Sons of Dorn (Warhammer 40,000) by Chris Roberson

Author:Chris Roberson [Roberson, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The forward-most of the Roaring Blades, a gaunt-faced and skeletal figure who might once have been a woman, took two shots to the chest from Scout du Queste’s bolt pistol and kept right on coming. A third shot seared into the Roaring Blade’s shoulder, but did not stop the heretic’s forward momentum. Throat open and howling a deafening shriek, the Roaring Blade swung a long jagged-edged sabre in a killing-stroke aimed at Jean-Robur’s head. He was able to block the attack with his own blade, but the force of the impact jarred his arm to the shoulder, setting his teeth buzzing in his skull. Though the Roaring Blade wore ragged battle-armour which had deflected some of Jean-Robur’s shots, at least one of the three bolts that Jean-Robur had fired had bored into the Roaring Blade’s flesh itself. But even with one of its arms blown away below the elbow, the injury was not slowing the Roaring Blade down – if anything, it seemed to draw strength from the injuries, even pleasure. The cracked and dirt-caked lips of the renegade pulled back in a sickening parody of a smile as Scout du Queste forced it back with a shove of his own sword against the jagged sabre.

The Roaring Blade’s shriek turned into something that was almost a song, eyes wide and ecstatic, the rising and falling of its hoarse and croaking voice like the tones of some insane hymn to dark daemonic powers.

Even with his Lyman’s ear to filter out the din, Jean-Robur felt the Roaring Blade’s song like a knife in the brain, lunatic harmonics that hinted at inhuman intelligences from beyond the veil of the material world. He ignored the noise as best he could, shooting his bolt pistol from the hip, the shot catching the Roaring Blade in the abdomen. Then he thrust forwards with his sword.

Even while blood and viscera pored from the fourth and newest wound in its body, the heretic all-but-swooned in ecstasy, and when it battered aside Scout du Queste’s thrust it was with even more force and speed than before.

A headshot would drop the Roaring Blade, surely, but it was also just as clear that the howling figure was not about to give Jean-Robur the chance to take the shot. When he raised his bolt pistol to take aim, the Roaring Blade surged forwards again with a maddeningly fast attack. Scout du Queste barely had time to parry, and any shot he made with his bolt pistol would have gone wide.

Jean-Robur was convinced now that the only sure way to defeat the Roaring Blade was to disarm it, whether by battering the sabre from its hand or removing the hand from its arm or whatever other solution presented itself, and then dropping it with a bolt to the head when the way was clear.

He began to chant a familiar litany of Dorn under his breath to clear his thoughts and counter the enemy’s distracting howls. Then a slow grin tugged up the corners of Jean-Robur’s mouth.

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