Repentia - Alec Worley Read online

  I shall seek the Emperor’s forgiveness in the darkest places of the night.

  Eunice growled with impatience and grabbed the Repentia by the hood, pulling her close. Forced to finally look upon the Sister Superior’s face, the Repentia found herself transfixed by eyes dark and serpentine.

  ‘I understand, Sister,’ said Eunice through gritted teeth. ‘You must fulfil your oath. But if the heretics in that gunship find us, if they catch us out here in the open, they shall slaughter us, and countless more thereafter should the book fall into their hands.’

  ‘You do not need me, mistress,’ said the Repentia, still struggling. ‘You are a blessed veteran. You–’

  ‘Without you I am lost within unfamiliar and potentially hostile terrain. We need your guidance. We cannot risk giving away our position.’

  ‘I shall seek the Emperor’s forgiveness in the–’

  Eunice shook her, her grip tightening around the Repentia’s hood as if ready to strangle her.

  ‘The Emperor needs you to be His fighter not His automaton,’ she snarled. ‘Now think. Lead us away from here, and absolution may yet find you.’

  The Repentia slammed the hilt of her Eviscerator into Eunice’s armoured wrist, knocking her hand away. Released, she fled the gallery and bounded down the stairs. She heard Eunice bark a command to pursue, but the Repentia was too swift. By the time the Battle Sisters were clattering down the stairs after her, she had slipped back through the fissure in the basement wall. She turned, activating her chainsword, and sheared through the rusted metal bars behind her, collapsing the ceiling and shutting out her pursuers. She fled, splashing back down the tunnel alone, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.

  The Repentia retraced her steps, reciting The Oath of the Penitent as she ran, soothed by the certainty of its words.

  ‘Before the Emperor I have sinned. Beyond forgiveness. Beyond forbearance. Beyond mercy.’

  The Repentia had not abandoned them. The Oath was everything; it was all she was. The Emperor would brook no deviation in her quest, no matter how pressing. She had not abandoned the squad, of this she was certain.

  ‘I leave my Sisters’ company of my own free will and by my will shall I return.’

  Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps she had indeed abandoned them.

  ‘I shall seek the Emperor’s forgiveness in the darkest places of the night.’

  But did the Throne want her to achieve some purpose beyond fulfilment of the Oath? Was Sister Eunice right? Could absolution be found along a path other than death?

  ‘See me and do not see. Know me and know fear, for I have no face today but this one.’

  The Repentia halted at a junction near a wall half-crumbled into a slope of bricks and twisted rebar. She stood ankle-deep in water and felt the bristles beneath her hood suddenly tighten into gooseflesh. A strange static prickled the air, sending needles into her bowels. As she stared down the black tunnel to her left, she realised something other than water was moving over her feet.

  Looking down she saw a living carpet of rats streaming over her boots, chittering in panic as they fled the darkened passage before her. She stood motionless, blinking, trying to clear her vision as the darkness of the tunnel seemed to deepen into something more than shadow. It felt as though the water in which she stood were slowing, thickening, congealing around her feet. The walls seemed to glisten strangely, black as clotted gore, until the curved walls of the tunnel appeared to heave like some monstrous artery. The odour of blood filled her every breath until she could taste it, rich and metallic. She felt warm vapour soaking the bare flesh of her limbs, stirring the blood within as if preparing it to be spilled. The last of the rats had fled, abandoning the Repentia to the crimson darkness crawling around her.

  She giggled, grinning with excitement.

  ‘I stand before you a Sister Repentia.’

  Her fingers squeezed the trigger of her Eviscerator. The chainblade spun, its roar deafening in the dank quiet of the tunnel, announcing her presence to the horrors that sought to kill her. She exhaled, shuddering with anticipation, delighting in the incense of engine smoke and boiling grease. She thumbed a clip over the trigger, locking it. Now the blade would churn whether she squeezed the switch or not. This would allow her greater manoeuvrability, though it increased the possibility that she might carve herself in two with the slip of a blood-slick hand.

