The black rose chapter 22
The ship´s pistons hissed and released beams of vapor as the platform lowered. One of the puffs of steam blew straight into Derik´s face, causing him to flinch in reaction. The beam stopped just as quickly as it had started and now the Inquisitor could finally see the Sisters of the Hawk. With the hand hidden under his folded arms, Derik clutched his coat. The Sister at the front was clad in black power armor. Bright, fiery orange robes attached to her armor flapped wildly in the ship´s still blowing jet engines. Her left hand was wrapped around the handle of her sheathed sword. Noticing her weapon, Derik was reminded that he had left his own sword back on the ship.
Looking down from the platform, Derik tried studying the Sister. Her face was hidden behind a helmet and she seemed stiff as a statue while glaring back at him with red, glowing visors. Though there were other things he could read from her.
She´s the one to face the Inquisitor. Derik noted. The Inquisitor who gave the orders to have them fight alongside the Imperial guard.
He took a slow breath and started wandering forth. After just a few steps he could see the sisters gathered behind the first one. Ranks upon ranks of Sisters armed with everything from heavy bolters to lightning claws. In the sea of black helmets bathed in the night's darkness, Derik could only manage to make out a few faces. Some were frowning at him. Others were smiling, though subtly, so none of their sisters would notice.
Derik reached the base of the platform and stood face to face with the sister. His brown eyes staring unflinchingly into the beaming, blood red slits.
"Sisters of the Hawk." Derik bowed, breaking his gaze with the sister. "It as honor to finally meet you in person."
She scoffed.
"Do you know what your orders have caused?" The sister said.
"I know what happened." Derik looked back up at her.
"And yet you dare to come here." The hand holding the sword flexed.
"You have a fine sword there." Derik quickly glanced down the pommel of the sword. A finely crafted thing, flawlessly round without any bumps. Hope that it doesn´t slam into my face. Derik joked to himself.
"It has taken the life´s of more heretics than you can imagine."
She doubtlessly knows what will happened if she raised that blade to me. Derik thought. But now she seems more eager to draw blood then act with any sense.
"Soon that blade might kill the most while traitors of the Imperium." Derik said.
The grip on the sword loosened. "What do you mean?"
"The heretics that held this fortress, there nothing compared to what's coming."
"Quit talking in riddles." She snapped. "Tell us what´s coming."
"A black crusade." Derik said.
For a moment, a silence fell over the courtyard before the Sisters started chattering between each other.
"What?" She asked with her hand now only leaning on the sword.
Derik just threw her a knowing look.
"There´s no black crusade coming." The fingers wrapped around the sword grip again. "We´d know about it."
"So, Alfred´s not told you." Derik remarked with a grin growing on his face.
For a moment, she broke her gaze with the Inquisitor. If her eyes weren´t hidden behind a helmet, Derik assumed they would be shrinking and darting from the left to the right.
"How long as he known?" She asked.
"I told him about it as soon as I arrived." Derik replied. "But he doubted that you would ever be necessary in the battle to come."
The crowd started chattering again. This time they were louder than before.
She silenced them with a single gesture of her hand. "You still ordered us to fight alongside the Imperial guard. We followed those orders."
And now the Maiden is dead. She did not say it, but Derik could tell she just stopped herself from doing it.
"What happened to Maiden was a tragedy." Derik said.
"And punishment must be dealt for it." She said before Derik could continue.
"To the Imperial guard?" Derik let the tone of his voice be raised slightly. "To the men who fought and died valiantly to complete your quest?"
One of the sisters stepped forward once Derik had finished. Her left arm was resting in a harness tied around her neck. She looked at Derik with normal eye and a red, mechanical eye.
"He´s right." The injured sororita said to her sister. "The Imperial guard showed zeal and fury beyond what most of us where expecting. Without them we would never had captured this fort. They have done nothing to warrant punishment."
"Now your place, Galatea." Her sister snapped.
The injured sister glared back at her for a moment before backing down. "As you wish, Canoness."
Despite her words, the sisters started chatting between themselves again. When they didn´t immediately go silent at her gesture, the Canoness turned.
"If we hadn't followed his orders the Maiden would still be alive!" She roared.
"You still followed them." Galatea said.
The Canoness drew her hand back and punched Galatea in her left shoulder. The force of the punch was enough to send Galatea staggering to the ground. The Canoness was about to land another blow on her when Derik caught her arm.
"Have you sunken so low that you beat your own sisters for telling the truth?" Derik said as the Canoness snapped her arm out of his grip.
"Are you really the Sisters of the Hawk?" Derik proclaimed, loudly, so that the courtyard could hear. "Are you the legendary Sisters of Battle guarding the borders of the Eye of Terror?"
"How dare you?" The Canoness said, her voice thick with contempt.
Derik folded his arms over his chest and slowly turned to face the Canoness. "Because I´m not seeing them." He said. "That is how I dare."
Even with her head hidden behind a helmet, Derik could hear the grunt as the Canoness inhaled.
"Please forgive us, holy Inquisitor." Galatea said, kneeling at Derik´s side.
He placed a hand on the Palatine´s shoulder and smiled.
"It was because of the taint of the Imperial guard that the Maiden killed herself!" A voice shouted.
Derik turned to see a sister with silvery white hair stepping forward. Her neck was visibly repaired with crude wires burrowing in and out of her throat.
"Where you there?" Derik asked. "Did you see what happened?"
