The Fallen Saint

[Lady_Canoness]

Post #100, it seems fitting that it should be another Installment of the Saint Ascendant.

 

I haven't posted in a while, and that is because while I am still putting as much effort as before into my work (actually, I'm probably putting more into it), I am finding it increasingly difficult to write in a way that I think will yield popular results. Also the most of my writing up to this point revolves around war and battle, so it is naturally difficult for me to tackle tranquility when I'm accustomed to battle and bloodshed.

 

But enough about that!

 

This installment (as I said before) is unusual for me in the way that I tackled the more human side of the Battle Sisters, focusing on rather what makes them who they are as people rather than what makes them the Holy Warriors for the Emperor's cause. This installment is a lot more personal in its aproach, and the relationships between the Sister's themselves and their lives is explained. In this section I really wanted the characters to come alive for the reader - making them people rather than women with guns. I cover topics such as friendship, faith, betrayal, and duty as well as many other topics in a Sister's life.

But before anyone skips this installment because it cannot quench one's thirst for awesome battle scenes, I should note that this installment is essentially what kick-starts the descent and fall of Aribeth - this sets things in motion in such a way that there is no turning back.

 

Finally, one last note: This Installment is a MONSTER - the biggest one so far by far - so it is divided into two seperate posts, and the second part shall be up shortly.

 

With no further delay, I give you:

 

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The Seventh Installment of the Saint Ascendant <part 1 of 2>

 

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A trickle of dingy water dragged itself slowly down the wall – crawling to the right, crawling to the left – as it fumbled through nooks, crannies, and around oblong pebbles that jutted from the rockcrete. Carefully it crept downwards, until it chanced upon a great gouge in the wall. It paused, pooling as it considered… then it jumped - twisting through the darkness, it drew upon itself before landing with a tiny plop into the stagnant puddle that welcomed it.

The man twitched, his senses aware of the lazy drip… drip… drip… and nothing more.

A rat the size of his foot scampered between his legs – ignoring both man and chair in which he sat as it scurried through the dark on its daily quest for survival.

He could not see the rat, dark as this room was, but he could hear it – the claws scritch-scratching across the floor, the tiny ragged breaths as it sucked upon the moisture laden air.

It disappeared, and Bonis listened to it go – saddened that he should lose his only companion during his ruined state.

But he was not alone. He had regained consciousness in this dark dank place that seemed void of all things good in a man’s life, and here he had sat for what may have well been hours – not that he could tell – his mind numb and senses useless. But he was not alone. He did not know how he knew, for he had heard or felt nothing from his comrade that waited in the dark, yet somehow he knew that someone – or something – was not more than a few paces from him, quietly waiting out the torment of silence in the dark. He had tried to speak, to call out to this enigma of the blackness, but his voice, like his body, was captured here in this dark room, on this brittle chair, and he could not send it forth.

He listened to his own breathing – short, burdened, and defeated – as he hung his head low towards a lap that he could not see.

And then something changed.

He did not know what it was a first – a low pervasive hum that swept into his life and wrapped itself around his being – before his world was rid of the blinding darkness, to be replaced by the blinding presence of light.

A creaking grind reverberated all around him, and when he opened his eyes Bonis found himself sitting in a small brightly lit stone-walled room, its mottled door swinging outwards with a tortured groan. As he watched a troupe of figures entered the room.

An ancient looking man walked at their fore. He wore a deep azure gown with inlaid gold lace linings and had several smoothed leather pouches hanging from a finely crafted belt. His long boney hands wore several jewelled rings as well as other sparkling trinkets, and he held a tight packet of papers in his talon-like grip. The old man stepped aside into one of the corners furthest from where Bonis sat fastened in his increasingly uncomfortable chair.

The old man was followed a toad of a man; his triple chins waggling slightly above a high starched collar that appeared to be strangling him as he plodded through the door. He moved with effort over to the opposite corner of chamber before slowly turning himself around to face Bonis, dabbing the corners of his wide tear of a mouth with a laced cloth before wedging an eye-piece firmly between his brow and cheek. This man – if he indeed qualified as such - was also finely dressed in a long crimson gown that concealed his podgy little legs, and a small waistcoat that looked as if it was so stressed to cover its owner’s bulk that it was near bursting.

Third through the door was a small servitor that skidded over the ground on caterpillar treads towards Bonis, and stopped right in front of him. He looked at it, his aching mind trying to bring some semblance of focus on to this construct that had halted before him. Its mechanical shoulders were squared and flat, rising above its small human head to form a large flat rectangle around knee height above the rest of its block-like body.

A woman then entered the room, and Bonis’ bloodshot eyes were immediately drawn to her. She wore a form fitting navy-blue body-glove that left little to the imagination, and walked with an air of calm confidence and purpose. It was not until she ducked under the doorframe and the toad man’s bulging eyes instantly flew to her – tracing her form up and down with gluttony – that Bonis noticed that she was outrageously tall – a giant – seven feet at the least. Yet this did not diminish her lean physic in the slightest, and she seemed to fit her height perfectly – long legs and an elegant torso with a full set of curves – long limber arms - a heart-shaped face with striking violet eyes, a dash of short red hair, and freckles that danced across her cheeks and nose – she was a delight to look at, and it seemed that the toad man would agree with him. However, her striking allure was offset by the blades she had strapped to her body. Bonis counted at least a dozen knives, two short bladed katanas, and a pair of needle-fingered gauntlets that stretched from her forearms up to her sweeping hands. She looked at him for a brief moment, like a cat eyeing a trapped mouse, before stepping aside and admitting that last member of the group.

The geezer and the toad-man might have well been visiting a morgue in comparison to this man. An immaculate dress coat of bright scarlet with fineries of black, white, and gold sat comfortably on his shoulders, and the frilled cuffs embraced his wrists with the finest of fabrics. His boots were spotless and rose up to his knees where they met flawlessly pressed white pants that were snug to his thighs. Bonis almost gagged when he saw the counterfeit bulge that marked the presence of a generously stuffed codpiece. But even more offensive than the man’s oppressively large phoney crotch was the unbearably strong smell of perfumes that struck Bonis’ nose with such force that he was sure that he would suffocate should the man remain in the room any longer. To worsen the situation, he held a thin tobacco stick delicately between his fingers, the pong of which reminded the bound man of a cross between rotten fruit and an overflowing latrine in the middle of summer.

The man regarded the prisoner with curious interest before craning his neck to look up at the woman by his side; “He didn’t cause too much of a disturbance I trust?” he asked, his voice casual, as he took another drag on the tobacco.

The woman murmured something in reply, something that Bonis could not hear even in the unnerving silence of the room.

“Good,” the man said, handing the smoke to the toad with a careless gesture of a hand that was covered in glittering jewellery. The toad took it like a dog would scraps at supper, and quickly extracted a long silvery tube in which he imprisoned the still smouldering tobacco. Maybe he was afraid that the room would ignite under the high concentration of his master’s odour…

“The fewer witnesses the better.” He turned and smiled affectionately to the woman before standing on his tip-toes to place his lips softly on the woman’s cheek – an act that seemed to please her – though the toad looked as if he had just swallowed the tobacco stick while it was still lit.

“You have done well, Mercy, you may go.”

The woman murmured something else to the man that made him grin even more, before stooping back out the door. Everyone’s eyes save that of the old man and the brainless servitor watch her go.

The door creaked shut, and the man approached Bonis and sat down comfortably on the servitors back, studying the prisoner before him as if he were a priceless piece of art that he wished to acquire.

“Tell me, what is his condition?” he said, apparently to no one.

“Stable,” replied a monotone voice from outside of Bonis’ arc of vision. He hadn’t been alone after all – there had been another one behind him all this time. How come he couldn’t feel him?

“Elaborate.” the man sitting before him asked, his eyes never leaving Bonis.

“The subject’s abilities are sufficiently weakened due to high doses of neuro-paralytics, and what I would assume to be mental atrophy. The subject’s inferior mental recovery methods have allowed efficient compensation on my behalf with minimal expenditure of energy, resulting in a potentially longer session.”

The man removed his eyes from Bonis and glanced past him to the source of the voice.

“Good,” was all the man said, before drawing his attention back to the prisoner.

“XA-74218C, it is good to see you again, after – what? – twenty-seven years?” he said casually to Bonis.

Bonis struggled with the words in his head, trying to voice a retort, but nothing came.

“So tell me XA-74218C, why did you come here after all this time?” he asked in dismissive tone, checking his pristine nails before looking back into Bonis’ eyes.

He was breathing heavily, and drool was leaking from his mouth in a long string. The toad looked repulsed – the ancient looked uncaring as he scribbled notes – the man looked stern.

“Focus,” he said.

Bonis’ mind throbbed, swirled, and then sharpened, and he blinked several times before shutting his mouth and looking back at the man.

“Mind refocused, 78.8%,” the voice said from behind him.

“Why did you come here?” the man asked again.

“It’s my home,” Bonis replied, his voice drawn but steady, “I wanted to hide.”

“True opinion,” the monotone voice announced, “subject is saying what he truly believes.”

“What do you know about this uprising?”

“N-nothing.”

“Irregular brain patterns – subject is lying.”

The man leaned forward until his face was but a few inches from Bonis’; “Tell me the truth,” he said in an unreadable calmness.

“I – I don’t know.” Bonis stammered.

“Lying.”

“Quid,” the man called without turning his eyes away from Bonis. The toad shuffled over as fast as his bulk would let him, drew a small wand-like instrument from the fold of his coat, and handed it to the man who accepted it without a word. He played the wand through his fingers for a moment – eyes never leaving Bonis’ sweating face – then twisted a small clasp at the end, sliding a long needle point out from the instrument.

“The truth,” he whispered.

Bonis didn’t answer - then screamed out in pain as the man stabbed the needle into his thigh and drew it out with a quick flick of his wrist. His leg went numb in seconds, and soon he lost all feeling from his groin to his toes.

“The next one,” the man said, waving the needle-wand for emphasis, “goes in your eye.”

“Focus,” he called again.

Bonis’ mind suddenly became sharper.

“Mind refocused 47.3%,” announced the voice.

“Who – who are you?” Bonis fumbled.

“I am in charge of your miserable life, XA-74218C, and last I looked, I was asking the questions here, not you.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Bonis blurted, not registering the man’s answer.

He didn’t notice that the needle was in his eye until he felt blood seeping from his eye socket and sliding down his cheek – his screams of pain and alarm reverberated around the room.

“Focus and take him,” the man called, edging his servitor seat backwards to avoid getting blood on his clothing.

Intense pressure surged through his head, and he felt sure that he would die here in this dingy room at the hands of his unknown tormentors. Then suddenly… it stopped. He brought his head back up and blinked his one good eye towards the man, who brought his servitor seat back closer to Bonis. Though it seemed… odd. It seemed as if he were watching through his eyes… watching what his eyes saw… like a spectator in his own head. Then he heard his own voice speaking:

“I am BonIS!” his voice said in an unusual quirk.

The man sighed and looked towards the voice expectantly.

Bonis’ voice continued to speak in an odd way; “I see red fields in my dreams. Dreams of blood! Flaming madness! A broken ship in the earth. Giants of death! Terror. Terror! They are watching me – always watching me. They have found me! I am Bonis! A dark man! A dark woman! Death! Snow and Ice! Help! Help! I am Bonis!”

Suddenly his voice died, and his head flopped down unto his chest. He remembered it all to well – his dreams of the last twenty-seven years – the constant fear of the dark – knowing that somehow something terrible would occur.

The man sat quietly in his seat and arched his finger-tips. “Is that all?” he asked after a pause.

“Yes, it would appear so,” the voice said, “the subject’s brain activity suddenly just… vanished – it’s like he wasn’t even there anymore – I was forced out…” the voice was obviously puzzled by the turn of events, “I – I am sorry Inquisitor, but we may have acquired enough information to proceed.”

“That is past the point,” Inquisitor Montrose said sharply, getting to his feet, and turning towards the door, “I wanted him alive, he is of no use to me dead!”

“I am sorry my lord, but I… wait…”

Montrose turned around.

The prisoner’s head was slowly rising from its chest -bones audibly crunched and snapped as the body moved against its will. The prisoner was looking Montrose full in the face with empty bloodshot eyes. Then it started to wail. Its jaw snapped as its mouth extended impossibly wide – the ear-splitting cacophony of pandemonium filling the room with an icy terror. The voice’s head burst in an explosion of gore. The ancient man dashed for the door, but was felled as layer after layer of his flesh was peeled off his bones. The toad panicked and tried to run, but his skin opened up in great rents, letting his bulbous innards flow freely onto the floor. The servitor just died.

Montrose just stood there – amazed by what was unfolding before him – his protective adornments glowing brightly as waves of the psychic onslaught were repulsed.

The psyker ripped his arms free from their bindings with a psychic charge, before loosing his body from the chair and striding to where the Inquisitor stood.

Montrose eyed the thing warily, then he grinned; “Yes, you will be most satisfactory I think…”

The thing smashed him aside with a powerful back-handed swipe, and ripped the door from its hinges as the Inquisitor slumped down the opposite wall – blood running freely from his nose and mouth. Watching the beast disappear out the door and down the hall, Montrose offered up a silent prayer before he slipped into an easy unconsciousness.

 

* * * *

 

The preceptory of the Order of the Ebon Chalice upon Proctor Primus represented a sanctuary of rest and healing for the Sisters who resided there. Within its sturdy walls they were mercifully freed from the noise, congestion, and rabble – separate from the throngs that they were sworn to protect. The cloister never knew poverty or famine, or anything else that ever afflicted the masses – for good or ill – indeed they lived in a perpetual state of grace above their flock, and were never encroached upon by the highest lord or the lowliest beggar. This did not mean that they were alienated from the people however, for their duties saw that every day and every night the Sisterhood was active maintaining the sanctity of the city. Or at least that is what the Ecclesiarchy had mandated them with.

The reality was in fact much more complex, for in a city whose people numbered in the millions, the mere thousand Sororitas that called the preceptory home were hardly sufficient to maintain vigil over the entire city. The Arbites and PDF did their best to provide law and order for those regions of the urban morass that passed beyond the Sisterhood’s reach, but as the eruption of the masses in uprising had painfully demonstrated, there was no way that such a small force could oversee the multitudes.

There was no doubt in Aribeth’s mind that had the Drogians not arrived when they did, that the war would have taken a turn for the worst, and perhaps the Basilica itself might have fallen. It was not grief that had seized her as she sat silently in the command Immolator’s squad hold – it was something infinitely more complex than that, and one simple word utterly failed to describe it. She felt… broken – as if during the three days of fighting, everything that she had known had be taken from her hands and dashed across the floor. The rush of battle had hidden it well – it always did – but it only made her realization of the truth that much more difficult to bear. The Canoness was dead, as were almost four-hundred of her Sisters – martyred over the span of three days of fighting. The Forces of Ruin had been at work in the city, and the lurking threat dug into her like a canker in her being. The Inquisition had arrived concealed in shadows; bring with it the undertone of conspiracy and betrayal. The off-world Drogians had arrived in force to suppress the city, but to what end? Why were they really here, and how where they tied to the Inquisition? And in the middle of it all sat Palatine Aribeth d’ Allsaice, feeling as if she was caught up in something that she had no control over – something that used the Emperor’s mandate as a cloak for their real intentions. Everything had just seemed so much simpler before when they were fighting one foe for one purpose. But nothing was ever that simple anymore. Suddenly the thought of serving the same Emperor did not seem as unifying as it once had.

She leaned her head back against the hull of the rumbling tank and closed her eyes. Like all her Sisters, she was exhausted – three days of near constant fighting with little rest had taken its toll – yet she could not put her mind to rest. After being forced from the front-lines there was still much to be done in the aftermath of war: her Sisters would have to be buried with due reverence and honour, she would have to arrange new squads and make promotions, the Ecclesiarchy would certainly demand the Sisterhood’s aid in stabilizing the city… the issues were almost beyond count. Then there were her own problems, though she recognized that she would have precious little time in which to cope with her own troubled spirit.

A particularly violent jolt banged her head painfully against the hull and forced her thoughts back into the present rather than the foreboding shadow that loomed over the future.

The command Immolator was much lonelier now than it had been just hours earlier. Hildegard was dead, killed in glorious battle – his body now in the hands of the Church. Three of the Celestians were absent as well. Sister Atrides – may the Emperor rest her – had been butchered by the Chaos Marines, as had Sister Ariella. Augusta, the dour and determined Sister Superior and Aribeth’s second in command, was also absent, for she had lost most of her arm to the same abomination that had killed her Sisters. At least she would be back, Aribeth reminded herself, she was in the care of the Hospitalers, but she would come back, she always did.

There were only three of them in the tank now; Clara, Rylke, and herself. None of them spoke – absorbed in their own thoughts - that, and there was nothing to say.

Rylke was leaning heavily on the stock of her heavy-flamer, and had her head bowed in silence. She and Ariella had been good friends, and had been through a lot together, and while a Sister was trained to be inured to death on the battle-field, nothing could adequately prepare one for the sense of loss and emptiness that was felt afterwards. Aribeth hadn’t known Rylke for very long – a couple of standard years at the most – but she knew that under her fiery persona and hard-line attitude, Rylke mourned bitterly for the Sisters and dear friends that had been lost to her over the years of war. They had never been particularly close, Aribeth and Rylke, nothing more than a mutual respect between Sisters of certain ranks, yet Aribeth could feel her pain – Ariella had been jovial and well liked, and her passing would be noticed by many in the preceptory.

Clara was sitting directly across from Aribeth, her legs outstretched in front of her as she ran her bare hands softly over one another while her eyes stared off into space. Aribeth had known her for the better part of twenty-six years when they had first met in the Schola and the two of them had worked together to uncover the real culprit behind the theft of the head master’s golden pocket-watch and clear a mutual friend of theirs – who subsequently grew up to be a fine Commissar for a Mordian regiment – from wrongful conviction. Since that day forth they had been the closest of friends and were always by each others side. They had fought orks together on the moons of Pseptunia; they had combated the duplicitous Eldar pirates when they threatened the pilgrim roads on Iadora IV; they had even scoured the foul Genestealers and their spawn through the depths of Magna Hive on Centario. They loved each other in a way that only true friends could after having held the other’s life in their hands through numerous conflicts and emerging the stronger because of it. Their bond was not one of simple affection, Aribeth knew, but rather that they had grown together in such a way that they were a part of the other’s life, and that it was through knowing each other, truly knowing each other, that such a bond was formed. Having served and survived many battles together, Aribeth knew that Clara was accepting of battle and death, and that she did not suffer grief and sorrow the way that some of the others did. She firmly believed that through death salvation was earned, and that every Sister should ultimately strive to die in service to the Emperor’s will. Granted, she did not fanatically pursue death itself, she simply had faith in that when the Emperor held her duty to be complete she would die; no sooner and no later. It was in this that the Palatine and her dearest friend differed, for while Aribeth accepted that she would one day die, and was willing to die for a cause, Aribeth was determined to fight for every last breath to preserve her life – she refused to die easily and without struggle. Even if the Emperor had deemed that her time had indeed come, she would cling to life as long as she possibly could in hopes that through sheer determination alone she might persevere and continue to serve in life rather than death.

The tank shuddered and jumped, before finally slowing and grinding to a halt with a squeal of brakes. They were home.

 

Home. It was a concept that none of the Sisterhood ever got used to, for indeed they had never had a ‘home’ so to speak. They were orphans all of them; abandoned in infancy or childhood, brought up having few memories if any of their previous lives, enrolled in the Schola Progenium with others who were just like them, and shipped off to the various branches of the Imperium to serve from world to world until they died. To all of them preceptories like this one where the closest things to home they had ever experience, and their Sisters their only family. This was the only truth they had ever known, and so it would stay until they died, for there was no life after the Sisterhood.

Aribeth made her way through the familiar halls to her personal quarters. She walked alone and in silent melancholy – it felt better that way, she didn’t need to share her disquieted spirit with anyone. It would never be the same to her, this place, with so many dead the halls would forever echo their passing in her mind. Forty percent - roughly four-hundred Sisters - were either dead or wounded. They had claimed it as a victory, but there was no victory in this. The damage had been done, the city had been ruined, countless lives had been lost – and yet they called this a victory? What had victory brought them? Had the city been saved? No. Had the Emperor’s light been brought back into the darkness? Not really. Then what was there to celebrate about? No banners were being waved; no great war hymns were being sung; they had defeated the enemy, but they were the ones who had lost.

She reached the door to her office, and twisted the knob with a heaving sigh. The office adjoining her room was quite small. It was no more than a dozen feet across and a score or so deep, and though she had at first rejected the notion of having an office for her rank, she had eventually given her assent simply to keep the meagre level of paper work that she was required to do in order. At the center of her office was a modestly small desk served mainly as an extra table for the young Palatine, for all but the most menial papers were transferred to the Canoness – no doubt that that would soon change given the circumstances. Behind the desk sat a wheeled armchair with its back to the only real asset of her small office – a large arched window that overlooked the inner courtyard, and which – thanks to the angle of the building – flooded the room with sunlight for most of the daylight hours. Other than that, her office contained two chairs, a bookshelf which was empty, and a faded tapestry depicting Saint Jeromia leading the faithful onwards through the darkness towards a rather kitsch illustration of an Imperial Aquila. She hated the tapestry most of all, not because it was old and worn-out, but because it reminded her of how weak people really were – willing to follow a saint one day, and spit on their oaths the next.

“My lady, you are returned!” The young girl was rose quickly from where she had been sitting quietly in the corner of the office and bowed to the Palatine. Aribeth smiled inwardly to herself – she should have figured that Belinda would be waiting for her. Belinda was a novice in the Sisterhood and was assigned to serve the Palatine as a personal aide for the duration of a year. She was young, just ten years old, but already she was well trained in etiquette and the most basic forms of combat, she was also highly proficient at both reading and writing Imperial High Gothic. Aribeth liked Belinda, but she found her to be an unnecessary privilege that she did not require, especially considering that most of the time Aribeth sent her on errands just to make the girl feel like she was serving some purpose rather than wasting a year of her life scurrying around like a page.

“Aye,” Aribeth replied with a feeble smile that the girl readily accepted, “would you mind seeing that the artificer has this restored to its original splendour?” she handed her battered and significantly slimmer helmet to the girl.

Belinda took the ornate sabbat pattern helm from the Palatine’s outstretched arm and stared at it as if she were holding a holy relic in her between her hands.

“Of course my lady!” she replied breathlessly, “I shall see to it right away!”

The girl bowed deeply once again and headed to the door, closing it softly behind her, and ran down the empty halls with the helmet tucked under her arm.

Alone in her own company, Aribeth tossed her gauntlets into the empty chair that Belinda had been waiting in, and moved behind her desk, dropping into a comfortable slouch in her armchair with a great sigh. Like her thoughts, her eyes wandered and skipped over the room, playing across the dossiers and papers that were stacked neatly on her desk. She leaned forward and pulled the nearest one towards her: a print document formally requesting increased Sororitas involvement in the rebuilding of Ecclesiarchal control over the capital – obviously she would have to accept. She tossed it back unto the desk and reached for another: a draft copy of a formal request on behalf of the preceptory appealing to the Order for a new Canoness and command staff with transfers to replace the losses suffered – all it needed was her seal, and the document would filed and the request put through. There was no stopping it Aribeth reminded herself; life in the preceptory would carry on as it always did – the glorious dead remembered only in the Hall of the Blessed where centuries’ worth of names were inscribed upon the walls and pillars, ensuring that so long as the preceptory stood, at least something would recall their passing even if every-day existence did not.

With an exasperated moan she buried her head in her hands and leaned heavily on the desk’s worn surface. A lot had changed since she’d been here last… a whole hell of a lot. Yet wishing her problems away had never solved anything, so she might as well recognize the facts of her life and get on with it.

She got up from her chair and pushed open the door the led to her small cell that was adjacent to the office. It was small, smaller than the office even, and contained only what she needed and a few personal effects. A cot rested in the far end of the room - its length spanning the width between walls - next to it sat a small table with a drawer, a wooden rack on the wall with three pegs held her modest day robes, underneath which an old chest contained her formal attire – a magnificent fur pelt, a cape of black velvet, as well as various other items. At the opposite end of the room an armour stand sat before a small paned window in which hung the only link to her past. She walked over to it, and cupped the small medallion in her hands; it was a cross of some sort with a small silver skull emblem placed at its center – it had belonged to her father, or so she had been told, for she remembered nothing of him or her mother. Not that it mattered to her anymore, and she didn’t know why she kept it – the Sisterhood was her family, what more did she need?

