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EMPRA – Extract

One

A Black Library Publication

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EMPRA

Nate Crowley

One

Deep among the manhills of the first people, down south out of Shellforge – that’s where I meet the Angel.

I’m after a fivejaw. A big halfmale, slow from a moult, leaving clumps of crimson fur snagged on the thorngrass. Good fur – the kind I know I’ll need for mother’s burial cloak. So when I see it, I decide to hunt it. I’m on the edge of the old city anyway, digging flux for the forges, so when my shift ends at dusk I just follow the red tufts, all the way down into the old crumble.

I know, I know. Stupid Toa, walking the ghostways at night. But I’m a Shellmaker, not one of the Rivetfolk – I don’t believe in ghosts. And besides, what choice do I have? Tough as they are, even fivejaws are giving in to the poison now. I’ll be lucky to sniff another one this year, let alone before mum needs her cloak.

So here I am, picking my way between the old manhills in the dark, and I can’t even see the lights of the Body Above on account of the fog that’s risen. Stinks worse than spoiled blast-dust, that fog. It’ll be thick with poison, so I wrap a wet cloth over my mouth and nose and hope for the best. I might not believe in ghosts, but I’m jumpy. I keep seeing things looming in the murk, and even though it’s just the worn old statues of the first people, they still make me prickle.

Should be watching my feet, not the fog, ’cause not ten shellwidths later, the dead city makes a fool of me. I think I’m walking over leaf litter, but it’s just a thin crust of vitregren, grown out over a pit in the track. I plunge through it like piss through snow. My forge-breeches save my skin from the glassy stems, but don’t save my arse from the rock below. I hit sloping ground and roll, trying to suck air into my winded gut as I bounce on the stone.

I stop at last, and my spear skitters to a halt a few boltswidths away. There’s no air in me, and I heave for a long moment before I check for broken bones. If a leg’s gone I’ll probably die here, but if an arm’s gone I’ll not be able to dig flux or work the ’phaestus, which’ll be worse. I’m fine, though. Elbow’s taken a solid crack, probably chipped the bone. But my feet carry me and my fingers all bend the right way, so I cross my thumbs, clap my palms to my collarbones, and fan out my hands to make the Quilla in thanks. Hail Two-Bird, hail Empra.

I’ve fallen through the manhill’s skin, into one of the big chambers of the first people. The Rivetfolk say these places are the worst of all, as Two-Bird can’t see into them to shoo the ghosts off. We Shellmakers know better; we take the sight of the Two-Bird – of the Body Above, and Empra – wherever we go. I keep my hands spread in the Quilla, and hold them out like a shield as I look around that musty old cave.

Then I see the sigil – a great white mark looming behind my crossed thumbs, just visible in the dark. A skull daubed in thick pale clay, split in two halves inside a ring of teeth. I freeze like a rat before a gastergrieff, neck-hairs stiffening. A skull within a maw – that’s a holy sign, I know it is. A powerful one. But I can’t remember what it means.

Before I can bring it to mind, something hideous uncurls out of the dark. It’s spindly and red, and I take it for the fivejaw until I clock how big it is – larger than a wild grox. It’s a jungle of tendrils and claws and snippers, spreading out under a baggy red membrane, and it’s got one eye, blazing like hot iron.

My mind’s blank, but my body erupts like a coiled spring, glad to have something to do with all that fear. My spear’s flying before I know what I’m looking at, and it would be a boltswidth deep in the thing, only an arm like a vine whips out and grabs it. The thing snaps my spear like a twig, and then it flows towards me, skittering on the stone with its membrane flapping. I only just get my knife out before it’s on me, and I dodge one, two swipes of its talons. But it’s too fast – before I can get a thrust of my own in, I’m flat on the floor, metal-cold tentacles closed round my wrists.

Figuring that’s my time up, I screw up my eyes and throw my head back, so at least it goes for my throat and makes it quick. But I don’t die. The monster just holds me there, its breath stinking of dust and hot oil, and so I open one eye to get a look at it.

Another eye looks back at me. A human face, or at least half of one. The monster’s head is mostly grimy steel and wires and ventwork. Machinery, somehow – the sort that only comes from heaven, full of the Iron Magic. But on its right-hand side, above a brass jaw and a thick mat of scar tissue, there’s the face of a woman. It makes no sense. Is she imprisoned? Is she being eaten up? Or is she the monster?

‘Inteleggiss,’ growls a speaking-pad on the monster’s neck. Its human eye scowls in concentration, and its machine eye flares. ‘Mey inteleggiss.’

More sounds came out, distorted and grunty, but I’m not listening – the monster’s grip on my left hand is loose, and I reckon I can reach my belt, fish out my skinning blade. I brace myself against the stone, ready to twist free and jam my blade into that eye before it even knows I’m loose. But then the monster surprises me again.

With a click and a greasy-sounding whir, its machine eye turns a deep blue, and casts this glowing web onto the stone beside me. Some of the light touches me and I gasp, but it doesn’t hurt. I can’t even feel it, even though it looks solid. I turn my head and try to focus on the light, and I see it makes a sort of picture. A model, maybe, like the ones the camp’s builders make when they’re planning a new metal store, but made of light and fog that wobbles and fizzes at the edges.

‘Mizerrikoardi,’ says the monster in its weird buzz, and like a spell has been cast, I know what I’m looking at. The light is making a small picture of something vast – a shape I know like I know my own body. Because I see this shape in the sky every day. It’s the Body Above, the Body of Empra. It’s my god, and so this monster has to be an Angel.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Inferno! Volume 3 in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Empra © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Empra, 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: 978-1-80026-396-3

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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