Blood of Iax by Robbie MacNiven

Author:Robbie MacNiven
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2018-08-20T08:34:38+00:00

Chapter Seven: Doctor’s Orders

POLIXIS

Why he still lived, Polixis did not know.

They tried to knock him out, as they dragged him to the foot of Ridge 1’s slope. They beat his helmet with cudgels and the flats of their cleavers, grunting furiously. Polixis endured each ringing blow, unable to resist. It was almost impossible to knock an Adeptus Astartes unconscious, and doubly so with a Primaris. His helmet held, though a crack had appeared over his right eye-lens, splitting his visor. The display remained blank and inactive, his servos unresponsive.

After a while, his captors gave up and hauled him up once more, six of them struggling with his weight. They were all clad in the soiled camo capes and patchwork infiltration gear of the mob that had attacked him from behind in the redoubt. As they moved downhill and back towards Shebat, they forced their way through the warbands still headed towards the battle raging across the ridgeline. Some greenskins tried to get at Polixis, roaring excitedly, but his captors beat them away with grunts and balled fists.

They reached one of the rickety flatbed engines greenskins commonly used for transportation, parked a few hundred yards from the base of the slope and protected from the greedy gaze of nearby mobs by several more of the cape-clad orks. Polixis could do nothing but snarl with frustration as he was hoisted up into the truck’s rear end, most of the mob clambering up after him. The vehicle’s abused engine revved, and the tyres bit ash and grit as they spun, sending the transport skewing in the direction of Shebat. Polixis was shifted to the left but kept largely in place by the hobnailed boots of his captors. They were shouting over the throaty sound of the engine, partly with exhilaration at the breakneck ride, partly due to the nature of their prize.

Why he had been spared, let alone snatched in what seemed to be a premeditated plan, Polixis had no idea. He could only assume he was going to be used as some sort of trophy, or perhaps enslaved, put to work in a gladiatorial pit. Intelligence claimed that the xenos were running an expansive slave trade west of the Gorgon, mostly dealing in captured citizens and waste nomads and supplemented by those Imperial Guardsmen foolish enough to allow themselves to be taken alive. If the xenos filth thought he would allow himself to be used in such a way, they would soon regret their mistake.

He tried to move again, but still his armour wouldn’t respond. His visor remained blank and the servos inert. He spat a string of expletives that would have made Kastor snarl a reprimand at him.

The greenskins sensed his frustration. One of the brutes hanging on to the stanchion along the edge of the flatbed bellowed angrily over the excitement of its kindred, gesticulating at him. The one with the prong stepped unsteadily over the boots of the rest of the mob and lunged downwards. Polixis braced himself, teeth gritted, just in time for the surge of pain from the prong that arced through his body.

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