Her mind burdened under the weight of what awaited her, she started to remove her armour piece by piece and place it on the stand. It was filthy. Dirt and dust dulled the gleaming white of the surfaces, splashes of blood dotted and caked its many surfaces, and dents and scrapes marred its integrity; it would take hours of polishing, cleaning, and minor repair work to restore it to its original beauty – yet another thing to occupy her time.

With the armour off, she peeled the body-glove away from her skin until it was piled around her bare ankles. Of all the things that she noticed about battle, she never appreciated how much it really stank. Her naked body was coated with over three long days worth of sweat, dirt, and even some blood, all of which had merged in to a smell that was sweetly repulsive – a bath would definitely be in order.

She slipped into the comfort of one of her robes and fastened a thread belt tightly about her waist along with her rosary beads before slipping on some comfortable leather-soled shoes and stepping back into her office, letting her hair down from her tight combat braids into a looser pony-tail as she did so.

There was a light knock on the office door as she returned to her seat behind the desk. Aribeth knew who it was, and she really didn’t have to knock.

“Come in,” she called, and the door swung quietly open as Clara stepped in and closed it behind her.

“Is something the matter, Clara?” she asked, noting the air of concern about her Sister and dearest friend as she pulled a chair closer to the desk and sat down. She too had replaced her heavy power armour with a light beige coloured robe, and she had even found the time to cleanse the foulness of battle from her body.

“I wish there wasn’t, but yes, I do feel troubled, but most of it you’d already know,” Clara admitted, shifting slightly in the old wooden chair into a position of more comfort. “The war, the fighting, the death… but there’s more than that, something I can’t describe – something just doesn’t feel right. Like that time on Centario, remember?”

Aribeth nodded thoughtfully – she remembered only too well.

“It just seems like something else is at work here - just like it was with the Genestealers… I just… I just think this is more than just fighting; it’s not that simple anymore.”

Aribeth leaned forward on her elbows, “I know what you mean,” she said, “this feels out of place to me as well. Go on.”

Clara continued, knowing that whatever she said would be taken with all seriousness and concern by the Palatine; “Maybe this is a side of war I’ve just never seen before, but still, it disturbing.”

“What exactly are you referring too?” Aribeth asked.

“The ambush, the Fallen Marines – pretty much everything that has happened since this war started. Why would there even be Fallen Marines here in the first place? How would they get into the city, and what would make them even want to?”

“The reasoning of the enemy is not meant to be understood…”

Clara shook her head, “I don’t believe it Aribeth; I think that we don’t want to understand it – the very nature of it poisons the soul – but just because we don’t want to know what they are thinking, doesn’t mean that they aren’t thinking. It’s just like those Genestealers; they knew what they were doing, and if it wasn’t for us paying attention to that fact, we would have both died. Something is going on around us that we can’t see, and I’m afraid that if this keeps up, we’re going to be worse off for it.” Clara paused to gather her thoughts, and Aribeth let her take her time in a comfortable silence. “First it’s the Imperial Guard suddenly showing up, then it’s the Fallen Marines, and now there’re even whispers of the Inquisition being involved in this!”

“That’s because the Inquisition is here.” Aribeth said softly, turning the events of the day over in her head as she considered each one more closely. It was suspicious - she had known it all along - but things did seem like they were somehow inexplicably interconnected.

“The Inquisition… they’re here? Now? In the city?” Clara asked.

“At least one of their numbers is; I met him.”

“What did he tell you?” Clara asked quietly, knowing that had she been anyone else, Aribeth would not even be talking about it.

Aribeth paused for a bit – should she tell her? Should she tell her about what Galtman had done? She could see no harm in it, but then again how could she tell Clara about it when she was even unwilling to admit to herself that it had really happened?

“He didn’t tell me all that much, but I do know that the Imperial Guard that have arrived are under his direct control, and that whatever he plans to do, or has already done, we are going to be a part of it.”

“<DELETED BY THE INQUISITION>,” Clara cursed as she ran a distracted hand through her tawny hair as her eyes wandered around the room. “That makes it even worse than I thought it would be.”

“What do you mean?” Aribeth said – how could this get any worse? Very, very easily, she reminded herself, and whatever she and Clara knew was likely only the surface of what was really going on.

Clara released a long exhale of breath as she settled back into her chair – the weariness was evident on her face, but Aribeth could tell that repose was the last thing on her mind. “Rylke told me that some Inquisitor types came by after we had stormed the administration building and were burning the heathen dead. She said that they had demanded to be given the bodies of the Fallen Marines, but when Rylke denied them they left. After that she sought me out to say that the bodies had vanished – stolen she believes.”

“Stolen?” Aribeth repeated, “That’s a crime punishable by death! It’s comparable to stealing blasphemous artefacts!”

“I know,” Clara said, nodding her agreement, “but Rylke suspects that they were indeed stolen – despite the severity of the crime, and the physical difficulty of actually doing it. She even goes so far as to suspect that it is one of our own who has committed this heinous act.”

“She thinks it was one of our Sisters?”

Clara shook her head, “I don’t know, she didn’t say who, but she suspects that the ambush and the theft are linked, and that we are doubly betrayed from within.”

Aribeth digested this information and played it over in her mind – it was possible, and Rylke was not one to make such claims lightly, so she had obviously convinced herself.

“What do you think?” she asked Clara.

Clara shifted in her seat yet again, and wetted her lips with her tongue before answering; “I – I don’t really know. I mean, it’s all too possible isn’t it? I don’t want it to be true – Emperor strike me if I speak falsely – but I can’t help feeling like something terrible is going on in front of my eyes, and that I’m simply refusing to look. I realize that there is knowledge that is best left unknown, but I can’t help feeling that I’m walking through a dream, and that if I wake, I will open my eyes to a nightmare.”

“So you do believe her?”

“Well,” Clara responded with difficulty, “even though I don’t want to, I find that the more I think about it, the more I know that it has to be going on…” she paused for a moment to consider what she had just said, before asking a question of her own; “what about you, Aribeth, what do you make of all this?”

“I think that Rylke is likely on to something,” Aribeth replied after a short pause.

“But how can you be so sure?” Clara asked with a pleading voice, she clearly did not want to accept the idea of Rylke’s notion being anything more than just fantasy even though it encroached upon her thoughts every minute she considered it. “How is it that you, or me, or anyone, could know such a thing? I mean… I mean the very thought of betrayal amongst our own ranks is – is…” she was lost for words, and a look of utter revulsion at her own thoughts was apparent on her soft features.

“Well,” it was difficult for Aribeth to articulate how she really felt concerning the matter, because first of all she couldn’t be affirmed of her own suspicions, and secondly her suspicions went to the contrary of everything she had ever been taught or believed – the very notion of a Battle Sister, or indeed anyone who consciously served the God-Emperor to the best of their ability, to betray one of their own was unimaginable!

Clara hung attentively on her words, waiting to hear her friend’s explanation of the truth behind Rylke’s convictions.

“You recall what I said earlier today when we learned about the explosion in Anastasia’s column?” she continued.

“Yes,” Clara answered, sifting through all that had occurred since then, “you said that we were betrayed and that it just felt wrong – but that’s just a hunch – that’s no more than I’ve got!”

“That’s true,” Aribeth said, “but you remember that no one else outside of the command squad and the priest knew of my suspicions?”

“Well, yes,” Clara said, looking puzzled by what the Palatine was trying to prove.

Aribeth sat upright in her seat and moved closer to the desk before continuing with her suspicions, “Then you’ll be just as surprised as I was when the commanding officer of the Drogians knew that we had been ‘ambushed’.”

“He WHAT??” Clara exclaimed in disbelief, her eyes wide and mouth agape.

“He knew about it, Clara. He said that he had been worried that we would not have been able to succeed with reduced strength after the ambush.”

“Do you think he did it? He’s the traitor?”

“I don’t know,” Aribeth said quickly, “but I intend to find out.”

“No, wait!” said Clara in a cautionary tone, “Rylke said that if this is true and we are betrayed, then we should proceed carefully; we have no idea what this could mean or how far the root of this could go!”

“If we don’t pursue this,” Aribeth said, rising from her seat, “then it may be too late when the treachery is finally revealed, if it ever is.”

“Aribeth, please,” Clara rose from her seat facing her dearest friend, her hands held out as if to stop the Palatine from charging the door, “we don’t know where to begin. It’s too dangerous – we don’t even know who we can trust!”

Aribeth chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip, and then sat back down – prompting Clara to do the same.

“I’m sorry,” the Palatine said, “you’re right – we don’t even know who or what it is we are trying to stop yet.” She chuckled softly to herself, “I really don’t think that I’m even capable of pursuing anything like that now even if I knew what was going on! Look at me,” she said, looking down at herself, “I’m a wreck – I can hardly walk, let alone think straight!”

“A hundred and something hours of non-stop fighting will do that to a person, even you.” Clara nodded, suddenly sounding as tired as her features said she was.

“Aye,” Aribeth sighed, “get some rest – we can sort all this out when we both feel up to it.”

Clara nodded and shut her eyes briefly before blinking them back open and standing up. When she reached the door she hesitated for a moment, and then turned to look back at Aribeth who was massaging her eyes with one hand; “How did the Drogian say that he had come to know about the ambush? Surely you must have asked.”

“He said that we had told him on the standard Drogian vox frequency.”

Clara nodded silently to herself then slipped out the door. “Rest well,” she said, then closed the door quietly behind her.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

As a hind note, I would like to say that this Installment has been difficult for me, and took much longer than I am used to. Any constructive comments would be much appreciated.

Changes will likely occure based on any revealing feedback, and this installment will likely be re-vamped on a later date.

[Behdini]

I would love to see your collected works on her to date available as a Word document (I assume you are writing in either Word or OpenOffice). I am coming to the story late and it is hard to read so much on the Web.

[Alex.ö]

I love it! :lol:

 

I would love to see your collected works on her to date available as a Word document (I assume you are writing in either Word or OpenOffice). I am coming to the story late and it is hard to read so much on the Web.

Exactly my opinion!

[Lady_Canoness]

Continued.....

 

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The Seventh installment of The Saint Ascendant <part 2 of 2>

 

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But of course Aribeth didn’t. She never slept well after battle – she kept waking expecting to find herself in the thick of the fighting, or driven from her sleep by imaginary explosions and screams of the dying. She tried reciting verses from scripture that she had memorized, or lines from the canticles of respite and sanctuary, but nothing served to sooth her mind. She twisted and tossed for what felt like hours of fitful half-sleep before she finally dragged herself upright to sit on the lip of her cot. Despite the warmth of her blanket and the heating of the room, Aribeth found that she was shivering uncontrollably. Shaking, she stood up and struggled to don one of her robes, hoping that the smooth fabric against her skin might help to sooth her nerves. It didn’t. Cursing her own misfortune, Aribeth opened the door to her shadow filled office and sat down in one of the chairs, rocking back and forth with her arms clutched to her trembling chest as she furiously tried to spit out soothing lines of verse.

It had been five hours since she had talked with Clara in her office, and twilight had fallen over the city sky. In fifteen hours time it would be the Heart-of-Night, and it would be the ritual time of internment for the dead in the catacombs beneath the preceptory. She had hoped to rest between now and then, but that was looking less and less like a possibility. She had managed to clean herself up, and had even managed to make her armour look slightly more presentable, yet it wouldn’t matter what state she was in if she were dead on her feet with fatigue when the Heart-of-Night arrived.

Furious with her own feeble state, she crossed to the office door and wrenched it open with a quaking hand. The halls were mercifully clear, and, closing the door quietly behind her, she set off bare-foot down the halls, holding her robe tightly around her. She would go to the chapel, yes, she would go to the chapel – she would be better there… or so she prayed.

She met no one on her way to the chapel, and for that she was thankful – the last thing she wanted was to be seen as weak or infirm after the battle. The Canoness was dead, and she would have to prove herself able to lead in her stead. Though they never made their objections known, many of the more senior Sororitas did not approve of her leadership in the stead of Canoness Naomi - they thought her too young, too inexperienced, and too head-strong. She understood their reasoning, yet she cursed them silently all the same – what did they know about her? Nothing. She and Clara had been through the worst fighting imaginable and had persevered – that is why she had been chosen and not they – she had the drive, the skill, and the conviction to make her a suitable leader – to hell with them all! No. No! What was she thinking? Why was she thinking this way? They may have their reserves about her, but she would accept it with the calm serenity of an exemplary member of the Sisterhood, and she would prove herself worthy of the title – it was not anger she should feel against those who criticized her, but she should be accepting of their views so that she might better herself in the process.

She reached the chapel doors and eased them open, slipping between them and stumbling past the pews to reach the altar. The chapel too was thankfully empty, and Aribeth felt that here amongst the flickering candle light, purifying incense, and the humbling depictions of Saints held eternally in images of greatness within the stained glass, she would be able to find comfort and peace. Making the sign of the Aquila across her chest with quivering hands, Aribeth prostrated herself before the sacramental altar and rested her forehead against the cool marble. The prayers sprang naturally to her lips, and she repeated them over and over again in unison to the thoughts in her head:

“I beseech thee Holiest of Holy in thine power and might to give me today the power to serve you once and always…”

Prayer rolls and purity seals fluttered ever so gently as a slight draft swept around the chapel, causing the candles to dance and the clouds of incense to be swept up in a gentle fury. The praying woman did not notice however - too entranced was she to detect the new arrival.

Aribeth flicked open her eyes and rose to her knees – the prayer fading on her lips until completed, it vanished, and the Palatine got steadily to her feet. Calm prevailed over her and she felt momentarily at peace, yet the feeling was shallow – it just felt weird. Maybe the battle still played heavily on her mind – maybe it was the mild head trauma she had suffered in the fighting – maybe it was neither – she didn’t know for sure.

Her eyes lingered on the altar for a few moments – following its distinct motions as the candle light set the delicately carved figures inlaid therein to move and twist as if with a mind of their own, recreating the epic battles of old. Her left hand started to shake, but she willed it still again, before turning her back to the altar and heading for the door. But she found her way barred.

Celina was a short bull of a woman – stocky, muscled, and broad with a square head – a stark contrast to the tall elegant appearance of the Palatine, but despite her rough appearance, the Mistress was a good tempered and caring woman in her late forties. She took her role of both chastener and confider seriously, and offered her best advice to those in need while punishing those who strayed from the path of virtue with justly delivered castigation. She was considered by many, including the late Canoness Naomi, to be a just and even handed arbitrator – able to forgive the repentant, and deliver absolution through the path of the Repentia upon those that were deemed beyond the Order’s ability to forgive. However, unlike many other Mistresses that Aribeth had met in her time with the Order, Celina did not take satisfaction from the pain and suffering of her charges, and many times she would dissuade as Sister from adopting the hood of a penitent – only taking those who were truly beyond redemption by other means.

Aribeth bowed her head slightly upon seeing the Mistress – a gesture that was returned with a gentle smile. Celina made way for the Palatine before falling into step at her side.

“Palatine, it is good to see that you are well! When I heard the about the Traitor Astartes I feared the worst.” Celina had not participated in the fighting for without charges and without any Repentia to lead, she was without a place in the battle plans. During the three days of the revolt Celina had spent her time at the Basilica providing aid and relief for any Sisters who were in need, but now that the Sisterhood had been withdrawn from the front Celina had returned to the preceptory to continue ministering her services.

“Many martyrs fell this day, and their loss will be felt for some time,” Aribeth said solemnly, her heart heavy as she recalled all that had occurred over the past hundred-or-so hours.

“Indeed…” Celina nodded gravely. “I am afraid that I bear no good tidings this night Palatine,” she said, her hands crossed behind her back, “for we may loose another good Sister before the dawn has come.”

“What do you mean?” Aribeth asked, “Of whom do you speak?”

“It is not a physical ailment that seeks to rob us, but rather grief itself.”

“Speak plainly, Mistress”

Celina nodded thoughtfully as the pair proceeded slowly down the empty halls. “It’s Sister Serinae,” she said, “she does not fare well.”

Aribeth remained silent, waiting for the Mistress to continue.

“As you may know,” Celina said after a pause, “Serinae has suffered mentally, I know not how, but I can only imagine what she must have been through.” She stopped and looked directly at the Palatine, “She’s not the same – she seems as though the events of the day have broken her. Serinae came to me for guidance, and I offered what assistance I could, yet it does not seem that that was enough.” Celina paused again, studying Aribeth’s features for a reaction. “She wishes to take the Oath, Palatine.”

The Oath – so simple a word - so severe a meaning. The Oath of the Penitent was never taken lightly, for upon swearing it one was swearing oneself to a quick and merciless death in both physical and spiritual isolation from one’s Sisters. To take the Oath voluntarily meant that one was beyond forgiveness in both their heart and the eyes of the Order. The path of the Penitent – the Sisters Repentia – was the most extreme form of penance that a Sister could ever aspire but few ever obtained, for only the most unforgivable of wrongs could be worthy of such an act. Few tread the path, and fewer still survive to obtain redemption in this life.

“What do you think, Mistress; is she fit to take the Oath?” Aribeth asked quietly, the severity of the situation evident in her voice.

Celina remained silent and shook her head.

Aribeth nodded and gazed down the empty hall, flexing her hands ever so slightly by her sides.

“If you would speak with her, Palatine – to see what can be done. She is determined, but I don’t think that she is ready to take the Oath – she is over-reacting in my opinion; she needs help, not absolution in death for a sin that only she thinks she has committed.”

Aribeth considered the Mistress’ words momentarily – her weary mind wrapping itself around the idea. She was exhausted, but Aribeth considered the Retributor to be a friend as well as a Sister.

“I’ll go see her,” Aribeth said in a hushed voice, and walked away down the hall, leaving Celina in the company of silence.

 

Aribeth had first met Serinae Belquinn eleven years ago during the campaign against the orks on Tiraeus. Serinae was only eighteen standard years old at the time, but already she had seen several years of combat and had made an name for herself despite being only a low ranking Battle Sister. Her renown was not from battle prowess, however, for though she was adequately skilled in war Serinae had earned a reputation that was less to her liking. Sister Serinae was a survivor. By the time the Tiraeus campaign was concluded, she had been the sole survivor of two martyred squads and had lost all those that were near to her. Some would say that it was fortune – that the Emperor had preserved her life on each account for some divine purpose. Some would say that it was a curse – that she would never know fulfilment in the Emperor’s service, and that she would loose all those she knew or cared for until she was the last of her time. Since the conclusion of the campaign on Tiraeus, Serinae had out-lived five squads that she had been a part of – the latest two occurring that very day.

Two years ago, Aribeth was reacquainted with Serinae for the first time in nine years when she and several of her Sisters were transferred to Proctor Primus. The eighteen year-old she had known and befriended nine years earlier, however, was no more. Aribeth had first known Serinae to be quiet, kind, and good-natured woman – a persona that had been assailed by years of anxiety until it forged the young woman anew into one who is serious, vengeful, and ultimately discouraged. It would been only a matter of time, Aribeth reasoned, until Serinae turned to the Repentia as her only hope for the Emperor’s grace… only a matter of time… and now Aribeth went to deny the woman what she yearned for in life.

 

Her knuckles rapped gently across the worn wooden surface for a second time; the first having only met a concealing silence. Yet the second knock was as ill fated as the first, and there was no reply from within. Aribeth opened the door a crack – allowing a pitiful trickle of candle-light to escape – before easing the door open with a lazy creak, and closing the door with a small clack behind her after having entered the dimly lit room. A single prayer candle burned in the otherwise pitch-black cell – its flickering flame casting a low orange light about the room. It was a small chamber – no bigger than Aribeth’s room – and had very much the same contents; a cot, a small table, pegs upon which several robes were hung, a strong box, and an empty armour stand. The young woman sat numbly on the sinking cot in full armour still stained with dirt and blood from battle.

Serinae was slim and about five-three - a foot shorter than Aribeth – but despite her lack of physical size, she was still tough and capable, but when she looked up with watery red eyes as Aribeth entered the room and said nothing, instead casting her dirty tear-streakd face downwards to look at the golden chaplet that she held tightly in her gauntleted fingers, the Palatine knew that the woman was likely broken inside. Aribeth crossed the small room in silence and sat down softly at her Sister’s side on the cot. Neither spoke for several moments – the silence only broken by the minuscule ticking of a pocket chronometer that lay face up on the table, and an occasional sniffle from the armoured Sister.

Eventually, Serinae broke the veil of silence; “What have they told you?” she asked without raising her head.

“They haven’t told me anything, Serinae, they only thought that you might like company.” said Aribeth, genuinely concerned as she placed her hand gently on the Sister’s marred paudron.

Serinae didn’t answer, but rather buried her head in her hands and started to sob anew.

Aribeth simply sat in mute silence as she watched over the other woman’s sobbing form without judgement. She had never considered herself as being very good at empathising with others – indeed as Battle Sister trained to fight she was rarely expected to – but she always tried to lend aid to any Sister that was in need.

“It’s not what you think it is…” Serinae said, lifting her head and clearing her eyes with the grubby gauntlets. She sighed and stared off into the darkness, her chin trembling slightly as she gathered her thoughts together.

Aribeth waited patiently at her side – ready to give her all the time she needed.

Serinae coughed slightly and ran a hand through her short black hair before letting it fall back into her lap.

“I failed them, Palatine… I failed them all.”

“You didn’t…” Aribeth began, but Serinae cut her off in mid-sentence, meeting her eyes for the first time;

“Please, Palatine… let me finish.”

Aribeth nodded, and Serinae turned her gaze back towards the floor.

“They all died, Palatine, and… and I couldn’t avenge them – I could do nothing – I was powerless to honour them in death… I failed my Sisters, all of them.”

“You did what was expected of you, Serinae – you kept them safe when they were most vulnerable – you fulfilled all that honour asked.”

Serinae shook her head, “no, no I didn’t… it was my duty to guard them in death, but I failed… I couldn’t keep them safe.” She snivelled softly and looked down at her hands. “A man – a witch -” she spat the word, “came to gloat over what he had done… I had the chance there and then to kill him – to pay him back in full for what he had done to us… but I couldn’t.” She stopped and swallowed hard before continuing, “H-he overpowered me with his warp-spawned blasphemies… he desecrated my mind… I… I… it just hurt-” she stopped abruptly and covered her face with her hands at the thought of it, sobbing openly.

Aribeth understood all too well how she felt – indeed she had suffered the same that very morning: the gut-wrenching helplessness of watching your mind be invaded by another; the chilling realization that your body was no longer yours; feeling their thoughts pollute your own – she felt vulnerable at the very idea of it.

“It isn’t right!” Serinae protested through her fingers.

“Right or wrong,” Aribeth said slowly, choosing her words carefully – any slip on her behalf could do more harm than good to the troubled Retributor, “it’s not up to us what happens and why, all we can do is choose how to cope with those times.”

“It’s not that simple…” the armoured woman mumbled.

“Isn’t it? The Emperor sees fit that you should live even when your Sisters die, and he gives you the strength to persevere when anyone else would falter. You didn’t fail our Sisters, Serinae – failure would be to die forsaking their memory, but you didn’t – you sacrificed yourself to the mercy of a heathen foe to protect them, and you proved the stronger because of it.”

“It doesn’t matter… I was weak,” Serinae whispered, shaking her head. “I was not strong enough to overcome him… i-it is my fault that he was allowed to live, and I fear that more evil shall become of it.”

“That’s not true, the Emperor watches over us in all things, and so long as you serve him with loyalty and devotion you will not err in His eye.” Aribeth leaned closer to her Sister and met her eyes, “Have you served the Emperor with fealty and devotion?” It was less of a question and more of a confirmation – there could only be one answer.

“Of course!” Serinae exclaimed, hurt that the Palatine would even suggest such thing.

“Then how can you accuse yourself of having failed our Sisters when you still remain loyal to Him and the cause that we serve?” questioned Aribeth, a comforting smile spreading across her lips. “You haven’t failed this day Serinae, you are simply learning to accept the Emperor’s light into your life.”

Serinae looked at her quizzically, unconvinced by the Palatine’s words.

Aribeth smiled warmly and took the Retributor’s hand into her own, “You have to trust in the Emperor’s wisdom; He has saved you for a reason, do you really believe that He would abandon you so easily after having saved your life on so many occasions. You are blessed, Serinae, and that is how you should feel.”

