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Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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I

It begins in darkness.

The blade, freshly whetted, ice-cold against her scalp. The stones of Holy Terra, rough and unyielding where she kneels. The fluttering of wings in the chapel’s vaulted ceiling. A robe of pearl-white samite, clinging to skin still damp from the sacred font. The heady scent of incense – rose attar, sandalwood, and myrrh – and the solemn tolling of the bell.

Abbess Sanctorum Morvenn Vahl rises to her feet, and only then does she open her eyes. The God-Emperor stares back at her from above the altar, His golden visage stern, His lips pressed tightly shut. Light floods through the glassaic windows, painting the stone pillars of the chapel in patches of blood-red, brilliant white, sun-bright gold. Swinging censers suspended high above her head fill the air with smoke, dark clouds against a darker sky.

These are the rites of faith.

The ancient rituals must be observed, no matter how long and arduous, as sacred as the bolter and the blade, but the stillness makes Morvenn uneasy. On the battlefield she knows her place. There she is a holy warrior, a bringer of death to the enemies of the Imperium, a living paean of praise to the God-Emperor in all His majesty. There His presence is made manifest in the flamer’s brilliant light, the thunder of the assault cannons, the screams of the enemy as they lie dying at her hand.

But here in the chapel He is silent.

Morvenn tears her eyes from the statue’s face and returns her attention to the task at hand. Beside her on the dais, the towering golden form of the Purgator Mirabilis looms above her, the ancient Paragon warsuit as motionless as a statue. Its right hand is locked around a heavy golden lance; its left ends in a heavy bolter, the ornate golden gunshield marked with the words Prioris and Sanctorum, honouring the twin bastions of the Adepta Sororitas. It is a relic beyond price, and its might is hers to command.

Before her, her Sisters stand assembled, their faces turned to the God-Emperor in mute adoration, their visible devotion a stark contrast to the eyeless faces of the choir-servitors. An ancient litany rises from the servitors’ mechanical throats, the familiar melody rising sweet and plaintive above the layers of polyphony below. The sound is unearthly in its perfection, but all the incense in the chapel cannot mask the distinctive odour of the servitors’ flesh: sacred unguents, machine oil and decay.

Two Celestians in silver armour step forward, their helmeted heads bowed in submission. The taller of the two women slides the white samite robe from Morvenn’s shoulders, while the second offers the close-fitting bodyglove that will serve as its replacement. Morvenn takes it without a word and slips it on, the close-woven ballistic fabric closing around her like a second skin.

Next, the gambeson. The quilted corselet settles around her shoulders, chest and waist, and a flicker of impatience builds in her. A galaxy of endless war awaits her, but today she is donning her armour for a battle of a different kind. How many times did she watch the sacred rite of armouring as a novitiate, each time imagining how it would feel to stand at the eye of the storm? In those days, Abbess Sanctorum Sabrina had been a saintly figure, as close to the God-Emperor Himself as Morvenn’s mind could conceive.

Had Sabrina – had any of her predecessors – felt this same restlessness, the same longing for the cleansing purity of battle, the same burden of responsibility that hangs around her neck like a penitent’s yoke? For today, she dons her armour not for war but for the council chamber, to sit amongst the High Lords of Terra and wield words in place of weapons, a duty for which she finds herself ill-inclined and poorly equipped.

All but one of the choir-servitors fall silent, the exquisite polyphony of the martyr’s hymn fading to echoes as the soloist’s voice rises high and pure. Morvenn closes her eyes and lets the music drown out her thoughts and fill her with holy purpose.

God-Emperor, give me strength to face what is to come.

‘Ave Imperator,’ the Sisters intone.

A cherub flutters onto the dais, a golden vambrace clutched in its chubby hands. Celestian Superior Ignatia takes it and clasps it solemnly around Morvenn’s right wrist, her gauntleted fingers securing the fastenings with well-practised dexterity while Fionnula, her second, attends to the left. Couters and rerebraces follow until her arms are adorned in holy armour, ready for what is to come.

‘Will you accept the burden of this sacred armour?’ Ignatia’s voice booms through her helmet’s vox-speakers, sonorous in the chapel’s sacred air.

‘In the God-Emperor’s name, I will,’ Morvenn replies.

