Chapter 11
023.M42
Vespor, Huldah subsector, Syntyche sector
The card guided Amara better than the servo-skull's maps ever could. In the past the Inquisitor had often asked the card to reveal the way to an individual or article, and it did so with startling accuracy. She plucked it now from the inside of her glove, turning the worn cardstock over in her hands, focusing her mind. She asked, "Where is the Dark Mother?"
She dropped the card far away from her person, green eyes following as it fluttered to the ground. The marked edge pointed toward an ironwork staircase rising up in the gloom. Wreathed in mist, the stairs presented an unknown danger, just like everything else in the hive. Amara Kith took her card and tucked it back inside her glove as she contemplated the path. Tightening her grip on her sword, the Malleus Inquisitor motioned for Sister Ursula. They began climbing the sweeping steps.
Although the Sister of Battle was sworn to follow her mistress, the approach taken by the Inquisitor did not sit well with her. Mist kicking up with every footstep and cascading down the stairs, the battle maiden felt uneasy. Sister Ursula's aiming reticule highlighted potential dangers as her bolter swept the darkness to find a foe.
"We are protected by His strength," Ursula spoke over the vox-link. Their footsteps rang in the cursed quiet. "He guides us; His great will is channelled through your card, milady."
Conviction laced her voice. She did not believe that a mere card, one not even associated with the Divine Tarot, was guiding their way. Her helmet's runes changed from amber to red, targeting forms which skittered too fast to track. Ursula kept her guard up; having expended one clip in the lower levels, she conserved her ammunition now. Inquisitor Kith kept most of the fiends at bay with her unique gift, but the battle nun's blood ran hot in anticipation of a clash.
At the top of the stairs a wide corridor stretched in to the distance. Hints of opulent wall hangings indicated they were now in the palace. Amara Kith could not see far ahead, and when she looked past Ursula, the slow moving vapour concealed what lay behind. Her silence felt like a great weight on her chest as the Warp pressed against her. A tremor shook her body. She felt things shift. Dancing to a tune the woman never heard or wanted to name, the quake bled through her nullility and feverishly lurched across the hive.
Amara Kith's concentration wavered. Halting, she turned and brushed past Ursula, waving her hand through the thick murk. The action confirmed the suspicions she held. The way back was gone, replaced with a solid wall which merged seamlessly from the floor to the ceiling. Trepidation was juxtaposed with acceptance. The Inquisitor had suspected this would happen.
She was being led. Things stalking but not attacking; hallways free of opposition while their pursuers growled in the shadows. Amara Kith knew her card acted as a focus for whatever sinister mind directed her movements and reshaped the palace's architecture. She knew, and she cared little. The Inquisitor wanted to be led to her quarry, and she would follow wherever the path led.
Ursula was not as accepting to her fate as the Inquisitor.
"By the saints' bowels," Ursula kicked the wall. Her nerves were stretched taut.
"Keep moving," said Amara Kith. A hissing whisper came from overhead. Ursula answered with a quick burst from her bolter. Plaster dropped onto the floor, but whatever creature was on the ceiling was not heard from again.
In the following quiet they could hear the faint lapping of water. It grew louder with each step down the shifting corridor. Entering a decrepit chamber, the sound of crashing waves grew. Water surged over an unseen shore, a horrible sucking noise resonating as the liquid was pulled back. Spray filled the air, patterning against the Inquisitor's face and Ursula's helm. Even with her dulled senses, Amara tasted the moisture. A brutal wave crashed in the dark.
Her left hand trembled violently. The Inquisitor's body began protesting at the extended use of her ability. Skin began to feel like it was burning. Her tongue felt heavy and dry. Her chest felt constricted. Cursing, the Inquisitor sheathed her sword to reach for her rejuvenate. Gripping her bolt pistol in one hand, she awkwardly took out her autoinjector, slotting a vial into it.
"Faltering Throne!"
Ursula's words caused the Inquisitor to look at her. Then she followed the battle maiden's line of sight upward. Horror crawled over her face. Water swirled over the far-off ceiling. Ripples coursed across its dark surface. Glowing shapes flitted under the black waves. Just beneath the waves, at the edge of human sight, were the bodies. Palace inhabitants, bloated flesh straining against fine clothes, victims to the Warp's power. A porcelain doll floated in the water, clutched in a tiny hand.
