Chapter Nine

"The Warrant of Trade and a starship to enforce it—these are the critical tools for a Rogue Trader. Without the former, he is merely a renegade. Without the latter, he is a forsaken drifter doomed to an anonymous death."

—Lord-Captain Laomyr of Battlefleet Calixis

The Lands Beyond The Wall. Westeros.

Inquisitor Allectus Jacobus of the Ordo Mallus had a shuttle that was so packed with Dark Age of Technology devices that his personal craft might as well be invisible. No auspex on the Dauntless-class Crusier had even registered the shuttle departing so it was a good thing that they'd left before the troop landers had started moving or there would have been a slight risk of danger in so suddenly leaving.

On board, the shuttle there was Sister Brigicia of the Adepta Sororitas and Sanctioned Psyker Suzan, the Inquisitor's often mind-cleansed bodyguards, who might as well be combat servitors for their personality, along with two squads of Valhallan Ice Warriors who were part of the Imperial Guard regiment posted on the cruiser. Given their experience with extreme cold, they made more sense to bring along than stormtroopers.

The regiment was made up of elements from other regiments which had all ended up at the forge-world after being heavily depleted in numbers during conflicts in different parts of the sector. It wasn't unheard of broken groups of guardsmen to be fused into a new one, but it was rare for so many fighting men and women from different worlds to end up in one big regiment. Then again on a Rouge Traders ship, things ran differently.

"The night is dark and full of terrors," said Suzan.

Allectus's pet psyker looked so normal and harmless that it was hard to imagine that her sanity was at any risk and while she was mostly a source of information she could be a weapon if motivated. She could channel destructive warp fire or bolts of destructive lightning if she really needed to, and the only reason she did this rarely was that channelling the raw power of the warp in such a way increased the risk of demonic possession. Plus there were other ways a psykers power could get out of control.

While it might seem like she made little sense when speaking everything she spoke about was worth hearing even if Allectus didn't always understand the hidden meaning of her words. A more normal person would have heard her last words and avoided going beyond The Wall when it was dark, however, as an Inquisitor it was his task to find the terrors and to destroy them.

As the shuttle flew over The Wall, remaining unseen due to its lack of running lights and the cloud cover, Allectus recalled from his long talk with a native human about how The Wall had been raised to keep out a population of savage humans, but anyone who believed that was a total fool, even if this world had been more advanced in the past The Wall would have still been a massive project and no would have invested so much in the way of resources to build The Wall just to keep out some raiders.

"If I may ask, Inquisitor, what are we looking for?" questioned Sister Brigicia.

The women in power armour rarely asked questions and never did so needlessly.

"In truth I am unsure" admitted Allectus "The readings of the auspex from orbit were not clear, but it seems that the human population of this land is migrating south and given the massive wall in the way they would not be doing so unless it was for a very important reason. That combined with Suzan's warning lead me to beliving that something far north of The Wall is a threat to the Emperor's newest world".

Sister Brigicia didn't trust any psyker, she'd battled witches and seen the horrors that rogue psykers could unleash upon the Emperor's people, but she made sure to keep a civil tongue around Suzan since while the sanctioned psykers that served the Imperium, such as the Astropath and Navigators, were impure they were necessary for the Imperium to function. The Emperor himself had known this and his will could be carried about by even Suzan. Despite how odd as she could be.

"Any group of humans capable of surviving in this climate would not flee to the south unless they felt they had no chance of victory against their enemy," said Sister Brigicia "Perhaps something is effecting their lands, a change to their environment?".

Brigica had once seen a forest fire that drove men and beasts to flee for miles, she and her sisters had aided with the evacuation of entire villages, despite how many had died or been made homeless, she considered her actions that day to have made the Emperor proud.

"No one knows what it's like to be the bad man" Suzan softly sang "Behind blue eyes".

Well at least that part was easy for both Allectus and Brigicia to understand, they should seek out someone with blue eyes. Not a hard task given that blue was a common colour of the eyes for humans, although in a moment of vanity Sister Brigicia admitted to herself that her green eyes were an attractive feature even if few ever got a good look at them. Her order might be one of those who valued chastity very highly, but that never removed all of their sinful vanity and desires. Sister Brigicia chided herself and promised to repent later for her lapse, either at the alter or by slaying the enemies of The Emperor, if offered the choice she knew which she would prefer.

As it turned out she would soon get her wish when the Inquisitor's silent pilot was force to land the shuttle when an unexpected and unnatural blizzard began. The snow storm passed very quickly and thanks to their holy power armour neither she nor the Inquisitor felt much. The guardsmen, who hailed from the frozen world of Valhalla bore up very well, only remarking that it was a bit nippy. Suzan must have some way to use her pysker powers to keep herself warm as she seemed unbothered. As for the bodyguards, they'd freeze to death before commenting.

"They're here!" called out the somewhat unhinged psychic woman.

