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The Flesh Tithe – Extract

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The Flesh Tithe

Miles A Drake

Sygera’s sky was screaming. The sonic onslaught of the xenos vessels cutting through it sent palpable shockwaves through the narrow streets and across the wide plaza outside. Sister Lucia ducked under the arched doorway of the small cathedral she now protected, the Convent of Saint Cybele, as another sickle-shaped aircraft shrieked overhead in an erratic arc. She gritted her teeth as the debilitating vibration wracked her nerves and cut into her mind.

And then it was gone.

Gripping the enamelled chasing of her boltgun, she let it provide her a measure of strength as she recovered from the aural assault. Shaking off the pain, she strode down the steps of the ruined place of worship into the city square before it. The Hymn of Saint Cybele echoing from the convent’s last remaining external laud-hailer drifted away, as did the sobbing murmur of the dozens of terrified citizens within.

Hell had come to Sygera, descending upon her city, Moldevar, with a deluge of nightmares that strained even her considerable resolve. What was once a city of serenity and devotion was now a slaughterhouse on a scale that defied reason. The atmosphere wailed as the alien sickle-craft cut through it again and again, and the streets echoed with screams as the city’s inhabitants fell prey to the things that stalked through the dilapidated alleys. She had yet to see the enemy, but Lucia knew they were near, and knew they would come.

She did not know why they hadn’t yet mounted a ground offensive. Perhaps the convent, with its eight Battle Sisters called to war on distant Ixeris, was not considered a threat. Or perhaps it had something to do with the seemingly erratic nature of the onslaught. In the initial hours of the attack, the invaders had struck strategic areas, but since then, the strafing attacks had been random, and downright wanton. The crackling, distorted vox reports that still managed to filter through the horrendous static said the same thing about enemies on the ground. The frantic vox-chatter had been of arbitrarily moving packs of clawed, scarecrow-like xenos horrors.

With Moldevar’s panicked communications having fallen silent, replaced by eerie white noise, Sister Lucia could not guess at what had happened to the outlying mountain settlements. She could only pray that the farther, more isolated townships and hamlets had remained untouched.

It had all begun just before dawn, although that seemed like an eternity ago. The reassuring silhouettes of Sygera’s meagre garrison fleet had simply come apart in flashes of painfully bright green light. Criss-crossing smoke trails of falling orbital wreckage had become a permanent stain on the frigid sky, raining down throughout the day and well into the evening. Now, new constellations of ominous crescent shapes were becoming visible in the upper atmosphere, shimmering like floating apparitions in the haze of the dying sunlight.

Lucia ached from old wounds sustained years ago, but her powered armour alleviated her steps as she reached the makeshift barricade surrounding the entrance of what remained of the convent. Her ornate black-and-white armour was coated in a layer of grey dust from the collapsed structure of the convent’s lone steeple. One of the xenos fliers had atomised its lower structure with an arc of blinding emerald not three hours ago, and the image of that jagged flux of energy still burned in her retinas. Her black sallet-like helmet was buckled to her belt, revealing her weathered, statuesque features and jaw-length white hair. A black chalice tattoo adorned her cheek, and three parallel claw-mark scars marred her face from forehead to jaw, courtesy of one of the many Togorans she’d slain years before.

Another craft scythed over the plaza, its keening wail staggering the Sister. Tasting the tang of blood in her mouth as it ran from her nose, she gripped her boltgun with such determination that her gauntlets scraped lines into its chasing. And then the noise was gone. She continued limping towards the barricades, her nerves still on edge.

The aerial duels between Sygera’s aeronautica defenders and the nightmarish invaders were long done, and smoke from the downed Lightnings and Thunderbolts dotted the city like smouldering funeral pyres. Still, the invaders flew, cutting through the skies with neither rhyme nor reason, hunting prey that was long gone.

By the time the soldiers by the makeshift barricades had recovered from the sonic onslaught, she was among them. Lieutenant Perrin and his remaining men were hauling wreckage from the surrounding rubble to the barricade, but progress was slow. The constant shrieking had already caused several of Lucia’s assembled band of battered survivors to fall in fits of madness that she could do little to calm, despite her years of medicae experience. Some had fled screaming into the alleys converging upon the plaza. Others had been escorted into the convent, where the soothing hymnals echoing softly from the laud-hailers might do their work.

‘Sister…’ the lieutenant began when he finally noticed her, his voice weak and clearly shaken. ‘The barricades are up.’ His eyes were baggy and dark, his hair ragged under his mauve shako. He and his men wore dust-coated fatigues in mauve and Imperial gold, but such were tattered remnants of their former finery.

Lucia nodded her assent, the steel strong in her voice. ‘Good. Any luck with the signal?’

Perrin shook his head, his ashen face turning towards the vox-man, who had been attempting to raise militia command and the Adeptus Arbites precinct since their arrival at the convent. They hoped to learn if there was any sort of coordinated defence still in place. Dead static and silence left little hope.

‘No way they could have held out,’ the vox-man muttered to his officer. ‘Told you it’s no use – the damn static is everywhere, on every bloody frequency…’

The lieutenant bowed his head, resigned, but Sister Lucia would have none of it.

‘Keep trying,’ she ordered, her voice stern and commanding. Perhaps the task was futile, but the men needed something to do. A mind without purpose wandered in dark places, especially now. ‘Start searching for other signals. Survivors. Isolated resistance pockets. If command is down, then perhaps we can bring other survivors here. And find a way to get through that static. Try every channel you can get access to.’

