Warriors of the Imperium by Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell

Author:Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2014-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

4

Trophies

His mind was open.

Prognosticator Brand sat in his private arming chamber, his eyes closed but every one of his senses on full alert. Like all of the Prognosticatum, he advocated meditation as a necessary method to clear the mind of emotional clutter and to ensure a free flow of psychic energies. Many of the Chapter’s warriors also practised the method with varying degrees of success.

Brand had served alongside Daerys Arrun for a long time and the two had always been polar opposites. Where Arrun was spontaneous and rash, Brand had been consistently level and measured in his approach. For the most part, they complemented one another well. The basic differences in their personalities brought out the best in both of them. This time, however, Arrun’s impetuousness had led him to blatantly cross a line that the Silver Skulls had drawn in the sand centuries ago. An insult directed at a Prognosticator was to insult their very way of life.

He would be here, soon. Brand knew he would. He could sense the captain’s approach long before he turned up at the door. He could see the other warrior’s consciousness, like a pinprick of radiant light moving through the map of the Dread Argent he held in his mind. Three tiers away now. He was close.

Brand sighed inwardly. Earlier, on the bridge, he had felt the shape of Arrun’s barely contained anger. It had been a wild thing, a thousand birds battering endlessly against the cage constructed from his own iron will. Like many native Varsavians, Daerys Arrun was in possession of a fine temper. However, unlike some other Silver Skulls warriors, Arrun had learned to keep his temper largely reined in.

Two tiers.

It was easy enough to read Arrun. His anger had dissipated. He was still out of balance, but that primal rage had been replaced by something far less bestial. Something that Brand could not put a name to. Robbed of the correct word, he likened it to another series of emotions entirely.

Shame.

Regret.

Guilt.

Brand could sense all of these as the captain approached his chamber. He called out permission to enter before Arrun could even ask for it. The Prognosticator remained seated, cross-legged in the centre of his room, his back to the door, not turning to face his guest.

‘Daerys.’

‘Prognosticator.’

There was a lengthy silence following the formal greeting. Brand deliberately took his time completing his murmured litanies and praises before finally rising slowly to his feet and turning to face the captain. For a warrior who had faced countless enemies in his time, the well-respected captain of Fourth Company was looking decidedly nervous.

‘You’re fidgeting like an aspirant, Daerys.’ Despite the severity of the situation, Brand was deeply amused at the manner of his captain’s subservience. ‘Be still. You are making me tired.’

When Arrun spoke, his words came in a rush, something that only likened him further to a youth a fraction of his age. ‘I crave forgiveness, Prognosticator. The manner in which I spoke to you earlier...’

‘You were in the middle of doing what it is that you were born to do.

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