Sisters of Battle: The Omnibus by James Swallow

Author:James Swallow
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2017-06-05T08:21:11+00:00

Chapter Four

The preparations had been completed just before the planet’s­ short, eighteen-hour day concluded, and the canoness made demand to the captain of the Tybalt that the flights of the last few cargo shuttles be halted for the duration. She made it clear she would brook no interruption of the service.

Miriya stood at attention as Sepherina used her firebrand to light a ceremonial brazier, and in a steady, careful voice, the older woman read a passage from the Dominican Tracts on the importance of sacrifice and fealty.

All the Battle Sisters, the non-militants, the workgangers, even Tegas and his party, had been gathered to witness the moment, although the Sororitas had no doubt that the questor was dis­interested in the event at hand. Tegas and his serviles became like statues, staring blankly at the stone walls behind the canoness, each of them ignoring this moment of human remembrance for some other kind of bland mechanical communion.

Are they inside their own heads, talking without speaking, mocking us? She imagined it was so. It was said that many of the Adeptus Mechanicus possessed the ability to communicate via wireless speech, as a telepath could voice from mind to mind. Miriya wondered what she might hear if she allowed the vox-module in her armour to seek their frequency.

She dismissed the thought and looked away. As Sepherina reached the end of her reading, Sister Imogen took up a place at her side, a data-slate in her hand. In the gloom, Miriya saw the glow of lettering across the face of the slate: lines of names. It was the roll-call of the dead, the missing.

Once again Miriya considered the actions of the Ordo Xenos. It sickened her to wonder what men like Inquisitor Hoth would want with the corpses of their departed Sisters. Did he have a pact with Tegas, using agents of the Magis Biologis to pick over the dead women’s remains, even now? Probing old wounds and pallid corpse-flesh for some vague inkling as to the function of the weapons that had killed them? The thought left a foul, ashen taste in her mouth.

Sepherina made the sign of the Imperial aquila, and then raised a hand to point into the sky. ‘There,’ she said, her voice husky with controlled emotion. ‘That distant light is Holy Terra.’

The assembled Sisters glanced up to see, but there were a million stars in the night overhead, and they showed nothing to distinguish one from another. Miriya did not question, however. She took it as an article of faith that the canoness’ indication was true.

‘For all the darkness that has touched this world, the God-Emperor’s Light has never left it. The breath of His divinity has not ceased, even in the blackest of times. We are the manifestation of that truth.’ She took a breath. ‘A spiritu dominatus. Domine, libra nos.’

The words in old High Gothic were the opening phrase of the Fede Imperialis, the great battle hymn of the Sisterhood. Normally sung with full voice and to greater glory, this night they joined to speak it like a litany.

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