n. pl. in·cu·nab·u·la (-l)1. A book printed before 1501; an incunable.
2. An artifact of an early period.
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“I’m here to shoot someone,” the man answered. Siffering’s next question froze on his lips as his drink-soaked mind processed that last and unexpected response. He frantically hunted through his memory for anything bad he had done, and then quickly shifted to anything bad he had done that other people knew about, in order to narrow the field. “What? What? Who?” The oddly-uniformed man still didn’t look at him, his eyes hunting here and there amongst the press of troopers. He spoke in an almost off-hand fashion, as if enjoying a private joke. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him. Please excuse me, trooper.” Siffering breathed a sigh of relief that was almost pure resac fumes as he watched the dark-skinned, tidy little man walk away through the boisterous crowd. “Nearly sobered me up there, you little – ah! Maliutin, you jug-eared piece of piss! Have a drink you son-of-a – you have one already! Good man! Salut!” At the far end of the bar, the oddly-uniformed man smiled down at a bald-headed, pale-faced woman, who was staring at a broad-shouldered trooper sitting across the table from her. Both the woman and the trooper had shot-glasses in their hands, full to the brim. “Hello, Shiny,” said the man, his sardonic tone making it clear that this was not a sociable greeting. The woman looked up, briefly flashed a sarcastic smile, and then turned back to the trooper. “Hello, Blunt.” “I thought I’d find you here. Although I thought you would be lying either on or under the table by this point.” “I imagine the note that said ‘I have gone for a drink’ cut down on the thinking time a little, but well done, anyway.” The trooper scowled, his drink still held in front of him. “Are you two love-birds going to talk or are we going to drink?” The woman just stared at him. Eventually, the man she had called Blunt said “I’ll be over here, then,” and strode over to a free stool, where he sat, looking around the packed bar-tent with obvious disinterest. Money changed hands among the trooper’s friends and other onlookers, and the woman and the trooper downed their drinks in one go. They then grabbed their lasrifles from the floor, slammed them down on the table between them and began stripping the mechanism, fingers flying as they both slurred the Litanies of Maintenance. The woman fumbled the firing actuator, and a snort of derision went up from the surrounding men. She eventually got the charging coil out, tapped it fleetingly on the desk and began re-assembly, but the trooper was now a step or two ahead of her. A few seconds later he gave a howl of victory, pointed the re-built lasrifle at the smoke-stained ceiling and pulled the trigger. The racking mechanism popped out with a hiss and an unpleasant burning smell, and fell onto the drink-sodden tabletop. The woman raised her rifle, grinning in self-satisfaction, and put a fresh scorch-mark on the flakboard ceiling. The shot didn’t attract any attention in the packed bar-tent. She slammed the rifle down onto the table with a whoop of drunken delight, and stood up, her chair falling over behind her. “And she wins again!” She crowed into the trooper’s alcohol-reddened face. “They said it couldn’t be done, and now the crowd are calling for a victory lap of honour!” She went round the crowd taking fistfuls of currency from each of them, which they mostly gave up without too much of a struggle. Mutterings of discontent and mumbled accusations of cheating simply made her smirk all the more. She turned back to the trooper at the small table, her winnings disappearing into her uniform pockets. “Better luck next time, Kovus. Maybe you’ll be up against someone you can beat, like a girl. Oh, wait –“ and she laughed again. The man she had called Blunt sighed, and slipped down off his stool. He had seen how nights like this usually ended. He sorted his uniform cuffs and smoothed his lapels, waiting for the fighting to start. Kovus stood up with a grating sound as his chair slid back over the rough, studded floor. He towered over the woman, who was now smiling up at him, batting her lashless eyelids mockingly, her head tilted to one side. He paused. “Well done, ma’am. Think I’ll call it a night, lads,” he said to his friends and pushed off through the crowd around the bar. The woman seemed slightly disappointed as she watched his retreating back, a faint look of surprise on her face. “I wouldn’t have hurt him. Much. What’s with these new guys? Just a bit of fun on Revelry Night.” The man she called Blunt walked over to stand beside her. “I think you hurt his feelings, Vhuna. I doubt you could have hurt anything else. Almost impossible as it is to conceive, I think he was attracted to you.” “Hurt his feelings? These grunts don’t have feelings, Blunt. They just have my money.” She turned around, her expression hardening and her silver eyes darkening to a stormy grey. “What do you mean, impossible to conceive? That’s a low blow, even from you.” “Not what I meant, I assure you. Poor choice of words.” She grunted, and started pulling notes out of her pockets, counting her winnings. “Apology accepted.” “It wasn’t an apology.” “No, I didn’t think so. Time to go, eh?” “You know the Colonel doesn’t like it when you – wander off like this. Most of the men get jumpy around you.” She stopped counting the money long enough to tap her wrists together sharply right in front of the man’s face, the two intricate metal bracelets clinking twice as she did so. The sound was surprisingly heavy and muted. The man rocked his head back a fraction, a look of annoyance showing on his face. “Doesn’t make any difference, you know that. Come on.” “One last drink, Blunty? Celebrate my winnings? Tomorrow we may all die?” “You will, probably.” She whirled on him, her pale, sweating face a sudden mask of rage. “Feck you, Blunt! Just feck you!” She headed for the door, unsteadily elbowing and pushing her way through the crowd as best she could, spilling drinks whenever she got the chance. Shouts and curses rained off her retreating back. Cadet Commissar Koju smiled to himself, wiped the flecks of the psyker woman’s spittle from his face, smoothed his lapels and followed her back to the billet. # “My, aren't you a glorious sight in the morning, Shiny. With the lights off you look almost human,” Koju said as he strode into the small dorm. He took his cap off, peered into the reflector-strip over the wash-stand and ran a hand through his close-cropped blond hair. It shone like a beacon above his jet-black face. Vhuna said nothing as she swung her legs over the edge of the bunk, rubbing her wrists where the dampener-bracelets had chafed during the night. She hadn’t even heard him unlock the door. Her head was groggy from the evening before, and her wits were slow. She really, really needed a drink of water. Koju probably knew this, which was why he was preening around in front of the wash-stand. She wasn't about to give him the pleasure he would wring from a request that he move aside. Koju eventually turned around, fitting his peaked cap with its white band back on his head. “Colonel wants to see you. Now.” Vhuna swore, and sighed heavily. “All right. Give me a minute.” Koju grinned like the soul of generosity itself. “I'll give you two.” He swept of out the cramped dorm, his coat cracking with a practised flick. He whipped the canvas drapes over the window to one side as he passed. The light burrowed painfully into Vhuna's skull, and she winced, turning her head away as her gorge rose in protest. This was going to be a long day. # “You scrub up well, Psyker Vhuna. If you weren't wearing such a shapeless uniform I could almost bring myself to think of you as female.” “And if you had a dick you'd almost be a man.” Koju didn't look at her as they walked. “Careful. There are lines, you know. Despite my good nature.” Vhuna bit her tongue as numerous acid rejoinders clamoured to be said. No sense in making this day any worse, and Koju clearly had some special reason to be acting even more of an arsehole than usual. They walked on in silence between the regular Guard barracks, their exhaled breath hanging behind them in the still and crisp mountain air. As usual the clarity of the air was working wonders on Vhuna's hangover, and her thumping headache began to ease. She looked up at the towering, snow-covered peaks surrounding the encampment, and flanking the pass higher up the glacial valley to the south. It was high summer on Coulter’s Haven, at least on this lofty bit of it, and glittering rilles along the scree-slopes to the west caught the early morning light as the sun crested the cols of the Arpentium to the east. Far above, wispy clouds soared and scudded in some distant stratospheric wind against a limitless, crystal blue sky. There was a lot more sky this morning, thought Vhuna, more sky and less mountains. Just an optical illusion, probably, but a pleasing one nonetheless. A half-dozen troopers, out enjoying a few smokes after the morning mess, stopped talking as Vhuna and Koju passed. They were both used to such behaviour, although for completely different reasons. “So. What's it about?” Vhuna asked. “As if they would tell me, Shiny.” “Come on.” “I am but a cog in the machine. One hand among millions. One –” “– ego too many. Come on, Blunt. Spill it.” He snorted, and then paused. “Someone wants to take a look at you.” She waited for it. “Poor fecker doesn't know what he's letting himself in for.” “Weak, Blunt. Weak and