Something felt very wrong about this drop and Tarvitz couldn't shake the feeling that there was some grim purpose behind the selection of these units. He had to know what it was.
Rylanor straightened and said, 'I shall see to it that you are replaced. This is a great sacrifice you make, Captain Tarvitz. You do the memory of Odovocar much honour with it,’
Tarvitz fought to hide his relief, knowing that he had taken an unthinkable risk in lying to Rylanor. He nodded and said, 'My thanks, Ancient,’
'I shall join the troops of the speartip,’ said the dreadnought. Their feasting will soon be complete and I must ensure that they are ready for battle,’
'Bring perfection to the Choral City,’ said Tarvitz.
'Guide us well,’ replied Rylanor, his voice loaded with unspoken meaning. Tarvitz was suddenly certain that the dreadnought wanted Tarvitz to remain on the ship.
'Do the Emperor's work, Captain Tarvitz,’ ordered Rylanor.
Tarvitz saluted and said, 'I will,’ as Rylanor set off across the Hall of Rites towards the banquet, his every step heavy and pounding.
Tarvitz watched him go, wondering if he would ever see the Ancient again.
THE DORMITORIES TUCKED into the thick walls running the length of the gantry were dark and hot, and from the doorway Mersadie could see down into the engine compartment where the crew were indistinguishable, sweating figures who worked in the infernal heat and ruddy glow of the plasma reactors. They hurried across gangways that stretched between the titanic reactors and
clambered along massive conduits that hung like spider webs in the hellish gloom.
She dabbed sweat from her brow at the heat and close confines of the engine space, unused to the searing air that stole away her breath and left her faint.
'Mersadie,’ said Sindermann coming to meet her along the gantry. The iterator had lost weight, his dirty robes hanging from his already spare frame, but his face was alight with the relief and joy of seeing her. The two embraced in a heartfelt hug, both grateful beyond words to see each other. She felt tears pricking her eyes at the sight of the old man, unaware until this moment of how much she had missed him.
'Kyril, it's so good to see you again,’ she sobbed. 'You just vanished. I thought they'd got to you. I didn't know what had happened to you.'
'Hush, Mersadie,' said Sindermann, 'it's all right. I'm so sorry I couldn't send word to you at the time. You must understand that had I a choice, I would have done everything I could to keep you out of this, but I don't know what to do any more. We can't keep her down here forever,’
Mersadie looked through the doorway of the dormitory room they stood outside, wishing she had the courage to believe as Kyril did. 'Don't be ridiculous, Kyril. I'm glad you made contact, I thought... I thought Maloghurst or Maggard had killed you,’
'Maggard very nearly did,’ said Sindermann, 'but the saint saved us,’
'She saved you?' asked Mersadie. 'How?'
'I don't know exactly, but it was just like in the Archive Chamber. The power of the Emperor was in her. I saw it, Mersadie, just as sure as you're standing here before me. I wish you could have seen it,’
'I wish that too,’ she said, surprised to find that she meant it.
She entered the dormitory and stared down at the still form of Euphrati Keeler on the thin cot bed, looking for all the world as if she was simply sleeping. The small room was cramped and dirty, with a thin blanket spread on the deck beside the bed.
Winking starlight streamed in through a small porthole vision block, something greatly prized this deep in the ship, and without asking, she knew that someone had happily volunteered to give up their prized room for the use of the 'saint' and her companion.
Even down here in the dark and the stink, faith flourished.
'I wish I could believe,’ said Mersadie, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of Euphrati's chest.
Sindermann said, 'You don't?'
'I don't know,’ she said, shaking her head. 'Tell me why I should? What does believing mean to you, Kyril?'
He smiled and took her hand. 'It gives me something to hold on to. There are people on this ship who want to kill her, and somehow... don't ask me how, I just know that I need to keep her safe,’
'Are you're not afraid?' she asked.
'Afraid?' he said. 'I've never been more terrified in my life, my dear, but I have to hope that the Emperor is watching over me. That gives me strength and the will to face that fear.'
'You are a remarkable man, Kyril,’
'I'm not remarkable, Mersadie,’ said Sindermann, shaking his head. 'I was lucky. I saw what the saint did, so faith is easy for me. It's hardest for you, for you have seen nothing. You have to simply accept that the Emperor is working through Euphrati, but you don't believe, do you?'
Mersadie turned from Sindermann and pulled her hand from his, looking through the porthole at the void of space beyond. 'No. I can't. Not yet,’
A white streak shot across the porthole like a shooting star.
Another followed it, and then another.
'What's mat?' she asked.
Sindermann leaned over to get a better look through the porthole.
Even through his exhaustion, she could see the strength in him that she had previously taken for granted and she blink-clicked the image, capturing the defiance and bravery she saw in his features.
'Drop-pods,’ he said, pointing at a static gleaming object stark against the blackness and closer to Isst-van III. Tiny sparks began raining from its underside towards the planet below.
'I think that's the Andronius, Fulgrim's flagship,’ said Sindermann. 'Looks like the attack we've been
hearing about has begun. Imagine how it would be if we could watch it unfolding,’
Euphrati groaned and the attack on Isstvan III was forgotten as they slid across to sit beside her. Mersadie saw Sindermann's love for her clearly as he mopped her brow, her skin so clean that it practically shone.
For the briefest moment, Mersadie saw how people could believe Euphrati was miraculous; her body so pale and fragile, yet untouched by the world around her. Mersadie had known Keeler as a gutsy woman, never afraid to speak her mind or bend the rules to get the magnificent picts for which she was rightly famed, but now she was something else entirely. 'Is she coming round?' asked Mersadie. 'No,’ said Sindermann sadly. 'She makes noises, but she never opens her eyes. It's such a waste. Sometimes I swear she's on the brink of waking, but then she sinks back down into whatever hell she's going through in her head,’ Mersadie sighed and looked back out into space. The pinpoints of light streaked in their hundreds towards Isstvan III.
As the speartip was driven home, she whispered, Token...'
THE CHORAL CITY was magnificent.
Its design was a masterpiece of architecture, light and space so wondrous that Peeter Egon Momus had begged the Warmaster not to assault so
brutally. Older by millennia than the Imperium that had come to claim it in the name of the Emperor, its precincts and thoroughfares were soon to become blood-slick battlefields.
While the juggernaut of compliance had made the galaxy a sterile, secular place, the Choral City remained a city of the gods.
The Precentor's Palace, a dizzying creation of gleaming marble blades and arches that shone in the sun, opened like a vast stone orchid to the sky and the polished granite of the city's wealthiest districts clustered around it like worshippers. Momus had described the palace as a hymn to power and glory, a symbol of the divine right by which Isstvan III would be ruled.
Further out from the palace and beyond the architectural perfection of the Choral City, vast multi-layered residential districts sprawled. Connected by countless walkways and bridges of glass and steel, the avenues between them were wide canyons of tree-lined boulevards in which the citizens of the Choral City lived.