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  It was then she noticed the slim, winsome woman in duty robes of earthy brown, watching her from across the bay with something bordering on an accusatory gaze. The girl was one of the hospitallers, and she had a streak of annoyance in her expression. She clearly objected to Imogen’s mordant manner towards Miriya.

  With that realisation, the Sister Superior placed the pretty young girl’s face. Verity Catena, of the Order of Serenity. Her name and her details were known to Imogen from the same records that had spoken of Miriya’s misdeeds on Neva. Verity had been involved in that situation as well, the non-combatant swept up in the melee of a secessionist rebellion that ended in the burning of a city, and purges on every level of a planet’s hierarchy. As she understood it, the woman had been kindred to a Battle Sister who died in service to the Throne while under Miriya’s command.

  Did Verity blame the other woman? Imogen considered the question for a brief moment. Was the death of her sibling the reason why she had chosen to join this mission, to find a way to renew her faith? There were rumours that the Neva incident had been rife with all kinds of witchery and unbelief, enough to be deeply troubling to one not hardened to the extremes of the God-Emperor’s great duty.

  Still, Imogen recalled a complimentary letter appended to Verity’s records from one of the senior Battle Sisters involved in that brief conflict, according her respect for her courage under fire. The Sororitas of the non-militant orders, the hospitallers, dialogous and famulous, had some education in use of weapons and the like, but they were not fully trained in the ways of war like their combatant Sisters. It was rare to see someone from an Order outside the sphere of conflict given such a citation.

  But that did not mean, therefore, that Verity had tacit permission to show disrespect to one of her betters. Imogen turned the full chill of her icy gaze on the hospitaller. ‘You are restless,’ she began, staring directly at Verity but speaking to Miriya and the rest of the assembled Battle Sisters within earshot. ‘This journey has been lengthy and it has tested your patience. There is only so long a Sororitas can sharpen her wits and her blades before they begin to dull from inaction. Only in the rigid application of our martial faith can we do what were born to.’ Imogen walked slowly through the ranks of the women, approaching Verity with every step. The hospitaller paled slightly. ‘Each of you believe you are worthy in the Light of the God-Emperor. Each of you believes that you are ready, that you have been tested.’ She gave the last word hard emphasis, and broke Verity’s gaze.

  The Sister Superior gave a solemn nod. ‘The women who stood beneath the Kavir sun on Sanctuary 101 believed that as well. But now they are dead, their lives crushed beneath the heel of an uncaring and hateful universe. They have gone to His side at the foot of the Golden Throne, blessed be their memories–’

  ‘Blessed be their memories,’ chorused the Battle Sisters, their voices like the rush of waves on a shore.

  ‘And now we come to take their places.’ Imogen nodded again. ‘We must be ready, kindred. For even if the fate that destroyed them is truly passed, know that behind it lie a thousand more aching to end us. We are like a candle blazing against the vacuum, struggling to remain alight in the airless void, fighting for what we know to be right. For our faith.’ She glanced around at their faces, ending with Miriya. ‘So we must remember our duty, our place in the scheme of things. None of us can presume to know what lies before us. We can only hold fast to our belief.’

  In the silence that followed her words, a stocky Battle Sister with skin like weathered teak and tight curls of black hair dared to raise her hand in question. Imogen decided to grace her with her attention. ‘You have something to say, Sister Ananke?’

  ‘We were told this world is bereft of life, Sister Superior.’ Ananke’s manner was clipped and brisk. ‘Is that not so? Will we meet an enemy at the gates of the convent? Will there be a battle to retake what belongs to our Order?’

  Imogen detected the faintest traces of hope in the other woman’s words. Ananke wanted her to answer in the affirmative, voicing the same sentiment that others on the mission shared. They wanted to exact revenge on whoever had dared to attack Sanctuary 101.

  Such impulses were useful, but if not controlled they could become self-destructive. The Sister Superior was not ready to let the rule of the women fall to their baser instincts. ‘There will be duty, Ananke,’ Imogen said firmly. ‘That should be your only concern, whatever your task, be it soldier or otherwise.’ She glanced back to Miriya and then to Verity once again.