predictable. You're slipping. Never make Commissar at this rate.” He flashed her another of his sardonic smiles and kept on walking. They were nearly there. # After the Colonel's adjutant had checked her bracelets outside the Command tent she and Koju were summoned inside. The canvas tent was large and spacious, but crammed full of comms gear and dominated by a flat holodisplay and cogitator unit in the centre. Beside it stood Colonel Lehk, a handsome man with strong, almost aristocratic features and all the warmth and personal charm of the sociopath he undoubtedly was. Beside him stood Commissar Vodalus. He was an old man, with a face like the surface of an asteroid, and fire in his ample belly enough for a whole platoon. The air smelled of gutka smoke, wet dog and ozone. The smoke was coming from the old Commissar, as usual. The wet dog smell – and the ozone – was coming from a hulking mass of furs and leathers slouched in a chair. The occupant's face was turned away from Vhuna; all she could see was a shock of greasy, straggling hair spilling over his winter clothing, but she could see him clearly if she closed her eyes. He was a psyker. The instant her inner gaze fell upon him he turned and sprang up out of the chair, which rebounded from the sudden departure of so much weight and spun to the duckboard floor. He loomed over the room like the shadow of a mountain, a bear of a man with wild, sparkling eyes and heavy features framed by all that hair. He moved, slowly and then quickly, circling around the room towards Vhuna and her guardian. He was growling, low and threatening. She felt Koju shift uncomfortably beside her. Some small, mammalian part of her brain quailed, and wanted to run up a tree, or hide under a log. Then he was upon her, standing in front of her, moving behind her. He bent his massive head; she caught a waft of sour milk and wet leaves. He put his face close to her head, and she could have sworn he was smelling her. She began to shiver, suddenly feeling the cold and the altitude. He pressed closer, beside her now, his wet furs pushing into her. She wanted to draw away, and looked up at Colonel Lehk and the Commissar, but they were looking elsewhere. His breathing was rough and heavy, and she could feel the warmth on her neck. Not only was he physically close and imposing, he was psychically overwhelming as well. Vhuna could feel – could see – the roiling depths of his mind, depths in which swam things she did not want to see. Endless, unlit depths. She shuddered. He looked at her, and growled again, then looked at Colonel Lekh. “How many?” His voice was like rocks breaking underwater. “Six, my Lord,” Lekh replied quickly, looking as if he would like to add more for the sake of politeness, but could think of no way to embellish such little information. “Six,” he said again. Vhuna's blood ran cold. She prayed to the God Emperor that he didn't ask to see them. Something told her Lekh and Vodalus would not – could not – refuse him, and she tried to steel herself to the ordeal. The giant moved away from her as quickly as he had arrived, and began pacing around the room, his massive head turning this way and that as if searching for something. Vhuna tried to make herself as small as possible, tried to stop her heart from beating so loudly. The man stopped. “Six. I see. You may proceed.” With that he turned and left the Command Tent, and Vhuna did not need her psy-sense to know that everyone left in the room had just breathed a massive sigh of release. “Well,” said the Colonel. “That was -” He coughed. “That was – Commissar. I think that's all, think we're done here. You can go.” The Colonel turned smartly and, despite his words, it was he who walked out through the flap at the back of the tent to his personal apartments, leaving the old Commissar to stare openly at Vhuna. After what she had just been through, he could stare at her all day if he felt like it as far as she was concerned. No-one was about to put a gun to her head again, that was this morning's good news. The Commissar tapped the end of his pipe on the quiescent holodisplay table, still looking at Vhuna. Then he looked over at Koju. “Anything happen last night I need to know about, Cadet Commissar?” His voice was quiet, unassuming. You would never think it to hear him on the battlefield. “Nothing, Commissar Vodalus. Oh! The Psyker Vhuna and I paid a visit to the bar to get some air, however. A fleeting visit. Nothing of any consequence, I should have said.” There was a pause, and Koju coughed. “Will the Inquisitor be returning, Commissar Vodalus?” If Vhuna had any blood left in her face, it drained out at that point. Vodalus laughed, softly, and refilled his pipe. “That wasn't the Inquisitor, Cadet. I doubt he's even in the sub-sector.” He laughed again. “Do you really think he would – that we would – heh! You're young. I forget I was young once too.” Koju bristled at this comment, but said nothing, and Vhuna could tell that he was embarrassed. He had been trying to impress her, unlikely as it seemed. “That was one of his Interrogators. One of his field men. A bookish sort, I understand. Don't think I ever caught his name. Don't think I was meant to. Dismissed.” Vhuna turned and followed Koju out of the tent. # They stood outside in the chill morning air, the warmth of the Command Tent leaching quickly away. Koju retrieved a packet of gutka-sticks from his arm pocket and proffered one to Vhuna. She took it with fingers that barely trembled at all. If her bracelets had been turned off she could have done her party trick, but as it was she permitted Koju to light the stick. The proximity of the man as he did so sent a fresh chill down her spine, despite the effects of the limiter he wore around his neck. The warm smoke brought her some ease, and the thick collection of lines around her eyes and tight, pinched mouth relaxed very slightly. “I don’t suppose you’re about to tell me what he was doing here? I doubt the reliquaries need the likes of him.” “Need to know, Shiny. Need to know. You’re welcome, by the way.” Koju put the packet of sticks away, and started to walk towards the comms tent, where Vhuna was expected on duty. She took another draw deep into her lungs, sighed out the last of her uneasiness and followed after him over the frozen, rocky soil. Even before they reached the tent, Vhuna could tell something was amiss. “Resolve,” she said. The word stopped Koju in his tracks, and he turned to face her. He caught the hubbub coming from the comms tent and quickly detached a code-key from his belt. He paused. “Taliesyn. Sabbatine. Iconarch.” Vhuna quickly recited the names of the Saints that no warp-daemon could ever bear to utter, and Koju nodded. She held out her hands. Koju placed the key into a slot on the side of one of her bracelets, and Vhuna quickly pressed her wrists together, planting the key into a matching slot on the other bracelet. With her wrists now locked together Koju pressed two runes on the code-key, one on the top and the other on the bottom, at the same time. There was no way Vhuna could reach these runes herself with her wrists clamped together like that. The Mechanicus had been diligent in their safety routines. The code-key bleeped three times and the bracelets unlocked. Koju retrieved the key as Vhuna’s head jerked upwards, her silver eyes rolling back into her skull. Her head snapped forward an instant later, her eyes blazing with an unearthly light. “They’re here,” she said. “And not where we expected them, not at all. Get the Colonel.” She hurried off into the tent where the commotion was now spilling out the open flaps as messengers rushed out with data-slips. Koju keyed his vox link for Colonel Lekh as he followed the psyker into the comms tent. # The arrival of the Colonel and his coterie found the initially fraught comms tent now well-disciplined by the presence of the Cadet Commissar. The presence of the psyker in her unbound state had also imposed a kind of nervous calm, although most of the comms officers were more or less used to her by now. Lieutenant Weild fired off his salute along with the rest of them and stood stiffly to attention. “Communique from General Kurt at the Convent, sir.” He handed over a data-slate, although Colonel Lekh did not even glance at it. He just waved it in the air to silence the Lieutenant before moving over to the chart table, where a map of the Canossis region of Coulter’s Haven had been spread. “Show, don’t tell,” Lekh said. “They’ve come down here and here. This whole area, and the bay as well. We think here too,” Weild’s finger indicated various points to the north of the Convent of the Adorers of the Blood of the Emperor. “Nothing in the grain valleys to our south? The forests?” queried Lekh, his head still bent to examine the locations Weild had pointed out. He must have caught Weild’s nervous nod out of the corner of his eye. He looked up, his anger at the non-verbal response clear in his face. “You’re absolutely sure? Be certain, Lieutenant. Act as if your very life depends on it.” Weild shuffled backwards under the Colonel’s furious glare and gestured to Vhuna, standing to attention off to one side. Koju stood behind her. “The orbital scans are accurate, Colonel. There is nothing south of us. Not yet.” Lekh glanced at the précis on the data-slate. He knew what to expect, and found it almost immediately. “The orbital platforms are gone. Destroyed. This information is old. You have to be sure, Psyker. I’m not about to abandon this position only to be bit in the arse as we pull back to the Convent.” “That much biomass – I would see