  Three hulking shapes resolved into view at the far end of the tunnel, seemingly poured into being by the darkness itself. They crouched within the tunnel, their eyes glowing in the gloom like beads of lava. These daemons were quadrupeds, each as tall as a man, hunched shoulders bristling with horns and spines. Even above the bellow of her Eviscerator, the Repentia could hear them howling from the far end of the tunnel. The sound carried with it an icy crackle, as if their breath issued not from mortal lungs, but from the freezing depths of space.

  ‘Spiritu dominatus,’ screamed the Repentia and charged up the trail of water and rubble towards the daemonic trio.

  Startled by the ferocity of their prey, the daemon hounds ceased howling and scrambled into a bounding run, heads bowed in a bullish charge.

  The Repentia passed her chainsword from hand to hand as she sprang over clumps of filth and stone, whirling the blade about her, gathering an unstoppable momentum.

  The daemons’ mountainous shoulders flashed in the feeble light of the drains above, red reptilian scales gleaming like blood.

  She recalled her sins, her weakness in committing them, letting shame goad her into madness. The Repentia surrendered herself to the holy blade shuddering in her hands. Its vibrations possessed her, her bones trembling, gritted teeth chattering in her skull as she felt herself spiralling into rapture.

  The daemons were almost upon her, two abreast, blocking the tunnel with the immensity of their bounding bodies. The foremost sprang at her, and a ribbed frill fanned from its collar like the wings of a dragon taking flight. The tunnel itself turned into a pair of gaping jaws, fangs bared to snatch off her head.

  The Repentia danced aside, feeling the creature’s bulk pass through the air as she spun, twirling her blade with lunatic dexterity, the weight of it lifting her off her feet as she launched an upward strike at the rearmost of the three daemons.

  The Eviscerator cleaved the creature from its loins to its skull, parting the daemon’s body like a pair of bloody drapes. Hot gore drenched her as she leapt between the two halves of its sundered flesh, pirouetting as she brought the weapon around and landed in a ready crouch. The daemon’s remains liquefied as they fell, gushing like molten tallow, its body dissolving back into the blood that had summoned it from the warp.

  ‘From the begetting of daemons, Lord Emperor deliver me,’ she sang.

  The other two daemon hounds had already skidded into a halt near the crumbled wall. They crouched, pawing aside broken bricks, the frills at their necks spreading and rippling as they snarled, daring her to charge them again.

  The Repentia struck the first of the two daemons only a glancing blow, shearing a horn from its back, before her rage settled upon the second. She drove it up the slope of rubble, a grove of twisted rebar bristling like a phalanx of spears amid the broken rockcrete. The creature backed away, further up the slope, clashing its jaws at the droning blade, seeking an opening.

  She stumbled, pain lancing her leg. Comprehension penetrated the adrenaline fog as she realised the other daemon had her armoured leg clamped in its jaws. She had let herself become flanked, though she was too consumed by rage to care. The creature’s long fangs pierced metal and flesh as it chewed, but the flashes of pain only brightened the Repentia’s wits. She thrust the Eviscerator’s hilt down, denting its wrinkled snout with the heavy pommel, dislodging its jaws, breaking teeth. Its claws dragged a cloud of dust as it slid back down the slope under the force of her blow.

  The Repentia went to swing the chai
nsword at the creature before it could recover, but felt the Eviscerator tugged from her grip. Her hands slid down the hilt, almost slipping from the pommel. The daemon above her had the blade in its jaws, its ragged frill flapping as it jerked and twisted, trying to wrest the weapon from her clasp.

  The chainsword had been deactivated, the trigger guard dislodged when she struck the monster chewing at her leg. Now her fingers were too far down the hilt to reach the trigger. She clung to the pommel with both hands, trying to reach the switch as the hound behind her recovered, glowing eyes unblinking as it dashed back up the slope to kill her.

  Clutching the hilt of her chainsword with one hand, the Repentia grabbed one of the protruding pieces of rebar, its stem still anchored in immovable rockcrete. Aiming the metal prong like a spear, she impaled the reckless monster through the hinge of its jaws, momentum driving the tip through the side of its throat, tearing a hole in its frill.

