The Bloodied Rose - Danie Ware Read online

  Blade still in her hand, she raised her bolter, and began to recite the Litany of Mettle.

  ‘Et Tu quaeris tibi fortitudinem stare coram nobis…’

  We stand before You and ask for Your strength…

  And more and more of them crept into her line of sight.

  Augusta knew exactly what the creatures were, had faced them before. On the industrial world of Hephaestus, down in the heart of the ash-choked mines, too much death had summoned them, and they had come.

  Come hunting.

  The things were quadrupedal and big; their spiked and sloping shoulders were the height of Augusta’s hip. They had long, yellow fangs, and eyes that burned with unholy light, bright as bloodlust and cruelty. Some had horns on their muzzles; others had back-ridges that spread like batwings. But every single one of them was as red as glistening gore, as red as a newly flayed victim, as red as the Sisters’ own armour.

  As they crept forwards, they stared, unblinking, at the women.

  ‘Flesh hounds,’ Augusta said. ‘Denizens of Ruin.’ She held the gaze of the lead beast and stared it down, confronting the fear, the memories. Her heart pounded as the litany trilled through the vox. ‘They can tear through flesh and bone and metal. Overwhelm servo-skulls and servitors alike.’

  Beside her, Melia had bolter in hand, but her aim was trembling as she watched the things slink low across the floor. They moved like blood, like the rise of night, and the fear came off them in a wave. Augusta raised her bolter, but she did not fire, not yet.

  She watched.

  She watched as more and more of them came into view. They skulked behind the rubble-piles; they lurked in the half-light. Their eyes glowed with hellish colours, and steam rose from their backs.

  She felt like she was struggling to breathe, like there was a knot of tension in the top of her chest.

  ‘Single shots,’ she said. ‘Aim carefully and conserve your ammunition – there may be more. Hold steady, my Sisters. The fear is but an illusion, a trick of the dark. His Light is with us.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Melia raised her bolter and shot a creature in the face. It shook its head and growled at her, teeth bared. Saliva sizzled as it hit the stone.

  At the sound, the others started to snarl, a low, bubbling rasp. It echoed throughout the ruin, rising in volume and fury.

  The air grew thicker still. Augusta’s grip tightened on blade and bolter both.

  Then she heard Jatoya, ‘A morte perpetua!’, saw the fierce whoosh of fire as it leapt in an arc from one side. Two of the creatures exploded into flame; one of them staggered. It voiced a horrific, hollow howling, a sound that almost tore the litany from the air…

  …and then it detonated, a nightmare banished.

  The flames flickered in its wake.

  The second beast, its flesh burning, turned and threw itself at the women.

  Beside Jatoya, Akemi hesitated for just too long; the beast landed full on her chest, knocking her over. Eyes and skin afire, its sharp, slavering teeth went for her gorget. Frantically, she scrabbled backwards, her bolter lost, both panicked hands reaching for the thing’s bronze collar.

  Jatoya leaned down and picked the hound up, one-handed, almost without effort. With pure, physical strength, she slammed it bodily against the nearest pillar.

  Augusta heard it crack.

  It fell to the floor, twitching, burning.

  Firmly, Jatoya brought her boot down on its skull. It exploded with a force that sprayed blood across armour and stone.

  The flicker of the remaining flames made the building dance with shadows.

  Jatoya reached her gauntlet to pull Akemi to her feet. ‘Never freeze in battle,’ she said. Her voice was firm but carried no judgment. ‘You know this, Sister. There is no fear. The Emperor is with you.’

  ‘Aye.’ Akemi’s tone was full of failure.

  ‘Say it, Sister Akemi.’

  ‘The Emperor is with me.’

  Nodding, Jatoya raised the Litany of Battle and Augusta saw Akemi raise her head; she felt her own blood surge in response. She saw Viola stop by a headless pillar, check her field of fire and then take down a single creature with a short, precise burst.

  Caia called, ‘My auspex is broken, I think. But there are more incoming, Sisters. They’re everywhere!’

  Augusta said, ‘To me, all of you. We will hold at the altar!’

