Angels of the Killing Hymn
The Darsimal Salient
by RoxyNychus
My sisters and I stand in the front trench, awaiting the music.
The troops huddle against the wall across from us their muddy green uniforms, soaked from the incessant rain. Some are silent, watching the grey sky or staring down at the duckboards. Some mutter prayers, cowed by the barking of machine guns along our lines and crash of artillery which sound like it hits closer to us each time. Some look at us, their eyes a blend of fear and curiosity.
“Ready,” calls an officer further down the trench, her voice hoarse from shouting over the guns. “The Virtues go first, then we follow.”
More and more peer up at us, hesitant, as if the sight will burn them. Perhaps it does. We’re a proud vision, admittedly, four women clad in steel plate save for the exposed upper halves of our faces. The cold rain slicks my red hair to my neck and runs down the mask covering my nose and mouth, dripping onto my breastplate. They aren’t looking at these things, of course. They’re looking at the soft golden shimmer of our eyes and the silver halos wrapped around our heads, and the submachine guns we hold to our chests.
We are the answer to those quiet prayers. We are Her blade.
The burnt meat stink of the enemy reaches my nose, sharp even through the shit-and-sickness atmosphere around us. My finger twitches on the trigger guard.
But the wait is over. She’s arrived.
She all but glows amidst the squalor, a star drifting through the trench, white overcoat is as pristine as the day we arrived at the front and a hood keeping the downpour from her face. Taking her place before the four of us, her cool eyes sweep over our line, evaluating. Her approval is both the beacon that will guide us and the dark that could smother us.
She is not Her. Only Her Proxy. But even an ember blown off the fire can burn.
Satisfied, the Proxy asks, “Are we ready?” Her crisp voice cuts through the clamour of the encroaching battle, a wind blowing away the storm.
“Yes, Proxy,” we reply as one voice.
“Then let us listen.” She pulls a tape recorder out from her overcoat and clicks it on.
And then comes the music. The Hymn. It rolls over us like an avalanche, droning at the edge of discordance and washing everything else from our notice. A chorus of trilling voices sings half-drowned in its current. I can make out words but can’t understand them. They aren’t for us to understand.
The Hymn rumbles out, leaving us adrift in its wake.
The Proxy slips the recorder away. “Go.”
Purpose erupts inside us, a fiery hand grabbing our throats. We turn and fly up the ladders. Above the world is a mire of brown and red, rent open with shell holes and littered with dead. Mats of wet pulsing crimson bulge from the terrain like tumors. My eyes find movement, a mob of anemic figures shambling closer. The sight curdles my guts with loathing. We charge them, gunning them down and sprinting over their torn bodies on our way deeper into no-man’s land.
Before our arrival, the troops here had only been holding the line. Now we lead the counterattack.
Soon the field rises in a muddy slope, lined with the crumbling husks of old buildings. A whistling catches my ears and I slide beneath the cover of a low stone wall. For a moment the world turns to mud and thunder as a strikes a short distance ahead of us. Mud and shrapnel slap against my cover but none finds me. Looking up, I see my sisters have found shelter as well, hunkered behind a shallow ridge.
Vaulting over our cover, we advance over the crest. There’d been a village there once, perhaps a town square. Now the houses and fences are overgrown with pulsating meat, the open square pocked with shell holes. A fresh bolt of hate shoots through me. Kindling on the fire. Ahead the enemy opens on us from the craters and ruins, bullets hissing past our ears and snapping as they strike stone and wood. We spread out among the houses on our side of the square.
As I move along a wall, a door crashes open in front of me and one of them emerges. It’s as if someone had tried to rebuild one of the dead men half-buried in the mud and had to hold him together with struts and plates of scrap metal. Its jaw gapes soundlessly, most of the head above it missing. One of the Host. The enemy. One of its forearms has been replaced with a rifle and the other with the top half of a spear, rusted head levelled to run me through. I grab the blade and unload a flurry of rounds into its chest, shredding the weak armor and weaker flesh within.
There’s an explosion in the centre- a grenade, one of my sisters flushing the Host from their holes. Leaning around a corner, I spot a few stragglers lurching away from a smoking crater towards us. They do not feel fear. Neither do we. Not of them. We open fire and they collapse beneath a haze of wine red. Across the square, more either emerge to charge us or skirt around to flank.