“Do… do you really think so?” Serinae asked after a long pause, looking at Aribeth as if she had just understood her purpose in life.

“I do,” she answered in all honesty, “but it doesn’t matter what I think or what I believe – it matters what you believe, and so long as you believe, you will be able to overcome any barrier.”

“What about you, Palatine?” the Retributor asked hesitantly, her eyes fixed on the rosary beads as she wove them through her armoured fingers, “What do you believe?”

“I…” Aribeth’s thoughts raced to put her feelings into words. The question had caught her off-guard – she was not expecting to answer for herself and her own troubled state under the desperate scrutiny of the forlorn Retributor.

“I…” she stuttered again, “I believe that the Emperor is watching us, makes us strong, and gives us the might to persevere in a hostile universe. I believe that without Him we are truly lost, for what is a man, woman, or child without His sacrifice? We are nothing without Him – forever lost amidst the stars, living our lives simply because there is air to breathe and food to eat.”

“Maybe you’re right, Palatine,” Serinae sighed standing up and placing the chaplet down on the table, “maybe this is just another trial to test my devotion to Him.” She moved over to the door and placed her hand on the handle before pausing to look back at the Palatine. “Thank you, Sister Aribeth, for helping me see clearly again, and stopping me from being so foolish as to think that my transgression was a failure in the Emperor’s eyes. I was blind, thank you.”

Aribeth crossed over to her side and placed both hands on her shoulders, “I am undeserving of thanks, Serinae, for while I could only deliver a message, it was you who had to hear it,” she said with a smile that Serinae returned.

 

The tunnels stretched out for miles and miles in no particular order. A winding twisting labyrinth that had been built at random by architects from centuries past; each generation of builders adding something new to the maze. Magnificent granite sepulchres with huge pillars and arches could be found next to the crumbling decay of moister ridden chambers of concrete where spot repairs had long been abandoned in futility. Many of the older chambers were unstable or had collapsed, and many more had been warped by the shifting pressure from above. Flooding was common as the tunnels were poorly maintained at best, and ground water often found its way through the numerous structural fractures. Indeed, the priests from the Basilica above rarely ventured into the far reaches of the older passageways, and those who did were warned that the maps of the catacombs were incomplete and that many of the passageways had either been forgotten or had not felt the presence of human feet for eons. It was all too possible, the caretaker priests had said, for a man to lose himself down there and never be seen or heard from again.

Inquisitor Galtman, however, had no intention of venturing into the ancient depths of the Basilica’s subterranean passageways, and stayed firmly to the lit tunnels, ignoring the enticing darkness of those that branched off into the unknown.

His black coat swept by his side along the uneven ground as he followed the line of glow-globes further and further from the entrance to this forsaken place. He turned a corner and cursed allowed as he came to a dead-end - the tunnel caved before him. Damn that man! Why had he forced him down here? Fuming, the Inquisitor retraced his steps and took a turn down a lit corridor – this had to be the right one. He strode down the hall – dodging puddles and miniature lakes – and counted his way along the numbered doors that led to cells on either side. 1189… 1190… 1191… this door appeared to be welded shut… 1193… 1195… this door frame is warped and permanently shut… 1197… 1198… this door has great gouges in its surface and is secured by huge iron bars… 1205… this must be the one.

The door lay crumpled on its side halfway down the hall – a good dozen metres from the now empty door-frame. Galtman could smell what had happened before he had even set eyes on the room. He cursed under his breath and drew his pistol, checking that it was loaded before reaching out with his mind. Five minds – four bearing the traces of recent activity – three of which were dead. Holstering the sidearm, he stepped through the empty door frame and looked around. Blood and viscera were everywhere; on the floor, the walls, even the ceiling - the remnants of the three minds that he had felt no doubt. The chair in the middle of the room sat empty.

He swore again and kicked the chair over onto its back, before turning on his heel to storm out of the blood-soaked room, but a tiny groan from the corner stopped him in his tracks.

Inquisitor Montrose grimaced in pain as he drew himself up into a sitting position, his back to the wall. Blood from both his own wounds and the remains of the dead covered his face and clothes in dark red smears, but otherwise he looked as if he was relatively unharmed.

He opened his eyes and looked himself over. “Damn,” he said, noticing the extent of the carnage around him, “this outfit cost me almost twenty thousand.”

“You idiot,” Galtman snarled through his teeth, “you just set a rogue psyker loose into the streets, and all you can give a damn about are your clothes!? I should kill you right now you son of a bitch!”

Montrose glared back at him from his position on the floor, “My prisoner escaped? Why thank you for informing me, Galtman,” exclaimed Montrose with a hefty dose of sarcasm, “I think I noticed that he escaped when I ended up in this PILE OF <DELETED BY THE INQUISITION>!” he slapped his palms down into the human remains for emphasis – splattering yet more blood and gore across himself. “So you’ll understand that considering all hell has just opened up, I might get a little upset if even my Throne-damned clothing gets thrown into the mix as well!”

Galtman spat on the floor in disgust and stormed out of the room without saying a word.

“Wait!” the other Inquisitor cried, scrambling to his feet amidst the crimson muck, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to capture that witch you just set upon the city!” Galtman called back, not turning around to see the look of dismay on Montrose’s bloodied face as he appeared in the hall behind him.

“You can’t do that Galtman! This is a beta-level psyker; you’ll be killed!”

“This coming from the man who utterly failed to contain the situation.”

“Damn it, Galtman!” Montrose yelled, running after the black-coated man in his blood-drenched clothes, “You don’t know what he can do! Let me help you, we can bring him down together!”

Galtman stopped abruptly and thundered back to where the sullied Montrose stood, pressing his hard face so close to the bloody man that their noses almost touched. “You don’t understand, do you Montrose?” the bigger man fumed, “Oh, this man is a beta level psyker isn’t he? Would that explain why your interrogation was woefully under-guarded, or am I to assume that the mess in that room is simply for aesthetic purposes?” He grabbed the front of Montrose’s shirt and slammed him violently into the rough stone wall, “mark my words Montrose,” he snarled jabbing the Inquisitor with an accusing finger, “the Ordo will hear of this, and I will personally see that you are charged with negligence.”

“Get off of me!” Montrose shouted, pulling himself free from the other man’s iron grip, and smoothing his cloths before staring daggers at Galtman, who snorted with contempt and marched away from the blood soaked man.

“You listen to me Galtman, you who claims to be so righteous and astute; if I am negligent, then you are most certainly incompetent, for your lack of foresight will have graver consequences than any you could possibly imagine!” Montrose yelled after the man’s sweeping black coat had disappeared around the far corner.

“Damn it!” he cursed and kicked a loose stone violently down the hall. Sighing heavily he pushed a jewelled hand through his gore-streaked black hair, before flipping back the face of his wrist chronometer and exposing the tiny vox set inside.

“Mercy,” he breathed, “See that our target is dealt with appropriately. I want this done right – no mistakes.”

 

A freezing wind whipped down the mountain pass and threw snow against her as she braced herself against the cold. The progress was slow, and her feet were numbed from the cold as she trudged step by burdensome step ever onwards to a destination she could not know. Night had fallen over the mountains, creating a world of pitch black and ghostly white in the eyes of twin moons that stood vigil in the heavens above. Where she was, she did not know. Where she was going, she feared to discover. An icy blast swept up under the hem of her robe and froze her bare legs to the marrow, forcing her to her knees in the white blanket of ice. She couldn’t go on, she couldn’t make it… but she had to try, she had to. She struggled back to her feet and pushed herself through the blizzard to crest the next hill, and then she saw it. Like a great midnight canvas stolen from the black sky by the likes of a god, a monstrous basalt citadel – as black as the night sky above – sat wedged between the snow covered peaks. She didn’t know what it was – she had never seen the likes of it before – but like a moth to the flame, she was lured into the blackness.

Stumbling through the snow, her body frozen to the very core, she struggled through the over-arched causeway up to the titanic doors. Her hands were raw, and locked immobile to her chest by the layers of ice that clung to her, so she threw herself in helpless futility against the doors that barred her way.

The doors opened.

An intense ripple of heat washed over her and embraced her with its warmth, penetrating her frigid body and bringing a surge of life and light back into her being. She collapsed to the warm flagstone floor and lay inert – thanking whatever power had delivered her from the night.

A pair of strong hands seized her by the waist and slowly lifted her upright from the floor – a soft clunk closing out the icy gale from behind her. She had entered into a great obsidian hall adorned with magnificent statues and murals of such grandeur that it stole what little breath that remained away from her chest. All around her, dispersed throughout the hall stood Sisters dressed in deep crimson armour and flowing white robes, all of them staring at her as her guide led her through their midst. She looked back at them, all the different faces reflected in her tired eyes – they looked oddly familiar, as if she might recognize them, but she didn’t.

She turned away, and looked towards the center of the chamber – towards where her guide was taking her. The source of the heat, the source of the light, a great and terrible pyre burned furiously in the heart of the hall. The heat was immense, the light was horrifying, yet still her guide led her on. Her ears started to ring, her eyes to tear, but still she moved towards it. She could feel the flames licking her flesh, smell the smoke as it was driven into her nostrils.

The guide then stopped short, right on the edge of the fiery mound. The strong hand grabbed the back of her scalp and tilted her head backwards – forcing her eyes to the summit of the mountain of flame.

There were eyes there - black pitiless eyes, framed in a white but hate-filled face. The woman in the heart of the fire did not scream, she simply stared as the raging inferno consumed her. It was her own voice she heard screaming.

 

Aribeth woke with a start and sat bolt-upright in bed. Sweat was streaming off her body, and her voice felt horse. A dream… it had all been a dream… was she safe? She swung her bare feet off of her bed and felt them touch against the cool floor as she cradled her head in her hands – it was only a nightmare, nothing to worry about.

A wail from the small table made her jump, but her heart settled as she realized it was only her personal communicator. She picked it up and pressed the activation rune, the crackle of static invading her tiny room.

+Aribeth?+, a voice crackled out of the tiny hand-set, +Assemble a Kill-Team of your most trusted Sisters and be waiting fully armed and armoured at the North-East entrance of the covenant in… forty minutes.+

It was Inquisitor Galtman.

Aribeth checked the chronometer that she kept in the pocket of her day robes: the sixth hour of night.

“Understood,” she spoke back into the vox as it went silent.

Her night had just begun.

[C. Barrius Matthaeus]

Another excellent installment! ;)

 

This was very well written, I felt as though the Sisters came across as being very much human. I think you gave a particularly good impression of the characters' emotions, which isn't an easy task! You also did a good job of introducing the next major step in the plot, the transition felt very smooth. I can't wait for the next part!

 

- C. Barrius

[Alex.ö]

Lovely! I can´t explain how much I enjoy reading this!

[Shiva]

I love it! :P

 

I would love to see your collected works on her to date available as a Word document (I assume you are writing in either Word or OpenOffice). I am coming to the story late and it is hard to read so much on the Web.

Exactly my opinion!

 

I'll say Amen to that!! B)

 

*bounces up and down in chair*

 

I love it!! :D You can feel the emotions the sisters are feeling right along with them - it's amazing! :) I can't wait for more!! :P

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks all for reading and posting!

 

Shiva, thanks for taking the time to read, I know you must be very busy, and I always enjoy reading your thoughful comments.

 

Alex.o, your enthusiasm is really inspiring for me, and gives me that extra boost while writing.

 

C. Barrius Matthaeus, you've provided me with solid backup and support for my ideas, plus working together has really helped my creative process.

 

Cryptomancer, I hope everything is going well for you, and that we meet again soon. The Shop just ain't the same without ya...

 

And to everyone else, posters or otherwise, thank you all very much for reading, and I have to say that I am thrilled to know that my work is getting the attention and views that it has - so long as you keep reading, I'll be sure to keep writing.

 

So why the Oscar speech? No this isn't the prelude to some bad news or anything of the sort, and yes chapter 8 is advancing at full speed.

I just thought to myself, "Gee, what must it feel like if people post but never get acknowledged?"

So I'm just here to say that every post you make and any comment you give is appreciated, and even though I don't tend to reply (other than a select few) I do pay attention to it, and I do heed you advice or share in your optimism.

 

Thanks again, and Chapter 8 should be out within the week.

[Alex.ö]

Alex.o, your enthusiasm is really inspiring for me, and gives me that extra boost while writing.

Belive me, it´s an honor!

[Shiva]

Shiva, thanks for taking the time to read, I know you must be very busy, and I always enjoy reading your thoughful comments.

 

:P My pleasure!

 

I know I'm not around as much as I used to be, but I do try and make sure I pop in on a fairly regular basis just to see if you've posted an update. It's soooo much fun to read your work - you're such a talented writer! :lol:

[dark_melancholy]

Silly me, missing updates like this... :o

 

Good ones, though! Too much blood and gore and you (well, I) get bored of it. "Yay" for character development! ;)

Ridiculously obese men and insanely "hawt" chicks? This is starting to read more and more like a real 40k story :P Hopefully you'll stay clear of the worst clichés they use, though - and I believe you will. This last part really shines, bringing out the different personalities of the Sisters and showing us that there are mundane things going on behind all the bolter-fire.

 

And Galtmann's still a f'n badass! :D

[Lady_Canoness]

haha, glad you like what you see dark_melancholy! and sorry for the over-dose of battle scenes for the first five chapters

 

Writing is going well for me, and I'm currently working on both installments 8 and 9 as the two go very much together - 8 being the prelude for all the Kill-Team action that takes place in 9.

 

I'm also working on a VERY significant scene right now in 9 that I think is as dramatic if not more dramatic than the scene in the Fallen Saint 9 when Aribeth confronts her past - epic duels, awesome twists of fate, and stuff that will likely leave you eager for more - oh yes! that is going down in the ninth installment.

 

However, the release is still a couple days away, so I'll leave you with this tid-bit/teaser from the ninth installment of the Saint Ascendant.

 

This scene includes Galtman and the Drogian Guardsmen in a desperate battle against an unknown foe in the depths of an abandonned Manufactorium.

 

Enjoy!

 

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Hell-fire cascaded down from above as the Drogians ducked and weaved through the immense machine-works, firing back with their las-carbines at every opportunity. They had encountered a pocket heavy of resistance after almost an hour of infiltration, and the casualty count was already high. The enemy had them out-gunned and out-manoeuvred, but with Galtman’s encouragement they fought on regardless.

His black storm coat flapping about his feet, Inquisitor Galtman’s strode purposefully though the fire-storm as Drogians sheltered and died around him.

“Major Lokrieg!” his booming voice carryied over the roaring gunfire like thunder over rain, “Move your men upwards – take then fight to them!” The Inquisitor didn’t bother to register the look of dismay on the Major’s face as he tried to rouse his men into fulfilling the Inquisitor’s bidding.

“Come, follow me!” Galtman bellowed as he rounded a corner and casually kicked down the locked gate that sealed a caged stare-case, granting access to himself and the two hooded men that followed in his wake.

“Shield!” he called out, and his followers held up the palms of their hands to redirect incoming fire away from their master with walls of psychic energy, as he threw open the gate leading on to the second floor and walked calmly into cover as the psychic shield momentarily flickered and died. He opened the folds of his coat and drew an ornate heavy pistol from its holster, and inspected the weapon as laser beams cut the air all around him. Stay down, he thought to his minions, and both men shrunk back out of sight.

“Lokrieg!” he bellowed as he raised his pistol and moved to the edge of his immediate cover, “where are those men who should be following me?”

He was answered by more gunfire exploding around his position. The hooded thralls looked at him imploringly, wishing to be unleashed, but Galtman shook his head. Where was that bastard Lokrieg? He had better be dead, or otherwise he had no excuse to be disobeying his orders. More hell-fire smashed into the column behind which he was hiding and blew red-hot chunks of metal out across the floor.

“Exterminate!” Galtman shouted. The robed men smiled with glee, pulling down their hoods to reveal extended skulls that were implanted with all sorts of wire and plugs as they ghosted up the stairs and into the line of fire. Shots punched through them with ruthless abandon, but the witch things did not die, instead they hurled bolts of warp energy and witch-fire out in all directions to scour clean the foe from their cover in the shadows.

His breath condensed in the air, and a tingle shot down his spine as he smelled the pleasant aroma of scorched ozone – the smell of success. Galtman stepped out of cover and levelled his long barrelled pistol through the maddening display. He squeezed the trigger, the pistol jumping in his hand with a snarling roar as the heavy projectile cannoned forth and buried itself into the back of a fleeing enemy and dropped him to the ground like a tonne of lead. The Inquisitor smiled, and worked the bolt back-and-forth on the pistol - loading another man-stopper round into the chamber.

“Cease,” he said, and the warp magiks sputtered out as the witch things donned their hoods over their oblong heads and followed their master in a silent procession.

Down below the Drogians gaped in awe at what they had just seen. Galtman made a mental note to have them all subject to re-education or execution upon the completion of his mission. They were only Guard, and therefore expendable in his mind.

He stopped as he came to the body of the fleeing man he had shot: Hellgun, black carapace armour, black fatigues, advanced combat and sensory equipment, and no markings… curious.

“Check him,” he commanded, and as one the witch things obeyed – removing the soldier’s helmet and prodding his bald head with their stubby fingers. The things started to jabber incoherently amongst each other, before one of them rose to his feet and addressed the Inquisitor in his own tongue.

“Mind-locked?” Galtman repeated, “how interesting…”

 

----------------------------------------

 

I would also like to take this moment to ask about how readers are recieving the characters so far. Who is your favourite character/ least favourite character? why or why not? Who seems the most realistic of dynamic (other than Aribeth)? Is anyone of the named characters appearing to be too 'cookie-cutterish' or strereotypical? And lastly, do you think that the dialogue of said character is fitting?

Thanks for any answers you might have as this will help me keep the characters real, and hopefully engaging.

 

-L_C

[Lady_Canoness]

After finally having complete installment's 8 and 9 (and they were MONSTERS) I am proud to start realeasing them to the B&C. Now, I have to say that these installments are BIG, so I'm going to release them in section. 8 will be in two sections, and 9 will likely be in three sections.

 

Installment 8 is very much a period of transition between the dialogue based 7th installment, and the very narriatively driven 9th installment. We learn more about the characters and their ways in this installment based on how they act and relate to one another in and out of combat situations, and since this is a Kill-Team opperation, the focus is shifted from a large group of Sisters down to relatively few.

 

Like the Fallen Saint series which focused on the human face of Chaos, this series is focused on the human side of Battle Sisters that is not often seen. This idea has been present in the past installments, and is also highly featured in this one, number eight.

 

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Installment Eight of the Saint Ascendant, part 1 of 2.

 

-----------------------------------

 

"Clara!” she hissed, gently shaking the tawny haired Celestian awake from her deep sleep, “wake up! Come on, wake up!”

The Celestian mumbled something in her sleep, but finally roused herself after feeling the cold ceramite gauntlets against her flesh.

“Aribeth!? What’s going on?” she asked wearily as she dragged herself up into a sitting position in her bed, and looked into the Palatine’s face.

“The Inquisition has requested our aid. Get your armour on, we’ve got to go!”

It had only been ten minutes since Galtman had contacted her, but Aribeth was already in full power armour – largely due to Belinda’s assistance since she had just so happened to be returning the Palatine’s helmet from the artificer when she had called for her.

Clara planted her feet on the stone floor and slowly stood up, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“What time is it?” she asked, pulling on the fresh body glove that Aribeth had handed her.

“It’s nine hours from the Heart of Night,” Aribeth replied, fumbling around in the dim light and trying to remove the Celestian’s armour from its stand in the corner, “and don’t bother asking what it is the Inquisition wants, because my guess is as good as yours.”

“It’s not just us, is it?” asked Clara as she fastened on her leg armour then straightened up to receive the breast plate that the Palatine was holding out for her.

“I’ve already alerted Sister Rylke, Sister Superior Alexia, and Sister Serinae – they are going to meet us in the armoury.” Aribeth confirmed as she moved behind her Sister to help secure the power-pack to the back of the armour. “The Inquisitor ordered me to assemble a Kill-Team, but other than that I have no idea as to whether we can expect support or not.”

“Kill-Team…” Clara muttered to herself – Aribeth knew that her Sister felt just as uneasy as she had upon hearing those words. Kill-Teams were synonymous as being high-risk covert operation carried out by a highly specialised and trained strike team. While the warriors of the Sisterhood were highly trained, the distinct lack of information as to what this operation might be was unnerving. Aribeth and Clara had participated in Kill-Teams before when cleansing the Genestealer dens on Centario – a mission that had almost cost both of them their lives on several occasions – it was not something that either of them had wished to repeat.

“I thought that Serinae had been wounded during the ambush,” Clara asked, changing the subject as she fastened the heavy paudrons above her shoulders.

“She’s fine,” Aribeth replied – at least she hoped she was, “she was just a little shaken up. I think that some action will help her refocus herself.”

Clara nodded.

They were now both encased in full suits of white power-armour with the black livery of the order hanging from their waists and down from their shoulders. Aribeth handed Serinae her helmet and clapped her on the shoulder.

“Let’s go,” she said.

 

The others were already waiting in the armoury when Aribeth and Clara arrived. All were fully armed, but none of them had equipped any weapons other than side-arms upon the Palatine’s wishes – this was no ordinary battle-field, and they would need weapons that would do more good than harm in this new environment.

Clara passed through the armoured blast doors first, turned, and knelt – prompting the other Sisters to do likewise – as the Palatine entered formally to prepare for war against mutants, heretics, and other unholy foes.

“Rise,” Aribeth said, the formalities appeased, and motioned them towards a table in the center of the room.

“I haven’t told you much about the nature of this operation because there is very little that I know,” she said gravely, looking from Sister to Sister as she spoke – all them meeting her eyes with hard determination, “though you may be guaranteed that whatever is in store for us will be of utmost importance,” - importance to whom she did not know - “and will be unlike any battle you have ever fought.”

The Sisters remained silent; their faces unreadable and emotionless.

Aribeth continued; “Know that this battle – whatever its true nature may prove to be – will test both our faith in our Emperor, and our devotion to each other, just as much as it will our skill. Remember that we are alone in this – our Sisters are not here to support us – we rely on each other for both our duty and our lives: forsake neither in favour of the other.”

They all nodded in silent agreement.

“Alright,” Aribeth said, “take weapons that will not slow you down or hinder your movement. Take lots of ammunition. Take any number of grenades or other technical kit that you think will be useful in this urban environment. Pistols you have, and chainswords – everyone take a chainsword as well as your combat knives.”

“In His name,” they chorused, making the sign of the Aquila cross their breast-plates before moving towards the weapon racks.

Aribeth found her bolter on the weapon rack that bore her name and rank. Turning the weapon over in her hands she admired the restorative work the artificers had conducted on the weapon since her return to the preceptory; the bare metal shone brilliantly even in the dim light of the armoury, and the barrel was so clean it looked as if the weapon had never been fired. She attached a primary range-finder scope and checked that it was inline with the weapon before attaching a secondary infrared scope to scan for concealed targets and flicking it on and off to see that it worked properly. She then loaded the weapon with a sixty-round drum and hung two other drums off the utility belt at her side. The drum ammunition was more prone to jams than the standard bolter clip, but the doubled ammunition capacity and less-frequent reloading was a worthwhile trade-off in her mind. She hung the weapon over her shoulder by the strap so that it rested comfortably beside her hip, and removed her bolt pistol from the rack, holstering it at her side - opposite her power sword – along with two extra magazines. With her weapons at the ready, Aribeth moved further down the armoury towards the specialist equipment and picked out two frag grenades, a krak grenade, a smoke grenade, and a stun grenade, as well as a small medical kit. The kit was hardly sufficient for any major wounds, but it would serve to slow bleeding and keep a warrior with minor injuries in the fight.

Sister Clara was already waiting by the armoury doors when Aribeth approached. She was carrying her bolter – unmodified as usual – loosely in her hands, and had a chainsword and several greanades hanging from her waist. She smiled as Aribeth came close, but neither of them said anything; preferring to wait in comfortable silence than strike up a conversation to relieve the tension they felt deep inside.

Soon Sister Rylke and Sister Superior Alexia drew near, immersed in a hushed conversation that dissipated as soon as the other Sisters were in earshot, and they remained awkwardly silent as they stood waiting with the Palatine and the Celestian. Aribeth was not concerned; Alexia and Rylke were not the closest of friends – in fact the opposite was far more likely to be true – yet despite the mutual dislike that was sure to exist between the two, they could be counted upon to put their differences aside and be well prepared when faced will battle against a common foe.

