I heard Kara calling my name. She called it again. I heard Eleena asking me to say something.
But the void had come up like a wall, and they were too far away to hear.
NINETEEN
In the Halls of Yssarile.
Leaves of Darkness.
In the name of the Holy God-Emperor.
Someone, somewhere close by, was using one of those damned shuriken catapults. I could hear the jhut! jhut! jhut! of the launcher mechanism and the thin, brittle sounds of the impacts.
There was blood in my mouth, I noticed. I'd worry about it later. Crezia would fuss no doubt. 'You should not be doing this/ she had warned me fiercely in the infirmary of the Hinterlight.
Well, that's where she was wrong. This was the Emperor's work. This was my work.
'Moving up/ Nayl said over the intervox. 'Twenty paces/
'Understood/ I replied. I stepped forward. It was still an effort, and still very much a surprise to feel my body so wretchedly slow. The crude aug-metic braces around my legs and torso weighed me down and forced me to plod, like an ogre from the old myths.
Or like a Battle Titan, I considered, ruefully. One heavy footstep after the next, lumbering to my destiny.
It was the best work Crezia and Antribus had been able to manage given the time and the resources available. Crezia had passionately wanted me confined to vital support until I could be delivered to a top level Imperial facility.
I'd insisted on being mobile.
'If we throw together repairs now/ she had said, 'it'll be worse in the long term. To get you walking we'll have to do things that no amount of later
work can repair, no matter how excellent.'
'Just do it,' I'd said. For the opportunity to reach Pontius Glaw, I'd happily sacrifice prosthetic sophistication. All I needed was function.
Barbarisater trembled in my right fist as it sensed a bio-aura, but I relaxed. It was Kara Swole.
She jogged back down the chasm towards me, dressed in a tight, green armoured bodyglove and a thick, quilted flak coat. She had a dust visor on, and a fat-nosed compact handcannon slung over her shoulder.
'All right, boss?' she said
'I'm doing fine.'
'You look…'
'What?'
'Pissed off.'
'Thank you, Kara. I'm probably annoyed because you and Nayl are having all the fun taking point.'
'Well, Nayl thinks we should tighten up anyway'
I voxed back to the second element of our force. In less than two minutes, Eleena and Medea had joined us. Along side them came Lief Gustine and Korl Kraine, two men from Gideon's band who had subbed as reinforcements, as well as Gideon's mercenary archaeologist, Kenzer.