Tome of Fire by Nick Kyme

Author:Nick Kyme
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9781849702492
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2012-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

PROMETHEUS REQUIEM

The hangar gaped like an open wound in the side of the ship, festering with rust and warp corrosion. It belonged to the Glorion, an ancient vessel from the long-dead Kapp Frontier Wars and was just one in a conglomeration of almost a hundred. Ruined cathedra, mashed together in the violent act of joining, jutted alongside broken spires, shattered domes and the cleaved remains of many-tiered decks. The union of once-disparate vessels was as incongruous as the product of their fusion. Now a single drifting mass, such abominations were commonly referred to as ‘hulks’.

The Implacable was an insect compared to this behemoth and its landing stanchions touched down on an area of deck plating capable of harbouring an entire fleet of gunships. Ten armoured figures stepped out from the embarkation ramp. They moved slowly. Not because of the massive Terminator suits they were wearing or because of the inertia of the zero-gravity, nor was it because their boots were mag-locked to the deck plating. They were wary.

Hulks had ever been the province of alien creatures, hiding in the dark forgotten recesses, stirring from a deep-space slumber. But it was more than that. This amalgam, its many-hulled body ravaged by claw marks, colonised by strange bacterial growths and seared by solar wind, had been to the Eye. Spat from the warp like a birth mother expelling its nascent spawn, it had emerged back into the realm of realspace after almost a century’s absence.

‘I can smell the reek of the warp.’ Praetor’s voice came through the comm-feed in Tsu’gan’s helmet. Though he couldn’t see his face, Tsu’gan could tell his sergeant was scowling.

More than smell alone, the hangar walls bore visual evidence of the hulk’s taint. In the glare from the halo-lamps spearing out of his armour, Tsu’gan picked out traceries of void-frozen veins and oddly shaped protuberances. Gaps in the bizarre growths resembled mouths, flash-frozen in distended hunger. The aberrations stained every vertical surface and ended in slurries of fossilised biomass that collected against the edges of the deck.

‘Flamer.’ Praetor’s order was clipped, undercut by barely checked disgust.

Brother Kohlogh stepped out of formation and doused the wall in purifying fire. Like a match held to a stack of oiled timber, the flames raced across the tainted mass, devouring it to the eerie report of sibilant howling, just discernible above the heavy weapon’s roar.

Tsu’gan watched Emek make the sign of Vulkan’s hammer across his breast. None of the Firedrakes did it, but then the Apothecary was not one of them and more superstitious than most. He caught Tsu’gan’s gaze briefly, held it, then looked away as Praetor drove them on. It was obvious he wanted to be off this ship as soon as possible. He had good reason.

The empyrean was a shadow realm, a world overlaid on reality like a dirty film of plastek. Fell creatures swam its tides, given form by fear, envy and a desire for power. They were parasites that preyed on the weaknesses of man. An old word gave them substance.

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