Repentia - Alec Worley Read online

  But the ship trailed smoke, scrawling a black line across the sky before disappearing behind the chimneys of a derelict manufactorum, one of countless such complexes the Imperium had erected across the planet centuries ago. A distant boom startled birds from among the broken buildings, followed by a column of smoke.

  ‘Alive,’ she told herself. ‘They shall be alive. I have faith in their deliverance, my lord.’

  The Repentia half bounded, half tumbled down the steep rocks towards the jungle below.

  The trees soon enveloped the Repentia once more, immersing her in a gloomy bath of heat. She darted between the mossy green trunks, slipping on the mulch that carpeted the forest floor. Watchful shadows croaked and hooted at her from the undergrowth. Long-limbed creatures crashed through the branches of the canopy high above. She used the long hilt of her Eviscerator to bat aside looping vines and sopping leaves as she dashed along a familiar route towards the edge of the manufactorum.

  Her eyes stung with the sweat already pouring from beneath her hood, her lungs straining against the steamy perfume of damp leaves. The humid air felt thick enough to drown in. She quickened her pace regardless, as if the jungle might consume her if she lingered, devour her as it had the rest of her squad. The stricken rescue ship was clearly a test of faith. She relished the thought, drawing strength from the agony of her tortured muscles. This world would not take her yet, nor would she let it take those sent to collect the precious book.

  The canopy thinned, gradually parting to reveal brilliant blue sky. The Repentia followed the trail of smoke, dodging through the trees until they gave way to riveted girders streaked with rust and snaking vines. Her boots now pounded on a meshed walkway smeared with leaves and moss. She skidded to a halt, exhausted, crashing into a balcony railing overlooking one of the manufactorum’s airfields. Her knees buckled, her strength dissolving as she fought for breath, coughing as she surveyed the scene before her.

  The Thunderhawk lay on its side like a landed whale, its port thruster still churning smoke into the sky. A torn wing lay beside the furrow the ship had ploughed across the airfield upon landing. It had barged through a crowd of antique tanks, crates and transports, rusted husks that lay strewn for miles.

  The Repentia could see figures in white power armour swarming around the hull of the ship, squirming onto the ground from a buckled hatch. They wore black cloaks, lined with red, their hair dark, faces bare. Battle Sisters of the Sacred Rose.

  ‘Arabella,’ she murmured. ‘Sainted Liberator, I shall not fail them.’

  The Repentia kissed the scraps of a purity seal upon her chainsword and vaulted over the balcony, her exhaustion forgotten. She leapt down stairwells, bounded over railings, until she was sprinting towards the stranded ship.

  She dashed through seams of grass erupting from the cracked rockcrete of the airfield when she heard the hum of another ship. She halted to squint into the sky, shielding her eyes from the fierce morning sun. The Repentia thought at first that what she heard was another Thunderhawk, but even at this distance the ship’s outline appeared strange.

  The surviving Battle Sisters were now fleeing their grounded transport.

  The descending ship gleamed red in the sun.

  The Repentia searched through the tall grass, now frantic. She had spent weeks exploring these ruins with her squad. There was a labyrinth of drainage tunnels deep below ground, built centuries ago to channel the monsoon rains of this world. She scanned her surroundings for a possible entrance, but found only an expanse of overgrown rockcrete.

  The enemy ship’s engines had risen to a steady drone. The Repentia knew it would take out the Thunderhawk first, cutting off any possibility of cover or escape. Then it would wheel back and mow down the fleeing Battle Sisters long before they could reach cover in the outlying streets of the manufactorum.

  At last she found an earth-choked gutter and hurried along it, studying the ground.

  She could hear the cries of the approaching Battle Sisters.

  ‘Here!’ she cried, feeling a twinge of shame for addressing the warriors so directly. ‘Over here!’ But the squad had already seen her. The Repentia looked to the skies and saw the ship diving straight towards her, towards the Battle Sisters behind her and the downed Thunderhawk beyond.

  The enemy ship thundered into a killing run as the Repentia burrowed away a layer of earth to reveal a large drain cover. She looked up in time to see a brazen skull insignia flash upon the vessel’s belly as it swooped overhead, its downdraught sucking the Repentia into the air and tossing her onto the ground.

