Celestine - Andy Clark Read online

Blaskaine snatched up his laspistol and stared hard-eyed at the horrific melee. He grasped the situation in moments, the same sharpness of strategic thought that had served him so well these last years resurfacing amidst that golden glow.

  Though the Imperial soldiery outnumbered them dozens to one, the monsters’ trickery had robbed the Cadians of their advantage and allowed them to crash headlong into close combat. Huge, scale-fleshed hounds with brazen collars about their necks clamped their jaws around screaming soldiers and shook them like bloody rags. Hellish warriors leapt and spun amidst the Cadian ranks, lopping off heads with every sword blow. Grotesque flesh-engines the size of tanks trampled through the Imperial lines, raking them with cannon fire, while barely a hundred yards away the daemons’ lord stomped and bellowed. Blaskaine clamped down on the bowel-loosening terror that the monster evoked, wincing as he saw it swing its mighty axe and smash an Astorosian battle tank onto its side with a single blow.

  ‘Sir?’ Kasyrgeldt’s voice was uncertain as she staggered to her feet. ‘Sir, what was… I saw…’

  Blaskaine nodded, knowing that he must look as haunted as she. He had seen Cadia fall in flame and blood for a second time, and he had thought that was the worst manifestation of the Great Enemy’s malice he would ever witness. But now this, now these abominations for which he could produce no rational explanation. Blaskaine found himself hurled into a war between angels and daemons. Adrift upon such maddened tides, he realised that clinging to his trust in strategy and tactics, firearms and ordnance simply would not be enough to keep him afloat. Understanding dawned in Blaskaine’s mind, ushered in by his veteran’s sense of expediency; he must stay sane and find a workable solution to an impossible situation, one that all the practical teachings of the Tactica Imperialis were singularly insufficient to provide. Thus, as so many had before him, though perhaps not in such stark and pragmatic terms, Major Charn Blaskaine embraced the hope of salvation through faith.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Astryd,’ said Blaskaine. ‘There’s only one word for what we fight here. Daemons. Look to the Saint’s light for guidance, for it is a battle beyond mortal comprehension.’

  Blaskaine shook his head in mute amazement. Saint Celestine stood amidst the Cadian lines, towering over Sister Meritorius with golden light radiating from her in waves. The Saint swung her sword and a daemon fell away, bifurcated. Another lunged at her and she drove her sword point through its skull, before spinning and hurling its corpse away from her. Her Geminae Superia kept firing, their every shot rupturing another empyric entity and sending it screaming back into the void.

  As the golden light spilled from the Living Saint, so it dispelled whatever foul glamour had beset the Cadians. Soldiers staggered to their feet, blinking or praying or scrabbling for their guns. Stalled Leman Russ tanks shuddered as their crews restarted their engines and tracked their turrets to new firing solutions.

  ‘Charn,’ came Captain Maklen’s voice over the vox, woozy as though she’d just awoken. ‘What in the Emperor’s name was that?’

  ‘Deviltry, I believe the Saint called it,’ said Blaskaine, feeling his anger surge. ‘Cruel visions meant to render us victims.’

  ‘Cadians will never be victims.’ He heard steel returning to her voice, her indignant anger matching his own.

  ‘Cadia stands,’ snapped Blaskaine, checking the load on his laspistol and wiping blood from his eyes.

  ‘And so it shall forever unto the ending of the Emperor’s light,’ agreed Maklen. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, major, I’ve got crews to shake into action.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Blaskaine, feeling more himself by the moment. And furious. He felt absolutely furious. The worst and most difficult moment of his life had been turned into a weapon to undermine his steely Cadian discipline, to accuse him of unworthy cowardice; it was a violation of his mind and soul. Worse, it had cost the lives of dozens of his men as he lolled in the dirt.

  ‘No more,’ he snarled, grabbing a vox handset from inside the Taurox and pulling it out on its unravelling cord. Fear still threatened to turn his legs to jelly and crush the breath in his chest, but Major Blaskaine’s anger and his newfound spark of faith were enough to drive the feelings back. No matter his personal terror, the major thought, his soldiers must see only Cadian courage.

