The Rose At War, page 39
The deffgun jammed.
‘Mork’s teef!’ he cursed, backing up fast. More of the tribe surged past him, Skalagrog included. The enemy bolter took out one target, two, then was buried by a pile of green. But Grimdak wasn’t looking, he was trying to unjam the–
Skalagrog struck. A blaze of static energy exploded on the walkway, its lightning slanting towards the vortex. In response, the deffgun crackled and sparked, and the motion detector in his eyepiece went dead.
‘Wot’s you doin’, you–’
The full blaze of Skalagrog’s fury hit the chainsword figure in the chest. The figure stood stock-still for moment, its armour sputtering, smoking at the shoulders and ablaze with every colour Grimdak could name…
‘Yaaaa!’
Somewhere, Legmangla was still shouting; Grimdak couldn’t turn but he figured the boss was ripping his way through the enemy, breaking legs and heads.
The flamethrower coughed again, a wide arc of fire. Gretchin screamed, fell. Their flesh aflame, they were everywhere and underfoot. More of them were tumbling from the walkway now, being sucked sideways into the vortex.
And the vortex… The mouf was growing.
Grimdak didn’t understand it, and Razgog wasn’t there to ask, but the lightning flashes of old Skalagrog’s energies were being sucked sideways, just like the fallen orks. And the mouf was getting bigger, tugging at hair and pulling flame and smoke and flesh down into its ever-churning belly.
And then, the unthinkable happened. Grimdak didn’t see it, but he heard the noise.
A third spang as another cable snapped, and the walkway lurched again, now swinging dangerously in the vortex’s winds. Impossible corridor angles led away in all directions; they messed with his head, but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was the roar of rage as Legmangla lost his footing.
The walkway itself was twisting, now, screeching in protest; it hurt Grimdak’s eyes to look at it. Then something massive skidded past him, grappling for hold, and went straight off the walkway’s edge.
With a gawp of disbelief, Grimdak saw Legmangla shoot past him, swearing. But the boss didn’t fall. The Dreadnought claw lashed out, grabbed the railing, and hung on. He swung there, over the drop.
The walkway creaked and groaned at the boss’ massive weight, twisting even further. More and more orks were losing their footing now, shrieking obscenities. Skalagrog was sliding. Grimdak, too. Legmangla hung over the drop, kicking his boots, snarling in outrage.
From the armoured enemy, a barked command. Responding instantly, the heavy weapon opened fire – straight down.
For an instant, Grimdak didn’t realise what they were doing, but he caught himself up as the rounds chewed holes in the metal, and the part the orks were standing on started to come away. The walkway screamed as it tore, the noise cutting at his ears.
His deffgun was too heavy.
Any bleedin’ minute…!
Grimdak had a split second to make a decision. In front of him, the three attackers were now standing on a stable steel platform, its edge cut free. The vortex was growing, reaching out hungrily as more orks slipped towards it. Skalagrog’s lightnings seemed to be feeding it, somehow, making it–
No time, Grimdak told himself. You’s da smart ork. Fink!
To the front, one of the figures was tending to their downed mate; the other one, the small one, was covering, bolter ready. As he glanced, he saw the bolter was aimed at the still-dangling warboss, his claw slammed closed on the creaking railing.
And Legmangla’s huge weight was pulling the whole walkway down. Cut free at its other end, it was starting to hinge like a door…
Grimdak couldn’t back up – the walkway was broken and the heavy weapon would cut him to pieces. He had to go forwards…
Jump!
Legmangla caught his gaze and said something, the words torn away by the vortex. But Grimdak was past caring. There was an old ork saying, he remembered, one that Razgog lived by. Not the biggest ork in the tribe, the mekboy was definitely the smartest – he wasn’t out here, for a start.
‘Bestest way to win when dere’s too many?’ Raz had once said. ‘S’called da Air Gap Teknik.’
‘Wot?’ Grimdak had asked him.
‘Air gap, clunk-brain. Da bigger da betta.’
Fink, Grimdak told himself, again.
Razgog had been right – he knew what to do. And besides, the mekboy was still in the workshop, and Grim knew the hulk – he could circle back around the mouf, back to the warboss’ chambers…
Pick up the relic. The good loot.