  ‘Khornate scum,’ she snarled as she picked herself up. ‘Heretic filth.’

  The gunship itself was a glistening red mockery of Imperial design, its hull mutated by the powers of the warp into the likeness of flayed muscle, bound in spiked brass. The Repentia cried out in helpless fury as the Chaos ship unleashed its heavy guns, punching a stream of explosive rounds among the defenceless Battle Sisters below.

  The warriors had spread out to minimise casualties, while fearlessly returning fire with their bolters. Their rounds criss-crossed the air, creating a junction of fire through which the gunship tore heedlessly, bolter shells flashing and smoking along its armoured belly. The Battle Sisters held their ground with the fabled discipline of their Order as the guns of the enemy tore through their ranks. The barrage ripped three of them to pieces, armoured limbs spinning through the air as the gunship continued its run.

  For a moment, the Repentia felt the unholy spectacle burn away her courage, blast her muscles to ash, blacken the world until it threatened to snuff out all hope of her salvation.

  ‘I shall not fail them.’

  She tore her gaze away and retrieved her Eviscerator. Revving the blade, she swung it down, driving it point first through the iron drain cover in a screaming shower of sparks.

  Twin missiles dropped from the gunship’s underside as the Battle Sisters recovered and continued their run towards the Repentia. The whistling rockets dived into the rear of the downed Thunderhawk, igniting its promethium tanks with an earth-shaking roar. The Repentia swung her chainsword again, striking another spray of sparks before the sheared quarters of the drain cover tumbled into the darkness below.

  A thunderous volley of burning wreckage crashed around her as a wall of dust and smoke descended. The Repentia revved her chainsword, announcing her position to the Battle Sisters blinded by the haze. Moments later, bulky white figures hunkered towards her, blinking through the dust, cloaks flapping, pauldrons emblazoned with a white rose clutched in a mailed fist.

  ‘Thank the Throne,’ muttered the Repentia. ‘This way.’

  Aside from a few curious glances, the Battle Sisters ignored their exiled saviour as they hurried one by one into the open drain. The Repentia looked away, pained by their disregard, loath to look upon these snow-white visions of her former self. She heard the gathering roar of the Traitors’ gunship as the squad’s Sister Superior staggered from the smoke, dazed, her head bleeding. The Repentia ran to her side, but hesitated before helping her, as if her sinful touch might somehow pollute the Battle Sister’s sanctified armour.

  ‘Formalities can wait,’ grunted the Sister Superior and threw her arm around the Repentia’s shoulder. Heavy bolter fire thumped the ground behind them and the crimson gunship roared overhead. It cast aside sheets of dust, revealing a wasteland of flaming scrap and ruined bodies.

  The Repentia helped the Sister Superior into the open drain, where she was guided down the ladder by the rest of her squad. The Repentia followed.

  Together they ran down a huge circular tunnel, their boots plunging through a slurry of mud and rubble. A trail of vents bearded with moss and dripping roots lined the high ceiling, disappearing into the gloom ahead.

  The wounded Sister Superior raised her hand abruptly and gestured to the squad. The warriors immediately took cover among the surrou
nding debris, kneeling as they levelled their bolters back down the tunnel. The Repentia readied her Eviscerator.

  Nothing but the echo of trickling water emerged from the darkness before them.

  ‘I am Sister Eunice,’ panted the Sister Superior. She turned to the Repentia.

  The nameless woman bowed her head and went to kneel before the hawk-faced warrior, but the Sister Superior caught her arm. ‘No time for that. The heretics. They’re after the book. Where is it?’

  The Repentia obediently fumbled at the pouch on her belt and presented the Sister Superior with the relic. The rest of the squad murmured in awe at the sight of it.

  A distant rumble shook dirt from the ceiling.

  ‘Missile fire,’ said the Sister Superior, her smile tight as she wrapped the book in sanctified cloth and slid it into a bag. ‘The Traitors must still be aboard their ship, which means they know we’re down here, but they don’t know where exactly. They’ll bombard the surface until they think they’ve trapped or buried us.’

