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Knightsblade – Extract

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Luk Kar Chimaeros, the Knight of Ashes, pursued his quarry across the stars. The sorceress Alicia Kar Manticos was ever one step ahead. Alicia had brought ruin upon his Noble House, had led them into damnation and left Luk an outcast. Did she flee his wrath, or did she lure him on towards what she hoped would be his own tragic end? Most likely it was both, for wherever the Knight of Ashes went, his erstwhile stepmother had already departed, leaving destruction and mayhem in her wake.

Son of the disgraced Viscount Gerraint Tan Chimaeros, Luk had taken the Freeblade oath in order to distance himself from his father’s heresy. Yet the deeds of House Chimaeros hung over Luk like a darkened cloud. Their descent into rebellion and daemon worship, their willing alliance with arch-heretics and witches, their murder of High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis and their attempts to usurp the crown from its rightful owners – these were deeds in which Luk had not been complicit, but by which he was tainted through association.

Thus, after the conquering armies of Adrastapol returned to their world in triumph, Luk did not tarry long. As his childhood friend, Danial Tan Draconis, ascended to take the mantle of High King and restore order to their fractured lands, Luk departed to begin his hunt. He left upon a fast ship with a small compliment of Sacristans and serviles – all that he would need to keep his Knight, Sword of Heroes, in fighting condition while he tracked down Alicia Kar Manticos and administered the Emperor’s justice.

Yet the hunt soon proved a more complex and challenging affair than the Knight of Ashes had anticipated. From Ghamdor to the Tyvorian Spiral he went. From there he went on to Undul, Sacramentus and Pydos. Always he found rebellion fermented, dark sorcery unleashed, madness and horror to be confronted. Always his quarry was gone, leaving nought but mocking echoes.

Along the way, the Knight of Ashes gathered a band of followers, fellow Freeblades alongside whom he fought, and who saw in his hunt for redemption a chance to earn their own. They were heroes all, despite their outcast status, and they did much good together. Still their quarry eluded them.

At last, on U’latu, Luk found the information that might end his bitter pursuit. An aging gas-prospector spoke of a world of shifting sands and fiery mountains. There dwelt the Oracle of the Silver Eye, whom Luk had long sought.

Five years sidereal had passed since Luk departed Adrastapol on his quest. Five long, bitter years of frustration, anger and unceasing battle against the machinations of Chaos. Finally, the Knight of Ashes had a chance to end his hunt. Believing that this shadowed figure might hold the key to concluding his pursuit, Luk turned his small fleet for the world of Kandakkha.

Extracted from the writing of Sendraghorst,
Sage Strategic of Adrastapol,
vol XX ‘The Hunt for Redemption’.

D’atsub drove his heels into his lanka’s flanks. The leathery beast croaked and increased its pace, sand spraying as its hooves dug into the dune. D’atsub hung on to his steed’s harness, wincing as something exploded yards to his left.

Fire blossomed.

Grit rained down on him.

The lanka crested the dune beneath a sky whose fiery clouds boiled like a cursed sunset. More projectiles whizzed around him. The desert stretched away before D’atsub, volcanoes rising amidst the hissing sands like islands in a distant ocean. Directly ahead, the strange stone columns of the Maze rose in profusion. Then D’atsub was hanging on for dear life as his croaking beast took the downslope in loping bounds.

‘Pho’mada,’ he gasped into his vox-bead, struggling to hear his own words over the ringing in his ears. ‘Do you receive? They hunt in my tracks.’

‘We stand ready, kin-of-my-kin,’ replied Pho’mada through a swirl of static. ‘Lead them into the Maze, to the Circle. We wait.’

‘Just draw them in,’ came another voice. The offworlder. ‘We’ll do the rest.’

‘There are hundreds,’ said D’atsub. ‘Three clans at least! The Gha’tna have joined them, and brought their iron engines.’

Pho’mada cursed, and D’atsub heard fear in his voice.

‘They have nothing to give us pause,’ said the offworlder, his voice flinty. ‘Don’t deviate from the plan.’

‘Too late to do anything else,’ said D’atsub, clinging to his lanka’s neck as the beast neared the base of the dune.

He heard the throaty growl of engines at his back. Shells fell around him, blasting him with their furnace-like heat, but by the blessings of the Emperor, he remained untouched. His lanka’s hooves bit deep, propelling him into the shadow of the Maze. Graven by millennia of wind-blown sand, the stone columns were twisted and hollow, their strata showing through in rainbows of silicate. They pressed close to one another, forming winding passages and ways.

