The docking pad doubled as a barracks and chapel, too. Tsu’gan noticed much of its religious statuary had been ripped down and replaced by ablative armour, sandbags and rockcrete barricades. Anything of significance to the faith of the Order was gone, leaving a blank echo on a wall or a denuded alcove. The fleeing ships transported not only people but Ecclesiastical artefacts too.

‘I’ve had warmer welcome on Fenris.’ Kai’ru kept his voice low.

A glare from Praetor silenced him, before they were led towards the gate.

Tsu’gan had to agree with his battle-brother. A cold wind was blowing through the Order of the Ardent Veil and the white of their battle sisters’ armour reminded him of frost. Salamanders fought with a core of fire in their breast; these warrior-maidens harboured a spike of ice.

Once past the docking pad, Praetor chose to enlighten his brothers over a closed comm-channel.

++Use the senses our father gave you. The Order is mute. They cannot acknowledge you even if they wished to.++

Kai’ru found suddenly that he was similarly afflicted.

‘Deeds not words are the speech of angels.’ Gathimu was quoting from some philosophical treatise he’d read.

Any reply was forestalled as a pair of Immolator battle tanks reversed from the gate, allowing the Salamanders through. Their turret-mounted inferno cannons swivelled as they moved, constantly trained on the gate. One trigger pull from the gunners would engulf the entranceway in a conflagration of burning promethium.

With the churn of hidden gears, the gate cracked and slid open. As they had seen from the air, the carnage of burned-out tanks and twisted corpses lay beyond it. Sepulchre IV was a place of ruins and shades, of scorched earth and blood-tainted air. Some of the fires still flickered in the hollow shells of the broken basilica.

Several Battle Sisters flanked the gate, bolters aimed into the killing ground before them.

The sister superior looked expectantly at Praetor. She wanted to seal the compound again quickly.

Tsu’gan detected no enemies nearby. He scowled behind his battle-helm at what he saw as fear.

Fear is the province of the weak.

‘Ave Imperator,’ he heard Praetor say to the Battle Sister.

She slammed her gauntleted first against her pauldron in salute as the Salamanders sergeant led his Firedrakes out.

Deeds not words.

Once outside, the gate ground shut behind them. The gaze of the Battle Sisters in the towers was still upon them, though. Tsu’gan felt their heavy bolter sights like an itch at the back of his neck.

Gathimu released a spit of promethium from his heavy flamer to test the igniter on the nozzle, interrupting Tsu’gan’s thoughts. ‘This place reeks of death.’

Tsu’gan estimated over a thousand dead bodies strewn throughout the perimeter. ‘The battle moved elsewhere?’