The carnosaur shakes the ground with another slow step closer. It breathes in short sniffs, mouth open, jaws slack, tasting the air for scents. A grey tongue the size of a man quivers in its maw.
The spear in his steady grip is the one he made himself. A long shaft of dark wood with afire-blackened point. He has used it for three years now, since his tenth winter, to hunt for his tribe.
He does not hunt for his tribe today. Today, as the sun burns down and bakes their backs, he hunts because the gods are in the jungle, and they are watching. The tribes have seen the gods in their armour of red metal and black stone, always in the shadows, watching the hunting parties as they stalk their prey.
If a hunter wishes to dwell in paradise among the stars, he must hunt well when the gods walk the jungles.
Zavien stares at the towering lizard-beast, unable to look away from its watery, slitted red eye.
He shifts his grip on the spear he crafted.
With a prayer that the gods are bearing witness to his courage, he throws the weapon with a heartfelt scream.
The Flesh Tearer crashed to the bloodstained ground, face down in the dust.
“Cease fire,” Sister Superior Mercy Astaran said softly. Her sisters obeyed immediately.
“But he still lives,” one of them replied.
This was true. The warrior was dragging himself with gut-wrenching slowness, one-armed and with a trembling hand, through the dirt. A dark trail of broken armour and leaking lifeblood pooled around him.
He raised his shaking hand once more, dug the spasming fingers into the ground, and dragged himself another half-metre closer to the burning church’s front door.
“Is he seeking to escape?” one of the youngest sisters asked, unwilling to admit her admiration for the heretic’s endurance. One arm lost at the elbow, both legs destroyed from the knees down, and his armour a cracked mess that leaked coolant fluids and rich, red Astartes blood.
“It is hardly escape to crawl into a burning building,” another laughed.
“He wishes to die among the blasphemy he caused,” Astaran said, her scowl even harsher in the firelight. “End him.”
A single gunshot rang out from the battle-line.
Zavien’s fingers stopped trembling. His reaching hand fell into the dust. His eyes, which had first opened to see the clear skies of a distant world, closed at last.
“What should we do with the body?” Sister Mercy Astaran asked her commander.
“Let the echoes of this heresy remain as an example, at least until the greenskins take control of the surrounding wastelands. Come sisters, we do not have much time. Leave this wretch for the vultures.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
BEN COUNTER
Ben Counter is one of the Black Library’s most popular authors. An Ancient History graduate and avid miniature painter, he lives near Portsmouth, England.
AARON DEMBSKI-BOWDEN
Aaron Dembski-Bowden is a British author with his beginnings in the videogame and RPG industries. He’s been a deeply entrenched fan of Warhammer 40,000 ever since he first ruined his copy of Space Crusade by painting the models with all the skill expected of an overexcited nine-year-old.
He lives and works in Northern Ireland with his fiancée Katie, hiding from the world in the middle of nowhere. His hobbies generally revolve around reading anything within reach, and helping people spell his surname.
C.S. GOTO
C.S. Goto has published short fiction in Inferno! and elsewhere. His work for the Black Library includes the Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War novels, the Deathwatch series and the Necromunda novel Salvation.
JONATHAN GREEN
Jonathan Green lives in West London. He is well known for his contributions to the Fighting Fantasy range of adventure gamebooks, as well as his novels set within Games Workshop’s worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, which include the Black Templars duology Crusade for Armageddon and Conquest of Armageddon. He has written for such diverse properties as Sonic the Hedgehog, Doctor Who, and Star Wars The Clone Wars.
To keep up with what he is doing set your personal cogitator relay to www.jonathangreenauthor.blogspot.com
PAUL KEARNEY
Paul Kearney studied at Lincoln College, Oxford where he read Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse and Middle English and was a keen member of the Mountaineering Society and the Officer Training Corps. He has published several titles including the Sea Beggars to critical acclaim, being long-listed for the British Fantasy Award.
NICK KYME
Nick Kyme hails from Grimsby, a small town on the east coast of England. Nick moved to Nottingham in 2003 to work on White Dwarf magazine as a Layout Designer. Since then, he has made the switch to the Black Library’s hallowed halls as an editor and has been involved in a multitude of diverse projects. His writing credits include several published short stories, background books and novels.
You can catch up with Nick and read about all of his other published works at his website: www.nickkyme.com
GRAHAM McNEILL
Hailing from Scotland, Graham McNeill worked for over six years as a Games Developer in Games Workshop’s Design Studio before taking the plunge to become a full-time writer. In addition to many previous novels, including bestsellers False Gods and Fulgrim, Graham has written a host of SF and Fantasy stories and comics. Graham lives and works in Nottingham and you can keep up to date with where he’ll be and what he’s working on by visiting his website.
Join the ranks of the 4th Company at www.graham-mcneill.com
MITCHEL SCANLON
Mitchel Scanlon is a full-time novelist and comics writer. His previous credits for the Black Library include the novel Fifteen Hours and Descent of Angels. He lives in Derbyshire, in the UK.
JAMES SWALLOW
James Swallow’s stories from the dark worlds of Warhammer 40,000 include the Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, Faith & Fire, the Blood Angels books Deus Encarmine, Deus Sanguinius, Red Fury and Black Tide as well as short fiction. His non-fiction features Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher and books on scriptwriting and genre television; Swallow’s other credits include writing for Star Trek: Voyager, scripts for videogames and audio dramas.
He lives in London, and is currently working on his next book.
RICHARD WILLIAMS
Richard Williams was born in Nottingham, UK and was first published in 2000. He has written fiction for publications ranging from Inferno! to the Oxford & Cambridge May Anthologies, on topics as diverse as gang initiation, medieval highwaymen and arcane religions. In his spare time he is a theatre director and actor. Relentless was his first full-length novel and his latest book is Reiksguard.
Visit his official website at www.richard-williams.com
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proofing by Red Dwarf,
formatting and additional
proofing by Undead.
Legends of the Space Marines Page 41
