Jakada marked their surroundings with his auspex. Thirty-six of them across a cavern illuminated by preysight and bubbling sulfur pools. Sixteen along ridges above, twenty on the ground floor with her with five of those behind her in the tunnel out. The mining equipment, and whatever could be salvaged from the enforcers they cannibalized, was taken up for their use as armaments.

  So be it. Coming down the mine shaft and letting the demon run its illusions were both tiring. She needed an upbeat song right now: Seraphim Step should do.

  Fear? Fear’s for the faithless. There is no fear when His will is here.

  The first one in front was a model of his kin: his body was grey from these lightless depths, wiry from malnourishment, and wracked from years of hard labor; he had impaled himself with stone jewelry to prove his dark devotion, the reward glowing in the veins beneath his skin, likely invigorating him with the strength needed to serve his master. He raised his pickaxe high, an untrained opening for a well disciplined fist to send his jaw into his parietals. His limp wrist dropped the pick axe and his scrambled brain stumbled his corpse around for a few steps until he collapsed.

  Pity? Pity’s for the heartless. There’s no pity when the enemy’s in your city.

  With that demonstration, the rest on the ground were still sensible enough not to go chasing glory to their deaths. The fourteen in front were spread out beside the sulfur pool armed with shovels and picks. The five behind her were using a layered defense of minecarts to block the path; even if she did try to run out or turn to attack them, she would be delayed and open to attacks from behind. Speaking of which, the ones on the ridge used their minecarts for cover, twelve had autopistols from the enforcers, and four had exo-suits with mining lasers. The mining lasers could threaten the ceramite, everything else would need to aim for her unarmored sections and pierce the gambeson. Finally, one of her hands was occupied with a slimy, wiggling little thing.

  Peace? Peace is for the careless. There’s no peace when duty does not cease!

  She held up their master as her only cover. The lasers came first to act as markers for the munitions chorus that came next. They had enough sense to try not hitting their master but there were so many firing at once that it was akin to a battleship unleashing a salvo. Between the shine of the lasers and the constant flashes of muzzle fire, the cavern became bright as day. The only reprieve would be their clumsy and untrained manner of ejecting and reloading magazines. The bullets were pinging off her armor but the mining lasers would bore weakness into her armor eventually. She had little room to maneuver, nor could she take aim or climb up to them, with these batters around her waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

  Pause? Pause is for the listless. There’s no pause when working for a worthy cause.

  She drew her bolt pistol to let loose a quickshot from the hip, maglocked it back as the bolt detonated the sulfur pool to spray acid into the air. It landed to burn the flesh off of six of them and send the others into panic as the floor filled with bubbling sulfur. She hauled the corpse of the first guy she brained onto her shoulder as extra cover, then popped two more quick shots. The frontline cutdown by over half, the backliners abandoned their fortifications to charge. The autoguns held off, but the mining lasers concentrated on limiting her movements by aiming around her.

  Even with her burdens and limitations, her superior martial prowess allowed her to deftly evade their strikes while her servo-enhanced strength pulverized meat and shattered bone. One landed a heavy blow that lodged his shovel into the corpse on her shoulder. She drew a quickshot that destroyed his hips, but that moment was enough for a shock baton to land on the elbow of the arm that held the daemon. The impact was blocked by her couter and cushioned by the gambeson, but the electricity sent spasms down her arm that, for all her resistance, pried her fingers to free the daemon. The Sugilite wasted no time slithering away into a crevice that could not possibly fit it. The daemon escaped. Her mission was a failure, captured by Jakada’s pict-thief.

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  Rest? Rest is for the lifeless. There’s no rest when you’re the best of the best.

