Cult of the Warmason by C L Werner

Author:C L Werner
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2017-02-14T11:47:03+00:00

Chapter IX

‘Controlled bursts! Be certain of your targets!’ Sister Kashibai’s admonition rang out across the vox, carrying to the Battle Sisters assembled with her in the narthex. The position had been reinforced by Sisters detached from other duties within the cathedral so that Kashibai now had upwards of thirty warriors to defend the Great Gate.

Looking out into the plaza from the gateway, Kashibai appreciated how immense was the task set before them. The square was fairly crawling with refugees, a panicked morass of humanity that was trying to force its way into the cathedral. Clawing, kicking, trampling, the mob was lost to reason now. All that was left was the fear that hammered in their hearts and the prospect of safety that goaded them on.

Sister Superior Trishala had given the order and Kashibai could do nothing but obey. No more people were to be admitted into the cathedral. She would pray for their souls when the fighting was done. For now, she had to forget them. It was the crowds already inside who demanded her protection.

Las-bolts caught Sister Rachna in the throat when a clutch of supposed refugees drew weapons from beneath their coats. More cultists revealed themselves in a blast of fiery plasma as they charged the gate, Sister Shanta’s left side reduced to a mess of melted armour and vaporised flesh. The enemy rush was silenced in a hail of bolter-fire, but the damage was already done. Far more than the loss of two Battle Sisters, the attack had demolished the discipline of the crowd. Already on the edge from the breaching of the perimeter, the civilians lost all restraint.

The fusillade the Battle Sisters loosed into the crowd saw no less than two score hurled back in a welter of blood and dying flesh. The deafening salvo for a brief instant accomplished a miracle. The wave of maddened humanity drew back, stunned by the menacing display. For an instant, silence brooded above the square. Kashibai looked towards the Great Gate, wondering why she couldn’t hear the portal growling its way back into its hidden recess to leave the doorway and the cathedral exposed to the masses in the plaza. The immense gate had stopped, freezing in place midpoint in its journey.

The silence was broken by a rumbling mechanical shriek. Up from the crowd rose cries of protest and horror, screams both terrifying and piteous. The sound that had broken the silence was that of the Great Gate’s mammoth door shuddering into motion. Plaster and masonry crumbled as the huge portal began to creep out from its hidden recess, its tremulous momentum sending a shudder through the mountain itself.

The Great Gate was closing again! The sanctuary those in the plaza had so desperately hoped to gain was being cut off, denied to them when they stood upon its very doorstep, when safety had so abruptly re-entered their hopes. Now it was being snatched away from them again. That realisation whipped the fires of fear into a conflagration. An inflamed horde rose up, charging the steps, rushing for the doorway before it could be closed to them.

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