Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah (Warhammer 40,000) by Gav Thorpe

Author:Gav Thorpe [Thorpe, Gav]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Victory and Defeat

<Your escort has arrived,> declared the servo-skull.

A few seconds later the sub-door wheezed open. Three men and two women stepped inside. They wore cloaks lined with red cloth over grubby coveralls and carried long mauls. Two of them had bulky laspistols hanging on simple holsters at their waists. Ghelsa didn’t recognise any of them as from the group that had attacked Harkas, but she could barely remember what had happened with everything that had taken place since. Perhaps they didn’t know she and Harkas were being hunted.

The glares they directed at Harkas and Ghelsa told a different story.

‘We’ve been looking for you,’ said one of the gun-wielders, tapping her club against the side of her leg. ‘Didn’t expect to find you up here on the holy decks.’

‘Hereteks,’ sneered another. He looked directly at Ghelsa. ‘The ingratitude makes me sick. To turn on the Legio like that?’

‘You’re fortunate,’ said the one who had spoken first – her cog-badge clasp identified her as the leader. She pulled something from a pocket, a slender silver chain from which hung a pale wooden box about the size of a thumb. An ‘I’ with two bars across it was branded into the front. ‘The Inquisition would do far worse for impersonating one of their order.’

Ghelsa looked at Harkas. ‘Is that it?’ she said, unimpressed. ‘That’s your sigil?’

‘It is the authority it conveys that has the power,’ he replied testily. He stared at the hyperezia with narrowed eyes. ‘If you comprehended the magnitude of your error you would beg now for forgiveness and swift release rather than face the torments that will surely follow this treachery.’

The one who had spoken first beckoned with her club. ‘Move your filth out of these sacred halls.’

‘Delta 6-Terror, what is the status of our faithfulness?’ asked Harkas, looking up at the warbot.

<The two unidentified combatants are faithful.>

‘Stop talking to the holy warrior,’ snapped one of the hyperezia. ‘Your interaction defiles its spirit.’

Harkas stepped towards the door and motioned for Ghelsa to follow.

‘Hostile forces are still at large in the akropoliz,’ he said. ‘The faithful require protection.’

<I will provide protection to the faithful,> rumbled Delta 6-Terror, following with long, slow strides. <Destroy. Secure. Protect.>

From the rear rampart of the akropoliz, Exasas looked back at the surrounds of Az Khalak. It was only from this vantage point that the light differential over the city and the surrounding hills could be so clearly seen. It reminded Exasas of a stellar eclipse, standing in darkness while viewing beams of light in the distance.

With augmented vision ve could see the accompanying host of the tech-guard flowing into the city and through fortress walls. Ve was too distant to detect any noospheric activity, but the occasional spark of brightness betrayed a plasma shot or other high-powered discharge, indicating that the rebels had not yet been eradicated. While vanguard battalions and companies of rust-stalkers cleansed the ruins, squadrons of ironstrider-mounted dragoons and ballistarii pushed out into onto the slopes of the flanking mountains. Slower columns of quadruped dunecrawlers followed, providing escort to tracked bulk-carriers.

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