Penitent by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2021-01-15T12:54:47+00:00

The third section of the story, which is called

TRUE LEARNING

CHAPTER 20

Which is of the House of Webs

The warblind gangs are not to be trifled with.

Three of the warblind blocked my path, and I sensed at least one more step into the ruined hallway at my back, denying me retreat. From the scarified brands and inks on their shaven scalps, they were of the Marzom Cross killgang, the most notorious of the northern bands. They carried blades and, more, they carried bulk. Under the cake of filth and rags, they were all enhanced muscle and reinforced bones, the relics of their combat engineering.

‘I would pass here,’ I said, clearly and in the low dialect of the street.

One uttered a growl in answer, the most coherent sound, I feared, he was able to articulate. I could smell the metallic stink of the aggression stimulants flooding their blood. The feral warblind of Queen Mab could never be reasoned with, but sometimes one could slip past them if one remained calm and quiet and made no abrupt movement, or if, by luck, they happened to be at the low point of their aggression cycles.

Not these. There would be no talking, no reasoning. They were already twitching, synthetic hormones drenching their systems and rousing them to mindless rage. Their secondary eyelids began to flutter and blink: nictitating lids that had once flashed target lock displays onto their retinas. These augmetics were long since broken, but the rising hyperstimms were triggering their military implants to fire up, as they had done lifetimes ago in the warzone. This hall was their warzone now. This life. A brutal life where there was only ever war.

I gauged I would have time to move my right hand just once before they struck. To the gun at my hip, a heavy Tronsvasse Kal40 that Harlon had armed me with? Or to my cuff, which, when off, had rendered me blank to the warblind in the past?

I made my choice, but it was academic anyway.

Someone lunged out of an archway to my right, and slammed into the trio. A razor-edged severaka struck body mass with a crunch like splitting wood, and whirled a ganger clean off his feet in a spray of blood. The ganger rotated in the air like a dancer, bounced off the wall behind him, and crumpled, sliced open.

Thaddeus Saur had only begun.

Saur was a powerful man. I knew that much from years of training under him at the scholam. He had bulk and he had speed, but nothing like the enhanced mass or reflex of the warblind. However, Saur also possessed daunting skill, a honed finesse, which he employed with lethal precision. Big as he was, with his shock of dirty-white hair and his oxblood-red bodyglove, he seemed to slide like oil between his hulking opponents, yet each time he struck, it was with bone-fracturing force. The first ganger had not yet hit the floor before Saur had engaged the next, blocking a vicious blow with his left

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