by Phil Kelly
The smell of boiling vomit clawed at Farsight’s throat, eyes and skin. Lungs burning, he braced against the cocoon’s backrest and placed both feet on the hatch. He kicked out hard and sharp, but it shifted less than a finger’s breadth.
Farsight channelled his pent-up anger and frustration; the fires of desperation roared within his soul.
With a great cry, he pushed as hard as he could.
The hatch groaned for a single microdec, then sprang open. Farsight fell into the howling storm. He landed on his hands and knees on a dune of sharp-edged rust, as vulnerable as a newborn.
Razored flinders chewed at his face and hands as he stumbled away from the sparking wreck of his battlesuit. A sudden gale hurled him from his feet, and the commander scrambled backwards over the lip of a dune. The rust sliced his nimble pilot’s fingers to the bone, terrifying pain wracking his hands as the tops of his digits were carved away. He felt terror creep over his mind as he realised his hands were all but useless. He could not pilot a battlesuit now, even were he safe inside one.
Farsight shielded his face to draw in a foul-tasting lungful of hot air, getting a mouthful of rusty sand for his efforts. He fell, coughing hard as splintered metal stabbed him in a thousand places at once. Mind blazing, he tried to focus, to somehow grasp a strand of hope that could lead to his escape.
An insistent buzzing grew louder over the howling gale, accompanied by the thin screech of metal. The silhouettes of three ork walkers emerged from the tempest. Rotary saws at the end of each of their limbs buzzed loudly.
A giant of an ork stomped amongst them, its sutured body as much metal as flesh. It was easily the ugliest thing Farsight had ever seen. Beneath a crown of crackling antennae, a scarred head peered through the storm, its leer obscured by a jutting metal jaw and the buzzsaws that revved in place of its hands.
The pig-like eyes of Dok Toofjaw glinted red, lit by the fires of malice.
Then the buzzsaws came down to end the Arkunashan war once and for all.
Click here to buy Farsight.
A Black Library Publication
First published in Great Britain in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Pedro Nunez.
Blades of Damocles © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. Blades of Damocles, Space Marine Battles, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78572-465-7
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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