Alexia, forgoing the use of her standard jump pack, had her twin bolt pistols holstered alongside a sheathed chainsword, and an automatic combat shot-cannon slung over her back.

Rylke had also set aside her favoured heavy flamer and found an adequate replacement for it by using a bolter with an under-slung combi-flamer attachment and several incendiary grenades.

Serinae joined them last of all, and was carrying her usual heavy bolter loaded with a drum feed that allowed more mobility but carried less rounds – acceptable, Aribeth thought, they already had enough anti-personnel fire-power as it was.

As one they filed out of the armoury in complete silence towards whatever the Inquisiton had waiting for them.

 

Rain pelted down from the sky in relentless waves upon shoulders of the five Sororitas; its polluted waters staining their white armour a disenchanted grey as it washed over them, leaking down recesses, and pooling in joints as it pinged off their armour like miniature projectiles from spiteful gods in the heavens above. The lamps were unlit, and the buildings around them were as oppressive and unforgiving as the sky itself. Yet rain or no, the Sisters stood resolute and unswerving in the impenetrable darkness of the night, waiting in immobile silence as they were instructed.

Through the night-vision filter in her helmet, Aribeth took in the world around her though a green tint that cut through the blackness like a blade. The rain was pouring down, reducing visibility to about twenty yards – all too easy for an ambush. She shook her head slightly, trying to ward off the paranoia that had accumulated through the past three days worth of fighting, fatigue, and anguish, but try as she might, she could not keep the seed of doubt from worming its way into her head. Traitors, witches, heretics – how easy would it be for this to be a trap? How easy would it be for an unseen enemy to dispatch them all as they stood exposed in the dark? Not easy at all, she reassured herself; they were Adeptas Sororitas elite with years of battle experience, any enemy would be foolish to attack them here. Would they? She’d witnessed Traitor Astartes cut through scores of her Sisters, why should she be so arrogant as to believe that one such warrior would even break a sweat dispatching five of them? No, that was not possible – they killed all the Chaos Marines earlier that very day – how could one have survived and slipped through the city unnoticed to arrive here at this very minute? Her doubt laughed at her – how naïve could she really be? Shut up!, she cursed herself, why must she always be like this? Because it’s what keeps you alive. No, no it isn’t – it never has been, never will be. She shook her head lightly once more and clenched her eyes tight shut as her doubt, mocking her, fled into the shadows of her subconscious.

“My Lady? Are you alright?” Alexia was standing right next to her, and though her expression was hidden behind the full-face mask of the Sororitas helm, Aribeth could tell that she was anxious. Had she spoke aloud again? Were her thoughts really getting the better of her?

“What do mean, Sister?” Aribeth said, acting as if nothing was amiss. She stole a glimpse at Clara out of the corner of her eye; she was also looking at her – though Aribeth was sure that she would understand.

“I thought I heard you muttering… and twitching, my Lady. Forgive me if I am mistaken.”

Aribeth simply looked at her, thankful for the helmet that was covering her face: had she been that obvious?

“I’m sorry, Sister, but you must be mistaken. The night-vision filter and the rain are working against us I’m afraid,” Aribeth said matter-of-factly, “keep sharp, we can’t afford any mistakes in battle.”

Alexia bowed her head apologetically and stepped back several paces.

Had she bought it? Aribeth didn’t know. Clara certainly hadn’t, but the Celestian had decided to remain silent, for which Aribeth was thankful: the focus should be on the task at hand, not her own thoughts.

With a throaty roar of petroleum powered turbines the concealing darkness of the night streets was lifted as the flooding headlights and smaller running-lights of a massive beast of taut steel swerved around the far corner into the alleyway and barrelled through the pouring rain towards them. It was a vehicle, but of a class that Aribeth had never seen before. It move rapidly on eight tires – each the size of short man - that hurled water and gravel up behind it in great churning clouds of spraying dirt. From what she could see through the rain and the glaring lights, the vehicle’s chassis was not unlike that of a Rhino transport – granted this beast was much larger and longer than any standard Rhino she had ever seen.

It drew closer at break-neck speed, before an audible clang of a metal brought the tank skidding to a screeching halt – the tires protesting their sudden lack of movement as sheer momentum carried the machine several yards over the pavement until it stopped perfectly before the five Sisters. A small green square appeared against the black hull of the behemoth, which Aribeth realized was an access hatch being opened from the inside.

A head and shoulders appeared out of the hatchway – dwarfed by the immensity of the vehicle around it.

“Get in!” a voice shouted over the rumbling idle of the engine – a voice that she recognized as that of Inquisitor Galtman.

[Alex.ö]

*Applause*

Great work, yet again!

 

And concerning your question about which character we readers like best: My vote stands for Montrose, even though he´s dead(or is he?...). But then again, Aribeth is a very strong character with whom you can feel compassion, and feel sorry for.

[Lady_Canoness]

Montrose, dead? Oh no! Montrose is far from dead! (though Galtman might solve that, you never know!)

 

So, after pumping hours of Rammstein into my head, I think that the second part of Installment eight is ready to be released for your reading pleasure. As I said before, this installment's primary role is to set the stage for the behemoth which is Installment nine (and that one will be up as soon as I've proofed the 20-odd pages of it. Yea, it really is that big - but Quantity will not substitute Quality in my books, and I am confident when I say that Installement Nine is possibly the best Installment I have written to date.

 

But I digress... we'll deal with #9 when we get to it. For now, I give you the second part, and conclusion, of Installment 8.

 

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Installment Eight of the Saint Ascendant, part 2 of 2

 

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The Sisters hustled towards the open door - Sister Serinae being the first to vault up the short access ladder and disappear through the green-lit portal. Aribeth followed her quickly, but before entering noticed the emblem of a roaring wyrm holding a flaming sword between its jaws painted on the vehicle’s side – the same emblem she had noticed earlier that day on the Drogian armour.

The Sisters mounted the troop carrier and the side hatch slammed shut behind them, enclosing their dripping wet frames within the armoured hold as the engine roared into gear and jolted them off balance as it thundered down the unlit alleyway with renewed speed.

Removing their helmets in the green light of the hold, the Sisters found themselves in the company of twenty Drogian elite riflemen strapped into the seats running down the length of the hold. The soldiers didn’t speak, or even look at the Sororitas, rather they kept their eyes facing the men opposite from themselves. Each one carried a black las-carbine tight to his chest, and had a pump action shotgun tied to their webbing alongside an assortment of grenades and tactical equipment including night-vision goggles. They wore tight fitting combat fatigues of a dark crimson pattern, and flak vests that were dyed a dull black. Despite their battle-reading appearance however, the Drogians looked edgy and strung-out – as if they suspected something bad would happen at any moment. It was distressing to see veterans look as spooked as raw recruits, and despite her hardest efforts, just looking at them made Aribeth’s gut knot and churn with doubt.

She turned away from the guardsmen and found a seat between Clara and Alexia in the back of the hold – as far away from the unnerved Drogians as possible. Why was she feeling like this? Why had she allowed this feeling of dread to follow her and gnaw on her conscious?

Next to her, Alexia exhaled heavily and leaned forward – her eyes tight shut as she rocked her head into her armoured hands. It wasn’t just her, Aribeth realized, everyone in the whole transport seemed to be on the verge of succumbing to nervous anxiety. Clara’s lips moved in silence as she recited verses from the canticles of deliverance under her breath, her fingers kneading the golden chaplet that hung around her neck as her eyes stared sightlessly at the opposite wall. Serinae looked as dour and tense as Aribeth had ever seen her, her eyes flickering around the hold as her gripped tightly at the weapon in her lap. Rylke just looked angry.

Everyone was on edge – everyone save Galtman and the two hooded men that sat calmly by his side.

“Palatine,” Galtman said, his raised voice cutting through the din of the engine below the decking.

Aribeth looked over at him with fixed eyes – she did not want to appear weakened or upset before this man, not because she sought to impress him, but rather she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of her unease.

The Inquisitor motioned for her to come towards him, and she grudgingly complied - her steps bearing the hallmarks of defiance and disdain.

Galtman remained impassive, and turned his attention to the Drogians.

“Major,” he called.

At the far end of the hold, an officer in similar uniform to his men rose sharply from his seat and strode down the length of the hold using handrails fixed to the ceiling for support.

“Sister Palatine Aribeth - Major Lokrieg: commanding officer of the Drogian Imperial Guard,” Galtman announced as the Drogian officer approached and offered the Palatine a crisp salute.

“I thought the Drogian’s belonged to Commander Rienburg?” Aribeth asked tersely.

“Aye m’Lady,” the officer replied in heavily accented Low Gothic, “poor sir was killed this very day fighting in Guild Square. A hero to the end he was.”

“My condolences to yourself and your men, Major,” Aribeth said, though she was not saddened by Rienburg’s death – after all, he had been a pompous ass – but his death did seem unusual – and too abrupt to be mere coincidence.

The Major glared back at her with stern eyes; “This is war, m’Lady, and people die in war. The Commander will be mourned when it is all over.”

“Major, that will be enough,” Galtman said in a cautionary tone as he rose to his feet – instantly dwarfing both the Palatine and the Major, “I expect absolute obedience and cooperation from both of you; this is a delicate matter and you can both be replaced if you prove to be less that productive.”

Lokrieg swallowed heavily and muttered an apology, clearly cowed by the intimidations of the Inquisitor. Had he been subject to the Inquisitor’s witch-magiks too? Aribeth thought it probable – just as probable as the possibility of Galtman having had Rienburg disposed of, she reminded herself. Whatever his purpose, the Inquisitor could not be trusted.

“Major Lokrieg,” Galtman addressed the Drogian again, who looked at him with nervous eyes; his steely nerve crumbling under the Inquisitor’s increased scrutiny, “Go back to your seat, I will brief you and your men shortly.”

The Major saluted again and bustled away towards his own seat. Aribeth noticed that one of the Inquisitor’s hooded companions was watching him leave with a malicious grin. A nervous sweat began to bead and trickle down the nape of her neck, and she squirmed uncomfortably inside her armour. Something about Galtman – something about the robed men – something about this very place… it all just felt so very wrong.

Whatever it was though, Galtman appeared impervious to it - or anything else for that matter – his face an emotionless mask that betrayed no hint of what moved through the mind within. That, she decided, was what made him so easy to hate – not that he was a witch, not that he was a manipulative bastard, but that he remained completely emotionless – as if he felt absolutely nothing for what he was doing – and when he did show any sign of life, it was only to enjoy another’s suffering.

Oblivious to Aribeth’s thoughts – or at least feigning ignorance – Galtman stepped purposely across the hold to the seated Sororitas, motioning that Aribeth should follow him.

“I am Inquisitor Galtman,” he said coolly, his voice just loud enough to be heard by the assembled Sisters over the grating roar of the tank’s powerful engines. He looked at each of them in turn – judging their worth, Aribeth thought in disgust, as if he were fit to judge anything. His eyes met each of theirs, but none succumbed to intimidation and looked away; all met his cold expressionless eyes with steely gazes of their own. If he registered anything he kept it well hidden however, as his face was once again set like stone.

“A heretic has escaped,” he stated bluntly without prelude, “and you are going to assist me to the utmost of your potential in getting him back.” Galtman paused, letting his words sink in.

The hooded men across the hold grinned at one another.

“This man,” Galtman continued, “is a beta-level psyker and is extremely dangerous. You must exercise caution and restraint for the duration of this operation as any lapse will see all of you dead. Do I make myself clear?”

“Excuse me, Lord Inquisitor,” said Alexia, politely as she could manage and still make herself heard by the Inquisitor over the engines, “but how are we to capture a witch of such potency?”

Galtman looked at her for a moment, meeting the Seraphim Superior’s eyes. The silence of his metallic stare was deeply unnerving, and Serinae quickly turned her head away and focused on the floor next to her left greave and away from the towering man. Alexia, however, remained unbowed and focused her gaze directly into the black pits in Galtman’s eyes.

“Leave that to me,” was all he said, before slowly removing his stare from the Sister Superior and letting her sink back into the relative comfort of her chair.

“The target has been tracked to the industrial sector, though his exact location has yet to be confirmed. This area is still not yet stabilized and we can expect hostile resistance. Any encounter is to be treated as a hostile attempt by enemies of the Emperor, you are authorized and expected to terminate anyone and everyone that you encounter while in this operation. Understood?”

The Sororitas responded the affirmative.

“Good,” he said, “we’ll be at the objective in a matter of minutes. Be ready.” With that he turned and strode the length of the hold towards the Drogians, leaving the Sisters in their own company.

 

Though the large scale fighting of the uprising had ended earlier that day in the Guild Square, it had begun in the industrial sectors when tens of thousands of workers rose up under the influence of demagogues and their sinister overlords. Nearly three days of fighting had ensued – three days that had seen the once proud capital laid to waste. Early estimates suggested that over three million citizens (discounting the Arbites and the PDF) were dead and that production in the capital had suffered such a blow that it would require years, if not decades, to recover from.

The capital was indeed broken. The mass exodus of refugees streaming away from the city like blood from an open wound ensured that city streets remained empty – a home for the dead, the ghosts, and the lost. The thriving city life was no more, and with each passing day, and each passing refugee, the city came closer and closer to complete collapse.

By the sweat and blood of the Emperor’s armies order was forced upon the capital, and victory was proclaimed, but what good was victory if no one cared enough for what victory had brought? What was the point of all the blood spilt in victory’s name if the victorious prize was cast aside and forsaken? Indeed governor himself would one day ask whether or not it would have been better to flatten the entirety of his beloved city rather than waste so many lives on a prize that was essentially worthless. Years would pass however, and his question would fade into the oblivion of history as countless soldiers would continue to give their lives for futile goals – brave men and women would die for change, but nothing ever would.

 

A few lamps sputtered pitifully in the night to cast their meagre light outwards into the darkness that had descended upon the manufactoria like a lone pilgrim shining a torch into the abyss. It was a futile gesture – a gesture of how the city tried to carry on as it always had and ignore the scars of war. But it was all in vain. Better they advance through the dark, Clara thought, sweeping the sights of her bolter back and forth across the ground as she moved cautiously up behind a metal container, and with her back flat against its side, poked her head around the corner.

“Clear east-most approach. I’ve got eyes on a possible entrance point. Over.” she voxed to the others, and slipped around the corner of the container without waiting for a response.

It had been fifteen minutes since they had left the transport to infiltrate the target site; an old factory complex that had been abandoned three days earlier. So far they had not reached the factory itself as they were currently sweeping through the kilometres of stockyards that surrounded the target building in a rough skirmish line with intervals of about fifty feet. Like the fluttering lamp-posts, Clara had concluded that this sweep was also a futile gesture – five Sororitas to cover at least three square kilometres of space? What was that if not a gesture of futility? Precaution, she reminded herself, it was all precaution. Aribeth did not want them running a gauntlet through the cemetery stillness of the stockyards, and Clara had to agree – slow progress as it might be, Aribeth had done what she believed was right.

“+Understood. Check it out and report back. Over.+” Aribeth’s voice spoke into her ear through the vox-piece.

Clara dropped into a crouch behind an overturned power lifter and scanned her surrounding down the length of her weapon. She was horribly exposed to several vantage points in this position, but then again so were the others, and with no sign of any life other than the four other women moving silently through the yard, she would have to rely primarily on the darkness, her armour, and her training to keep her safe from anything that was lurking in the dark.

Rising slowly, she peaked out from behind the power lifter’s smashed cab – the green tint of her night-vision plucking the outline of a lower annex building that seemed to join with the main bulk of the complex further along its width. Keeping low, Clara moved towards it quickly, only twenty more –

“+Hold!+”

Clara froze - the rain pinging loudly off her armour.

“+Hold fast!+” Alexia’s voice hissed over the link. Throughout the stockyard, the Sisters stopped and blended with the nearest available cover. Clara lowered herself gently onto her front as her heart hammered against her rib-cage and her eyes plied the darkness for any sign of movement.

“+Movement spotted west-most flank,+” Alexia’s voice spoke into her head. West-most – that was furthest from her, still, movement could well mean one of many things.

Clara waited silently for a few more moments, blood hammering in her ears, before she slunk over the ground as silently as possible and crouched next to a lone oil drum. Impatience was a good way to get killed, she reminded herself, and was not becoming of her, yet she couldn’t fight the anxious knot in her stomach that yearned to just get this over with. She felt… distracted for some reason, something was nagging at her mind, and not letting her focus her full attention on the operation. It was distressing, and could easily cost her her life.

“+Negative – nothing there. False alarm. Over.+” Alexia whispered though the headset. Even Alexia seemed to be jumping at shadows.

“+Fan out and keep moving,+” Aribeth’s voice said as soon as Alexia had signed off, “+How close are you to the potential entrance, Clara? Over.+”

“I’m right on top of it,” Clara replied, eyeing the paint-chipped personnel door just twenty paces to her left, “moving to check it now. Over.”

“+Understood,+” Aribeth replied, “+We’ll follow as soon as it’s secure. Over.+”

Clara pivoted on the balls of her feet and rose into a quick dash towards the door. Ten paces. She slowed down to a walk and quickly panned her bolter to her left and right – it looked clear. She stepped closer, leg crossing over leg as she advanced with her weapon braced and raised. Five paces. She was almost at the –

 

Rylke waded through the shin-deep water of yet another miniature lake that had formed between two rows of stacked industrial pallets and squinted around in the darkness for anything that looked remotely recognizable. The downpour was starting to get to her: she couldn’t see a damned thing with all the rain, and the sound of the water smacking against the pavement and her armour made it almost impossible to hear. Love of the Throne! A Leman Russ could be driving up behind her at full speed and she wouldn’t notice until its dozer blade had scooped her off her ass! She checked behind her just in case – still, she couldn’t see anything other than green-tinted rain and piles of industrial stock. Breaking free from the monstrous puddle, she rested her back against the nearest stack of pallets. Clara had said that she may have found a way into the factory complex east of her position, but she hadn’t confirmed her discovery yet. Rylke hoped she would, anything to get out of this rain…

She flicked off her night-vision momentarily if only to see if her unadulterated eyes could penetrate the sheets of water with greater success than the night-sight. She clicked the activation stub on the side of her helmet, changing her world from bright green into black. Now she couldn’t even see the rain through the blackness. She turned her head slowly, trying to find some chink in the surrounding darkness, yet she saw nothing – it was just too dark. She reached her hand back up to her helmet to reactivate the night-sight and gain some measure of visibility when it happened – a beam of white light penetrated the blackness and spread through the pallets, casting a web of shadows all about her through the pouring rain.

“Report!” she called into her mic, “what is the source of that light?”

 

Aribeth wound her way through scattered crates and discarded canisters towards where Clara had reported spotting a potential entrance to the complex – forget the stock yards; the chances of the target lurking in the dark and the rain were next to none, or at least she prayed so. This was a hostile sector however, and she did not fancy the chances of she and her Sisters to survive an ambush in these conditions. Probable or not, she would have to exercise caution and control, and avoid taking needless risks – such as running blind through a potentially hostile area. She ducked around a toppled transport trolley and swept the area with the infrared scope on her weapon, tracing any place where an enemy would choose to hide himself. Of course all the reading returned negative – this place was as cold as death. She dashed past the trolley, and carried on eastward, heedless of the noise made by her greaves as they stamped down hard on the drenched pavement – the rain was already deafening, like the scraping hiss of static in her ears.

“+Aribeth! Do you copy? Over.+”

She skidded to stop and knelt next to the soggy remains of what must have been a brunt-out overseer cubicle.

“Aribeth reporting. Over.” she answered into her helmet mic.

No reply came out of the headset, only a static scramble in imitation to the rain.

“Identify speaker. Over.” she called into the ether.

Still nothing identifiable.

She was about to call again when a blast of static-laced gibberish exploded into her helmet and almost knocked her off her feet. Reeling under the intensity of transmission she furiously tried to adjust her vox, but the feed cut out before she could make any adjustments. The vox was dead – no static – no echo – no nothing, just a hollow, suffocating silence. Her imagination got the better of her, and she rose slowly to her feet. She could see them now, hundreds of ragged bodies slowly creeping through the stormy night; weapons held loosly in their hands as they casually followed the unsuspecting Sisters into hydra’s jaws – waiting for just the right moment to carry them off to an occult ritual where they would be sacrificed to blasphemous gods. For a moment she felt that she could even hear them drawing closer – hear the rain as it pattered off their skin – hear their steady breathing as they moved in for the kill – hear the beating of their diseased hearts. Get a grip on yourself! She closed her eyes furiously and blinked away her encroaching fear. Why was she so jumpy? Lack of sleep? It had to be, there was no other explanation. Or was there? The hairs on the back of her neck began to rise as a shiver ran down the length of her spine. Shut up! She smacked her armoured fist into the side of her helmet and shook her head furiously. Pull yourself together! Then she saw them. Out of the rain, shapes appeared across her vision, creeping slowly towards her. Slowly, she raised her bolter and stared don the infrared scope. Red. Body-heat. She had hostile contact.

Suddenly her night-sight glowed a fluorescent green, blinding her to her surroundings and the approaching enemy – light, too much damn light! She quickly flicked off the night-sight and refocused her eyes to the darkness of normal vision. A lattice of light and shadows sprang out from the east and played out across the yard, painting a pattern of light and dark across everything she could see.

“+Report. What is the source of that light?+” she heard Rylke ask across the closed circuit vox. Aribeth didn’t know. She raised her bolter once more and peered down the secondary scope. Nothing. No red. No heat. They had vanished.

 

Clara cursed aloud and rolled towards the near wall of the annex, and rising in a fighting crouch so that her back was pressed flat against it. Her night-sight was blinding her, so she flicked it off.

“+Report. What is the source of that light?+” Rylke demanded.

“It’s nothing,” Clara replied, surprised by her own discovery now that she could see with her own eyes again. “It’s just a light above the entranceway. Very bright. Looks like its automatic.”

“+Shut if off! It’s blowing our cover!+”

“Negative,” replied Clara, studying the wall around her, “I can’t find any type of switch. It must be controlled from the inside.”

She could shoot it, but that would likely ruin any chance they had of achieving surprise.

The light over the door exploded in a shower of sparks as a trio of explosive bolts thudded into it. So much for surprise, she thought, hopefully the rain would dampen the sound and no one would notice.

“+Control yourselves!+” Aribeth growled over the comm. and Clara could tell that she was furious, “+ I know that we’re all on edge, but I expect better discipline from now on! Do I make myself clear?+”

Rylke dutifully apologized for her actions and submitted herself to any future chastisement that the Palatine thought suitable for her lapse in restraint.

“+Clara,+” Aribeth said, her voice sounding strained even over the vox, “+get us inside.+”

 

Reactivating the night-sight now that the automatic lamp was little more than a smouldering crater of twisted metal, Clara edged closer to the door. There was no sign of a handle, or anything else that could be used to open the door from the outside, just a flat, weather-worn surface. She pressed her shoulder up against it and rocked it back and forth several times, straining to listen for a loose rattle over the drumming of the rain that would indicate the security of the door. She didn’t hear anything. She moved her fingertips lightly over the door and pressed against certain points in the door. A slight depression – the entrance was not heavily secured, still there was no feasible way of opening it easily from the outside.

“Stand-by,” she whispered into the vox, sliding her bolter down to her hip and loosing the strap on her bolt pistol, “I’m blowing it.”

Holding the pistol at arm’s length out in front of her, Clara aimed steadily at where she believed the handle would be on an ordinary door - where the lock should be on the other side.

She squeezed the trigger, blasting a fist-size hole into the door, and kicked it open with a loud bang. She was inside.

 

It was dead. Dark, still, and dead.

Stepping out of the pouring rain, Aribeth noticed that the annexed building was eerily quiet. No echoes of machinery, no pulsing of internal systems, nothing - just a flat, dead, silence.

Clara had already secured the entryway – an unlit room which appeared to be a storage closet – and was moving stealthily towards a door on the opposite wall.

Serinae appeared silently behind Aribeth and crept into a covering position behind Clara. Alexia and Rylke followed close behind, and Aribeth closed the outer door behind them before nodding to Clara who was waiting by the inner door. At the Palatine’s signal, Clara eased the inner door open and disappeared out of sight, followed by Serinae, Alexia, Rylke, and lastly Aribeth.

