Celestine - Andy Clark Read online

  ‘The Emperor protects!’ cried Saint Celestine, who soared at the front of the army with her jump-pack wings spread and her sword raised.

  The next instant fire and thunder transformed the world. The ground shook beneath Meritorius’ feet, almost throwing her onto her face. Her armour’s inertial dampeners kicked in, compensating for buffeting shockwaves of overpressure. Explosions blinded and deafened her, and as they cleared she saw sundered bedrock and bloody bodies raining from the skies.

  Imperial tanks burned, their gutted carcasses rolling to a stop.

  Wounded soldiers lay and screamed in horror, in agony, in fury.

  Yet the Saint’s light was still there, untouched at the forefront of the assault, shining bright as the Emperor’s own Astronomican to guide their way.

  ‘Do not slow your pace!’ ordered Meritorius, her voice vox amplified to carry over the terrible roar of battle. ‘Sisters, commence the prayer of Holy Abjuration!’ The Sororitas raised their voices in plainsong again, and as they did so a shimmering haze grew in the air around them.

  Artillery boomed. Shells filled the air, whipping both ways.

  More explosions.

  More death.

  ‘Beware the ditches,’ came Captain Blaskaine’s voice over the general command channel. Yet it was not so easy, amidst the smoke and mayhem. Meritorius herself almost pitched forwards into a yawning trench. The metal spikes that lined it made it look like some monster’s starving maw. She leapt the gap, thumping down on the other side. Several of her Sisters were less fortunate, and cries of pain rose behind her as they fell.

  A trio of Leman Russ battle tanks thundered past on Meritorius’ right, cannon barrels elevated. The trio fired, shots whipping away to slam into the ramparts with explosive force. Enemy field guns disintegrated, their ammunition touching off and raising a rippling firestorm that reduced screaming heretics to windblown ash.

  Meritorius bellowed an inarticulate sound of triumph at the sight, that was choked off as a massive shell whistled down and landed upon the central tank. She shielded her eyes before the blast blinded her, but this time she was thrown from her feet. As Sister Penitence hauled her upright, Meritorius saw that two of the Leman Russes were nothing but wreckage while the third was still forging on towards the walls with one track unit half torn away and its hull aflame.

  ‘Keep moving!’ cried Meritorius to whoever could still hear her. ‘Sisters, raise your prayers to the Emperor in this dark hour!’

  She ran again, heading for the walls, following the light of the Saint as it shot away towards the ramparts. Around her, her Sisters’ voices soared and this time the hazy illumination blazed.

  ‘Whatever that is,’ came Captain Maklen’s voice over the vox, ‘keep it up! Look at the enemy gun crews, they’re blinded!’

  Without the benefit of multi-spectral augurs and targetter arrays, Meritorius could see nothing of the foe, but she had faith, and sure enough the enemy’s bombardment slackened as the Sisters continued to sing.

  Meritorius surged through the smoke, still leading more than twenty Sisters of Battle, who in turn led hundreds of screaming Cadian soldiers. Explosions blossomed ahead, showing where the Basilisks’ shells struck the wall yet again.

  They were so close now. This must be it.

  She burst through the last whipping trails of smoke and staggered to a halt.

  Wall section nine still stood.

  Battered. Blasted. Riven with gaping cracks, and ablaze from one end of its battlements to the other.

  But still very much intact.

  Shots rained down from neighbouring wall sections, punching two of Meritorius’ Sisters from their feet. Cadians staggered in behind them, their massed ranks easy targets gathering barely a hundred feet from the foot of the wall. The ravaged remains of the War Engine’s glyph leered down at them. To Anekwa’s eye it looked triumphant.

  ‘Find cover!’ she barked. ‘Suppressing fire against the walltop. Heavy weapons, hit the breach with everything you have. Flamers, burn those heretics you can reach. Faith and determination, sisters and brothers. The Emperor will not forsake us!’ She raised her bolter and sprayed shots up at the walls, hoping against hope that her words rang true.