The Inquisitor lifted his weapon, it was a Daemonhammer, a type of large, two-handed Imperial made warhammer crafted from rare ores and composite materials from humanity's ancient and more technologically advanced past. The shaft of this Daemonhammer was covered in hexagrammic sigils and seals of warding, while on its head bore the burning sigil of the Inquisition, from which emanated a crackling power field. Daemonhammers are extremely rare in the Imperium, and their use is granted only to the most trusted and respected Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus, the Astartes of the Grey Knights, and sometimes to various Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes who have defeated a particularly potent Greater Daemon in combat.

Sister Brigicia's bolt pistol and chainsword might be more common weapons, but they had been blessed and when the first enemy appeared she found that her bolt pistol made short work of the dead things. She didn't know if these moving corpses were puppets of some witch or the hosts of minor warp creatures, and it hardly mattered since either way they needed to be destroyed.

"Form a barrier!" ordered the Inquisitor "Don't let them bear the boarding ramp".

The shuttle hadn't been damaged, only forced to the ground by a sudden blizzard that blinded the pilot and the auspex, so they should be able to take off again, but not until they found out more about the enemy, and to that they needed to draw out whomever or whatever it was that command the dead things. So the servents of the Emperor took positions and made sure no foe got inside the shuttle.

"Burn them all!" yelled Suzan.

The psyker hadn't even bothered reading for the autopistol and dagger that she had hanging off her belt. Rather she was employing a power called the Scourging, she was lashing out with bolts of warp energy that caused the dead to burn in unnatural flames as the power that animated them was defeated. In the heat of battle, the fact that the dead things all had blue eyes wasn't noticed.

These dead things were not very impressive in the eyes of the battle-sister even the hellguns of the Inquisitor's bodyguards and the weaker lasguns of the Valhallan Ice Warriors, who might need a minor mind-cleansing after this mission, proved to be effective. The deadly beams fired by the weapons caused the dead things to catch fire and when that happened they just dropped.

If not for their numbers this would have been a short battle, only the enemy didn't seem to run out of bolter fodder, and while the Valhallan Ice Warriors and bodyguards had laser weapons that could keep firing for some time the bolt pistols carried by the battle sister and the Inquisitor required resupply. There was more ammo on the shuttle, but recovering it would require leaving the skirmish and neither of them would do that, not with enemies of the Emperor in need of slaying.

Instead they both switched to close combat weapons, with the Inquisitor wielding his daemonhammer and the sister made use of her chainsword. The razor-sharp teeth of the chainsword did more than enough damage to take the dead things out of action and when they made contact with the daemonhammer they simply shattered into fragments of frozen flesh and bone.

Brigicia had just finished stomping the skull of a dead thing that had kept moving even after she'd bisected it at the waist when the machine spirit of her armour informed her of another drop in the temperature and visibility became even poorer. Then she heard the screaming as something attacked the Ice Warriors and the Inquisitor's bodyguards. When she could see again she made out a humanoid shape with glowing blue eyes.

With the kind of speed that could only be achieved with practice the battle sister took her bolt pistol out of its holster and fired off a shot, it hit the humanoid figure and it dropped the ground only for it to get back up again. This should be impossible unless witchcraft was involved, so Brigicia quickly realised that this creature must the one who had been puppeteering the corpses or at least of the leaders of some cult.

When the creature got closer it showed that if it was human then it was a mutant of some kind and perhaps not human at all as while it had some superficial resemblance to a man so did the hated Eldar. Whatever it was she knew it to be a threat as it had killed loyal servents of the Emperor, thus sealing its own fate. She would cleanse this threat to mankind as she down with the other enemies she had encountered during her years of service to the Golden Throne.

She charged, bringing down her chainsword for a strike that would have driven the teeth of the blade into the shoulder of the creature had it connected. The creature met the blow with its own weapon, with looked like a spear made of ice and the two weapons struggled against each other until the motor of the chainsaw gave out rendering the weapon far less effective.

With unexpected strength, the creature knocked down the battle sister and was about to make an attack when I blast of warp energy struck the blue-eyed humanoid and it shattered into fragments of ice. Suzan had just saved her life and while Brigicia might never live that down, at least she would live. As she made her way over the psyker she saw that Suzan had harmed herself by using so much of her power.

"We are leaving!" the Inquisitor called out.

When Brigicia turned she saw the Inquisitor swinging his daemonhammer at another of the blue-eyed creatures, which shattered like the other had when the powerful weapon made contact. The creatures might be able to resist the power of more ordinary weapons, but the killing tools of the Inquisition and the powers of psyker could defeat them.

"Once we reach orbit I will order the cruiser to orbital bombard this region" informed their leader "and the other parts of the lands beyond The Wall that auspex can not scan".

This would be for the best, but the battle-sister had the feeling that this world had plenty more horrors for her to help destroy.