The Harrowed Paths (Warhammer Horror) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Warhammer Horror
Published: 2021-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

BONE CUTTER

Darius Hinks

‘They will not have you,’ whispered Anava, pressing her face into the bundle of rags at her chest.

It was dawn. It was always dawn. The silver on the horizon never dimmed and never spread. It just waited. A dazzling splinter at the foot of a black, monolithic darkness. Anava turned Coryne to the light, letting it gild her face. She had spent so many hours like this, looking at her daughter’s peaceful features. She never tired of it – watching her sleep and listening to the quiet, rodent snuffle of her breath.

She tightened her grip on the child and continued walking down the transitway. Every step was an act of will. Her boots had collapsed weeks ago and her feet were bloodied and raw, wrapped in so much cloth that they looked as big as her equally swaddled head. The toes inside the wrappings were bruised, frozen and numb. There was nothing she could do about it, so every time she felt a stab of pain, she thought of the horror she was fleeing from. That was enough to keep her walking.

Besides Coryne, she was carrying water skins, a combat knife, a backpack and, slung around her shoulder, an autopistol, prised from the fingers of a frozen corpse. The gun terrified her. She had got this far without using it but she was no fool. She knew her luck could not hold out forever. She had crossed hundreds of miles of earthworks, burnt-out gun emplacements and bunkers, scavenged food from abandoned hab-blocks and cowered in bloodstained snowdrifts. It was only a matter of time before a bone-cutter saw her. And when they did, she would use the gun, however much it scared her. The warm bundle at her chest would leave her no choice. They will not have you.

It took her an hour of slow trudging to reach the top of the next rise and see Valgaast Valley spread out below her. There were fires to the east, just a few miles from where she stood, blinking in the gloom. She crouched, took out her magnoculars and focused on the flames. It was a manufactorum, a big one by the looks of it. It had been set alight from end to end and she could see figures silhouetted by the flames. Bone-cutters. They had to be. No one else would stay out in the open. They were swarming over the snow like rats. There must be over a hundred of them. Her hand fell involuntarily to the blocky weapon at her side, her cold-clumsy fingers brushing its brutal angles. If a group like that saw her what would she do? How many could she stop before they reached her?

She looked the other way. The western end of the valley looked clear. It was a pit of darkness. Even the magnoculars could pick out no trace of heat or movement. The bone-cutters did not always give off heat signals though. As they rotted they became unaware of the cold, not bothering to wear coats or hoods.

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