it easily. The general’s psykers got it wrong, sir. The southern Breadbasket is clear.” Lekh turned back to the chart table without another word, studied it in silence for a moment and then straightened up, slapping the table loudly with both hands as he did so. “Major Limburgh. I think we should be thanking the Emperor that they are not here in strength enough to seed the whole planet at once. We fall back to the Convent and hold there with the main force until the transports arrive and the reliquaries are away. I want the mechanised companies to leave as soon as they are ready. Within the hour, understood? Everyone else will follow on up the pass by noon at the latest. Bravo Company Armoured Fists are to form a rear guard, just in case. Strike camp and prepare my transport for immediate departure. I want to see this Convent for myself before the enemy arrives. Cadet Commissar, you and your psyker are with me.” The Colonel strode from the tent and in his wake the cramped place exploded into activity as the officers and men rushed to implement his orders. # The Salamander’s engine rasped and revved, filling the tiny compartment with a foundry of noise and the stench of hot unguents. The tracks slipped on the frozen surface as the alpine-camo’d vehicle roared up the valley towards the pass which slumped between two south-facing peaks. The sound of stones ricocheting off the adamantium hull competed with the thrashing engine to drown out the occupants’ conversation, conversation which became even harder as the vehicle started bouncing and lurching over the larger rocks of the moraine. Vhuna clung onto her webbing straps, and did her best not to be sick. Or to scream. She did not like confined spaces, not one little bit. Colonel Lekh, on the other hand, seemed utterly indifferent to the bucking steel-tomb he had chosen as his transport, and was deep in conversation with his adjutant, Major Limburgh, and two other aides. “Any word from the Order’s Sisters of Battle? Can we expect them to come and help defend their own bloody Convent? Where the hell are they? Those fat nuns watching the relics are about as much use to me as a comb to that psyker!” shouted Lekh. The reply was lost to Vhuna as one track seemed to rev impossibly loudly and the side of the scout vehicle she was on plunged sickeningly before bouncing and grinding over the rocky terrain once again. Glancing up, she was enraged to see Koju looking at her with amusement in his eyes. She swallowed her anger; there was nothing she could do with it right now. In her mind, the surface of the Canossis region was laid out as if etched in silver. Features were indistinct unless she focused her mind’s-eye on them, but even so the deformations caused by the lifeweight of the invading Tyranid armies far-off to the north stood out clearly. As they proceeded up the mountain pass she could even begin to see the bruising in the skein caused by the massed defenders arrayed at the Convent. The Imperial Guard had received advance notice of the arrival of one of the last, lost remnants of the shattered Hive Fleet Kraken in the Coulter’s Haven system, and were here in force to deny the enemy a foothold to rebuild their strength. Not that Coulter’s Haven offered much in the way of material for the Hive Fleet to consume. A Haven in name only this world was sparsely populated, and far from verdant. Even the oceans were dead, the chloro-bromine seas incapable of holding life. Mockingly known as the Breadbasket, the lower reaches of the Arpentium valleys were the one attempt at horticulture on this world, and would fail without the yearly salvation of imported water for irrigation. Still, they kept the Convent in grain. The Convent of the Adorers was the only feature on Coulter’s Haven worth the effort of defending, and even then only until the famous reliquaries of the patron Saint of the Order were removed. Once it was gone, the ravening hordes could have this world, until absolution arrived and burned them all from high orbit. Even now the Navy was mopping up the few living ships that had made it past the blockade, although obviously not quickly enough to prevent them launching their mycetic spores. Hive Fleet Kraken would not renew itself here, thought Vhuna, but plenty of Guard were going to fall to protect some musty old relics. It would have helped if any of her fellow troopers had even heard of Coulter’s bloody Haven, the Adorers of the Blood of the Emperor or their precious and supposedly famous relics, but there you were. Life in the Guard. “Is she safe?” Vhuna heard the Colonel shout over to Koju. She was not naïve enough to think he was enquiring after her health. “Psyker Vhuna’s bracelets have been deactivated, Colonel. I thought you would want to retain the use of her senses for now,” Koju yelled back, gripping onto his own webbing as the old Salamander slid and leapt again. The terrain was getting steeper as they neared the summit of the pass. The Colonel’s chiselled face remained impassive, giving no impression of whether he approved of Koju’s suggestion or not. “There’s a lot I don’t like about this mission, Cadet Commissar. I don’t like mountains. Mountains and tanks don’t mix. I don’t like being bottled-up on a plateau. And I don’t like being the lab-monkey for you and your warp-magnet.” He paused, still looking at Koju, his eyes blank. “You’ve seen action together before.” It wasn’t a question. “Green-skins. A large theatre, plenty of back-up. Plenty of reinforcements. Plenty of places to fall back to in the event of a cluster-feck. In the Convent there’ll be none of that. Your pysker’s been – useful so far, but I don’t like what I hear. You should know that. I don’t like it. If she screws up –“. He paused again, letting the words hang. Koju nodded. “The Commissariat is ever mindful of its duty, Colonel.” Lekh stared at him for a few seconds longer, and then turned back to his adjutant. Neither of them had looked at Vhuna throughout the exchange, and Koju avoided the woman’s eyes for the remainder of the journey. # The pass descended quickly to a broad plateau, nestled amongst the peaks that towered around it. The bulk of General Kurt’s army was spread across it, sending blue engine smoke curling into the chill air. Where the road from the pass reached the plateau another road, this time coming up from the lower land to the north, reached the plateau also. It was up this long second road that any survivors of the northern redoubts would retreat to the final defence of the Convent. The Convent was actually several complexes, built over the centuries through the blood and sweat of the devotional Sisters of the Holy Order themselves. At the far northern end of the plateau where it jutted out over the valley the flat, rocky surface was split and pierced by six tall pinnacles of granite and sandstone that leapt upwards from the fractured ground towards the heavens. None of the outcrops less than three hundred metres high, the Convent buildings were perched impossibly on top of them, bell-towers and conical domes straining to catch the sun and scratch the sky. Between the pinnacles the surface of the plateau fell away over a thousand feet to the rock-strewn valley floor beneath, where a thin ribbon of silver glinted and flashed in the noon sun. The Salamander had stopped at the convergence of the two roads, nearly a mile to the south of the towers, and the occupants had dismounted to allow Colonel Lekh to survey his field of battle. To Vhuna it looked like they were standing on the palm of a gargantuan hand whose giant rock fingers stretched ever upwards in mute praise of the Emperor. Koju strolled over to where Vhuna stood alone, his hands clasped casually behind his back. He stopped beside her and followed her gaze up at the colossal pillars of rock nearly a mile away. “Now why do you suppose the Sisters would chose such mighty erections for their Convent?” When Vhuna said nothing he just snorted, grinned and walked off, whistling to himself. Looking beyond the massive natural formations of the Convent pillars, Vhuna could see the far valley wall, and above that the lesser peaks of the Arpentium range. Further north the peaks dipped towards the invisible lowlands where the Tyranid spores had landed, and beyond that the poisonous sea. Already faint columns of smoke could be seen wending upwards from unseen conflagrations, ominous reflections of the holy structures ahead of her. The skies to the north were beginning to darken, as both the smoke and the foul machinations of the Tyranid weather-spores combined in the lower atmosphere. Soon the whole sky would be blackened as the spores began to alter the ecosystem to suit their needs. Night was coming to Coulter’s Haven. # “Now listen carefully. The only reason you are here at all is because we need an early warning system, and since auspex performance sucks in these mountains and since the Navy are too busy to watch our backs and,” the Major sighed with exasperation, “air cover is non-existent, you are it. Understood?” Vhuna nodded quickly. “Good. I don’t want to hear from you otherwise. Cadet Commissar, if you please.” Major Limburgh, his rough-hewn face partially hidden by bronze augmetics, showed Koju where he could plant his charge, in the far corner. He then turned back to the gathering of senior officers and Ordo superiors sat around the stone table that dominated the domed room. Far below on the plateau, the dust and noise and chaos of the assembling forces seemed a world away to Vhuna. The high mountain air was charged, faces were reddened and hackles were raised. As Vhuna settled