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“Getting dark again, sir.”
I looked up at the slivers of sky visible between the tightly-packed caps of the fungal forest. Indeed, they were rapidly changing from a sunset pink to the deep purple of evening. I switched on my headlamp, and Jurgen followed suit. The two of us trudged onwards, two little spots of light in the warm, earthy darkness. There was no point in trying to hide our presence; reports indicated that the witch would know we were coming and might surrender quickly upon our arrival due to residual conditioning from her training.
The fungi grew tall, tightly packed together. In the two-hour days, we frequently encountered places where the fungi seemed to have been sliced cleanly close to the ground, but at night, these were few and far between. With my chainsword still out of commission, hacking our way through was slow, sweaty, tedious work. After three day-night cycles of carving chunks out of warm, disturbingly fleshy pillars, I was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to stay in Fort Delgor with the rest of the Valhallans, waiting to be dispatched to the front lines. I had thought taking on the hunt myself might score me a few days more away from the front, and considering the witch’s previous status as a sanctioned psyker and the lack of premonitory tingling in my palms, I had been sure that this hunt would be a relatively simple, straightforward affair.
As it was, my simple hunt already seemed to be more complicated than I had anticipated, perhaps claiming two of my squad. Their lights had vanished from my auspex at some point when I wasn’t looking at it. Their potential loss weighed on my conscience. Had I kept the squad together, Jurgen’s aura would have been able to protect them from the witch’s dread powers - assuming they had not simply wandered out of auspex range or been consumed by a particularly carnivorous toadstool.
When I consulted the auspex, I could see the four little dots slowly progressing through the mycelial landscape. Good, but the lack of contact with our rogue psyker meant that the witch was probably stalking me instead. The thought that I could be next, that the legend of the great Ciaphas Cain could end unceremoniously in the middle of a mushroom forest, weighed on me nearly as heavily as the increasingly oppressive atmosphere.
I wiped my sweaty forehead with a clammy hand. “About an hour until dawn, eh?” I said, wanting to hear something other than the squelching of our boots and the muted hack-hack-hack of our machetes against stalks.
My remark hung in the air unanswered. After giving Jurgen a slow count to thirty to respond, I spoke up again. “If only we could blast these blighted things out of our path. Shame the place would go up and take us with it.”
No answer.
“Jurgen?”
“Shh!”
My machete nearly dropped from my hand as I turned to stare at Jurgen, the beam of my headtorch fully illuminating his lumpy, bearded form. Somehow, the harsh light emphasised every wrinkle in his uniform. A large chunk of mushroom hung off his hat, casting a distressingly phallic shadow on the white stalk behind him. “What is it?” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
Jurgen leaned close, his signature aroma mixing with the earthiness of the fungus to mount a uniquely offensive assault on my nostrils. “Someone’s following us, sir.”
I peeked around. I could see no other lights nearby. “Are you sure?” I whispered.
Jurgen nodded. “Thought I saw something earlier, too, a couple of times. Reckoned I was just seeing things. Then it steps right into my beam, sir.”
My mouth went dry. “What did it look like?”
“Shiny, sir.”
“What?”
“Shiny, sir,” my faithful aide repeated.
“Yes, I heard the first time.” I glanced around again. The fungi loomed over us like a squad of Custodes in the Imperial Palace. The silence rang in my ears, suddenly intolerable. I had to break it for my own sanity. “There’s nothing here, Jurgen.”
Jurgen pointed between two tall stalks. “It was right there, sir. I swear, there’s someone around here.”
Every part of me wanted to refute his claim, to insist that there couldn't possibly be anyone nearby, but lying was not one of the skills in Jurgen’s functional but extremely limited repertoire. Still, neither I nor the auspex could detect anyone nearby. The thought that the witch might be somehow invisible or tricking us with illusions crossed my mind. But a witch should not have been able to use its dread powers so close to Jurgen. What sort of power could it have that allowed it to act in the presence of a Blank? My blood ran cold at the thought, and though something in me still found it hard to believe, I motioned to Jurgen to press on. As he returned to his chopping and hacking, I stowed my machete, pulling out my laspistol.