"Did you?" The silver haired sister´s voice crackled.
"No. But I know who did." Derik looked over the crowd. "Emma and Johana of the Talons! Step forth!"
For a moment, the sisters were silent. Then Derik could hear someone pushing themselves between the sisters. Two Sisters of the Hawk stepped forth. One had bright blond, golden hair and blue eyes. Apart from a scar on her cheek, Derik couldn´t help but notice that she was quite beautiful. The other had brown eyes, a little brighter than his own and dark hair, almost black when compared to the other.
The yellow haired sister drew her sword rested on it as she kneeled before Derik. "I am Emma of the Talons, holy Inquisitor."
The other sister did the same. "I am Johana of the Talons, holy Inquisitor."
"Rise sisters." Derik urged them up.
When both were standing before him, Derik could get a better look at them. He took a quick look into Emma´s eyes before looking over at Johana. When he looked over her, he recognized the features of her face but found it difficult to place them.
"You were the ones to find the Maiden?" Derik asked.
"Yes." Emma answered with a nod.
"What happened?"
"She just stood there." Johana said. "Blood on her arms and hands." The tone of her voice sank with her head.
"She said she heard howls." Emma stepped in. "Screams, that they were drowning her."
"Was that all?" Derik asked.
"She said we would rise and burn."
In a quick moment, the crowd went silent. They stared at the Inquisitor and then themselves. Chattering erupted again.
Derik folded his arm and chewed gently on the inside of his lip. Insane ramblings by an untrained psyker only seeing the horrors of the warp.
"Where do you want to come with this, Inquisitor?" The augmented sister asked, her voice crackling again.
Derik looked over the sisters and quickly drummed his fingers. "I suspect that something else might have been the cause of the Maiden´s suicide." Something that might anger you further once you find out.
"What?"
"Something that I am not going to share until I have the facts to confirm it." Derik said and took a swallow. "Too confirm it I am going to have to see the Maiden´s body."
"Impossible." The Canoness said. "She is to be buried. Burned by holy flames and released to the Emperor´s mercy."
"I merely have to observe the body." Derik let the tone of his voice soften. "It will not take longer than an hour and then we might be able to know who is truly to blame for what happened."
The Canoness looked at Derik and for once he wasn´t able to guess what was going on under the helmet.
"No more than an hour?" The Canoness asked.
"Provided that I am not disturbed. Once I am done I will have the body prepared for the pyre."
The Canoness turned back to the crowd. She looked over at Emma and Johana and glanced over at Galatea.
"Do it." The Canoness said.
With the body draped in a plastic coat and lying on slab of cold metal, Derik prepared himself. He had washed his hands and pulled on a pair of tightfitting, rubber glows. The rest of his upper body was covered by a coat made of similar material. Normally he would have someone more specialized with him but time of was short. Thankfully it was a relatively uncomplicated thing he was planning to do. He had already taken a blood sample for analysis but wanted to see if there were more things to confirm his theory. He had a simple medical servitor to help him with this.
Derik pulled back the sheet revealed the Maiden´s body. She was ghastly pale and thin. Her skin was almost snow white apart from the dark, crimson gash in her neck.
They´ve cleaned of the blood. Derik noted. Good. Makes it simpler for me.
He pulled back the closed eyelids and leaned in close to get a better look at her eyes.
Pale. Just like her skin. He rolled the ball around a little bit to get a look at the backside of it.
Nothing unusual. He looked over to the other eye and got the same results. Derik sighed and noticed something above her eyes. In the middle of her forehead. A little bump. He put two fingers on it and felt them depress somewhat as he pressed down, though it still gave some resistance.
"Cut a circular shape into the frontal bone." Derik told the servitor. "Make sure not to damage the brain."
The quiet, almost statue like servitor came to live and put a short buzz saw against the Maiden´s forehead. With one stiff motion, the machine slave performed the cut.
"Step back." Taking a short breath, Derik used a scalpel to remove the bone and expose the grey-pink brain matter beneath. He pushed his fingers into the soft brain matter. It felt cold through his gloves and produced a wet sucking sound as he touched it.
Then between he felt something hard, tough only comparably. Derik smiled, though he feelt his excitement quickly muted, Derik took a pair of forceps and reached into the brain.
What the Inquisitor pulled out was black, shimmering orb, no larger than a pebble and connected to the brain via a still pink fleshy thread.
Hmm… Derik put the little orb on a clean plate and took a bottle of clear spirit to wash it off. Once it was clean,he put it clear glass bottle and sealed. With the orb in front of him and the body behind him, Derik reviewed the evidence.
An untrained psyker, also cursed with an underdeveloped Warp eye. She was not only hearing the screams of the Warp, but she might have also seen visions of it. He looked back at Maiden's body. Poor thing. Not only living this close to the Eye of Terror but burdened with both these curses. Almost make me surprised she didn´t end it sooner.
He closed her eyes and pulled the sheath over her. The Inquisitor reached to scratch the back of his head but stopped himself when he remembered that his gloves where covered in half dried blood. He pulled the gloves of before taking the coat of and tossing both aside.
By the Emperor. Derik tilted his head back to the point of feeling the skin beneath his jaw stretching. How do I explain this to the Sisters?
He looked back down at the body. Despite being covered, Derik could still see the outline of the corpse lying in front of him.
"Embalm her and prepare her for the pyre."