  They ran.

  Behind them, the growl rose in volume. It sounded eager, like hunger made manifest, like the creatures of the darkest teachings brought to snarling life. But Augusta knew this, remembered it – she held to the words of the litany and took aim on a skulking hound. Beside her, Melia fired careful, single shots, her breathing tight with fear.

  The creatures’ snarls grew louder; they were coiling to spring, and any minute now…

  ‘Viola!’

  The other four sisters had raced up the steps. As she reached Augusta’s location, Viola turned, raised the heavy bolter and cursed. ‘All the rubble’s in the way…’ As Augusta had done, she took the final step, right up to the altar, and turned around.

  ‘Now.’ Viola grinned, the thrice-blessed heavy bolter in both hands. ‘Sentio de ira Imperatoris!’

  The weapon roared into full life. With it, she thundered the words of the litany.

  All through the nave, the hounds reeled under the suppression. They shuddered and twisted and crumpled under the impacts. They tried to flee but instead whimpered and detonated, vanishing back to the warp. Some staggered sideways, leaving red smears on the floor, others broke into a full lope, leaping forwards with froth on their chests and their teeth bared. Still more, further back, tried to duck behind the rubble, but Viola’s elevation meant they had nowhere to hide.

  Music and gunfire boomed from the headless walls.

  Stone rumbled, and the remains of a pillar cascaded down over the aisle, crushing the hounds beneath. A red mist rose in their wake.

  Augusta shouted, ‘Hold!’

  The bolter was silenced, and the quiet was deafening.

  Dust blew through the air.

  ‘Caia.’

  Caia said, ‘The screen keeps glitching, I can’t read it properly.’

  Viola went to move, but Augusta held up a hand. ‘Stay there. Reload.’

  Unmoving, almost unbreathing, the Sisters watched the nave. Augusta watched the auspex in Caia’s hand. Its light flickered and danced.

  It showed nothing.

  No motion.

  No life.

  The whole cathedral seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

  And then…

  One blip.

  Two.

  Five.

  Ten.

  All clustered down by the main doorway.

  ‘Where are they coming from?’ Akemi asked.

  ‘From the crypts,’ Augusta told her, watching the auspex. ‘Viola?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Hold until I give the word.’

  More of the red shapes were coming back into view now, creeping up the ruined aisle. Augusta said, ‘Jatoya, guard our backs. Akemi, that one, there.’ She pointed her chainsword at the nearest snarling hound. ‘Shoot it.’

  ‘Sister?’

  ‘Shoot it, Sister Akemi, and then keep shooting. Single shots, to the head if you can.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  Aware of Akemi’s tension, Augusta took up the litany once more, and felt the younger woman steady. Akemi raised her bolter in both hands, sighted on the bared teeth of the lead hound and pulled the trigger.

  She hit it clean in the face. Its skull exploded with the impact; the body twisted and was gone. More gore splashed across the stone.

  ‘Good,’ Augusta said. ‘Like that.’ Augusta shot another, and another. She kept speaking over the barking
of the weapon, over the rhythm of the litany. ‘For every stain they’ve made upon this cathedral, we’ll make one of our own. For every death brought by Chaos, we’ll bring a death for the Light of the Emperor. Keep firing, Sister Akemi, and feel His Light as you do.’

  With Viola still standing above them, heavy bolter in her hands and waiting for the order to resume, the Sisters of the Order raised their voices to the broken walls and shot at the incoming hounds.

  But the air was still thickening, still choking them. The beasts surged forwards, and Melia fell back.

  ‘Sister! I… can’t…’

  ‘I said keep firing!’ Augusta’s order was a sharp bark. ‘Switch to short bursts, these things cannot be permitted to reach the altar!’

  Impossibly, their numbers were still swelling; a seething mass of scarlet that covered the floor of the nave and flowed higher and higher over the rubble.

  Augusta could feel Viola’s tautness – feel her itching to open fire.

  She shouted, ‘Now!’

