WARPSWORD by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CONTEMPLATING THE ABYSS

A hot wind blew over Malus, tangling his unbound hair and blowing fine, rasping sand across his face. Flat plains stretched for miles, lifeless and inimical.

He lay on his chest, facing north, staring at the broken line of iron dark mountains that reared up from the edge of the burning world. Malus knew that one of the mountains had a cleft in it, as if it had been split by the axe-stroke of a god. At the foot of that mountain, in a dead and withered wood, there was a road of dark stones that led to an ancient temple.

He’d tried to do his part. He had tried to gather up all five of the lost relics, but in the end he’d failed. It was too much: too much for any one man to do.

Now the sands were running out. They were stolen from him by the desert wind, streaming away into the pale white sky.

He tried to rise to his knees, but his body refused to obey. A hot pain burned like a coal beneath his skin, stealing his breath away. He’d crawled for miles upon miles, trying to reach the temple and beg the daemon to release his tainted soul. Terror gripped him as the hour drew near, when Tz’arkan would claim his soul for all time.

A hand, cool and strong, gripped his shoulder. Sharp, writhing pain made him cry out as he was turned onto his back. Harsh, white light burned through his clenched eyelids. Then a shadow covered him, blotting out the merciless sun.

He felt a caress along the line of his blistered cheek. The skin was rough, calloused at fingertip and palm.

‘Do you suffer, my lord?’ her voice, throaty and deep, reminded him of the slave cruise, and the time before the daemon’s curse.

‘I have to get to the temple,’ he croaked, his breath coming in bubbling gasps. His clumsy fingers pawed at the ragged tear in his robes. ‘I’m hurt,’ he said, bitter tears carving tracks through the grime caking his face. ‘There is a daemon inside me–’

‘Hush, my lord,’ she said, ‘the corruption has made you mad. I shall not let the daemon have you. Do not fear.’

Gentle fingertips probed at the tear. Malus opened his eyes and looked up into Lhunara’s face. She smiled, causing the blood-filled orb that had been her right eye to bulge from its ruined socket. Blood and vile fluids seeped from the terrible wound in her skull and maggots writhed in the rotting brain matter, disturbed by the terrible heat.

Her fingers wriggled into the tear and then the open wound beneath. He felt the cold digits grasp the inside of his ribs and he screamed as she flexed her arms and pulled his ribcage apart. Flesh and bone parted with a rotten, tearing sound.

She lowered her face to the gaping hole and started to feed, tearing at his organs like a wolf, and it was all he could do to open his mouth and scream.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.