An hour later, I gave up. We had barely ventured half a klom, the sky was growing light, and I had grown more impatient than wary again. I took up my place beside Jurgen once more, missing my chainsword more with every swing of the blasted machete.
I had barely swung it ten times, however, when Jurgen pointed straight ahead and gasped, “Sir!”
My machete was already on my belt again. “Saw it - flash of orange light up ahead,” I said, pistol in hand once more.
“There was a person too,” Jurgen insisted as I prodded him forward.
I hadn’t seen anything but a flash, but I wasn’t about to argue.
We advanced as quickly as we could. Twice, Jurgen had to dislodge me from mushroom stalks I had become wedged between, while he, to my vexation, seemed to slip cleanly past them. It was only a few minutes, however, before we stepped into another small clearing. Previously, I had simply been grateful for them, but now, I was suspicious. “This is about where the flash was, right?”
My aide nodded.
I calmed my nerves and observed. The dishwater-grey sky was fully light now, and would be for the next two hours. A strange smell hung in the air. I sniffed, my brow furrowing. “Does it smell like roasted mushrooms to you, Jurgen?”
“Like breakfast, sir,” Jurgen agreed.
I knelt to look at one of the low-down stumps. “Someone cut this one very cleanly, then lifted it carefully from its base before setting it alight to avoid the whole area going up,” I mused. “The orange flash must have been the cut part burning from stalk to cap. But why would someone who could traverse this area better than we can do such a thing?” I looked down at my palms, which remained strangely untingling. “Could someone be trying to help us along?”
A beat of silence.
I looked up. Jurgen was staring open-mouthed ahead, his machete hanging limply.
“Jur-?”
Before his name left my lips, my aide lunged forward, throwing himself between two stalks and tussling with something out of my sight.
I threw myself after him, but my broad shoulders, broadened further by the epaulets of my coat, were my undoing. I found myself stuck again, writhing desperately to free myself. “Jurgen, for Terra’s sake!” I cried out. “What are you doing?”
A strange feeling came over me then. Rather, a feeling I hadn’t noticed before intensified until I could no longer ignore it. Someone was here, I knew it. I stopped wriggling and looked forward into the forest, and as soon as I did, my jaw dropped.
A woman crouched over Jurgen a short way away, still as a statue, while he struggled underneath her, trying to bite or pull at the hands she had wrapped around his throat. Everything about the woman was hard to make out, even as I stared directly at her. What I could see was that she was tall, clad head to toe in shining golden power armour, a plume of bright red hair arching high from her head. To her back was strapped an enormous power sword, the finest I had ever seen. A small firelighter lay discarded nearby, as did Jurgen’s machete. Jurgen was snarling like an underhive rat, but the woman seemed to remain perfectly composed. Slowly, she lifted one hand from his neck and brought it to her lips. As she did, her eyes slid to me.
My throat seemed to close up, and my mouth dried out. I swallowed what felt like a ball of sand before calling out, “Jurgen, stand down.”
“It’s the witch, sir,” he gasped from the floor. “I’ve found the witch, Horus take her filthy here-!”
“Your witch is a Sister of Silence,” I interrupted. “And I’ll thank you to stop insulting her before she cleaves your head from your body.”
Jurgen stopped moving. He stared up at the woman. “Oh.”
As I finally pulled myself free, the woman stood. She helped Jurgen up, dusting him off and setting his hat straight. When she turned to look at me again, I made the sign of the aquila and bowed deeply. “Greetings, blessed Null Maiden. Forgive my aide, he doesn’t know what you are.”
No response, of course. I looked up and she was shaking her head. Then, she pointed in the direction we were heading and beckoned the two of us to follow.
Hunting alongside a Null Maiden? If she hadn’t certainly been capable of dispatching me with one thrust of her power sword, I might have run back the way we came. As it was, my only option was to follow her lead. I motioned Jurgen ahead and followed as distantly as possible. As we progressed, the feeling of grit in my throat spread to my stomach, and a strange nausea began to rise within me. However, I knew it was more than my life was worth to fall back.
