Only Varik betrayed his shame with a slight awkward shift in his posture. He was about to tell her to leave, but Athena had already gone.

A blurt of comm-static got Nemiok checking the feed in his ears.

His tone with Varik was like stone. ‘We’re moving.’

Smoke from distant fires smudged the sky above the Diablo Mountains a dirty orange. Burning resolved on the breeze, the stench of munitions, wood and human flesh. There was another odour too, something stagnant, earthy and fungal.

Betheniel huddled her legs close to her body, relieved that her sister superior had returned unharmed.

‘And they said nothing?’

‘Like statues, sister.’ Athena was weary, bone and spirit. ‘I’ve never felt coldness like that before.’

They were sitting outside the infirmary, getting some air. The vox-radio hummed in the background.

++Efforts to repel the orks at the Diablo Mountains have failed. Imperial Guard regiments are already in place on Devil’s Ridge and will halt the greenskins there. Solely as a precaution, civilians south of the River Eumenidies are advised to head away from the mountains and seek shelter. Trust in the Emperor.++

A grim silence fell for a few moments.

A fearful Betheniel, staring up at the crags, interrupted it.

‘That’s close to camp.’ She bit her lip as the years drained off her, leaving behind a little girl afraid of the darkness. ‘Shouldn’t we try to move the injured?’

Athena was resigned. ‘There are too many. We’ll have to make a stand and hope the Guard blockades stop them.’

‘And if they don’t?’

Echoing from the mountains, there emitted such a roar that it swallowed Athena’s response with its fury.

‘WAAAAAAGGH!’

Athena was up on her feet. Her tone was urgent.

‘Back inside.’

After their sojourn outside, the heady stink of sweat, blood and piss hit them like a hammer when they rushed into the infirmary.

Sanson looked up from a tray of bandages and medical gauze.

‘What’s happening?’

Private Kolber was hobbling over to where his sidearm hung from a wall hook.

‘The greenskins are here, aren’t they? The blockade didn’t stop them.’ Only a young man, the trooper had aged a decade in the week he’d been in the infirmary.

Athena had no time for explanations. ‘Lock all doors and shutters,’ she told Sanson. ‘No one goes outside.’

A pair of her fellow Hospitallers began to pray at a small shrine.

Overhead, a piercing whine made them all look up; nearly three thousand heads turned to the sky, pleading for salvation.

‘More bombers?’ asked Betheniel. She was watching the juddering lumen-strips, the dust motes cascading from the ceiling picked out in their flickering light.

The sound was decreasing in pitch.

Athena was slowly shaking her head. ‘Hide! Get to cover!’ she cried, just as the first shells fell.