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Born of the Storm – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Born of the Storm

Edoardo Albert

‘Read me another one, papa. Please.’

The man shook his head, but he smiled as he did so. ‘It’s late, Gus. Time for sleep.’ He put the book down, carefully avoiding the patch on the floor where rockcrete mould was beginning to eat through from the hab on the level below.

‘Please, papa, just one more.’ But the words were trailing away now.

The father smiled again. This was his favourite time, after the day’s labour, when he watched his son drift into the safety of sleep, while he sat and watched – and kept watch.

‘Tomorrow, Gus. I’ll read you the tale of the angel and the dragon tomorrow.’

‘That’s my favourite. And the one about the wolf and the shepherd, and the knight and the orks, and the one about–’

‘Shhh.’ The man put his finger to his son’s lips. ‘It’s time to rest now.’

The boy rolled over towards the stained wall. His breathing steadied and slowed.

The man picked up the book. It was a real book, its pages of plaspaper, not a reader with lines that dissolved when it was switched off. His own father had read to him from it.

He stood up. Night shift.

But as he reached the door, the boy spoke.

‘The monsters in the stories. They’re real, aren’t they, papa?’

The man stopped. He looked back to his son. The boy was still turned from him, his lean shape draped in the thin bed cover. He remembered asking his own father that question.

‘Yes, son, they’re real.’

The boy’s head moved in a sleepy nod. ‘Thought so.’

The man watched him settle once more. But just as he was about to leave the room again, the boy turned to him, his eyes bright with dream vision.

‘When I grow up, I’m going to kill monsters, just like the angel and the wolf and the knight.’

The man nodded. ‘Yes, son. I know you will.’

The father stayed there, in the doorway, watching, as his son’s eyes closed once more and his breathing eased into sleep. As he left the room, he brushed the tear trails from his cheeks.

The truck, a wheezing, rackety, barely mobile vehicle, shuddered to a halt. After five minutes, it still hadn’t started moving again. The sergeant, a veteran of the Imperial Guard who never let his cadets forget it, lifted his cap from over his eyes and peered blearily at the boys packed into the back of the truck.

‘If I’m thrown off schedule by some hive scum…’ Sergeant Dalcop’s eyes, which were even redder than usual following a typical late-night get-together of the NCOs, settled on the boy sitting slightly apart from the rest by the truck’s gate. ‘Cadet Augustin, this hole is your neck of the habs. Find out what’s going on.’

Augustin got up.

‘Yeah, Gussy, tell your family to lay off and get back to their habs.’

The whisper was low enough not to reach Sergeant Dalcop, but Augustin heard it. He reached for the door release with one hand while removing the autopistol he had been issued for the duration of training from its holster; it would be reclaimed when their truck rolled back into the Imperial Guard barracks that served as the base for the young cadets.

‘Gussy’s afraid they’re going to say nasty things about him.’

Augustin glanced right, to the boy speaking, then opened the truck’s rear door and slipped down to the ground.

He could smell the smoke as he got out.

It was coming from the hab block up ahead, the smoke closing off the road. Augustin’s eyes narrowed.

That was his hab block.

Dad.

Augustin stepped away from the truck, heading to the hab block.

‘What’s happening, Gussy? The sergeant wants to know.’

The question stopped him. Made him listen. It was quiet. The lullaby of ganger battles had been almost as much a part of his childhood as his father reading to him.

‘What’s going on, cadet?’

Sergeant Dalcop had dragged himself from the only comfortable seat in the truck and was now standing in the cab door.

Something was wrong. This wasn’t just a hab fire.

The road was backed up. The drivers of the other trucks began sounding their horns. In the lead truck, the guard jumped out, stubber in hand, and began firing rounds off into the air.

Augustin turned to the sergeant.

‘Get out!’

‘What is it, cadet?’

From the circle of watching, curious cadets, one sneered, ‘Gussy wants to show us his home.’

‘It’s a trap, sir, you need to get clear. Now.’

‘What?’ Dalcop turned back towards the cadets. ‘Out, everyone o–’

That was when the first of the mines went off.

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A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Alex Boyd.

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ISBN: 978-1-78999-739-2

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