Brothers Of The Snake by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Warhammer 40k
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2011-10-21T23:00:00+00:00

III

THEY STOOD ATTENTIVE and still for two hours as the gala swirled around them. Some guests ventured close and admired them as if they were statues. A few stole closer and risked touching their armour for good fortune or simply on a dare.

Damocles didn't move.

Priad spent his time fixing and logging faces. His optic gaze wandered through the thickets of the crowd, blink-recording and tagging each face and figure he saw and adding them to his suit's internal memory. Not only persons, but the structure and dimension of the hall, the number and site of the exits, the position of the band. A warrior of the phratry was taught to assess and catalogue his location for tactical purposes wherever possible, usually a quick matter of key points. Now he had time to waste.

The number of valves or strings on each instrument. The number of frets. The number of buttons on a jacket or gemstones on a gown train. The number of facets on a wine glass. The number of beads on the chandeliers.

He logged and identified the robust commander of the local PDF, flamboyant in red satin robes. Five subsector governors and their staffs. Lord Militant Farnsey, two Navy commodores and a cluster of Guard officers who, like Damocles, had been sent to the coronation to represent their institutions. The Princess Royal of Cartomax, a beautiful young woman with a surgically perfect face framed by the gauzy fields of a personal force-veil, and perfect breasts pushed up and out in a balcony of diamonds. The Imperial Hierarch, Bishop Osokomo, his bulk supported on grav plates, his extravagant mitre three metres tall. A ranking emissary of the Navis Nobilite wearing a holographic face to hide his unseemly third eye. Nine senior adepts of the Guild Astropathicus. The chief clerk of the Administratum Iorgu, with sixteen higher recollectors. Six merchant princes.

A man in black robes which did not completely hide his golden prosthetic hand.

Priad jolted.

'Andromak.'

'Brother-sergeant?'

'You have charge here.'

'Yes, sir.'

Priad strode across the packed room. Men and women, the cream of Iorguan society, fled out of his path, aghast that one of the statues was now moving. Priad ignored their whispers and exclamations, and headed for the rear exit of the great hall. The man in black robes had made a hasty retreat in that direction.

The outer passageway was dim and quiet, though Priad's optics saw into the shadows as if it was day.

He drew his bolter. An ammo load tally immediately appeared on his visor display, alongside a floating target cross. He stalked along the passage, studying every centimetre of the lime-cast view, from the dark teal of the coldest, deepest shadows to the fizzling white flares of the lamp reeds.

A tall figure in black stepped out from behind a pillar to face him. Hands - one gloved, one gold - came up and pulled the hood of the black robe down. White hair, an angular, pinch-skinned face.

'Well met, brother-sergeant.’ said Inquisitor Mabuse.

'You make no attempt to hide from me?' Priad said, disconcerted, wondering if he should prepare for some ordo trick, some ordo magick.

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