D’atsub kicked his steed again and sent it careening between the columns. Bullets and las blasts struck stone, jagged shards whizzing around him. He hauled the lanka between two columns, racing deeper into the forest of towering rock. Left and right the beast weaved, outdistancing his pursuers.

‘Not too fast, girl,’ he hissed, fighting to rein the lanka in. ‘We must not lose them.’

A beam of light speared over his shoulder and gouged a hole in a nearby column, toppling it in a shower of stone.

‘Not lost,’ he said, kicking his steed. ‘Go, go!’

D’atsub’s lanka lunged through a tight bunching of columns and into a wide natural depression. Half a mile or so across, the Circle was hemmed in by stone monoliths. Its bedrock was all but free of sand, and in better days it had seen clan-meets and nomadic bazaars.

Now, deployed across its mid-point in a thin line, waited D’atsub’s clan.

The Faithful Sons numbered less than a hundred warriors, many of them old men or boys. A few sat astride lankas, and carried dune-bows. Others wore the Imperial body armour of their fathers’ fathers, while a lucky few clutched antique lasguns and autoguns. Their single, dilapidated Chimera sat in the middle of their battle-line, Pho’mada stood atop its mural-painted hull.

‘Weapons!’ shouted D’atsub as his steed pelted towards the clan lines. Pho’mada’s beckoning wave turned into a wide-eyed shout of warning, and D’atsub felt a lurch. His lanka gave a despairing croak and fell – shot from behind. D’atsub had time to cry out before the rock floor rushed up to smash into his face.

Groggily, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Everything was jumbled. His cheek burned like fire and something was in his eyes. He blinked and tried to remember where he was. Dimly, D’atsub heard yelling. Running feet. The rattle of something that could have been drums. Or… gunfire? One arm gave out and he sprawled, looking back the way he had come.

His eyes widened as he saw the dark mass of the heretics, spilling from between the columns.

‘D’atsub!’ Pho’mada’s voice swam through the vox. ‘D’atsub, get up! Move, kin-of-my-kin, or you’ll die!’

‘Just… shoot…’ gasped D’atsub, fumbling for his laspistol.

‘Gilded throne,’ cursed Pho’mada, before giving the order. With a desultory crackle, the Faithful Sons complied. Lasbolts and bullets whipped over D’atsub to rake the enemy lines. Dark figures in keph’tas and sand-goggles tumbled to the ground, spiked clubs and pistols spilling from their hands. Yet more came behind them, dozens more, screaming praise to their bloody god.

‘The iron engines!’ shouted Pho’mada. ‘They come!’

Behind the swarm of traitor clansmen came dark shapes – lumbering hulks that might once have been Imperial battle-tanks. They rolled on brazen tracks, festooned with spikes and Chaos fetishes. Where they advanced, columns toppled like betting stones. Their guns screamed, and D’atsub cried out as his clan’s battle-line vanished in a string of explosions. The smoke cleared, revealing clansmen staggering in shock amidst the ruined bodies of their dead. The Chimera was on fire, and Pho’mada was nowhere to be seen.

‘Offworlder!’ shouted D’atsub. ‘Where are you? You swore the Emperor’s oath!’

‘I did,’ came the offworlder’s voice across the vox. ‘And my oath is my bond.’

The ground shook beneath D’atsub, a pounding rhythm that grew by the moment. Titanic footsteps drew closer. From either flank echoed tumbling stone. And then they came. Metal gods, engines of the Emperor, striding into the Circle with murder in their glowing eyes.

‘Pho’mada,’ breathed D’atsub. ‘They are everything you claimed…’

Forty feet tall and more, the ironclad giants had fearsome guns and revving blades for arms. They bore more guns and racks of missiles upon their hulking shoulders, and proud pennants fluttered around them as they marched. In unison, their weapons lit with fury, and D’atsub realised it was now the heretic clansmen’s turn to vanish amidst the fires of retribution.

‘Praise the Emperor,’ screamed D’atsub, elation eclipsing his terror. ‘It is a miracle!’ Seizing his chance, the clansman scrambled to his feet and ran for the Imperial lines.

‘Knight of Ashes to all Exiles,’ voxed Luk Kar Chimaeros. ‘As we discussed, a simple pincer if you please. Void, Duty Unending, you have their left flank. Crimson Death, Wrath Inescapable, their right.’

‘What of you, Knight of Ashes?’ Lady Ekhaterina Hespar’s tone was mocking. ‘Don’t tell me the blade of Adrastapol plans to hang back in terror from these heathen curs?’