Surging from our cover to meet those in the center, we tear our way across the square, butchering with the focus of starving predators. Sliding into holes to kill anything mistaking them for safety, emerging to kill those above. Bullets jab at our armor but it’s sturdy enough to take grazes. We’re too swift for them to land anything more. A heady mix of adrenaline and bloody loathing scorch through my veins. My mind is narrowed to the slaughter. There is only the crackle of my weapon and their oily blood splashing against my face. My weapon clicks empty and I cave the next foe’s chest in with a thrust from the butt.
I reload as we race deeper into the dead village. By now the troops will have caught up to finish off anything we missed. More thralls try to ambush us from side roads and dilapidated cottages but we are fire racing over oil, leaving ruin and gun smoke in our wake.
Soon we emerge into another stretch of acrid rusty mud and see our targets ahead: four tall pillars of flesh and metal, angled towards us. Their necks contract and smoke belches from their mouths with a peel of thunder. The Host artillery. Shells screaming over our heads, we press on towards the crude palisades behind which our prey hides. Our orders are to secure the artillery so the engineers can destroy them. I wish I could cut their long throats myself. But we will obey.
More thralls fire on us from a trench hidden behind the palisades, a gnarled loop of barbed wire glinting in the rain over them. But no-man’s land takes our side, all furrows and ridges and dead trees to cover us as we close in. They miss or graze and we pounce over the wire and down upon them. I land atop one and crush what remains of its head beneath my boot. Within moments the trench is clear as we shred the Host with guns, knives, fists, boots, I twist the bladed forearm off of one and impale it with its own weapon. Killing them is a high we never tire of. We kill by Her order. We kill in Her name.
Then, a moment of relative peace. Climbing out, we slip back the palisades and stalk around the big guns, alert for any more foes. Remnants of brick walls stand around the perimeter, all that’s left of whatever this place was before the rot took it. I wipe my eyes, a mixture of rain and dark viscous blood running down my face. My head swims, threatening an adrenaline crash. These pauses are the worst part. Soaring on the pulsing, fiery high of serving Her, only to land and wait for the gale to rise again.
My eyes pass over a section of wall off to the side. Something sticks out from it, a small bulge I almost take for part of the rot-growth, were it not too dark against that raw steak crimson. Going over, I pull it out from where it’s wedged under a loose brick. It’s a leather pouch. Undoing the string fastening it shut, I find a piece of folded paper inside. I unfold it. A hastily scrawled note, speckled with mud but legible enough. Or at least it would be, were it in a language I knew. Instead it’s lines of symbols I don’t recognize. A code?
The mud trembles beneath my boots.
I have a heartbeat to jump back from the wall before something barrels through it, a hulking red mess of limbs and mismatched armor. Its clubbed arms swing at me as my back hits the dirt and it sails over me. The two of us roll, myself like a small car and it like an armored truck. It rights itself, sturdy hind legs digging into the mud. Another of the Host. Not like the thralls we’ve been fighting, however. An intercessor.
A fresh surge of zeal scorches through me. Finally. Taking positions behind the big guns, we all fire on the monster, a closing ring of lead. It lacks a head so we target the limbs. But it’s fast. It charges at me again before I can reach cover and I sidestep a downwards swing of its arm. I don’t dodge the swift kick from its foreleg to my ribs. Pain erupts through my body as I’m sent rolling again, and only stop when my shoulder hits the brick wall. Gritting my teeth, I scramble to my feet as my sisters barrage it. It turns on them but I fire into its back. Sparks and thick blood spray from across its body.
The intercessor veers suddenly towards one of my sisters, Brea. She cleanly slips around the other side of her artillery and unloads into its back as it passes her, not missing a step of the dance. It begins to lose momentum as rent flesh and wounded metal slough from its body.
I clench my jaw. Brea is good. Too good.
Dropping my gun, I draw a deep breath and unsheathe the short sword from my belt. An unassuming thing, just a foot or so of dull steel. Until I exhale. Let flow all my loathing for the abomination before me, and all my devotion to Her.
The blade gorges on my love and hate. It explodes with mercurial flames which twist together into five feet of hissing, sparking wrath, sizzling in the rain. Its light stings my eyes and scalds my face.
The intercessor sees the challenge. It banks towards me again, limping and bleeding but still fast. This time I’m ready. Just before it reaches me I twist to the side and with that momentum bring my blade through its midsection. Impact shudders throughout my body but the cut is true. Burning meat and molten smoke sour the air as the flames melt through the monster. Its upper body teeters forward. Swinging through the dark haze of gore and smog, I reposition and follow through with a downwards stab to its back and drag the roaring, spitting fire down its spine. The intercessor goes still as I bisect it down the middle.
