to their human heads took a severe toll, and already their fire was lessening. As the Seraphim reached the far end of the line, four of the waiting machines had been destroyed.
And the red tanks rolled in, relentless, trumpets blaring from the vox-coder, towards the standing line of their foes.
Any conscious enemy would surely have baulked, but the machines did not move. The canoness took cover, then shot a standing kastelan clean to the face, and watched it topple sideways, taking its nearest neighbour down with it. Blazing with righteousness, she targeted a second, and her streak of yellow fire struck its shoulder. It did not fall, but its cannon misfired and exploded, and sent a flash of light outwards through the black stone.
It let Caia see one thing very clearly – the height of the roof.
And it seemed Ianthe had seen it also.
The canoness’ voice snapped the order, ‘Exorcists! Missiles, on my word!’
The greatest concentration of numbers was at the very back. Caia didn’t know if Rayos was here with her troops, or simply picking up the projected data as they fought, but wherever she was, she must surely be defended.
Perhaps she was still human enough to wish to see this for herself.
But the line of machines was still shooting, and the incoming barrage was taking a toll.
Their own Immolator crunched and buckled at the impacts of heavy arc rifles and torsion cannons. One lopsided Kataphron was armed with a colossal plasma weapon – Caia had not seen its like before, but the glow of its power and the spit of its fire were tremendous. It struck one of the advancing Exorcists clean to the nose and the vehicle simply detonated, the blast immense in the enclosed space.
Above the blast, one of the Seraphim was caught in the updraft, but she rode the current with extreme skill, came back down swooping at the Breacher and spattered its head across its metal shoulders.
Still, the tanks rolled on. Still, the line facing them neither moved nor recoiled. Overhead, the arcs of the two surviving Exorcists’ missiles seemed like shooting stars in the darkness.
And where they struck, the damage was immediate. Explosions rocked the cavern; Caia’s lenses flicked in their antidazzle as the confusion of noise and pressure almost knocked her back.
The air was full of blood and smoke and oil and death.
Still, the tanks did not stop. And as they reached full speed, the canoness shouted, ‘All drivers! Ram!’
Their own Immolator struck the legs of the kastelan before it. It was slow, like some lumbering giant; its great fist went to grab and crush them, but the strike missed as they rolled onwards. As it tried to balance and turn, the blast of Ianthe’s plasma pistol hit it in the side and it twisted into a complete fall, crushing the Breacher beside it to metal and pulp.
In the vox, Caia could hear Sister Nikaya, the power of her hymn carrying her and the Seraphim forwards on another swoop-and-kill. They were sticking to the far flanks, out of the line of fire of the incoming vehicles.
But another kastelan was ready for them. Sharper than its fellow, it timed Nikaya’s strafe and it met her, head-on, with one massive fist.
Steel met steel; the jump pack coughed and guttered. At the noise, Ianthe’s voice caught on a furious crescendo. For a split second, nothing seemed to happen, Nikaya seemed to almost hang in the air… and then her jump pack flickered and went out completely, and she fell, down and down, and into the darkness. In the turmoil, Caia could not see where she’d landed, and the auspex was too confused to pick one contact out of the mess.
The canoness was shouting, now, livid and furious, snapping orders of war and retribution.
Rhene was moving, but Ianthe took a moment to bark, ‘No! Stay where you are! You are necessary and I cannot lose you!’
To Caia’s either side, the other two Immolators were still rumbling on, their heavy tracks carrying them insistently forward, and aiming their full rate of fire at the standing machines. They could hardly miss, and the machines were taking significant damage, but they were close, now, almost upon them. One of the Breachers coughed flame, but the fire fell back from the Immolator’s armour. The other one lowered its heavy cannon to shoot point-blank.
The impact crunched the Immolator to a dead stop. Still shooting, straining to see, Caia thought that something had come loose from the front of the vehicle and was jammed in its tracks. The cannon was already powering up to shoot again, but the Breacher jerked and faltered under a hail of incoming rounds.
‘Their flesh is their weakness!’ Belatedly, Caia realised that the canoness had been giving commands for the last few moments. ‘Strike them in the head if you can!’
Fervently, Caia lifted her voice and continued to shoot, her smaller bolter seeming to do little damage. By contrast, the canoness’ pistol was ferocious, every hit a kill, every kill a celebration, every celebration a prayer.
The second line of machines was almost down, and the Order was still moving, still pressing forwards.
But Rayos, it seemed, had not finished with them yet.
The forge temple was silent, and ruddy with the sullen glow of lava-light. It was a great vaulted hollow, cracked to the core, isolated by the yawning depths of its moat, and by the huge, hollow height of the mountain that encased it… and it carried an odd sense of unease that was making the Sister Superior sweat.
‘Rhea,’ Augusta said, her tone showing nothing of her tension. ‘Do you know what you seek?’
‘Yes, Sister.’ Rhea sounded edgy, but she showed no hesitation. ‘We must find the focus of this building’s lost faith.’
‘We will stay together,’ Augusta said. ‘I do not trust this place enough to split our strength. Viola, stay with Rhea. Akemi, Mors, with me. Alcina, Melia, watch our backs.’
‘Aye.’ The formation closed tight, weapons bristling in every direction. At Rhea’s indication, they headed through the transept for the wide space visible ahead.
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.
