Spray and Pray - opening

  The Penitent Wanderers shave their skulls, so I wave the head of Drakos Twelve-Wounds around by the jaw. His tongue is soft beneath my fingers, still as warm as the blood that drenches my robes.
  ‘Isaac of the Imbrued Blade sends this man’s soul to the Blood Angel!’ I yell, and rev my chainsword as punctuation.
  Both gangs have spent their ammo and are laying into each other with clubs and knives, and I have to shout it again before anyone really hears. The Penitents know their champion; they know who Drakos put the knife to over the years; they know what kind of faith it would take to bring a bastard like that down. I’ve got that faith, and it scares them.
  Those that can, run, abandoning their chapel to our ministry. We could chase them, cut them down, but the Code’s there for a reason. One day, the Sanguinists will disappoint the Emperor and his Blood Angel, and we’ll be the ones running. It’s not cowardice that makes a warrior quit the field, but shame at falling short of the Angel’s expectations. If you let a runner live, they get the chance to redeem themselves, and that’s good for all of us: Sanguinists, Penitent Wanderers, Black Pilgrims, Angelsworn, and all the other gang-cults of Humility. We show our devotion through combat, not murder.
  I pace back and forth. My breathing is agitated. The burning rush of righteous combat still flows through my limbs. A half dozen Penitents are on the ground, some dead, some still moving, and I have to push down that lust for violence that, Code or no, makes me want to lash out at the survivors.
  I deactivate my chainsword. Its whine reduces to an unhealthy rattle before the fragments of flesh and bone tangled in the teeth cause it to stop entirely.
  ‘Isaac,’ calls Melkia. ‘What about their wounded?’
  The fighting’s done. Calm decisions are needed now. I let my anger fade with the roar of my weapon. ‘Depends,’ I say. ‘We lose anyone?’
  She nods towards Parris. The juve is slumped against one of the old chapel’s fallen pillars. The front of his robes is drenched red.
  I grit my teeth. It always hurts to lose a juve, but Parris had particular potential. The Emperor’s angels come to Humility from time to time and take the most pious boys from the holiest gangs. The Sanguinists gave a juve years back, long before I was born, and we’re still respected for it now.
  ‘Who?’ I grunt.
  ‘Drakos,’ she says.
  I lob Drakos’ head at a pillar. Bone cracks against marble. ‘Fair’s fair.’ I raise my voice for all the Sanguinists to hear. ‘There’ll be no vendetta for Parris! You get that?’ They need to understand. The Penitent Wanderers are going to be riled enough that we hit them in one of their chapels, so I don’t want any of the brethren whacking random Penitents out of vengeance. We don’t need to start a war.