A daemon swam up from the watery depths, its eyes glowing in raw hunger and rage. Twisting its great form, the Warp denizen looked at the mortals. It could taste one soul in the aether-rich air. The other was an oddity, but no doubt its bones would crack as surely as the others had. Arms unfurled from its grey-scaled hide; claws pricked against the water's surface. A line broke across the smooth face, revealing a mouth with far too many teeth. The daemon's consciousness thundered against Amara Kith's mental defences. She was a kite caught in its tempest. Her concentration fragmented against the unanticipated onslaught. Her autoinjector and bolt pistol fell from nerveless hands.
Then it was bursting from the water, landing with a shuddering crunch on the floor. The torrent of water turned to ice, bodies hitting the frozen lake with a dry crack of bones. Ursula raised her bolter instinctively. She fired at the daemon, sanctified rounds exploded against its hide. Luminescent light rippled along its scales as it burned. The daemon's hold to the Materium was tenuous, but holy bullets alone would not finish it. Screeching in animalistic rage, the daemon charged toward its prey.
Sister Ursula cried out the Psalm of Aversion, her conviction a weapon against her foe. The daemon did not stop at the words. Emptying her clip, the Sister of Battle reloaded and continued to fire. She refused to give ground before a servant of Chaos. It was upon her and Amara Kith in three heartbeats. Crashing into the battle maiden, the daemon tossed the armoured woman aside like a doll.
Blinding light flashed in the chamber. Struggling to her feet with her bolter gripped in one hand, Ursula held her rosarius in the other. The conversion field crackled as the holy symbol revitalised itself. Feeling blood trickle down her face, a sharp pain in her legs when she moved, Ursula staggered. Lifting her bolter, struggling against its sudden weight, she sighted. Her aiming reticule locked on the daemon, and the battle maiden let her faith and training replace her fear.
The daemon charged the Inquisitor. Her mind could not focus on her nullility; her whole body felt like it was being incinerated. Amara Kith dodged, but not fast enough. One of the daemon's claws nicked her shoulder, sending the woman crashing into a pile of corpses.
"Milady!" She heard Ursula's voice as a thin note. Amara Kith's weakened body began to fail.
Bolt rounds whizzed through the air. The Sister of Battle advanced on the daemon, forcing it to confront her. Ice and frost were kicked up as claws raked across the floor, moving away from the Inquisitor. Her vision blackening, Amara pushed against the bloated corpses. She looked for her bolt pistol or her autoinjector, saw only the daemon wheeling about the edge of the chamber. Sister Ursula held its attention, her voice loud and defiant as she sang a battle hymn.
Fires burned the daemon's flesh, blackening the air with smoke. Ursula fired at its chest, hoping to score a wound on its soft underside. Roaring in unfettered hate, the daemon reared back. It lowered its head as it thundered toward the warrior. Ursula would not be able to avoid the charge.
Iron bands encircled Amara's heart as she surged to her feet. The pain arced over her body as she began to run, sliding across the ice. She forced her hand to clench her sword hilt and pull the blade free. Fire burned in her muscles, roasted her veins, and boiled her blood. Gritting her teeth, finding her silence in the panic overtaking her mind, she forced it to work for her. She cast no shadow in the Warp. From the reserves of her soul the Inquisitor met the daemon. Her sword was a silver curve as it found its target.
Screaming, eyes aflame, the daemon's charge faltered. Its form met the Inquisitor's projected dead space. Bringing her sword down with all her remaining strength, Amara Kith guided the xenos blade into the daemon's scaly neck. At the same time Sister Ursula fired her remaining rounds at the daemon's lurching form. Its bellow rang in their ears as it felt all too physical pain.
Amara Kith pressed her nullility against the daemon's oily-slick aura. It could not wrest more strength from the Immaterium. Denied the aether that fed it, the being screeched as the holy bolt rounds tore into its flesh. Explosions ruptured inside it; cleansed salt, tears from the Golden Throne, and the blood of Imperial saints severing its existence. As it wasted away, the Inquisitor's concentration of her un-sight fled.
"My vial..." said Kith, slumping to the ground. Her sword clattered to the floor as her heart was slowly being crushed, starved of oxygen. Fire seethed in her guts as waves of nausea roiled over the woman. She retched into the melting ice and frost, the odour of rotting corpses filling her nostrils.
