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Clade

Rob Sanders

‘When the forge world of Velchanos Magna was rediscovered, the forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus went to war to reconquer it from the Dark Mechanicum. But at the heart of the world lurked a daemon called the Abystra Dynomicron, and its corruption flowed through liquid metal across the planet and powered the dark forges that created the deadly war machines ranged against the Cult Mechanicus forces.

‘Magos Dominus Theronymous Gant was at the forefront of the campaign, commanding skitarii legions and Legio Cybernetica constructs as he fought to bring the Omnissiah’s light back to Velchanos Magna. After one particularly vicious battle to claim the Anathdrach forges, Gant’s foe, Forge Master Vasco Phaedrega, escaped and the tech-priest dominus swore to hunt and kill the heretic and his twisted skitarii bodyguard.’

– From Wars of the Machine Cult, publication suppressed

The spidery hydraulics of Theronymous Gant’s legs were largely hidden beneath his vestments but they made short work of wreckage-strewn terrain of the Planum Obsequia. The tech-priest was a hunched figure with multiple bionic limbs and mechadendrites snaking out from beneath his heavy robes. He walked with his rod of office in one of his many hands, stabbing its interface tip into the grit, scrap and corpses of the battlefield with crabby insistence. The stave’s workings glowed blue in the forge world’s perpetual night, lighting the way through the destruction.

The constructs of the Dark Mechanicum had paid heavily for their twisted faith. Gant skirted a monstrous crater that still steamed in the emptiness of the ashen wastes. A god-machine or one of the Adeptus Mechanicus ships stationed in orbit above had visited its fury on the warped forces gathered here. The planum was littered with bodies, cybernetic limbs and exposed workings.

Gant was followed by Breacher-Clade Rho~4 Servotaurox. Made up of twelve Kataphron heavy battle servitors, the Breacher units were tracked like small tanks. The armoured torsos of turret-interfaced servitors little knew the honour they bore. The Kataphrons were holy weapons of the Machine-God, designed to tear the heart out of enemy formations with their hydraulic claws and arc rifles.

Gant held up one of his many bionic appendages and the Kataphron Breachers crunched to a halt. Gant’s telescopic optics whirred to focus on a series of footprints. They were uniform, like those of bionic replacements, and deep – no doubt belonging to constructs carrying the weight of their war-plate, weaponry and augmentations.

<Mark coordinates,> Gant streamed in the binharic cant that the heavy battle servitors understood. <Targets have changed their heading.>

Rho~4[1/12] trundled forward. As the prime unit of the Kataphrons, the priest’s orders were run through him. The servitor gave the simultaneous impression of a man caught in a machine trap – a soul furious to be free – and a cybernetic monstrosity drunk on its own destructive power. The only flesh visible was the Kataphron Breacher’s half-face. Hive world tattoos wove elegantly about his eye and furrowed brow, running up across his shaven head. An ornamental cog attached to his nose clinked against the vox-grille that replaced his mouth.

<See?> Gant said, the steam of his breath departing the rebreather flasks that protruded from his hood. He poked the interface tip of his glowing stave at the prints.

Rho~4[1/12] did nothing but update his acquisition protocols and targeting data with numbers and dimensions. Gant snaked the curved alloy of his spine up and around, stabbing his rod of office in the direction the footsteps had taken. His optics whirred, extending telescopically from his hood. The priest cycled through his filters. An annotated enhancement suggested that his target had headed for the Neotrontia Collector Fields and beyond that the towering forges of the Crucib-Pentadictum.

<See how these foul hereteks run before the wrath of the Great Maker?>

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS UK.

Cover illustration by Roman Cherepov.

Clade © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Clade, Adeptus Mechanicus, 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.
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ISBN: 978-1-78251-533-3

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