quietly into her flimsy metal seat, trying to stop her bracelets from clinking together, she could tell that discussions were not going well. Colonel Lekh was talking animatedly, and it was obvious he was not used to having to withhold his true opinions, nor was he particularly good at it. “While I respect the need to observe the holy rites –“ “Your respect is clear in all you say and do, Colonel of the Imperial Guard, and we are all grateful for the honour you do us.” The old woman’s voice coming from within the simple scarlet and grey cowl of the senior Abbess of the Order was slow and measured, light but firm, and carried none of the weakness her considerable years had imposed on her flesh. Lekh bit his tongue, fury flashing in his eyes. He looked at General Kurt, sitting silently to one side, cursed silently as the General avoided his gaze, and tried again. “The last reports from what is left of the frontline suggest the first fast-attack waves will be on us tonight. The drop-ships are waiting out there on the plateau, Holy Abbatissa. We can have the reliquaries off-planet before night-fall. General, am I mistaken?” “General Kurt,” the very large and formidable-looking Grand Schema Lucretius now spoke, her black exorassa ornately decorated with the sigils of centuries of holy service, “this Abbey of Meteora has held the most holy relics of our ancient Order for nigh on three millennia. No servant of the Emperor would ever see these sacred items treated with anything other than the utmost reverence. It is simply impossible. You, alone of all outsiders in more than eight hundred years, have seen what these reliquaries contain. You, alone of all outsiders, know the true nature of what we guard here with our lives and our devotion.” General Kurt grunted. “Of course, of course. A great honour. One that I treasure. As a military man I must listen to my advisers –“ Colonel Lekh sat back with an audible and almost contemptuous sigh of relief, “– but as a servant of the Emperor I must acknowledge what I have seen, what wonders have been given me to behold in this most sacred of places.” The look from Colonel Lekh would have fused ceramite had he possessed an iota of psyker power. The General seemed immune to his subordinate's incredulity, however. “No, Colonel, I must agree with the Holy Abbatissa and the Grand Schema. These relics must be accorded the piety that is their due. We would commit the greatest of offences in the eyes of the Emperor were we to fail to act in accordance with the dictates of the Order in this matter. Our lives must be spent and our blood must be spilled, but in this matter the Holy Abbatissa and I are as one. In the regrettable absence of the holy Sisters’ more martial cousins we are left to carry this burden alone. We must hold this plateau, and the landing site, we must hold. We must hold until the relics are safe to transport.” The general looked at the faces around the room. “We are finished here, then – with the grace of the Abbatissa –“ the cowled figure nodded once, “– Colonel, deploy your men to defend the Convent and the landing site until morning. Once the relics are off-planet we will fall back by companies to the transports.” Lekh had only just managed to master his roiling emotions, and sat forward once again. “Acknowledged, sir. At least we can take the Sisters out now, those that are not needed for the – the blessing of the relics, or whatever.” The Grand Schema turned her beady eyes on the Colonel. “I fear you have misunderstood, most honoured Colonel. None of the Sisters will cross the seals until the relics are fully prepared for their journey.” She folded her puffy hands over her huge stomach. ”We will all leave in the morning,” she said, with a mirthless smile. The vein on Lekh’s forehead throbbed. He sat back, a rictus grin of purest, distilled exasperation pasted on his face. He drummed his fingers on the wooden arms of his chair while he stared up at the delicately frescoed ceiling. “Of course you will,” he said loudly to the oft-restored renditions of the Order’s saints. He stood up suddenly, his chair scraping over the unglazed tile floor. “With your leave, Abbatissa, General. I must prepare my men for a siege.” Colonel Lekh stormed out of the domed room, his aides hurrying to keep up with him. The meeting broke up as the General sent his other officers about their duties. Vhuna realised Koju was no longer beside her. He had gone to stand beside the tall, arched windows along the north side of the room, and was looking out over the deep valley. She got up quietly, and joined him. The valley floor was almost fifteen hundred feet below, the steep sides lined with countless run-off gullies and rivulets. A ragged line of shadow from the mountain ridges to the west was starting to creep up its boulder-strewn length. Vhuna suddenly remembered that the room she was standing in was buttressed out over the precipice, and that only a foot or two of stone and wood stood between her and a nightmare fall. She had to stop herself from stepping back, and instead focused her gaze upwards and outwards. The skies far to the north were bruised and ugly, and the stain in the atmosphere was spreading; east, west and south, towards the Convent. It would make an impressively forbidding sight when the setting sun lit it blood red in a few hours time. “I need to speak to the General,” Vhuna said softly. “Then speak.” Vhuna turned round, startled to see the General standing behind her, and immediately snapped a salute. “General Kurt. Forgive me. I – that is –“ “You’re not a precog, are you? Are any of you?” “No, sir. I’m a scryer.” “Good, good. Seems my psykers got the landing points wrong. I’d rather have a good scryer than a precog any day. Good information now is always better than bad information yesterday.” “Yes, sir.” “Wanted to get a look at you.” The General put a hand on her face, turned it to one side, looked in her eyes. Vhuna felt like a prize grox, but managed to avoid flinching at the contact. “The Matroyshka. Smaller than I expected, from what Lekh said, but then I got the impression you intimidated him a little. I ought to thank you for that one day. What did you want to tell me, psyker?” “The Navy, sir. They think they have all the xeno flesh-ships accounted for, but they’re wrong. I don’t know why they can’t see them, but there are three, maybe four, still in high orbit.” “You can see them from here?” The General sounded incredulous. “Yes, sir. The larger the lifeweight the more they deform the skein –“ “In Gothic, psyker.” “Sorry, sir. There’s a lot of them, so I can see them from further away.” “Cadet Commissar?” Koju looked slightly surprised. “Sir?” “You’re the psyker’s watchman. Can I rely on this?” “Psyker Vhuna’s scrying abilities are not in any doubt, sir. If she says they are there, then that is the truth.” The half-smile on Koju’s face told Vhuna that the emphasis on “scrying abilities” had not been an accident. Not for the first time that day she bit back her anger. The General, paused, thinking. “You can’t give me anything more precise? Admiral Mamontov won’t appreciate being told he’s missed a few unless I tell him where they are.” “No more than that, sir,” replied Vhuna. “The Navy need to keep looking, sir. Something must be confusing the auspex. High polar orbit. They may have seeding spores left, or they may intend to land.” “Yes, yes. Cadet Commissar, let me know if you can wring anything else from her. And let me know when the advance xeno forces will arrive. I need as much warning as I can get – it seems comms have just been cut-off with the frontlines in the lowlands.” The General face looked grim as he turned and left the room. Vhuna took a deep breath, and was about to unload on Koju when she caught the eyes of the Abbatissa looking at her. She paused, the venomous barbs dying on her lips as the old woman walked slowly around the large stone table towards her. The Abbatissa lifted back her cowl with clawed, arthritic fingers. For the first time Vhuna noticed the missing fourth finger on both hands that was the holy mark of this Order. The woman’s face was gnarled and deeply-lined. The fragile skin looked like a relief map of a river delta, or the walls of the valley far below, weathered and carved by time. One quavering hand reached out and gently brushed the side of Vhuna’s cheek. She froze, her breath suspended, as the Abbatissa’s pale, watery eyes searched Vhuna’s own. She could see the silver psyker light that glimmered within her reflected deep beneath the cataracts that clouded the holy woman’s sight. “Child. Are you here?” Vhuna’s skin electrified, and she had to will herself to answer. “Not – not really. How – how do you know?” “I do not. I can see, but I do not know what it is I see. You are – you are thin, child, it is the only word I can think of. I can see behind you.” “Yes, most holy sister.” “You fear this. You fear you are – not real.” “Of – of course. You don’t –“ “Peace, child. Our Order does not despise the psyker as so many others do. The Emperor would not have given you this gift if he did not think you could bear it. A long life and an endless devotion have taught me many things, most of all how much I still have to learn, but I will tell you this. I wake up every morning, in my cell in this beautiful convent, and remember that these old bones are made of dust and dirt, nothing more, and that it's just a desperate illusion that I have any more choices that day than the fire burning in the hearth, or the clouds scudding in the sky, or a rock falling down a cliff. Dust and dirt. Nothing more. And