Ursula quickly retrieved the autoinjector, uttering her apologies as she depressed the needle against Kith's throat. Slowly the burst blood vessels in the Inquisitor's eyes faded as the remedy worked. Her tremors stilled, colour returned to pale skin, pain melted away. The rejuvenate returned life to the Inquisitor and restored her body. Shrugging off the Sororitas's help, Amara Kith took the autoinjector and fitted in another vial. Soon she could flex her hands and legs without ache. Placing the autoinjector in its pouch, the Inquisitor swore. Three vials shattered, their contents soaked into the leather. Fourteen vials of rejuvenate left.
This will not stop me. I won't let it. Amara suppressed the sudden vulnerability taking root in her mind.
Closing her eyes, Amara Kith concentrated. She pushed her mind and body to grasp her silence. The aches returned, quiet but insistent. Once again, she drew out her card. Once again, she flipped it in the air. Ursula was silent, watching her mistress's actions. The thin slip of paper landed on a corpse's chest, the points of the six swords leading north from the charnel house. With a wracking cough, using her sword as a prop, Amara Kith struggled to her feet. Sister Ursula collected the lady's bolt pistol, passing it to her without a word. Another sickle-shaped clip went into her boltgun. Sister Ursula ignored the injuries across her body and followed.
023.M42
Khermuti
He saw the sprite flit over the lower levels of the command deck. The vizier looked away from the Khermuti oculus to follow the being. Skipping in luminous robes past servitors, face hidden by a veil, the sprite wound its way up to the bridge. No one tried to stop the being. Nobody could see it save himself, Osis Pathoth deduced. He looked at the creature that assumed the form of a child. He hadn't seen the sending since Jollana. He was perplexed at the riddle it presented.
In the time he blinked it was standing next to him, seemingly making sport of Pathoth's troubles. Vivid blue eyes lit up while an amused smile, ghoulish looking, crept over the childish face. Pathoth understood what such a grin entailed. The Warp-spawned being beckoned the sorcerer and started to walk away. Resisting fate was pointless; sending's always come with missives not to be ignored.
"Where might you be taking yourself?" asked Kapharon. The captain glowered as the Vizier of the Magus stepped off the command dais. "Lord Ahriman gave orders for you to remain. You can't return to the Meskhenet."
"I require a moment of calm." Pathoth swept his hand across the hive of activity, officers barking orders at the slaves. Vespor loomed in the oculus. "The atmosphere is unbalancing my humours. Choler may be your friend, captain, but my sort favour phlegmatic conditions in a quieter atmosphere."
Kapharon laughed at the vizier, giving a wave to dismiss him. The sprite waited for the viceroy in the great hallway that ran down the spine of the Khermuti. Seeing the sorcerer, the sprite began to walk with Pathoth following. Together they marched into the deeper recesses of the ship where few ventured unless they had matters within the area. Within the vessel'scorroded bowels residual energy, left from magic rites, seeped into the vessel's metal bones. Arcane messages twisted on the bulkheads, lasted moments before shifting again.
Pathoth regarded the sprite. The sending pantomimed the image of Neferuaat perfectly, from the haughty lift of the chin to the proud stride. He did not engage it in conversation, choosing to let it speak first. It did, saying to the Astartes. "You will have to disappear where we are going."
Carving invisible sigils through the air with slender fingers, the sprite circled Pathoth. For all his incomparable skill the sorcerer only caught the faintest trace of what the spell was. The Immaterium's weave passed into his flesh, blood, and soul. When its work was done the sprite skipped away in childish glee without a word. A minor coven of warlocks passed the vizier. They would have prostrated themselves before his rank any other time; they walked by as though Pathoth never existed.
Their path ended at Ahriman's reclusium doors. Seals guarded the entry, mighty spells even Pathoth would have difficulty undoing. Stopping him from touching the bronze doors, the thing mimicking Neferuaat spoke, "I will do this."
"It is warded," he answered. "You will bring every guard to us if you fail, sprite."
"Nothing can hold one whose magic is used by all."
Osis Pathoth stood aside as the sending laid its hands on the portal. The sprite pushed the elaborate handle, the man's dire warning no value. But his concerns were hollow. Its touch negated Ahriman's spells. No fire or lightning struck them, no alarms sounded. Swinging inward without a sound, the reclusium seemed to invite the two. Hurrying inside, the sending closed the doors behind Pathoth, but he did not lower his guard. Within Ahriman's chambers, all manner of traps were laid for uninvited guests. However powerful the spell-traps were, the sending's power undid them.
