Prologue

The Navy corvette had entered the warp two days ago, so the Hospitaller Sisters of the Order of the Healing Spring were to arrive to the sub-sector cardinal world in a week. That was the first time Sister Palatine Gallina had been trusted to accompany a group of Novice Sororitas to the great temple of Saint Ophrysia where they should take their holy vows before the gathered faithful at the annual festival. The warp route from their small shrine world to the Ophrysia system was among the relatively safe but they had nevertheless departed a few days in advance to prepare well for the solemn ceremony.

An hour before standard dawn Sister Gallina woke up at a jolt, as if the vessel had just returned to the realspace. The next shock bumped her out of her bed. She reached for the switch but it didn't work. Struck with sudden vertigo and sickness, she pulled over the habit and opened the door to the corridor.

There was no single light in the whole compartment, and auspex screens on the walls had died out. Vox channels were silent, even the inner network had been turned off. Gallina found the flashlight and the emergency vox, hardly able to struggle with creeping fear. She had served in the Order for more than a decade, and her stubborn faith in the Emperor's protection had helped her to live through an epidemy that took the lives of many Sisters treating the sick, to hold on for two years in frozen trenches during the lengthy siege of a nearby hive world. But, by His mercy, she hadn't yet encountered foul sorcery all loyal to Him had to combat. Veteran guardsmen had whispered and shouted about witches and even worse things, recovering after surgery or in fever. It often began with an unnatural nauseating still, they said.

She stepped out to warn the others but stumbled upon one of the novices at the exit.

'Are we under attack, Sister Palatine? The girls are all awake, praying for His assistance.'

'Don the armour and get ready. We'll wait for a quarter of an hour and then get out for a reconnaissance.'

They had passed through military training but they were all physicians, not warriors. Not the baptism of fire novices should come upon. Gallina's first thought was to comfort them as she was an only one who they relied on. Hard to admit for a staunch adepta of the Faith, but she didn't feel strong enough to withstand the invisible threat.

Their armaments were scant in a peaceful mission when they depended on the Navy's armed force. Clad in a ceremonial carapace, Sister Gallina checked her stub revolver and gathered her novices at the exit of the compartment. The vessel wasn't silent anymore. Cries and gunshots in the distance. Waves of nauseating white noise that didn't let them concentrate properly.

First cultists broke in with crazed yells in minutes. The door locks didn't work but the Sisters had managed to build a quick makeshift barricade of furniture in the corridor. Two reloads for a whole throng. Half-naked, swinging clubs and iron rods, they rushed to the firing point, their cloudy eyes fixed on the flashlight beams. Hatred for heresy should be stronger than fear, Sister Gallina had told the novices before they boarded the ship. Their hands were trembling when they fired their first shots but Gallina started chanting a hymn to the Emperor, and the novices echoed, their unrest giving way to sacred zeal.

As more cultists fell under the fire, uglier shapes emerged from the dark, few but taller and stronger, their purplish skin and elongated heads looking disturbingly alien. Distant offspring of devourer fleets mentioned in the most horrifying tales. Gallina threw the empty revolver to the floor and tore a grenade off her belt with a sign to the novices.

An echo of the blast shook the compartment. Pieces of furniture fell on the crouching Sisters, a few severed limbs and a head bumped into the wall leaving stains of dark blood. The Sisters waited for a few minutes but nothing happened. They crawled out of their hiding and paced to the exit stepping by the ravaged remains of the intruders. Despite her hesitations, Gallina allowed the novices to pick up weapons dropped by the cultists as their own were of no use anymore. It had got cold, and the corridor walls were covered with a thick layer of hoarfrost. Sorcerous chill, Gallina remembered the tales. Not for the novices' ears.

Irreal faint light was coming from one of the passages outside the compartment, and the Sisters headed there wondering why that part of the ship was empty. Not even a single corpse. Sister Gallina turned the corner and froze up. The opposite wall had gone, a glowing aperture gaping instead. Three giant figures in bulky black armour stepped out towards them.

A hard punch of a ceramite gauntlet threw her to the floor before she could parry with her trophy rod. Traitor legionnaires out of nightmares, their suits overgrown with repulsive horns and tusks and marked with abominable symbols of the Ruinous Powers. The attacker turned his head to the other two.

'Got the Palatine. Croak the rest and let's go back.'

'They're young and saucy,' another traitor said with an obscene gesture.

'Soon we'll have a whole convent to have fun. Dump them quicker, don't even need bolts for these waifs.'

The novices huddled at the opposite wall, unable to move in panic. The traitors unsheathed their combat knives, and Gallina couldn't help crying out when the girls fell one by one, their throats slit, heads smashed. Her captor grabbed her by the neck and punched her again, and she passed out.

She opened her eyes in a small chamber under dazzling white lamplight. It smelled of medicaments, tobacco and alcohol. Her armour had gone, and her hands and legs were in restraints on a metal surgical table. Another giant with a scary augmetic arm was smoking in the corner, scratching his stubbly cheek. When he noticed she was awake, he threw the cigarette butt to the floor and bowed his head.

'Delighted to meet a colleague.' He pointed at his white pauldron where the Prime Helix was still visible under a crudely painted Star of Chaos. 'Wait a bit more, the old drunkard will be here soon, and we'll begin.'

He pulled closer a small trolley with a display of blades and other gruesome tools, took a vial of spirit and gulped the liquid with a content half-smile. The door swung open, and a monstrous warrior appeared on the threshold, accompanied by a traitor enginseer with a servo-scribe drone. His black armour adorned with both Chaos sigils and terrifying bestial silhouettes, the warlord was a head taller than the traitor apothecary. He took off his helmet shaped like a snarling panther head and leaned over Gallina.

'You're welcome to the Macan Kumbang, holy fowl of the corpse-god. If you don't pretend to be a tough nut, you'll be granted a quick death or even stay alive if someone wants you for himself. I need every bit of knowledge about your shitty piece of frozen rock.'

'Murderous, despicable traitor. The Emperor's wrath will fall upon your head.' Gallina clenched her jaws under the stare of his wild eyes.

'Aye, He'll jump up from His golden loo seat to rescue you personally. I swear I'll repent my sins if I see Him come in.'

Gallina flinched when the warlord pinched her thigh. He turned to the apothecary.

'Get to work, you slacker.'

When the traitors left her in the deep snow of her homeworld, she couldn't remember for how long she had been aboard the Black Legion barge. Her broken limbs didn't obey, and blood running from her wounds started freezing in minutes. She looked up at the outline of her convent barely visible through the blizzard. Tears burned her eyes when she whispered the first words of the Prayer of Relief. Her smashed lips got numb but she made it to the last phrase. 'If only I remain constant to Him through this time of torment.'

Snow crunched under light steps, and a young woman in a wide-brimmed hat knelt beside her.

'Uncle, Angel, come quicker. She's alive.'