The hall outside the door was long, wide, and relatively bare; a few abandoned dollies, and a mop bucket or two, but nothing more. The Sisters dispersed at intervals of roughly fifteen feet and crept slowly down the corridor along opposite walls. The soft impacts of their feet along the tiled floor were outrageously loud to Aribeth’s ears, and cut the silent air with as much subtlety as a chainsword.

At the fore of the advancing Kill-Team, Clara reached the first intersection in the corridor and swept her bolter down both ways before raising her right hand over her shoulder in the shape of an ‘O’: clear.

The five resumed their movement down towards the end of the hallway where a pair of massive double doors stood awaiting them in foreboding silence. Aribeth couldn’t help but notice how the rustle of their equipment sounded outrageously amplified. Stop it! she told herself, you’re being ridiculous! No, I’m being cautious. Paranoia and caution are not the same thing, Aribeth.

Up ahead Clara shot a warning hand into the air. Serinae, Rylke, and Alexia froze. Aribeth crept up the line to where Clara was waiting and stood next to her, squinting into the darkness.

“What is it?” Aribeth whispered to her friend.

Clara didn’t answer, she only pointed down the hall on the floor.

Aribeth raised her bolter and peered down the infrared scope. Body-heat – reduced, but definitely body heat.

The Palatine crept forward with Clara by her side, the others taking up covering positions behind them. Two bodies lay on the floor; an older looking man, and a young girl – both were very dead.

“They can’t have been dead more than fifteen minutes,” Aribeth remarked after gauging the body-heat through the reader.

“Poor kid,” Clara said, sliding the girl’s staring eyes shut, “she couldn’t have been any older then ten.” She shook her head sadly. “Look at these,” she pointed to several definitive wounds that had torn through the bodies, “definitely not solid-slug, lasguns?”

“No,” Aribeth replied softly, crouching down to examine the bloody ruins in the chest and abdominal areas of the corpses, “too much damage for anything but intense las-fire. No, these people were killed by hellguns.”

“Hellguns!?” Clara repeated in a hushed voice that did not disguise her surprise, “There is no way that any of the heretics could get their hands on hellguns – neither the PDF nor the Arbites use them, plus they require serious maintenance to operate – ruling out a private ownership.”

“Then we can expect that we are sharing this building with some serious foes,” Serinae said as she approached to where Aribeth and Clara were kneeling around the corpses.

“The good Inquisitor didn’t tell us everything he knew about this,” Aribeth said, rising to her feet, “He’s going to have a lot to answer for.”

[Alex.ö]

Yay!

The tension is rising! I´m very exited to read on!

[Lady_Canoness]

Ah yes, Installment number nine!

 

I have to begin by saying that I enjoyed writing this chapter like no other that I have written, and I tried all sorts of new ideas and techniques in doing so. The action is supposed to be fast paced to help capture the 'life-and-death' feeling of close-range fire-fights. Remember those parts in movies that are just really, really cool? That is the kind of feel that I'm going for - a climax that won't be forgotten.

 

So what does this installment bring to the table in furthering the plot-lines of the multitude of characters in this story? Well, we finally see open conflict between some of the factions involved, more is revealed about Inquisitor Galtman that will make him look even more cold and calous than before, and a significant character meets their death. Who? You'll have to read to find out.

 

Now, this Installment does include a fair amount of fighting, but since this is not an open battle scene with hundreds of fighters, the blood and gore is toned done - not everything is blind shooting and killing (though their is a healthy dose of violence for those who like it :( )

 

So, with no further delay, I am pleased to give you:

 

---------------------------------

 

Installment Nine of the Saint Ascendant <part 1 of 3>

 

---------------------------------

 

“Room’s clear.” Alexia whispered as she crept forward through a workers’ locker room, her automatic shot-cannon held low but ready.

On the Palatine’s orders they had divided into two groups to spread out and search the annexed building. Search for what, she had never elaborated, though Alexia suspected that the Palatine had wanted to find a trace of whoever else was inside the factory.

Rylke edged along the wall on the opposite and peer through an open doorway that stood at the end of the room.

“Showers,” she said simply, before moving back with carefully placed steps, “there’s nothing in this section.”

Alexia relaxed her stance a little bit and followed Rylke towards the dressing room exit. “I wonder what all that was about?” she mused aloud.

“All what, Sister Superior?” Rylke responded over her shoulder without looking.

“Come on, Sister Rylke, surely you noticed the Palatine’s tone when she was speaking to Sister Clara?”

“I don’t think that is any of our concern, Sister Superior,” said Serinae as she joined them back in the hall, “the Palatine’s convictions are her own, and I don’t think you should question them.”

The three of them continued their sweep in silence.

 

There was another body with hellgun wounds found sitting upright in a desk chair. His clothing looked like that of a line-overseer, but the amount of blood made it difficult to tell. That, and most of the man’s head had been smeared across the wall behind him.

“Someone’s already purged this area,” Clara remarked upon finding the corpse, “I’ll be surprised if we find anyone alive in here. Whoever did this was as efficient as they were brutal.”

Aribeth moved over to the wall and examined the blood splatter, before taking a closer look at what was left of his head.

“This man was killed at least a few hours ago,” she announced, making a mental note of the congealed blood and the absence of body-heat. “Whoever is here has been here for some time.”

Clara frowned behind her helmet and folded her arms, “What are you thinking, Aribeth?”

Aribeth sighed and looked around the room, taking in everything – the body, the blood, the loose papers on the desk, the stone-cold cup of caffeine that had fallen from the dead man’s grasp and broken on the floor…

“A lot,” she admitted. “It doesn’t make sense to me; why would a team of obviously skilled soldiers come here and kill everyone over the span of a few hours?”

“Well…” Clara began, running her ideas over in her head, “what if they – whoever they are – are here for the same reason we are? What else would there be to gain from infiltrating this place with a crack squad of troops?”

“I don’t think so,” Aribeth said. “We only were alerted - ”, she checked her chronometer, “ – just over two hours ago, but if my guess is right and this one was killed at least five hours ago, that would mean that our unknown company was already here way in advance – before the target even reached this site.”

Clara opened the office door as quietly as possible; “I think that one way or another we’re soon going to find out,” she whispered

 

Bodies; everywhere they looked there were always more bodies to be found, all of them bearing the telltale marks of having been killed by high-powered las-weaponry. The attackers, whoever they were had made no attempt to tidy up after themselves, and had left the corpses were they fell. Most of the victims looked like ordinary citizens who had sheltered from the war in the relative safety of an industrial complex, some were factory workers, and a few were tech adepts of the Mechanicum, yet all of them had been hunted down and murdered without any signs of a struggle. That’s what troubled Rylke the most: these people were being murdered while remaining entirely ignorant to the fate of their colleagues. Alexia had suggested that perhaps they had been using silencers or some other way to conceal their presence from their prey, but that made no sense, for while lasguns were difficult to silence, hellguns were impossible. Whoever these unknown assailants may be, they were highly efficient.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Alexia said to Rylke as they came upon the last of the corpses - two kids who looked like they had been playing with a ragged looking toy bear when their killers came for them - “how could they have caught everyone completely unaware?”

Rylke shuddered, she had seen many acts of barbarism during her years in the service of the Sisterhood and the Emperor, but the slaughter of innocent and unsuspecting children by an obviously elite strike-team was something with which she was not familiar.

“Why would they do it?” she asked, as Alexia knelt over the corpses and said a small prayer for the departed children. “Why would you go out of your way to kill innocent children?”

“No witnesses,” Serinae answered, stepping into the room, her heavy bolter in her hands. “Come, leave them. We have to rendezvous with the Palatine and Sister Clara – the Emperor’s work supersedes the death of innocents.”

The Retributor stepped out of the room and moved away down the hall. Alexia rose silently to follow her, leaving Rylke momentarily alone. She shook her head and sighed before rising to leave the bodies; purging the wicked was one thing, murdering helpless citizens was another.

 

“+Bodies are of no consequence, stick to the set mission parameters – terminate any opposition and clear the area.+”

“Understood, my Lord, but - ”

“+No buts, Palatine. You have an objective, and you complete that objective at all costs. I don’t care what else you find, and I don’t care what you encounter. All that matters is that you discover the location of the target and prevent his escape. Fail that, and I will personally see that you are put on charges, and that your rank of service in the Sisterhood is stripped. Are we clear?+”

“Quite clear, my Lord.”

“+Good. Galtman out.+”

Aribeth clicked off the communicator and flexed her hands against one another. Clara was standing in an empty doorframe, her bolter held easily in her hands, watching her.

“He didn’t say anything, did he?” she asked quietly.

Aribeth turned towards her Sister from where she was leaning against a workshop counter and flexed her fingers slightly. She had voxed the Inquisitor to advise him about the nature of any possible resistance and to see whether or not he and the Drogians had any encounters, but rather than answer her questions or heed her warning, he had firmly rebuked her for lack of focus on the primary objective.

“He told us to ignore anything we discovered and to stay focused,” Aribeth answered bluntly.

Clara shook her head, “For an Inquisitor, he sure doesn’t seem that inquisitive.”

Aribeth laughed dryly, “I might appreciate the irony of it more if we weren’t in a life or death situation,” she said, passing past Clara and through the door, “We should meet up with the others.”

 

He saw them approaching as if in a dream – five figures – five women. He smiled. He liked women. He reached out to touch them, to taste them, but then recoiled – they were foul… yet so tantalizingly close.

They kept going, unaware of his lurking presence. They were so close – oh, but to feel them! He had done it once, and it had felt so good.

He took a closer look. He recognized one – yes he did – he remembered how she had felt. It made him smile. He should do it again. Reach out to her again. She had hated it, hated him, rejected him, but that made it even batter – doing what she didn’t want him to do. Oh yes… he had liked that.

But what was this? Men? There are also men. He didn’t like men – they were too blunt he found, not enough to wet his appetite, not enough flavour to excite him the way women did.

He turned from them – they were of no concern. He had enough play things as it was…

 

The five Sororitas moved like shadows down the lightless hall towards two sets of sturdy double doors. The annex was secured behind them, and they now moved to enter the factory floors of the complex.

At the head of the advancing Sisters, Clara waved them down as she approached the great portal. The doors were made of an unfinished heavy sheet metal, and would likely prove impenetrable should they be fastened tightly, but they had found no other entrance to the factory floors from the annex – they would have to either go this way, or retrace their steps and search for another exit. With time as a factor, they could only afford to proceed.

Clara reached the doors and removed her helmet, pressing her ear gently against its cold surface as her Sisters covered her from behind. Silently, she played her outstretched fingers across the smooth surface. What she felt was the same as what she heard: nothing. Everything was quiet and still – no rumbling of machinery, no vibrations, not even the faint hums of ventilation or power systems. Like the annex, like everything else in this complex, the factory floor beyond the doors was silent and dead. She pulled her helmet back on and clasped it into place before motioning for Alexia to advance and provide more direct cover as she worked on opening the doors.

There were no control panels that Clara could see for operating the doors, so it was likely that they opened the old fashioned way: by physical labour. She locked her fingers around the handle and pulled. Nothing. She slung her bolter so that it hung loosely by her hip and grabbed the door with both hands. Still nothing – the door wouldn’t budge.

 

“Locked?” Rylke suggested.

It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t be – it had to open – they had to get through that way.

“We’ll blow it if we have to,” Aribeth whispered back, her eyes never moving from the infrared scope. She had felt it again, that indescribable feeling on the back of her neck that someone or something was watching them. Focus! She couldn’t afford to let her thoughts wander, there was a task at hand, a that task must be completed.

“My Lady, we don’t have anything more than frag grenades – those doors might be too solid to blast. We may have to find another way.” Rylke responded, looking sideways across the corridor at the Palatine.

“Sister Rylke,” said Aribeth in a hushed voice, “remember that we are acting in the Emperor’s name, and that the Emperor provides for His loyal servants. That door will open – it has to.”

“The Emperor watches over us,” Rylke echoed.

Clara took as step back from the door, breathing hard. The muscles in her shoulders and arms ached from the numerous attempts to push, pull, or heave the doors open, yet with a cold defiance, the doors remained closed. It was hopeless.

Alexia stepped up beside her as Serinae moved to take the Seraphim’s place providing close support.

“Make space, Sister Clara,” said Alexia, holstering the bolt pistol she had been carrying, “we’ll work together in this.”

Both Sisters braced themselves and began to heave at the door, but still the door refused to move.

“Emperor…” Clara managed through clenched teeth, “give me the strength to persevere…” she could feel the beads of sweat forming underneath her helmet, “against that which would withstand the radiance of your will…” her feet started to slide, “I am… your faithful servant!”

With a tortured groan the door began to give way, inch by inch, until it had moved six inches, then it stopped.

Both Sisters stepped away from the door, breathing hard from the exertion.

The door was mocking them, it had given way just enough for them to peer through, but still refusing them entry – taunting them with a prize so tantalizingly close.

Aribeth stepped up to the door and looked through the gap. The manufactorium floor was naught but a ghost of what it had once been. Massive boilers, piston-driven mechanical arms and cogs that stretched out in row upon row as far as her vision could perceive in the green light of the night-sight like the skeletal remains of some long passed leviathan – its bones of wrought iron and steel standing forever frozen, echoing the moment of its passing in the spectral light of the Palatine’s night vision. Downwards she gazed, looking deep through the grid flooring into the bowels of the machine beast, and she saw that the scale of the production floor was not limited by any restrictions of structure, for the factory works extended downwards into darkness, and again upwards – ladders and caged staircases providing access to the stratified works of the machine for those who toiled daily in its service. Yet the machine – like the people who had laboured for it - was dead.

Aribeth stepped back from the opening in the door and considered it momentarily. It wouldn’t move, and it looked as if its heavy frame was all but impervious to the weapons they carried.

“Stand back,” she warned, drawing the shimmering blade of her power sword.

Clara and Alexia backed away. Serinae cocked her head slightly sideways as she watched the Palatine from further down the hall.

Gripping the weapon firmly in both hands, Aribeth reversed her hold on the blade before raising the sword above her head and stabbing it towards the door in a downward thrust with all the might of her body following behind it. The power sword glowed bright like the golden radiance of the heavens as the point struck the unyielding steel and bit in deep before forcing its way through to other side – the sword’s golden length protruding from its back and bringing a faint glimmer of golden light into the repressive darkness beyond.

With a grunt of effort, Aribeth ripped the blade back out and sheathed the sword, before stooping to admire the thin rent that the sword had opened.

“Forgive me for questioning you, Palatine, but how do you intend to open the door like that?” Rylke asked, clearly puzzled by what her Palatine had just done.

Aribeth didn’t answer immediately; instead she reached to her belt and unhooked one of the grenades hanging there.

“‘It is said that to look upon the path of piety is like looking upon a wall,” she said reflectively, quoting perfectly from the epistles of Saint Sabbat, “the meek and the faint of heart will despair, and, claiming that the barrier before them be so great, will turn away from the path of righteousness and abandon their quest. Yet those who are faithful and true to their Emperor, will know that while the wall itself cannot be broken, only the tiniest of holes need be made for the passage of faith.’”

Upon saying those words, Aribeth wedged the krak grenade into the wound her sword had made, and – warning her Sisters to get back – pulled the pin.

 

The shockwave from the explosion reverberated down the still lines of machinery, and echoed through the factory’s silent halls in a booming crescendo. The lingering sound moved through the air and rang off every surface it touched, until finally it faded – its fury depleted.

She waited, crouching low, high in the rafters of the fifth floor – her keen eyes deciphering the darkness with unerring accuracy. At first no one came, but Mercy knew patience, and she remained unmoving like a gargoyle in the night. Then, like phantoms at midnight, they appeared - black shapes moving silently in the darkness. There were dozens of them, criss-crossing the cat-walks with drilled efficiency, their bulky hellguns held close to their chests. None of them saw her, the giant shadow up above, but she sensed all of them – her nose wrinkling involuntarily at the presence of their stench. She could smell the sweat clinging to their bodies, she could taste their odour on the tip of her tongue, she could feel the dampness of their controlled breath, yet revolted as she was by them, her sire was in need of servants, and their were many other things in her sire’s employ that disturbed her more than this.

[Lady_Canoness]

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Installment Nine of the Saint Ascendant <part 2 of 3>

 

---------------------------------

 

The smoke grenade landed with a clatter as it skidded along the wire floor and belched out gouts of grey-black smoke that quickly clouded the blasted ruin of the door and provided the Sororitas with essential cover as they advanced. None of them were under any illusions of maintaining stealth – it was time to take whatever resistance they would encounter head-on.

“Rylke, Alexia – in position, now!” Aribeth commanded into her vox unit as she, Clara, and Serinae dashed forwards through the smoke with weapons up and heads down.

Alexia peeled off the right and quickly scaled a ladder leading up to the second floor, Rylke doing likewise on the left and taking up covering positions on the flank as the other three pressed down the middle. Immerging from the smoke at the head of her Sisters, Aribeth swept her bolter from side to side, looking down the infrared scope. Positive readings advanced towards them on the first and second floors – contact. With a hand signal from the Palatine, Clara disappeared through the silent machine works to the left, and Serinae detached a flare from her belt, tore of the det-tape, and hurled it back into the smoke – illuminating the grey cloud and the room itself in a ghostly white light.

“Daughters of the Emperor,” Aribeth bellowed as the first strobes of concentrated las-fire lanced overhead – trying to pinpoint a target amongst the shifting shadows, “rise now! Send these heathens back into darkness!” She aimed her bolter towards the nearest orange glow on the second floor and squeezed the trigger, a flurry of mass-reactive bolts hurtled towards the foe, several glanced and rang off the grilled floor and machinery, but two found their mark and set the figure to topple over in pain. Hell-fire answered back in furious blasts, forcing Aribeth to duck backwards out of sight as the red beams ricocheted wildly off the metal surfaces around her. A las-blast struck Serinae in the shoulder, ripping off the paudron with the force of the shot, and knocking her off balance as yet more fire plummeted from the second floor down on top of them. A loud crack, a flash to her left, and a black-clad enemy dropped headless as Clara found her mark through the darkness. Returning fire spattered half-heartedly around the markswoman in a vain attempt to flush her out, but the Celestian remained calm and fired off another burst, exploding the neck from an enemy – their armour of no use against the might of her bolter and the keenness of her eye.

 

Sister Superior Alexia raced along the catwalks of the second floor in a low crouch, her expert balance allowing her to traverse between the suspended walkways with ease. Under cover from the oppressive din of gunfire, the Seraphim Superior passed unseen along the enemy flank and attacked from the rear – the first blast of her shot-cannon striking an enemy hard in the back of his carapace armour and forcing him to his knees while the second blast ripped through his armoured torso and blasted his bloody remains out along the walkway. Not four metres to her right another black-armoured foe, turning to see his comrade fall, let loose with a volley of energy beams as the Seraphim ducked and rolled out of the line of fire, letting the shot-cannon clatter to the floor, and rose before him with a roaring chiansword in her hands. The man parried the first blow with surprising skill and speed using the stock of his hellgun, but was gored by the reverse stroke as the chainblade swept low and cut his left leg out from under him, before Alexia finished the screaming man by driving him to the ground with the roaring sword impaled through his chest.

 

Rylke took cover behind a motionless pair of massive piston-driven arms as streams of hell-fire raked the machinery around her with lethal rapid-fire, forcing her to cower deeper and deeper into the forest of metal. Pinned, she dared not risk exposure by glancing towards the enemy positions, but rather she plucked a frag grenade from her bandoleer and bounced it off an intervening support beam towards the unseen foe – the explosion rocking the metal beneath her feet. The fire stopped momentarily – that was all she needed. Pivoting on the spot, Rylke tightened her finger around the secondary trigger on her bolter and let loose with a storming inferno of orange flames as the combi-flamer set about its sacred work – a thrashing figure caught in the blaze drawing a grim smile from the Celestian. A trio of hell-shots sniped through the torrent of burning promethium – one lancing centimetres above her armoured head, but the other two impacting painfully against the crown of her helmet, knocking her backwards off her feet across the floor. Spots of colour flashed before her eyes as she tried to blink through the stupor that engulfed her senses, and she raised her pounding head ever-so slightly. She was just conscious enough to notice a grenade bounce off the nearby machinery and clatter to the floor just three metres to her right. Time slowed, and the grenade lolled lazily across the steel decking she watched with a mixture of awe and horror. The blast hurled her along the floor and under the guard-rail. The last thing she remembered was watching the world fall away around her.

 

Aribeth noticed the falling form of her Sister and cursed loudly, ducking back into cover as yet more fire found its way down towards her.

“Serinae!” she yelled to the Retributor who was sheltering just across the way from her, “Cover me! Rylke’s down!”

Serinae nodded in acknowledgement, and leaned out from behind the pump-station where she hid to send another stream of heavy calibre fire racing down the through the columns of machinery at the distant foe.

Aribeth darted off to the left through the jungle of silent metal, thankfully free from too much enemy attention thanks to Serinae’s covering fire. The flash of weapons discharges cast murderous shadows across her vision, and forced her to slow her pace lest the treacherous shadows prove more a danger than the enemy guns. She slowed to a fast walk as she clambered over immobile gears and in-between machines that would see her dead in milliseconds should they move. Time was against her, the longer she took the more likely Serinae’s covering fire would wear out, and the more likely Rylke would die – if she was not dead already – but at the same time she could ill afford endanger herself by moving recklessly.

A searing lance of energy impacted with a shower of sparks as it came dangerously close to hitting her head – Serinae’s cover-fire was blown, and Aribeth was now a wide open target for enemy marksmen. Another blasted ripped past her as she knelt in what cover she could find and fired back up at her attackers with long bursts of bolter-fire. An enemy buckled and went down as an explosive shell detonated within his abdomen and ripped him nearly in half. A shot clipped her arm, and a trio of shots smacked hard against her chest, throwing her to the ground, fortunately her armour held and she managed to recover quickly before more hell-fire raked down from above. Scurrying in a vain search for cover, Aribeth realized that she was doomed, she had been over-confident in her own prowess, and now she found her self pinned in a cross-fire between two shooters. It would only be a matter of time. Nevertheless she shot back at her attackers in defiance, sending round after round thundering upwards, driving them back. Then in one horrific moment the bolter sung dry. Frantically, she ripped the empty box-feed from the weapon and cast it aside, before fumbling for another as the incoming fire redoubled its intensity. A double-shot struck her hard in the stomach and forced Aribeth to her knees under the pressure. More crackling beams of energy played around her legs as the gunners furiously wrestled with the wild jumps of their rapid-firing weapons, four of which contacted hard against her upper thigh, denting the armour and making the limb feel oddly numb. She knew it would soon be over – it would only take a second to reload her weapon, but in that time the shooters would have found her head, and when they did she would be killed. Another burst of energised shots struck her power-pack and shoulders, throwing her face down on to the floor by the force of the impacts, and the loose box of ammunition jumped free from her grasp and skipped across the floor away from the defenceless Palatine. Her time had come. Like earlier that day, death came to swallow her whole, and she had nothing with which she could over-come it.

The first assailant raised his weapon to deliver the killing shot, but none came – his headless body collapsing and the hellgun falling from his fingers. Noticing his companion’s death, the second black-clad attacker ceased fire and ducked away into the shadows above.

Aribeth staggered back to her feet and retrieved her fallen bolter, just as Sister Clara scrambled through the machinery to land by her side. She handed Aribeth one of her clips, and placed a hand firmly on her arm.

“Are you okay?” she shouted over the gunfire.

“I’m fine!” Aribeth responded, slamming the clip home, “Rylke’s down, I need to get to her! Can you hold here?”

Clara simply nodded her helmeted head as she sighted her weapon through the gloom, “Go!” she told the Palatine, “I’ll cover you!”

Aribeth nodded her head in thanks, but Clara was already slipping away into the surrounding machinery. Aribeth turned and headed in the opposite direction.

 

Something was wrong. He shuffled nervously around his perch high on the fifth floor, hands tapping together in anticipation. The men to the north were fighting something – something that he could not sense, but the women – the women to the south – they were fighting too, and advancing very quickly. He ran away with bumbling steps along the catwalk – he didn’t like fighting, it was too exhausting on his mind. He must escape, but where would he go? What would he do? He didn’t know. He was trapped. Distressed, he sat down and hugged his knees to his chest – this had been so much more fun when they weren’t closing in on him, it had been so much more enjoyable when he was able to unleash the powers in his head on the weak and the unsuspecting. Now they were coming to kill him, and he was afraid.