It passed freely down the corridor, walked into a scriptoria. A conjured will-'o-wisp cast its light over the chamber, hovering just in front of the entity. It smiled at the vizier when he stepped inside, inspecting the alcoves and shelves crammed thick with books. Walking to a shelf filled with scrolls, the sending selected an elaborately bound scroll. It was handed to Pathoth.
"Do you remember this scroll, Osis Pathoth?"
Turning over the highly wrought casing to look at it, he answered, "From Isfarena."
"Do you wish to remain in the dark to Ahriman's designs?"
"As a drowning man would deny rescue," the viceroy scoffed.
"It is for you to know what Ahriman is planning. Devise the scroll's meaning carefully, commit each word to memory. I will guard you in your task." It no longer spoke like a child. Posture shifting, it returned to the threshold of the reclusium, looking less human, almost primal.
Unrolling the parchment over a table, Pathoth studied the golden text. Sigils glowed and flared across the parchment as they were impressed in the sorcerer's enhanced intellect. A cold dread settled in Pathoth's bones as the truth had set him free. He knew Ahriman would go to great lengths to end his exile, and would attempt what the Isfarena scroll extolled as reality. The evidence held in Pathoth's hands meant Ahriman's scheme was already in motion, and he knew what the endgame was.
Set from the moment he stepped in Jollana Librarium. Fate played too closely to Ahriman's machinations.
Replacing the scroll in its gartle, Pathoth slotted it back on to the shelf. He asked simply, "Why show this to me?"
Again the sprite gave its macabre smile. "Games are so fun. Souls rising and falling under the wheel that turns. One moment they soar with their accomplishments. The next their bones are broken from flying too high where mortals should not dare reach."
"This is an exceedingly long-reaching game." Osis Pathoth chose his next words with care, a whisper in his mind of what he was truly talking to. "It implies that the child born after these events began... she would not comprehend such scheming. The one whose form you always wear."
"Aren't we all puppets dancing to a nameless tune orchestrated long before our births?"
There was a slither in its words, a hiss Pathoth remembered from the Planet of the Sorcerers. What had brought a crimson Primarch to his knees and an Astartes Legion to dust. Leading Pathoth safety from the reclusium, it smirked in the knowledge the Sorcerer of the Red Cyclops would never know what had transpired. For all his knowledge, Ahriman was just another witless puppet.
"What will you do now?" Its voice was innocent for all the grand trickery and change it caused. "You know every memorized symbol, each enunciated word."
They stopped at one of the Khermuti observation decks. Beyond the crystal dome the stars burned in the void. Pathoth felt the spell lift from him, and with it, could read the intense aura from distant Vespor. What would happen? His Primarch and the Thousand Sons; Pathoth had taken oaths before embarking on the mission Magnus gave. He was sworn to protect Magnus's interests. The vizier's chest burned with a fierce protectiveness not only for his gene-sire, but Neferuaat. She was on Vespor, falling deeper in to Ahriman's treacherous scheme. He turned to the sending and saw its form begin to melt into smoke.
"Knowledge chains its owner, mastering those who thought they could master it." Osis Pathoth smiled that vague smile of his. "What I must as decreed by the Great Architect. To protect what is the most important."
"Does that include me? Am I important enough?" The false Neferuaat gazed at the vizier with black sclera and brilliant blue irises. It strained to hold itself to the Materium.
"You are always my first concern, daughter."
It – she – smiled. "Can we read a story tonight about an Eldar prince?"
"Whatever you wish, daughter."
The sending laughed as it dissolved into the aether that created it. The Warp touched the Khermuti as the past, present, and something beyond both mixed, creating missives playing to Tzeentch's scheme. Pathoth cast his mind out beyond the bulkheads of the Khermuti, across the distance of the void, to meet with another.
+Bethos, have you received word?+
+My Lord Pathoth,+ came the reply, clear despite the distance between the cruisers. +I have. He says he is moving quickly to meet us.+
+Have him brought to Meskhenet strategium once he arrives.+ Just as his deity was always close at hand, Osis Pathoth knew his dedicated emissary was even closer.