  There was no yelp of pain, just a convulsion of rage as the daemon hound thrashed its head from side to side. It was trying to free itself but its fury served only to twist the metal pole and snare itself more securely. The daemon’s snarls gurgled as its throat filled with ichor.

  The daemon hound above her had finally retrieved the weapon and was now shaking it in its jaws, aggravated to madness by its owner’s tenacity. The hilt of the Eviscerator slipped from the Repentia’s grasp, dropping her onto the rubble. The other creature was pawing at the rebar wedged in its jaws, bending the rusted pole until it snapped at the stem with a twang. Too wild with bloodlust to consider its own injuries, the wounded monster sprang back up the slope. A spear of sharpened iron protruded from between its jaws as it charged at the Repentia, threatening to skewer her.

  Consumed by an uncanny fury of her own, the Repentia caught the spear, the ribbed steel grinding her palms bloody as she stopped the tip inches from her eye. The daemon hound continued its charge undaunted, its vigour irrepressible as it clawed up the slope, chomping its way down the spear towards her hands.

  The Repentia’s chainsword clanged as it cartwheeled down the rubble, discarded by the daemon above her. The affront to her sacred weapon stimulated a fresh surge of rage.

  Gripping the metal spear, she threw her weight to one side, lifting the hound’s head as she wrenched the metal hooked in its jaws. She pulled, muscles screaming as the bar curved and she dragged the scrabbling monster aside, halting its advance.

  The other daemon, charging at her from the side, collided with its snared twin. The impact shivered down the bar, which sheared off in the Repentia’s hands. She fell back with a yelp as the daemons struggled to their feet, squirming heaps of reptilian muscle trying to claw themselves out of each other’s way. But the woman – lithe, nimble and crazed – recovered first. She threw herself on top of the wounded daemon, grabbing a horn to steady its head as she drove the broken spike in her hands deep into its molten eye, extinguishing whatever unholy spark of life lay beyond.

  ‘By faith and fury,’ she gasped. ‘Mors sacrificiis servire daemonium.’

  The last of the three hounds barged through the thicket of rebar as the Repentia leapt down the slope towards her fallen Eviscerator. She lost her footing but tumbled within reach of the weapon’s saw-toothed tip. Grabbing the guide bar halfway up the blade’s casing, she dragged the weapon on top of her just as the daemon hound pounced, long fangs seeking her throat like fingers.

  Holding the guide bar, she thrust the blade up into the creature’s jaws. It bit down, gouging its gums as it gnawed upon the inert blade. Its molten eyes blazed as it glared down at her, splattering her cheek with blood and slobber. She struggled to occupy the creature’s slavering jaws with one hand while straining to reach the weapon’s trigger with the other. The daemon pressed down on her, still chomping at the jagged blade, its monstrous weight crushing the breath from her chest.

  In weakness, the Throne shall sustain me. A spiritu dominatus.

  Claws raked her armoured belly, tore gashes down her thigh as her fingers reached the purity seals on the crossguard.

  Despite hopelessness shall I serve You.

  The Repentia wheezed, unable to breathe beneath the monster’s massive weight.

  Despite shattered limbs shall I strive for You.

  A blood-wet finger stroked the trigger, but the daemon was too heavy, its strength irresistible.

  Despite darkness shall I seek You.

  It threw a huge paw over the blade, threatening to push it down upon the Repentia’s breathless throat.

  By struggle shall I be forgiven.

  By death shall I be absolved.

  Black spots bloomed before her eyes as her fingers curled around the trigger.

  And squeezed.

  The Eviscerator sprang to life between the daemon hound’s jaws, the weapon now a shuddering lance of noise and smoke that sawed off the top half of the creature’s skull in a fountain of black blood.

  The Repentia released the trigger and hauled the blade aside, dragging air into her starved lungs as the creature’s weight lifted, its spilled blood and lifeless body thawing into red smoke. She lay there awhile, feeling the pulse of her wounds, the reeking water streaming around her. Her rage melted into exhaustion and she faltered into sobs.

  Absolution had eluded her once again. The realisation seemed to empty her of strength. The awful fact that she was still alive meant the God-Emperor had further need of her.

  The rhythmic thump of bolter fire echoed down the tunnels.

