Saints and martyrs, p.38
Saints And Martyrs, page 38
At least, not until…
He stopped, glanced round, and coughed again. A second lungful of muck spattered his chin.
‘D’you think it’s real?’ he muttered, half under his breath. ‘The holy text, I mean?’
‘Watch it,’ Kewa told him, grinning. ‘You know we’re not supposed to speculate.’
‘They were talking in the officers’ mess,’ he said. ‘About some new horror from the warp. It’s here to claim it first – or destroy it.’ Wiping his mouth on the end of his sleeve, he scowled and looked furtive. The platoons had driven back the afternoon’s assault and were now on downtime. Many had already started on bivvies and bedrolls, slinging their ponchos from the remains of the walls, or just wrapping themselves up and going straight to sleep. The metal leg of a patrolling Sentinel caught the faint reflection of the platoon HQ lumen; a distance ahead of him, he could make out the floodlights and field emitters that defended the front line.
Mase leaned in, lowering his voice further. ‘I think that’s why they’re here,’ he said. ‘To face it.’
‘You think they can?’ Kewa asked him. In the tiny light from the hexi-stove, her dark eyes shone. ‘I saw them, earlier today. They were at the centre of the line, right in front of the cathedral where the plinth is. Fighting like nothing I’ve ever seen. And they’re no bigger than we are, not really.’
Mase was still watching round them. He hissed at her to lower her voice, then said, ‘I thought they’d be huge. Like Space Marines.’
‘Nah.’ Kewa grinned, winked. ‘I saw one of them, once, too. Did I tell you that? On Aldana, just standing there, like some…’ She shrugged. ‘Colossus. He didn’t move or anything…’
She tailed off as the sergeant came into view. The man still wore his webbing, flak and helmet, but his rifle was slung.
‘You two all right?’ he asked them. His dark skin was filthy, his stone-coloured camo-paint lost under layers of soot. ‘Mase? Kewa? Injuries? Kit failures?’
‘Can we go home, yet, sarge?’ Kewa asked.
‘Ask the commissar.’ The sergeant gave them both a sarcastic look, and strode off to the next group.
She snickered, then lowered her voice once more. ‘They were amazing, Mase. I saw them, cutting their way through literally swathes of monsters. Dozens, hundreds of them. It was incredible. And they sing. It’s enough to make your hair stand on end. Watching them…’ She shivered. ‘It was like watching some perfectly blessed war machine.’
‘You’re jealous,’ Mase realised, grinning.
‘Yeah, maybe a bit.’ Her expression turned rueful, and she shrugged. ‘What must that be like?’ She was looking out across the site now, past the gleam of a waiting tank. ‘That kind of kit, that kind of skill? Do you think the Emperor really speaks to them? Do they get scared, feel pain, the same way that we do?’ She stopped, staring at the semi-darkness. Ends of lho-sticks gleamed, and the occasional hexi-fire. Conversation and hints of weary laughter floated out across the evening wind.
‘You just said they were human,’ Mase told her. ‘I’d been told they were eight feet tall and bit the heads off heretics.’
She snorted. ‘They aren’t like Space Marines. The Sisters of Battle are like… I don’t know… Like watching faith fighting, like holiness incarnate…’
She tailed off, watching the sergeant as he came back into view. He passed them, going the other way, and she turned back to her dumped webbing, rummaging through it. Mase could see the frown on her face, like there was something she wasn’t saying.
He didn’t press, it wasn’t his business. Instead, he blew steam and soot off his recaff and wondered if it was cool enough to drink.
The Adepta Sororitas, the Sisters of Battle. Here.
Speculation had been forbidden but still, his curiosity burned like the hexi. They had come to end the war, said some. To find this holy text, to deny and slay this great beast – whatever it was. To purge the taint from this world, to rebuild its churches and cathedrals, all the way back to its filth-choked sky…
Despite the officers’ command, stories had flared through the troops like spreading fires. Conjecture had been rife, percussion shocks of expanding whispers… though if the sergeant heard you muttering, you were likely to get the toe of their boot. But – so many tales! Tales of a hundred battles, a thousand legends! Truly, the Jags were blessed, they and Kiros both.