023.M42
Vespor, Huldah subsector, Syntyche sector
Neferuaat felt the relic's power as a strong gale. It threatened to pluck her from her feet and tear her apart. She rode the Great Ocean's currents by envisioning herself as a leaf on the wind. Fighting against the Warp's power was absurd. Merging with the forces far beyond her control was preferable to fighting them. Her foci – the children – buffeted her mind from the worst. Their eyes bled as small lungs struggled for breath. Atrophied limbs attested to the energy pulled from them for the Dark Mother to remain unharmed. Yet they gladly shouldered the responsibility. With them, Neferuaat balanced her powers to survive the relic's power lashing against Vespor.
"Left," Neferuaat whispered.
Only the Dark Mother saw the path the seer stone created and which led her down lightless halls. When the thread passed through a palace wall, Neferuaat undid the marble and plascrete. Molecules uncoiled, miniature explosions of matter were unmade with a well placed thought. She destroyed gold filigree, priceless paintings, and diamond busts as if they were nothing. Without Pathoth and Ahriman to warn her, Heqet far below her skill level and therefore her deference, the woman did as she pleased.
She held to the golden tendril the seer stone made as it guided them in the palace hallways. A child giggled. Its voice echoed up and down the corridor, everywhere and nowhere at once. The Dark Mother looked to her children. They were silent. Heqet, for all his enhanced capabilities, hadn't heard a thing. The sound came again, accompanied by rapid footsteps.
The aether fluxuated; Neferuaat quickly turned. A little girl stood to her immediate right, half swallowed in the mist and gloom. Blonde hair haloed an emaciated face as intense green eyes regarded the sorceress. In those eyes Neferuaat saw a fire; children screaming for their mothers in fields of cerulean flames. Holding the woman's attention, the little girl raced down the corridor, disappearing into shadows.
"Wait!" shouted Neferuaat.
Rushing after the child, Neferuaat's ears strained to catch a sound of the child over the seer stone's whispering. She drew out her mind's eyes to encompass the entire hive, no matter what it took to find the youngling.
Instead what she heard were the last thoughts of Imperial citizens fighting ravenous daemons. A brother shouted at his siblings to escape as he attacked a Warp beast; a crone hid her grandchildren in a closet as she aimed a laspistol at a splintering door; lovers jumped from Pytren Hive to end the nightmare. The sorceress knew all this and cared not. She only cared to find the child, and she could not. Aether mixed with muddy reality, obscuring the path the child took. Neferuaat turned down a branching corridor on impulse, and it led her into a banquet hall.
The growl of power armour followed Neferuaat. Heqet stood beside her, regarding their surroundings with caution. "What did you see, Dark Mother?"
"A child."
"The children are here." The Thousand Son gestured to the obedient children. "There are no other children in this area of the palace. I would have read their aura. We must continue with the task Ahriman entrusted us."
But Ahriman's orders were suddenly trifling to the sorceress. Waving her hand at Heqet's idiotic words – he had difficulty with dowsing and telepathy, never mind reading auras – Neferuaat walked to the center of the chamber. The seer stone was forgotten. She held her nose as she looked under table clothes and pushed aside chairs. Spoiled foodstuffs littered the carpets, maggots worming in scattered fruit and mouldy bread. Flies buzzed over tainted meat. Growing vexed, Neferuaat wondered how a child could hide from her. About to speak, the air abruptly rushed from her lungs. Agony burned across the psychic link to the children.
Heqet raised his bolter as two mortals entered the hall. A woman in ebon power armour wearing the hateful symbol of the Adepta Sororitas aimed her weapon in challenge. The other, bearing the tri-barred mark of the Inquisition, held no weapon. Heqet smiled without humour. Where the Inquisition tread one was best to be wary, or as the warlock thought, one should attack.
Neferuaat's gaze moved between the two until it remained on the Inquisitor. It resembled the starved child's too well, changed only by age. The sorceress was chilled when she discerned the Inquisitor did not mirror into the Great Ocean. Only blackness surrounded her, drawing in the energy unleashed by the relic.
+Behind me,+ she ordered her children, her breath catching in her throat. Rais defied her orders, choosing to stand in front of Neferuaat with arms raised, ready to protect his benefactor.
+Give the order and I will advance.+ Heqet's thoughts, scattered by the Great Ocean's waves, still reached Neferuaat.
In the tense silence of the chamber the Inquisitor's sharp voice was a whip cracking the air.
"If the Dark Mother submits herself to the Holy Inquisition's authority, the deaths of the remaining heretics will be swift." Amara Kith's words were measured. "The God-Emperor's retribution has come for the Chaos witch."
"I rather not believe your lies," answered Neferuaat. She would not be tyrannised by any Inquisitor. "Move aside or be moved."