Warbosses came and went, but Grim… yeah, he always survived. I iz da smart ork.
Letting off a single, suppressive volley at the three figures, he made them keep their heads down.
Then he jumped, right for their position.
They swore, swinging weapons to cover him, but he was fast, deffgun or not. He broke past the bolter-figure and the crouched one with the flamer, and he just ran for it. As he did so, he heard the massive screeching creak as the railing finally gave way and Legmangla tumbled, howling, towards the vortex.
He didn’t know what had happened to Skalagrog and he didn’t pause to worry. He put his head down, and he ran.
Behind him, the figures were moving. A bolter round whisked past his ear; he heard the cough of the flamer, felt it singe his skin.
Flames chasing him down the tunnel, Grimdak made his escape.
‘Well, Sisters?’
Her armour still crackling, Sister Superior Augusta Santorus switched off the chainsword’s mechanism. Viola, despite the line of dents in her chestplate, was covering the still-whirling vortex; Caia was checking the auspex for anything else incoming. On the far side of the now-fallen walkway, Sister Alcina was down. Melia was on one knee beside her, sanguinator in hand. Akemi covered them both, but her attention was on the fleeing ork with the shoulder-mounted weapon.
‘Permission to go after the greenskin?’ she said.
‘Denied,’ Augusta said. ‘Our priority is the mission. We have one Sister badly injured, and we’re running out of time. We must locate our target. Melia, did you catch it as it fled?’
‘I believe so,’ Melia answered. ‘It wasn’t quite fast enough.’
‘Enough that we’ll know it if we see it again,’ Akemi commented.
‘Agreed,’ Augusta said. ‘I hate to leave a loose ork roaming, and we should move location before it comes back with reinforcements. Caia, do you have a lead on the relic?’
‘Report said it was in the casket on the nose of the Might in Vengeance,’ Caia said. ‘But we know the casket’s empty. I suggest we find the warboss’ hoard. If it’s anywhere…’
‘Agreed,’ Augusta said. ‘Melia, can Alcina be moved?’
‘I can move, Sister.’ Alcina’s voice was hoarse, but determined. ‘But I fear I will not be swift.’
‘Truly, the Emperor is with you, Sister Alcina,’ Augusta commented, a smile in her tone. ‘You are made of His mettle.’
With a groan, the squad’s second came to her feet, staggered, righted herself. The hole in her armour was impressive, but beneath it, Melia’s skills had stopped her bleeding.
‘He is with all of us,’ Alcina answered. ‘Now, if the holy thigh bone of Saint Finiang is here, then we had better regroup, and seek it swiftly.’
Lightning tore through the sky. Seen through the cathedral’s massive glassaic window, it was a pure and holy wrath, flashing His image to brilliance.
‘O most Holy Emperor, grant to our Sister eternal rest!’
Beneath Him, at the altar, the slight, grey-robed form of the canoness raised her arms to His glory, her voice in the sacred requiem. Rolls of thunder joined her words, rumbling at the building’s walls, beating down upon its high and vaulted roof.
‘Let the light of your Throne shine upon her!’
Below the elderly figure, her congregation were mesmerised. In the foremost pew, helm off and head bowed as was proper, Sister Superior Augusta Santorus suppressed a shiver at His manifest might. His storm reigned perpetual, here on this tiny, forgotten world.
‘Hear my prayer, O Emperor. To you, all lives are owed! To you, all flesh must come!’
The requiem was unaccompanied – no organ, no music. Its harmonies were dense but unfamiliar, twisting through the acoustics in an eerie, minor key. Sister Akemi, to Augusta’s left side, shifted, shot a glance along the pew at Sister Melia.
The storm grumbled on, like the anger in grief. Behind Augusta’s squad, the Sisters of the canoness’ Order and their frateris militia raised their own voices, responding to the litany.
‘May her mind be raised to your glory!’
‘May her mind be raised to your glory!’
The service was a funeral. Despatched by the Ecclesiarchy and newly arrived upon Letum, Augusta had not known the young Sister who had passed to His grace. She’d had no time to speak to the canoness personally; instead, she had respectfully agreed to attend the service.