  ‘Blaskaine to all Cadian soldiery,’ he barked. ‘Get your sorry selves up out of the mud and open fire at once. Feel the Saint’s light on your souls. Flamer squads, move up and purge line breakers. Heavy weapons, target those combat walker… beasts… the six-legged things with all the guns. Pray to the Emperor and push these monsters back. Cadia stands! The Emperor protects.’

  He saw his warriors rallying as the Saint’s light bathed them and his words cut through their terror and madness. Lasguns and plasma guns flashed. Grenades thumped. To his rear, tanks jumped as their cannons discharged, shells streaking through the bloody air to blow daemon engines to pieces.

  Then the daemon lord turned towards him, and Blaskaine’s blood ran cold. It trampled corpses into the mud as it strode towards him. Its whip lashed out and snatched a Battle Sister from her feet, hurling her through the air to crunch into the side of a tank with bone-breaking force. Its axe swung, and a tank was cloven almost in two, flames and smoke exploding from within.

  Without hope or reason, Blaskaine raised his laspistol and fired, again and again. The beams of energy flashed from the daemon’s breastplate, leaving no discernible mark. Kasyrgeldt raised her shotgun and added her own fire to his. It made no difference.

  The daemon lord stormed towards them, fire licking from its nostrils, vast bat wings spreading behind it.

  ‘It has been a pleasure, sir,’ said Kasyrgeldt. ‘No matter what happened on Cadia, it’s been a damned honour.’

  Blaskaine felt a wash of gratitude towards his adjutant, then the daemon’s shadow engulfed them and brought cold terror with it.

  There came a flash of light, a flare of fire, and something streaked like lightning across Blaskaine’s field of vision. Something wet and scalding splashed him, and he fell back with a yell of pain. Blaskaine hit the ground and his gun spilled from his hand. He looked up and there she was, standing over him, wings spread and Geminae Superia stood at her side. The daemon loomed above them, but something was wrong with it. More wrong, Blaskaine corrected himself, feeling faintly unhinged.

  Its head looked strange. Deformed. And then a great chunk of the daemon’s helm simply fell away, taking a chunk of its skull with it. The daemon staggered, half blinded and with boiling ichor spilling from its grievous wound. Celestine flicked bubbling gore from her blade and looked defiantly up at the monster.

  ‘Come then, daemon. Do your master’s bidding, and I shall do mine.’

  The daemon bellowed and swept its axe in a scything arc, moving far faster than anything so massive had any business doing. Celestine parried, but the force of the blow was enough to throw her sideways into Blaskaine’s Taurox. The vehicle rocked on its tracks with the force of the impact and Blaskaine cried out in horror.

  The Geminae Superia leapt skywards on trails of fire, unloading their bolt pistols again and again into the daemon. It bellowed and swatted at them as shells punched into its flesh and detonated to leave gory craters. It lashed out with its whip and struck one of the Geminae from the air. She slammed into the ground near Blaskaine, and groaned in pain as she rolled over, stunned and bleeding.

  The daemon turned towards Celestine, stomped towards her, raised its axe.

  Blaskaine didn’t think. He surged to his feet, snatching one of the Sister’s bolt pistols, and placed himself between the monster and the fallen Saint. Blaskaine squeezed the trigger and sent one, two, three self-propelled shells slamming into the daemon’s ravaged face. They detonated in quick succession and wrenched the daemon’s head sideways, ichor spraying from the wound.

  For a scant second, Blaskaine allowed himself to belie
ve that he had slain the monstrous thing. Then it turned the ravaged remains of its face back towards him, and he saw nothing but psychotic murderlust burning in its remaining eye. The daemon swung its axe back and then swept it towards him. Blaskaine felt a thunderous impact, then everything went black.

  Consciousness, a return to pain, to a quest unfulfilled. Celestine opened her eyes and saw Faith and Duty standing over her, their wings furled about their shoulders, their burning brands in hand. They looked down at her expectantly, and for a moment she felt nothing but exhaustion.

