Fist Of The Imperium (Space Marine Conquests: Warhammer 40,000 Book 6) by Andy Clark

Author:Andy Clark [Clark, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2020-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Act Two

IX

Magus Jai stood upon a metal walkway, the fingers of one hand curled around its brushed-steel railing as she looked down upon the industrious scene below. Jai felt a brooding disquiet as she watched cult neophytes hurrying to and fro across what had once been an ore-storage silo. Now it served as an arming chamber for the cult. The neophytes came in through a hatch in the chamber’s south side, each bearing on amber-hued cloth some weapon or piece of wargear that they believed the Blessed would wish to wield. These they deposited upon the broad steel benches that had been erected and decorated with wyrmforms and candles, transforming them into arming shrines touched by the divinity of the Star Children. The cultists then left in solemn procession, flowing out of an adjoining doorway and back around towards the weapons cache by other corridors.

They look like insects, worker drones bringing offerings to a hive, Jai thought. The image gave her a frisson of real horror, though she could not have placed quite why. Perhaps it was the presence of the Blessed themselves, standing silent in the chamber’s centre, watching with inhuman eyes as the offerings piled up before them.

Metamorphs. The Blessed of the Star Children. They who wore Father’s gifts upon their flesh and stood highest in his regard next only to his own purebred children. Feeder tendrils sprouted in twitching nests where mouths and nostrils should be, tasting the air below glittering nests of night-black eyes. Chitinous mouthparts worked, more thick plates of chitin rasping together as the metamorphs shifted restively. Some had crustacean-like claws where their hands should have been, or bladed limbs edged with serrated bone like those of some huge and horrible insect. All were hunched and powerful in build, their adapted utility suits straining to contain their divine mutations. Jai knew that the thought was traitorous, but she couldn’t stand proximity to the Blessed, not even this close. She knew that they were noble, devoted in thought and deed to the cult, utterly incorruptible, bearing the stigmata of even the most gruesome blessings without complaint. And she had seen them fight, whip-fast, utterly lethal, employing the gifts they had been born to with deadly effect. Yet they smelled wrong to Jai, felt ­subtly wrong despite the beatific haloes she saw shimmering around their bulbous heads. The feeling was made worse by the compulsion to adore and love the creatures, which grew in strength the closer to them she drew only to sour as she discovered her discomfort growing too. Somehow the warring sensations felt to her like biting into some warm and comforting foodstuff only to discover cold, wet rot at its heart.

Jai shook off the traitorous thoughts as the catwalk creaked, heralding Lhor’s approach. She glanced up and saw the primus striding towards her, tall, noble, his face that of an honest labourer touched by Father’s blessings, his gimlet eyes those of a merciless and insightful general. Lhor’s greatcoat flowed behind him as he walked.

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