The Trial of the Mantis Warriors by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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AS THE THUNDERHAWK exploded, the ground in the crater began to crumble away. Shaidan strode forward over the faltering dust, pushing into the squad of Novamarines that clustered around their heavy weapons in the heart of the crater, trying to defend their retreat back down into the subterranean tunnels and mineshafts of the ageless moon. His Mantis Staff blazed with green, phosphorescent venom, reminiscent of the lethal aura of the Hottentota itself. He lashed and stabbed with the glorious weapon, pushing it through plates of blue and bone power armour in a fury of indignation, righteousness and vengeance. As he advanced through bolter fire and lashing chainswords, he muttered an ancient machine curse, spitting his thoughts towards the Thunderfire cannon just as it teetered clumsily back into the tunnel. It seemed to pause and twitch, as though it had been slighted by the insult. The Techmarine behind it snapped his head around as though struck. And then the cannon simply stopped, whining to a halt in the mouth of the Novamarines’ escape route.

As his assault squads dropped down into a semicircle around the far side of the crater, forming an enveloping firing line on the more stable ground of that bank, Shaidan took aim and launched his staff like an ethereal javelin, sending it searing through the remnants of the Novamarine squad and piercing into the great barrel of the Thunderfire cannon. There was a flash and the inaudible crackle of an unspeakable energy discharging, and then the cannon exploded, radiating superheated shrapnel and high-explosive shells like a giant scattergun. The remaining Novamarines took the full force of the detonation, and the Techmarine who had been tending to the cannon was all but incinerated in the blast. The escape tunnel, the Novamarines’ only path out of the crater, collapsed completely.

As the Novamarines finally fell under the disciplined volleys of bolter fire from the assault squads, Shaidan focused his thoughts for a moment of quickening and seemed to flash across the disintegrating crater in a blur of emerald light. A moment later, he was lifting his unblemished Mantis Staff out of the ruins of the cannon, and the next he was back across the crater before the last standing Novamarine.

The Mantis assault squads ceased fire and all eyes turned to Shaidan as he stood imperiously before the defeated foe. The Novamarine before him wore the insignia of a veteran sergeant, and his armour was scored with the evidence of countless battles. He stood with proud defiance before the Mantis Librarian, meeting his eerie, emerald gaze through the implacable shield of his helmet’s visor.

Shaidan inspected him, a faint psychic light flickering around the nodes in the hood that covered the back of his head. The Wars of Badab, the Liberation Wars as they were known to the righteous, had cost the Astartes so many lives. He had killed countless of the Adeptus himself, and he had seen so many of his sacred brethren fall. Yet he found it hard to believe that any of the Adeptus Astartes could take this lightly or find any joy in their victories.

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