The Swords of Calth by Graham McNeill

Author:Graham McNeill
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2021-01-14T14:30:11+00:00

Book III

NEMESIS

‘It was silent as the void, and to look upon it was to know terror. It drifted above us with slow, liquid grace, and its gaze caused madness and despair wherever it fell. Those it came near took their own lives rather than endure its hellish presence.’

– Morillia, Harlequin shadowseer

9

The roadway was strewn with debris, but Hellrider’s colossal weight ground every piece of it to dust beneath its armoured wheels and reinforced tracks. The ride was far from smooth, but it felt good to be moving again, even though stealth or any hope of avoiding enemy contact was now impossible. The rig’s smoke-belching drive plant and the dust clouds of its passing would be visible for kilometres in every direction.

Every necron within Port Setebos would be aware of their position and course.

Uriel stood on the starboard fighting platform that ran the length of the rig, boltstorm gauntlet upright to his shoulder as he scanned the smoking ruins of the city and the broken transitways running alongside them. Nero manned the portside platform, while Selenus was positioned in the shielded firing step on the tanker’s topside between the fore and aft turrets.

The rig’s tracked tanker-trailer was painted with an outline-disrupting mix of olive drab and spotted brown to better camouflage it on the endless mud-plains. If that had truly been the intent, Uriel felt it was somewhat undercut by the vividness of the rig hauling it, painted as it was in gleaming red and gold with chromed pipework that shone as if new.

Anchorage Citadel was visible on the horizon, around fifteen kilometres distant, its cubist structure a geometric silhouette against the flash-burned sky. Almost as soon as they had escaped the interior of the hub, the vox-net came alive with frantic communications chatter, and Uriel had cut through it to establish a link with Learchus. After briefly swapping situational reports with his veteran sergeant, Fabricatus Ubrique exloaded a route back to Anchorage Citadel directly into Hellrider’s navigational array.

But as impressive as the citadel was, the towering spire at the heart of the city commanded Uriel’s attention. Learchus had confirmed its emergence had been the source of the earth-shaking tremors they had felt within the hub, and that it had indeed been the target of the Vae Victus.

‘What do the Mechanicus think it is?’ asked Petronius Nero, speaking over the squad vox-net from the opposite side of the tanker.

Uriel shrugged. ‘Ubrique does not know. Perhaps it is a weapon? Or a beacon? Something dangerous enough to warrant the governor-twins authorising an orbital strike within the bounds of their planetary capital.’

‘It could perhaps warrant a second,’ observed Nero.

‘Anything that can survive one orbital strike unscathed will likely survive another.’

‘It might, but we will almost certainly not,’ pointed out Apothecary Selenus.

Clicks over his earpiece told Uriel that Pasanius was in position within the inferno cannon’s blister turret mounted at Hellrider’s rear and that Cyprian had spun up the forward quad-linked autocannons at the front. Thankfully, both turrets were fully operational, and would wreak havoc on anything that came near.

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