  The Repentia sat up. Sister Eunice and her squad were in trouble. Had the Traitors found them? Dizzy with pain and fatigue, she dragged herself upright, leaning on her chainsword. She shook her head to clear it, trying to pinpoint the direction of the gunfire, then staggered down the nearest tunnel.

  Voices battled in her head. She had obeyed the Oath, sought mortal combat the moment the possibility arose. But in doing so she had risked the safety of the squad, jeopardised plans more important than her vow of redemption. Guilt weighed cold in her chest as she realised the truth: she had hoped to die instead of facing the consequences of abandoning Eunice and her Battle Sisters.

  The thunder of bolter fire grew more distinct as she entered another tunnel. She hoisted herself up a line of metal rungs bolted to the wall, shouldered aside the heavy iron lid in the ceiling, and peered onto the baking streets outside.

  A huge avian reptile gazed back at her, the same species of winged creature she had fought in the cave that morning. Its dead amber eyes were level with the pavement, blood shining as it pooled in the sun. Gaping cavities lined its chest, unmistakable evidence of explosive bolter rounds. Above the creature’s remains loomed a stout cylindrical tower bearing a weathered symbol of the Administratum, each floor a vast band of broken gothic windows.

  Gunfire flashed within a cavity in the wall halfway up the side of the building.

  Cursing, the Repentia hurried out from the drain and loped towards the tower. She sprinted for the cover of an arched doorway as the Traitors’ gunship prowled into view. It was circling the building, low enough to raise hot clouds of grit from the ground. A pair of shattered doors lay on the floor within the doorway, covered in a stampede of enormous bootprints that led into an abandoned antechamber within.

  The Repentia slid inside, following the footprints along a floor strewn with ledgers and coils of ancient parchment, everything dark with a layer of grit. She picked her way through the detritus, her chainsword heavy upon her aching shoulder as she approached the riot of yells and the intermittent clatter of bolter fire coming from within the building’s interior.

  Through a half-open metal door at the far end of the antechamber, she saw a bearded thug standing on a metal balcony, his back to her. He wore a filthy vest and carried an autogun. With his other hand, he shook a flashing cleaver as he howled his approval at whatever drama blazed within. Hefting her Eviscerator, she slipped
through the door, but her boot crunched the remains of a shattered servo-skull lying on the floor.

  The cultist turned, eyes wide at the sight of the hooded spectre whispering towards him, pale limbs streaked with blood.

  He lashed out with the cleaver, but the Repentia stopped the blade dead with the hilt of her chainsword. She grabbed his thick beard, yanking him forward as she slammed her forehead into the bridge of his nose with a damp crunch. The cultist staggered, his head tossed back, spouting blood as momentum sent him toppling over the guard rail.

  The Repentia watched him tumble head over heels down a seemingly bottomless well that gaped beneath the balcony. The pit spanned the circumference of the tower, tiered with circular balconies as it descended a dozen storeys below ground.

  She blinked the cultist’s blood from her eyes and looked up. A dozen more circular tiers ascended the tower’s interior, a defunct servo-crane built into the ceiling trailing chains above the abyss.

  The daemonkin were scattered over several levels. She saw the hulking Traitor Space Marines striding among the pipes and upturned auto-trollies, contemptuous of the explosive gunfire raining down on them. Their gibbering acolytes swarmed about them like rats, yelling, laughing, firing about them seemingly at random with a jumble of low-calibre pistols and carbines.

  The Battle Sisters were huddled a few balconies from the roof, the bloody carcass of another winged reptile draped nearby. The Repentia winced as she realised that Sister Eunice must have stumbled upon the creature’s nest in her search for safer ground. The ensuing gunfire had clearly alerted the heretics.

  The Sisters were now huddled among a stack of broken cogitators, three of the warriors struggling to provide covering fire for the rest of the squad to advance up a ramp onto the level above. But the heretics’ fire was relentless in its ferocity, allowing the squad no quarter.

  ‘In Lucia’s name,’ the Repentia sang, invoking The Dirge of the Martyr, the prayer that would be her elegy. ‘Spirits of Sisters fallen, I call upon thee.’