Betrayer by Aaron Dembski_Bowden

Author:Aaron Dembski_Bowden [Dembski_Bowden, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849703895
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2013-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

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Forge Fires

Keeda wasn’t ashamed for weeping when she first saw Syrgalah’s wreckage. The Warhound had been pulled from its recovery sarcophagus by the ceiling cranes, broken and still smoking from its wounds. One-armed, unable to stand upon her two crippled legs, with every metre of armour plating corroded, Syrgalah’s head hung slack on a neck too ruined to bear the cockpit’s weight.

No, that hadn’t been easy to watch. It was better now, but not by much. At least she was standing.

The Ember Queen was held up by solid gantries either side of her, regaining her stature despite her injuries – all part of the Machine Cult’s belief in restoring the Titan’s warrior-soul by treating it with dignity as much as through technological engineering. So she stood among her sisters, one of ninety surviving Warhounds in the dark colours of the Ember Wolves. Yet she was far, far from whole.

Eight tech-priests worked on her joints, supported by servitor teams flocking in packs behind them. Syrgalah’s metal skin crawled with humans, cyborgs and lobotomised slaves, as well as a number of drifting servo-skulls scanning whatever mechanism they were told to scan at any given moment.

Toth was with her, his new arm not yet coated by synthetic skin, its iron bones bare from the elbow down. It wasn’t taking well. Angry red veins showed along his bicep, perhaps the first signs of infection. He kept testing it, making his new fingers curl into a fist every few seconds. Clearly it still hurt, if his wincing was anything to go by.

One of the red-robed priests approached them, his features masked entirely by his hood. His spindly secondary arms folded close to his shoulders as he drew near.

‘Moderati Bly. Moderati Kol.’ His voice was a vox-ish drone, devoid of emotion, that could easily have belonged to any tech-priest either of them had met.

‘Ninth?’ Keeda asked.

He responded by pulling his hood back, revealing his shaven head, the nodal implants at his temples, and the visor across his eyes.

‘Affirmative. It is me, the Ninth.’

‘How are the repairs going?’ Toth asked.

The Ninth’s throat-speaker buzzed. ‘They proceed as you see them. No visual deception is occurring.’

Keeda smiled for the first time since they’d been brought down by that damn Reaver and its lucky shooting.

‘What Moderati Kol means, is when will Syrgalah be ready to walk again?’

The Ninth turned his visored eyes to Toth. ‘Then why did he not simply phrase his inquiry using those precise words?’

Toth’s new arm tightened again. He made a fist. ‘Just answer her, Ninth. My head hurts enough as it is.’

‘Very well. L-ADX-cd-MARS-Quintessence-[Necare Modification]-I-XII-002a-2/98: VS/TK/K will be ready to walk in the next engagement, providing fleet rumour holds no incorrectness. The estimated planetfall of twenty-seven days hence allows our technicians significant time to see the repairs completed.’

Toth looked at the Titan. Sparks danced from her joints as cutting and welding tools did their work in servitors’ mono-tasked hands. ‘A month?’

‘She is Syrgalah,’ the Ninth said. ‘She has of course been prioritised above all other considerations. The Archmagos Veneratus himself is operating on her.

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