The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley

Author:Alec Worley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2022-07-08T07:21:55+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

SEARCH AND DESPAIR

‘This place is a bit posh for one of our boys, innit?’

Clodde was peering around the culina officae. Shiny plasteel workbenches ran end to end the length of the hall, right up to the huge empty fireplace at the far side. The shelves had been cleared of utensils, drawers and alcoves emptied.

Baggit clung to one of the empty curing racks, chains squealing as he swung. ‘Our Herbo would’ve got a special dispensation to work here,’ he said. ‘Would’ve brought his crew with him an’ all. Happens all the time in the field, y’know. The kind of dinners Herbo could whip up would’ve been far too good to waste on the likes of verms like you and me. Not good enough for the likes of captains, mind you, but good enough for your mid-level brass.’

Baggit grunted and the curing rack came apart in his hands. Something slipped from inside the hollow frame and Baggit caught it. A pouch of fossilised leather. He cracked it open and shook out clinking phials of stimms, a collapsible hypo-awl and counterseptic patches stamped with the winged skull of the Militarum.

‘Probably good for another few hundred years, these,’ Baggit said. ‘A good lad, our Herbo.’ He stuffed the little artefacts into his pocket and looked around the hall. ‘Now what else have you got for me, eh?’

Baggit hopped off the bench and prowled towards the fireplace, gauging the empty shelves and cabinets. He found twin depressions in a flagstone to one side of the fireplace where generations of provisioners had once stood beside the great cauldron. Baggit placed his feet in the indentations and gazed down the hall.

So here was where Master Provisioner Herbo Prongfork would have stood and directed his troops, yelling to his charges as they scurried about the place and yelled back, busy chopping ingredients, grinding powders, working bellows, lifting pots and kettles from those smaller hearths along the walls. The heat would have turned this place into a furnace.

Baggit felt a creeping melancholy. These walls would have kept all the horrors of the galaxy at bay. Within would have been a world of warmth and bustle and laughter and aromas that would make your belly groan with want, a world of friends, a crew thankful for whatever quirk of fate had them carrying dishes and not lasrifles in service of their Emperor.

Only the most gifted ratlings were allowed to cook for the officers, only those for whom the office of master provisioner was more than just a duty. Such ratlings saw it as a sacred honour to serve those who fought and died in their stead, exalting them with dishes as near to perfect as they could get. If Herbo had been anything like the masters Baggit had known in the field, every meal would have been prepared with the solemnity of a benediction. Baggit let Herbo’s story spiral in his head and felt suddenly ridiculous. Yesterday, ‘Herbo Prongfork’ was just a name out of legend.

Clodde watched in fascination. Baggit asked him to hold his hand out so he could climb on and see over the benches.

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