you? Thin as you are, strangely thin as you are, you're no different. What you need to ask yourself child is, knowing all this, why do I get out of my cot at all? Hmm?” Vhuna paused, uncertain. “I – I really – ah. I don't know, most holy sister.” The Abbatissa smiled, and took her hand away from Vhuna’s face. “It's not a very comfortable cot, but that's not really the answer,” she said, and then she too turned and left. “The Abbatissa is right, you know. You are a bit thin, although you’ve been putting on weight around the hips a bit. Getting a bit low-slung, there, Shiny. Got a couple of saddle-bags on the way.” “Have you no fecking piety, Blunt, no soul? She’s a holy woman of orders. You shouldn’t talk like that.” “I’m not the one swearing in a Convent. And at least I know I have a soul, not that it's ever done me any good. Here's an interesting question, Shiny. Does a mask have a soul if you wear it often enough? What do you think?” “I think if you don’t shut the feck up we’re going to find out just how much body weight it takes to break right through this window here. Remember, it’s not the fall that kills you. It’s me shooting you on the way down that does that.” “Shiny. You wound me.” “Give me time.” # Vhuna shifted the weight of the lasrifle, trying to make it less uncomfortable, but it was still digging into her shoulder. Around her the men of 2nd Infantry Platoon were arranged in static defensive lines, staggered back from the edge of the precipice in the deep shadow of the towering rock columns that supported the buildings of the Convent. An Armoured Fist platoon was stationed to their right, and the men of the 12th Infantry Platoon to their left. Their flanks were protected by the vertical walls of the pinnacles. The open lifts and insanely steep, winding, stone-carved stairs that gave access to lofty Meteora were about fifty metres behind them. Somewhere far above them, hundreds of holy Sisters were beginning the blessing rituals to allow the relics to be moved from their centuries-old home. Each pinnacle of rock held its own reliquaries, and ceremonies that no outsider could witness were underway at the top of each of them. The Sisters had promised they would be finished before dawn. Men from the Munitorum were rushing to and fro some way behind the platoon, trying to erect the massive arc lamps that would bathe the landing site and allow the transports to return in the pre-dawn darkness for the troops once they had taken the reliquaries and the Sisters to the waiting Naval ships in orbit. The cooling twilight air, made cooler still by the northerly breeze that had sprung up in the last hour or so, resounded to the shouts and orders of the Munitorum staffers. Farther off the distant landslide rumble of the massed tanks of the mechanised companies arrayed around the landing site made the dust that clung to every rocky surface shimmer and shift. An enormous weight of metal was primed on top of this vast plateau, ready to brace itself against the awful tide of flesh that was rolling in unimpeded from the north. Not one inch could be given. No part of the plateau could be lost to the xeno enemy. The order was given. Let not one of them through. Vhuna knew well that Sanctioned Psykers were not supposed to fight the front-line. They were supposed to be held in reserve, to use their skills as and when directed by field command or the Commissariat. This had been drilled into them all at the Scholastia Psykana, they were tools, designed by the Emperor for a specific purpose, but Vhuna had been a special project, one that had taxed the minds and methods of the Scholastia trainers. She was uniquely suited for front-line duties. She was the ultimate expendable resource. Koju stood off to one side, her ever-present guardian angel of death. He had equipped himself with his Commissariat-issue bolt-pistol and chainsword, and had been walking casually along the defensive line, talking to the troopers. His relaxed, sardonic attitude translated well on the battlefield, and the men felt emboldened by his presence and easy manner. His feats with the Commissar Training Squad on Ventia Illustra, pushing deep into the ork-held sea-ports and slaughtering a warboss by most reliable accounts (including his own), had made him a figure of some renown already. He had been assigned to Vhuna for the remainder of that conflict to replace her sadly-deceased previous guardian. The men of their new regiment had been just as impressed by the further stories of what he and Vhuna had managed to accomplish together against the orks, although as a psyker she would never he held in anything other than fear by the common troopers – wary suspicion at best, perhaps. A present he was telling a knot of riflemen how the General himself had been permitted to view the most holy of the relics held in the highest tower of the tallest pinnacle, and how the General had been so struck by the honour done to the regiments under his command that he was in the front-lines himself, ready to give the last drop of his blood for the opportunity to die saving these most holy artefacts. Vhuna had to concede that Koju told the tale well, with a fiery zeal that seemed to come naturally, shining through his sarcastic exterior like the very essence of virtuous truth itself. It might even, given the General’s words to the Abbetissa earlier, have been true, although since Vhuna could see the General etched clearly in her mind some way from the front-lines she knew it was not. She paused as she examined the scene laid out in her mind. Something was wrong. She quickly hunted around; the weight of the hordes to the north, drawing ever closer, glimmering argent in her psy-scape; the vague weight of the still-unfound flesh-ships hiding somewhere in the polar auroras; the glowing, pulsing detail of the thousands of men and machines arranged behind her. Something was wrong. She jumped up from the sand-bag firing step and strode over to Koju. He had finished the embellishment of the General and was getting to the punchline of one his dirtier jokes. “– I didn’t say her face , I said –“ “Blunt – Cadet Commissar Koju – we need to talk.” He wheeled on her, obviously annoyed at being interrupted, and even more so at being called Blunt in front of the men. Then he saw the look in her eyes, and drew her off to one side where they could talk without being overheard. “There’s something – something’s wrong.” “Tell me. I don’t understand. The xenos?” “No, not them. It – it’s hard to explain to a non-psyker.” “Well try, dammit!” “Ok. I see everything as if it were etched in silver – in quicksilver to be precise. I know you can’t etch anything in quicksilver, but that’s what it’s like. No matter what it is, it’s always silver, right? Off to the west, there’s something that’s not etched in silver. And it’s not really etched. Sort of – rippled and muddy. I can’t – do you understand what I mean?” Koju frowned. “Sort of.” His frown deepened. “Give me the names.” “What? It’s not that, Blunt.” “The names.” “Fine. Taliesyn. Sabbatine. Iconarch. I’m not possessed, for Throne’s sake. There’s something there, some lifeweight that I haven’t seen before. It’s small in scope, but heavy. Heavy life. Does that mean anything to you? I’m – this is new to me, too. The orks were nothing like this. Heavy life, dark life – it’s the only way I can think to describe it. I don’t like it.” Koju stared at her. “And it’s not the xenos. How far?” “About twenty miles. It’s not moving. Are you going to –?“ “Yes. Of course.” Koju keyed his com-link for Colonel Lekh, thought for a moment and then keyed in Commissar Vodalus as well. They weren’t going to like this. # “You’re going to need to give me something a hell of a lot better than that, Cadet Commissar!” Lekh shouted over the vox-link. “There’s no way on the God-Emperor’s-steel-Terra that a Salamander could even get to that location before morning, let alone before the xenos arrive. You’re wasting my time, Cadet! If it’s not moving and it’s that far away then the xenos will take care of it, whatever the unlucky feck it is.” “Sir, I –“ spluttered Koju. “Cadet Commisar Koju, what do you make of it?” The Commissar’s voice was a stately ocean of calm compared to the irate Colonel. “Chaos, sir.” Koju spoke quickly but softly. “Psyker Vhuna was unwilling to be so specific, but I believe she suspects it. She’s never encountered the ruinous powers before, of course, so she has no –“ “– so she has no fecking clue what she’s talking about, by your own admission. Why am I even listening to this? Get me solid intel, Cadet Commissar, or get the feck off this comms channel. Vodalus, why I ever agreed to take part in this fecking Matroyshka experiment I’ll –“ The channel went dead, severed at the other end, and Koju swore until he ran out of words, and then started all over again in his Scholam-planet dialect. He only stopped when he realised that, far back from the precipice defences as he was, some of the troopers were looking at him. “Temper, temper, Blunty. Did the nasty men ask you to pick up their laundry again?” It was Vhuna’s turn to smirk, and she took untold depths of pleasure in it. “No, wait. They’re all out of snack-food in the command tent and they want you to nip down the store.” Koju just snarled, and looked futilely around for something or someone to kick. “Should I just call them myself, next time? Spare you the embarrassment? Just think though, when you’re a big, bad Commissar yourself you can make Lekh lick your – boots.” “Stick a barrel in it, Vhuna, for Throne’s sake. This is serious. Vodalus will make Lekh take notice; the risk of