Repentia - Alec Worley Read online

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  Cover

  Repentia – Alec Worley

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Sisters of Battle: The Omnibus’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  Repentia

  Alec Worley

  The nameless warrior felt the rock crack beneath her armoured boots. She grabbed the ridge above her as chunks of stone tumbled away below, leaving her entire weight suspended from the fingers of one hand. Cold terror bolted through her as she looked down past her flailing legs. Torrents of water surged around her, merging into white spray as they gushed down the face of the black cliff, feeding the misty rapids hundreds of feet below. The distant river zigzagged through jagged rocks before disappearing into the jungle, where myriad scavengers would feed upon her shattered remains. This was the land that had devoured her Sisters; now it waited to receive her too.

  Strong hands seized the warrior’s wrist just as she felt her fingers slipping upon the wet rock. Her fellow Sister Repentia squatted above her, bare limbs glossy with spray, bunched muscles bound with crimson rags fluttering in the wind. The older woman glared down at her comrade, grimacing from behind her executioner’s hood, the symbolic veil of the penitent. Starved ribs heaved at her sides, and she adjusted her footing as she struggled to haul the younger Repentia up onto the safety of the ledge.

  ‘Give me your other hand, Sister,’ she barked.

  The brutal weight of the Eviscerator chainsword strapped to the younger warrior’s back threatened to drag her from her saviour’s grip. The Sisterhood of the Repentia wore no harness on which to maglock their Order’s weapon of choice; the sword was their burden, both a reminder of their shame and a promise of redemption to come. The younger warrior knew she could save herself by simply undoing the knotted rags that bound the immense weapon to her back. But she would sooner relieve herself of a limb than cast off her sacred armament.

  She fumbled with the pouch on her belt as the older warrior yelled over the booming water. ‘Sister! What are you doing?’

  The younger warrior retrieved an ancient book, the size of a data-slate, its tattered pages bound in battered iron. Feeling herself slipping from her comrade’s grasp, she thrust the relic up towards the older warrior.

  ‘Take it,’ she gasped.

  The other Repentia snatched her outstretched hand at the wrist.

  ‘You are not dead yet, little Sister.’

  She raised herself with a roar, lifting the younger Repentia within reach of the ledge. Her comrade clambered to safety, and they both fell onto their backs, panting like hounds. The younger warrior lay there, shivering with adrenaline. She didn’t thank her fellow Repentia; she had done so often enough these past weeks that her gratitude was by now a given.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ said the older warrior, her eyes smiling as she pointed to the mouth of a small cave beside them. ‘These cliffs are riddled with passages. We can reach the nest from here, I’m sure of it.’

  The younger Repentia felt too exhausted to move, overwhelmed by aching hunger once again. She got to her knees, still panting, and again offered the ancient book to the other Repentia.

  ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘You’ll live to see the rescue ship, I assure you, Sister,’ said the older warrior.

  The other Repentia gave her a sour look. ‘We’ve both lived long enough under the Oath to know that you can make no such guarantee. You know this world far better than I. Take the book.’

  ‘I’m fortunate to have studied the worlds in this system,’ said the older warrior. ‘I’m even more fortunate to have remembered half of it.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I am merely lucky,’ said the older warrior, kneeling beside her comrade. ‘Whereas you have been blessed.’ She pressed the book back into the younger Repentia’s arms. ‘You found it, Sister, you carved through packs of xenos predators to retrieve it from a swamp-drowned shrine. The Scriptures of Arch-Confessor Maxus Hurn, a relic lost for aeons. And you shall be the one to hand this prize to the canoness upon our return. Beneficia tuum numerare, little Sister. Treasure every blessing.’

  The younger Repentia looked out from the cliff, blinking through the booming spray. She felt ghostly with hunger as she gazed over the jungle sweltering beneath a flawless blue sky. As she stared, the horizon tilted, treetops whirled below, the emerald ocean pulling her into the depths of this primeval world, drowning her in the enormity of what she had achieved. She steadied herself, running her quivering fingers over the hieroglyphs etched into the cover of the ancient book.

