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Shield of Baal: Tempestus - Extract

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Chapter One

The Shelsists had done well to hide themselves. They held their profane gathering in the deep recesses of a ruined librarium, where the thick walls would muffle their chants and hymns. They had draped a thick curtain of dried seaweed across the only entrance so as to hide the light from their torches. They had spread algae flowers in the dirt to conceal their footprints. To the casual observer, there was nothing amiss in the dead and silent city.

The Canoness knew better. She stood atop a shattered column, scanning the area before her. Lysios’s moon hung, as ever, huge in the sky. It wasn’t even at its fullest yet, but so plentiful was the dull red light it cast over the land that she could have read from the Prime Edicts. But there was no need; she had memorised the words of the Holy Synod decades ago.

‘When the people forget their duty,’ she recited in a whisper, ‘they are no longer human and become something less than beasts. They have no place in the bosom of humanity nor in the heart of the Emperor. Let them die and be forgotten.’

She raised her right hand and made a flicking motion. The rest of the Sisters moved up to join her, silent except for the rustling of heavy robes and the creaking of powered armour. When they reached the base of the column, they knelt.

The Canoness turned and surveyed them. They would do their duty, as they had so many times before on this forsaken, deluged world. But these worshippers of the Brine Goddess were unusual for heretics. They bore none of the four traditional evil marks. They did not flagellate themselves or sever their digits. Rather, they were all but indistinguishable from the bulk of the planet’s citizenry. She worried that because of this, her charges might harbour regrets towards their duty. The Sisters of Battle were defenders of the faith, after all, not wanton murderers. She decided that a rousing homily was needed.

‘The Emperor gave up His life as a ransom so that humanity might live, so great is His love for mankind. The faithful repay Him with daily thanks and prayer, and they serve Him with all their heart, soul, and strength.’

Bowed heads nodded in agreement.

‘But there are those on this world who renounce the Emperor’s love, who cheapen His gift by offering their allegiance and devotion to false deities. What should He then do? Ignore this insult? Condone such behaviour? Or rather, should He administer punishment and correction, as a loving father would to his wayward children?’

She paused dramatically, just long enough to let her listeners consider the question and reach a unified conclusion.

‘The worshippers of Shelse are devious, yes. They hide their heresy well, but the Emperor sees the wickedness within their hearts. He is not fooled by outward appearances and neither, dear Sisters, must we be. We are His chosen; He tasks us to purge the unclean so that the faithful may thrive. With bolt and blade and flame, we must make examples of all who would spurn Him.

‘Superior Tarsha!’

One head among eight snapped up. ‘Yes, Canoness Grace?’

‘Can you vouch for the dedication of those who serve beneath you?’

The young woman smiled. ‘Yes, of course. We are ready to tread the path of righteousness.’

‘Then prepare your Sisters.’

Tarsha stood and spread her arms wide. As she began to recite the Adepta Sororitas battle-prayer, Canoness Grace turned back towards the librarium entrance.

For months now, she had led a continuing series of pogroms against the native religions of Lysios. The Shelsists, however, were the worst. No sooner had she put down one enclave of them, than another would establish itself. Their refusal to be eradicated was maddening enough, but what Grace truly hated was the romanticism of their sect.

The litanies of the Shelsists were an unending series of crude poems. Each was purported to come from the goddess of the sea, and none of them, the Canoness thought, was particularly well-written. She had come across hundreds of them in her quest, and each one contained the same awful, wistful tone. The author might as well have been a besotted teenage girl as an ocean deity. Still, something in the unrequited love story between the sea and the moon struck a chord with certain people on Lysios. The worship and veneration of Shelse had penetrated every level of society, from the lowest kelp harvester to the highest nobility. Even the planetary governor, it was said, had submitted himself to their heresy. Why else would he have gone into hiding as soon as the Canoness had begun putting the unfaithful to the fire?

Superior Tarsha completed the prayer by asking the Emperor to condemn His enemies to eternal death and damnation. ‘That Thou wouldst bring them only death, that Thou shouldst spare none, that Thou shouldst pardon none, we beseech Thee, destroy them.’

In unison, the Sisters touched their foreheads, their chests and finally their weapons, signifying faith in mind, heart, and deed. Then they rose silently, and waited for their leader.

The Canoness jumped down from the column, her feet making deep impressions in the pebbly, seashell-littered ground. She pulled a bulky pistol from the holster on her hip. ‘I shall lead. Flamer and heavy bolter on my flanks.’

While the Sisters assembled themselves into formation, Superior Tarsha dashed forward and tore down the seaweed curtain. Beyond was a long and partially collapsed passageway. The light from Ixoi illuminated only the archway. The interior was very dark.

‘Braziers,’ Grace ordered.

Mounted on each of the Canoness’s shoulders was a metal cage filled with coals soaked in consecrated oil. Tarsha reached up from behind her and lit them. The coals burst into flame, and a wavering yellow light surrounded the Canoness. Eerie shadows danced all around.

They had proceeded only a short distance when they came to a curving stairway that descended into the catacombs. The stone walls were encrusted with white residue and glistened in the firelight. Grace touched them as she went. The fingers of her glove came away wet. Raising them to her lips, she was unsurprised to taste salt.

She ignored the several side passages they came to. The chambers beyond were lifeless and filled with damp, rotting wooden shelves and heaps of mush that had once been books and scrolls.