  Again, the heavy bolter roared and the beasts smashed backwards in the sudden blast of destruction. But there were too many of them – as the ones in the centre exploded, one after another, there came others, surging at the flanks. Caia cried out as one bounded up at her, teeth bared and hellish eyes glowing. As it opened its jaws, she fell back, tried to put the bolter muzzle in its mouth.

  But it was too close, and its teeth closed on her elbow.

  She cried out. Her armour splintered as the thing bit down, and her voice hit a crescendo of pain. She couldn’t use her bolter, but then Melia was beside her, shouting, clubbing the thing on the head with her own weapon, over and over and over again, finding a release for her fear in the sheer fury of the action.

  Augusta barked an order. Both women fell back as the heavy bolter turned its suppression towards that side of the steps.

  But the weapon clunked to a stop as the magazine emptied. Cursing, Viola reached for another.

  Augusta turned and beheaded the closest hound, but they were still coming. Still snarling.

  And the fear was still clamouring in her chest.

  The Sister Superior knew that Sister Felicity Albani must have done this.

  Exactly this.

  Faced these monsters, this onslaught.

  And Felicity had surely fallen.

  But her squad would not. Could not. As Viola replaced her magazine and opened fire once more, as the full suppression drove the beasts back, Augusta prayed aloud.

  Because she knew, as Felicity must have known, that these were only the vanguard. Somewhere, they had huntmasters, monsters that drove them on.

  Like the flesh hounds themselves: daemons.

  Her hand tightened on the bolter.

  Daemons that had ripped their way through the mines of Hephaestus, driving the people to madness and screaming death. Daemons that had profaned this altar, this place of the Saint and of the God-Emperor.

  Daemons that had slain her Sisters.

  Viola gave a shout of defiance and victory – the tide was beginning to falter. Augusta gave her the command to drop back, but still the Sister Superior did not lose her focus.

  She raised her own weapon to blow the last of them away.

  But the fight, she knew, was only beginning.

  Chapter Six

  The hounds had left no corpses.

  Daemons of the warp, they had exploded, they had twisted and folded and faded. And like the echoes of bright lights on closed eyes, they had left red smears across Augusta’s vision.

  Caia stood with her hand wrapped over her elbow, blood oozing between the fingers of her gauntlet. The wound was deep, but Melia was beside her, chirurgeon’s tools ready. ‘Witch bane and tetraporfaline,’ she said. ‘This will cleanse and heal the wound. Can you move your elbow?’

  ‘Not very well,’ Caia said. ‘I feel foolish, letting it get that close.’ She turned to Augusta. ‘What did you say these were?’

  Neither Sister had been there upon Hephaestus; they’d never seen these beasts before, never felt their hot breath, never witnessed the destruction they could bring.

  ‘They’re flesh hounds,’ Augusta said. ‘Khorne’s pets.’ Her voice was tight with anger. ‘They hunt us, test our mettle, wear us down.’

  ‘Sister Felicity fought these things?’ Viola asked.

  ‘I would think so,’ Augusta said. ‘But these are not the things that slew Kawa, nor emptied the town.’ She paused, then said, ‘No, somewhere, these things have a master. Something with purpose.’ Her boot tapped, restless, on the stone. ‘And whatever that purpose may be, we must prevent it. Sisters, we have been called here for this, exactly this. We carry His blade, His bolter, and His name. The forces of darkness cannot withstand us. And we do not fear.’ Augusta placed her gauntleted hand on Akemi’s shoulder.

  ‘Confidunt in Eo, Akemi. Believe.’

  ‘I believe.’ The young woman’s response was fervent. Her bolter had taken lives now, and it had not left her hand. And she had not hesitated again. ‘He is with me.’

  ‘Always,’ Augusta said. She let Akemi go, then pulled the data-slate from her belt to call up the maps that Felicity had left them. A wash of pale light bathed their armour.

  ‘We will progress into the crypts,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She pointed, then indicated various other lines on the map. ‘They’re simple, underchapel, valetudinarium, reliquary – we observed them upon our previous reconnaissance.’

  ‘The shipmaster said there were no life signs,’ Viola commented.