  Within his Taurox, Blaskaine swore quietly and vociferously. The runic display on his auspex was crude, but it showed him enough. He saw the Saint atop the walls, wreaking a platoon’s worth of butchery amongst the enemy gun crews. He saw the Basilisks continuing their bombardment of section nine. But he also saw the Imperial advance stymied as it reached a breach that did not yet exist. The attack was piling up, spreading out like liquid pooling against a flat surface.

  ‘Spread them out,’ Blaskaine ordered over the vox. ‘Use the shell holes and wrecks for cover. Maintain fire.’

  It was all he could do. His Taurox was halfway across no-man’s-land, picking its way between the ditches, following a pair of Leman Russ Punishers towards the walls. They were amongst the rear lines of the attack, but they would be at the walls soon enough.

  ‘And what then?’ he asked himself.

  ‘Sir?’ queried Kasyrgeldt, lifting one earphone of her headset.

  ‘What then, Astryd? Do we just mass at the walls and wait? We’ll be butchered in a matter of minutes.’

  ‘The Saint said we must have faith, sir,’ said Kasyrgeldt, and Blaskaine nodded in frustration. The churn of emotions in his chest was too complex to convey: that he did feel faith in a way he hadn’t ever, even before Cadia’s fall; that he had to preserve the lives of his soldiers if he could; that every line of strategic scripture he had ever learned was screaming at him to order a retreat and rethink this suicidal assault; that he desperately didn’t want to admit defeat and pull back those assets that could yet be saved, lest he see again those he left behind on Cadia reflected in every soldier who fell during the subsequent rout.

  Instead, Blaskaine settled for a surly grunt. His eyes flicked to the vid-feed from one of Maklen’s tanks near the wall. It showed the Saint, glowing like a star as she leapt and spun along the rampart with her blade lashing and stabbing. Heretics flung themselves at her and were smashed away, sent flailing over the ramparts or hacked into bloody rags. The Geminae Superia fought at their mistress’ side, pistols blazing as they gunned down artillery crews and heretic militia. It was a stirring sight, but alone, Blaskaine knew it still wasn’t enough. Then, over the vox, came a desperate voice that filled his veins with ice.

  ‘Mayday, mayday, this is Gunnery Sergeant Hokwis to any available Imperial forces! Basilisk battery under attack! Repeat, we are under attack by massed cultist forces! Origin of assault unknown, numbers overwhelming! Creed’s ghost, they’ve got Mas’drekkha leading them! Repe–’

  Hokwis’ voice cut out amidst a squeal of static. Blaskaine looked at Kasyrgeldt, her horrified expression echoing his own.

  ‘No artillery, no breach,’ she breathed.

  ‘Throne damn it,’ snarled Blaskaine, trying to thump the console with a fist he no longer possessed. This was not how the attack was meant to go. He had seen the glory of the Saint. He had saved her, for Terra’s sakes! How could things turn out this way? Was this his punishment for Cadia, he wondered? Was it a punishment upon all of them for letting the Gate fall?

  No. This wasn’t the work of the Emperor. That still lay before them, he realised, no matter the odds, no matter the cost.

  ‘This is Blaskaine to all forces,’ he barked over the vox. ‘All small arms, concentrate upon the walltop. Everything heavier than a damn lasgun, fire on the breach. We’ll make a gap even if we have to tear the walls down with our bare hands! The Emperor expects of us, ladies and gentlemen, and we shall not disappoint Him!’

  ‘Noble sentiment, major, but let the armour handle this, eh?’ Captain Maklen was addressing him on a private channel. He frowned, glancing at the auspex to see her designator rune moving towards the
front lines. Several of her most veteran engines formed a spearhead in front of her Executioner, and infantry scattered from their path.

  ‘Captain, even your guns aren’t going to bring that wall down without an awful lot of supporting fire and a Throne-sent miracle,’ said Blaskaine.

  ‘I am well aware of the tolerances and capabilities of my engines, major,’ replied Maklen, her tone haughty.

  ‘Then what… Wait, Petronella, what are you doing?’ He gripped the console with his remaining hand as he realised her spearhead wasn’t slowing. One Russ’ signifier blinked out, then a second. Maklen and the two remaining tanks forged on, almost at the front lines now.