Jurgen, for his part, seemed entirely unconcerned by her aura. After being ordered to stand down, he had returned to his usual state of slightly gormless neutrality. When he approached the next mushroom with his machete ready, the Sister of Silence touched his arm and gestured for him to stand back. She pulled the blade from her back and activated the power edge, slicing the mushroom at the base and skewering it. Lifting it away from others, she lit it on fire. It burned in a brilliant orange flash, leaving little in its wake but an uncomfortably delicious aroma.
Turning to Jurgen, she tossed him the lighter, then turned away to cut another stalk down.
Jurgen looked towards me.
I nodded, and he stepped closer to her, lighting the mushrooms as she cut and raised them.
By the next sunset, we had travelled further than we had in any previous cycle. I had to admit, Jurgen and the Null Maiden made a formidable mushroom-clearing team. From my position as far behind as I could manage without losing sight of the two of them, I sent a message to the rest of our squad to return to base. There was no need to endanger them further.
An hour later, in the middle of the night, the light from our headlamps indicated the presence of a clearing ahead. Anticipating it to be the one where the psyker was said to be living, we switched our headlamps off. I prepared myself to announce our presence, but the Sister silenced me with a finger to her lips. Then, she pressed forward into the clearing, beckoning Jurgen to follow her closely.
No effort had been made to hide the hovel in the centre, which appeared to have been made of dried-out mushroom stalks. They leaned together to form a point, tied at the top with a piece of string, perhaps a bootlace. A small fire pit had been scratched into the ground nearby.
The Null Maiden crept forward silently, approaching the hovel. I stood back and watched as she knelt, extending a hand in. A shriek pierced the air. From within, the Sister drew out a middle-aged woman, frail from a diet of nothing but mushrooms. The psyker's mouth hung open, but no more shrieks could escape. Her eyes flicked between the Sister and Jürgen once, twice. Then, they rolled back in her head, and she went limp. The Null Maiden lifted the unconscious girl as though she weighed nothing, but her eyes fixed on Jürgen.
I nudged my aide forward. “Carry the captive, would you?”
Jürgen took the woman's body from the Sister, and the sister quickly took her power sword out again. She gestured back the way we came, indicating that it was time to return to Fort Delgor. I motioned for Jugen to follow her closely, then gave myself a little space to fall behind, but his aura and the Null Maiden’s still pressed in on me like two heavy blankets.
A sense of disappointment descended upon me as we left the clearing. My palms, which had served as my early warning system for so many years, remained silent. It felt as though a vital part of me had been shut off, a tool I relied on made useless. But I supposed that was the effect of hunting a psyker with both Jurgen and a Null Maiden; our quarry was neutralized so effectively, we had never been in any danger from her from the start. I wondered what Lord General Zyvan would think of my report of this mission, which was fated to be unusually bland.
Upon our return to Fort Delgor, Lord General Zyvan had no option but to give the Sisters of Silence full authority over the witch. As it turned out our companion, one Teresia Laskowa, was not the only one of her number planetside. She had landed with two of her sister Subjugators shortly after we had set off on our mission, and all three had quickly followed our hunt. They had made no contact whatsoever with the Guard, which had caused quite a commotion. I was glad to have missed that, though less than pleased to find out that I had been assigned as their main point of contact in absentia.
This dubious honour ended with my self and the three sisters in the most uncomfortable meeting room I have ever had the displeasure to be in. The one who had accompanied myself and Jurgen was hard to see when not stared at and seemed to dry my mouth out like a bitter fruit, but the other two were significantly more objectionable. One appeared to radiate disgust so palpable that it turned my stomach too; the other always seemed to stand much too close and breathe too loudly, though she sat behind the other two. And then, there was the little prolocutor. A girl of no more than ten, not fully inducted to their number, had been brought along to speak for them. This little girl, though sweet in smile and speech, seemed always to cast several more shadows than she should. Her mere presence darkened the lamps in the room.
I concluded all official business as quickly as I could and, having signed the witch over to them, put down my pen and rose to my feet. “Well, my ladies, if that will be all…”
A glance was shared among the three. Quick hand gestures, their form of speech, flitted back and forth between them. The space invader eventually nudged Sister Teresia, who seemed to finally give in and turn to sign at me once more. The little prolocutor grinned before piping up. “ Commissar Cain, I have one request .”
