by C Z Dunn
‘I think in their own way they are,’ Strike said regretfully. He handed Brigstone the knives he was carrying and retrieved more from the bag. ‘But for now, let us remember our dead while we still can.’
Strike started off across the memorial field, a sea of glinting blades and fluttering scraps of uniform as far as the eye could see.
Overhead, a wing of Imperial Navy Thunderbolts flew in tight formation, nine craft forming a perfect V shape. As they reached the Imperial Guard memorial, eight of them peeled off leaving just the flight leader to continue flying true and straight. Traditionally only one of the craft would have broken ranks, but the losses incurred on Pythos were such that eight seemed a more appropriate salute.
Besides, the new wing commander of the Pythos Third Fighter Wing was anything but a traditionalist.
Epaulets gleaming under the high sun, Shira Hagen sat in the cockpit of her Thunderbolt gripping the controls to maintain her course. Her new ride was unfamiliar to her, but it had enough in common with the Kestrel that she had been cleared to fly one as soon as her ankle had healed. Rumour had it that the ejector mechanism actually worked on this pattern of Thunderbolt, which given the fates of the previous two craft she had flown, might be useful at some point.
Her new rank and fighter were not the only things that had changed. The instant she had left the medicae on a pair of proper crutches, she had started to ask questions around the Imperial Guard camp about obtaining certain items. The brushes had been the easiest to get hold of, the treadheads in the armoured battalions always keen on marking their kill tallies along their hulls. The paint was a little trickier to come by but after convincing a Cadian quartermaster to join her at the dice table she had walked away with the exact colours she had required.
The vox-link in her newly repainted helmet squawked into life, the tinny hiss of a ground controller. ‘Wing Commander Hagen. Heldrake spotted over the Olympax Range. Second Wing are already engaged but require assistance.’
‘Ragwing?’ she replied hopefully. Her exploits against the daemon engine – along with a recommendation from the new planetary governor – had helped secure her promotion and the legend of the beast, along with the name she had given it, was the talk of the Navy mess halls.
‘Affirmative, Wing Commander,’ came the crackling reply.
‘Back in formation, Third Wing,’ she said, switching to an open channel.
She looked out of her cockpit to see all eight of her fellow pilots slotting in behind her. Another set of eyes watched on, large and reptilian where once was the image of a pair of hawk eyes, set above a fanged maw painted over the hooked beak. Gone too were the representations of grey feathers, replaced by the likeness of green scales.
‘We have a dragon to slay.’
227961.M41 / The Emerald Cave. Atika, Pythos
It moved on all fours, bounding over the corpses yet to be removed from the killing field and darting between the scorched and mangled ruins of tanks and flyers. Occasionally it would stop to look more closely at one of the abandoned vehicles, sometimes scoring a strange mark into the hull, other times removing some component and placing it carefully into the pack it carried on its back. In the main it ignored them, intent on recovering what it had come down so deep to find.
Its inhuman eyes could see perfectly well in the darkness, but it wore a lamp fashioned from Pythosian crystal strapped to its forehead. To any onlooker it would have seemed like a miner strayed too far from the pit tunnels, but the only eyes that looked upon it were dead ones and what it sought was far more important – to it, at least – than mere jewels or rocks.
The red beam of light refracted from the emeralds in the wall as it turned to look around, casting the entire chamber in a strange, dull hue. Spotting what it had come for, it emitted a loud exclamation of success and leapt from wreck to wreck, seemingly heedless to its own wellbeing as it slammed against the hard metal.
Halting atop the sheared hull of a super-heavy, it looked along its length, making certain that it had located its quarry. Jumping down, it ran the back of a hairy arm along an armoured fairing, wiping away the coating of soot and daemonic residues. Shining its lamp upon it, two words carefully scripted in High Gothic were revealed: Traitor’s Bane.
With another screech of joy, K’Cee pulled a wrench from out of his backpack and set to work at the long task he had ahead of him.
??????.M?? / Somewhere in the Eye of Terror
The heavy door to the cell creaked open slowly, sending two of its occupants scurrying to the corners. If they could, the other two beings in the cell might have done likewise but, fused together and suspended from chains made from an unbreakable warpforged metal, that was beyond their current abilities.