  ‘There can be no greater demonstration of one’s faith in the Emperor than to offer up that which one holds most dear upon the altar of His greatness,’ said Maklen.

  ‘Don’t quote scripture at me now, captain!’ snapped Blaskaine. ‘This is not the time!’

  ‘I would say it is precisely the time, since I shan’t be getting another chance,’ replied Maklen, and Blaskaine heard an undercurrent of sorrow and acceptance beneath her dignified tone.

  ‘Captain! Your experience and skill are required if we are to carry this attack home. Whatever you are planning, I order you to halt your advance and fire upon the breach immediately!’ barked Blaskaine.

  ‘I’m sorry, major, but you know there’s only one way that wall is coming down now. Thing about running helm on an Executioner, you accept early on that you’re essentially in charge of a damn great bomb on tracks. I’ve had a better run than most, and it’s been an honour to serve alongside you.’

  ‘Petronella, there’s another way!’ he said as he saw her tank’s rune break the front line and race for the breach, the two remaining Russ designators peeling off to let her go. ‘There has to be!’

  ‘Faith, duty and sacrifice,’ came Petronella Maklen’s last words over the vox.

  Sister Meritorius saw the plasma tank surge out of the Imperial lines, rolling over the bodies of the dead, ploughing through flames and wreckage. A storm of fire hissed from the machine’s hull, yet miraculously it kept going, shells and rockets ricocheting from its heavy armour. Meritorius knew precious little of the sacred mysteries of the Omnissiah, yet even she could see the way the tank’s plasma coils were glowing alarmingly bright and steam was gouting from its exchanger vents.

  ‘They’re going to overload in the breach,’ she breathed, then shouted, ‘Down. Down and cover, now, now, now!’

  Around her, Sisters and Guardsmen alike shielded their eyes and ducked down as best they could. The tank slammed at full speed into the shuddering wall section, and then the world turned white. The explosion was so ferocious that it extinguished Meritorius’ hearing completely. Everything seemed to stop for an instant, replaced by the purity of holy bright light.

  Then sound rushed back in, the sounds of flaming rubble crashing down, the screaming of wounded soldiers, and the avalanche rumble of wall section nine caving in upon itself.

  Meritorius was up in a heartbeat, blade raised and crackling. She looked upon the remains of Captain Maklen’s sacrifice and felt righteous fury building within her. Meritorius was glad for Maklen, in that moment, for the captain was with the Emperor now, but at the same time she felt nothing but hatred for the heretics who had driven Petronella Maklen to give her life.

  ‘We have our breach!’ she bellowed, her vox-amplified voice rolling like thunder. ‘Praise the Throne, we have our breach! Advance, in the Emperor’s name!’

  Warriors rose, bewilderment turning to fury as they saw the gaping hole where Captain Maklen’s martyrdom had opened the way. As one, the beleaguered Imperial war machine surged into motion and charged for the breach. Meritorius led the way, and as she pounded through the still-glowing rent in the ferrocrete wall she saw the light of the Saint descending from above to lead them onwards.

  ‘To victory,’ bellowed Anekwa Meritorius. ‘To victory!’

  Celestine soared upwards into golden light that shone as bright as the heart of a star. She heard a singing note growing all around her, and her soul sang in chorus with it, for surely here was the divine light of the Emperor.

  ‘We have found that which we sought, sisters!’ she cried, but there was no reply from Faith or from Duty. Celestine realised that the light about her had become so fulminating that she could no longer see the mountain from within which she had flown, nor the churning skies that had loomed above her for so long, nor even her two sisters who just moments before had flown at her side.

  ‘Faith? Duty? Where are you?’ shouted Celestine. Her only answer was that singular note, the ring of cut crystal swelling by the moment into a deafening chime that vibrated through Celestine’s body and seemed to shiver her bones.

  There was no up or down, nothing around her by which to navigate or orient herself. There was only the light, so blinding she could barely keep her eyes open, and the sound, so deafening now that it was all Celestine could do to endure it.

