Assassinorum: Execution Force (Warhammer 40,000) by Joe Parrino

Author:Joe Parrino [Parrino, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

IV

Klara Rhasc had seen dozens of worlds over the course of her service to the Imperium, the Temples and the God-Emperor, each in a state of ruin and fallen to the wiles of some enemy or other. She had developed a jaded eye, a casual lack of interest or imagination. All the worlds in humanity’s demesne were the same, at the core, shaped by the whims of the Emperor’s chosen species.

She expected Achyllus Prime would be the same. Even from orbit, it looked much like all the other worlds lost to war. The drop into its atmosphere opened her eyes and revealed her assumptions for a lie.

The drop itself was a harrowing experience, stuck in an enclosed environment with the horrors that haunted Achyllus Prime’s atmosphere. Great winged things warred with one another in the turbulent skies of the planet. Voices and cries haunted the vox. She passed through layer after layer of smoke and cloud before finally slamming into the ground.

A claw punched into the pod, then pulled out with a screech of rending metal. Desperate air whistled in, stirring her hair. The temperature plummeted. Spice and salt rode the air in the corrupt richness of the Archenemy’s depredation.

The claw came again, next to Rhasc’s head. It scrabbled and tore. She could hear the grunting wheeze of some great beast’s breath, smell the foetid reek of rotting flesh.

Restrained in her drop harness, Rhasc could do little to stop the creature. She hauled at the straps, trying to reach the emergency release clips. They stuck fast. Daylight winked in, bathing the cool darkness of the ship’s interior with the angry light of Achyllus’s sun.

Shadows passed over the hole opposite her. A great eye stared out from beyond, green and gold flecked with a curved pupil wrought into some blasphemous rune. It blinked slowly. Nictitating lids coated the eye with luminous slime.

The Callidus Assassin reached a knife, drew it across the thick cloth of the restraint straps. With a snap, they parted.

The eye shifted to watch the movement. Rhasc pulled her punch dagger free and stabbed it into the organ. Something screamed against her skull. It squealed and rasped in a voice like sandpaper and steel.

Her drop was unimpeded after that.

She made landfall in a crater, slamming into the earth. Torq’s pod landed near her own. The seals popped and Rhasc leapt out. Torq shoved past her and halted.

‘Someone’s left a mark,’ he breathed. He coughed a rasping laugh.

A scorched plane stretched before her, littered with bones and burning embers.

The Vindicare was waiting for them.

‘Emperor spare me from the humour of Eversors,’ he said. The grogginess was gone from his voice. He was back to his calm, cool self. His rifle was clutched loosely in his grasp.

‘The Astropathic Sanctum is this way.’ He gestured at the vast structure rising into the sky.

Light flickered out from it, shimmering in colours that mankind was never supposed to give name to or witness.

‘I can see that,’ Rhasc said. She checked her weaponry, ensuring all was placed as it should be.

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