He rocked back and forth in the darkness, with his eyes clenched shut. A plethora of images played across the inside of his eyelids – all of them real, all of them bad.

No! He could not let this happen. He had to stop it. But how?

He focused his mind, and felt out through the silent manufactorium – slipping under shadows, and through cooling bodies, until he found them - the armoured women. Now he need only choose who to taste, and who to use…

 

Rylke was sprawled awkwardly across the floor when Aribeth found her. The Celestian wasn’t moving. Aribeth dashed to her side and dropped down next her, pulling the medical kit from her belt as she did so – praying that she was not too late.

“Rylke! Sister Rylke!” she called loudly to the prone figure, feeling her neck gently with the tips of her fingers to see that it was not broken.

Rylke didn’t respond.

“Speak to me, Rylke. Don’t die on us!” she said, slowly removing the Celestian’s helmet and feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

… wait… Yes! She felt a pulse! Rylke was still alive!

She reached into the med-pack and extracted a nerve-pulse stimulant syringe, before quickly peeling away the collar of her Sister’s body-glove and injecting it into the bloodstream.

Still nothing.

Aribeth shot a glance over her shoulder; the shooting had died down, meaning that only one of two things could have happened.

She turned back to Rylke, unwilling to let the imagination of her fatigue stricken mind pervert the facts – this was war, and she needed to stay focused – there was no time to let her mind wander.

Rylke stirred, and her eyes drifted open.

“Rylke, can you hear me?” she asked, her voice articulate and loud.

The Celestian turned her head slightly and looked up at the Palatine with unfocused eyes. Her lips parted, letting a low mumble escape.

“Don’t try and move,” Aribeth warned her, “you fell, and I don’t know the extent of the damage.”

“I…” she croaked.

“You are going to be okay. Do you understand? You are going to get better, Rylke.” Aribeth said, as much for reassuring Rylke as for reassuring herself. She was no Hospitaler, and her medical knowledge was limited at best – all she could really do was try and make her comfortable.

“I’m ok, Palatine… really,” she mumbled, trying to pull herself up to a sitting position, but Aribeth stopped her with forceful hand on her shoulder.

“You are not going anywhere, Rylke. You fell, it could be dangerous.”

“Ever – everything could be dangerous,” the Celestian sputtered back. “Let… let me up. I c-can still fight!”

Aribeth said nothing, but kept Rylke restrained with one hand.

“Please… ?”

“I can’t do that, Rylke,” Aribeth answered her slowly, “but you can still help us,” she pulled Rylke’s pistol from her holster and put it in her hands. “You can still fight, but don’t try to move.”

Rylke gripped the pistol tightly in both hands, and moved it around slightly as if testing its weight. “This won’t do,” she said at last. “Can you at least sit me upright so I can shoot?”

Aribeth nodded, and stood up to try and shift the Celestian’s dead-weight. Rylke grimaced under the obvious pain, but not a sound escaped her tightly shut mouth.

“That’s the best I can do,” Aribeth announced, leaning her Sister’s back against an old console that stood nearby.

“Good enough,” Rylke gasped. “Pain killers?”

Aribeth stooped back to pick up the med pack and handed it to Rylke, pulling out all the needles for her to see.

“These are all single injections,” she explained, “use them wisely or don’t use them at all.”

Rylke nodded that she understood, but then snapped her head to one side; “someone’s coming!” she breathed.

Moment’s later Clara stepped out from the rows of machinery and approached them both. Her eyes lingered for a while on Rylke’s recumbent form, and Aribeth could feel the injured Celestian stir uncomfortably behind her under her squad-mate’s scrutiny. Sensing the disturbance, Clara looked away from the wounded Sister and focused on the Palatine;

“The enemy is withdrawing, my Lady, and Sister Serinae and Sister Alexia are already in pursuit,” Clara informed her.

Aribeth turned back to Rylke, “do you think that you can hold here, Sister Rylke?”

Rylke smiled weakly at the prospect of her Palatine’s request, “I am ready to serve, my Lady!” she said bringing a balled fist to her chest in the age-old salute of warriors, “only in death shall my duty end!”

Aribeth returned the one fisted salute and smiled warmly into her helmet – Rylke’s fiery spirit was undiminished even in her wounded state.

She turned to her friend; “Let’s go,” she said.

Clara bowed her head slightly in affirmation to the Palatine’s command; “In His name,” she replied.

 

Hell-fire cascaded down from above as the Drogians ducked and weaved through the immense machine-works, firing back with their las-carbines at every opportunity. They had encountered a pocket heavy of resistance after almost an hour of infiltration, and the casualty count was already high. The enemy had them out-gunned and out-manoeuvred, but with Galtman’s encouragement they fought on regardless.

His black storm coat flapping about his feet, Inquisitor Galtman’s strode purposefully though the fire-storm as Drogians sheltered and died around him.

“Major Lokrieg!” his booming voice carried over the roaring gunfire like thunder over rain, “Move your men upwards – take then fight to them!” The Inquisitor didn’t bother to register the look of dismay on the Major’s face as he tried to rouse his men into fulfilling the Inquisitor’s bidding.

“Come, follow me!” Galtman bellowed as he rounded a corner and casually kicked down the locked gate that sealed a caged stare-case, granting access to himself and the two hooded men that followed in his wake.

“Shield!” he called out, and his followers held up the palms of their hands to redirect incoming fire away from their master with walls of psychic energy, as he threw open the gate leading on to the second floor and walked calmly into cover as the psychic shield momentarily flickered and died. He opened the folds of his coat and drew an ornate heavy pistol from its holster, and inspected the weapon as laser beams cut the air all around him. Stay down, he thought to his minions, and both men shrunk back out of sight.

“Lokrieg!” he bellowed as he raised his pistol and moved to the edge of his immediate cover, “where are the men who should be following me?”

He was answered by more gunfire exploding around his position. The hooded thralls looked at him imploringly, wishing to be unleashed, but Galtman shook his head. Where was that bastard Lokrieg? He had better be dead, or otherwise he had no excuse to be disobeying his orders. More hell-fire smashed into the column behind which he was hiding and blew red-hot chunks of metal out across the floor.

“Exterminate!” Galtman shouted. The robed men smiled with glee, pulling down their hoods to reveal extended skulls that were implanted with all sorts of wire and plugs as they ghosted up the stairs and into the line of fire. Shots punched through them with ruthless abandon, but the witch things did not die, instead they hurled bolts of warp energy and witch-fire out in all directions to scour clean the foe from their cover in the shadows.

His breath condensed in the air, and a tingle shot down his spine as he smelled the pleasant aroma of scorched ozone – the smell of success. Galtman stepped out of cover and levelled his long barrelled pistol through the maddening display. He squeezed the trigger, the pistol jumping in his hand with a snarling roar as the heavy projectile cannoned forth and buried itself into the back of a fleeing enemy and dropped him to the ground like a tonne of lead. The Inquisitor smiled, and worked the bolt back-and-forth on the pistol - loading another man-stopper round into the chamber.

“Cease,” he said, and the warp magiks sputtered out as the witch things donned their hoods over their oblong heads and followed their master in a silent procession.

Down below the Drogians gaped in awe at what they had just seen. Galtman made a mental note to have them all subject to re-education or execution upon the completion of his mission. They were only Guard, and therefore expendable in his mind.

He stopped as he came to the body of the fleeing man he had shot: Hellgun, black carapace armour, black fatigues, advanced combat and sensory equipment, and no markings… curious.

“Check him,” he commanded, and as one the witch things obeyed – removing the soldier’s helmet and prodding his bald head with their stubby fingers. The things started to jabber incoherently amongst each other, before one of them rose to his feet and addressed the Inquisitor in his own tongue.

“Mind-locked?” Galtman repeated, “how interesting…”

 

The black-clad body smashed face-first into the wall, before slowly sliding down its concrete surface, leaving a smear of blood it wake that looked black through her night-vision filter. Sister Alexia hustled across the open gallery that overlooked the factory floor, and dropped quickly to one knee in the cover of an open culvert as she hastily crammed more shot-cannon shells into her weapon. She was breathing hard, and her side throbbed in dull pain where a near point-blank hell-gun shot had nearly breached her armour and ended her life.

It was relatively quite now as most of the gunfire had ceased, but it was only a lull in the battle, for over the pounding of the heart within her chest, Alexia could still hear the ringing of distant fire, and the occasional running footsteps of foes dashing through the cover of darkness.

The gun locked full – ten shells loaded, six shells left – and she rose slowly to her feet, stepped out of her cover and looked all around for traces of the enemy. To her immediate left an arched door stood ajar, a door that – by the sounds of the falling water on a metal surface – led directly outside on to some raised platform or gantry.

She decided to wait a moment more. Sister Serinae had been right behind her just a few moments ago, but they had been split up when the two of them stumbled across a small group of enemies, and she had not seen her since. The vox-net was dead for some reason, and she couldn’t even get static – let alone Serinae or the Palatine.

The distinct rattle of metal-on-metal drew her attention downwards to the floors bellow, but she couldn’t seen anything, and she didn’t dare give her position away by shooting at shadows that she hadn’t a hope of hitting.

Alright, she thought to herself, enough waiting, time to go.

Alexia crept closer to the open door and peered out, flecks of rain dropping onto her helmet as she did so. Extending before her was a walkway linking two wings of the complex together. It looked about twenty metres long, but only three metres wide, and on either side a drop of five stories into a puddle-filled alleyway awaited those who strayed over the guard-rail. It looked like death trap to her, and she was willing to bet that the men who had passed this way had thought the same thing. For a moment she considered backing away – finding another route – rather than facing certain death at the hands of the enemy that surely covered the bridge from the other door. For a moment she thought that she should turn away and forget that she had ever followed the enemy to this point.

Then the moment passed.

She was Battle Sister of the Adepta Sororitas, charged with meting out the Emperor’s wrath against all who opposed His rule and the authority of His most illustrious agents. She would go forward, even if it killed her. Especially if it killed her. She advanced sideways, foot crossing over foot, with her twin bolt pistols held firmly in her hands.

A shiver ran down her spine, and she felt suddenly cold.

The door creaked behind her. She spun in place faster than she had ever turned, but not fast enough. She saw the bolt pistol levelled at her head before she had even brought herself fully around. The pistol was held outstretched in Serinae’s hand.

Alexia breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed her stance – letting her aim fall away from Serinae’s body.

The Retributor’s arm didn’t budge; the bolt pistol was held exactly level with her head.

Alexia’s eyes narrowed in her helmet; “Sister Serinae?”

The Retributor stepped out of the door, her heavy bolter hanging loosely by her side, and she glanced around, before snapping back her pistol arm and holstering the weapon.

“Get out of the way,” Serinae said bluntly, levelling her heavy bolter as Alexia stepped aside, “I don’t like the look of that door over there.”

 

They’d been progressing through the derelict manufactorium for several minutes when Aribeth signalled for a halt. Several paces behind her, Clara sunk into the shadows and searched their surroundings down the length of her bolter, but found nothing.

“Aribeth,” she hissed, crawling forward across the wire floor towards her companion, “why have we stopped? What is it?”

Aribeth didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. They were right in front of her. Hundreds of them, the same ghouls that had stalked them through the rain, now had them trapped in the bowels of the machine. She could hear the low rumble of their voice drawing nearer as they savoured the kill to come. She could feel the vibrations through the floor as hundreds of feet dragged their way across the surface. She blinked – they were still there. She blinked again – still the hoard came on. Clara appeared at her side, she said something – why couldn’t she see them? Her Sister reached out and touched her arm. Aribeth looked down at her friend’s hand - her white armoured hand - dreading what she would see. Yet instead of some grisly talon, she saw only her friend, and when she turned back, they were gone, and she was once again alone in the silence of the manufactorium with Clara by her side.

Get a grip on yourself, Aribeth. You’re losing it, you’re losing yourself. Don’t you see what this is doing to you –

“Aribeth?”

She shook her head clear and blinked her eyes furiously. Clara was still right next to her, her hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry?” Aribeth asked, realising that she hadn’t heard anything since she had spotted the watchers among the shadows.

“Aribeth… you seem tense, really tense… what’s wrong?”

“I…” she stammered trying to realign her thoughts, “my mind is playing tricks on me,” she admitted. “I… I think I’m suffering from battle psychosis. I keep hearing things, seeing things… it’s not right – like this place is affecting my mind.”

Clara considered this for a moment before replying; “Aribeth, this place is tainted by the warp-craft of this witch that we are hunting – I don’t think that this is your fault,” she glanced around at the surrounding machinery, “it’s this damnable place, that psyker-witch… everything. The Inquisitor was right; we have to watch ourselves, as well as the enemy, or we’ll all end up dead.”

Aribeth nodded in silence, and then rose to her feet.

“Then let’s finish this,” she said, “let’s show this heretic the price of practicing that which is forbidden.”

Clara stood up beside her, and was about to speak when something to her right suddenly drew her attention and cause her to raise a cautionary hand.

“Did you… ?” she asked.

Aribeth had heard it – footsteps beneath then, and whoever it was was making no attempt to be stealthy.

 

Major Lokrieg swore aloud and mopped beads of sweat with the back of his hand from his forehead, before picking up his las-carbine and dashing back into the shadows in a running crouch. A fine fight this has been, he thought spitefully, spend most of the time chasing after enemies you can’t see, and trying to duck before they shoot you. He had yet to claim a confirmed kill on the foe, but already he had lost thirteen good men to their guns, and where was that damn Inquisitor!? He’d disappeared with those robed freaks into the darkness shouting something ludicrous about charging his Drogians into the enemy’s lines of fire. Screw him! Screw him into the Eye and back! There was no way that he was marching the best of his men forward like livestock into a slaughterhouse! Not that that would make any difference – his men where dying just fine not listening to that Inquisitor’s orders. He’d started to find their bodies just after the Inquisitor had vanished. First it was Knorll, then it was Mitch, then Gibbs, Franz, and Mikael had all ended up dead too!

“+Major, I just found Jennikens – he looks real messed up, sir! You’d better come quick!+” The trooper sounded panicked. Great! Just fraggin’ great! Drogia’s best sons were with him in this accursed building, but whatever was taking them apart had them trilling like little boys all over again!

“Hold you’re position, trooper – I’m coming to you. I repeat, hold your position. Over” assuming he could find the trooper’s position before he too had been gutted…

Real fine battle you flaming bastard! Real fine battle!

The thundering footsteps of the Major’s steal-toed combat boots signalled his arrival as he happened upon the soldier who had discovered Jennikens. The man was visibly shaken by his discovery, and so he should have been – Jennikens was… apart. That was all that he could really say; apart. He’d been killed with a precision that Lokrieg had never seen before, and that left him absolutely lost for words – it was as if someone had casually come across the brave Drogian and had simply disassembled him into all his major parts. It was so horrifying that Lokrieg was utterly dumbfounded as to how he should react. It was art – a morbid, horrifying art that require the death of a man.

“Dear Emperor…” he mumbled.

“We’re all gonna die aren’t we, sir?” the trooper sobbed.

Lokrieg looked at the man; a fine soldier, one of the Drogian elite, reduced to a quivering wreck by seeing too many of his comrades slain with utter contempt. This man had faced down orks, heretics, and mutants without fear, but now – by an act that was so simple yet so terrible – all he had ever been was dashed.

“We’re going to be fine, trooper,” he said, activating his auspex, “we’re going to be…”

The red blip was right in the center of the display.

He looked up.

The long shadow hanging from the wire ceiling looked back at him with violet eyes.

It winked.

 

The pounding feet came closer.

“It’s heading for the stairs!” Clara called, dashing back several metres to where the caged stairwell opened onto their floor with Aribeth right at her heels. They were almost there, and Aribeth could catch glimpses of movement through the grill on the floor.

A shiver shot down her spine, and she suddenly felt cold, very cold.

Clara reached the top of the stairs just as the figure started to run up towards them and gunned it down in burst of bolter fire.

“Looks like a tech-adept or – aaaaauuugh!!” Clara cried out in sudden pain, and collapsed – her legs buckling underneath her, and her weapon slipping from her fingers.

“Clara!” Aribeth shouted, diving towards her, but it was too late – the Celestian had over-balanced and was falling head-over-heels down the staircase.

She’d been shot - she must have been shot - but from where? Aribeth flicked on the infrared scope and panned it around through the gloom in desperation, but there was nothing – no body-heat except for the fading signature of the corpse, and that of Clara who now lay crumpled on the floor below. Aribeth vaulted down the stairs and came to her knees by her best friend’s side.

“Clara! Clara!”

The Celestian had already torn of her helmet and was now twisting violently on the floor, grasping at her head with her hands.

She was seizing - she needed the… the med pack wasn’t there; she’d left if with Rylke.

“Emperor no!” the Palatine exclaimed, grabbing at Clara’s thrashing form and trying hold the screaming woman steady. She caught her flailing arms and pinned them by her sides, but that only made her convulse more. Her body spasmed violently and she vomited non stop - bile, blood, and what little food remained in her stomach.

“Not like this, Clara! Not like this! Don’t even think of dying on me! I’m going to fix this!” Aribeth yelled as she struggled to overcome the strength of the woman’s uncontrolled body.

“Please, Emperor, please!” she grunted with effort as one of Clara’s arms came loose from her grip and flailed wildly like a fish caught upon the deathly dry land.

“Hold on, Clara! I can do this, I can…”

Clara’s body fell limp.

[LoneSniperSG]

I sense I am not the only one that plays Neverwinter Nights....

 

Very interesting story indeed. I like it.

[Lady_Canoness]

Glad you like it LoneSniper!

 

Ok, so this is the third part of Installment Nine. It is in this section of the Installment that I take my leapt of faith, and discontinue the character of Marcellinus Lyke from the Fallen Saint as Aribeth's love. I did this for several reasons, the first being that as a Sister of Battle, her strongest connections are to her Sisters, not some scholar who knows a thing or two about books. The second reason is that it really didn't feel right to me as the author - it felt rushed, it forced high exposure of Lyke's character over a short period of time (a few chapters to build a love story? no thanks), and frankly it just felt lame. Thirdly and finally, Lyke is killed by Aribeth's own hand when she has fallen, whereas Clara's death happens before Aribeth falls from grace and (given their long-lasting relationship) will have a DEVESTATING affect on her.

The leap actually started a couple Installments back when I started to really emphasise the role of Clara in Aribeth's life - not as just a best friend, but a real soul mate and part of her life. So what's so special about that? Well, what makes this task difficult is that I wanted to really tie Aribeth and Clara together as being in love, but avoid anything that would hint towards a homoerotic connection between the two - as an advocate against 'Sister on Sister action' I was not about to turn around and high-light it in my story. So that was the challenge that I presented myself with, and I think that I've handled that challenge well. We'll see if you agree with me.

 

Anyway, I have said enough, and now it is time to introduce the part 3 of Installment nine

 

--------------------------------

 

Installment Nine of the Saint Ascendant <part 3 of 3>

 

--------------------------------

 

“Clara?” Aribeth held her friend’s unresisting face between her hands and wiped the bloody foam from the corners of her mouth with her armoured thumbs.

“Clara?” the Celestian’s eyes opened looked up imploringly into Aribeth’s, twitching ever-so slightly as tears began to pool in their corners. She stared up at Aribeth, and Aribeth stared back, seeing an expression most terrible to behold written clearly across her azure gaze.

Fear.

Clara’s lips moved soundlessly, mouthing two words that Aribeth would never forget: Help Me.

“How?” Aribeth asked, her throat tightening as looked again into Clara’s eyes – hoping upon hope that there too would be found the answer. But there was no answer, for the sea of deep blue had been disturbed, and where once terrible fear welled up in her eyes, now reigned a new emotion: rage.

 

An energy beam thumped off her helmet with incredible force, but Serinae ignored it before shifting her aim to drive the enemy back out of sight with a punishing barrage of heavy bolter shells. Sister Alexia was crouching down next to her, firing wildly as her shot-cannon used up its last few shells.

Serinae had been right, and there had been hostiles waiting on the opposite side of the now shredded door. They’d made it across the open walkway and established a covered position to hold, but being under near-constant enemy fire how long the cover would last was anyone’s guess. Both of them were running low on ammunition, and there seemed to be no shortage of enemies that wanted to kill them, but other than that, everything was running just fine.

“I’m out!” Serinae called, dumping her spent heavy bolter to the side and drawing her bolt pistol.

“Me too!” Alexia shouted back, just barely making herself heard over the screeching hellguns as she threw down her shot-cannon and whipped both bolt pistols from their holsters.

Chunks of twisted metal and masonry were falling away from the elaborate overseer’s command pulpit behind which they held, and occasionally a shot would blast right through it as gunfire demolished the craftsmanship of the construction around them.

Serinae threw her last grenade overhead in a great arc, and ducked back down as the enemy expended torrents of ammunition in their direction. The grenade detonated with a rippling explosion – quenching the incoming fire for a second or two as the gunmen adjusted, then resumed to unleash swaths of energised death at the two Sisters.

“The Emperor protects!” Alexia shouted, and sprinted from her rapidly disintegrating cover as shots whizzed around her, launching herself into a head-first dive into the indented service lines that ran beneath the rows of machinery that stretched out in front of the command pulpit.

“May His light never fade!” Serinae yelled as she finally put a pistol round through the head of one of the enemy troopers.

Alexia got to her feet but ducked low as searing red energy beam sped angrily past her face. The service lines ran partially beneath the floor and provided excellent cover, however they ran in an organized fashion and were extremely thin – only three feet wide - allowing no room for manoeuvring at all – a possible advantage given that the Sororitas wore superior armour and had more devastating weapons than their foes. Yet because the lines were only partially indented into the floor they became an almost certain death trap should one become pinned or outflanked. She’d be dead either way, Alexia figured, so she might as well make her life count. She dropped into a low crouch and worked her way as fast as she could down the line. Overhead the furious exchange still roared as loud as ever, and Alexia sincerely hoped that Serinae would be able to hold without her. Dropping her pistols to the floor, she took her remaining two grenades from her belt and simultaneously pulled out both pins before hurling them – one in each hand – in the direction of the highest concentration of enemy fire. The combined explosion ripped through the rows of machinery and threw lethal shrapnel ricocheting in every direction. Several guns fell silent. Alexia prayed that would be enough.

 

Clara’s backhanded blow smashed across her helmet’s face with the force of a cannon firing, sending Aribeth staggering backwards until she stumbled off her feet, still not believing what she was witnessing. Just moments ago Clara had been the woman she had known and loved for most of her life, but she now rose slowly to her feet with an awkward stiffness – her face warped and contorted with rage. Without uttering a syllable, the Celestian wrenched the chainsword at her side free from its scabbard and launched herself across the distance separating them – the roaring sword held high for a disembowelling blow.

Aribeth stood transfixed as the sword arced downwards – its whirring teeth screaming out her death. She didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. Move, Aribeth!

Years of honed duelling reflexes took over as she side-stepped past the eviscerating blow at the last imaginable moment – the blade passing within an inch of her as it tore through the guard rail behind her in a shower of sparks.

Clara corrected her failed attempt and launched a second blistering attack, but this time Aribeth’s gleaming power sword was there to meet it.

Clara had never been a dueller, and despite all of Aribeth’s attempts to train her over their years, she never would be. Clara had always preferred ranged weapons over the intricacies of sword-play, and had always excelled at marksmanship even when she and Aribeth had first met. Whenever Aribeth asked her about it, Clara would always laugh and say that ninety-nine times out of a hundred she would be facing the enemy from a distance, and that if she could surpass the foe at range she would never need to worry about confronting them blade to blade. Aribeth had always accepted her friend’s reasoning, and indeed Clara’s superb aim had save her from certain death on many occasions. Ironically, Clara’s focus on her bolter might even save her life once again at this very moment.

Clara was no dueller, and with a chainsword in her hands – a weapon that had not been designed with duelling in mind – she hadn’t a hope of overcoming Aribeth’s skill with a power sword in a contest of blades.

The snarling blade swung out again, but Aribeth easily deflected it downwards with a twist of her sword arm so that its teeth bit into the wire floor and threw its wielder’s defence wide open – inviting the killing blow that Aribeth would normally spring to deliver, but not this time.

She still remembered them, the times when they were in their youth and the two of them would meet together in sparring matches: Aribeth would overcome her through skill alone, and Clara would willingly accept defeat once again and throw the blade aside, then try to excuse herself as Aribeth demanded that they have another round and that she should actually try this time.