  When the hospitaller retreated into the shadows of the landing gantries, the Sister Superior smiled thinly.

  The insect was an arthropod as large as a man’s arm, its jointed body shiny and a shade of green so dark as to almost be black. Minute hairs coated its legs and torso, evolved to trap moisture from the dry atmosphere of the desert planet and serve as sensory addenda to the large palps that moved about its head. Long, multiple-jointed legs slid carefully over the side of the powdery dune, the body of the creature slung between them. The insect sampled the cold night air, and felt the perturbations of it for signs of other life. It was a predator, feeding on smaller varieties of its own phylum and the flying mites that bred in the lee of rocks or other wind-traps.

  It hesitated on a patch of sand, considering as best the cluster of nerves that were its brain would let it. It sensed a level of warmth above that which should have existed here. This was enough to make it pause.

  The top of the dune burst beneath it. In the fractional moment before the insect’s skull case was crushed by rough, malnourished fingers, it flailed and tried to bring up its stinger; but another hand was already ripping the barb out with manic, fearless strength.

  The displaced sand went away on the constant wind, and the human figure clad in rags it revealed pulled wildly at the corpse of its prey. Dust trailed off in lines, returning to the desert underfoot, as fingers twisted off the insect’s legs. These morsels were first sucked dry of fluid and then crunched down through cracked, blackened teeth, the dark chitin splintering and cutting greyed gums. Careful not to lose too much of the arthropod’s thin blood to the ever-thirsting sands, the ragged figure dropped into a settle, and proceeded to dismantle it with ichor-stained hands. This was a female, a large one, and it was fat with unlaid eggs. They were easy to swallow, soft and salty. The memory of any gag reflex at the foul taste was long gone.

  ++You are revolting++ said the Watcher. ++Everything about you is foul++

  The figure had been listening to the voice in the air for so long that it considered itself to be the Watched, although it did all it could to make sure the Watcher never really knew where to find it. Instead, it concentrated on savouring the kill. It was a good one, tasty with it. Something to be enjoyed.

  Eventually, though, as always, the Watched responded. Wiping greasy matter from a dirty face, a question emerged. ‘Why observe me, then? Why keep looking at me through my eyes? Go. Go away. I don’t like you. Don’t need you.’

  ++Perhaps I already have++ said the Watcher. ++Perhaps I stopped speaking to you a very long time ago, and what you hear inside that ruined meat you call a brain is your madness leaking out++

  The Watched did not like it when the ghost-speaker played clever word games like this, and screamed in annoyance. The ragged figure picked up the discarded stinger and ran the barb over the bare skin of one arm, following the healed lines of scars where this had been done dozens of times over. The insect poison burned against the sunburned flesh and the agony was sweet and powerful. It made the hateful, callous voice from the air go silent for a while.

  But only for a while.

  ++You should not stop next time. Dig the venom head in. Then you will die and this will be done++

  ‘I refuse to die.’ The reply was supposed to be strong and defiant, but it came out sorrowful and broken. It was difficult to speak sometimes, as if the ability to form words and release them into the air was somehow degrading with the passage of time. Perhaps it w
as the metals and the stones embedded beneath the flesh of the Watched that did that. It was hard to be certain. ‘I am waiting.’

  ++You are dying. Your mind is like a broken tool. Useless++

  The Watcher was going to say more, the ragged figure knew it. But then something among the bowl of stars overhead made all voices go silent. There was a new sight to see beneath the dull reflected glow of the mismatched asteroidal moons.

  Looking, peering, daring to hope, the Watched saw new dots of diamond-hard light moving against the path of the turning of the world, passing close to the dull glow of the Obsidian Moon. It could only be a starship.

  ‘It could only be.’ The words crumbled like ancient paper and at first the Watcher did not respond. ‘No more waiting.’

  Down on the surface of the desert world, the revenant in torn pennants of blackened cloth stood atop the dunes and let out a wordless cry, empowered by an emotion that had no shape or name.