Kewa had found her own hexi and was opening it out, reaching for its block-fuel. His recaff still too hot, Mase took another drag on the lho-stick.
He’d heard the stories, of course he had. The Sisters had their own procession, fearsome and wondrous, an icon at the heart of the battle. There were six of them, their armour black, and they bore the very saint herself, the bones of Holy Katherine. A flock of cherubim circled them like a moving halo, bearing prayer-banners and other things, things Mase did not know. And the darkness… they said that the darkness, the very clouds, fled before them like a thing defeated, like a receding tide.
Where the Sisters strode, they carried His light, the light of Sol and of Terra, and the foe cowered… The thought made his heart race and his breath catch – surely, now, the end of this war must be in sight? The long-beleaguered Jags had a sharp point to their blunt hammer, the strength of blade, bolter and holy benediction–
He caught himself, calmed his thoughts. Kewa’s irreverence was known – it had got her in trouble before – but they both needed to watch themselves. He saw all your thoughts, after all, every last flicker.
Perhaps, Mase thought, the Sisters could see them, too.
The idea made him shiver. His lho-stick burned his fingers and he swore, flicking its end in the hexi. Beside him, Kewa was cooking her ration pack, soot and all. She whistled through her teeth, a tuneless rendition of a Militarum marching song.
They sing…
And it was not just the procession. There were other Sisters here too: squads deployed to protect the Militarum’s flanks. Their armour was likewise black, their cloaks red, and they fought fearlessly, hurling themselves at the foe. He’d seen them earlier, from the corner of his eye, seen them move like…
Again, he caught himself. A distance away, only visible by the light of its electro-sconces, was their Order’s battle sanctum, sacred and off limits, the towering cathedral one of the few buildings still half-intact. It was defended by four faceless, armoured figures, and he worried that they would hear if he thought too loud.
He put a hand to the talisman in his jacket. It was a little thing, a carved effigy of the Emperor that he’d made himself, when he’d been stuck in a mudhole on the Salyon moon. It gave him hope – made him believe that they could win this. In the end.
He was taking another tentative sip when the monster struck.
It came out of nothing, as if born from the darkness. And it fell upon Kewa, ripping her clean in half. Hot gore slicked Mase’s skin.
Casting her shredded pieces scornfully aside, it leered down at him, grinning. By His name, it stank.
For the tiniest moment, Mase gawked.
Then: mayhem. Reflexes swift, he was shouting the alarm, hurling the still-steaming recaff, mess tin and all, into the thing’s face. With instincts drilled into him from years of training, he went straight for his lasrifle, always at his right-hand side. Shouts and movement came through the darkness; the rest of the platoon were on their feet, already running. In the vox, the sergeant was barking orders, questions, but he was too far away.
Everyone was too far away.
But, with His blessing, the recaff had been enough, just enough, to make the thing pause. It had claws and a grotesque face, semi-human, but teeth in all the wrong places. Its skin was rotted and sloughing off where the liquid had burned it; its compound eyes were red and swelling. It hissed at him, but he had the rifle now and was bringing it up, ready to fire.
He was too close. He smacked the rifle-butt neatly into its claws, and it grabbed and pulled, snarling.
Still on his arse, Mase scrabbled backwards, trying to reclaim the weapon. He shouted into the vox, ‘Mase! To me! To me!’
Alarums blared, and the patrolling Sentinel’s lumens flared in his direction. There was the distinctive click-click of its weapons tracking – though it surely wouldn’t fire at its own campsite.
A second, bigger floodlight snapped his way, dazzling. And–
By the Emperor!
He saw her, he saw her, right there, like a vision: an armoured silhouette, the glare behind her. Her helm shone, her black armour glowed at its edges, her red cloak billowed as if she were framed by blood.
A Sister of Battle.
He had no idea how she’d got there; she was surely a miracle. But He had seen fit, for whatever reason, to spare Mase’s humble life.