Amara Kith scoffed at the psyker. "I don't negotiate. Concede and accept your fate." Very carefully, the Inquisitor rested her hand on the pommel of her sword.
Neferuaat laughed. "Fate? It is the will of Tzee-"
"Whore of the void, how dare you utter such blasphemy?" Ursula spat. "You will die today for your transgressions on Isfarena!"
"Silence!" Amara Kith shouted.
The Inquisitor looked to the children clustered around the witch. Amara Kith could not find one resembling her memories of Katea. Her breathe hitched as pain flashed through her stomach. The afflictions from her encounter with the daemon were nothing against the Alpha-plus psyker now. Amara's un-sight buckled under the constrained power of the sorceress, but did not break.
Heqet snarled, taking fortune in his own hands. The sorcerer advanced. Instantly the Sister of Battle fired. The blessed bolt shell detonated against a kine shield raised by the sorceress. Light blazed in Neferuaat's eyes as she effortlessly halted three more bolt rounds, the silver casings clattering useless to the floor. Confusion reigned.
Heqet barrelled toward his enemies, bolter roaring as inferno bolts sliced through the air. Amara Kith dodged. Overturning one of the banquet tables for the feeble protection it offered, she swore at Ursula's rashness. The inferno bolt smashed through the table as if it were paper, embedded itself in the ground and detonated. Wood and carpet caught fire. Amara Kith's vision narrowed until all she perceived were the emerald flames. As the Thousand Son advanced the Inquisitor found her legs and ran. She drew her sword, firelight reflecting off the blade, and knew she was no match against the warrior's gene-enhanced strength. Her servo-skull flew at the corrupted Astartes to give its mistress precious seconds to escape.
Ensnaring the automation in telekinetic iron bands, Heqet closed his hand into a fist. The servo-skull chirped once, its single red eye flashing as it overloaded, and then dropped lifeless to the ground.
Ursula was there, engaging Heqet, causing him to break off from killing the Inquisitor. Her aiming reticule locked on to the Chaos Space Marine and with a scream, the Sister of Battle let her faith become her shield. Whether his battle prowess was a hundred years or a thousand, she did not let that stop her virtuous attack. Her bolter grew hot in her hand. Two bolts impacted on elaborate sapphire armour, dents left in the ceramite. The rest were detonated mid-flight by the Thousand Son. He decided not to fully scorn the female who charged him. The brawl might be educational; Heqet had never fought the Adepta Sororitas before.
Leaving the duel and fire behind her, Amara Kith searched in the swirling mist for the Dark Mother. Finding the sorceress, Amara Kith tightened her grip on her sword and charged. Bleeding her vitality into her un-sight, the Inquisitor pushed aside the children, hearing the heretic's shriek as nothingness surrounded her. Amara had been waiting for this moment, her whole existence dedicated to this single battle.
Stumbling backward, Neferuaat felt ice raced over her body to stab at her heart. Hooks embedded themselves in her soul and pulled. Raising her arms to ward off the Inquisitor's sword, she blindly dodged. But the Inquisitor circled her, tormenting the sorceress. Neferuaat's vision turned red, blood running from her eyes.
"Surrender to the God-Emperor!" Amara burned through her ability, feeling it eating into her flesh and bones, tearing away muscles and deteriorating her heart.
Blood clotted in Neferuaat's throat. She choked; spat it at the Inquisitor's face. Amara Kith threw herself at the sorceress, catching her robes as they both tumbled and rolled over the carpet. Dropping her sword, Amara Kith swung her right fist at the woman's face. Crimson flecked her white gloves. Howling in pain, Neferuaat raked her nails across the Inquisitor's face. Her skin burned and cracked open under the dead space. She had never experienced a purer sensation of pain than now. Her powers failed her. Osis Pathoth's lessons were nothing in the face of this soulless Inquisitor set on tearing out her heart.
"Help me!" Neferuaat shrieked.
Heqet heard the Dark Mother's screams, but could not assist her. He fought a woman too stubborn to die and too dense to know that she would lose. The battle maiden was faster than he had thought, shouldering off his attacks with damned prayers. Her left leg was injured from a glancing blow, the armour servos sheared. She could no longer run. Heqet wanted to murder the Sister of Battle with grace, but the Dark Mother needed him. He would have to settle for simple brutality.