  ‘The density of the stone could have defeated the scans,’ Caia told her. ‘The Sister Superior is right – these beasts must have come from below.’

  Jatoya commented, ‘They always come from below.’

  Jatoya had been there, upon Hephaestus. Like Augusta, she remembered the screaming.

  The fire.

  The hooks.

  ‘But…’ Viola studied the map, confused. ‘There’s not enough room. How can they?’

  ‘A breach in the warp, perhaps,’ Jatoya commented. ‘Though such things are relatively rare.’

  Augusta said, ‘Or simply enough bloodshed, somewhere beneath this building… The false gods of Chaos can ­manifest wherever such deeds are performed, even if it is not in their names.’

  ‘I have a suggestion.’ The voice was Akemi’s, surprising Augusta slightly, but she let the young woman speak. ‘During the Great Crusade, the cathedrals of the Emperor were often built upon older, local sites. Perhaps this is true of the town?’

  ‘Just so.’ Augusta placed the data-slate back in the pack. ‘It may perhaps explain the town’s metalworks – dead things, left over from the Age of Strife.’ The thought made her pause as something in her mind caught on the presence of the tech-priest. Jencir had volunteered for this mission to Lautis, and now she found herself wondering why. She considered for a moment, then banished the thought in favour of more practical matters. ‘I suspect the crypts are not as we remember them.’

  Viola snorted, counting her remaining ammunition. She pulled the half-empty magazine from the heavy bolter and replaced it with a full one, slamming the thing home with a noise like pure defiance. ‘Whatever’s lurking down there,’ she said, ‘we will send it straight back to the hell it came from.’

  ‘We will cleanse this place,’ Jatoya told her.

  ‘By His Light,’ Augusta said. She sheathed her sword almost regretfully. ‘Viola, on point. Jatoya take the rear. Akemi, stay by me. We fear neither rift nor daemon.’

  The crypts were high and vaulted, their ceilings and pillars all swarming with dark clusters of roots. Navigating by jury-rigged strips of lumens – more evidence of Jencir’s explorations – the Sisters came to the bottom of the dipped-smooth steps.

  Before them, stone sarcophagi lay in a silent circle. Some bore recumbent,
robed statues upon their lids, each with his or her hands still crossed in the sign of the aquila. They had been swept clear of dust, and candles left upon them. By the dates on their sides, these were the cathedral’s builders, more recent than the Great Crusade.

  But something had changed.

  The air down here should have been still, thick with age. Last time, there had been a single, root-clogged exit – a gap that opened out into an old oubliette – but that had been all.

  Now a hot wind blew past them like the exhalation from a planet-core forge.

  ‘No motion,’ Caia said. Her wound had been bound and treated, but the vambrace of her armour was in pieces, and they could not afford to go back for a replacement. Her left gauntlet was missing completely, her hand and forearm bandaged, but bare. ‘But the air’s at thirty-three degrees, and the humidity’s fallen significantly.’ They held a defensive formation while Caia continued to scan.

  Then she said, ‘It’s coming from the valetudinarium.’

  And there it was – the error that Augusta had made. Something so simple, and something that the tech-priest must have found so easily.

  The room had changed.

  Augusta remembered it as small – a hospice to serve the people of the town. Now, it stretched outwards, far beyond her memory of it and back into the dark – a huge stone chamber, crumbling with age. Augusta could see where the rubble from the previous wall was tumbled at the room’s edges; the marks of Jencir’s servitors were still visible in the stone.

  Beside her, Caia watched the auspex. She shook her head as Augusta glanced around. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Look,’ Akemi said, pointing. ‘What’s that?’

  Amid the tumbled stone at the wallside, there were fragments that looked different – curves like carved armour.

  ‘I recall no statue,’ Augusta said.

  ‘Perhaps it was on the other side?’ Caia’s suggestion drew no answers. Akemi was already kneeling by the pile, finding more of the pieces.

  ‘It’s not very big,’ she said, finding another, and another, and fitting them like parts of a puzzle. ‘It must have been recessed into the wall.’

  Viola stifled a grumble. ‘Do we have time for this?’