Creed: Ashes of Cadia by Jude Reid

Author:Jude Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction: space opera (FLS)
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2023-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

XXVIII

TEMPTATION

When Ursula remembered it afterwards, the journey out of the forest passed in a haze of pain. Sometime in the immediate aftermath of the fight, expert hands had removed her useless armour one piece at a time, but Ossian had insisted that the breast and backplates remained in position over her bodyglove, motivated, she was fairly sure, by the suspicion that it might be all that was holding her together. She had protested at first, frustrated by his intrusive concern, but when she tried to stand unsupported, black stars swam in front of her eyes and an invisible knife stabbed between her ribs with every breath she took. After that she had focused on staying upright, albeit with most of her weight on Sergeant Harapa’s shoulders. She’d led them into that particular battle, and she’d be damned if she’d let them carry her out of it.

Time blurred around the edges. The light changed from the bioluminescent green of the forest to a colder, sharper light as they left the trees, heading towards a pair of huge cylindrical structures made of metal girders that sat in the shadow of the Rossvars. They were easily fifty yards high and twice that in diameter, the kind that had been used to store liquid promethium before the planet’s every resource had been devoured by war. A circular metal hatch set into the side led into a tunnel with cool plascrete walls, and then they were descending through a warren of passageways that went on for miles, interspersed with heavy bulkhead doors that put her in mind of the ones on a voidship.

Her pride had been buckling under the pain by the time Tethys called a halt, and she leaned against the wall, giddy with relief.

‘Welcome to New Gallan, lord castellan.’ Tethys still hadn’t removed their mask.

They were standing in a roughly hewn stone cavern, a heavy adamantine door sealing them off from the access tunnels they had used. Lumen cylinders bolted to the walls with heavy wrought-iron brackets provided a brilliant white light that hurt to look at. Everything was clean and crisp, and after the horrors of the surface, blessedly normal.

‘My thanks for your assistance,’ Ursula said. The pain that shot through her with every breath was making it hard to concentrate, but curiosity was enough to keep her on her feet. ‘How long have you been here?’ She wanted so much to believe that they were survivors of the time before, but there were other possibilities – survivors of a previous attempt to return to Cadia, or escorts for the Oriflamme’s explorators left behind during a hasty evacuation.

There was a long silence before Tethys spoke. ‘Since the Fall, my lord.’

Tethys removed their respirator, revealing a hairless scalp and a triangular vox-grille that covered their lower face from the bridge of the nose to the jawline, held in place with straps gouged in so tight that the blanched skin had grown around them. Two deep-set violet eyes gazed out from blanched white flesh, deeply scored with lines of age.

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