But this time Clara did not throw the blade aside – she did not accept defeat – instead she set upon her dearest friend with redoubled fury: a twisting pass at the head that was easily denied by glowing steel; a lunging stab at her sternum that was steered aside; a horizontal swipe that was dutifully blocked then forcibly redirected, the battle raged on with Sister set against Sister – friend against friend.

Yet even as she defended herself with practised expertise, Aribeth’s heart was breaking with every parried blow. One way or the other, she knew this was the end – one of them would have to die, and Aribeth knew that it would not be her.

Some madness drove Clara against her with unrelenting rage. She would not back down - she would not surrender - she would not stop until she was dead.

Clara Marchaanen, Aribeth’s best friend, the woman she loved more than anyone, the person that she could always turn to, and the person that was always there for her, would have to die on Aribeth’s sword.

 

The gunfire had disappeared for the moment, and everything was as it had been – deathly quiet, and very, very dark. The enemy troops had vanished into the shadows, as had the Drogians, but that was of no consequence – he really didn’t need them anymore; he’d found his target. Galtman’s black leather boots clapped against the bare metal floor as he strode through the unyielding darkness with a portable psi-tracker in his hand; the two witch things struggling to keep up with his long strides.

“Up,” he said, stepping into a caged lift and slamming the gate shut as soon as the robed men had followed him in to the cramped elevator, jabbering quietly. They were a special breed these men, engineered specifically to serve as potent weapons for the more ‘daring’ of Inquisitors. They were psykers, yes, but using such a label for them was the same as labelling a trooper and a colonel as ‘Guardsmen’. What made this breed special is that they had no latent psychic signatures of their own, rather they gained their abilities through siphoning the psychic presence off others in their presence – a type of ‘psychic leeching’ if you will. A psyker tapped directly into the warp, while a leech tapped into the warp through the intermediary host. This process also had the positive side effect of making them virtually impossible to detect through psychic means. To those unaccustomed to the breed, the process of having part of one’s psychic being tapped could be extremely uncomfortable, leading to things such as confusion, paranoia, delusion, and other sorts of trauma up to and including permanent insanity. This made them an extremely effective yet temperamental weapon, for in a large group of non-psychic individuals or in the presence of a powerful psyker, the leeches were extraordinarily effective while those around them often suffered in their mere presence. However, if in an environment void of people, or where very few people remained, the leeches were incredibly vulnerable as they could not siphon enough psychic energy to maintain their strength.

As Galtman drew nearer to his target, his leeches grew stronger, and now they were so very close…

 

The chainsword crashed against the taut steel edge of the power sword once again, its sawing teeth grinding against the bright sword as its wielder tried to overcome finesse with brute strength – forcing the weapon down as both combatants strained against each-other’s might.

The blade was dipping out of her control as Aribeth struggled to match Clara’s anger-induced power. She was losing, and slowly but surely her grip on the power sword became harder and harder to maintain. Clara was too far gone to notice that she was stripping the chainsword’s edge against the powered surface of Aribeth’s sword, but then again it didn’t matter what state the chain weapon was in if she managed to overpower Aribeth’s defence.

You have to fight back! I can’t, it’s Clara – I can’t kill her! She’ll kill you. No, she can be saved! If you don’t fight her, you will die, as will Alexia, Rylke, and Serinae. You have to fight back! More lives than yours are at stake! No, I won’t kill her. I can help her! The woman you knew is already dead, this isn’t Clara – if you kill her you’ll be honouring her noble memory, if she lives you are only bringing her shame.Aribeth twisted her blade free and quickly danced backwards away from the raging chainsword and its maddened owner. She couldn’t do it! She couldn’t do it! Not Clara! Not like this.

The enraged Celestian lunged once more to the attack – the snarling blade descending confidently in a huge culling arc. Aribeth leapt aside and let the sword smash into the floor she had occupied a moment earlier.

“Don’t do this, Clara!” she shouted at the woman, but Celestian came on with murder in her eyes and wrath written across her face.

Their swords met again in a shower of sparks as several of the teeth broke free from the chainblade under the strain of the warriors’ clashing weapons.

“Damn it, Clara, don’t do this to me!”

Clara circled Aribeth slowly – her eyes strangely hollow as a diabolical grimace smeared itself across her striking face. Aribeth watched her every movement carefully – searching for any sign – anything – that might hint that Clara, the real Clara, the woman she knew, was still somewhere inside the mannequin of flesh that stalked before her.

“Please, Clara, fight this! This isn’t you!”

Clara stopped, and the muscles in her face twisted into a smile, but it wasn’t the smile Aribeth remembered as belonging to her friend – it was an alien smile, a smile that should never have crossed her face.

“Time for you to die, little girl,” she said in a voice other than Clara’s - a dry rasping voice of that rose from tortured vocal chords. Aribeth shivered at the sound of it. How a face she knew and cared for could make a sound so vile she would never know.

With a blood curdling battle-cry Clara’s body charged the Palatine - the chainsword feigning to strike high, but quickly reversing itself to sweep in low against the Palatine’s legs and waist. With lightning reflexes Aribeth caught the sword on her blade and quickly shifted her momentum into a counter-attack against Clara’s exposed flank. Her elbow connected with a dull smack into the side of Clara’s head, and sent her staggering off balance. But Aribeth didn’t giver her a chance to recover as she followed through by slamming her knee into a weak spot underneath her left breast where the armour was cracked from a previous injury, doubling the Celestian over as she reacted to the pain, and leaving Aribeth open to smash the pommel of her sword against the nape of her friends neck before planting a solid kick to her armoured solar plexus and forcefully crashing her to the ground.

It would be quick and clean, she decided; a single thrust through the heart, and no one would ever hear about the disgrace that befell her Sister. She would be interred alongside her Sisters during the Heart of Night with full honours – she would not be burned as unclean so long as Aribeth drew breath to prevent it.

Tears flooded her eyes as she stepped closer to Clara’s sprawled form and turned the grip of her sort so that its shining edge pointed downwards to form the executioner’s blade. May its everlasting light purge the taint from her soul…

 

The safety gate clattered to one side as Galtman stepped out of the lift onto the topmost floor of the manufactorium. There were no machine-works up at this height, only forests of exhaust stacks and ducts, as well as numerous servicing shafts. The darkness was indeed treacherous at this level, for guard-rails were few and far between, and most walkways were only wide enough for one or two men at the most.

The target was here, of that there could be no mistake. The air was filled with so much psychic charge that Galtman could almost feel it coursing through his lungs as he breathed, and frost clung to every surface. Idiot – this witch didn’t even know they were coming, if he did, he would have been better prepared.

He raised his hand, about to beckon his underlings forward, when suddenly he stopped and turned around. Down at the end of the walk – more than a hundred yards away – Galtman could just make out a lithe shadow slinking towards him with quick but fluid motions.

“Kill it,” Glatman instructed the leeches, “leave the witch to me.”

 

It was very cold and dark up in the rafters where he sequestered himself. Rain could be heard pounding down on the uninsulated roof just above his head, and in some places water dripped from the icicles that were forming on the ceiling and created swirling images as they fell to the floor and froze on contact. Despite the ice around him however, and despite the fact that he only wore loose fitting clothing to cover his meagre frame, he was content. His eyes were closed as he rocked gently back and forth on his feet as he squatted in the dark. He felt warm, he felt happy.

“time for you to die, little girl…” he mumbled to himself, a thin smile spreading across his lips.

He stared into the other woman’s helmeted face and could feel the horror dawning upon her as he moved his puppet forward to attack once again.

The man-stopper round tore through his shoulder and hurled him to the ground with a howl of pain. His mind ached as his consciousness was dragged wholly from the puppet’s body and was forced back into his own. His eyes flashed open, he could taste blood on his lips, and his right shoulder was screaming in agony.

Galtman worked the bolt on the pistol and fitted a psychically impregnated silver-tipped bullet into the chamber before slamming the bolt closed.

He tried to get to his feet, but his legs flailed across the ice and his head banged painfully across the metal flooring. How had this happened? He had not sensed anything behind him – where had this man come from?

He turned – murder flashing in his eyes – and hurled a spear of psychic energy down the walkway towards the interloper. The man tried to resist, but the psychic charge was too powerful, and he was hurled bodily down the catwalk – sliding on the ice as the speed of his fall increased – hurtling him towards the guardrail and a sheer drop to his death at an alarming rate. With a powerful twist of his spine, Galtman threw his right arm outwards at the rail’s vertical support beam as his feet went hurling over the edge into emptiness, his body following them over the edge and slowly sagging down as gravity took it toll. But his fingers had caught and held, and his fall jerked to a stop – a cracking pop signalling that his shoulder had dislocated – his heavy pistol circling away from his fingers into the darkness below. He gritted his teeth under the colossal effort to overthrow the pain that had ignited his upper body and swing his left arm upwards next to his right. Using all the strength he could summon to aide him, Galtman hooked his left leg upwards and back onto the catwalk, and hauled himself back up to safety. With a grunt of pain he locked his shoulder back into place and rose to his feet. A glance at his psi-tracker told him that his prey was on the move, ducking and weaving its way through the treacherous city of walkways that wound through the forests of exhaust ducks.

Starting to run, Galtman drew his secondary arm – a compact autopistol with a twenty round clip – and brandished his force-rapier, and sprinted off through the darkness after his quarry.

Follow, he thought, but there was no response – only the emptiness of the void. The leeches were dead.

He cursed aloud and sped left at a fork in the path, following the sent of the witch like a cyber-mastiff would a fugitive.

A sudden motion behind him tripped the Inquisitor’s psychic over-watch, and he spun quickly on the spot, dodging to the left as the glint of throwing blade whistled past his ear with not a hairsbreadth to spare. His pistol was up and firing, emptying a half-dozen rounds over a quarter of a second into the long shadowy figure that danced through the air towards him, and blasting it from its feet as the small calibre shells ripped into it. The thing skidded backwards and rolled expertly to its feet, unleashing another pair of darts towards the Inquisitor – Galtman deflecting one out of the air with the blade of his force-sword as the other passed harmlessly through the folds of his storm coat with contemptuous ease. He raised the pistol and fired off another dozen shots at his attacker who was now fleeing through the darkness between the stacks with bounding leaps and dives in defiance of the fatal drop beneath its feet, but achieved nothing as the tiny projectiles only succeeded in glancing off the metal with pitiful pinging noises.

Ejecting the almost depleted clip and slamming home a fresh twenty-round magazine, Galtman let the assassin go. Catching up with the witch was far more important than chasing down shadowy killers.

His blistered feet scraped painfully over the frost-bitten floor and the bloody mound of his shoulder throbbed painfully, but he had to keep going – he had too! He glanced behind him again for the third time in the past minute, but the walkway was empty. A lie! A lie! The man was following him! He knew it! Where was he? Why hadn’t he died?

The thing in Bonis’ shell started to tremble – its breaths coming in gasps that steamed the air – it needed somewhere to run, but where could it go that it would not be found? He reached out with his mind, searching though the darkness for that one place that promised haven, that one place where he could be safe.

There was a soft thump behind him.

He turned around slowly, fearing what he would see.

She was looking down on him with her teasing violet eyes, a half-dozen bloody wounds dotting the willowy curves of her body with screaming red marks, yet she showed no trace of feeling any pain.

He looked up into her masked face – the last face he would ever see – and he was sorry.

The pair of katana blades skewered him through the chest, puncturing both of his lungs. Mercy slid the blades back out of the man and delicately sheathed them, before turning and delivering a bone-crushing reverse round-house kick to his head that pitched Bonis off the catwalk and into the waiting darkness.

Galtman saw it fall; bouncing as it glanced off the steel constructs in its path, and disappear into obscurity. A few moments later he heard the echoing crunch of fragile bones meeting unwavering steel.

The shadowy assailant was nowhere to be seen.

 

Aribeth stepped closer to the blasphemy of Clara’s body, pulling off her helmet as she did so – she needed bear witness her friend’s death with her own uninhibited eyes. The golden glow of the power sword cast its light across them both, illuminating Clara’s tawny hair, her twinkling eyes, and her blood smeared face as Aribeth stood over her friend’s gently stirring form. She raised the sword, point down, over her Clara’s heart, and tried to calm herself with long steady breaths. This was for Clara, this was for the woman she loved, for her memory, for her honour – putting to death this unholy creature that inhabited Clara’s flesh was the only way to free her soul to sit at the Emperor’s table with the rest of the faithful dead.

“In the name of our Holy Father,” she intoned, giving Clara her last rights, “I hereby commend thee, Sister Clara Marchaanen, Celestian of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, to the Emperor’s grace, so that you may continue to love Him and serve Him even in death.” Tears were running freely down her cheeks, as the sword wavered in her hands, but she forced herself to continue, “May your spirit never falter from the path of righteousness, and may you know peace now and forever. Glory to the God Emperor who rules most high…” she finished, and shifted her wavering fingers on the sword’s hilt.

“Goodbye, Clara… she said, looking into Clara’s blue eyes for what might be the last time.

The sword rose, her muscled tensed, her resolve hardened –

“Aribeth… please…”

She stopped.

“Clara?”

The Celestian tilted her head slightly upwards and blinked her eyes.

“Aribeth?”

“Clara!”

The sword dropped to her side and clattered against the floor as the Palatine sunk to her knees and embraced her sprawled friend, kissing her cheeks as she sobbed in both joy and grief.

“Dear Emperor, Clara, I feared you were lost where I could not follow! I almost killed you!”

Clara’s gauntleted hands pawed softly against the Palatine’s arms and head, tears of her own leaking from her eyes at the sight of her friend so stricken with pain.

“You’ll never lose me,” she said, holding her friend close, “you’ll never lose me…”

[Alex.ö]

Really nice, as usuall.

Nice dynamic swordfighting there, and the firefights are decevingly(spelling?) real!

[C. Barrius Matthaeus]

Wow!

 

Just, wow!

 

It took me all week to finally have the time to sit down and read the latest two installments, but it was well worth the wait! You've truly outdone yourself with installments 8 and 9. It felt fast paced and it all flowed beautifully. The ending was, I felt, particularly exciting. I was on the edge of my seat reading it! I also think you've done very well with presenting the relationship between Aribeth and Clara the way you wanted it to appear. They come across as having a very close bond without it seeming like, to use your own words, a homoerotic connection.

 

Truly amazing work here. The effort you put into it shows, as does your talent for writing. I can't wait for the next installment! :lol:

 

- C. Barrius

[Lady_Canoness]

Alrighty! Installment ten of the Saint Ascendant, and the last Installment in the first section of the Saint Ascendant, meaning that the next one will be back to number 1 as the adventure of Aribeth, Clara, Galtman, and all the rest continues and finally ends on the red planet and the transition to the Fallen Saint.

 

This Installment is very much a conclusion/summary of what has happened over the past nine, meaning that there are finally answers to the questions rather than just more questions. Who is/are the traitor(s)? Who is Inquisitor Galtman, and why is he always so cold and detached from those around him? What is Inquisitor Montrose's agenda, and why is he here? Someone has ties to darkness, but who, and how? Of course these questions aren't all answered straight up (there has to be some mystery left) but this should help reveal the underlying schemes. Like any good season finale, it will leave you hanging on certain issues.

This Installment, like all the others, is also helping to develope our principle characters through contrasts, juxta-position (sp?) and dialogue. There are also many subtlties and things like foreshadowing injected into the work, all of which (if picked up) will give a deeper look into who these characters are. Finally, we learn something about Aribeth that will be a big factor in determining her fall. Can you find it?

 

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Installment Ten of the Saint Ascendant

 

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Thirty hours of darkness – thirty hours of minimal activity within the walls of the Saint’s city. Before the war, the people of Proctor Primus had treated the moon as a midnight sun, and the hustle and bustle of the day was exchanged for eased swagger of the night. Brothels, bars, and countless pleasure districts thrived in the darkness alongside the night-markets and moon-clubs, as the populace put aside their hours of toil to be replaced with hours of spoil. A pilgrim’s haven though the capital city was, not every citizen prayed devoutly at the Saint’s shrines, for as the popular phrase went; ‘If there be nothing to live for, then what be there that one can die for?’ And so life carried on in Nemereis’ capital: the faithful knelt at the altar, the conscious bowed their heads on the Saint’s day, and the raucous paid Him their heed at the bed or the barstool.

But where war walks, few dare to follow. War touches everything in its passing, leaving little as it was. To witness war is to witness the antithesis of all life – the great irony of existence – for while life strives to create, it derives the most gratification through the ability to destroy. To create, one must destroy, and to destroy, one must create – no greater mockery exists of the living. So much made for the sole purpose of unmaking – it really can be that simple.

Take this city, the celebrated capital, the crowning jewel of Proctor Primus, the love of its people, the mother of many. Then three days pass… only three days… and everything changes. No longer does the city team with life. No longer is it the beating heart of the planet. Its people are dead, gone, or scattered. What of its industries? Its culture? Ruined – there is nothing left, save the hollow tomb of what they had once been.

Now that war has made its mark, the thirty hours of darkness are void of the swaggering night-life of seasons prior, and only the mad, the disenfranchised, or the hopelessly desperate wander the cold streets in the small hours of the night.

 

* * * *

 

Two serpents, their bodies intertwined with both mouths screaming mute at the sky. That’s what it looked like, he thought, as he admired the crystal glass that he held delicately dwarfed in his armoured fist. He tilted the glass backwards to his lips and let the smooth ochre liquid slide through his scabbed lips and down his throat. A fine taste – subtle, but fine. He set the goblet back down on the raw surface of the unfinished table before him and moved his hand back into his lap, continuing to wait in the calm silence of the small sitting room. The room itself was comfortable. Not too big, not too tiny, and just the right amount of furnishings to keep the room from seeming either too cluttered, or too barren. A small cast-iron stove calmly chortled at one end of the room with its stack passing through the ceiling. A pair of faded canvases depicting stately matrons framed on either side.

He took another sip from the glass, his eyes tracing around the room.

Opposite to the stove was a decrepit old teak cabinet that looked as if it had seen a fair amount of abuse; he hadn’t bothered to look inside, why should he care? There was also a small discoloured loveseat standing by the door that had a most unfortunate sag on one side, as if there was never more than one person sitting on it.

Then there was the table, the armchair, and the thread carpet. In his mind it was these that made the room what it was. The table was most definitely old and had seen better days, but it was sturdy, and had that indescribable feel to it that he enjoyed. The chair was also nice. It was large enough to accommodate him, and despite the several loose springs that he could feel, it was surprisingly comfortable. But the carpet, the carpet definitely made the room what it was. It was worn, it was stained, and it was even slightly burned in some spots, but all the same it was well crafted and had many intricate designs that marked it as a foreign product – one of a kind - and thus a rare find.

He brought the glass up to his nose and swilled it around before inhaling the pleasant aroma of the liquid inside. Maelekor wouldn’t think much of it, but then again Maelekor didn’t think much of anything unless it was powerful enough to knock out a bull-grox from twenty paces.

Several floors bellow him he could just hear the front door of the old mansion close with a slight clack.

He could hear his visitor walking softly up the stairs, trying to be stealthy – it was laughable. With a small groan, the chair shifted until it was facing the door more directly, and he took another sip from his glass – it was only half full now.

He heard the footsteps reach the landing and approach the door. The visitor was nervous. I wonder why? He mused to himself with a slight smile.

The man’s hand was reaching out for the door, about to knock, but he beat him too it.

“Come in, Inquisitor,” he said, already a thin smile playing across his mouth.

The door opened with a tiny squeak, and the Inquisitor stepped in before closing it gently behind him.

“I take it’s still raining outside is it?” he asked, nodding towards the Inquisitor’s dripping storm coat. Of course he already knew that it was raining - he could hear it clattering across the slate roof three stories above him – but he enjoyed watching the man before him squirm as the Chaos Marine engaged him in irrelevant small talk.

“Yes, my lord,” the Inquisitor answered, desperately trying to keep any emotion or fear from showing as he stood dripping in front of the door. He didn’t offer him to take a seat, or even take off his black storm coat – he liked keeping him there, dripping like the fool he was, in the middle of the room.

He took another sip from his drink, his eyes never leaving the Inquisitor. He had enough of the vintage in his satchel to easily offer some to the man, and he even had another goblet that he carried with him, but he wasn’t about to offer any to his guest.

“This is really quite good you know,” he said, lifting the glass into the dim light so that Inquisitor could just make out the liquid inside, “Phillian ‘783 – very fine indeed.”

The Inquisitor didn’t answer, he just stood there silently, his hands behind his back and his feet spread apart.

The Chaos Marine arched a non-existent eyebrow, and the Inquisitor finally stirred.

“Can we stop playing these games? I would like to think that I deserve more than that.”

He put his glass back down on the table, and arched his hands in front of his face, his eyes piercing the Inquisitor with a cold glare. Then he tossed back his head and laughed – a very disturbing sound indeed.

“Games? But you used to be so good at games!” he said, chuckling at the Inquisitor’s discomfort. “Manipulation – that was your forte, was it not? That’s what made you who you are!” he continued, “but yet you grow tired of them now? Well, sir, it would appear that we have a problem, for if this is not a game, then what is it? It certainly can’t be real life, for if it were you would be dead right now for failing me like that!”

The Inquisitor winced upon hearing his words, and the Chaos Marine started to laugh once again.

“You know,” the seated giant said, “when I first came to this world just a few short days ago I had such hope that when you arrived things would finally go my way. You had your agents in place, and my brethren were prepared to scoop up my prize. You even managed to strike against the Sororitas, adding to the confusion, or should I say,” he chuckled, “Chaos?”

He tilted his head back and smiled dreamily at the ceiling above as if he were remembering a particularly fond memory. When he looked back at the dripping man, he was still smiling.

“But now, my dear sir, now you come here before me now to tell me that after all that pomp - all that certainty - that you failed, and that somehow the psyker you promised me died, and now you will beg for mercy so that I might consider letting you leave this place with only your dignity in tatters! Am I wrong in my Assessment?”

“No, Lord, you are correct.”

The Chaos Marine wiped the smile from his face in a heart-beat.

“So,” he said, his voice a deadly whisper, “after almost two years worth of planning and scheming, and telling me how this plan of yours cannot be foiled, and how you can bring my prize to this world, create a suitable diversion to allow me and my brethren access this planet, and then deliver him to me, you fail? We had a deal. You broke that deal. Do you know what that means?”

“Please,” the Inquisitor said, his voice quaking before the quiet fury of the giant seated before him, “It wasn’t my fault! Another Inquisitor - ”

“Not your fault? Explain to me then how this is not your fault, for last I looked, it was you who created this scheme, you who claimed to be able to bring the witch to me, and you who downright failed it.”

“I understand, my Lord, but - ”

“No, you haven’t even begun to understand, and you never will. Sit down.”

The Inquisitor turned and spotted the love seat, and was slowly moving towards it when the Chaos Marine made a distinctly sharp hissing noise.

The man looked about himself, “My Lord?”

“Sit on the floor, fool.”

He sat, the Chaos Marine now towering over him.

“Do you recall what I said to you after we met?”

“You said that I would never meet you again.”

“And why do you think I said that?”

“I - ”

“Shut up.”

The Inquisitor shut his mouth as he was told, and the Chaos Marine noted with some satisfaction the look of bewilderment and fear on his face.

“Now, you consider yourself a smart man, don’t you? Yes you do, so despite whatever illusions you might harbour about your own intelligence, you tend to act in a way that you consider wise.” He paused for a moment, his eyes never leaving the Inquisitor. “So did you really think that harvesting the gene-seed from my brethren would really be a good bargaining chip?”

What little colour remained in the Inquisitor’s face vanished almost instantly.

“Oh, you didn’t know that I knew that did you?” he said, a wicked smile spreading across his face, “Well I do. Did you think about the consequences of such an act? Probably not. Allow me to elaborate.”

“Forgive me, my Lord, but considering that I am a respected Imperial Inquisitor dealing with an agent of the Ruinous Powers, you might understand that I am a little… cautious in our arrangements. How am I to know if you can be trusted to uphold your part of the deal?”

The Chaos Marine glared at him for a moment, but then snorted in contempt at the man’s pitiful efforts to regain some shred of control.

“You have no choice but to trust me, Inquisitor, for if you don’t – which is apparently the case – I will end your miserable life and be done with it.”