heretics sniffing around here while we move the relics is altogether too much to ignore. Although the righteous prick is right about one thing. There’s exactly nothing we can do about it right now. Dammit, that man really pisses me off!” “Welcome to my world, Blunty.” “And so do you!” “You’d be lost without me, admit it.” “I’d be a fecking Commissar, is what. Come on. I need to come up with some inspiring lie for the troopers about why I was just trying to break the plateau with my foot.” # “She can see the entire battlefield, General. The whole fecking thing! I want the filthy pysker here, not ‘stealer-bait on the frontline. I need that kind of intel close at hand.” “My orders are very, very clear, Colonel. Blood the Matroyshka. End of orders. You know where they come from – you met his sodding messenger boy. Conditions on Ventia Illustra were not to his master’s liking, and we know how that turned out. I’m not about to disappoint him, or his master for Throne’s sake. She stays where she is. You’ll have to make do with the comms link, Colonel. Dismissed.” # The muddy smear in Vhuna’s psy-scape wasn’t going away, but it wasn’t coming any closer, either. The silvery deformations to the north, however, were almost upon them, and Koju had been in regular contact with the command tent keeping them updated. And then the leading edge of the lifemass reached the pass at the far side of the valley, and word went around the waiting troopers. Lieutenant Chemenko’s voice came over the vox on the platoon’s channel. “Stand ready to engage the xenos,” as klaxons erected across the plateau whooped three times, a harsh, lifeless sound, and then fell silent. Not a single vehicle had made it back up the road from the original frontline. Nothing had been seen of the five thousand troopers who had prepared fortifications there just a few days ago. Comms had been silent for hours. In between liaising with the command tent, Koju was run off his feet ensuring morale among the three platoons on his stretch of the precipice did not waver. It was an increasingly difficult task as night had fallen, suddenly and completely as it does in the mountains, and the valley ahead of them had become a bottomless pit of shadow. Overhead the now invisible clouds had rolled over, utterly blocking the stars in the once-clear sky, bringing with them the stench of burning fields, burning fuel and burning men. Bringing with them xeno chems that reddened the skin and make the throat burn as the ecosystem was perverted by the insidious spores. With the intense lake of light from the landing site at their backs, their shadows leaping ahead of them like the mindless bravery they all wished they possessed, the troopers waited in the acid darkness for the arrival of the enemy. First came the noise. Distant, almost inaudible to begin with, soon every ear could hear the scrabbling sounds, the far-off echoing of claw and chitin scratching and sliding on rock, a myriad tiny landslides as more and more xenos poured unseen from the darkness of the pass somewhere ahead of them and swarmed down the far side of the valley. Soon the noises were blending into a muted roar, like some hidden waterfall, then louder and louder, resounding off the valley walls and ringing from the towering peaks around them. Harsh cries, cold, alien screams, hoarse bellows rent the chill night air as they surged skywards from the rubble floor a thousand feet below. Few of the troopers had faced these xenos before, and all were appalled at the wall of noise coming at them out of the inky blackness. Individual sounds rose from the cacophony, screeches that were half-way between a baby’s wail and a dog’s bark, nightmare sounds that froze the blood of the waiting Guard and ran ghost rivers of ice in their minds. Some of the tank crews revved their engines mightily, and every trooper near enough to hear gave silent thanks as the mechanical roar replied to the xenos’ howled challenges in kind. The tank engines raced again, this time across the entire plateau surface as defiance spread, shaking the ground with their colossal noise, hammering the air with all the righteous might of man. Vhuna felt a pounding in her chest and throat, a throbbing resonance that shook her whole body. Now the troops added their own ear-splitting bloodlust to the furious sound, screaming vengeance and denial into the night. “Ready the promethium canisters!” shouted Lieutenant Chemenko, as the smell of the xeno hordes reached Vhuna’s nostrils. She gagged on the foetid stench as she helped manoeuvre the heavy barrels into position. The tank commanders had given their reserve supplies up grudgingly, but even they had had to concede that extended manoeuvres were highly unlikely in the coming engagement. They were right on the edge of the plateau here, their shadows simply vanishing as the obliquely-lit terrain dropped suddenly away, swallowed up by the black void only scant inches from them. Scrabbling sounds could be heard now, coming from directly below, accompanied by a throaty hissing. The northern face of the plateau was a thousand feet of sheer, crumbling rock, but the chittering horde were simply swarming straight up it. Vhuna's scryer-sense was being overwhelmed by the sheer proximity of so much life, and she was finding it difficult to sharply delimit the encroaching tidal wave of bone and claw. They were coming up the cliff in numbers that horrified her – that was all she could tell now. Lieutenant Chemenko lit a flare and tossed it over the side, the sudden phosphor glare blinding the troopers before it winked out of sight as it plummeted away. The rope around Chemenko’s waist was held taut as he leaned out over the drop, looking down. He was already counting. “One, two – there they are. Throne! Pull me in, dammit! About a hundred and fifty metres down, moving fast. Let ‘em have it,” the Lieutenant shouted along the line. Dozens of canisters of promethium were tipped on their sides and the viscous, reeking fluid rushed out spilling over the edge to drench the monsters scrambling their way to the top. The barrels were quickly rolled along the lip of the drop to ensure complete coverage. Once all the liquid had gone flares were struck along the line of men. Vhuna raced with the others back to the questionable safety of the sand-bag redoubt. At a signal from the Lieutenant, each man touched his flare to the glistening oil soaking into the porous rock and leapt away, stumbling after their squad-mates. Behind them rose a crackling, smoking inferno as liquid gouts of flame rushed up into the cold air, and hideous screams of xeno agony rose with them. Vhuna ducked down behind the sand-bags as a wall of heat rolled over her and the other troopers in her squad, for once being grateful that she had no hair to singe. As soon as it passed she rose back up with the others and trained her lasrifle on the now brilliantly silhouetted cliff-edge, waiting for something to make it through the hellish conflagration. She felt rather than saw Koju kneel down behind her, thankfully not too close. “You be safe, Shiny, you hear? Stay close. Aim high. Just like on Ventia.” She was about to say something – what, she truly did not know – but he was up and away before she could form the words. As she turned back something became visible through the surging flames, a limb, some kind of long, bony protrusion scything back and forth for a fleeting instant before falling back into the maw of the consuming fire. The inferno below must be dying out. Some of the beasts were starting to get through. The vox-channels lit up with chatter; tight and curt at first, orders and acknowledgements, then more. Shouts. Cries. Weapons fire came suddenly from the vox-bead in her ear, harshly clipped and drowning out everything else for a jarring moment. Then more fire, and more, transmitted over the channels. Vhuna began to hear the lasfire herself, without the vox, sounding muted through the huge rock pillar to the east, but growing in volume with every passing second. Somewhere fairly close by, a stubber opened up. Then two more. Another sickeningly curved and barbed bone-sword lashed briefly at the loose edge of the cliff ahead of them, scrabbling for a hold even as its unseen owner was immolated in the cleansing fire. It disappeared for ever, but not before one of the troopers had put a few lasrounds in its rough vicinity, sparking jittery yells of approval from various other Guardsmen. The flames were dying now. And then they came, the crackling hiss of the fire turning to a screeching clatter of rage in a chilling instant as all along the cliff-top crested the advance forces of the xeno invasion. They did not stop for a moment, their speed almost as heart-stopping as the suddenness of their massed appearance. When the troopers opened up the first creatures had cleared half of the distance between the precipice and the sand-bag wall, which was suddenly looking almost like a bad joke. The night air was broken a thousand times in those first few, frantic seconds by incandescent barbs each the heat of the surface of the sun as the defenders fired point-blank into the onrushing nightmare wall of teeth and claws. Armoured monstrosities burst apart under the furious hail of fire, creatures that were nothing but blurring whirlwinds of knives were blasted back over the plateau's edge in a dozen shattered pieces. And for every one of the beasts that fell another three surged fluidly out of the darkness to take their place, raging their mindless need to kill. Eject, reload, fire. Vhuna held her lasrifle high, aiming down the sights, firing