But this…
The image in the great Sol-facing window was not Him in His full glory, armoured and bearing His bright and flaming sword – it was Him as He would be, ancient and enthroned in cables. Before it, four ancient servo-skulls hovered like guardians, their metal corroded, but their green eyes sharp as gemstones. She could not shake the feeling that they watched her, analysing what they saw. Carefully, she honoured the hymn, though the responses were unknown.
‘As we offer this, our Sister’s body, to the storm!’
‘As we offer this, our Sister’s body, to the storm!’
The lightning flashed again, causing His image to blaze, for a split second, out across the nave, almost like He had been there in person. Chilled to the absolute bone by the undisciplined thought, Augusta offered a penitent prayer.
Such was arrogance, and unforgiveable. This place was unsettling, true, but that was not a justification. Sister Viola, always the hothead, cursed under her breath. Alcina, the squad’s second-in-command, snapped the ghost of an order and Viola subsided. But Augusta’s odd, visceral shudder did not.
Tiny and isolated, cut off by His never-ceasing storm, the Sisters of this convent were completely unknown. They wore no armour, their robes and cloaks were a beautifully embroidered grey, and rather than a fleur-de-lys, their faces were tattooed with the outline of a skull. They called themselves the Order of the Broken Sepulchre.
The Sisters of Death.
Letum was a cemetery planet, a world of gravestones and towering, carved sarcophagi. In millennia past, it had been a resting place for the Imperium’s most honoured dead, and a silent, stone civilisation had grown out around its endless corpses – spreading grids of sunken walkways, shrines and chapels like ossuaries, all studded with bones, locked reliquaries where only He still remembered their contents. Once, pilgrims had come here, to study the headstones or to tend to them – but no pilgrim had touched this world in centuries.
Not since the coming of the storm and its restless, magnetic field. Any ship attempting to land here would be brought down by His lightning. The Imperium’s bureaucracy had known this, but Letum had little intrinsic value – no wealth or resources. Lost somewhere between endless scriveners, and now both unreachable and unimportant, it had been abandoned, and left to its veneration of death.
Augusta stole a look upward, her head still bowed, her bobbed hair falling grey past her ears. Atop the altar, as grey as everything else, lay an open coffin; within it, the young Sister who had passed. The coffin was steel, beautifully wrought and etched in skulls; at either end, a conducting rod connected it to the cathedral’s outside wall.
The thunder growled low, like anticipation.
With the sound, the congregation’s expectancy rose. The canoness still prayed, her arms aloft, her words a torch, a hymn, a tocsin.
‘He comes!’ she said, her tone livid with passion. ‘Let us witness the touch of His light!’
Perhaps the flash of His image had been less arrogance, Augusta thought, and more a deliberate illustration of this convent’s empathic belief. But still, her shudder did not fade. She should have more discipline. Praying, she focused her thoughts.
The canoness’ voice rose further. She had her congregation gripped, the three pews of her Sisters, the frateris further back. Her head tilted back, strands of her white hair floating upwards round her face, she was entreating His storm for its touch, calling it to her.
And, much as Augusta tried to banish the unworthy thought, the storm seemed to be listening. The flashes, vivid and shocking, were coming closer; the gap between the light and the sound narrowed with every strike. Even as the Sister Superior stole another look, a crashing rumble of thunder sounded directly overhead. There was the sudden hiss of rain against the glassaic.
The canoness cried, ‘Bring mercy! Release our Sister to your storm!’
Propelled, the congregation were on their feet. They returned her words, but their cries were staccato, now, scattered throughout the nave and rapidly becoming louder. Frenzy rang from them like the clashing of cymbals.
‘Release!’
‘Have mercy!’
‘He comes!’
Uneasy, Sister Viola flashed a look over her shoulder. As Augusta glanced sideways, she crossed gazes with the younger Sister’s bright green eyes, saw flickers of both concern and non-comprehension. Briefly, Viola raised an eyebrow, but Augusta only frowned, indicating that she should attend to her prayers.
The canoness cried again, ‘He comes!’
‘He comes!’
‘Praise His lightning!’
‘Praise it!’
