The Rose At War by Danie Ware

Author:Danie Ware
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2022-06-06T12:18:44+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The stimm brought Istrix upright in a rush, her face pale, her green eyes briefly wild. She took in her surroundings with a single, blazing-cold glance, and came straight to her feet.

She swayed, her hand going to her field-dressing, and her missing pauldron. Instinctively, Rufus offered her assistance but she refused. Outrage flared from her shoulders as she turned around.

She snapped, ‘Where is Corporal Mors?’

Augusta replied, ‘I sent him on reconnaissance.’

‘What?’ The inquisitor spun back to her. ‘Are you deficient, Sister? I did not give you leave to take the initiative. To make my decisions for me. You disobey an order of mine again, and you will find yourself wielding a very different selection of weaponry.’ A flicker of spittle flew from her lips as she thundered, ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘Ma’am.’ Startled by her vehemence, Augusta offered her a curt salute, but Istrix had already turned away, scornfully dismissive, to retrieve her shoulder-armour. Her voice in the vox demanded the corporal’s immediate return, and on the double.

The Sister Superior held herself still. Mors had given her new questions to consider, but as yet, she did not know the answers.

Beside her, Akemi shifted uncomfortably, her armour creaking; the soldiers were exchanging uneasy glances, though they said nothing.

But Istrix paid none of them the slightest attention. Instead, as she fastened her pauldron back into place, her gaze fell on the ration-crumbs, and narrowed.

‘How long,’ she asked them, the words like cracking ice, ‘did you leave me unconscious?’

‘Moments only.’ Augusta offered a penitent prayer to accompany the lie. ‘We roused you as soon–’

‘But long enough to pause for a rest?’ Istrix’s tone was savage.

‘Ma’am–’

‘Enough!’ The inquisitor silenced the Sister Superior with a bark that was almost a bellow. Her face was flushed, now, showing the neat lines of scars. She looked like she would split along those lines, detonating into flying fragments of furious flesh.

Augusta inhaled. She prayed for calm, and for clarity.

For truth.

‘We will hold this location until Mors returns,’ the inquisitor said, her sarcasm as bitter and lethal as a lake of acid. ‘And then we will move out for our meeting with Rayos.’

‘Inquisitor, we do not know that Rayos can be trusted.’ Privately, Augusta thanked the Emperor Himself for her years of training, for the canoness’ strict discipline that enabled her to keep her voice controlled. ‘We cannot reach Sister Melia. And, dependent upon Mors’ intelligence, I suggest that an assault upon the tech-priest’s location would be the best option.’

‘I have already told you, Sister.’ Istrix ground crumbs under her boot. ‘You will not open fire without my orders.’

Viola tensed; Augusta could see the young woman’s gauntleted hands tighten on the heavy bolter, though she did not turn around.

‘When this mission is over,’ Istrix continued, ‘I will be accompanying you back to Ophelia VII. I will be commanding an audience with your canoness, and I will be delivering my report on your performance and behaviour… in person.’

Augusta was beginning to feel the same sharp, furious sense of helplessness that she’d felt in the shuttle, the same sense of being tumbled by forces outside her control.

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