Deathfire
Page 41
‘My lord, forgive me. I will make greater efforts. I require only a little aid.’ The fat man gulped. His attention had latched itself fully upon the Justaerin.
Maloghurst grasped the skull atop his cane. ‘Do not look to them. I could kill you myself without difficulty.’
He pushed his weight down upon the slender stick of ebony and heaved himself to his feet, and limped from his seat to the logistician. The fat man threw himself down on his hands and knees, but Maloghurst bent low. Grabbing a loose handful of hair and augmetic interface tendrils, he hauled the adept into the air, transhuman muscles bearing the weight easily, although his bones protested at the load. The logistician gaped, his mouth opening and closing moistly as he desperately tried not to scream. Tears welled from screwed-tight eyes to bead his cheeks.
Maloghurst stared him full in the face. ‘What would the Warmaster do, should he find himself in such a situation?’
The man smelled sour. Rank sweat and desperation mingled unwholesomely. Maloghurst suspected he would not answer for fear that the wrong response would end his life. He was correct in that assumption.
But the logistician was more clever than he seemed.
‘The Warmaster, in any situation, would find a way of achieving his desired result,’ he gasped.
Maloghurst admired the man’s calmness in the face of death. That, more than his answer, saved his life.
‘Yes! Whether that be toppling the lying Emperor or delivering the right amount of supplies to four insignificant cruiser squadrons!’ He released the man. ‘Get out. Do your duty without complaint. If I see you here again, I will tear your heart from your chest.’
Maloghurst turned and went back to the stool by the throne. Sparks of pain tickled his fused spine and pelvis. He gritted his teeth as he retook his seat.
Pain had been one of two constants in Maloghurst’s life for some time. The other was responsibility.
An unwelcome third had recently made itself known to him.
Vulnerability.
He was vulnerable, more so with each passing day. He had always been respected, but he had never been well liked. There was a feral mood upon the Legion of late. Old practices long suppressed now resurfaced – the savage face of Cthonia revealed as the facade of calm imposed by the Emperor was abraded by war. Rivalries had become more pronounced, more violent.
His closeness to Horus provoked jealousy. In a society of warriors, his attention to more cerebral matters marked him out for derision.
And so the distance between himself and his brothers yawned wider on the one hand. No great matter, were it not that on the other the gulf between Horus and himself also grew. No human or transhuman could ever hope to knowingly inveigle themselves with a primarch, but for two hundred years their friendship had at least bridged the fundamental gap between them.
Recently, Horus had grown far beyond mortal concerns. Ever since Molech.
None would challenge Horus’s authority, but they would dare to challenge Maloghurst for the primarch’s favour and the chance to influence the Warmaster. There was a sense of exposure growing in him that he had never felt before. Maloghurst had become a target.
But danger would not keep him from his duty.
‘Next,’ he said, with a heavy breath.
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