They had brought the static. It was some kind of jamming signal, Lucia assumed, as it had crippled vox-communications and automated cogitation systems, shutting down Moldevar’s defence grid before the enemy had even landed.

The man saluted, and Lucia glared at Perrin. ‘Do not lose focus,’ she commanded. ‘Until we draw our last breaths, we must deny the xenos in whatever way we can. The Emperor is watching, and He disapproves of defeatism and resignation.’

She strode off to continue her inspection of the barricades, leaving the soldiers to their task. The soft padding of feet behind her made her turn around. It was Sera.

‘I told you to stay indoors,’ Lucia scolded. Sera was one of the many orphans that had come to Saint Cybele’s for shelter, and Lucia had witnessed her grow from a girl to a young woman. While the other Battle Sisters had disapproved of orphans being allowed into the convent, Lucia had overruled them and made it a personal mission to keep at least some of the city’s street urchins from the underworld that so many fell to. Now, it seemed, Sera was the only one left. While Lucia would not allow sorrow at that fact to weaken her, she did admit that she felt it.

‘But…’ Sera began, brushing some strands of ash-blonde hair from her eyes. ‘Kallen is shouting again. He says he only hears the… the noise… from the laud-hailers. But they’re not making the static. They’re still singing the hymnals. I think he’s going mad.’

Lucia sighed. ‘He might be. The faithless lack the resolve of the God-Emperor’s devoted. Their minds are always the first to break.’ She’d known of Kallen through Sera. A purveyor of illicit narcotic substances. A sinner. Many of the street children of Moldevar had been his ‘runners’. Lucia had kept Sera clear. ‘If he becomes a danger to others, warn me.’

Sera continued following Lucia along the barricades. ‘I don’t want to listen to him, he’s making me feel sick. I’d rather be out here. I want to help!’

Lucia shot the girl a stern glare. ‘No. Go back inside. I guarantee you the noise out here is more unbearable than whatever Kallen is spewing. Have faith. Remember what Deacon Arvelo taught you.’

Sera nodded, and retreated back inside, much to Lucia’s relief. The girl had barely made it back into the convent before Lucia’s words proved true. Three xenos vessels shrieked overhead in rapid succession, buckling everyone around the barricades. Wiping more blood from her face, Lucia forced the agony away and remained standing, so that the others might take inspiration from her fortitude.

What horror had the damnable Ghoul Stars spat at them this time? she wondered. She had already endured six long years in the steaming jungles of Tysseris with the other Hospitallers of her Order, providing triage near and on the frontlines, as well as fighting to defend those in her care from the marauding packs of Togoran Bloodreeks that had infested the world. That had been five years ago. Since then, peace, calm and contemplation of the Ecclesiarchy’s holy teachings had been much of her life, with her position as the convent’s caretaker and guardian.

A couple of desperate shouts brought Lucia’s gaze to the right, to the entrance of one of the radial alleyways. The chattering of stubgun fire accompanied the calls of anguish echoing from between the dilapidated structures.

‘Survivors!’ the sentry watching that alley shouted, unslinging his lascarbine.

Lucia, Perrin and the others ran to the sentry, crouching down into cover behind the barricades there. She saw a dozen cityfolk rounding the bend some thirty metres down the alley. They were shouting in terror as they sprinted towards the convent. At the rear of the rabble, three militiamen were firing stubguns at targets Lucia could not yet see, and a man in black Arbites enforcer plate wheeled around to fire a quick burst from his shotgun, before turning to catch up to the rest of them.

Lucia sighted down her bolter, and levelled it just over the heads of the oncoming throng.

And then she saw them.

Two huge figures rounded the bend: gaunt, cadaverous things, standing half again as tall as a man, even though their stature was hunched. Their long, gangling limbs ended in razor talons, and an emerald light shone from hollow eye sockets.

As they stalked forward, she felt the urge to fire pass around her with a palpable ripple; seeing fingers squeeze on triggers, and skin blanch at the nightmarish creatures stalking towards them. She would have given the order to shoot were it not for the fleeing people in the way.

‘Hold your fire!’ she called, knowing that it would allow the creatures to close on the barricade.

Perrin shouted, his voice edging on panic. ‘But, Sister, they–’

‘Hold!’ Lucia shouted again, putting fury in her voice.

They did. The terrified group struggled over the rubble, almost at Lucia’s barricade, with the creatures in close pursuit. Lucia saw that their towering frames were completely skeletal and metallic, and that they were clad in ragged tatters of some kind.

She remembered Dialogous teachings back during her tenure with the Schola Progenium, which spoke of fleshless abominations of ancient metal, whose tombs lurked hidden on many worlds. From what little she’d learned, they’d seemed more like some kind of nightmare legend than actual fact. Clearly that notion was wrong.

An old man, lagging behind the throng, fell in the uneven footing of the rubble. He shouted something inaudible over the terrified cries of his compatriots, and tried to rise just as one of the xenos made it to him.

It descended upon him, its talons flaying ribbons of flesh from him with each lightning-fast stroke, all the while howling a discordant white noise. Energy crackled through the blades, the creature cutting through clothing, flesh and bone with unnerving fluidity, instantaneously vivisecting its screaming victim, and transferring his flesh to its own emaciated form.

She then saw the ‘tatters’ the xenos wore for what they truly were. Flesh. Sinew. Skin.

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