‘Will you wield these weapons – the Lance of Illumination and the thrice-blessed heavy bolter Fidelis – as the God-Emperor ordained, with hatred and fury?’

‘In the God-Emperor’s name, I will.’

The candles flicker, and in the shifting light the Purgator Mirabilis is alive with holy fire.

‘Will you lead us to Holy War, that all who stand against us shall perish by the bolter and the blade?’

‘In the God-Emperor’s name, I will.’ A cool breeze drifts across Morvenn’s bare scalp, sending a shiver running down her spine.

‘Then don this armour and wield these weapons that you may deal death to all enemies of the faith.’

Three small suspensor-platforms rise to form a miniature staircase at the Purgator Mirabilis’ feet, their edges embossed with the names of the saints. Their motors whine as Morvenn takes her first step, but the marble platform is steady as though carved from rock. She steps into the command cradle, and the ornately filigreed chestplate closes into position with a familiar and welcome click. The control batons are waiting for her hands, and she locks her gauntlets around them with instant familiarity.

Only the helmet remains.

The cherubim fly upwards, returning to their roost in the cathedrum’s lattice of roof-beams. A Sister in the unadorned black robe of the Order of the Holy Ossuary – one of the Orders Pronatus, responsible for the care of the Sisterhood’s most sacred relics – offers her a golden helm on a scarlet velvet cushion, the brow wreathed with golden laurels, the eye-lenses dark and unseeing. Morvenn bows her head and readies herself for this final burden, but before the weight settles on her skull the chapel doors fly open, the thud of wood on stone enough to rattle the glassaic windows and send the cherubim fluttering away in mindless consternation. Morvenn’s muscles tense, and the warsuit responds to the imminent threat in a smooth series of movements that bring the heavy bolter round to bear and set the Lance of Illumination blazing.

But the threat is not in the doorway.

Standing between the great iron-bound doors, her face crimson and her veil hanging askew, is a novitiate of the Order of Our Martyred Lady. Already Morvenn is striding forward, the vast feet of her warsuit echoing off the stone as she steps down from the dais to the nave.

‘Abbess Sanctorum!’ The novitiate drops to her knees with a sharp crack of bone against flagstone.

Celestian Superior Ignatia moves forward to stand at Morvenn’s side, her hand raised sharply in remonstration. ‘Novitiate, you forget yourself.’

The words strike the girl like a blow to the face, turning her cheeks an even deeper shade of scarlet. ‘Forgive me.’ The young woman’s voice is shaking. ‘But the news is of the greatest urgency. I was placed under instruction that the message was to be delivered to you in person. Immediately.’

Booted feet echo along the cloister outside. Morvenn knows that sound as well as that of her own breathing: a squad of Battle Sisters in formation, approaching fast.

‘You have interrupted a sacred ceremony,’ Ignatia begins.

‘Let her speak.’ Morvenn studies the novitiate. The newcomer is visibly shaking, her hands blanched and bloodless where they grip the skirts of her robe. ‘Continue, novitiate. What news is this that cannot wait?’

‘Ophelia VII is under attack.’

Visions of the last great battle for Ophelia VII flood Morvenn’s mind: the cardinal world ablaze in the blasphemous light spilling from the Great Rift, the white marble cities running with the blood of the faithful, the endless swarm of the Neverborn that for a time had threatened to destroy and enslave all in their path. Before relief had arrived at last in the form of the Black Templars and the primarch Roboute Guilliman’s Indomitus Crusade, she had been wholly resigned to death. Every day since has been an unexpected gift from the God-Emperor to be put to use in His service.

But surely that battle is over?

‘The Tyrant of Blueflame.’ Morvenn spits the name of the Lord of Change like bile. ‘Has the abomination returned?’

The novitiate shakes her head, and a wave of relief passes over Morvenn. No matter what threat has come, she tells herself, nothing can be worse than that which we have already endured.

‘What then?’

The novitiate speaks four words, and the faint light of Morvenn’s hope is snuffed out like an altar candle.

Because what has come to Ophelia VII is worse than she had ever imagined.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2024.
This eBook edition published in 2024 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Robson Michel.

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ISBN: 978-1-80407-507-4

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