A request from the Anathema Psykana? I swallowed the dust in my throat before venturing, “Of course. What can I do for you?”
“ Call in your man. ”
I blinked. “My man? Jurgen?”
A few words were exchanged between the sisters. Were they joking with each other? Terra, were they smiling ? I suppressed a shudder.
“ Yes, Commissar .”
My heart sank. I nodded slowly, then raised my voice. “Jurgen!”
My faithful aide opened the door he had been guarding from the outside. “Yes, sir?”
“Come in. Shut the door behind you.”
Jurgen followed my instructions, his pungent aroma filling the air. Strangely, it relaxed me a little. It was familiar, and served as a slight veil against the oppressive strangeness of the four other blanks in the room. Jurgen stood beside me, his brow ever so slightly furrowed.
The women spoke again for a few seconds. I had just managed to work out the sign for, “He bit you!?” before Teresia shushed her sisters and addressed him.
“Gunner Ferik Jurgen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“ I would like to invite you to dinner.”
I am not proud to admit it, but my mouth dropped open. “You want to-”
“ Silence, Commissar. ” Teresia lowered her hand and addressed Jurgen once more. “ Will you attend?”
Jurgen shuffled from one foot to the other. He glanced up at me, and I stared back, incredulous. He cleared his throat. “Yeh, alright.”
Teresia clapped her hands. “ Excellent. I will meet you at the landing pad at midday, in two hours. ” She stood, as did her sisters. “ See you later, handsome. ”
The prolocutor delivered that final word with a giggle before following the Sisters out.
As the door shut behind them, I turned to Jurgen. “So.”
He stared balefully up at me. “S’pose I have to go.”
I nodded. “What do you think of her, Jurgen?”
“Don’t know,” he replied. “Don’t know her yet.”
For a man with such an extensive collection of porno slates, Jurgen had a remarkably pure heart, I thought. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, I think she likes you. Let’s get you something nice to wear. Play your cards right, and who knows…”
A small smile broke through Jurgen’s bushy beard.
I saw him to the launch pad two hours later, where he entered the Sisters’ shuttle.
After watching their shuttle set off, I returned to my duties. Yet, something was off. I found myself working much less effectively than usual. I was reminded how integral Jurgen had become to my life. When I needed things carried, he was there, ready to carry twice his bodyweight in equipment. When I was thirsty, he always had a pot of tanna on the boil. When I was lonesome, all I had to do was breathe more deeply, and his presence would make itself known. The little prolocutor may have many shadows, but I had two, and now, my favourite one was gone. As I went to sleep a few hours later, I hoped Jurgen was having a good time up on the Sisters’ golden ship. More than anything, though, I hoped they would return him in one piece.
Six hours later, my curtains were drawn. I roused from my sleep to see Jurgen tying them back, humming tunelessly to himself as he did every morning. I sat up slowly, examining my aide for any signs of something different. Was there a tiny smudge of pink on his collar? No, that was jam. Did he look happier than usual? Not particularly.
I reached for the cup of tanna on my bedside table and took a long sip before clearing my throat. “Good morning, Jurgen.”
He tipped his head in my direction. “Sir.”
I sipped again before I could not hold back my curiosity any longer. “So? How did it go with the Sisters?”
“Food was good,” he said. “But it were just me and Sister Teresia, sir. Not much for conversation, ain’t she?”
I sighed. “I don’t think conversation was what she had on her mind, Jurgen.”
“It wasn’t,” he agreed.
“And?”
“I let her down easy.”
“What!?” I spluttered into my tanna. “Why?”
“Not my type, sir.”
Jurgen turned to leave. I leaped from my bed and caught him by the sleeve, tanna spilling down the front of my pyjamas. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
Jurgen looked up at me with another of his rare smiles. “‘M not into redheads,” he said. Then, he looked at my pyjamas and mostly-empty cup. “Another cuppa, sir?”
I released him. “Yes, thank you.”
As I returned to bed, he paused at the door. “We did swap slates, though. She had some old Terran stuff. You can borrow it if you like.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to know more. “Thank you, Jurgen,” I said. “I’m alright for now.”
“Just say the word, sir.” With a final smile, my trusty aide slipped out of the door.