The hospitaller applied hemostatics, injected coagulants, and sprayed poultice to stop the bleeding. Counterseptics stung as they burned away germs and erected a bulwark against further infection. Analgesics were offered, but were rejected to be saved for when they were needed. Splints around the wrist and fingers would hold her bones together while rapid setting plastek would maintain armor integrity. It could not fix her arm, arms, or armor, but, when on a mission, especially out in these boonies, it would have to do. The unharmed seraphim hefted the horangi over their heads like a canoe. Clear of threats, they assembled around the seraphim superior and marched down the mountain, following the river back towards the village. The mist had dissipated somewhat, but the way was still obscured.

  “Permission to speak, Seraphim Superior,” piped up Yoon Si-nae.

  “Permission granted.” said Whang Youn Dai.

  “I noticed that I received no fire support in combat with the witchbeast. My days as a novitiate trained us to always engage witchlings in a group.”

  “The rest of the flamewing was clearing the area of threats. We do not always have the luxury of following recommended combat doctrine.”

  “The horangi pounced on our ophanim, and still she did not fire. I heard no engagements from my sister seraphim that would have prevented them from assisting me.”

  “They had their task, you had yours. Our ophanim had the composure to maintain her task no matter the distraction.”

  “Perhaps my pistol would have been better suited for her task, then I could use the heavy bolter to spray down a heavy beast.”

  The ophanim glanced over to her sisters. When none returned a look, she kept her lenses forward.

  “Did you have difficulty in your task?”

  “Like eating porridge.”

  “Then distribution was sufficient.”

  “Sufficient, perhaps. Efficient, no. My equipment and body are damaged. The Emperor does not condone waste.”

  “You speak of The Emperor to your Superior?”

  “I can’t help but wonder if there are concerns other than the Emperor in mind when it comes to my Superior’s duties.”

  “And what concerns might those be?”

  “That my superior is the same girlie who tried to sabotage me when we were in the schola. That my superior was protected and promoted because of her noona rather than her merit. That me going through the trouble of earning my wings failed to lessen the scorn towards me. That my thick-faced superior is still trying to waste the Emperor’s resources trying to get rid of me even when faced with an emissary of a mountain lord. Those concerns.”

  The rest of the squad now shared uneasy glaces criss crossed between seraphim, ophanim, and hospitaller.

  “If it was a white tiger, it would have taken priority. You have lived up to Hae Nyeo’s expectations of you with us to testify on your behalf. You should be grateful.”

  “It’s not just about me innit? It might be easy enough for the spirites to gang up on the rat, but I wonder, how often does it happen between houses? Especially the house that maintains most of our equipment. I wonder how many tragic accidents and unforeseeable mishaps were conveniently to the benefit of the Whang house.”

  “The houses are the bondage that ties our society to civilization. Through marriage and oaths and, yes, through supply chains, we intertwine into a righteous symphony. Even the most base laborer can be bestowed purpose by their lord. What ensures your loyalty? What family do you have to live up to? What responsibilities do you have to fulfill?”

  “It’s funny you should ask. In one of those dusty old books I read—”

  “It can read. Our teachers are miracle workers.”

  “—I read that the schola progenium usually raised up orphans. Those unbound by material loyalties and unburdened by personal interests. It was precisely to ensure that their loyalty was solely to the Emperor and that they would have no distraction from their duty.”

  Whang and Yoon stopped to face each other as the rest of the squadron continued.

  “If you have such criticisms, take it up with the Canoness. Otherwise, we have a mission to complete. Permission rescinded.”

  Yoon followed at the back while Whang returned to the front. Killing the horangi did not get rid of the mist. The witch’s influence still lingered. More than that, what happened to the monastery could not have been done by a sloven beast. No signs of struggle from the other sisters sent here. There was something more deliberate at work.

  They got a better view of the village now. Huddled together shacks of straw and soil, overlooking a slope of rice paddies and thatched roof barns, with one big shack over to the side, a community gathering complex of some sort.

  Much like their shacks, the villagers huddled up together behind the dialogus. The shift in the mist had alerted them of the flamewing’s progress and the village followed the dialogus. They assembled behind her like a congregation awaiting their sermon. They gawked at the dead horangi like a god had been slain. With the death of her beast, the influence of The Witch receded in this world and in pagan minds.

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  It may not mean much to civilized women who are used to adoring suitors and fawning nobles offering lavish gifts, but Yoon happily soaked up all the admiration she could get. She spotted the boy with the ecclesiasticus necklace and gave him a thumbs up with her healthy hand, the broken one tucked behind her waist, though she could not hide her clipped wing.

  “Hail sisters!” exclaimed the Dialogus, first in gothic then in native “your hunt has brought even the mightiest beast low. No matter how fearsome the shadows seem, they matter not to His wrath that rules stars, is it not so?”

  Murmurs spread through the crowd. The dialogus regained ground that had been lost with the last two squads. She could no longer convince them that His agents were invincible, so she switched rhetoric to His will being inevitable. Even if the first dozen or two could be beaten, the Imperium would continue to escalate to meet victory.

  “The monks were spirited away with only the faintest traces they were ever there. We found no evidence of the previous squads either. What witchbeast is capable of this?” asked Whang.

  “There is a tale of maidens being snatched by a burrowing monster, but, bless their souls, the old monks were no maidens. Perhaps a mountain lord cast their tricks upon them.”

  Whang Youn Dai shuttered her eyes to process the information. Her eyes clicked open when she was done.

  “We will survey the area in the Thunderhawk. You will remain here.”

