‘This is an underhive of remembrance,’ said Forcas.
Thane shone his light over the statuary. ‘What era is this from?’ he asked Veritus.
‘The Great Crusade,’ Veritus said, ‘and a few centuries after. Then it was forgotten.’
Thane supposed he should not be surprised. Sacratus was off the trade routes. There were no habitable planets in the system and it had no strategic value. He could imagine the memory of the world fading until it was a name on mouldering lists. That did not explain how Veritus knew of its existence.
At last they reached a door guarded by two caryatids in ancient armour. Their mouths were covered by grilles in the form of Imperial eagles.
‘You’ve been here before,’ said Wienand.
‘No,’ Veritus replied.
They passed through the high arch between the caryatids. A domed space lay beyond. Sarcophagi ringed the periphery, and statues lay in repose on each tomb. They wore the same armour as the tomb’s guardians. Veritus pointed upward.
‘There,’ he said. ‘That is what we’ve come to see.’
The Space Marines directed their lamps at the dome. Its fresco, dim with age and frost, depicted a group of female warriors. Cloaks billowed behind their armour, blending together, becoming thunderclouds edged with fire. The women held their swords upraised, converging towards the centre of the dome, where a red sun blazed.
‘The stars,’ Abathar said.
‘Yes,’ said Veritus. ‘That is what we came here to learn.’
The red sun was at the centre of a pattern of stars, Thane now saw. ‘A chart,’ he said.
‘Of where?’ said Wienand.
‘Of the location of Vultus,’ Veritus said. ‘One of the principal fortresses of the Sisters of Silence. This one is close to the edge of Imperial space. If unsanctioned psykers hoped to find refuge at the frontier, they were mistaken.’
‘What makes you think we’ll find them there?’ Thane asked.
‘I have accounted for the other, less remote fortresses. They are all abandoned.’
‘That doesn’t explain why this one won’t be,’ said Wienand.
Veritus shrugged. ‘That is where we must go,’ he said.
The Herald of Night’s Navigator identified Vultus’ system as Extorris. When the strike cruiser translated from the warp, the red giant filled the oculus with sullen crimson light.
‘Hostile contacts!’ the Master of the Auspex called out.
‘The orks are here?’ said Adnachiel.
‘Yes, lord.’
Thane stood with the rest of the squad and the two inquisitors around the tacticarium table. He watched the pict-screens light up with the configurations of the enemy deployment. The orks had a small fleet stationed above a moon of the gas giant fourth from the star.
‘Two battleships,’ Adnachiel said from the pulpit. ‘Five cruisers.’
‘What are they doing out here?’ Wienand wondered.
‘Saving us time in our search,’ said Adnachiel. ‘We know where we are heading now.’
‘Lord,’ said the auspex officer, ‘the vessels are not attacking.’
‘What?’
‘We are picking up heat emissions suggesting launches, but no bombardment. We are also detecting some launches from the moon’s surface.’
‘Missiles?’
‘No, too slow. I would suggest orks returning to the motherships.’
Adnachiel turned around to face Thane. ‘This is your search,’ he said. ‘Your determination.’
‘This doesn’t sound like combat,’ said Thane.
‘It does not,’ Adnachiel agreed. ‘It sounds like the end of an engagement.’
We can’t be too late, Thane told himself. If the orks had won so easily, their search had been pointless from the start.
‘We need to see for ourselves,’ he said.
‘Why are the orks here?’ said Abathar. ‘The question is significant.’
Thane nodded. ‘We need to go in.’
Adnachiel kept the huge orb of the gas giant between the Herald of Night and the ork fleet. Shipmaster Aelia brought the strike cruiser as close to the atmosphere as possible, deep within the planet’s ferocious magnetosphere. The Penitent Wrath launched just over the horizon from the greenskin ships. Qaphsiel, the Thunderhawk’s pilot, skimmed the cauldron of the emerald atmosphere until he had a straight shot up to the planetside face of the tidally locked moon.
The satellite was a small one, a craggy barren rock not much more than a hundred kilometres in diameter. Qaphsiel flew low above the surface, twisting through jagged canyons.
‘If you have any knowledge of the fortress,’ Thane said to Veritus, ‘it would be useful to hear it.’
‘You know as much as I do,’ the inquisitor said. ‘My knowledge ended on Sacratus.’
‘Then you will remain with the Penitent Wrath until we have a secured position.’
‘No,’ Wienand said. ‘We will follow with all due caution, but we’re coming with you.’
‘Why?’ Thane asked. He indulged in some heavy irony. ‘Don’t you trust us?’
‘We need to see,’ Wienand said, and Veritus nodded.
Thane disliked the unanimity the inquisitors were showing. Wienand’s tone, though, was more urgent. When she said we, it sounded like I. He thought about trying to force them to stay. He decided against it. If they got themselves killed, he would not mourn the loss.
The surface of the moon became more deeply scarred as the Thunderhawk drew nearer the fortress. The canyons were narrow, deep and interconnected. Soon the Penitent Wrath was flying through a landscape as cracked and shattered as glass, as if the gunship were approaching the site of a great blow.
Qaphsiel took the Thunderhawk up out of one gorge, then immediately dropped into a crevice no more than fifteen metres wide and hundreds deep. It cut almost directly towards the coordinates where the Herald of Night’s long-range auspex scans indicated Vultus stood. Thane felt the webbing of his grav-harness strain as Qaphsiel took hard turns between the rock walls.
A few minutes later, the crevice opened up into a deep, narrow bowl.
Looking through a viewing block, Wienand said, ‘This was a world shaped to their purpose.’
‘Indeed,’ Thane agreed.
Rising from the bowl was an immense column. It towered a hundred metres above the lip of the bowl, and it was over a kilometre wide. Vultus sat like a bird of prey on its peak. The fortress had been carved out of the rock of the column, the dark stone shaped into harsh towers. Their facades were perfectly vertical. Their angles, little eroded after a thousand years, were sharp as blades.
Qaphsiel flew just above the floor of the bowl as he closed in on the column. The orks appeared to have landed in the area beyond the bowl and on the launch pads Thane could see projecting from the column and the base of the fortress. As he watched, a ship lifted off one of the platforms. It trailed a long stream of fire in the thin atmosphere.
‘They’re leaving,’ Wienand said.
‘Some of them.’ Qaphsiel had gone into a steep climb. The features of Vultus were becoming clearer. So were the shapes of other ork vessels, their wings overhanging the edges of the platforms.
‘They can’t help but see us soon,’ said Veritus.
‘If they look,’ said Abathar.
‘I have a target for insertion,’ Qaphsiel said over the gunship’s vox. ‘The defence batteries directly above us.’
‘A good choice,’ Straton said. ‘There are no landing platforms on this face of the fortress.’
Unless the orks were using the guns. Thane brushed away the pessimistic thought. Whatever the orks wanted with Vultus, he did not believe they had come to seize it and hold it against non-existent enemies.
‘Make ready,’ Thane said. He detached the grav-harness. He stood. Leaning against the sharp angle of the ascent, he moved to the side door and slid it back. A hot wind raged through the troop compartment. The Deathwatch squad gathered behind him.