Part 13 (2/2)

What he had mistaken for crystals are actually eyes. As Halser and Pylcrafte stagger back in disgust, they creak in their jagged sockets, rolling to watch them. Every one of them s.h.i.+mmers with an inner light, but they are unmistakably human. Halser looks over at Gortyn's scarred, empty sockets and howls. *What sorcery is this? What have you done?'

Frater Gortyn's drawn features remain fixed in a vacant smile. *There is no sorcery, Sergeant Halser. We have merely lent our vision to the prophet.' He taps the star-shaped crystal lodged in his forehead. *We see so much further now.'

Sergeant Halser groans as he looks back at the banks of rolling, blinking eyes. He can bear this no longer. He draws his bolt pistol and levels it at Frater Gortyn. *This is unspeakable. If I had knowna'

Halser's words are drowned out by an explosion. The blast is so violent that the whole valley shakes, jolting the sergeant sideways and sending his gun clattering across the road.

Pylcrafte lets out a stream of curses as he topples backwards into a ditch.

Ignoring his cries for help, Halser and the pilgrims look back down the road in confusion. A huge plume of smoke is rolling down into the valley from the entrance to the catacombs and distant shapes are visible, moving quickly through the haze.

Frater Gortyn's grin finally drops from his face. As a line of black-armoured figures begins pouring down into the valley, he slumps heavily against the city gates. *The enemy,' he groans, turning to his fellow pilgrims. *How? How can they have found Madrepore?'

Sergeant Halser curses and s.n.a.t.c.hes his gun from the road. *I thought you said your prophet kept them blind to this place?'

Frater Gortyn clutches his head in his hands as his brethren begin whining in fear. *He does. They are.' He pauses and turns his head towards the sergeant. *Or, at least, they always have been.' His voice becomes a hideous shriek. *You've led them to us! How else can this be?'

The other two pilgrims cease their whining and turn around, shaking their heads in shock. *It's the only explanation,' gasps one of them, pointing at Halser. *You're in league with the Black Knights. You must be! You've betrayed Astraeus!' He looks up at the faces looking out from the battlements. *We're betrayed!' he cries, pressing his mouth to the gap opening between the gates.

Halser backs away, keeping his gun trained on the wailing pilgrims. *How many?' he breathes into his vox-bead, s.n.a.t.c.hing a brief glimpse at the distant line of figures.

Brother Volter is the first to reply, his voice full of disbelief. *Sergeant, they must have been toying with us. Those small attacks must have been a feint.'

*What do you mean?' snaps Halser, still unable to take his eyes off the raving pilgrims.

*There are hundreds of them, sergeant. I can't even count thea'

The exchange is interrupted by another huge explosion and this time it is much closer. Halser staggers again and the pilgrims launch themselves at him. He moves to shrug them off, but to his fury he feels a blinding pain in his forehead and words echoing beneath his scalp. *Betrayal!' drone the voices, so loud that Halser cries out in pain.

*Get out of my head!' he roars, but the voices swell in volume, chanting the word *betrayal' like a prayer as Halser drops, groaning, to his knees.

Blood erupts from his nose as the pilgrims continue their furious a.s.sault on his mind. He is vaguely aware that they are also thras.h.i.+ng uselessly against his power armour with their fists, but the external world is quickly slipping away from him as their prayers clamp around his agonised brain.

*Comus,' he manages to gasp as the pain overwhelms him.

Immediately he feels another presence in his thoughts, enveloping the wailing voices and easing the pain in his head. Before the agony has a chance to overpower him again, Halser rises to his feet and fires his bolt pistol, tearing a ragged hole through Frater Gortyn's chest and sending him spinning across the road.

The other two pilgrims scramble for cover but he guns them down too, killing them before they can reach the gate and sending a fan of bright blood across the hammered iron.

Halser spins around and stares back down the road. The mountain looks as though it has sprung a black, glistening leak. Countless ranks of Traitor Marines are flooding down across the foothills and gathering on the road. He sees the gold trim on their spiked power armour, glinting as they charge towards the city.

*The barn!' he cries, waving to a low, stone building at the side of the road near his men. *Take cover! Volter, buy them time.'

The Relictors finally move with some speed. Two of them lift Comus from his feet and charge from the road with him while the rest dive for cover. At the same time, Brother Volter drops to one knee and brings his lascannon to bear on the approaching hordes. The far end of the road erupts in blue flames as he finds his mark. Tiny, black-clad figures spin into the air and for a moment the advance falters. Before they have chance to return fire, Brother Volter rolls across the road and drops into the roadside ditch.

Seconds later, the road where he knelt explodes like a lake in a hailstorm. Stone and shrapnel whines through the air as the enemy guns tear up the landscape.

As the Black Legion continue to race down the road, the Relictors hunker down by the barn and open fire. The enemy make no attempt to find cover and the air s.h.i.+mmers with the heat of the Relictors' bolter fire.

The evening lights up again as Brother Volter fires a second shot with his lascannon, cutting another great hole in the advancing ranks.

