Contents

Cover

Altar of Maws – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

ALTAR OF MAWS

Peter Fehervari

In ages past, the Saathlaa, who are descended from this ailing world’s first human colonists, consorted with many abominations, both primordial and preternatural. The facts of their corruption have degraded into fables alongside their once vibrant civilisation, but such tales always bear a kernel of truth. They are a warning to the wise and a lure to those who seek darker wisdom. Few are as obscure, yet disturbing, as the myth of Krol Szaajal, the Sunken Maw, a hidden lake that reputedly served as a crucible for unspeakable rites. I never found this malign place, but I suspect its hunger persists. Once awoken, such appetites are rarely sated.

Crossing the Mire World
The Requiem Infernal

i. Advent

The Captain stood on the bridge of the Polyphemus, gripping the control wheel tightly, as if braced for a storm, though no storm had ever raged here. This was his rightful, required station and he hadn’t moved in a long time. He couldn’t have said how long exactly, any more than he could recall how long his vessel had been trapped, or how many of its crew had died since the lake claimed them. Time had become as slippery as his ship’s slime-coated deck. Sometimes events tilted backwards so that dead men rose to go about their duties once more – then lurched suddenly forwards, spewing out one sickly dawn after the next without a night’s respite. His memories of the war his regiment had been waging across this drowned world were hazy, along with much of his past. Nothing felt certain except his divine duty and the need to endure so he could see it through.

I’ll fulfil the sacrament, the Captain promised the lake, as he had done so many times before… and after. I’ll make things right.

His burden offered more purpose than most souls ever found, though few recognised their emptiness or yearned to fill it, especially if they glimpsed the price, but he was grateful. After all, he hadn’t always been a master, of this gunboat or the sacrament. The ship’s former captain, a devout but shallow tyrant, was still on the bridge, woven into the far wall by the web of fungi blooming from his corpse. The cancerous tangle pulsated, wheezed and occasionally oozed strange dreams, so perhaps its host wasn’t entirely dead. The Captain liked to think he’d freed his predecessor by slitting him open to new possibilities. Light radiated from the cadaver, washing the bridge in lurid hues that made the spore-saturated air shimmer. It was beautiful – a sure sign of the God-Emperor’s grace.

Our lord is generous, the Captain mused, savouring the sacred reek. It was the incense of his faith, just as the lake was its altar and the Sleeper Beneath its holy spirit.

‘As above, so below,’ the Captain rasped, spattering the window before him with blood-flecked mucus. He watched reverently as the filth formed a fresh pattern on the glass. It was a map of this world, charting the protean flow of its waterways and the possibilities they wove. Only he could read it, of course. That was why he’d been chosen. His vision had snared the ship’s crew when their first captain denied the lake’s sanctity, then bound them in shared betrayal. Every one of them had planted a blade in the old heretic’s heart and pledged allegiance to the new order.

‘I’ll set things right,’ the Captain vowed aloud. The words triggered a coughing fit, and he retched a fresh configuration onto the window. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of something unexpected in the muck – a blue mote spiralling towards the chart’s centre. Was this the sign he’d glimpsed in his visions? He watched with anxious rapture, wary of disturbing the augury, then shivered as the speck completed its passage.

Finally.

The Captain ripped his hands from the wheel. They’d been there since his vigil began and rot had welded them to the rubber grip, but he scarcely felt the pain of release. Trailing strips of torn skin, he reached for the ship’s vox-caster.

‘All mariners, man your stations,’ he broadcast. ‘Our sacrament begins.’

I shall die on this world, Shas’ui Tal’hanzo predicted, gazing into the undulating grey-green limbo ahead. For the Greater Good, he added loyally, but with less conviction. Every time he invoked that once inviolable credo its potency diminished. The loss was imperceptible if measured in days, but there had been a great many days since he’d come to Fi’draah and his creed had become a need. He’d grown old alongside that decline, slipping past his prime while the war slithered on, seemingly without end. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he wondered whether either side truly wanted to win.

Murmuring a mantra of self-admonishment, Tal’hanzo focused on the present. The day had decayed into dusk, its gloom deepened by the jungle’s canopy. That ever-present tangle had grown denser as the river widened, as though the fat, fleshy trees to either side were tightening their grip on the sky to deny the water its liberty. Tal’hanzo’s hover barge raked ripples through the milky liquid, but nothing else disturbed it, above or below.

The emptiness endures, the fire warrior gauged. His helm’s sensors illuminated a scum of floating flora, but still no fauna. That was unusual. Fi’draah’s rivers typically swarmed with vermin. Their absence could signify the territory of an apex predator, but it had been like this for hours and his wariness had waned. Besides, the gun drone piloting his barge would alert him to any threats. The small disc-like machine was perched atop the control panel before him, chittering softly as it navigated. It was an older model, like most of the equipment passed down to the troops of the Wintertide Concordance, but its twin-linked carbines were more than a match for any natural predators.

Except the small ones, Tal’hanzo thought sourly. Fi’draah’s most lethal killers were tiny and patient in their predation, like the fungal strain that had overrun several outposts during the occupation’s first years, undetected until it bore fruit. Or the splinterskin malady that shattered the mind with pain long before it was done with the body, driving its victims to violence. Despite the diligence of his cadre’s physicians, such threats were perennial here. It was a wonder that the enemy, hampered by primitive technology and superstitions, could endure such depredations at all.

‘Do not underestimate the gue’la,’ Jhi’kaara had cautioned when he’d mocked their foe. ‘There is weakness in their barbarity, but also great strength.’

Tal’hanzo glanced at the barge to his right, seeking his fellow veteran. Like himself, Shas’ui Jhi’kaara stood at the prow of her long, open-topped vessel, her helm’s lenses glowing in the murk. Her armour’s white plates were scabbed with mould and foliage. Unlike the other fire warriors, who washed away the filth every night, she let it accrue until a mission was complete. It didn’t impair her armour’s functioning and their cadre’s shas’el believed she had earned the right to hunt as she saw fit, but Tal’hanzo disagreed. To his mind Jhi’kaara epitomised the spiritual malaise afflicting the Concordance. She was a survivor, yes, but what was she surviving for? Her name meant ‘broken mirror’, reflecting her extreme facial scarring, but he suspected her wound ran deeper than flesh and bone. And her connection with this world was troubling.

What do you see out there, broken one? he wondered. What do you seek?

Click here to buy Altar of Maws.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Altar of Maws © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2023. Altar of Maws, 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: 978-1-80407-527-2

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.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media.

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.