Night fell.

Saint Wulferic's was an old shrine. Its marble was new, and shiny and weak, but it was built on a bastion of old stone and old faith, of suspicious arrow-slits and thick, squat walls. It was built, like the Imperial faith, to last.

Upon the bell tower, Priscilla waited. She had her fowling piece, charged and ready; four loaded pistols, arranged on the brickwork in easy reach; a powerful lantern, ready to fill the sky with light and defiance. A vox set.

And a good thermos of tea.

Let it not be said that the House Lawford was anything, if it was not martially inclined.

'You, Brother, have aged.' Pritchard removed a purity seal from between her teeth, and affixed it gently to a statue of the Blessed Wulferic. 'Praise be unto the Emperor.'

'And you, Sister-Abbess, have not.' Marcus Mallory, gently, swung the censer back and forth, back and forth. The stained glass of the windows, usually showing colour as thin and beautiful as a lasbolt, were black. 'Praise be unto him.'

The two priests, Pritchard and Mallory, stood back to back in the Nave. It was chosen for its proximity to the main entrance, and to the bell tower; and the narrowness of its windows. The Inquisitor had instructed it to be prepared in such a way, for conventional defence.

So the priests prepared it in theirs'.

'Do we have a notion, Brother, of what we'll be facing?'

'Crows, Sister-Abbess. Lots of them. Possibly something bigger. All in service of The Enemy.'

'Hmm.' Pritchard, seal placed, re-drew her sabre, did a practice flourish. 'I will have to aim, then, for the eyes or head of a normal man, at the very least.'

Mallory snorted. 'That's a bloody comprehensive fencing manual you've got there.'

'It has served the Inquisitor and I quite well for the past few decades, I assure you.'

'When were you last with him?'

'Sixty-seven years.'

'In what capacity?'

'Active service. He requested a bodyguard. I answered. The enemy came, were met, were overcome, and I encountered in the process some most excellent contacts for my, and the God-Emperor's, business.'

'When I first met him, he had no need of a bodyguard.'

'Times change, as do we. I just use juvenat.'

'Hmm. When I was the ace pilot, and you the-'

'Quite.'

A pause.

Mallory, gently, laid aside the censer and began to recheck his naval pistol.

'Remember Helquvist?'

'The Slumbering Seventh?' They laughed. 'Who can forget, by the Saints…'

The Inquisitor, on his part, was positioned in the entrance hall, pistols at his side, wrapped in his coat, his hand on the pommel of his cane.

The hall was black, but he could still see.

Outside, a horseman rode.

Priscilla could see him in her scope.

And night fell.

She blinked, tried the scope again.

Nothing. Blackness.

Then it shifted, and she realised that, whilst the night was indeed a pitch black, this was something else altogether.

Crows.

A murder of crows.

She took up the vox.

'Lorkas,' she said, and readied her rifle.

The Priests readied their weapons.

'Lorkas,' Mallory said, sighting down his pistol. He could hear a dreadful whistling, a rushing of wings, like an oncoming tide that blotted out the light.

'Lorkas,' Pritchard said, aloud and to the servitors.

'Lorkas,' the servitors said. They attended to the bell and, although weak, began to pull.

The Inquisitor could hear the bell tolling, that ancient, Saint-touched bell. It drowned out the wings of the birds, rolled around the valley in a roaring echo of sound.

He gritted his teeth, for it hurt him to hear it.

'Lorkas,' he said. He closed the door, and heaved down the bar.

The crows tried first, to no one's surprise, to rush the Temple, but their efforts were futile. The servitors strained, the smell of incense wafting about them, and the bell sounded on. They tried to approach, but the mass could only stand a distance of about forty yards. They did not make a sound, but Priscilla could see them recoiling through her scope, could see them writhe, twist, some fell to the ground.

A few tried, but their flesh began to melt away even before she shot them.

But the murder swarmed around them. She could see a dome of darkness, little tendrils licking around them, then expanding. The bell went on defiantly, but they were cocooned in the birds, as they swarmed and darted, this way and that. There was no way out.

And so, for a time, they stayed as such. A silence fell, save for the sound of the bell.

Beyond the birds, she fancied the moon was rising, and falling.

It therefore came as a shock when, quite suddenly, a hole opened. All eyes strained towards it.

'They wish to negotiate.' The Inquisitor's voice, in her ear. 'I can hear them.'

'But they did not make a sound-'

'I. Can. Hear. Them.' The Inquisitor sounded unbearably tired.