continually and seemingly unable to avoid hitting something, anything. Pincers, horns, legs, heads – all fell apart under her unending stream of fire, but always there was more. Her ammo clips were arrayed on the firing-step before her, and she was shocked to look down after what felt like only a few seconds and see nearly half of them gone. Eject, reload, fire. Still there was no end to the torrent of xeno flesh to return to the cursed blackness that had disgorged them as if from the very depths of some twisted mind. Eject, reload, fire. “Heavy weapons!” She heard someone cry, whether right next to her or in her vox link she could no longer tell. The sound from all around her was almost corporeal in its overwhelming totality. Quite when the tanks had begun firing she had no idea, but even the colossal thunder of their main guns and sponson weapons was simply the white froth on this oceanic swell of crushing sound. “Ammo!” she yelled, her voice vanishing at once into the hellish cacophony. White beams, a hundred times brighter than the heart of the sun, burned themselves across her sight. For an instant they lit the plateau edge and rock pillars like the fiercest noon-day sun never could and half a tonne of ravening xeno flesh flashed to vapour with it. Vhuna blinked the afterimages away from her silver eyes, tears blurring her vision. More lances of solid light dismissed the night in momentary novas, staccato pulses of destruction that swept the cliff-edge clear. The Armoured Fists platoon to her right was making their awesome presence felt, carving molten swathes through the numbers of the beasts. The unmistakeable whine of an autocannon surged briefly through the din, and tracer rounds spewed across the ichor-drenched rock. “Ammo!” Vhuna shouted again, before tumbling backwards from the sand-bag wall in confusion. In the flowing, monochrome relief of her mind she saw pulses of argent light, heading for the southern edge of the plateau, but these seemed to be underground. They were travelling through the compacted till under the road coming in from the north, burrowing below the front lines. She scrambled to her feet and crouched low, trying to raise the command tent on her vox-link. She could not see Koju anywhere, but her custom vox-link took her through almost immediately. “Message! For Colonel Lekh,” she screamed over the barrage of noise. “Psyker Vhuna reporting in. Be aware. Xenos approaching. Beneath the northern road. Underground. Repeat. Underground. Heading for the southern edge. Of the plateau. Over.” She couldn't tell for sure if she got an acknowledgement, and repeated her message once more, just in case. Her voice was hoarse by the time she had finished. Hefting her lasrifle she headed back to her position on the redoubt, but stopped as she ran into Koju. He looked tense, his black face stony and forbidding. “How's it going?” she shouted in his ear. “Splendid! We're holding them at all points, and we have driven them back at the road. The night will be ours.” “I said how's it going, Blunt?” she shouted again. He grinned for a second. “As well as can be expected, Psyker Vhuna. We're committing our reserves at a hell of a rate, but I didn't tell you that. We're holding them, though. We haven't seen the big beasts yet. Then it gets interesting. But you know all this!” He tapped his temple with one gloved finger. “You looked a bit serious there for a minute, is all. Didn’t want you to do yourself an injury. Not when I could do it for you.” “Any movement from the west?” Vhuna shook her head. “Let me know. Back in line, trooper!” he yelled, and moved off, firing his bolt pistol into the morass of xenos still being torn apart by the lasfire of Vhuna's adopted platoon. Unheard in the din but definitely not unseen a rolling inferno of hellfire washed across the cliff-face as the Chimera stationed behind the Armoured Fists made its lethal contribution. Vhuna ran back to her firing position, and added her lasrounds to the slaughter. Perhaps this night would be theirs after all. All positions had been resupplied, and Vhuna had exhausted another three clips when something flickered across her psy-scape. She paused and reached out. The cliff face below her was still a silvered blur of biomass a thousand feet high but there were some glowing threads stretching out from it, above the surface of the plateau. That wasn’t possible, unless – the xenos were making their way up the stone towers to either side. They were getting above them, soon they would be flanking them. Someone should have seen them by now, she thought angrily, command had anticipated just this sort of thing happening. “Lieutenant! Lieutenant Chemenko!” Vhuna cried into her vox. There was no reply. “Look up on the rock pillars! They’re up on the pillars! Can anyone see them? Someone, dammit! Koju! They're getting around us!” Vhuna ran from the redoubt and pelted along the flat, pebble-strewn surface in the direction of the Chimera. Its powerful arclights were blazing straight ahead as the trooper in the turret position ripped heavy bolter fire across the waves of screaming creatures that still poured ceaselessly towards the defenders. A few portable stablights on tripods were trained on the rock wall towering to the east, but she could not see anything moving in the stark, overlapping pools of light. Where were they? She reached the vehicle and vaulted up the side, dragging herself up and onto the stationary tracks. “Guardsman! Above you, dammit!” The trooper saw her, the look on his face one of startled incomprehension. Vhuna reached over, her lasrifle discarded, grabbed the handles of one of the directional arclights and pointed it up at the sheer rock wall looming over them. Even with the much brighter arclight it took her a few seconds to see them. Almost the same colour as the rock, camouflaged through some xeno trickery, and crawling very slowly. Dully glinting shapes clinging to the naked rock like spiders, they suddenly swarmed under the sweeping beam, perhaps realising they had now been spotted. They were almost directly above the line of defenders. “Great God Emperor!” Vhuna heard the trooper on the Chimera exclaim, as she scrabbled to recover her rifle. The guardsman began screaming a warning into his vox at the same time as he racked the turret round and opened up a thunderous fusilade of fire on the dark wall only metres away from him. Quickly more fire rose upwards and in seconds the line of men were being showered in a hail of rock chips and xeno body-parts. Spraying ichor quickly turned the ground black, but there were too many creatures on the walls and not enough men. Shapes detached themselves from the darkness and plunged straight down, talons ripping into the flesh of the unlucky guardsmen below, tearing their bodies asunder. The diversion of fire from the forward line suddenly told as well. First one and then two beasts managed to reach the sand-bag wall intact enough to hurl themselves over and rend the men on the other side in their death-agonies. More were coming. “Watch the cliff!” Vhuna yelled futilely over the thunder of the guns, as she added her fire to the defenders’. A burst of flame surged up the wall, crisping countless hormagaunts poised to leap, but it was clear to Vhuna; they were being overrun. She grabbed the shoulder of the man firing the heavy bolter. “Reinforcements! We need reinforcements!” Crouched atop the thrumming
Chimera Vhuna fired again and again, scouring the xeno plague from the
cliff-top. The Chimera rocked, knocking Vhuna’s aim off. She turned
in time to see a spiny fist-club sweep around and remove most of the
head of the trooper by her side. His blood spattered warmly across her
face. Then the thing looked up at her. Vhuna screamed as the thing bunched and pounced in one fluid, feline movement. She threw herself backwards, firing on instinct, landing heavily on her back as the creature whipped over her prone body in a flash of sharp teeth and splattering ichor. Something hot burned up her leg and tore across her chest. She gasped in pain, finger still clamped like a vice to the firing trigger, but the thing had vanished over the side of the Chimera. Her momentum rolled her backwards, her legs flipping up and over her head, and she toppled off the roof of the vehicle. Landing heavily on her side she cried out again as a razor-edged scimitar of bone whicked past her face. She had fallen on top of the hormagaunt, who was struggling against the pain from its wounds to get back to its feet. She twisted, the lasrifle still in her hands, as the thing bucked beneath her. Something made of iron grabbed her foot and made her scream in pain again. Her face suddenly slammed up against a wall of teeth, dripping fluid and reeking ichor. The jaws flashed open, and she rammed her lasrifle into the sickening maw. She pulled the trigger, and blew the gaunt’s head apart with a savage cry of victory. Gasping for breath Vhuna rolled off the quivering and thrashing corpse and away across the rough ground. She emptied the remainder of her clip into the body of the thing before trying to get to her feet. Her leg was agony; her efforts to stand on it forcing a deep, startled gasp of pain; a gasp that only made the deep incision across her chest burn with a white fire. She forced the pain down before it swamped her. She felt something move behind her in the chaos of her psy-sense and whirled, falling to one knee and raising her spent lasrifle again. Koju stood in front of her, chainsword screaming as he fired explosive round after explosive round into the carnage that had engulfed the Armoured Fist platoon behind Vhuna. Behind Koju, however, charged dozens of guardsmen, the precious reserve. Their lasfire began to turn the tide as they steadily advanced on the sea of hormagaunts that were flowing around and over the besieged Chimera. Koju grabbed the muzzle of
