Manflayer by Josh Reynolds

Author:Josh Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2020-03-19T14:35:49+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Omega Protocol

The children moved swiftly and elegantly. The aeldari strain was strong in this generation. Their opponent kept up with them, but only just. He fought not to kill or even to wound, but merely to count coup. A tap of his fingers meant they were dead.

Fabius glanced around. The chamber they sparred in was large, and partially open to the elements. It had been a garden once, and was still populated by trees and plant-life, all gone feral now. His creations honed their skills here, under the watchful eyes of his servants. Training cages occupied the far wall, and recommissioned combat-servitors wandered through the chamber, awaiting their next challenger. Adult Gland-hounds sparred in chalk circles, or hunted one another through the thick canopy of entwined branches that stretched like spiderwebs overhead.

As he watched them fight, Fabius recalled his own trials. He had not truly understood their purposes, or why he’d been taken from his family. The flesh-tithe had rarely been spoken of openly in the noble houses of Europa, and it wasn’t until after he’d become an aspirant that he’d learned of it. He remembered little about those days, traumatic as they had been. He’d been older than most, but younger than some. The Apothecaries of the Legion had ripped him asunder, and built a patchwork being to take his place. A creature of science and alchemy, as in the old family stories. And just as in those stories, he had turned on his creator, along with the rest of his brothers. There was a lesson there, or perhaps several.

A child rolled, scrambling aside as the Space Marine’s hand flashed down, narrowly missing her.

‘Very good,’ the warrior rumbled. Pero was a Jhariuk – a harrowmaster – of the Alpha Legion. At any one time, he was responsible for multiple ongoing Legion operations, both military and otherwise.

He’d also once killed Fabius. It had been a long time ago, and in another sector, but the memory was a vibrant one. Pero had been the only member of his kill-team to survive, but that had been small comfort at the time. That the Lernaean Proxies had sent him as a representative spoke as to the seriousness with which they regarded these negotiations.

It had taken him almost an hour to ‘kill’ ten of the fifteen children selected for the test. Fabius kept the time on the chronometer built into his vambrace. The remaining five showed no signs of tiring. They leapt and sprang, rolling beneath his almost-gentle blows, and raked practice knives across his bare flesh. Their opponent had discarded his armour for the trial, and wore only a simple loincloth. The children’s blows left streaks of colour, to mark their success. The darker the streak, the more grievous the blow.

The children were of the latest generation of Gland-hounds. Naturally born, but with a few additional genetic and physiological tweaks to fine-tune their bodies and minds for the task ahead. The oldest was only twelve cycles, the youngest, six. In other circumstances, of optimum age for gene-seed implantation.

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