Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds by Mark Clapham

Author:Mark Clapham
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2016-10-06T11:58:06+00:00

Nineteen

‘I had almost forgotten what it was to be a god,’ said Kruvan.

‘What was that?’ shouted Skarrow from the other end of the ridge runner carriage.

Kruvan had not realised he had spoken out loud. He shrugged his wide shoulders in Skarrow’s direction, and Skarrow took this as a sign that no conversation needed to happen. The other Red Corsair returned to polishing his bolter as the ridge runner continued its progress across Kerresh. From high on the ridge Kruvan looked down on an endless stretch of factorums and refineries, smokestacks and outlets spewing smog into the air, making it hard to see the planet curving up on the horizon. As Kruvan looked out, he saw the saltire of the Red Corsairs splattered across a tower.

It had been many years since Kruvan had known a population bow down before him and his ilk.

On the worlds of the Badab System, the Astral Claws had been tyrant deities, Huron demanding total subjugation from the mortals. Kruvan had walked amongst mortal men, and seen their terror and awe. Sometimes, they bowed, or presented tribute.

It was all worthless, of course. The Adeptus Astartes had no need or desire for mortal comforts, for their treasures or their currency. But to be looked up to in such a way, that had been good.

Then the Imperium crushed them. Badab was lost. The Astral Claws were no more. Amongst the forces of Chaos, the Red Corsairs were just one faction, regarding each other with fear and suspicion. It wasn’t the same.

Kruvan hadn’t realised how much he missed the old days until the Red Corsairs broke the population of Kerresh to their will.

To be a Red Corsair on Kerresh was to be the avatar of the new gods who had deposed the Emperor from His position as object of the people’s faith. When Garreon sent Kruvan, Skarrow and the rest of their squad out to the towns and factorums of Kerresh to gather slaves or resources, they had found themselves greeted with grovelling reverence. Weapons, fuel, food and drink, medical supplies: all were handed over without a shot being fired. The sigils of Chaos burned out from desecrated monuments to the old regime, the word of Chaos spreading to places the Red Corsairs had not previously visited.

It was not just the same as it had been on Badab, it was better, the authority of the Red Corsairs reinforced by the fire and fury of Chaos. From such a base, with the factorums of Kerresh and the population of the Hollow Worlds at their bidding, the Red Corsairs could expand, build a new empire, one the Imperium could not touch.

It was a dream, but one Kruvan knew he was not alone in having, a shared vision of a new Badab, of the Red Corsairs becoming conquerors of worlds once more.

It was a dangerous dream to speak of, even to a close comrade such as Skarrow. It echoed days officially struck from the memory of the warband, of the history of the Astral Claws that the Tyrant rejected in his new identity.

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