her rifle and hauled an exhausted Vhuna to her feet. “I have my moments.” “Shame –“ Too late Koju saw the gaunt spring out of nowhere onto the roof of the Chimera and leap at Vhuna’s back. His shots went wide and he watched in horror as twin, barbed sabres of bone punched clean through Vhuna’s chest, her pale face going rigid in shock. The lasrifle fell from her grasp as the gaunt shook her, snapping her neck, blood jetting from the gaping wounds, and then flicked her lifeless body away to tumble over the rocky ground. The beast’s long head snapped round to face Koju, and it poised to spring. TWELVE YEARS PREVIOUSLY:- “This is Fledgling Vhuna, Preceptor. The one I told you about? She's been here for nearly a month, now.” “Yes. Indeed. I have come a long way to see this one, Matrona.” “Ah. Quite. Well,” the taller of the two women reached up and detached the data-slate from the cell door, while the other peered in through the barred hatch. The faint and troubling noises of the Scholastia Psykana echoed and rang up and down the long, marble corridor. “Fledgling Arha Vhuna, then,” the taller woman continued. “Appears to be in her late forties, early fifties. Real age – unknown, and possibly meaningless. On the face of it a scryer of median ability. Some fringe pyrokinetic ability. Found in Lord Macharius' arms -” The tall woman tutted to herself, and made a correction on the slate. “Found in “ The Lord Macharius' Arms” – a hostelry on Evidion Beht – by the local Arbites, ranting and raving. ID'd as a potential psyker and held for eight years until the Ships arrived.” “Eight years?” The shorter woman didn't turn around, didn't take her eyes off the prone body of the female psyker strapped to the hard cot in the cell beyond. The silver eyes, wide open with the look of a trapped animal, were staring back at her. “Yes, they were in the sub-sector already. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary at first. Usual mental traumas and so on, but she was fundamentally sane. As much as these wretches ever are.” “And then?” “And then she died. Accident aboard ship – no-one was to blame. As such. Of course, what happened next gave the Sisters of Silence the fright of their lives. The man. Fendahl, he called himself.” “Yes. Indeed. That is what I am here to see.” The smaller woman turned round, her face eager, almost hungry. “How do you induce the change? I must see this for myself.” The taller woman gingerly removed a vial of black liquid from her uniform pocket, a sub-dermal lance already attached. She held it up. “There is only one way. Death.” # The hormagaunt tensed, limbs coiled for another killing leap, and then its head snapped back towards the body of the pysker. With a sound like a ramjet engine being pushed beyond breaking point the air and stone around the limp form snapped like a rubber band. Something flashed outward in a mist of faint, dark colour. Something rushed in, hard and tangible and real. And alive. Koju took full advantage of the momentary distraction to place a bolt-round into the torso of the confused creature, and the explosive force rent its armoured form apart. “Fendahl!” he shouted at the body. “Get up, old man! Move it!” More taloned beasts were clawing at the guardsmen along the sand-bag wall, and some were breaking through. Two 'stealers, massive creatures that must have come from some orkish world, burst bloodily past a knot of troopers and between Koju and the former corpse. The man sat up, holding his bald head and groaning. He wore the uniform of Vhuna’s and Koju's old regiment loosely around his skinny frame, and was holding a laspistol slackly in one liver-spotted hand. He looked up as Koju shouted again, the bafflement in his old, lined face changing immediately to horror as he saw the monsters coming towards him.. “Oh,” he said, his face slackening as his silver eyes flared. “Koju? Where are the orks? I think I preferred the –“ The faintest halo of argent flames was beginning to form around his body when the closest 'stealer pounced. Koju was already swinging his chainsword at the other, severing a grasping claw, but the first creature had reached the man he had called Fendahl. The silver fire flared for a moment and then the ‘stealer’s talons tore the man’s chest open in a welter of blood and bone. It picked up his limp body, gore dripping over its thick, stubby claws, and turned on Koju. The Cadet Commissar was fast, and he had already managed to cut off another limb from the second monstrosity and tear a couple of deep rents in its chitin, but the beast was unnaturally large and strong and he was in trouble. The ‘stealer that was holding the corpse of Fendahl opened its cavernous mouth to bellow its fury, but the sound died in its throat. A strange noise had come from the meat it was holding. It looked down. The Boy opened his eyes, dark silver clouds roiling deep within them. “Don’t touch me,” he said, meeting the unblinking gaze of the ‘stealer. His thin, quiet voice was jarringly incongruous in the middle of a pitched battle, although somehow it stood out clearly from the background noise. “Don’t –” The chill air fractured around the creature, in a myriad places at once as if it were a sheet of ice hit by a boulder, and the ‘stealer collapsed in steaming chunks to the rocky plateau floor. “– touch me! ” The Boy drifted down until
his feet were touching the stone. He began rubbing his rough clothes
where the thing’s claws had been holding him, his small body trembling. Koju gritted his teeth. The Boy. That was all he needed. # “ No psyker can do that. None. I don’t care how powerful she is.” The woman’s voice sounded shaky as it echoed in the dank hall outside. In the cell, still strapped to her cot, Vhuna felt woozy – that injection they'd given her again, no doubt – but she could tell the woman was scared. Why? What had happened? And who was this powerful psyker they were talking about? It wasn't her, that was for sure. Her own ability – her curse – was as far from powerful as Vhuna was from home. “It’s not her that's doing it.” The voice of the Matrona. Vhuna knew her. She hated her. “It doesn’t matter. No psyker is strong enough to bring themselves back from the dead. Not even an Alpha psyker could do that. Even the Holy God Emperor himself needs – well, you know.” The woman’s voice had dropped to a whisper and Vhuna could barely hear her. “You don’t understand, Preceptor. It’s not her that’s doing it, you see? We think –“ “I need to think about this. This is too much. This is too much. I need – I need, yes, I need to think. Perhaps – yes, perhaps His Eminence will know what to do. That’s it. Keep her here for now. I – we need to move quickly. That much is clear. This is – this is too much.” Vhuna saw the other woman's – the Preceptor's – face appear once more at the hatch, drawn and narrow, with ink-stain eyes. Those eyes looked at Vhuna intently as the Preceptor spoke again, but she wasn't speaking to Vhuna. “What happens if you kill the man – this Fendahl? Tell me, have you tried that?” The Preceptor drew in a deep breath. “Maybe there are more.” # “Do you remember me?” Koju’s hand went to the limiter at his neck. “I said, do you remember me?” The Boy glanced at the bolt pistol that was shaking slightly in Koju’s left hand, and then looked down at the Cadet Commissar’s gore-drenched boots. “Don’t touch me,” he said. “I’m not going to –“ “I don’t like it here. I’ve been good. Haven’t I?” “You have, Boy. Very good.” “I want to go home.” “We’ll –“ Koju cursed himself silently. “We’ll get you home, Boy. First – those.” The Boy turned and looked up at the ravening hordes swarming over and around the sand-bag wall. He lowered his head again. “You’re lying. I’ve been good.” He began to walk slowly towards the xenos. Pale, argent light shone briefly from the rocky plateau behind him as his small footprints faded away into the night. Koju wiped sweat and ichor away from his face with a cloth from his pocket. He started following the Boy, as the cliff-edge ahead of him erupted in silent, silver fury. # “Welcome back, Fledgling Vhuna. It’s been about two days.” The man’s familiar voice was soft and soothing. Vhuna closed her eyes again. Dornal, that was his name. Master Dornal. Her mentor. Her tormentor. Her regular executioner. Even after enduring two years in the Scholastia the after-effects of the killing draught still left her woozy and thick-headed. His promises to find something less nauseating had evaporated a long time ago, accompanied by Vhuna's hopes of ever leaving this place. She tried to remember what experiment it had been this time, but her mind was still fogged. Two days? That was a damned long time for her to be away, although as far as she was concerned Dornal had given her the injection moments ago. What had been happening for two whole days? And then she remembered what it was Dornal had finally been authorised to do. “So. Did you really go through with it? Pluck up the courage? Did you go past Marotte?” “I did.” Vhuna’s eyes snapped open and she struggled to bring her mind into focus. “Really? You met Six? And is she – is he –?” Dornal smiled through his heavy beard. “Yes. He is. He is the last. He is the centre. The source. He is the spring from which the rest of you flow. I went through Fendahl, and the Boy and the others we knew about.” He sto |