Another flash. Another bellow, loud enough to shake the bell towers. Augusta prayed, then found herself catching her breath… For here, even as His image flashed down upon the altar itself, bright yellow crackled along the conducting rods, a spark like pure, bared adrenaline.
The congregation cried aloud, one long, ‘Ah!’
And light detonated from the metal coffin.
It was blinding, but the Sister Superior held her place, blinking the after-flash from her vision. His touch was gone. Instead, flames were crackling, warm and soft, from the coffin’s contents. There was the faint smell of burning wood and flesh; grey smoke curled, thick and greasy. Extractors hummed, though she could not see them. The still-hovering skulls glittered in new firelight. They grinned, wide and toothy, as though they had seen this a thousand times, yet had never tired of it. As though they knew secrets they would never tell.
‘By the Throne…’ Shaken, Viola swore again, her words a whisper.
This time, neither Alcina nor Augusta corrected her. Whatever this funeral service was, the squad had never seen its like.
The storm crashed in violent farewell, then, slowly, began to rumble away.
‘Sister Superior.’
The canoness’ voice was calm with authority, soft with age. Sitting by a polished table of real wood, its surface reflecting electro-candles and the red light of the hearth, she was a tiny figure, creased with the weight of years.
‘Milady,’ Augusta answered respectfully. ‘Sister Superior Augusta Santorus, Order of the Bloody Rose.’ She offered the sign of the aquila. ‘Ave Imperator.’
Following the recessional, the canoness had bade them follow in her footsteps. The walk through the bone-walled cloisters had been as unnerving as everything else, but the librarium was warm and the storm kept at bay by the thickness of both walls and curtains.
‘Indeed,’ the canoness said. ‘Ave Imperator, Sister Superior. His blessing upon you, and upon your squad. You will forgive me, I hope, for insisting that you attend our service? Sister Clara was very dear to me, as novice and as tender both, and while I know she kneels now at the foot of the Great Throne, I confess that I shall miss her.’ She smiled, the expression gentle. ‘His ways are strange, are they not?’
At Augusta’s left shoulder, Alcina answered, ‘It is not our place to question them, milady.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Without losing her smile, the canoness gestured for the Sister to subside. ‘Yet I find that age has brought a… certain restlessness to my soul. It is unusual for anyone, upon our world so tiny, to live to the years that I have done. And I find myself lonely, eagerly awaiting my turn for His greatest blessing.’
To Augusta’s other side, Melia and Caia, one as dusky as the other was blonde, exchanged a glance. They were close as blood-kin, had come up through the schola together – the nearness of the canoness to her friend would touch them deeply. Sister Viola, here bereft of her thrice-blessed heavy bolter, creaked as she shifted on her toes; the last and youngest member of the squad, Sister Akemi, was gazing raptly round at the bookshelves, lured by the promise of previously unseen lore.
But Augusta was focused on the canoness. ‘Milady, it was our honour to attend your service, though its litanies were unfamiliar. You will forgive our lack of knowledge in not responding – no insult was intended.’
‘And none was taken, Sister Superior.’
The canoness gestured at her servitors, which were laying tiny, perfect plates upon the table, each one offering some sort of fungus-based pastries. With a quiet bow, the grey-hooded figures withdrew.
‘Now, you must tell me of your Order – I have seen such armour only in my books, and yet here it is, the colour of new blood. And you must tell me why He has brought you here, Sister, to my little convent, so long untouched by the Imperium’s… warriors.’
There was an odd stress on the word ‘warriors’, but this was an uncharted corner of the void in more ways than one. Navigating carefully, Augusta offered no correction of the term. Instead, she said, ‘We seek a ship, milady, crash-landed upon your world. It bears a sacred text that I am charged to retrieve.’
‘A ship?’ The elderly lady put her head to one side, almost birdlike in fine-boned fragility. Her white hair, neatly bunned but loose tendrils still crackling with remembered electricity, gleamed in the hearth-light, and her skull outline seemed oddly prominent, for all its age. ‘Sister Superior, no ships come to this world, crashed or otherwise. He has decreed our isolation, and we are gladly alone, caretakers of this, His most holy cemetery.’ Lines round her eyes crinkled with affection or wariness. ‘Truly, we are the servants of His last and greatest blessing.’