  Another boom shook the walls, louder this time. One of the Battle Sisters dodged as a metal grate dropped from the ceiling and clanged into the water beside her.

  ‘This way,’ hissed the Repentia and scurried down the tunnel ahead, her massive chainsword slung over her shoulder. The squad splashed after her as she read the stagnant rainwater streaming around her boots, east to west. She darted down an identical tunnel on her right, away from the nexus of drains beneath the open airfield and towards the shelter of the ruined factory city.

  Sister Eunice hurried to the Repentia’s side as they ran.

  ‘We’ve already contacted the fleet,’ she huffed. ‘Help is coming. We need to find a hiding place. Somewhere defendable. Can you find us such a place, Sister?’

  The Repentia nodded, shivering with unease. Sister. The word sounded to her like blasphemy. She left Eunice behind as she ran faster, leading the tramping squad through tunnel after tunnel, struggling to read her surroundings by the meagre threads of sunlight afforded by the choked drains overhead.

  Another missile screamed and the Repentia threw herself in front of Sister Eunice, shoving her back as a flash lit up the tunnel ahead. A rippling explosion poured a cascade of earth and bricks into the tunnel, blocking their way. Dark water exploded through a ruptured wall, released from a neighbouring passage. The deluge plunged over the rubble towards the Battle Sisters.

  Trusting to instinct, the Repentia shoved her way to the head of the retreating squad, directing them back into a side-tunnel they had passed minutes before. The water crashed behind them as it passed.

  The Repentia ran on, but the water was rising, its current strengthening as the Traitors’ bombardment forced the drainage to change course. Rats chittered on the slopes of the tunnel either side of her, plump, glistening bodies scurrying out of the water’s reach. Her bare knees bashed through a scum of decayed leaves, her boots tripping on obstacles obscured beneath. The Battle Sisters ran close at her back, their power armour enabling them to jog through the water at a steady pace, unlike the bare-limbed Repentia, who felt as though she were wading through a swamp. Her breathing grew ragged, the atmosphere heavy with the odour of earth and rot, as if the air itself were trying to bury her alive.

  She paused, gasping beside a huge fissure running along one wall. Another volley of missile fire shook the world above and the tunnels echoed with the crash of shattered stone.

  The opening resembled a crude portcullis with thick metal rebar exposed within the crumbled rockcrete, the gaps between just big enough for the armoured Battle Sisters to crawl through. Beyond appeared to be a basement, sunlight pouring through a broken ceiling, illuminating a flooded floor stacked with metal barrels.

  The Repentia turned her back as she spoke to Sister Eunice. ‘You can make for the surface from here. Find somewhere safe.’

  Eunice motioned to her squad. One by one, they struggled through the bars and into the abandoned basement.

  ‘We were ambushed on our way to retrieve you,’ said Eunice. ‘The Traitors must have intercepted our transmissions. They’re from the Abrogatum Campaign. The Blood God’s forces there must be as desperate as we to break the stalemate. Thanks to you, Sister, we may yet stand a chance of doing so.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ said the Repentia, clutching her Eviscerator as if trying to hide behind it. ‘But I am no longer your Sister.’

  Eunice took the Repentia’s shoulder and gently turned her around.

  ‘That gunship will likely be full of Traitor Space Marines, perhaps a dozen of them, along with their followers and whatever horrors they may be capable of conjuring against us,’ she said. ‘And I count nine of us. Including you. Sister.’

  The Repentia winced at Eunice’s obscene familiarity, and ached to shrink from her grip.

  ‘I will not let the heretics destroy the book, mistress,’ she said, watching the last of the Battle Sisters slip through the fissure. ‘I shall strive to protect it so that its sermons may be heard upon the field once more.’

  ‘Should those Traitors recover the book, they shall do worse than destroy it,’ said Eunice. ‘Our blessed canoness believes they’ll reconsecrate it, perform rites in the name of the Ruinous Powers, perverting the relic’s purpose to unleash all manner of warp-born upon the battlefield. Should that happen, the Abrogatum Campaign shall be lost within weeks.’