  ‘How many of us did they send to find this?’ she said absently.

  The older warrior sighed, her famished belly gurgling. ‘A great many, I imagine. The Ecclesiarchy pinpointed this world as its most likely resting place, but they didn’t have exact coordinates. That book could have been disintegrating at the bottom of an ocean for all they knew.’

  ‘And yet here it is.’ The Repentia squeezed the book, as if to assure herself of its reality.

  The older warrior patted her shoulder. ‘Who better than the faithful to go hunting for a miracle, eh? Now, come.’

  She went to help the Repentia to her feet, but the younger warrior bowed her head in prayer.

  ‘A spiritu dominatus,

  ‘Domine, libra nos.

  ‘From darkness shall your light guide me.’

  The older warrior growled. ‘Our Mistress of Repentance is no longer here to lash us for failing to carry out every last observance. Right now, you need food more than prayer, little Sister.’

  ‘From hopelessness shall faith deliver me,’ she continued.

  ‘From weakness shall your spirit strengthen me,

  ‘From despairing solitude shall the martyrs countless escort me.’

  The younger Repentia made the sign of the aquila, feeling the eyes of her companion upon her.

  ‘My old canoness once delivered a sermon upon that very prayer,’ said the older warrior. ‘Shortly before I…’ She swallowed. ‘Before I took the Oath. She told us that dogma was a formidable ally, that repetition strengthens one’s resolve, but the Adepta Sororitas are not machines.’

  The younger Repentia wiped her face and looked up.

  ‘We are not servitors,’ said her comrade. ‘We are not Space Marines, bolstered by implants and augmentia. We are human, and the God-Emperor inhabits our bodies as surely as He does our spirits. Through the yearnings of blood and heart and sinew, He speaks truths that can save us. Humanity is not a weakness, little Sister. We must know when to trust our flaws.’

  ‘I cannot speak for you,’ said the younger Repentia, her gaze unyielding. ‘But weakness has brought me nothing but disgrace, and exile from the Sororitas. We are Repentia, are we not? Our flaws are what got us here.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the older warrior. ‘And our flaws may yet get us out.’

  With a growl, the younger Repentia sprang to her feet, slamming her startled comrade within the mouth of the cave. Seconds later, a huge shadow slid over the rocks and a rush of air hissed over the huddled warriors. A huge reptile soared close overhead, its immense bat-like wings easily the span of a Thunderhawk. It joined several others, screeching as they circled the jungle in search of prey.

  The Repentia slid the book back into the pouch at her hip and grumbled at her comrade. ‘Are you certain we’re safe up here?’

  ‘We’re safer, certainly. Now that we’re out of the marshes. If I recall my studies correctly, there are worse things in the trees down there than there are up here. Those winged cre
atures – azachtera xenopteryx – leave their nests just after dawn, and their eggs shall make a welcome change from eating grubs and beetles. Follow me.’

  The Sisters Repentia entered the cave and clambered up a rocky tunnel, water dripping from above, trickling down their backs, glistening under their feet. They passed caverns and passages illumined by stray beams of sunlight, the cloying smell of ammonia growing stronger as they climbed.

  ‘We’re close,’ coughed the older Repentia as the tunnel widened. ‘They say Maxus Hurn could summon unbreakable courage with the poetry of his sermons, turn the tide of battle against hopeless odds. Is there anything in that book that could help us with this smell?’

  The younger warrior smirked, despite herself. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, forcing herself not to gag upon the suffocating stench. ‘But, alas, it will take the Orders Dialogus years to piece together a translation, and I doubt we can hold our breath for that long.’

  Her comrade fell before her, cursing amid a flurry of crumbling rock. The younger Repentia scrambled to the mouth of the tunnel and looked out. Her comrade had slipped down a bank of loose rocks and into a huge cavern, open to the sky, its floor a swamp of reeking guano. Her hand on the hilt of her Eviscerator, the Repentia slid down to join her comrade, searching the darkened alcoves for enemies. Seconds passed. Nothing challenged their arrival.