  But eventually, like the turning of seasons to winter or the fouling of meat not eaten soon enough, the Watcher decided to speak.

  ++Waiting for what?++ it asked, knowing full well that the Watched had long ago forgotten the answer to that question.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Harsh dawn light refracted through the atmosphere, drawn into streaks through the high clouds. Like rods of dusty gold, the rays of the Kavir sun warred with the ceaseless churn of sand. As the heat of the day began its slow approach, the land would warm and the storms would begin anew. The cycle of hot and cold, of wind and abrasive dust, had carved the landscape of the colony in exotic, unearthly ways. Towering buttes of rust-coloured rock rose from the sands here and there, uncapped mountains with flat, cracked plateaus atop them. Twisting arroyos once cut by running water were now howling passages where the dry winds played. Stone sculpted by forces of nature loomed in spheroid or wavelike forms, resembling great off-cuts from the workbench of some mythic artisan deity.

  With the dawn came a flock of landers, metal birds and winged tugs bearing the first of the missionary parties. Screaming through the air on plumes of fuming exhaust, the flight circled the wide misty plain of the great erg before angling in towards the narrow valley to the east. Signals sent to autonomic defence batteries were not replied to, but the pilots were still not so foolish as to fly in high and visible. Despite the assurances of the Ordo Xenos that this site was not dangerous, the Adepta Sororitas were unwilling to take that fact on bare trust; it was all too possible that the machine-spirits of the convent’s weapons were still active, perhaps damaged or even corrupted. It would not do for the Order of Our Martyred Lady to have their shuttles shot down by their own guns.

  They went in as low as they dared, the heavy Arvus-class transports disappearing into puffs of powder thrown up by ground-effect, lagging behind the swifter Aquila shuttles. One of the bird-like ships blasted over the top of the convent’s central donjon at zero height, but there was no answering blaze of laser fire. The defence cannons were as dead as everything else.

  Sister Verity heard the command as it was relayed back through the chain of landers, and the Arvus lurched as it turned sharply. She and a handful of her fellow hospitallers were crammed in the back of the cargo shuttle among storage pods filled with emergency supplies, portable field wall emitters and other hardware. At first Canoness Sepherina had been reticent to let them travel with the initial landing party, her military adjutant Sister Imogen citing the need to place combatants on-planet as higher than that of other Orders. Verity had not allowed the wintry Sister Superior to sway her, however; instead she stressed the importance of having medicae staff to hand in this uncertain environment.

  Imogen had a harsh, brittle laugh that was as cold as she was, and Verity recalled it. Imogen mocked the hospitaller, suggesting she was foolish to think that anyone might have survived down here to be in need of an apothecary’s attention. All thermographic and scry-scanning passes over Sanctuary 101 had shown no evidence of life among the stony ruins. But in turn, Verity’s reply gave her pause. There was no telling what hazards lay down on the surface. Was it not better to have a nurse immediately to hand if some danger were to waylay a Battle Sister?

  Sepherina accepted her logic and gave the Order of Serenity leave to join the landers. In irritation, Imogen had ensured they rode in this, the least comfortable of the cargo transporters.

  Supporting herself on a dangling tether, Verity crossed to one of the small portholes in the hull and peered out through the armoured glassaic. The other Sisters were content to stay where they were, strapped to the deck, engaged in a litany round as they prayed for a safe landing. Verity mouthed the words as well, touching a finger to her lips and the Imperial sigil engraved into her duty armour. Like the rest of the hospitallers, Verity had changed into a stripped-down version of a Battle Sister’s combat rig. It wasn’t the Sabbat-pattern power armour the militants took into war, more like carapace kit of the common Imperial Guard, but it was protection enough for auxiliaries like them. Verity had been told it could absorb the power of stubber bullets or an indirect las-bolt, but she had no wish to test the veracity of that claim.

  Peering through the portal, she saw the endless sand and then caught her first glimpse of the place they had come to rebuild.

  Ahead, the dark walls of the outpost emerged from the haze. The outermost embattlements were intact in some places, in others nothing more than broken rockcrete, and beyond the inner wall and the great keep were visible. Both still stood, but like the outer ramparts, they were dead, silent and in disarray.