He reached into the Immaterium, but as a tide is pulled by celestial bodies greater than itself, the aether drew away from him. He threw out skeins of thought, pulling the aether back while sweat poured from his brow, but it slipped through the warlock's net. The kine shield protected him flickered, disappeared. Ursula did not hesitate. She crashed into the Chaos Space Marine and with a strength born of desperation, thrust the Sarissa-blade into the thin armour between Heqet's neck seals and gorget. She wrenched, snapping the blade from the bolter. Firing at the exposed point in the power armour, Ursula emptied her clip into the warrior's skull.
The children, disoriented and stumbling in the mist when the psychic link was broken, heard Neferuaat's shrieks. Without hesitation they raced to help, careless of their safety. Rais grabbed a candlestick from the floor and swung it with all his strength at the Imperial bitch's head. Pain bloomed in Amara Kith's skull. Neferuaat kicked the Inquisitor off her as her connection with the Great Ocean returned, crawling away as blood dripped from her blistered flesh.
Four pairs of hands dragged the Inquisitor across the floor. Amara Kith could not focus on her un-sight. She strained against the unholy strength the children possessed, froze when she saw one child's devilish smile. Rais lifted the candlestick again. The metal felt good in his hands. He would bludgeon the Imperial servant and her hateful creed here and now. If only Klauss could see him. Who was a snivelling baby now? The complex rage he held against the Imperium consumed the boy.
A crump! – sounded in the dark. Amara Kith felt the impact as the bolt shell found the child and chunks of raw, red meat fell on top of her. The candlestick clattered to the floor. Three pairs of hands released the Inquisitor as the children scattered like birds.
Ursula limped toward her mistress. Her black armour pitted, paint scratched, the machine spirit rasping in protest, but she was alive. The Thousand Son's corpse lay behind her, its head spattered across the carpet. Targeting the children in the fog, Ursula fired. They were damned beyond redemption, consorting with dark powers. Her shell caught a sullied brat in the back. Ursula whispered another prayer as her aiming reticule found another heretic. They fell before the Dark Mother, mouths gasping with their features frozen in mid-scream. The mist curled over their bodies to mask the grisly sight.
Ursula kept her boltgun pointed at the Dark Mother as Amara Kith used her rejuvenate. Several vials were injected into her body, the counteragent working frenetically to undo the damage. Retrieving her sword, the Inquisitor rose uncertainly to her feet. Half the banquet hall was burning, the sorcerous flames turning everything it touched to ash.
"Sister Ursula, we'll-"
A thin keening cry filled the air, drowning out Amara's voice. It belonged more to a wounded animal than the human throat who uttered it. Eyes blazing, the Dark Mother shredded the veil she wore in claw-like hands. It was as if a gathering storm, moments from breaking, had taken all the air from the room, only to unleash itself with that much greater vengeance. The temperature plummeted as the floor under the Dark Mother cracked.
The sorceress levitated, a nimbus of blue light haloing her twisted features. Neferuaat's emotional control fell away, experiencing what she had never been trained to handle: grief. Her wild shrieks reverberated off the walls, thrown out of time and in to other realities. Above her the stained glass ceiling imploded, raining down jagged coloured glass. In the Immaterium something responded, and its voice was heard across Pytren Hive.
Coalescing from the mist and aether to answer her summons, the Screamer circled the psyker. Slit-like nostrils flared, fangs in its mandible-like mouth flexed in anticipation of devouring soft innards. Neferuaat linked her mind to the daemon, delivering one simple message. The Screamer howled. Tucking great wings in, it plummeted, raced to its victims. Amara Kith slashed at the Screamer as she dodged. Sliding under a table, the Inquisitor assessed the situation as her mind still screamed at the impossibility of it.
"Katea…"
Amara Kith's resolve to end the battle faltered. Charred wheat fields replaced a banquet hall. She only heard children screaming in cerulean flames. Numb shock filled the Inquisitor at the magnitude of her revelation. She knew her lessons: Alpha-plus psykers were mentality unstable, their substantial will a threat to everyone. For the sorceress to not call more daemons, greater ones, to her side, Amara Kith would have to subdue the witch, and fast.
With a quick prayer, Amara threw herself from cover and raced for the Dark Mother. She would not kill Katea, but she could wound her. Neferuaat tilted her head to the side, saw the Inquisitor coming. Lightning arced as flames spiralled down. Amara Kith wrenched the silence from her core – feeling the rejuvenate's work undone in an instant – and shielded herself as azure fire washed over her. Heat melted the floor like wax, set the remaining carpet and furnishings blazing. Lighting tore into the ceiling to bring down the chandeliers.