  She knew now who and what she was and understood something of the eternal task she was sworn to. Yet still she didn’t know precisely where she was, why or how she found herself in this place. Her only certainties were that she had to follow the Emperor’s light onwards, and that whatever forces were arrayed against her in this place, they surely weren’t done testing her. The thought of struggling on just made her feel so tired that for a moment she almost let her eyes close again. Then she thought of how far she had come already, the dangers she had overcome, and the face of a little girl who was lost somewhere in this hellish realm.

  It was that last thought that drove Celestine to her feet.

  ‘How long?’ she asked Faith and Duty.

  ‘Time has little meaning here,’ said Faith.

  ‘Long enough to recover some strength, at least,’ added Duty.

  Celestine nodded. She gathered her blade up from where it lay near the Executioner’s mangled remains. Part of her had hoped that her wings might have been restored through rest, but a flex of her shoulders told her this was not the case. There was nothing there but a deep ache, the sharp soreness of wounds freshly closed. Every joint in her body ached, every tendon and muscle felt stretched past its tolerances, and she could feel every bruise and abrasion from her battles with the daemonic entities of this realm.

  Celestine squared her shoulders and shut it all away, deep in her mind. She inspected her blade, as much to give herself a moment to find her centre as to ensure the weapon was in good condition. She’d already known it would be clean, shining, without nick or notch. She knew that the weapon was a gift from the Emperor and that meant it was impervious to the corruption of this place. She hoped that the same was true of her.

  ‘The cave, then?’ It wasn’t really a question. She could see the glimmer of the Emperor’s light, impossibly high above, but without wings there was no way that she could continue the ascent up the mountain’s face. Her limbs hurt at the mere thought.

  ‘It seems the only route forward,’ said Faith. ‘And where there is a path to follow, you can be sure that the Emperor has placed it before your feet.’

  ‘Before we move, Duty, the girl…’ Duty shook her head. Celestine noticed she looked younger now, her hair darker, her features a harder facsimile of Faith’s.

  ‘I am sorry, Saint, but I know no more of the child than you do yourself,’ Duty said. ‘If you do not yet remember who or what she is, or why you care for her so, then I can no more tell you than you can tell yourself.’

  ‘And neither of you knows where she went? I saw her, looking over the ledge shortly before I reached it.’

  Faith and Duty exchanged a glance, shook their heads apologetically.

  ‘I did not see her, Saint,’ said Faith.

  ‘Nor I,’ said Duty. ‘But I can offer you this gift. My service, Saint, always, and my blade.’

  With that, Duty knelt and presented the blade she had borne upon her back. As before, Celestine laid her own sword against it, and in a flash of light the two blades became one. Duty rose, burning brands in hand, and nodded once to Celestine with an unreadable look upon her face.

  Celestine took a last look back the way she had come, the warm wind tousling her hair as she gazed from the cliff face out over the formless, hazy wastes at her back. Then she turned towards the jagged cleft in the rockface to her fore and, feeling the faint candle’s warmth flicker upon her face, she walked into the darkness.

  The cave, it transpired, was more of a fissure. It was jagged and narrow. Celestine, Faith and Duty were forced to pick their way carefully into the gloom, avoiding wickedly sharp shards of crystal that jutted from all around. Strange fires shimmered deep within the walls, clashing with the illumination from Faith and Duty’s brands and causing weird shadows to dance and jerk around them.

  ‘At least we don’t walk in darkness,’ said Duty.

  ‘Rather darkness than the illumination of the unclean,’ replied Faith, picking her way around a vicious nest of crystal blades.

  ‘It is the Emperor who provides our illumination,’ said Celestine.

  She pressed on, her sisters advancing in her wake. As she did, a strange scent assailed her nostrils. It began as a curdled taint to the air, a slight tang of something sulphurous and sweet. The subtle scent became a rotten stench as they pressed on, and soon all three were breathing through their mouths and recoiling from the reek of putrefaction that swirled around them.

  ‘Something unutterably foul lies ahead,’ said Duty. ‘Yet that is our path.’

  A grey-green mist was drifting around their feet now, and Celestine noticed that the crystal walls were streaked with veins of something black and slimy. It spread like capillaries beneath the glinting surface, pulsating slightly and resembling nothing so much as rot or mould.

  The fissure ended abruptly, emptying out into a huge cavern. No, Celestine realised, it was not a cavern.

