The psyker bounced on the balls of his feet; even an animal would have had the sense to react to such a barrier, to be cowed and back off. But if reason had ever been in this man, it was long gone now. Undeterred, he screamed and threw himself at her, scratching at her eyes.
The Pariah effect, as potent as it was, could only protect against the sorcery of telepathic contact and other witch ploys. Against physical attack, against shot or blade or claw, it was no shield; but for those, the Sisters of Silence had their years of training in the schola bellus of Luna. Almost as an off-hand motion, Kendel creased the cryokene’s scalp with the heavy brass crown on the pommel of her weapon. It connected with a dull crack and he went back to the deck on his haunches, sliding on the thin ice.
‘Can you not see what we are?’ called Sister Leilani. ‘In our silence, you cannot harm us.’
‘You cannot hear!’ he shouted, his voice a sudden, atonal bark of sound. ‘If I cannot hear, you must not!’ He scrambled back to his feet, and again he threw himself towards Kendel. ‘You must not hear!’
He was insane, that was not in doubt. Perhaps, whatever release of energy had killed the minds of the crew serfs and servitors had only scrambled the wits of this one, and in the disorder that followed he had found his escape from the Black Ship’s cells. Not that it mattered. There would be nothing to glean from this witch.
The Oblivion Knight stepped into his attack, with her hand-and-a-half sword still held in a reversed grip. Turning, she brought the blade up to meet the cryokene’s throat and took him there, decapitating his body with a lean stroke that let the victim’s momentum do the work for her. Crimson fluid gouted briefly into the air, spattering across the grubby snow. Specks of blood dotted Kendel’s golden cuirass, but the arterial spray was sporadic and quickly stilled.
She stepped over the corpse and walked on through the ice and snow as the last gushes of red pooled on the cold deck, a thin wisp of steam rising from the length of her sword blade.
~What did he mean?~ Sister Thessaly matched her pace, signing carefully. ~He spoke of hearing something. Perhaps there is a connection with the last words of communication from this ship?~
Kendel held the tips of two fingers to her chin, and Nortor nodded in slow agreement.
‘Give voice,’ murmured Sister Leilani. ‘But to what?’
The further they progressed, the stronger the sense became of a new, strange denseness in the atmosphere, a thickening of the air that brought with it a greasy, metallic tang that Leilani could not clear from her throat, no matter how many times she sipped water from the dispenser nozzle in her portcullis-shaped gorget. She knew that the Oblivion Knight and the Null Maiden sensed it as well; their moods became wary and sullen as they passed through the outer sections of the holding areas, the cells where the less dangerous denizens of the dungeon decks were typically held. The novice chanced a look in through the locked doors of cells she chose at random; inside each there were odd, wet pastes of matter that might have been bodies, if flesh were wax and pressed to a flame. The air was unnaturally still, cloying to the point that it took on the properties of a membrane. Leilani felt the ghost-touch of it on her bare face, like the gossamer caress of spider webs.
Ahead, ever at the lead, Thessaly Nortor’s boot scraped to a halt and the novice froze, ready for the next maddened psyker or freakish phenomenon to rear its ugly head. Instead, the Null Maiden turned towards the other two women and made the sign for Sister.
They came across her in the middle of the chamber; she sat cross-legged on the dark iron deck plates, her head bowed in concentration and her sword drawn, both hands clasped around the slim hilt. Leilani was aware of a peculiar calm that seemed to radiate from the woman’s body, an absence of emotion or energy. A silence, for want of a better word.
Her mouth was moving but no sound emerged; still, the novice had only to read a word or two and she knew what litany was being unspoken. Without realising it, Leilani said the words aloud. ‘We are Seekers and we shall find our Prey. We are Warriors and woe to those we Oppose…’ She trailed off, her cheeks colouring.
A frown formed on Sister Amendera’s face and Leilani looked again at the distaff Sister. The other woman had a top-knot of rust-red hair that hung loosely, lank and sweat-soaked, over her bald skull. There was a line of livid pink puckering down the left side of the Sister’s face and neck from her cheekbone, pointing like an arrow towards the lightning-bolt symbols etched on her shoulder plates. She bore the same rank as Kendel, and it was with that realisation that Leilani recognised the woman.
With a dry gasp, Sister Emrilia Herkaaze of the White Talons cadre opened her eyes, her battle meditation broken, and looked up at her. The woman’s left eye, framed by the scarring, was an intricate augmentation of blue glass and golden clockwork. She gave Leilani a cold, evaluating once-over.
Herkaaze ignored the offer of Nortor’s open hand and got to her feet, shrugging off stiffness. The Oblivion Knight turned her glare towards Kendel; the lower half of the woman’s face was concealed behind a half-mask resembling barred gates, but the novice could tell her mouth was twisting in a sneer.
~I knew that someone would come,~ signed the other Knight, ~but I never would have expected it to be you.~
Kendel’s expression cooled. ~The mission fell to us. The Storm Daggers go where they are sent.~
The tension between the two Knights was strong, and Leilani could not help but think back to the rumours she had heard about Kendel and Herkaaze’s thorny rivalry. One story, told to her by another of the novices, said that the women had once fought with a fire-witch on Sheol Trinus; Herkaaze, unwilling to fall back before a powerful enemy and regroup, had been struck by burning debris and later turned the blame to Kendel for refusing to support her. Leilani had not believed the tale at the time, but now looking at Sister Emrilia’s old wounds, she wondered if there might have been some truth in it.
Herkaaze caught her staring and pushed closer to the novice. ~Seen enough, speaker?~ She asked, her augmetic eye glittering. Leilani looked at the deck, cowed.
~I sense witchkind,~ noted Sister Thessaly. ~Close at hand.~
The scarred Knight nodded but did not address the other woman, instead focusing her intent back on her former comrade. ~Are you all there is? You three?~
Sister Amendera shook her head. ~A lance of Sister-Vigilators attend us. I sent them by a secondary path, via the aft decks–~
Herkaaze made a derisive noise in the back of her throat. ~You sent them to their deaths, then.~
At this, Nortor clasped her fist into her palm, tapping out an interrogative tone-message through the signal-generating touchpads on the knuckles of her glove. Leilani heard the short-range signal echo through the vox in her wargear. They waited for a moment for the standard ‘all-clear’ reply from the other team, but there was only the hiss of static. Nortor paled slightly and shook her head.
~Horrors are loose aboard this ship. I lost many Sisters of my own to the witches who ran free in the madness.~ Herkaaze nodded to herself. ~We killed as many as we could.~
Anger flared on Kendel’s face and she grabbed the other Knight’s arm. She did not sign, but her question was clear.
With exaggerated care, Sister Emrilia peeled the other woman’s hand from her grip. ~There was no time to send a full warning. We had to come here, to build the wall. Else all would have been lost.~
‘The wall?’ Herkaaze winced at the sound of her voice, but Leilani ignored it. ‘I do not understand.’
Nortor folded her arms across her armoured breasts, fists to elbows. The sign meant wall but also bastion and enclosure.