'You don't wish to accept do you? The day will come, people will see the birds, they will-'

'This creature,' the Inquisitor replied, 'was able to shorten the day on a whim. I daresay that it can prolong the night as it sees fit.'

'So you-'

'I will go forth, yes. Don't worry, I'll be quite careful.'

'They'll flense you alive.' Pritchard this time. 'The moment you step away from His Bell.'

'I doubt it. Daemons tend to honour pacts. Now good day.'

Priscilla could see the temple's gates open, and the Inquisitor stride forth. He touched his hat to the birds.

'Pacts?' Mallory asked. 'Did he just say pacts?'

'I did, yes. I meant it informally. Now quiet, please.'

The Inquisitor stepped into the hole.

It closed behind him, as thick as fog.

The first thing the Inquisitor noted was the grass. Or rather, the lack thereof, for where once there had been a field, there was now hard earth and wilted tufts.

And another layer of birds, coilng all around.

'You wish to speak?' the Inquisitor asked.

'Yes,' said the darkness in a voice of wingbeats and whispers.

A figure stepped forward. Humanoid, about seven feet in height. Hooded and cloaked. Not unexpected.

It had an orb. What exactly gripped it, the Inquisitor could not say.

'Our position,' said the Inquisitor, 'is quite secure. It is a bastion of the Emperor's might, has within it two ordained priests, a bell touched by the saints, and did you really expect me to be physically here in person? I can sustain this projection for quite long enough. So you had best stop inconveniencing us, little daemon, until you tire our patience.'

The figure seemed to cock its head.

'And yet,' it replied, 'you have been bleeding from the ears for the past half hour, at least.'

'I have an infection. It is most regrettable.'

'Do not lie, Inquisitor, it does not become you any more. I daresay that even your companions do not believe your every word. If they do, they disappoint me. The Dark Powers, as you term them, can wait for as long as they see fit. We only have to achieve one victory. You have to defend your little hole forever, until your food runs out, or you start to go mad, or slay each other, or you tire of your charade and decide to stop the bell, and kill your companions.' The figure shrugged. 'And, if I decide to come sooner, for I am an arbiter of what is sooner and what is later, then it can be arranged.'

'Can it now?' The Inquisitor stretched.

'Your bell is very old, and your Drill-Abbess has maintained it poorly. It can be persuaded to break before its time.'

'You are revealing an awful lot to me.'

The creature did not respond. A slight victory, at least.

'Very well. I daresay that you underestimate our capacity to resist. But no matter. Such arrogance is to be expected among your kind?'

The figure shrugged again. Why did it care what he thought?

'But I can convince you not to kill us, I think.'

'Oh?'

'Yes.' The Inquisitor, suddenly, flourished his cane.

A bird screamed.

They all screamed.

(So, in the tower, did Priscilla, who unloaded an entire power cell into the darkness. Each shot hit, killed-and achieved little.)

He stood, unruffled. 'I believe, Barabas, for that is your name, that we are more valuable to one-another alive than dead. Permit me to explain…'

In absence of an enemy willing to press its attack, and with an enigmatic, looming ally beyond vox range, the acolytes turned to conversation.

'Favourite colour, your grace?'

It was Pritchard who asked.

'Red.' The reply was crackling, faltering. Their voxes were functioning inadequately.

'Green, Fleet Green. And the colour of that emerald.'

The priests heard laughter.

'We are facing down a daemon capable of temporal manipulation, and all his swarms of crows and beasts of the dark, and we're discussing our favourite colour! Mallory, I would have expected this of you, but Abbess-'

'We are human, are we not? Including a human's capacity for irreverence and distraction from the inevitability of death. I find faith in the Emperor helps remarkably.' Pritchard continued to practice the 'windmills' with her sabre, flexing her arm and wrist.

'You actually are pious!'

'Indeed, Your Grace. How observant of you that the mistress of a Shrine should be so.'

'You have heard the reputation of your establishment, haven't you?'

Mallory snorted.

'I fail to see,' the Abbess replied, 'the contradiction between faith in the Emperor, being in a mixed-gender religious order, and the enjoyment of the flesh. The Emperor has granted us our bodies, it falls to us to derive enjoyment from them.'

'You are, in that respect, a minority. Last month's Courant, for example, outnumbers you significantly.'

'Let them think what they will. My faithful pilgrims know better. I have nothing to be ashamed of.' The Drill-Abbess gave her sword a last flourish, and sheathed it with a flourish. 'Nothing.'

