The chamber was dim, lit only by the glow of a single lume set low and the red laser-optics of a hunchbacked servitor. It moved slowly just to her right, orbiting between two sculpted consoles that chimed in time with her heartbeat and breathing.
Kendel glanced down at her hand and saw a line of burn scarring across the palm that had held the teleport beacon. Not dead, then. The sight seemed to be the final confirmation for her. She drew in a breath and found it hard to hold it; her lungs ached.
‘Awake.’
The word fell from the shadows beyond the far end of the tank. Kendel blinked and threw a look at the servitor, but the machine-helot did not appear to notice. The Knight pushed again at the restraints holding her in place, but they were of dense plastiform and immovable.
‘Don’t.’ The voice was harsh and broken. ‘You will reopen the wounds you have spent so long healing.’ Parts of the shadows detached from the dark and moved.
Kendel saw a figure, a woman, a Sister. The shapeless coils of a robe, the lume-light touching a shorn scalp and the cascade of a top-knot beyond it. At once she was shocked; even in shadows, Kendel could see this was no unavowed novice but a ranked Sister of Silence. For a Sister to speak aloud was anathema.
The woman seemed to sense her amazement. When she spoke again, there was a cruelty in her words. ‘We are alone here, you and I. The servitor cannot report. None will know that I have given voice.’ In the dimness, the Sister touched two fingers to her chin. ‘You are aboard the Aeria Gloris,’ she continued. ‘That errant harpy Nortor came to your rescue as you lay insensate. The teleport recovered you.’ The figure shook its head once. ‘The Null Maiden did not survive the translation.’
A sharp tension twisted in Kendel’s chest. She had known Thessaly Nortor for many years, and her loss cut deeply.
‘Some of the White Talons escaped in saviour pods.’ Kendel heard a low, wry chuckle. ‘We were the lucky ones. Treated to such a show.’ The Sister spread her hands. ‘The Validus, consumed by a wash of psychic fury, eaten alive by rabid time. The vessel torn to shreds, the warp about it churned into a maelstrom. Ah.’ She shivered. ‘It is such a delicacy to say these things without gesture.’
In defiance, Kendel moved her right hand just enough that the other woman could read the signs. ~You sully your oath. You break the silence.~
‘He will forgive me.’ The woman stepped closer, and Emrilia Herkaaze’s face revealed itself. ‘It was He who guided me to the pods when you left me to die. He who guided my blade when I executed your errant novice. He, who saved me when you abandoned me on Sheol Trinus.’
The Knight snarled with fury and pulled at her restraints, the pink fluid splashing around her. Thin whorls of new blood issued out through the liquid from ruptured sutures. Disgust filled her at the towering injustice of it, that this callous and narrow-hearted woman should live and poor Leilani perish.
Herkaaze came close and halted, bowing her head. ‘Whatever it was that we witnessed in there, I killed it as I said I would. Your novice, she had some connection to the monstrosity, that is not disputed.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps there was some truth to the ravings of the voice. If it was indeed a messenger from our unbound future, then her death here annulled that skein of time. Those events will not unfold.’ The other Knight nodded to herself. ‘In a way, I saved her from herself. She died unsullied, with the seed of corruption still dormant inside. And so the order of the universe is preserved.’
~The message,~ signed Kendel, wincing in pain. ~You killed the messenger. Whatever truth there was for us to learn goes unheard! She spoke of wars we could prevent, a great burning!~
Sister Emrilia shook her head. ‘No one will believe you if you make mention of that. Give voice to it and you will destroy your reputation, for I will decry you. At best, you will ruin yourself. At worst, you will split the Sisterhood.’ She glared at the other woman, clearly relishing the feel of words on her tongue. ‘Do you wish that, Amendera?’
~You are a blind fool. Arrogant and superior.~ Kendel turned her head away. ~You and every one of your stripe are a cancer on the Imperium.~
‘I see better than you,’ she replied, walking back towards the shadows. ‘My eyes are open to the truth. Only one so divine as the God-Emperor has the right to tamper with the weave of history.’
At the utterance of the word ‘god’, Kendel turned back, a questioning look on her face; but the other woman was still walking, speaking almost to herself.
‘If there is to be war, it is because He wishes it. I am the vessel for His voice, sister, and all who are mute before His glory will not rise with me.’
Herkaaze vanished into the darkness and Kendel closed her eyes. Inside she sought out silence, but it remained lost to her.
Amendera Kendel, Oblivion Knight and witchseeker
Call of the Lion
(Gav Thorpe)
In a storm of kaleidoscopic violence, reality was torn apart. From the seething warp-point burst forth a starship, slab-sided and bristling with weapon systems. Within moments of the warp rift opening, the Spear of Truth had smashed into realspace, and almost immediately its launch bays were opening, shafts of red light spilling from the yawning maws of its hangars.
The battle-barge spewed forth a swarm of unmanned probes that darted out from the warship’s armoured hull in all directions, turning and weaving a complex pattern like bees around their hive, their scanners seeking any sign of immediate threat. A few minutes later, patrol craft erupted from their mechanical wombs on white-hot plasma jets. They formed up into three squadrons, one fore, one aft and the other circling the battle-barge amidships. Thus protected, the Spear of Truth began the long process of slowing its immense speed.
On the bridge of the Spear of Truth, Chapter Commander Astelan was geared and armed ready for battle, as were the rest of his crew, heedful of the standing orders for vessels to be ready to fight immediately. Such orders were not merely dogma. Despite her guns and patrol craft, the Spear of Truth, like all starships, was most vulnerable dropping out of warp space. Just as a man requires time to orientate himself upon recovering consciousness, so too did the battle-barge and its inhabitants need to adjust to realspace.
Astelan was clad in his power armour, as were his three companions, Galedan, Astoric and Melian, each a captain of the companies carried aboard the battle-barge. Their armour was shadow-black, broken only by the red winged-sword insignia of the Legion upon their left shoulder pad and their company markings on the right. The dull grey of exposed piping and cables broke through from under the overlapping ceramite chestplates, coiling under the arms to the backpacks that supplied power to the suits.
Though painstakingly maintained, each showed small but tell-tale signs of wear and tear – spots of corrosion, repaired battle damage and makeshift replacement parts. Astelan had heard that newer versions of armour had been developed, with reinforced joints and fewer weak spots, but it had been more than four years since his Chapter had been in contact for a substantial resupply.
Around the massive figures of the four Astartes were several dozen functionaries clad in simple robes or white coats. Most stood at workstations, while some were on hand with dataslabs to record any orders given by their commanders. The only sounds were the thrumming of logic machines, the chitter of readouts, the tread of boots on mesh decking and the murmurs of the technicians. All were well practised; there was no need for idle chatter, only clipped reports from the bridge crew.