  Other hand newly free, she thanked her emancipator by caving his ribs into his lungs and hauling him up as her new gardbrace. The autoguns started firing again, heedless of their eight friends left on the ground. Quickshots splattered the last three backliners just in time for the frontliners to be upon her. The daemon must have given them more of its power now that it no longer had to manifest itself, as the five shrugged off the bullets of their comrades and the bludgeoning of her gauntlets. They were crazed now, the bulging of what muscles they had shattering stone with each wild swing of their picks in their desperation to end her. She tossed off a gardbrace corpse to trip four of them. She knelt to pick up the shock baton and impaled it into the gut of the one still standing. He was electrocuted from the inside and perforated with bullets from behind. From her new bunker corpse, she let out quickshots to finish the last four. That just left the ridge gunners.

  Glory? Glory’s for the righteous. You’ll get your glory when they tell your story.

  She unlocked her plasma pistol. Deactivating the safety fed the beast hydrogen. It roared to life, accelerator coils a bright light. Four shots spat out. Dreadful blue drowned out the yellow of muzzle flashes and red of lasers. Four shots landed upon the exo-skeletons to disintegrate all of them. The thin air they all shared was seared, burning everyone’s throats. Growling and heated, the beast was allowed to vent before it was deactivated and maglocked back to rest.

  The remaining gunners abandoned what little trigger discipline they had to scream out the rest of their bullets. Under that desperate salvo, no matter their distance or cover, with a steady aim, the bolt pistol sufficed to dismantle their squad one by one, like a child tearing the limbs off an ant. One faltered in his firing as the others popped like bloody balloons. When he was last, he tossed his gun away and raised his arms in surrender. She pulled the trigger knowing that it would click empty. When a moment passed where he was not shot, he tumbled his way down the ridges, arms kept up for letting them down was more lethal than any scraping that the stone could give him. The pathetic mewl bled as he shuffled on his knees around the sulfur puddles toward her. If the Emperor had reason to see him leave, she would find it soon.

  “Stop.” she commanded. He complied. Jakada went up to provide a more thorough scan of him. He was bare save for the bloody rags that clothed him. Still, she kept her distance.

  “Please!” he begged through his weeping, “Mercy, my lady, mercy!”

  “Why would I have mercy for one who has betrayed his Emperor?” She raised her bolt pistol. Jakada’s auspex detailed the warmth spilling down his legs.

  “I I I I,” he stammered and futilely snorted up the mucus that mixed with the tears slobbering his face, “I did not know it was real. I was born into mining. We only hear about the Emperor and His Angels in the chatter from the enforcers. I didn’t know what they was talking about.”

  “You claim ignorance when you are surrounded by the majesty of His designs and enjoy the gift of living that He safeguards for all mankind!? After you made communion with a devil!?” She yelled and he recoiled.

  “I didn’t know, I didn’t know. I was just told that there was a way to make things better; that there was a way to leave the mines. But you’re here now and I see and I know now, understand now! I know who I was born to serve, I just needed to see! I see divinity and I see my place in service to it.” She maglocked her pistol and approached him to pull him by his shirt collar.

  “You say you see and understand. Tell me, what have you seen that made you understand?”

  “You, my lady. I saw you. All I ever knew was darkness and work. I never knew why I broke rocks just to have them taken away. I saw my mates keel over with their fingers latched around their picks and thought I’d die the same. Now I see what it was for, the meaning for it. If I knew a single pebble I plucked made it into the hardest armor or the strongest gun I’d ever seen I’d be proud. And-and not just see! You said words and made murmurs that was-was as beautiful as you are and yous are the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he was slurring his words more but he had the spirit, “I didn’t know someone could ever speak so pretty. I’ve been hurt and tired so long I forgot I was hurt and tired but your speak made me forget what we were even doing here. I’d remember it as long as I live and live knowing what I serve.” She released his collar to let him fall.

  “Your loyalty wilted before the daemon and now it wilts before His fury. A wretch so faithless is no better than a leaf in the wind. What service could you offer?”

  “All I can give is my life. All I have is my life. As long as I live, I can… I can give my life.”

  “You have failed the Emperor once; worse than that, you have betrayed him. If you truly seek redemption, then there is only one path that remains for you.”

  “Yes! Yes, my lady, anything!”

  “Very well then.”