With another long exhale, I let my weapon sputter out, the steel hissing in the rain. Then comes the crash, my vision darkening and my head swimming. Power has a cost, even when it comes from Her. Sheathing the sword, I slick my hair back from my eyes and take a moment to steady my breathing. Once my legs no longer threaten to buckle I turn back to my sisters. They’re watching, their golden eyes serene as always. Our fury doesn’t show on our faces. It’s only for us to feel, and to share through slaughter.
I know they fume inside. They missed their chance to kill such an enemy- to impress Her.
I lock gazes with Brea in particular. Tendrils of her short dark hair coil across her forehead. Her grip is still tight on her SMG. Beneath my mask, I smile.
In the fight, however, I’d almost forgotten the note. I turn back to where I’d last had it. I have to go back and search a moment before I find it crumpled into the mud, drenched in the intercessor’s blood.
***
Tired from nearly two weeks of daily combat, we collapse onto the blankets, already numb to the rumble of the train and clamor of the troops coming and going from the station. My ribs and shoulder ache and every muscle in me is sore. The Proxy sits in a chair across from us, sipping a cup of coffee as she reads by the light entering through the rain-speckled windows.
As we wait, someone knocks on the car door. “Come in,” calls the Proxy.
The door opens, and an older woman wearing a Colonel’s grey-brimmed cap enters. Her tone is flat as she says, “I’d like a word, Officer.”
The Proxy lays her book in her lap. “About...?”
“About your unit.” The Colonel’s footsteps are damp and heavy with the mud caked to her boots as she approaches the Proxy. “I’d say I’m impressed but frankly, I’m more so morbidly curious.”
Arching a fine brow, the Proxy asks, “Is it so morbid, Colonel?”
“I would say so,” replies the older woman. “Over the past three weeks, I’ve watched hundreds of soldiers be killed or maimed trying to reach those guns. Then yesterday, I watched four take them in twenty minutes. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it struck me as...” Her wizened face twists as she chooses her words. “Unnatural.”
“You’re not wrong,” the Proxy grants her, a faint smile playing across her lips. “Project Evenstar is quite experimental. Unconventional times call for unconventional measures.”
“And what, may I ask, is the nature of this experiment, Officer?”
The Proxy gestures past her to us. “See for yourself.”
The Colonel follows her lead and she sees us, nestled in among the crates. Her brow furrows. “That’s not them, is it?”
We’re stripped to our leather undersuits and sprawled out across the blankets, only our halos and masks remaining of our armor. Getye stirs often. I’ve twice already had to push her away and readjust my mask after her elbow displaced it. Brea snores softly in a heap nearby. Imeshan is curled up against one of the crates, her eyes hooded and staring down at the blankets.
“The Queen-Minister’s Virtues, in the flesh.” The Proxy sips her coffee again. “They’ve just spent the last week and a half securing the Salient for you.”
Lips pressing tight, the Colonel looks us over. “Why’ve they got those things on their faces?”
Amusement flashes across the Proxy’s face again. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they, Colonel?”
Warmth flutters through me. The Proxy’s praise is Her praise.
The older woman shoots her an irritated look. “Let’s stay on topic, Officer.”
“I am.” The Proxy tips her cup towards us. “They’re beautiful, wouldn’t you say?”
Humoring her, the Colonel turns back and eyes flicking between us. “I suppose they are,” she admits. “And?”
“Look at their eyes in particular,” the Proxy continues, watching us as well. “The peaceful expression, the golden shine. Do you feel anything, seeing that?”
At this prompting, we all peer up at the Colonel. Letting her see. She leans a little closer. Her brow is still knitted tight but her severe glare has started to loosen. She says, “I... suppose I do.”
“They have a sort of presence about them, don’t they?” There’s something warm in how the Proxy looks at us. It’s not fondness, exactly. Perhaps not even pride in her troops for a job well done. But it does kindle that flutter inside me. “I once heard someone compare it to looking up at the Grand Temple as the noon bells chime.”
The Colonel’s eyes have changed. They dart between our gazes. “Yes,” she agrees, her focus drifting. “An apt comparison. I suppose.”
“Now,” adds the Proxy. “Imagine if you could see all of their faces.”
