Several Excoriators nodded in grim appreciation. ‘Rubble mounds from the collapsed architecture will provide cover and elevation for our shooters, but more importantly an unbroken perimeter obstacle for our assailants should we have to fall back to the next line of buildings.’
‘What about the remaining citizenry?’ Oliphant asked through one side of his mouth.
Kersh hesitated. ‘The city is small but we simply do not have enough Excoriators, Charnel Guard and Adepta Sororitas to hold the line alone,’ he said.
‘You don’t have any Adepta Sororitas,’ Palatine Sapphira informed him with cool conviction. ‘My Sisters and I will be in the vault below the Memorial Mausoleum with the relic remains of his Reverence, Umberto II.’
‘I need your bolters on that perimeter.’
‘You can’t have them. I’m sorry.’
The Excoriator and Sister looked hard at each other.
‘You will be when we’re overrun by the enemy.’
‘You have your orders, corpus-captain, and I have mine.’
‘My orders invariably focus on saving the living.’
‘I’m afraid mine don’t,’ Sapphira told him harshly. ‘That many might fall today is regrettable, but nothing compared to the comfort and spiritual fortitude Umberto II’s sacred bones will give to future billions. See, corpus-captain – you must worry about the living but I must look to the yet to live.’
Kersh’s lip curled. He would get nowhere with the Sisters of the August Vigil.
‘The cemetery worlders will have to provide the extra coverage,’ Kersh said with regret.
‘And how do you propose they do that?’ Palatine Sapphira came back at him. Her voice was cold and cautious.
‘We will arm them from the city auxiliary armouries,’ the corpus-captain returned.
‘Impossible, that’s–’ Oliphant piped up, half out of his throne and tripping over his words.
‘Heresy,’ said Sister Sapphira, supplying the word for him. ‘That would break the Decree Passive. Should we survive the oncoming Cholercaust, we would all simply be executed for treason of faith.’
Kersh nodded, recalling his time at St Ethalberg.
‘Which is why Laszlongia would recruit them as Charnel Guard conscripts. They would be probitors, whiteshields – under the command of the lord lieutenant and the pontifex only in his role as planetary governor.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Sapphira said after a short pause. ‘It still smacks of insidiousness.’
‘I’m not asking you to like it,’ Kersh bit back. ‘And I’d simply call it expedience.’ He looked to the freshly promoted leader of the Certusian Charnel Guard.
‘My lord, you want to draft the citizenry into the ceremonial defence force?’
‘No,’ Kersh told him. ‘That’s what I want you to do. I’m sure under the severity of the circumstances, the Departmento Munitorum would hypothetically approve such measures.’
Proctor Kraski seemed to consider the proposal. The grizzled arbitrator finally said, ‘These here cemetery worlders are mainly diggers and labourers. Many can’t read and write anything beyond the most basic prayers. You’ve got a lot of women and children. None of the men have any combat experience.’
‘Would they know which end of a lasfusil was the most dangerous?’ Kersh put to the enforcer.
‘I expect so,’ Kraski said, chewing on his tobacco.
‘Well as long as they point that end in the general direction of the enemy, I’ll be happy.’ The Scourge looked from Kraski and the lord lieutenant to Oliphant. ‘The women and children can form a prayer cordon inside the perimeter.’
Pontifex Oliphant’s gaze moved about the floor. The ecclesiarch looked deeply unhappy and as though he were going to vomit on the basilica floor.
‘The Sister is right. The Decree Passive is not an obstacle to be circumvented. It is the God-Emperor’s law.’
‘Whether you designate them so or not,’ Kersh told him, ‘the Certusian people are your defence force. When the enemy attacks, they will have to fight for their lives. All I’m asking is that they also fight for everyone else’s. Pontifex, does not the God-Emperor fight on their side?’
The pontifex searched his soul and looked up at the dull stained-glass window above them. ‘Yes,’ he said tightly and left it at that.
‘These backwater wretches against the damned berserkers of the xiith Legion?’ Skase said with ill-disguised scorn. ‘You might as well offer them up on an altar to the Blood God yourself.’
‘There is another consideration,’ Ezrachi said, eager to take Kersh’s attention off the provocative Skase.
‘Apothecary?’
‘With so many losing their minds to this gall-fever, is it wise to indiscriminately arm the population?’
‘Do we know anything more of this madness?’ the corpus-captain asked.
‘Only that it isn’t physiological,’ the Apothecary replied. ‘And it doesn’t seem transmissible like a virus or infection. It is a malady of the mind. Men are no more susceptible than women, young no more than the old. All we do know is that the mental transformation from Certusian to savage is unpredictable, swift and that the first symptom is usually murderous bloodshed. I suspect it is some psychological condition brought on by the comet, but that is not for me as Apothecary to say.’
‘The lord lieutenant here is simply going to have to exercise his judgement. I suppose a cure is too much to hope for?’
Ezrachi grunted. ‘The same as for life, a bolt-round, administered to the heart or brain.’
‘What about our number?’ Kersh asked.
‘Beyond reports of brief visions and disturbed sleep, we seem unaffected. This is probably due to cult observance and psychoindoctrination, but again, I can’t know. I can run further tests.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ the corpus-captain said. ‘I have a different duty for you to perform.’
‘Sir?’
‘Without delay I want you to begin extraction rites and harvest mature progenoid glands from all Excoriators with at least ten years’ service to the Chapter,’ the Scourge said gravely. The announcement was met with an immediate wall of shock, discontent and objection from the company whips and their seconds.
‘Kersh?’ Ezrachi said, falling out of formality.
‘We are facing an enemy infamous for its intolerance of survivors.’
‘You prepare for our failure,’ Squad Whip Joachim accused.
‘We are attrition fighters. We battle with the best but prepare for the worst. If we are faced with failure – and by Katafalque’s blood, I hope that we are not – then we should meet our doom knowing that our legacy lives on through the genetic heritage we bequeath. We do this in the best interests of the Chapter and not ourselves. I do not ask this of you, Dorn does – so that the Imperium’s future, as well as its present, might be secure.’
‘How would we do this?’ Ezrachi asked bleakly.
‘You would transport the collected gene-seed to the Angelica Mortis and oversee its safe storage and containment. The sacred seed would then travel on to the forge-world of Aetna Phall.’
‘Aetna Phall?’
‘It’s nearby,’ Kersh explained, ‘and reachable through the series of short warp jumps Brother Dancred alluded to.’