There was a faint echoing of voices from below. The Canoness signalled for the others to freeze, and peered around the curving wall. Eight men, large and bulky across the shoulders, were standing at the base of the stairs. Their armour appeared to be made of weighty iron plates fastened to a rubber undersuit with rivets and pieces of thick rope. Half of them were armed with a type of large, cartridge-fed speargun commonly used by the local fisherman. Two of them had shock nets. A low fire burned in an empty fuel drum and the remaining two men were warming themselves by it. Their backs were to the Canoness.

Grace frowned. Thus far, the Shelsists had been poorly organised and almost pathetically armed. The presence of these men seemed to mark a change in all that. They were wearing modified diving suits, she realised; heavy and potentially bulletproof. Additionally, she had seen the kinds of creatures the mariners of Lysios went to sea for. Their spearguns were designed to puncture blubbery hides and bulletproof shells. Their nets were made of metal cabling and could be electrified before being thrown.

The Canoness glanced at the Sisters on her flanks. Cairista, the flame wielder, was on her right. Sister Fayhew, she who wielded the blessed heavy bolter, waited on the left. When each of them signalled their readiness, Canoness Grace swept around the curved wall with bolt and fire on her wings.

When fired on an open battlefield, a heavy bolter was loud. In the confines of the librarium basement, it was truly deafening. Two of the guards were hit by shells as large as a closed fist. The iron plates of their suits could provide no protection. They were thrown backwards into the fire barrel, which tumbled over on to its side. Grace sent a bolt of white-hot plasma through the chest of one of the speargun carriers. He collapsed, and portions of his chestplate formed molten pools on the floor. Cairista covered the remaining five men in a wave of flames. Two more of the guards went down screaming. The stairway was filled with acrid smoke that stank of burning rubber and charred flesh.

The three remaining men were engulfed in fire, but to the Canoness’s surprise they seemed to take no heed. Two of them raised their spear guns and fired. Grace was hit in the upper chest. Her armour held firm, but the sheer force of the impact was enough to send her staggering. The spear that struck Sister Fayhew rebounded off her pauldron hard enough to leave a dent. The third guard tossed his net at Cairista, who ducked swiftly out of the way.

Sister Fayhew bared her teeth, and squeezed the heavy bolter’s firing lever. The men were knocked about like ragdolls as the shells tore them apart. When they were nothing but broken corpses, she released the trigger.

The other Sisters were now racing down the stairs with heavy footfalls. The Canoness raised a hand, and they slowed.

‘We are unhurt,’ she reassured them. She indicated the dent on Sister Fayhew’s shoulder armour. ‘But it would seem that the Shelsists have become more dangerous than ever before.’

‘Canoness, over here!’ Cairista called. She had moved past the dead guards and to the back of the small cellar. There was a gaping hole in the floor, wide enough to fit two grown adults.

The other Sisters gathered around. The Canoness leaned over the hole. By the light of her braziers, she could just barely see the base of the ladder.

‘They were guarding this?’ Superior Tarsha asked.

‘It would seem so,’ Grace replied.

‘Where does it lead?’ Cairista asked.

‘Canoness,’ Tarsha said, ‘I volunteer to find out.’

Grace considered for a moment, and then consented.

Tarsha grasped her boltgun tightly, and jumped through the hole. With a loud splash, she landed in black liquid up to her knees. The air reeked of brine.

She peered about her. She was in a cavern that might have been able to hold, at most, ten people. The rock walls were rough and wet. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she was able to make out a doorway, covered with a curtain or heavy blanket of some kind. Around its edges leaked a dim light.

She waited for several seconds. The only sounds were the trickle of water on rock, and the crackling fires above her. She sloshed forward, and tore down the covering with her left hand. It was indeed a blanket, woollen and wet. Before her was a tunnel carved out of the rock. Lumens had been strung along one wall in a drooping chain.

She threw the blanket down. As she entered the mouth of the tunnel, she called up to the Canoness. ‘The base of the ladder is clear. I’m moving–’

Something snapped beneath her boot. Tarsha froze and looked down to see tiny bubbles rising around her legs. She had just enough time to realise that she had triggered some kind of trap, and then there was a gurgling boom. Tarsha was hurled up into the air in a spray of sea water. She felt herself strike the roof of the cavern, and then fall back into the pool. She tried to stand up, but found that she could not. She flailed her arms, but couldn’t break above the surface of the water. Seconds ticked by like hours. Then, at last, she felt the strong hands of her sisters grabbing hold of her and lifting her up.

Tarsha blinked and strained to hear. Sister Lygia and Sister Karyn had set her on a rock. The others were talking excitedly and pointing at her, but their voices were muffled. The light from the Canoness’s shoulders made the chamber seem surreal. Her calves felt hot and itchy. That was strange, she thought, because her power armour was internally cooled. She reached a hand down to scratch them, and felt nothing but air. Confused, she looked down to see that her legs were missing from the knees down. Blood was spurting from the mangled stumps in hot streams.

She shook her head in disbelief. Dimly, she remembered stepping on something hidden beneath the water at the mouth of the tunnel. She tried to speak, to warn the others that the Shelsists had laid traps for them, but her tongue could no longer form words. She felt very thirsty, which struck her as funny, since Lysios was a world dominated by its singular ocean. She laughed at the irony.

Her sisters all turned to look at her, their faces etched with worry. The Canoness had knelt down in front of her and was saying something, but Tarsha couldn’t hear properly. A piece of ancient rhyme, something about water everywhere and shrinking boards, drifted through her head. She laughed once more, and died.

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For Holly, who misses me whenever I vanish into the grim darkness of the far future.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

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