Abaddon stepped into the darkened prison, the amber eyes of one of the xenos blanks regarding him with fear. On the other side of the cell, the female human blank, naked and caked in filth, snarled like a cornered beast. The Warmaster ignored them both, focused solely on who – or, more accurately – what was hanging in the centre of the cell.
His powerful arms bound at the wrists, Epimetheus’s similarly shackled feet hung a metre above the cold stone floor of the dungeon. His skin was a ruin of scar tissue, his black carapace having been removed early in his captivity, and his eyes and mouth had been sewn shut with fibre hewn from the sinew of daemons. Behind his sealed lips sat the void where his tongue used to be, Abaddon making good on his promise at the time of capture, and a clean surgical wound ran along the side of his throat where the progenoids had been extracted.
The price in oaths and fealty that the Warmaster had received from Fabius Bile and his ilk in exchange for this particular genetic material was immeasurable. When next he launched a Black Crusade upon the Imperium Abaddon would not only reap the benefits of that loyalty but, with the blessing of the Four, have new and more powerful troops at his disposal.
And, if his ultimate plan should come to fruition… No, similar ventures had been attempted in the past and come to naught. The Warmaster dealt in practicalities and actualities, not what ifs.
Sensing a presence in the room, Epimetheus twisted on his chains, his enhanced physiology still granting him the strength to do so in spite of the unknowable amount of time he had been in captivity. As he spun above the ground, the true extent of the horrors wrought upon Epimetheus became apparent, driving a smirk to Abaddon’s lips.
His limbs removed, the third blank was grafted to Epimetheus’s back, one last failsafe should the emasculated Grey Knight slip his bonds and attempt to escape. The man was barely alive, the dull eyes set below a heavy brow barely open, and tubes protruded from holes bored in his torso through which flowed dark liquids, sustaining his hellish existence.
Abaddon drew close to his captive, causing both Epimetheus and the symbiotic blank to flinch. The Grey Knight’s nostrils flared. Despite being deprived of most of his senses, he could tell that the Warmaster was near.
Leaning in close to his prisoner’s ear, Abaddon whispered, ‘Soon, Epimetheus. Soon.’
The breath being forced from Epimetheus’s nose became grunts, and he pulled and twisted more forcefully at his bonds causing the blank joined to him to murmur a plaintive wail.
Exiting the cell, the Warmaster left the Grey Knight to struggle against his restraints, safe in the knowledge that he would never be able to break them no matter how long he hung there.
Abaddon had waited ten thousand years to depose the Corpse-Emperor and claim the Throne of Terra. To break one of the founding brothers of the Grey Knights, to have him bend his knee in unswerving allegiance, the Warmaster could wait for all eternity.
Acknowledgements
Eddie Eccles, Rob ‘Cypher’ White and Sarah Cawkwell were the best first readers a writer could hope for. Karen Miksza sadly isn’t on that list but redeemed herself by commissioning some of the finest artwork ever to grace a Black Library product.
The author would like to thank Nick Kyme and the Black Library editorial te
am for their hard work, patience and dedication in helping me bring this novel from concept to print. Special mention must be made of Graeme Lyon for turning me on to ludes, especially the postlude.
I would also like to thank several of my fellow authors: L J Goulding for giving me a Grand Master to kill, Aaron Dembski-Bowden for not leaving too much saliva on the Grey Knights when he put them down, Mitchel Scanlon and Mike Lee for what I hope by now is obvious.
Much of this novel was written in various hotels and bed and breakfasts across the UK and France. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff at those fine establishments, especially the ones that leave little chocolates on the pillows.
About the Author
Domiciled in the East Midlands, C Z Dunn is the author of the Dark Angels novella Dark Vengeance, the audio dramas Ascension of Balthasar and Malediction, as well as several short stories. Having spent many years in the publishing industry, with a strong leaning towards genre fiction, he is an expert in e-publication, audio production and zombies.
Let’s raise a glass to Pop Culture, just like it raised us.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in Great Britain in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Cover illustration by Imaginary Friends Studios
Internal illustrations by Helge C. Balzer, Sam Lamont and John Michelbach.
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