Hysteria scrabbled in her mind at the fire, was fought back as Amara Kith struggled to hold her deathly quiet. She spared no thought to anything other than her final goal.
"Milady!" rang Ursula's voice.
She saw the Inquisitor's suicidal charge from the corner of her eye while she fired her bolter. Grappling with the Screamer, Ursula was knocked to the ground. The Screamer dove in to lock its jaws around her throat. Red warning runes lit up across her visor as hot breath filled her nostrils. Ursula bunched her muscles, pressed her feet against the daemon's gut. The bones in her injured leg grating, Ursula bit her tongue to hold back the pain. The woman heaved with all her strength and threw the daemon from her.
Scrabbling in the rubble, the woman found her boltgun. Three bolts burned white-hot in its chest. Howling, the Screamer flew up as ichor blood spattered the floor. Exhausting the rest of her clip, Ursula reloaded her last one and kept firing.
Amara Kith pressed closer to Katea, darting aside as sections of the roof collapsed, praying her un-sight would be enough. Leaping at the sorceress, Amara Kith's gravity arrestor was not enough to bring her within reach. Snarling in rage as the edge of the deathly silence touched her, Neferuaat kept her distance from the hateful Inquisitor. Another barrage of white lightning forked down, terminating short of the Inquisitor.
Blasted chunks of marble hit Amara Kith, jarring her concentration. But she kept her ability at its fullest, refusing to heed her body's warnings. Every step forward was met with balefire and lightning. Ursula's battle cries sounded far away. But if she could press her advantage, if she was brave enough—
A lance of agony blossomed in Amara's heart. Her nullility trembled as her lungs constricted. Fires raging in the banquet hall robbed Amara from drawing any deep breath. Forced to one knee, the Inquisitor weakly looked up as her cousin stood ready to slay her. Neferuaat's unchecked emotions fused in a cold fury. Envisioning the Inquisitor being skinned alive, the Dark Mother flicked her hand. Although she could not touch the Inquisitor, the laws of the Materium still bound objects. The Sarissa-blade lodged in the stump of Heqet's neck pulled free.
Two bolts caught the Screamer near its mandibles, blasting flesh from its form. Another holy bolt ripped a chunk of muscle from the Screamer's wing. Shrieking, the daemon threw itself at the Sororitas. Sister Ursula aimed, waited for her reticule to align, and fired. The final sanctified round blasted apart the daemon's chest. Writhing on the ground, the daemon melted away as the other had. Ursula cast her gaze over the hall to find the Inquisitor. Forcing her body to move, she scrambled over the debris and flames to get to Amara Kith.
Neferuaat spun the blade with her mind, rotating it faster and faster. In the same moment, wrecked tables and slabs of rubble were lifted in the air. The Dark Mother telekinetically threw the blazing furnishings with all her psychic might. Ripping chunks from the ceiling, she sent them hurtling toward her foes. The wicked blade picked up speed, lost in the turmoil.
Stone crashed to the floor. A chair struck Ursula's back, sending her sprawling. Rubble slammed into Amara's torso, snapping bones. Then, as if releasing a feather on the wind, Neferuaat let the blade go. Amara registered the blade's movement almost too late. She twisted her own body aside, broken bones and torn muscles protesting.
She lurched. Fell to the ground as plaster showered over her.
Severed below her shoulder, her left arm was caught in the hungry flames. Amara watched her dark blood spurt over the carpet. Silence rang in her ears; silence claimed her tongue; silence consumed her thoughts. Ursula was beside her then, a black angel emerging from the flames. Amara Kith did not hear herself scream as Ursula applied a tourniquet.
Taking the Inquisitor's sword in her free hand, Ursula threw Amara's right arm over her shoulders. "To the Stormbird!" the Sister of Battle shouted.
Pulling the Inquisitor to her feet, they fled as the hall's roof came crashing down. Ursula's sacred armour lent her the strength to push through the pandemonium. Amara Kith clung to the stillness, the only thing she could trust. Images came in flashes of consciousness. Katea floated inside a pillar of fire; mist curling over her and Ursula; decaying palace walls engulfed in flames. There was a voice telling her that it was not the time to sleep.
A black shroud fell over her vision and she lost consciousness.