'If only I had your confidence.' Mallory had the ghost of a smile.

'Oh?' The Drill-Abbess raised an eye brow. 'Confess, Brother, we're all friends here.'

'At the hour of death.' He raised his eyes to consider the stained glass. No light shone through. 'I took the cloth to get out of the fleet. Lorkas was too much. Just too much. And now here I am, with the same man who ordered its destruction, and he claims he can undo it. I'm an imperial citizen, I'll serve. No fear. But…'

'It wasn't Lorkas for me,' came Priscilla. 'That came close. I just met a good man.'

'A rich man.'

'As shallow as it sounds, yes. A good, rich man, who offered me a chance to rest. To settle. And yet, here I am.'

'Here we are.' Mallory rose suddenly, started pacing. His eyes darted about. 'We could try a breakout. Perhaps. Get guns, go.'

'As guardian of the shrine, I should object to this plan far more than I actually do.' Pritchard bowed to the Saint's image, made her Aquila. 'But we have a higher mission than bricks and mortar. And the Saint will endure.'

'You wish to abandon it?'

'It takes more than a pack of crows to overcome a Saint, your grace. As I see it, this daemon, no matter how it warps time, is a little creature. It tries to control, assume we abandon ourselves to our fate, to our pasts. Well, not I. The Emperor has given us wits and wills and muscle and bone to defy the daemon, and has bestowed upon his saint the power to overcome all adversity. We shall triumph. In His Name.'

'Ave Imperator.' Mallory raked the slide of his naval pistol.

And then the bell stopped.

For a moment, the silence was overwhelming, everlasting. It hung in the air like a sword.

Then there were two great crashes.

The first was the Inquisitor slamming the temple doors behind him, readying both his pistols, shouting for someone to drop the bar in place.

The second was far, far longer, louder. A squealing scrape of metal on stone, that seemed to go on like a tortured soul. It remained in the ears for far longer than the sound lasted.

Pritchard ran for the bell tower, shouting. Mallory took up a marksman's stance, and made ready to fire at the first bird that came.

Priscilla shot first. The birds were easy targets at this range. The lasrifle kicked into her shoulder as she went through round after round, the rifle cracked, but it was not a weapon for this sort of close combat. She got off five shots into the mass, stuffed pistols into her belt, scrabbled for the hatch, with one boot, and then flailed with the butt of her rifle as the birds closed. She crushed a skull on the stonework, smashed a beak with the muzzle, then they were tearing at her coat, her face, towards her eyes. She drew her knife, slashed, punched, kicked, bit, found the hatch, kicked at the latch-

Something dark and vile stabbed into her eye.

She screamed, fell backwards, but the hatch was open. She fell down, down, to the bottom of the ladder.

The impact took her breath away.

But she crushed the birds on her back.

And she fired both pistols right up at the swarm above. The buckshot tore into it, forcing it back. She tugged at the rope, the hatch fell down-

And then she felt the pain, heard a relentless scraping, pounding on the hatch of thousands of beaks, and saw darkness.

What follows is, perhaps, best told from another perspective.

Over a hillcrest, onto the scene, ride two gentlemen, on fine horses, with fine pistols in their saddle holsters.

As it is dark, they do not notice the birds, or the shots, or the temple.

But they do notice its absence.

And that the tree, where they picketed their mounts, is out of season.

'Well, Mister Quick,' says one, 'we are in a most lamentable predicament.'

'It was not I,' snaps the other, 'who read the map.'

'Indeed. And I, Mister Quick, am never wrong with such things, and the road was signposted quite clearly.'

They look at each other and, as one, draw their pistols and set forth.

What they see, as they close, is a flickering hemisphere of starless night, that contracts with the queer ambiguity of the setting sun.

Then, suddenly, a flash can be seen from within, and another. Shots can be heard, screams. The darkness holds its position.

(One of them, producing his monocular, perceives the darkness more closely. It looks like it is made of particles, like…

his old horse, a black stallion of the Cuirassiers, flailing its hooves aloft, kicking up mud as black as night with his sword as the crescent moon, all chaos, all falling, then there's a scream, a flash, and-

The other, being a supremely unimaginative man, sees nothing at all.

And then they watch as the darkness opens, and a shape looms out. Something quadrupedal, hideous, they feel cold, it whinnies-

Horses.

They almost laugh as a coach thunders out down the road.

Then they hear someone screaming from within.

They, from this, drew their own conclusions, and made a rush for their horses.