  The older Repentia laughed as she brushed herself off, indicating a nest crowded with huge grey eggs.

  ‘Death can wait, it seems,’ she said. ‘But breakfast cannot.’

  A spear of sharpened bone exploded from her chest. The younger Repentia stumbled back in surprise and horror, her face splashed with hot blood. She found her footing, drawing her Eviscerator as her Sister’s body was scooped into the air, the long bloody spike still protruding from her gushing chest. The corpse seemed to levitate in the darkness for a moment, arms and legs swinging as her monstrous killer flung her aside and knuckled out from the shadows of an alcove.

  Hunched beneath the cavern ceiling, the creature was still over twice the Repentia’s height, its enormous blade-like wings folded under its spindly arms. Amber eyes gleamed either side of a huge pick-axe head that bobbed atop a neck as thick as a palm tree. The long beak scissored open, thick with her Sister’s blood, as it exhaled a warning hiss.

  The Repentia ran at the towering monster, the warrior’s roar muffled by the Eviscerator thundering in her hands, its jagged blade now a screaming, smoking blur. Startled, the creature retreated into the shadows, jabbed at its oncoming foe.

  She barely parried the darting blow, her buzzing blade glancing off its beak, blinding her with a spray of gritted bone. She felt the beast’s head scoop her off her feet, her heavy weapon twisting itself out of her grasp as the creature flung her into a wall.

  The Repentia yelped in pain and tumbled into a mire of guano. The ground trembled as the beast stomped after her. She wriggled away like an eel as the creature’s talons smacked the ground by her head, seeking to pin her. She squirmed further back, lubricated by the stinking slime as the brute clawed at the muck, flapping and shrieking with outrage. The Repentia gagged, choking on the stench of ammonia, eyes stinging, streaming as she withdrew before the creature’s relentless advance. She felt the omnipresent gaze of the God-Emperor, aloof and watchful, judging her worthiness to survive.

  Fumbling through the excreta for a chunk of stone with which to defend herself, her fingers found the eye socket of a bestial skull. She heaved it free, hurled it at the creature’s head. The missile shattered on impact, blinding the monster with its own filth. It screeched and shook its head, wings snapping like sheets as it tottered backwards.

  Drenched in rage, deafened by the hymns of battle bellowing in her head, the Repentia launched herself bare-handed at the beast’s wrinkled neck. The beak speared over her shoulder, slicing flesh. She grabbed the creature’s skull as it drew back. It hauled her into the air, staggering under her weight. She snarled between gritted teeth, too blind with fury to comprehend her own recklessness, as she hooked her legs around the thing’s throat. Locking her long, muscular arms beneath its chin, she tensed, lifting its head as she squeezed, twisting her entire body until she felt the sinews in the creature’s neck tighten under the strain.

  She could feel the creature trying to scream, trembling cords trapped in its throat as she clamped its jaws shut. It swung her into the cavern walls, pulverising rocks with her spine and skull, but the pain only intensified her rage. The Repentia channelled her fury, hot and invigorating, into her powerful arms, her broad shoulders crammed with muscle, her ankles hooked as she heaved, feeling the brute’s tendons grow perilously taut.

  As the creature bucked and lurched in her murderous grip, the Repentia closed her eyes. She would not find death here in this stinking pit. Her glorious demise awaited her elsewhere and she would carve a bloody swathe through the galaxy until she found it.

  ‘Until absolution finds me once more,’ she whispered, as if lulling her colossal prey to sleep. She groaned as she tightened her grip even further and the creature’s tortured ligaments finally cracked like a whip. The huge neck shuddered in the Repentia’s grasp and the monster toppled to the ground. She struggled out from beneath the smothering corpse, wheezing and dizzy as she searched for her dead Sister.