The Colonel seems transfixed by the thought. Suddenly she blinks. As if remembering, or just realizing something. She turns back to the Proxy. “Well, Officer.” Her words are clipped. Whatever presence she found in our eyes has affected her. “I hope your... Experiment continues to find success, and I hope to hear no more of it than I have to.”
The Proxy gives her a patient smile. “We’ll see what we can do, Colonel.”
The Colonel leaves, and the train lurches into motion soon afterwards. We spend the next four days taking it north, sleeping through most of the trip. Finally one afternoon, the windows darken for a moment as the train passes beneath an immense structure- the outer wall of Cratavn. The manure-and-slaughterhouse smell of the city’s agricultural sector reaches our noses and we perk up. We are almost back with Her. Next we pass through the industrial sector and outer residential area, then beneath the inner wall into the last city’s heart. Finally the train slows as it dips down into the earth, beneath the longest shadow yet: Vandett Tower.
We take a lift up to the showers first, where we remove our masks and peel off our undersuits to step under the hot water. It’s highly pressurized, needling our skin. I like it this way. It presses out the worst of the soreness. I do wince as the water hits the small plates and nubs of exposed crystal across my torso and limbs, like a someone flicking their finger against a paper cut. Runes cut into the crystal glower with meagre light, responding to my discomfort. This thaumaturgy is what grants us our strength, speed, and stamina. I’m thankful for the blessing. The triangular plate between my breasts stings the most.
“Lakera.” A voice crackles through the intercom. “Report to the Queen-Minister’s quarters.”
I perk up, abuzz despite the fatigue. My sisters turn their tired eyes on me. Hurrying through washing up and drying off, I dress and put my mask back on before leaving the showers. I mustn’t leave my Queen waiting.
The Queen-Minister’s quarters are a cathedral unto themselves, a lavish common room arranged before a crackling fireplace. Daylight enters through tall windows, framed by hanging tapestries, rain tapping against the glass. Hints of cinnamon tinge the warm air, rising from a small silver incense pot on the dining table.
Sat at the head of this table, reading over an open journal, is Queen-Minister Charith. Her golden hair flows in immaculate waves down her back and shoulders, and the silver-and-emerald trim along the cuffs and collar of Her flowing white overcoat glimmer as the light catches them. Even in the daylight She illuminates the spaces around Her. She looks up from the pages, pale eyes fixing me. Anticipation jolts through me.
The Proxy stands behind Her, wearing a pristine white jacket now. “That will do, Officer,” my Queen says, handing the book off to her. “I hope to read the full report by tomorrow evening.”
Folding the book beneath her arm, the Proxy gives a low bow. “Of course, your Grace.” She then wastes no time leaving us. I catch a whiff of lavender and oil as she passes me.
Once it is just my Queen and I, She stands. “Here.”
I go to her side. My Queen is a tall woman, almost as tall as me. Her presence fills the room as surely as the sunlight through the windows, and the darkness which will replace it once night falls. Her Proxy was untouched by the filth of the trenches, warded by the fragment of Her light she carries. In the presence of the Queen-Minister Herself, there is no filth to be touched by.
She regards me with a smile, subtle crows feet crinkling at the edges of Her eyes. “Your choir did well at the Salient, Lakera.” Her voice is clear and soft up close. She has no need to put force behind Her words. One need only feel Her presence thrumming in the air, tingling through the fine hairs of their body like static, to know they must heed Her. She strokes my cheek, Her touch sunlight on a warm spring day. “As I’d expected.”
My eyes flutter shut as I lean into Her hand, a smile of my own creeping across my face. It isn’t just elation I feel. It’s relief. Relief at knowing She’s pleased with me- at knowing I remain Her favorite.
“Serving me so well, my sweet angel.” Her voice is the gentlest music, precise yet melodious and textured with a wizened husk. “Save for one thing.”
My eyes snap open.
Nothing in my Queen’s face or posture has changed. No, it’s the energy between us. A shift in the power Her demeanour exudes, turned on a pinhead by those last few words. Made as precarious as the mud back at the front, littered with buried shrapnel and barbed wire, waiting to catch in flesh.
She withdraws Her hand and folds it behind Her back. “Down.”
I kneel before Her, the marble floor icy against my knees. I am a weapon of fire and metal. Hundreds of the Host have been thrown back into hell by my hand. Yet as my Queen stares down at me, I wither. I am a frightened pup, seeking the warmth of a scornful master.