‘Get back.’ In the vox, her voice sounded young, but it was impossible to tell. The bolter in her hand shone like His blessing as she raised it and blasted the thing full in the chest.
Fluids splattered, the hexi went out. Mase managed to scrabble to his feet, freeing his rifle at last, but she was already between him and the beast. The rest of the platoon had stopped dead.
‘Hold your fire!’ The sergeant barked the order, but the command was unnecessary. The Sister was too close to the beast.
She ignored them. The thing was still moving, still hissing. Ichor dripped from its body, its mouldering skin. A burst of hymnal came from her, as bright as the bolter’s flare; she shot again, and again. It slashed at her, once, twice, with two heavy, claw-tipped arms. Scrapes screeched across her armour.
What in His name was this creature?
But she did not pause, her song did not falter. She pressed forwards, pace by pace, indomitable, shooting it again, again, again.
It did not retreat. Its teeth closed on her helm, skidded off. The claws flashed at her pauldrons, putting dents in the ceramite. She shot it a fifth time, a sixth, and finally, it began to weaken, its knees giving way.
‘Sarge?’ A shocked voice came through the darkness.
‘Full perimeter defence!’ The sergeant’s bark was edged. ‘Don’t let any more through!’
Mase, gawping, had stopped, his rifle clutched in one nerveless hand. The thing was struggling, still trying to slash at her legs as it went down, but she was a flare of cloak, a wall of armour. As she moved, the floodlight picked out the scraps of parchment fixed to its surfaces, each one inscribed with a prayer. Her bolter glinted like resolution.
At last, the thing tumbled. With a grim resolve, she put one black boot on its shoulder and shot downwards, right in its face. It spluttered, gagged, and went still.
Nothing moved. The sergeant stood silent, staring; Mase could see his filthy, shocked face in the harsh glare of the floodlight. His shadow angled out along the ground, hard as determination.
The Sister, still not paying them any attention, kicked the thing over, put another shot into its skull. Then she turned to where Mase stood, his hands still wrapped round his unused rifle as if it were the only thing that made sense in this insane world.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked him.
‘I…’ He had no idea what he was supposed to call her – milady, ma’am? Did she have a rank? He could see no recognisable insignia. ‘No, Sister.’ It seemed to be the safest thing to say.
‘Good.’ Her helm moved and she was looking down at Kewa, shredded like so much fabric. In the rush, Mase had not looked at her and suddenly he faltered as her loss, the nearness of his own miss, hit him like a fist in the temple.
He found himself on his knees, throwing up a stream of sooty bile. Kewa’s eyes were glass, empty. Dirt was already settling in them. And her torso…
He looked away, and tried not to throw up again.
‘Do not be concerned,’ the Sister told him gently.
He glanced up, blinking.
‘She died facing the foe,’ the Sister said. ‘She stands before the Throne in honour and in His grace. You should grieve for her, as is proper, but have no fear for her soul. Her time of strife is done, and she may rest.’ There was a burr of pain in her voice, human, and oddly touching.
Numbly, he nodded. ‘Yes, Sister. Thank you, Sister.’
‘All right, lad.’ The sergeant’s hand came down on Mase’s shoulder. ‘Fun’s over. Sister, we owe you our gratitude.’
‘It’s why I’m here, sergeant,’ she said. ‘A service will be held at twenty-one hundred, Terran standard. With what you have just witnessed, I will expect you to attend.’
‘Thank you, Sister,’ the sergeant said, again. He poked a boot at Mase, and Mase belatedly remembered his manners.
‘Yes… thank you, Sister,’ he repeated. ‘I will… ah… attend, of course.’ He was stuttering. Was he supposed to salute her? He made the effort to stand up, though his legs still shook.
The sergeant was already shouting. ‘All right, listen up! Perimeter defences doubled! And I want to know how in the name of the Emper… ah’ – he remembered himself – ‘how that thing got through here!’
‘They crawl,’ the Sister said. ‘Belly down in the darkness, and slithering. They are cunning, and can affect both your mind and your heart. Be vigilant, sergeant, and hold Him in your thoughts, always.’