  The sisters left the horangi corpse with the villagers and marched back to the ancient landing pad. The pilot had remained by his bird’s side this whole time, polishing it and eating his provisions, ready to fly out at a moment’s notice if need be. The young airmen rose to salute the sisters but was only met with a cold shoulder by most of them. Only Yoon bumped her bad hand on his vest. He hurried back into his cockpit and lowered the ramp for them to file into the cabin. All aboard, the ramp lifted, the landing gear retracted, and the thrusters flared to life.

  The roaring engine and howling turbulence were the only things keeping silence at bay. The pilot was to report any threats indicated by short-ranged auspex or long-ranged augur but found nothing. The ophanim tried to start up a hum, but the thick tension suffocated all speech. She quieted her hum to the heavy bolter in her lap. The other seraphim crossed their pistols over their heart, except for Yoon, who used her chainsword like cane to prop up her injured hand, the flat tip of its chassis staked on the floor while her hand on the pommel kept it upright. Finally, the seraphim superior broke the silence.

  “Perhaps you are used to being coddled and protected by Hae Nyeo. It is clear that she has done you a disservice in not hammering out your obstreperous eccentricities. Let me be clear: you are no longer a novitiate; I am not Hae Nyeo, nor is any other superior you will be under. When you are rotated, you will be expected to serve without complaint. Where you go, at all times, you are a representative of the order. If you cannot fulfill these roles, then you were never fit to become my sister.

  If there is any earnestness in you, you shall accept criticisms and instructions. To be part of the Sisterhood is a privilege that has been extended to your kind. Your failures will reflect on your kind and insult those who have offered their hand to you. At all time you should show grace and gratefulness. First, of course, to The Emperor, by whose design we have safety and prosperity in an inhospitable galaxy; but also, to your betters who operate the levers of the grand design.

  All the sisters you see around you have been suffused with faith and discipline since they were born. Even before they were born, their blood comes from lineages that have long proven their destined nobility. It is an honor for a low-born like yourself to be among us let alone consider yourself something approaching our equal. Countless others have dreamt, struggled, and bled for the opportunity bestowed upon you. Just as the Emperor delivered us from savagery, we have uplifted you from desultory and poverty. Without us, your corpse would be among the filth clogging gutters, if not enslaved by gangers or cannibalized by mutants. It certainly took no less than the baptisms of water and fire to cleanse the stench of the underhive off you, and what little you understood from your catechesis sculpted your soul and mind into something respectable.

  At the very least, being pulled away from the polluting influence of other hive rats must be no less than rapture for you, someone who never had hope of seeing sunlight, breathing open air, drinking clean water, or eating fresh food. What I remember most from my novitiate trials is how the average hive rat’s breath somehow stank worse than the emissions of a pestigor calf fresh off its mother’s teat, worse still that I was not allowed to cave their skull in for the crime of offending my senses. Had you simply been adopted, or even indentured into lifelong servitude by contract or servitorization, you would still be obliged to kiss the ground your elevator walked upon to begin to give thanks and reverence for blessing of not having endure another moment of that wretched existence that the unwashed masses down there dare call lives in mockery of the grand design.”

  “My-my superior,” murmured the ophanim.

  “Instead, you have been granted gifts far beyond your ken and kin and entrusted with duty far beyond your station and stock.

  We have already gone over the spiritual, educational, and healthy benefits, so let me tell you about my house’s contribution, yes, remind you of my family’s role in making your life have some value.

  Your weapons, your armor, the plane we fly in were all assembled within Whang factorums across Ulsa. Your Ceres pattern bolt pistol is one cog of the grand design that The Emperor granted humanity to defend from, nay, to scythe through the encroaching dark. The diamantine that tips your bolt rounds, the admantine that make up the teeth of your chainsword, the ceramite armor that encases you, are sourced from mines like Sangdong, Jangseong, Sinyemi, Eunsan, Gasa-do, and Keum-sung, among many more. You wear and wield the weight, hope, and labor of the millions of laborers, serfs, machines, and artisans that go into the making of your equipment.

  “My superior,” grumbled the ophanim.

  “Your teachings, your cleanings, your equipment, are maintenance and tools meant by which you are to fulfill your responsibilities. Your debt is not just to us, your will is no longer yours to decide. Your every action shall be dedication to Him, your every thought shall be contemplation of His design, your only regret in death shall be that you no longer have a use for Him.”

  “MY SUPERIOR,” yelled the ophanim.

  “WHAT?” Whang yelled back.

  “Yoon has been asleep the entire time.”

  Whang glared at Yoon. Yoon’s helm was back against her collar and the top of her jumppack. Her ruined hand was limp on the pommel of her chainsword.

  She had not heard a throne-damned word.

  Whang was about to start yelling when the Thunderhawk jerked to the side. The passengers jerked with it, restrained to their seats by their harnesses. Yoon, thrust into consciousness, hooked her hand between the grip and the knuckle bow of her chainsword to hook it down. The ophanim tightened her grasp on the grips at the back and on top of her heavy bolter. The others steadied their pistols over their hearts.

  Klaxons blared, the desperate cry of the machine spirit, as the vehicle tilted to the side and spun around in circles. With no response from the pilot over the open vox, Whang grabbed hold of the straphangers and stood up, keeping herself upright going from one strap to next as she made her way to the cockpit.

  Inside, the pilot was limp in his seat, body strapped in as his limbs flailed with the turbulence. Wind screeched in from two holes, one on each side window. Reaching him now, the pilot too had holes on the sides of his helmet from which blood poured out. It was as if something came alongside the cabin’s armaglass viewport and lanced a nail straight across.

  Whang unstrapped and deposed the pilot to take his place at the controls. She managed to steer the centre stick to bring them upright into landing flare just in time to touchdown with their fuselage rather than the radome. The belly fairing skid across the ground, carving a river of upturned dirt where it decelerated. Crashing into trees and cabins further blunted its momentum, until the belly landing finally ground to a halt.