  The Repentia soon found the body sprawled nearby, a tangle of broken limbs, tired eyes gazing up at the opening in the cave ceiling and the sapphire sky beyond. The Repentia shivered as the last of her rage subsided. She dropped to her knees beside the dead woman and took up her hands, pressing them over the ruined chest to form the sign of the holy aquila. The Repentia had performed this ritual countless times upon her martyred Sisters, their lifeless hands limp and slippery as dead fish. But this time, instead of speaking the prayer of repose, the Repentia found herself silenced, clutching the dead woman’s hands, unable to let go. Her heart felt magnetised, fastening her to her dead Sister, as again came that selfish yearning, not to bring the dead back to life, but to follow them where they were going.

  The Emperor had bestowed upon her Sister the blessing of death, finally absolving the Repentia’s terrible sins, while her own redemption had been denied yet again, thwarted by her talent for combat. The Emperor was not yet ready to accept her soul. She felt hollow with melancholy, empty, starving, too weary to move. She murmured a cherished verse from The Repentia’s Lament.

  ‘I shall know victory only ever as defeat,

  ‘Until the blessed Throne restores my name,

  ‘Be it upon my living flesh or be it upon my ashes.’

  The empty cave dripped around the lone Repentia, moist air cooling her limbs, irritating the constellation of stings and sores that littered her flesh. She welcomed the discomfort as a blessing, a reminder of the glorious purpose that now lay before her as she continued her prayer. She pressed her hand against the book stowed at her hip.

  ‘From hopelessness shall the miracle of faith deliver me.’

  Still kneeling, the Repentia removed her dead Sister’s hood. The Sisters Repentia kept their faces hidden in shame; even among each other they were nameless, unknowable. The dead woman had survived on this world long enough for her ritually shaved hair to have regrown into a shock of grey bristles. She was much older than the Repentia had expected, with a narrow, elegant face and lined cheeks, sunken but otherwise unmarred by scars. She had the gentle look of a Sister Hospitaller, a scribe or a librarian.

  The Repentia eventually commenced the litany of repose.

  ‘Before the Emperor you sinned.’

  The Repentia wondered exactly what manner of sin her dead Sister might have committed, whether that sin was greater or lesser than her own. What feats of heroism in the name of the Imperium had she committed to have earned this redemption?

  The Repentia chided herself for the sin of curiosity.

  ‘Beyond forgiveness. Beyond forbearance. Beyond mercy,
’ she continued.

  The memory of her own banishment rose within her like a daemon, her own pain seeking to consume her.

  ‘The Adepta Sororitas turned their backs upon you,’ she told her dead Sister. ‘They cast off your armour and your arms.’

  She winced and shook her head, trying to disperse the dogged memory of her own sacred power armour being lifted from her body, piece by piece, and discarded like scrap. She remembered sobbing so hard that she could barely stand. She remembered hands tugging at her hair, shearing her scalp with a knife.

  ‘You left your company of your own free will,’ she struggled through the words. ‘And by your will you have returned.’

  She felt tears dripping from her chin as she remembered her Battle Sisters turning their backs upon her. It had felt as though she had become suddenly invisible, as if the light of her Sisters’ companionship had vanished, reducing her to a shadow. She recalled the sickening emptiness in her belly, as if she had been disembowelled, as if everything she cherished had been torn from inside her. The sanctity of sisterhood, of belonging, that unity of purpose, that blessed certainty that the woman with the bolter beside you would die for you and you for her. Together you were part of the only truth, the only certainty this treacherous galaxy could ever possibly know.

  She blinked away tears until she could see her dead Sister’s face once again.

  ‘You have found the Emperor’s forgiveness.’

  She kissed her dead Sister hard upon the forehead, tasting blood and salt.

  ‘You are nameless no more,’ she sobbed.

  Something was bleeping, a miniature alarm ringing beside her. The homing beacon at her belt was flashing red.

  The rescue ship. It was near. Finally.

  The Repentia retrieved her Eviscerator, hauling it onto her shoulders as she clawed her way up the rocks towards the cavern opening. Her belly groaned as she ignored the banquet of eggs clustered nearby. As she reached the mouth of the cave, a white Thunderhawk howled overhead.

  ‘Throne be praised,’ she gasped.