The sergeant offered an aquila salute. ‘Understood.’
‘Know that He is with you, on Kiros, and all across the galaxy.’ She paused, and Mase almost heard her smile. ‘The battle for this world will not go on forever. We are here to see it ended.’
The sergeant returned, ‘Sister. Ave Imperator.’
But Mase could say nothing more, had nothing more to say. Rather than looking down at the remains of his fallen comrade, he watched the Sister’s armoured figure as it turned, taking in the sight.
The odd burr of pain was back in her voice as she said, ‘His blessing upon you.’
And then she walked away, her black armour still shining as if it carried His very promise.
Careful not to make it audible, Mase let out his breath.
The sergeant raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t let it go to your head, son,’ he said. ‘Find a gunny sack, and we’ll put Kewa with the others. And you heard what she said – you be at that service!’
‘Sarge.’
A couple of his platoon-mates were lingering, questions on all their faces, but they could wait. If Kewa lay with Him, then he owed it to her memory to tend to her properly.
Turning from the battered Militarum soldiers, Sister Avra felt a stab of regret.
She belonged to the Order of Our Martyred Lady, and her death in combat was expected, the highest honour. But not here, not now. Her life had been refused, and instead, her sacred black armour was scratched and dented. The damage pressed inwards, hard lines of failure against the padding she wore. She knew she should return to the sanctum, but there was a coil of hurt in her heart.
Understand your instincts, child, her schola tutors had taught her – had it only been two Solar years before? They come from Him, they are your teachers, and they will show you much.
She walked on, a prayer on her lips, seeking His wisdom. Avra’s Order were the faithful of Saint Katherine, deployed to Kiros to end the war. The mission was not unusual, but when she had learned the full brief, about the presence of the saint herself…
In His name, she could never have dreamed of such a blessing!
The Triumph of Saint Katherine, the saint’s very bones, borne in holy and ceaseless procession, out across the galaxy – it was here. A beacon of courage, guarded by six Sisters, exemplars and representatives. They were chosen by Him to stand with the saint and to carry her strength forth, to proclaim her name and His light!
In the chapel of the Sword of Bridiga, Avra had fallen to her knees, unworthy, blessed, elated, overcome. Her heart had rung with song, a threnody that may have been either celebration or lament. She prayed, humbly but with longing, that she may even see the saint for herself – she and her Sisters were taking turns as honour guard.
And she’d prayed, even harder, for the chance to offer her life.
Stepping past the scattered bivouacs, mess tents, armouries, communications hubs, she used her preysight to watch for more of the crawling beasts. The company enginseer flowed past her, ducking from her way, though his attendant servo-skulls and mechadendrites all turned to follow her. Like everything else, his red cloak was covered with soot. Somewhere, soldiers’ voices were raised in raucous song. It was a hymn, but sung as only the Militarum could manage.
She controlled a twitch of a smile. Avra had been raised on Fura IV, bleak and severe. Her father and brother had been Third Furan Rangers, but her mother had given her life for her family, dying in childbirth as Avra’s brother was born. Avra had been six, her mother’s death a moment of great questioning and even greater, unshakable faith. Even now, Avra ached to be worthy of such sacrifice…
Ached to be worthy of her saint.
Fully identifying her curl of disappointment, she paused, chastising herself for the unworthiness of her thought. Her life was not hers to discard, even in battle. Her death was His, in His hands, at His will. Her martyrdom would happen as He decreed, in the proper time, and in the proper place.
Walk with us, O Emperor.
Her thoughts calmer, she glanced around. Her restless, introspective walking had taken her to the outermost edge of the encampment, within blessed sight of where the Sisters of the Triumph of Saint Katherine had established their own sanctum – taking over a tiny local chapel, its walls and tower all mosaicked with shattered ceramic. It was beautiful, brightly coloured and unique. Its minute windows shone with the light of the saint within.
Avra dropped to her knees, her gauntleted hands tracing a fleur-de-lys on the front of her armour. She had never thought she would be this close, had never dreamed that she would witness this hallowed miracle, let alone be blessed enough to walk behind it.