  Such sweeping talk of campaigns and strategies sounded so grand and distant to the Repentia, almost trivial. She told herself such matters were not her concern. The Oath of the Penitent bound her to the front line, to a world of blood and pain. She had sworn to hurl herself into the fray whenever the opportunity for combat arose. Her fate was not bound to the schemes of generals or tacticians, but to the unknowable will of the God-Emperor Himself.

  One of the Battle Sisters appeared at the bars beside them.

  ‘Area’s secure, Sister Superior.’

  The Repentia murmured to herself. ‘I shall seek the Emperor’s forgiveness in the darkest places of the night.’

  She saw Sister Eunice give her a curious look, her expression somewhere between awe and bewilderment. She followed the Repentia through the fissure and into the flooded basement. Together they followed the Battle Sister up a rockcrete ramp slippery with mould and into an abandoned warehouse, where the rest of the squad awaited them, crouched and ready.

  Centuries ago, the manufactorum buildings had processed a wealth of resin and wood from the surrounding jungle. Now the place lay half-devoured by the very wilderness it had sought to conquer. Strange vines wriggled over the broken walls, entire sections of the roof collapsed, welcoming blue sky and humid air. A compost of dirt, sticks and animal bones buried the floor.

  ‘Sister Superior,’ said one of the Battle Sisters. ‘The Traitors have ceased bombarding the airfield.’

  ‘If so, they’ll be looking to land and hunt us down,’ said Eunice. ‘And I have no desire to complicate matters by stumbling upon whatever species of xenos beast once made its home here.’ She kicked aside a huge shard of eggshell.

  ‘Where next, Sister Repentia?’

  ‘I explored these ruins with my squad, mistress,’ she said. ‘One of whom was a scholar.’ She swallowed. ‘She said the winged beasts have nests all over the outskirts of the manufactorum. We shall need to move deeper into the city, find a shelter less exposed. There!’

  She pointed towards a metal balcony.

  ‘These buildings are of uniform pattern and I recall a network of galleries beyond there, one that connects to the other buildings, sturdier ruins than these.’

  The Repentia hurried on and the squad followed her up a groaning flight of metal stairs onto a gallery lined with shattered windows. She indicated a doorway at the far end and the Battle Sisters filed past, drawing their black cloaks around them to conceal their radiant white armour. The Repentia could hear distant engines. She moved
to a window and peered outside.

  From here she had a good view through the foliage-choked streets to the smoking wreck of the Thunderhawk less than a mile away. For some reason, the Traitors’ gunship was hovering a hundred feet above the airfield. Three men stood on its open front ramp, arms outstretched.

  ‘Cultists,’ growled Sister Eunice, crouched beside her, peering through a small pair of magnoculars. ‘Astra Militarum deserters by the look of them.’

  She handed the magnoculars to the Repentia, who stared at them for a moment, wondering whether it would be a mortal insult to refuse them. She eventually took them and focused on the men. They were shirtless, their muscled torsos streaked with blood from a frenzy of symbols carved into their flesh. The men appeared to be singing, eyes bright with zeal. A hulking figure in crimson armour plodded into view behind them and swatted them off the ramp.

  The Repentia tracked the three figures as they plunged to the ground.

  ‘What happened?’ said Sister Eunice.

  The Repentia didn’t answer.

  Eunice snatched back the magnoculars, leaving the Repentia to consider what she had just seen: three pools of blood and something monstrous rising from each one.

  She clutched the hilt of her chainsword and shuddered with excitement. Death was coming for them and with it her chance for absolution. The Repentia felt the eyes of the Emperor upon her once more, blessing her with the chance to die for Him.

  She went to slip back down the stairs, but Sister Eunice caught her arm.

  ‘We need you with us, Sister,’ she said. ‘The heretics still don’t have our exact position, which is why they’re sending their hunters in to track us down. If we’re quick, we can rig our trail with grenades, bury our pursuers in rubble and disappear until help arrives. But we must move swiftly.’

  The Repentia struggled to free herself from Eunice’s grip, aware that she was listening to reason but unwilling to hear it. She craved combat, felt giddy with need for the warrior’s death she might find in the tunnels below. The words of the Oath rang in her head.