False Gods by Graham Mcneill

Author:Graham Mcneill [Mcneill, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844163700
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2006-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

AXIMAND WATCHED ABADDON punch the sparring servitor’s shoulder, tearing off its sword limb before closing to deliver a series of rapid hammer blows to its torso. Flesh caved beneath the assault, bone and steel broke, and the construct collapsed in a splintered mess of meat and metal.

It was the third servitor Abaddon had destroyed in the last thirty minutes. Ezekyle had always worked through his angst with his fists and this time was no different. Violence and killing was what the first captain had been bred for, but it had become such a way of life to him that it was the only way he knew how to express his frustrations.

Aximand himself had dismantled and reassembled his bolter six times, slowly and methodically laying each part on an oiled cloth before cleaning it meticulously. Where Abaddon unleashed his pain through violence, Aximand preferred to detach his mind through familiar routines. Powerless to do anything constructive to help the commander, they had both retreated to the things they knew best.

‘The Master of Armouries will have your head for destroying his servitors like that,’ said Aximand, looking up as Abaddon pummeled what was left of the servitor to destruction.

Sweating and breathing hard, Abaddon stepped from the training cage, sweat lathering his body in gleaming sheets and his silver-wrapped topknot slick with sweat. Even for an Astartes, he was huge, muscular and solid as stone. Torgaddon often teased Abaddon joking that he left leadership of the Justaerin to Falkus Kibre because he was too big to fit in a suit of Terminator armour.

‘It’s what they’re for,’ snapped Abaddon.

‘I’m not sure you’re meant to be that hard on them.’

Abaddon shrugged, lifted a towel from his arming chamber and hung it around his shoulders. ‘How can you be calm at a time like this?’

‘Trust me, I’m not calm, Ezekyle.’

‘You look calm.’

‘Just because I’m not smashing things with my fists doesn’t mean I’m not choleric.’

Abaddon picked up a piece of his armour, and began polishing it, before hurling it aside with an angry snarl.

‘Centre your humours, Ezekyle,’ advised Aximand. ‘It’s not good to go too far out of balance, you might not come back.’

‘I know,’ sighed Abaddon. ‘But I’m all over the place: choleric, melancholic, saturnine; all of them at the same time. I can’t sit still for a second. What if he doesn’t make it, Little Horus? What if he dies?’

The first captain stood and paced the arming chambers, wringing his hands, and Aximand could see the blood rising in his cheeks as his anger and frustration grew once more.

‘It’s not fair,’ growled Abaddon. ‘It shouldn’t be like this. The Emperor wouldn’t let this happen. He shouldn’t let this happen.’

‘The Emperor hasn’t been here for a long time, Ezekyle.’

‘Does he even know what’s happened? Does he even care anymore?’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, my friend,’ said Aximand, picking up his bolter once more and pressing the catch that released the magazine, seeing that Abaddon had a new target for his impotent rage.

‘It’s not been the same since he left us after Ullanor,’ raged Abaddon.

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