Thane and Warfist kept moving, and kept shooting. More and more orks were rushing from the maw. They become a flood, and there was no more holding them back.
‘We’re clear,’ Straton voxed.
‘Go!’ said Thane. He nodded at Warfist, who ran the rest of the distance to the eye. Thane paused long enough to throw two more grenades into the orks and hit them with a wide spray of shells. The orks were lightly armoured. They were the servants of their god-machine, not infantry, and Thane killed many. They were also legion, and their undisciplined shots were counting. Bullets hit him, a cascade of blows, driving him back.
‘We’re in,’ Warfist said.
Thane ran. He’d bought the squad the time it needed. Now the rest of Gladius poured fire on the orks from inside the eye, covering Thane. He maglocked his bolter to his thigh and leapt. Warfist caught his arm and pulled him inside.
The turret was a space of twisted, burned metal and carbonised flesh. The doorway out was blocked. Abathar hauled the wreckage out of the way while the others fired down on the orks as they tried to climb. Forcas created another golden shield over the opening of the eye. The orks screamed, enraged by the desecration of their icon as well as the barrier to their weapons.
Abathar had the way clear. Beyond was a narrow corridor leading deeper into the head. Thane said, ‘We have to kill the greenskins that direct this abomination. Can you take us to them?’
‘I can speculate about where they might be,’ Abathar replied.
‘That’s all I can ask. Lead us.’
Abathar plunged into the dark, cacophonous shadow. Thane followed. Straton stayed to plant a melta bomb. When the light of Forcas’ shield winked out, a more searing brilliance followed. The ceiling of the turret fell in, and the eye was blinded forever. The Deathwatch moved into the Titan, seeking its brain.
The hall at the top of the spire was circular. Vaulted, stained crystalflex windows faced every direction. With no illumination outside the fortress, the windows were lit by their own art. The mosaics depicted warriors destroying the enemies of the Emperor. Many of the foes wore psychic hoods. Their faces were contorted grotesques. Their eyes blazed with the fires of the warp, and the fires died before touching the warriors in armour of gold, of red, of black. Some of the windows depicted vessels, black against the black of the void, distinguishable only because they were outlined by the same phosphorescence that limned the figures of the other mosaics. The interior of the spire was lit the same way. The narrow, pointed dome was yet another star chart.
This one was of the entire Imperium. But the chart was old. It was the Imperium as it once had been, not as it was now. The faint trace Wienand had seen in Vultus was sharp here as a razor to the eye. In the night of the world, the cold silver was stark, nearly blinding, and without forgiveness.
The voice of the woman before Wienand was just as cold, just as lacking in mercy. It was the sound of silver.
‘Why have you come to Nadiries?’ she said.
Answering was difficult. It was painful to be in the presence of these women. An aura of nothing, of suffocating blankness squeezed Wienand’s soul. She felt as if something had murdered her unconscious mind. She was diminished. If this was her experience, she could not imagine the agony a psyker would suffer in this hall.
What had Wienand expected? Was it this? Was it to see the Sisters of Silence arrayed before her in this solemn amphitheatre?
No.
They wore dark, hooded robes, filigreed in the cold silver. They were wrapped in the void, upon its black the wordless voice of the stars and their memories of endless sacrifice. While Wienand struggled to speak, they pulled back their robes and hoods. The army of silence appeared before her in armour of gold, of red, of black.
Had Wienand expected to face the Sisterhood for the first time like this, standing in the centre of the amphitheatre, facing judgement colder, more pure, than that of the Inquisition?
No.
What had she expected? She did not know. But most of all, she had not expected to be alone, to know that it would be her words on which the success or failure of the mission would depend.
She had also not expected the Sisters of Silence to speak.
At last she managed, ‘We have come to seek your aid.’
‘We?’
‘The Inquisition, which I represent. The Adeptus Astartes, who are fighting at this moment to save Nadiries.’ She paused for a moment. ‘We is every citizen of every human world. The Imperium seeks your aid.’
The woman stared at her. Her armour was crimson. So were the optics that had replaced her eyes. Her face was expressionless, as devoid of light as the world.
Wienand estimated there were fifty Sisters of Silence present. Some wore helmets. Many did not. Their heads were clean-shaven except for a single long rope of hair. Some bore electoos of the Imperial aquila on their brows. Ritual scars marked their cheeks. Almost all the Sisters wore grilles over the lower halves of their faces. Some had helms with ornate rebreathers that concealed their features entirely. They had new faces of metal. All of the designs connoted a form of silence, though one that found expression in actions so final, they exceeded the power of mere words.
‘The Imperium seeks our help,’ said the warrior with the crimson stare. She spoke with a flat, deathly tone. ‘I am Kavalanera Brassanas, Knight Abyssal of Purgatory Squad, and it has been many centuries since the Imperium made it clear the aid of my order was not desired. I find this request hard to credit.’
‘And even more difficult to trust,’ said a Sister behind Brassanas. Her armour was black. Her face was one of those entirely concealed. Her voice resonated metallically behind the mask.
‘I agree with Knight Obsidian Drevina,’ said Brassanas.
‘The entire Imperium is besieged by orks,’ Wienand said. ‘They have technology beyond anything we possess. They have destroyed whole worlds. They smashed the Imperial Fists. The Imperium will fall without your aid.’
No emotion. No answer. Time fell into the dark. There was a faint movement of the Sisters’ fingers. They were speaking to each other, Wienand realised. She felt as if she were witnessing the discourse of tombs. They use their cant, she thought, but they speak too. Why?
Brassanas said, ‘Perhaps it is time for it to fall.’
Wienand gaped. But the shock made pieces fall into place. The Sisters had turned their backs on the Imperium, as they had turned from silence. ‘You renounced your vows,’ she said. ‘Was it that easy to abandon the Imperium?’
‘Our vows were to the Emperor,’ Brassanas replied. ‘And to the Imperium He created. The corruption you serve is not that Imperium. We still serve the Emperor. We still stand guard against the witch.’
‘We do not recognise the simulacrum that has replaced the Emperor’s dream,’ said Drevina.
‘That is the true betrayal,’ Brassanas said. ‘Let it fall.’
‘Let it fall,’ Drevina repeated.
‘Let it fall,’ the other Sisters echoed. ‘Let it fall. Let it fall.’
The whispered chorus chilled Wienand because it had the ring of justice. In this hall, there was moral authority of a kind never dreamed of in the Great Chamber. Wienand thought of the High Lords, and saw only the rightness of Brassanas’ verdict.
And yet…
In that verdict, Wienand saw the way forward.
‘Vulkan would have agreed with you,’ she said.
‘Vulkan,’ said Brassanas.
Wienand sensed a stir in the hall, though no one moved. ‘The primarch had no love for the High Lords. He saw the corruption. He knew the High Lords and all their works to be worthy only of contempt. Yet he fought for this Imperium.’