“Aha! But you haven’t killed me yet,” the Inquisitor pointed out, thinly veiling his discomfort with a show of triumph, “so I must assume that I am of some importance to whatever you have in mind! Perhaps it is difficult to find another turncoat with such connections, hmm? Or maybe it would be inefficient to have me replaced after we have worked together for so long?”

The Chaos Marine looked at him as if he were observing a particularly bothersome gnat. He drew his bolt pistol and placed it down upon the table’s surface with a menacing thud.

“Threats will do you no good,” the Inquisitor said with a certain note of satisfaction, “you can’t kill me; who else might know the little secrets of our operation? Who might I have told?”

The Chaos Marine snorted with laughter; “You haven’t told anyone. Oh, did you expect me to think that you told your little plaything who is waiting outside? Well, I suppose we could drag her in here and ask her, couldn’t we?”

The Traitor Marine threw his head back and laughed aloud at the Inquisitor’s renewed discomfort. “You didn’t really think that you could deceive me, did you!? Why you even bother with these ridiculous gestures I will never know!”

He leaned forward in his seat, a wide grin playing across his ghastly face; “You see now, my dear sir, that you can trust me – you can trust me to always be watching, and to know what you know!”

He sat back in his chair and picked the pistol off the table, “Yet I cannot trust you to trust me it would seem, so I think that our working relationship will have to end here.” He levelled the pistol at the Inquisitor’s head, “Goodbye, Mister Montrose.”

“No wait!” Montrose cried, “I wish to make amends for my wrongdoings, I wish to show that I am loyal! Please give me another chance!”

“I’m sure you would like another chance,” the Chaos Marine sneered, “but the fact is that you failed, and that I no longer have use for you.”

“I can still make amends! There are others! Others that I can sway into your service!”

“Go on,” the Chaos Marine said, the pistol still levelled at Montrose’s head.

“There is another Inquisitor – Inquisitor Galtman – his goal is to find the root for the blood cult that we used on this world. I can help him in this, and I can ensure that he walks into a snare from which you can over-come him!”

“And how would this work?”

“I – I…” Montrose staggered, searching for the right words, “I don’t know the particulars yet, but I can do it! I swear to the True Gods that I can!”

The Chaos Marine snorted, “True Gods? You don’t even believe in them, but perhaps you can be of service to me. Tell me more about this man - Galtman.”

Montrose sat up a little straighter on the floor – he would have to make a good sell if he expected to survive. “Galtman is a well accomplished man,” Montrose said truthfully. “He is a psyker, while not as powerful as our previous mark, what he lacks in mental prowess he makes up for in intelligence and physical capabilities – he would be more than capable of performing adequately for you. He’s as cold, ruthless, and effective as anyone could hope for, and I hear that his ability to hunt down a target himself is second to none amongst the members of the Ordos.”

“If he is as formidable as you’re brief description makes him sound,” the Chaos Marine said coolly, “than what makes you think that he can be swayed?”

Montrose grinned, “Every man has his price, my Lord.”

 

* * * *

 

The dimly lit inn was all but deserted when Aribeth entered from the rain. Wooden chairs were overturned, and several tables had been thrown over in disarray when the inn, like everything else during the war, had been abandoned. A light shone under the crack in the kitchen door, and as Aribeth watched, an elderly server pushed his way through with a steaming plate of finely roasted meat and vegetables, and made his way to the booth in the back of the dining room and sat the food before the man seated there. Upon returning empty handed, he spotted Aribeth and bowed politely before returning to the kitchens.

Aribeth walked over to the booth, moving chairs quietly out of the way as she went, her armoured feet scrubbing lightly across the carpet at each step.

“You wished to see me, my Lord?” she asked, standing politely at the side of the table.

Inquisitor Galtman had aborted the Kill Team just over an hour earlier, and had recalled Aribeth, Clara, Serinae, Alexia, and the wounded Rylke to the pre-designated extraction point. The six of them had left in the same armoured vehicle they had arrived in. As to the fate of the Drogians and the hooded men, Aribeth never found out. She had hardly set foot within the preceptory however, when the Inquisitor had called for her again. Why, she did not know, but the Heart of Night was fast approaching.

Galtman looked up from his food at the Palatine, “Yes. Sit, please,” he said, motioning to the cushioned seat across from him.

“I’d prefer to stand,” Aribeth said.

“And I asked you to sit,” Galtman replied flatly as his eyes returned to his food, moving it around on the plate with his fork before taking a modest morsel of roasted flesh and putting it in his mouth.

Aribeth sat, placing her helmet beside her on the bench seat, and rested her gauntleted hands in her lap.

The server reappeared with a plate identical to Galtman’s and laid it down before her.

“No thank you,” she said, holding up her hands, “I’m not hungry.”

The sever looked at Galtman, who motioned him to continue, and left the food in front of the Palatine before quickly retreating into the kitchen’s once more.

“Inquisitor, I’m not hungry,” Aribeth said matter-of-factly.

Galtman looked at her with his cold unrelenting eyes and wiped the corners of his mouth with an immaculate lace napkin. “You haven’t eaten properly in days,” he stated, “Eat.”

“With all due respect, Inquisitor,” Aribeth replied, staring coldly at the man before her, “I did not come here to be patronized by you, and if this is all you summoned me for, I have more important things to see to.”

“I understand that, Palatine, but the matters of the Inquisition supersede anything else you may be engaged in. I would like to keep this conversation as brief as possible, but if you are going to be uncooperative and make trivial protestations at every opportunity, then this will likely take longer than either of us would like. So please - ” he gestured to the plate before her, “– eat.”

Aribeth didn’t say anything. Of course she was hungry – she’d survived the past few days on strictly rationed food that had just barely kept her fit to fight. The serving of food before her also looked and smelled tantalizingly good – far better than the humble meals of flavourless meat, dry bread, bitter wine, and other things equally unremarkable that were often served at the preceptory. Indeed, had she been presented with such a feast as was before her now – a generous portion of sensuous roasted meat, an opulent ensemble of colourful cooked vegetables that she had set eyes upon before, and a mash of root vegetables drizzled in a rich sauce – at any other occasion, she would have delighted in it without question. Yet the presence of the Inquisitor stifled her would-be enthusiasm under the scrutiny of his unflinching gaze.

She unbuckled her gauntlets from around her wrists and forearms and dropped them unceremoniously next to her helmet, before picking the knife and fork that sat next to her plate. Her hands were stiff after battle – they always were – and the transition from holding the kicking bulk of bolter or the tempered steel of a balanced fighting blade to a diminutive fork felt awkward.

“So why is it that you called for me, Inquisitor?” she asked, spearing some of the exotic roast on her fork.

Galtman looked at her for moment, chewing the food in his mouth, swallowed, then replied. “I asked you here because there are certain things that leave me perplexed, and I would like some clarification.”

Oh really? Aribeth thought, you expect me to believe that?

“Go on,” she said.

“Where were you tonight?” he asked flatly, leaning his elbows on the table and piercing her with his eyes.

“I was doing as you asked,” she answered, not looking at him, “my Sisters and I were persecuting the enemy.”

“Would that explain why your group was separated, and why you are staunchly refusing to tell me what really happened?”

Aribeth put down her implements and looked back across the table at Galtman. His face had once again resumed its expressionless tone.

“Why don’t you just crawl inside my head and find out? That’s what you’re good at,” she said with a false calmness that was betrayed by her balled fists and furious eyes.

“Despite what you might believe, I want to hear what happened from your perspective, especially considering that your mind would likely provide unrefined emotions and judgements that would prove useless to me.”

“We did what you wanted us to do,” she spat, “anything else is between myself and my Sisters, and it’s none of your business.”

“Everything is my business. Tell me.”

“It’s none of your concern!”

“I would advise you to cooperate with my investigation, Palatine,” the Inquisitor said, his voice like thin ice, “otherwise you will find that the repercussions are dire.”

Aribeth glared at him. “How can I trust you?”

“This is not a question of trust, Aribeth. This is a question of duty, and it is your duty to tell me everything I want to know.”

“Really? Was it Rienburg’s duty to be killed too? What about Hildegard? What was his duty?” she spat furiously.

“Do not change the subject, Aribeth.”

“What about the Drogians? You told me that they were expendable to you. You told me that -”

The psi-shock struck her like a spear thrust into the depths of her mind, and pinned her painfully to the back of her seat. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, she could hardly even think, but she could hear his voice clearly between her ears.

+You’re cooperation is required, Aribeth,+ his voice said directly to her mind, +I am not trying to deceive you, but I need you to tell me what I want to know. I do not want to have to resort to any extreme measures of persuasion. Are we clear?+

Frost was creeping across the surface of the table. The server came out the kitchen, but seeing the woman pinned in the corner and the fresh layer of ice that was gathering around the room, he turned tail and disappeared back the way he had came.

+Do you understand me?+

Aribeth barred her teeth angrily, and tried to open her tightly shut eyes as liquid began to gather in their corners. Galtman shot another psychic lance into her consciousness, making her flicker in and out of consciousness for a moment, and twisting her head upwards with extreme force. A thin wail passed between her lips as her body began to shiver.

+Good.+

He let her go and she fell against the table, knocking aside everything on its surface with a terrific crash.

“Are you ready to cooperate?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t dare move. Her breaths were coming in shallow gasps. She nodded slightly – anything to prevent him from doing that again.

“Good,” he said, “if you cooperate fully we can hopefully conclude this interview shortly and be done with any future unpleasantness.

Though she heard his words, Aribeth didn’t answer – she was too busy trying to gather her mind about her in the wake of the Inquisitor’s onslaught.

“Now tell me about Clara.”

Aribeth’s eyes widened; what had he just said? She sat up.

“How do you know about her?” she demanded, though her voice was weak and strained.

“That doesn’t matter. Just answer my question and we will soon be done,” Galtman answered with his usual cold demeanour.

“If you hurt her…” Aribeth began levelling a threatening finger at the Inquisitor, but he cut her off:

“I don’t intend to bring harm to any of your Sisters. Answer the question: what happened to her?”

Aribeth leaned back silently in her seat and looked at her hands, flexing them gently against one another on the table’s smoothed surface – ignoring the mess of thrown food. She didn’t want to tell him anything other then where he could stick that rosette of his, and then walk out the door and leave him and his damn Inquisition with the company of the squirrelly server. But it wouldn’t work that way – he had her now, and she knew that she wouldn’t be allowed to leave unless she had satisfied his curiosity.

“She was attacked,” Aribeth explained, her eyes focused on her hands and looking anywhere but into his hollow eyes, “and she almost died.”

“How did this happen?” he inquired.

“I don’t know. She just collapsed and started thrashing.”

“Stop hiding the truth, Palatine.”

Aribeth looked up and finally met his eyes. She hated him, hated him more than anything. He was so damnably cold and uncaring – it was like he wasn’t even human. He didn’t seem to care about other people at all – he simply used them to his own benefit and got rid of them when they no longer served his interests. Was that what had happened to Rienburg? Had he become of no use to the Inquisitor? Had Galtman ‘dealt’ with him as he had hinted he might earlier that day? And what about her? What would happen to her once Galtman had decided that she was no longer of any use? Would he try and kill her too? He can go ahead and try, she thought angrily, but I’ll be ready for him.

“That’s all I’m going to say,” she said, no longer really caring what he did anymore – he could go ahead unleash his blasphemous magics on her, but she was determined to not be cowed by him or his wicked ways anymore. Emperor as her witness, the righteous would defy the tyranny of injustice so long as she lived. No longer would she suffer him, no longer would he be given free reign to spread his vile deeds unchecked – she would stand up to him. It was her duty. It was her life.

Galtman folded his arms over his chest and looked across the table at her. She met his eyes. Neither of them spoke for several moments.

“You seem to be under the impression that I am of the intention to do harm to both yourself and your order,” Galtman announced, breaking the silence.

“Are you saying that you’re not?” Aribeth shot back.

Galtman ignored her and continued as if he had not been interrupted; “This is, of course, completely absurd. It is hardly worth my time to investigate a Sororitas preceptory for whatever discrepancies it may well harbour.”

“So why are you here, Inquisitor?”

Galtman eyed her with scorn, “I would have thought that blatantly obvious considering that you have fought the enemy for almost four days now.”

“You think that I’ll believe that’s the only reason you’re here?” Aribeth said, her voice flat with sarcasm.

Galtman chuckled and leaned over the table on his elbows, sporting a contemptuous grin, “You think I’m involved in this, don’t you? You think that I’ve masterminded this whole thing, isn’t that right?” he laughed aloud, a startling gesture from one such as he, and Aribeth flinched involuntarily at this most unforeseen of reactions. “It’s funny, you see, when one such as yourself who has seen naught but the inside of a closed religious order thinks that they understand the greater workings of the Imperium. You know nothing about the Imperium, you haven’t a clue how the galaxy works, and you wouldn’t know a true heresy if one came up and slapped you in the face.”

“Maybe that’s true, and maybe not,” Aribeth said, her voice dangerously low, and her eyes little more than slits, “but I know right and wrong when I see it.”

Galtman smiled, his lips parting to reveal a row of perfectly aligned white teeth; “No, you really don’t,” he said.

“Are you going to try and tell me that what you do is somehow right? That you are justified in your actions?”

“By Inquisitorial edict I don’t have to justify myself to anyone or anything save my superiors in the Ordo, but since it seems that the only way to get anything remotely useful out of you is through dispelling these unfounded notions that you have, I think it’s time I educated you on the true nature of that which we serve.”

“Save your breath,” Aribeth said, rising in her seat to leave, “I don’t want to hear any of your excuses.”

“Sit down.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Sit down, or I will personally see that you are apprehended under suspicion of heresy, stripped of your rank and removed from the Sisterhood, and that you face the full wrath of the Inquisition’s prosecution.”

Aribeth swore at him and sat back down, glowering at the Inquisitor who was sitting calmly across the table.

“I am not about to excuse myself, for that is unnecessary, instead I am about to excuse you for your ignorance, and lack of wisdom, experience, and respect. Should you be so fortunate, I may even consider ignoring your little altercation that occurred just now.”

Aribeth didn’t even answer him – she was seething with a cold fury that grew more potent in every passing heart-beat. The air of superiority surrounding the man was infuriating – how could she honestly be expected to keep civil around such a galling bastard?

“Earlier you asked how you could trust me,” Galtman began, his fingers interlocked as he folded his hands together, “the truth is that you cannot trust me, for the nature of my duty does not allow me to keep trust. You can’t trust me because your wellbeing is of no concern to me, nor is the wellbeing of anyone for that matter.”

“You’re an Inquisitor!” Aribeth shouted at him. “How can you say that you don’t care about the wellbeing of people when you are sworn to serve them!?”

“Because I do not serve them, Aribeth,” he retorted, “I serve the Imperium, not its people, and before you ask, yes, there is a difference.”

Aribeth made to fire back with a stinging rebuke, but Galtman silenced her with a warning finger.

“When I speak of the Imperium, I speak of the vast administrative machine that holds the Emperor’s realm together. Do not be deceived, for without this machine there would be no empire – there would be no humans. It is our greatest asset, and billions of people on millions of worlds are willing to die to preserve it. But if you think that it is through soldiers alone – men and women in positions like yourself – maintain the Emperor’s realm, then you would be wrong. Your valour can hold alien empires at bay, but the greatest threat the Imperium faces comes from within. Threats like the uprising you just suppressed.”

Galtman paused for a moment and cracked his knuckles.

“What is a warrior?” he asked rhetorically. “A warrior is a tool in the same way that every other class is a tool, and like any other tool it is dangerous if used incorrectly or not used at all. Yet who is fit to judge whether or not a tool is used correctly? The answer is that no one is, for everyone is essentially a tool to be used by others. The lowest labourers and serfs are tools to exploit the resources (which themselves are tools) at hand to ensure the teaming masses of mankind can function. The soldier and the lawmen are tools used to keep the workers productive through either protection or punishment. The clerics and preachers are tools to keep the people united and inline. The aristocratic elite are tools that can be used to organize the masses and keep the life-blood of the Imperium flowing through economy and trade. The List goes on. Even the God-Emperor himself is a tool exploited to keep mankind as a single whole.”

“You speak heresy, Inquisitor! The God-Emperor is our Lord and Master, and it is through Him that mankind has achieved and sustained his dominance on the universe!” Aribeth cut-in, glaring at the man on the other side of the table.

“Wrong,” Galtman replied, “the most divine Emperor does not descend from the heavens to keep humanity strong, rather His word is preached to keep us focused and inspired. Do you ever see the Emperor? No, you do not. Yet you pray to Him and worship Him not because you know Him, but rather you have vowed to keep His realm safe. You are commanded in His name, and you command in His name. Without Him, what would you be? Nothing. You would be nothing. Your command would mean nothing. Therefore He is a tool that gives us our strength, our authority, and our purpose.”

Aribeth glowered at him, “Why would anyone even consider such blasphemous thoughts? The Emperor is our Lord and God, and that is all there is to it. To accept anything else is heresy!”

“I consider these things,” Galtman replied, “because no one else does. The clerics and confessors that you hold in such high regard may be learned, but they are blind. They think that prayer makes the galaxy work. They are wrong. Blind faith can accomplish only so much.”

“Faith is not blind!” Aribeth yelled at him, slamming her fists down on the table. “You, Lord Inquisitor, have said too much!” she growled, pointing a menacing finger at his chest, “You have slandered the Imperial Church and uttered profanities against the God Emperor Himself!”

“I hold the supreme authority here, Palatine, not you!”

“The Emperor’s authority and the authority of his servants in the Ecclesiarchy are the only authorities I pay homage to, Inquisitor! I don’t care who you are, but you will not speak ill of the God-Emperor or His servants again! Are we clear!?”

Rage boiled up through the Inquisitor’s eyes, melting away his icy glare into one of burning anger against the upstart woman before him. His hand shot out and grabbed the neck of the Palatine’s armour and pulled her towards him with a sudden jerk – their faces stopping just barely short of one another. Aribeth reacted with equal speed: her left hand slamming into Galtman’s wrist, while her right dove for her holstered pistol.

“Draw that gun on me,” Galtman snarled through clenched teeth, “and I will have no choice but to execute you for treason!”

Aribeth didn’t answer. She just spat in his face.

The sucker-punch struck the side of her face with the force of a hurricane, hurling her out of the booth and down to the floor. Her blood was up, and she spun to her feet – her hand on the hilt of her sword – but Galtman’s boot connected with loud smack against her chin, and knocked her backwards over a table. She recovered quickly and lunged out with her right, but hit only air as Galtman stepped insider her guard and drove his knee into her sternum. Her power armour absorbed the brunt of the blow however, and she struck back at him with an upwards sweep of her elbow across his face, sending him staggering back a few paces. Aribeth closed the distance immediately and leaned into a side thrust kick aimed at his stomach, but the blow never landed – Galtman had brought his terrifying mental prowess to bear. A split second later and Aribeth was face up on the ground gasping for breath as Galtman’s studded boot bit into her cheek and pinned her to the floor.

“Enough!” Galtman shouted. Aribeth found herself no longer able to move. “I am fed up with your immaturity and your inability to act in a reasonable fashion!”

Aribeth tried to hurl a retort back at him, but his boot was making it far too difficult to speak.

“You will NEVER question my authority again, and if you do, so help me Emperor, I will have you summarily executed in public for insubordination. You will cooperate fully with me on all levels, and if I EVER have the slightest trouble out of you again, you will be made to suffer! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!?”

His boot pressed harder into her face.

“Now, the new Canoness, when she arrives, will be sure to hear of this incident, so I suggest that you apologise now, and maybe – just maybe – I will consider not recommending that you be too severely punished.”

Galtman removed his foot and allowed Aribeth to roll onto her front, her hands immediately going to her face which was now wet with her own blood.

“Well?” he said.

Aribeth slowly rose to her knees facing away from the Inquisitor. The last thing she wanted to do was apologise to the bastard. He was the one who had instigate hostility with his witch magics, he was the one who had provoked her through numerous acts of arrogance and cruelty, and he was the one who had slandered the God Emperor and His church. Yet she was the one who had to apologise. He should be the one apologising and begging forgiveness, not the other way around. But as her anger slowly cooled itself, and the pain in her face began to creep to the fore of her attention, Aribeth realized that she was indeed at fault. She had struck a superior – an act that was worthy of the most stringent of punishments. She was lucky that he hadn’t shot her on the spot.

She rose slowly with her head bowed, and faced the Inquisitor. One of the braids in her hair had come undone at some point in the fray, and she swept the loose dark brown hair away from her face and over her ear. Galtman was standing impassively just a few steps with his arms crossed. How he could suppress his rage and become stone-like was a mystery to her. Maybe he felt some shred of guilt? She doubted it – she doubted the damned whore-son felt anything at all.

“I have struck a most pious and humble servant of the God-Emperor,” she began slowly, each syllable feeling like lie as it slipped from her mouth, “I did so unjustly and without reason, for I have erred in my service to Him.” She stopped momentarily, taking deep breaths as she tried to force the words out when every ounce of her being reviled the thought of an apology. “I pray that I may atone for my wrong-doings in both the eyes of my Lord and Father, and in the eyes of the one I have unlawfully transgressed. I offer my sincerest of apologies in hopes that I might yet be forgiven for my misdeeds, and I am willing to accept any punishment that I may be deemed worthy of undertaking.”

Galtman scowled at her, but said nothing. Eventually he jerked his head back towards the booth;

“Get your things and get out of my sight,” he said, his voice rumbling like a building storm.

The Palatine obeyed in morose silence, gathering up her gauntlets and helmet before pushing her way through the overturned disarray of the dining room and stepping out into the street.

Galtman was still standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed when she left.

 

* * * *

 

The rain was still cascading down the side walls of the mansion as Inquisitor Montrose let himself out the front door and wrapped his storm coat tightly around himself. Lighting forked across the sky as he nimbly made his way down the steps and hopped over the ever growing puddles that barred his path. The rain slapped the pavement around him as he walked and pelted down on his shoulders like bullets. Though he was cold, at least he was alive. He reached the cast iron gate at the end of the drive and stretched out a hand to grip its running metal surface – his bejewelled digits becoming instantly soaked as they braved the storm. The gate creaked open with a groaning whine that was audible even through the pounding rain, but before stepping out, he took one last look up at the old manor and the lone light that flickered feebly out from the small paned window on the sixth floor – therein sat his doom, therein sat the end. He heaved a muted sight through the rain, and walked through the gate and closed it shut behind him – the road never looked less welcoming.

But all was not lost.

Out from the drizzle-filled shadows, Mercy’s sleek form immerged – her navy body-glove glistening like the oiled body of a sensual dancer. Water dripped down her face and freckled nose and plastered her hair to her scalp, but she smiled when she saw him through the darkness, as if even the wet itself could not wash away her happiness at seeing him again. Montrose managed to grin back despite the weight on his shoulders, and the two came together in the middle of the empty expanse of the midnight roadway, his arms wrapping around her waist and his head coming to rest against her breasts as the assassin towered over him, delicately cradling his wet head and shoulders with her long willowy arms - her killer’s hands touching his soaking black hair with the gentle caress of her fingers. He looked up into her violet eyes as the rain dribbled down his face, and was returned a soft smile as she stooped and kissed him with a tenderness that belied the lethality of his lover. There they stood, two lovers, their affection enshrined by the midnight darkness and pouring rain against the cruel galaxy that moved around them, and for a moment – only a moment – were they separated from the ire of life, the plague of troubles. But then the kiss ended, Mercy withdrawing her head away from the traitor Inquisitor, and their lives of strain, anger, and fear rejoined them in the rain. Two lovers, lost amidst a galaxy of inexplicable woe, walking away, side-by-side, down the street and into the consuming darkness.

[C. Barrius Matthaeus]

Another very nice installment! :P

 

The Chaos Marine at the beginning strikes me as a very interesting character, I'm looking forward to learning more about him. Montrose and Mercy seem like an interesting pair as well, particularly with the aspect of them being lovers. Galtman is coming across as a really nasty fellow too. I'm guessing he's Hereticus? He reminds me of a comment I read somewhere contrasting the often paladin-like Daemon Hunters with the fear-causing Witch Hunters. The comment emphasized the way that a Witch Hunter makes pretty much everyone afraid of them, in contrast to the potentially inspiring nature of a Daemon Hunter, and that's the feeling that I get from Galtman.

[Alex.ö]

Interesting!

I agree with C. Barrius Matthaeus about the Chaos Marine. He´s a really interesting character so far.