She says, “Confess.”
Dread fills me. I try to recall what I did wrong. I search Her face for guidance but it’s become impassive.
She repeats, “Confess.” Her gaze has cooled, a midwinter night falling fast.
I blink up at Her, feeling as stupid as I know I must look. Hadn’t I secured the Salient? Killed an intercessor, by Her order, in Her name? “Queen-Minister, I-I...”
Pressure kneads my temples beneath the arms of my halo. My vision melts into pale blurs and I blink again, trying to focus.
“I understand,” my Queen says, appraising me with eyes that see every mote of dust and every unspoken sin. I become aware of how tight my undersuit is, every curve and muscle defined. Her gaze may as well cut through the material, into my flesh and down to the bone and mineral within. “Battle is hectic and confusing. Even with experience, it can be difficult to remain focused.”
The pressure lessens enough for my vision to clear, but I still feel it coiled around my skull, radiating from the halo. I wrack my mind. How have I failed her?
“Still,” She says, “I expect better.” The words are a fist to my throat. “Your sisters could have been killed. What were you doing, Lakera? When you stood there gawking at rubble, letting the enemy hit you, what did you imagine you saw?”
Relief fills me. I can explain myself. She’ll forgive me once I explain myself. “I found a note,” I begin, my voice thin from disuse. I speak only when my Queen or Her Proxy addresses me. “Hidden in the ruins.”
“Oh?” She raises Her golden brow. “And where is this note?”
My hopes fall but don’t crash yet. “I lost it in combat,” I continue. “But it hadn’t been there long when I found it, it was written in a sort of code...”
The pressure increases, and it doesn’t stay around my head. It’s the worst there, a spectral fist tightening, but I feel it in my chest as well around my lungs, I can breathe only in short sharp gasps. Around my limbs locking them up, I collapse onto my side on the cold marble. Around my breasts and penis, I writhe as much as my seizing limbs will allow. It teeters somewhere between ecstasy and anguish, overwhelming my senses and shuddering through my flesh.
“You did not find a note, Lakera.” My Queen studies me as I twitch, Her voice cutting through the overstimulation. “You could not have, because aside from my armies fighting back the rot, there are no people outside of Cratavn.”
She’s right. I know my Queen is right. The extinction of humanity beyond the city walls is detailed in the tapestries hanging along the walls, the red cancer of the Host swallowing armies and nations. My eyes are useless now but the images are pristine in my memory. My choir and I have seen combat dozens of times, and all we’ve ever found were mud and ruins and shambling horrors of iron and meat.
But I saw the note. I held it in my hand. I remember the symbols it was coded with.
I try to tell her again. If there is even the slightest chance that humankind has survived outside of Cratavn, shouldn’t my Queen know? Shouldn’t we try to find these people? But my body is still a quivering heap. Saliva has started to trail from my open mouth. A soft groan is all I can manage.
Finally it begins to subside. I gasp for air. My Queen allows me a few moments to recover. She says, “Repeat it.”
“There wassnn…” My words are slurred. I manage to swallow and try again. “There wasn’t a note. I didn’t find a note. I was distracted.”
“And why didn’t you find a note, Lakera?”
“Humanity is dead outside the city.”
She repeats, final as a gunshot, “Confess.”
“I allowed myself to become distracted in battle,” I say, my head still throbbing even with the pressure fading. “I endangered myself and my sisters.”
She weighs this in silence. The dread returns, so heavy that for a moment, I wish that pressure had crushed me.
Finally, my Queen says, “Up, to your knees.”
Fighting my body, I rise unsteadily. Shame hangs off my back by cold, hooked claws. I have disappointed my Queen. It takes all I have to meet Her gaze. When I do, however, Her eyes have warmed again.
“Lakera,” She says, reaching down to brush Her fingertips through my hair. “My Virtue. My angel. I absolve you.”
It’s as if none of it had happened. The shame falls away. My pains are forgotten. An aching, radiant joy blooms from deep within my chest, and my trembling lips find their way into a smile. My Queen absolves me. I am still Hers.
She orders me, “Up.” I rise more steady now. “That’s all, Lakera. You may go.” She returns to the table, where other books await Her attention. I leave, the note already fading into the back of my mind. If there had been anything to it, My Queen would have said so.
Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to see more from me, you can find me on BlueSky at @roxynychus.bsky.social!