  ‘A tunnel,’ she said aloud. Roughly circular in shape, the tunnel’s floor and ceiling were hundreds of feet apart, its walls equally far-spaced. It stretched away to right and left, with numerous fissures like the one they had crept through radiating out from it.

  It was also noxious. The black fingers of rot became radiating root systems here, burrowing through the surface of the broken crystal on every side. A slick of thick, dripping slime coated the walls and ceiling, and pooled in a stagnant mire upon the tunnel’s floor. It was the colour of rancid pus, shot through with vivid streaks of what looked like diseased blood.

  ‘Emperor protect us from the corruption of Chaos,’ said Faith, choking on the revolting fumes that rose from the mire.

  ‘Where now, Saint?’ asked Duty. ‘Do we follow this noisome tunnel or try to find a route onwards through another fissure?’

  ‘This tunnel was not manufactured, but rather burrowed. These side-passages are nothing but cracks, where the over-stressed crystal has fractured due to the passing of something huge,’ said Celestine. ‘I don’t believe they will lead us to anything but a dead end. Besides which, I feel the Emperor’s light blooming against my left cheek. I believe that is our path.’

  ‘The sinister side,’ breathed Duty. ‘Perhaps we will be fortunate, and whatever abomination created this passage has moved away to our right.’

  ‘Do you truly believe it would prove so easy?’ asked Faith. Duty snorted and shook her head. Celestine offered them both a grim smile.

  ‘We will be tested, and we will prevail. It is the way of this place and the will of the Emperor that it be so. Come, sisters. Let us not keep our destiny waiting.’

  The passage snaked through the crystalline bedrock with a slow, undulating motion. It wound on and on, thick with billowing gases and a heavy stench of rot. The slurry that coated the floor varied in depth, so that one moment they might be trudging through ankle-deep filth, only to find that the next it reached up to their knees or even, for one intolerably revolting stretch, their waists. Celestine was thankful for the sealed armour that covered her body and kept the slime from touching her skin. She felt for her sisters, whose robes provided no such protection. Soon enough they were utterly caked in gangrenous liquid, their faces pale with nausea.

  Unnameable things floated amidst the slime, clots of matter and rotted bone that Celestine felt no desire to investigate. The mucal effluent that coated the walls became thi
cker the further they pressed on, dripping in heavy glops to land with noisome plops in the sludge of the tunnel floor.

  Again, Celestine found her sense of time fluctuating. It was hard to say how long they pushed on through the river of filth, the tunnel snaking lazily through leftward and rightward bends, passing through crystalline grottos where stalagmites had been bulldozed aside and left to jut up from the slime in shattered pieces. The journey felt as interminable as the climb before it, an endless wading trudge with no end in sight.

  As they picked their way out of another deeper mire and saw the tunnel arc once again to the right, Faith stumbled. Celestine caught her and pulled her upright again, but she saw to her alarm that Faith’s skin was sheened with sweat and her eyes were red-rimmed and feverish. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks and neck, and she was shivering as though palsied. The fires of Faith’s brands had died, leaving her clutching a pair of blackened sticks.

  ‘Saint, I am sorry, this place…’ gasped Faith. ‘I ail.’

  Celestine looked at Duty, who stood pale and grim-faced but otherwise untouched.

  ‘We will support you, sister,’ said Celestine, ignoring the aches and pains that howled from every inch of her body. She swung one of Faith’s arms around her shoulders and Duty did the same on the other side. So they pressed on again, slow ripples spreading away from them as they ploughed through the nightmarish river of filth.

  From around the next bend, Celestine heard a low murmur of sound, growing steadily in volume as she drew closer.

  ‘Voices?’ asked Duty.

  ‘The moans of the damned,’ croaked Faith. Celestine felt herself grow cold at the awful sound, felt the hairs rise on the nape of her neck.

  Faith’s prophecy was borne out as they rounded the slow bend to a ghastly sight. The tunnel bored away from them, arrow straight and disappearing into a haze of brownish-green gases and whirling motes that Celestine realised were flies. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel writhed with movement, and it took her a moment to make sense of it. When she did, Celestine’s mouth drew down in horror and revulsion.