  Their shuttle was the last in the line of ships to touch down, joining the other craft in a semi-circle inside the main compound. Verity glimpsed the beetle-black of armoured Battle Sisters moving to take up a perimeter as the Arvus landed, the undercarriage grunting as it kissed the ground. She bowed her head and gave a breath of thanks to the transport’s machine-spirit just as the aft drop ramp cracked open and fell away. Heat and airborne fines of powder assailed her, blowing into the compartment on a ragged gust of wind. Verity scowled and fumbled for the goggles in a pouch on her hip and settled them into place, but the corners of her eyes already felt itchy.

  She lowered her head to exit the cargo shuttle, and her first step onto Sanctuary’s soil was not an elegant one, but a half-stumble. The gravity here was slightly less than Terran standard. Verity recovered, pausing to adjust her eye-shields. All around her, servitors were moving back and forth, swift and purposeful with their work. Sepherina wanted the craft unloaded immediately so they could climb back into orbit and recover the next supply load from the Tybalt. The engines of the shuttles keened as they idled, blowing the harsh scents of ozone and promethium across the massive courtyard.

  The convent appeared as if it had been derelict for centuries. Sand of differing hues along the red end of the spectrum was heaped in drifts, collected at the feet of the watchtowers and in the shadows of support braces. In places, she saw airlock doors yawning open and blackness beyond them. Verity walked away from the Arvus, taking it in.

  Sanctuary 101 was a moderate-sized outpost, and built from the same kind of Standard Template Construct design that characterised a million other edifices used by the Sororitas. She spied pre-fabricated bulwarks stamped out of steel from some world a thousand light years away, alongside laser-cut walls made out of the local rock. This was no transient base designed to last a few months; the Sisters had wanted this place to be a permanent site, to stand proud against the sand and the wind for hundreds of years to come. To see it like this, untended and deserted, was saddening.

  Verity crossed close to a metallic bollard protruding from the dust-covered floor. It resembled a stubby tree made from junkyard pieces, all cables and ceramite discs instead of leaf and branch. There were dozens of them circling the edge of the keep.

  ‘Etheric coils,’ said a voice behind her, and she turned. A Battle Sister cradling a bolter walked past her, tossing her head to push tails of stone-grey hair over her shoulder. ‘Keep
s the sand out when it works. Gives off a hum that’ll make your teeth itch, though.’

  The woman was Sister Helena, one of Imogen’s Celestians, an imposing warrior with laughing eyes in a face tattooed with a rain of silvered teardrops. ‘It doesn’t seem right,’ Verity offered, the thought forming into words before she could consider its meaning. ‘All this.’ She gestured around.

  Helena glanced at her. ‘You’ve seen battlefields before.’

  Verity nodded. ‘Aye, Sister. But not like this desolate place. It is like a picture-puzzle with a missing piece. It feels… incorrect here.’

  The other woman frowned. ‘It’s the dead,’ she told Verity. ‘That’s what is wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Helena walked on, her expression grim. ‘Do you see any bodies?’

  The servitors marshalled the off-loaded gear in the middle of the courtyard, building a rectangle of containers on a mound of dark earth. Judging by the surround of a low ornamental wall around it, this had once been some sort of devotional garden, but flames had come and burned it black. The Sisters Militant stood sentry in a wide combat wheel, holding station as the emptied shuttles began to rise back into the air. Verity watched the ships go, the low clouds enveloping them as they raced away towards orbit. They would be back within the hour and the unloading cycle would begin anew.

  There were just three of the other hospitallers with Verity, and they did their best to stay out of the way of the Battle Sisters as they moved around, setting up perimeter sensors, fixing devotional wards to the low walls and the plinths that marked out a grid in the middle of the open space. Boots crunched on drifts of sand, and as she studied the surroundings, Verity realised that whatever statues had once stood on those pedestals were missing like the corpses of the dead. She saw untidy heaps of rubble scattered around, and was briefly startled to see eyes looking back at her from one of them; the face was made of sun-bleached marble.