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The Skull Forge – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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THE SKULL FORGE

Danie Ware

Seven suit-lights shone out through the darkness, beams of faith in the cold. Ceramite boots crunched on ice, six pairs in scarlet, the seventh in black. Across the vox, the words of the Litany of Mettle interwove in perfect harmony:

Holy Emperor, we are your strength and wrath, your courage and honour. No foe, no witch, no xenos will stand in our path.

Sister Superior Augusta Santorus would not admit it openly, but this place gave her the chills.

‘The Chamber of Waiting,’ Sister Zurihya said. Unlike the others, whose armour was plain, her ceramite was adorned with the sacred script of the Dialogus, and she wore no helm. ‘Anticipation of His most hallowed renewal. Truly, Sisters, He has blessed us to witness this. It is an honour offered to few.’

Augusta’s suit-light picked out the white steam of Zurihya’s breath, the intent expression on her lined, dark-skinned face. It touched on her unusual augmetic, a fitting of prayer-engraved steel that covered her left eye, replacing it with a red lens, and that curved around her temple, all the way to a complex aural array.

‘We are in your hands, Sister,’ Augusta told her evenly. ‘Your safety is our mission and responsibility, and we are here to follow your lead, and His.’

‘The noosphere is silent,’ Zurihya commented. ‘The data-casts of this place are dead. If hereteks did indeed assault the forge, then they are gone.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Augusta said. ‘Our vigilance is constant.’

With your grace, we shall know only victory…

Zurihya did not reply. The Sisters of the Bloody Rose walked in tight formation, the Dialogus at their centre. About them there rose a great, stone outbuilding, silent and utterly still. Walls and pillars were dark grey, frosted with climbing ice, and the Sisters’ questing lumens revealed elaborate carved prayers, or exquisite bas-reliefs, all saints and epic battles.

We shall know your presence is with us, always.

Here, Sebastian Thor, rays of light about a beatific expression. There, Deacis VI, two roses held aloft in his hands. And in the centre, an image of Saint Mina, bearing Katherine’s Shield as she faced the heretic. This one made Augusta pause, and whisper a prayer.

By the sword and shield of the saint…

But the squad could not stop. Whatever Dark Mechanicum sacrilege had shut down this facility’s sacred work–

‘Throne!’ On point, Sister Caia gave a sudden cry, her light now angled upwards. Beside her, Viola instantly dropped to one knee, bringing her thrice-blessed heavy bolter up to cover…

Dominica’s eyes! Augusta’s hymn caught in her throat.

Above them, dangling head down from the ceiling, was a blanched and bloodless human corpse – a strong, middle-aged man, still in Militarum gear, his head shaven and his disruptive camo iced to hard folds. His dark eyes were open, staring, and almost completely frozen over. There were three pips on each of his epaulettes.

Viola cursed, and Sister Alcina bade her be silent.

But Augusta was still looking up. The man was motionless, his face covered in streaks of flaking darkness. His throat had been cut, a single clean slash, ear to ear. Widening the beam of her light, the Sister Superior saw that his hands and feet had both been tied, and that he was suspended by a sharp metal hook, shoved through his boot at one ankle. Above him, the ceiling had the decorous vaults of a chapel, every peak carved with a perfect, holy boss.

Sister Zurihya intoned a prayer, but only Akemi echoed her. The rest of the squad stood alert, weapons in hands.

At the rear, Sister Melia breathed, ‘By Mina’s blade.’ She shone her light wider, allowing them to see.

All along the ceiling, before them and behind them and far out to either side, there hung row upon row upon row of human bodies, every one head down and frozen solid. They were all different: old and young, male and female, pale-skinned and dark. Some wore Militarum uniforms with a variety of ranks, others the robes of scholars and scribes, now fallen over their heads and leaving their scrawny legs bare. Still more wore bureaucratic garments, jackets and trousers, emblazoned with Administratum designations.

But every one had a hook through its tendon, a tag through its ear and an identical cut across its throat. And, as Augusta shone her light down, she saw long metal gutters under the Sisters’ feet, each one carved with exquisite filigree prayers, and coated in flaked gore.

‘In His name,’ Caia breathed, her visor still turned upwards, her auspex gripped hard in her hand. ‘I have never seen such–’

‘Need I remind you of our briefing, Sister?’ Augusta’s tone was grim. ‘This is a holy place, one of sanctification and rebirth, in His name.’

Sister Melia said, ‘Blessed be their memories.’ Always the gentlest of them, her throat was full of strain.

The Sister Superior echoed her, though Augusta’s heart was pounding, almost loud enough to hear – the captain’s frozen eyeballs made her skin crawl. Dismissing her foolishness, she shone her light on his ear-tag, trying to read the script, but it was in binharic and meant nothing to her.

She turned to Akemi, but Zurihya said, ‘Captain Teo Tomas, of the Eighteenth Beresmar. Laid down his life for his company and was chosen for Renewal, gifted the Emperor’s blessing and brought here for rebirth. Decoding script such as this is a part of my training.’ When none of the others said anything, Zurihya went on, ‘This chamber is sacrosanct. It is reserved for those who achieve modest but commendable feats in His name. There are other chambers, for those who had… greater futures ahead of them.’

Her tone was flat, the detached emotionlessness of the pure scholar, and yet there was an undertone to it that was almost a thrum.

‘We should head onwards, Sister Superior, to the central forge. If any foes remain, that is where they will be found.’

Still creeping with unease, Augusta gave the command, and the squad moved ahead, their lights once more scanning the ceiling. Caia’s auspex glittered faintly green, though it showed nothing in motion.

With your grace, I shall banish fear…

Above them, a thousand frozen eyes watched them leave.

The next chamber was far larger, though as silent as the first and even colder.

Here, a corner of the roof was damaged and it let in a slant of planet-light, staining brown upon a dust-covered floor. It offered minimal illumination, but enough to see walls of inscribed prayers, elaborate wrought-flexsteel balconies, and alcoves yawning back into darkness. Upon a carefully mosaicked floor, regimented ranks of assembly lines sat motionless, their hulking, mechanical arms halted mid-turn, their conveyors stilled. Tools glittered with frost, diagnostic screens waited lifeless and stationary brass cogitators stood patiently, their final printouts dangling. Tech-thrall workers were frozen in place, and at the head of each belt stood a Mechanicus adept, every one that her eyes alighted on as motionless as the last. Their red cloaks were limned with ice, their metal and flesh both cold.

With your grace, strength shall lie in my heart.

The Skull Forge, the canoness had called it. An Ecclesiarchy site, yet one built in almost-secret upon this tiny and remote moon. Outside, the huge brown blur of the planet filled half the sky, fantastic and beautiful; in here, its light looked like drying blood.

And the belts themselves…

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2022 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Alexander Mokhov.

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ISBN: 978-1-80407-384-1

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