Malodrax (Space Marine Battles) by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter [Counter, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

‘My own brand of heresy is a common one. I am humble enough to admit that. What if knowledge was a weapon, I came to ask? Knowledge of the enemy, so warned against by the Imperial Creed, which could be a keener blade than ignorance? Instead of obeying the Creed I hoarded such knowledge and most sinfully of all, when I learned I was not alone, I sought the company of others who shared in my heresy. Thus was the name of Malodrax first passed to me, a world of daemons where countless secrets were waiting to become our mortal sins.’

– Inquisitor Corvin Golrukhan

Lysander’s first sight of the sphinx was as it circled the pinnacle of Shalhadar’s pyramid, light shimmering through it as it came down to land. A canal surrounded the pyramid, stocked with iridescent fish that burst like fireworks when they leapt from the water. The only bridge to the palace led to the main gates, and it was in front of these gates that the sphinx came to land with a grace that should not have been possible for something of its enormous size.

‘Keeper of the gate!’ called out Talaya the herald of Shalhadar, from the other end of the bridge where she stood with Lysander. ‘Someone thinks himself good enough to stand before the Veiled One in audience!’

‘Wonderful,’ purred the sphinx, its voice a kingly rumble from deep in its barrel chest. ‘I was getting hungry.’ It padded a few steps along the bridge and brought its massive feline head low, peering at Lysander. ‘And is this it?’

Talaya had brought Lysander to a tower of many chambers, most of them dark, smoky dens where citizens lounged in the grip of visions and nightmares brought about by braziers of smouldering narcotics. Among them were stands of antiques, including sets of armour, from which Lysander had been bade select a suit that fitted him. Most were made for men of normal size but Lysander had found a set of oversized full plate, lacquered red and scalloped like the shell of a sea creature. He had not taken the helmet, which was fashioned into an expressionless human face with an extra eye in the forehead, and instead went bare-headed. He had found a sword, too, a fine two-hander which a Space Marine could wield in one, carried in a scabbard of gold and emerald at his waist. He still carried Inquisitor Golrukhan’s book, held by a strap to one armoured thigh.

‘And why,’ rumbled the sphinx, ‘would my lord the Veiled One stoop to share a realm with such a ragged peasant?’

‘I have brought you this far,’ said Talaya to Lysander. ‘The rest is up to you.’

Lysander walked onto the bridge, within a few steps of the sphinx. Its stained-glass wings surrounded it in a halo of colour, shimmering across the stone and gilt of its body. Its face had more of a cat about it than a human, its eyes bright and expressive considering it seemed to have been forged rather than born.

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