As the wall behind him starts shattering under the enemy fire, Sergeant Halser clamps his helmet into place and looks from his men to the gates behind him. Through the gap he sees a stampede of white-robed figures as the pilgrims empty the streets and rush to defend the walls. *What can they do?' he wonders aloud. Then he remembers the pain of Frater Gortyn's prayers, clawing at his thoughts.

*Comus,' he snaps, dragging the still cursing Pylcrafte from the ditch. *I think I have a chance of reaching the scriptorium. The pilgrims will focus their attention on the Traitor Marines. Can you lend me your support if they try and stop me?'

The reply through the vox-bead is a hoa.r.s.e, indecipherable grunt, but a clearer voice appears in the sergeant's thoughts. *Be quick. There are too many of them for us to hold.'

*I think you may have help,' replies Halser, watching the pilgrims rus.h.i.+ng to man Madrepore's battlements. He turns and addresses Pylcrafte. *I'm going in. Stay and fight, or help me find the scriptorium.' Then, as the enemy fire grows in ferocity, he leans on one of the iron gates and shoves it back a few more centimetres, allowing himself enough room to squeeze thorough and enter the city.

The sight that greets him is bewildering. At the heart of the city is a huge fortified temple with a thick, hexagonal tower at its centre. Nestled around it are hundreds of other buildings, all constructed of the same, writhing, coral-like rock, and all glittering with rows of crystalline eyes. As the eyes roll and blink, the buildings s.h.i.+mmer, so that the city seems to be undulating with light, and the whole scene is shrouded in vast, drifting columns of moonlit cloud. The storms Halser saw from orbit seem to be emanating from this single point. The combination of glimmering eyes and writhing clouds is overwhelming. It looks as though Madrepore is carved from s.h.i.+fting, moonlit water.

Halser pauses for a second, trying to see a way through the pulsing clouds and milling, panic-stricken crowds. He hisses into his vox-bead: *Which way, Comus? What do I do?'

*Head for the centre of the city,' comes a reply in his mind. *The prophet has built his temple directly over the scriptorium. If anyone knows what happened to its contents, it will be him.' There is a pause, then Comus speaks through the vox-bead, his voice a ragged growl. *I don't know how long I can keep them out of your head, sergeant.'

Halser nods, but still hesitates, unsure how to proceed through the incredible display. Most of the pilgrims are charging to the walls, but hundreds are also racing down the wide road that leads from the gate to the temple.

*So many of them, and all d.a.m.ned,' mutters a trembling voice at Halser's side and he remembers the inquisitor's acolyte is still with him. Pylcrafte is waving his cane at the s.h.i.+fting clouds, as though he can ward off the corruption surrounding him.

The sergeant turns to speak, but before he can, a huge section of wall explodes just above the gate. The air fills with screams and spinning chunks of masonry and, to Halser's delight, the road ahead clears, as the pilgrims scramble for cover.

*Keep close,' he cries, charging down the road.

As he approaches the temple walls he sees a long building to his left, topped with a huge stone star and crowded with pilgrims. Many of them have stopped to watch him and, even with Comus s.h.i.+elding his thoughts, he starts to feel their furious prayers battering against his mind. He tries to ignore them and focus on reaching the doors to the temple, but as he does so, he stumbles to a halt.

He is back at the city gates, looking down at Pylcrafte.

*So many of them, and all d.a.m.ned,' says the hooded figure, waving his cane.

Halser curses and shakes his head, trying to rid himself of his confusion. *What is happening?' he cries. *I keep seeing the same thing, over and over.'

He hears the voice of Comus in his head again. *Sergeant. The power of this Astraeus is like nothing I've ever felt. I think time itself is bending to his will.' He pauses. *Or maybe not even that. It feels almost as though time is collapsing.'

Halser groans in frustration. *By the Throne, Comus. What are you talking about?'

There is no reply and Halser vents his frustration on the city wall, slamming his armoured fist into the rock and shattering a cl.u.s.ter of blinking eyes. Then he tries again, racing off towards the temple with Pylcrafte stumbling after him, still cursing and muttering into his hood.

Brother-Librarian Comus lies bleeding in a ditch. Bolter fire rattles and whines overhead but he is only vaguely aware of it. All his attention is fixed on the small, metal-bound book clutched in his hand. He remembers the first time he handled the xenos device, given to him by Inquisitor Mortmain, all those years ago. It took months of fierce, uninterrupted prayer before he would even consider opening his mind to such unholy, alien sentience. He was sure of his purpose then: to glean what he could whilst keeping his mind intact. But now what does he feel? The thing is killing him, he is sure of that. Every time he allows those luminous characters to flood his mind, he feels a little more of his soul being torn away. Even on a purely psychical level the effect is obvious: he has been bleeding heavily from his nose and mouth since they arrived on Ilissus and, without the aid of his battle-brothers, he can barely stand. However, that is not the worst of it. The thing that fills him with dread is that the libellus no longer feels so alien. It no longer feels wrong. It is becoming part of him. Comus draws himself upright and closes the book with a shudder. What is he becoming?

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