Anarch (Warhammer 40,000 Book 15) by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2019-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve: Qimurah

The man who was going to kill him at dawn came to save his life in the middle of the night.

Keys scraped at the locks of the old cell door. It took three keys to release the thick slab of battered metal. Usually, the unlocking routine was methodical and precise, but this sounded hasty and rushed.

Mabbon waited patiently. He could do little else. The iron manacles on his wrists attached him to the floor by a heavy chain. He could stand and walk in a small circle in the tight confines of the filthy cell, or he could sit on the rockcrete block that served as a stool. They always ordered him to sit when they were coming in, and he preferred it that way.

The heavy door opened, groaning on its metal hinges. Zamak looked in at him. Zamak was one of the six guards who watched Mabbon around the clock. He was Urdeshi, a thick-set man from the 17th Heavy Storm Troop cadre that provided all six members of the guard team.

Zamak looked flustered, his face red, sweat on his forehead. His puzzle-pattern jacket was open as if he hadn’t had time to button it properly. He wasn’t wearing his body armour.

He stepped into the cell, producing the set of keys that fit the manacles. No body search first. No thorough pat-down. None of the usual, painstaking protocols.

‘I don’t usually see you at this hour,’ said Mabbon.

‘I’ve got to move you,’ said Zamak. He was trying to find the correct key. His hands were shaking.

‘Is it dawn already?’ Mabbon asked.

‘Shut up,’ said Zamak. He breathed hard. ‘They’re through the yard already. They’re killing everybody.’

Mabbon had been aware of the gunfire for the past ten minutes. Las-fire, sporadic, its whip-crack sound muffled by the cellblock’s thick stone walls.

‘Who?’ asked Mabbon.

‘Your kind!’ Zamak spat. ‘Your filth!’

Mabbon nodded, understanding. It had been inevitable. He had been waiting for it.

‘Sons?’ he asked. ‘Sons of Sek?’

‘I don’t know what they are!’

Mabbon shrugged, as much as the chains would allow.

‘A kill team, I should think,’ he said placidly. ‘Mortuak Nkah. An “extinction force”. I imagine that’s what they’d send.’

Zamak fumbled and released the heavy cuff around Mabbon’s right wrist.

‘I’ve got to move you,’ he said. ‘Get you clear. Get you to a safe location.’

‘Why?’ asked Mabbon.

Zamak stared at him. ‘They’re coming to kill you,’ he said.

Mabbon nodded. ‘I know they are,’ he replied. ‘Zamak, you’re scheduled to shoot me at dawn.’

‘Yeah,’ Zamak said, struggling to fit the key to the other cuff. Garic, the S-troop squad leader, had explained the timetable to Mabbon two days earlier. At dawn, the six man team guarding him would take him from the cell, escort him down to the yard, put him against the wall, and shoot him. Mabbon didn’t know which of them would actually end his life. It might be any of them. All six would fire their lasrifles at once. He would, he had been told, be offered a blindfold.

‘Well, I don’t understand,’ Mabbon said. ‘You want me dead.

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