  ‘It is the unfettered might of the Emperor, a last test against which I must prove my worth,’ she told herself, yet so loud had the ringing around Celestine become that she might as well not have spoken. She felt a wetness upon the sides of her face that might have been blood trickling from her ears. She closed her eyes against the glare yet still she could see it even through her eyelids.

  Celestine was blasted by light and sound, saturated with it until she felt as though everything that made her what she was might dissolve and be scattered as motes upon the air. Still she beat her golden wings, striving to climb higher and higher into the light.

  To turn back is to fail in the sight of the Emperor, to be sealed outside the final gate, she thought. To turn back is to be consigned to that purgatorial wasteland forever, or until my soul curdles and rots away amidst the corruption of Chaos. She knew she must press on. She must…

  Yet every wingbeat brought pain more severe. Celestine burned in the heart of a divine furnace. She was battered by tidal waves of sound, pierced by blades of searing illumination and razor-sharp symphony. All coherent thought was driven from her mind, all but that one idea.

  Do not turn back…

  Do not turn back…

  Do not…

  Do not.

  Light and sound vanished so suddenly that it was as though a bomb had gone off inside Celestine’s mind. The cessation of stimuli was shocking, and only after a moment did she realise that she had been, and still was, screaming.

  She closed her mouth and opened her eyes, fighting a heartbeat’s fear that she must surely have been rendered deaf and blind.

  Instead, Celestine found herself sprawled upon soft grass beside a fast-flowing stream of crystal clear water. The scent of flowers reached her nostrils, and as her ears stopped ringing at last she caught the sigh of a gentle breeze through leaves, and the lazy drone of insects.

  Celestine sat up, bleary, bewildered. She felt the gentle warmth of the sun upon her skin, its dappled light falling through the stirring branches of trees that stretched out their limbs to form a dome canopy above the clearing.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Celestine, feeling mistrust rise in her chest. She received no answer, save the gentle chuckling of the brook and the soft soughing of the trees as they danced lazily in the breeze.

  Frowning, Celestine rose to her feet. She was thirsty, she realised, for the first time since she had awoken atop the mountain of bone. She was hungry, too. She glanced at the ice-clear waters that flowed past, and at the fruit bushes that grew here and there amidst the treeline. Celestine shook her head and set her jaw.

  ‘I will not trust anything of this realm, no matter how fair it might seem,’ she said. Yet she could not help but feel out of place, the bloodied warrior in her filth-stained armour, too harrowed in mind and soul to accept the natural bounty that surrounded her. It was as though everything else were a gentle symph
ony, and she the only jarring note.

  Celestine sensed nothing of the Chaotic corruption that had surrounded her in the lair of the worm, or in the ashen city, or upon the mountain of bone. That said, she felt nothing of the Emperor’s divinity in this place, either. Celestine decided that she would not relax her guard. Instead, eyes flicking around for possible threats, she drew her blade and prepared herself for some monstrous thing to come crashing through the trees.

  ‘Faith, Duty, please respond,’ she said into her gorget vox. Static hissed back at her. ‘Sisters, are you out there?’ Celestine tried again, but still received no answer.

  Minutes passed. The breeze shifted the trees with a gentle hiss. The waters of the stream flowed on. The sunlight danced through the branches, spreading a delicate play of light and shadow across the lush grass of the clearing. Celestine felt her eyes drawn to its shifting shapes despite herself, and something tickled at the back of her mind as she watched the soft play of light and shade. A memory, perhaps, moving just below the surface of her conscious mind.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood like that, alive for threats, before a plump and fuzzy airborne insect bumbled through the air and settled upon her right pauldron. Celestine snapped her eyes towards it, ready to slap the creature away at the first sign of a threat. It ignored her entirely, fastidiously cleaning its limbs, turning in a slow and inadvertent circle as it struggled to reach its own hindquarters. It was, Celestine reflected, as absurd a spectacle as she herself must currently make.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ she said, shaking her head and dropping her guard. She brushed the insect away and it set up an indignant drone as it wobbled away through the air. ‘I cannot stand here forever, blade raised against non-existent threats,’ Celestine told herself. ‘If my sisters are lost then I must find them, and whether this is some paradise of the Emperor’s making or just another veil of mists, I will not discover the truth stood here.’