‘No, Lady Hespar,’ he replied. ‘We don’t all go to such lengths to avoid battle as former Knights of House Hawkshroud. I shall go straight up the centre.’

‘You’ll face the consequences of that remark later, Luk,’ she said.

‘Promises,’ he replied, but his focus had already shifted to the battle before him. Luk’s cockpit auspex swarmed with target designators. His throne mechanicum sang with power, and the wisdom of his ancestors whispered in his mind. Sword of Heroes rumbled around him, its machine-spirit thirsty for traitor blood.

Who was he to deny his steed?

With a thought, Luk fed power to his motive actuators, stepping Sword of Heroes over the battered loyalists in a single stride. He clenched his haptic gauntlets, mindful of the green rune that showed the loyalist scout still staggering towards safety. The traitors were almost on top of him.

‘No you don’t, recidivist scum,’ muttered Luk. He willed his weapons into action. His Knight’s heavy stubbers engaged, raking bullets into the clansmen. Bodies disintegrated in sprays of blood. The scout kept running, but almost fell as he gawped up at the war engine that had saved him.

With his field of fire clear, Luk clenched one haptic gauntlet and unleashed the might of his thermal cannon. Prickling heat crawled across his skin, sympathetic feedback as the weapon fired. Searing energies burst amidst the onrushing traitors, turning a swathe of them to vapour and gouging a glassy crater in the bedrock. A cheer rose from the Imperial lines, and Luk allowed himself a tight smile.

‘Always nice to know my efforts are appreciated,’ he said.

To Luk’s left advanced Void, the pitch-black Knight of Ranulf Vo-Geiss, its avenger gatling cannons screaming as they ploughed twin furrows through the charging cultists. Vo-Geiss’ sombre chant carried across the vox, an ominous counterpoint to the slaughter.

‘Concentrate your fire on their iron engines,’ voxed Luk, striding Sword of Heroes towards the enemy.

‘Iron engines,’ replied J’madus Hw’ss, pilot of Crimson Death. His strange Knight’s rangy frame was reminiscent of the old Heresy-era Cerastus Atropos. Clad in a bastardised version of House Krast’s fiery raiment, the Knight bore weird energy weapons on its arms, and carried a bulky shield generator like a hump upon its back ‘Oilspit. They are barely worthy of the name.’

Crimson Death’s positron driver screamed as it charged, then let fly with a shocking flash of light. A trio of iron engines detonated as they emerged from the Maze, blown apart by Hw’ss’ weapon.

A ruby beam of energy spat from another iron engine, splashing against Luk’s ion shield and staggering his steed.

‘Don’t underestimate them,’ he said. ‘This quarry has claws.’

He returned fire, annihilating his attacker and the luckless heretics surrounding it, then turned his stubbers on another cluster of foes.

‘There are more here,’ voxed Lady Ekhaterina Hespar, the aristocratic former herald of House Hawkshroud. ‘Allow me to remind you what the wrath of Hawkshroud looks like, Luk.’ Her Knight was Duty Unending, clad in panoply of rich yellow and purple. Its rapid-fire battlecannon loosed a tight salvo of shells, each punching through the hull of an enemy tank. Iron engines exploded, rolling to a stop as burning hulks.

‘I’ve seen it enough times, my lady,’ said Luk. ‘Though as demonstrations go, that was impressive.’

‘You talk too much,’ voxed Maia Kastarada, striding Wrath Inescapable into the enemy lines. Her steed was a sleek Errant, clad in midnight blue and ice white. Its thermal cannon roared as Maia advanced, crushing clansmen to pulp with her ironclad footfalls. ‘All of you. Your chatter dishonours the deed of killing.’

‘Freeblades fight as they will, Maia,’ said J’madus. ‘Our comrade the Void chants all battle long, ignores half the orders Luk gives him, and still his slaughter remains optimised.’ The former Krast Knight cursed in binharic as a lucky shot pierced his energy shield and blasted a crater in his steed’s torso. A spindly servitor unfolded itself from its charging port in the side of Crimson Death’s iron hump, and went to work repairing the damage.

‘She’s right,’ said Luk. ‘We’re here for a reason, and the longer we tarry against this unworthy foe, the longer it will take us to attend to our real duties. Exiles, obliterate these heathens so we can be about the hunt.’

D’atsub watched the slaughter with wide eyes. From the instant the Knights joined the battle, he and his fellows had become irrelevant. The Faithful Sons still fired into the enemy ranks all the same, whooping with the adrenaline rush of vengeance long sought.

Pho’mada stood beside him, leaning on D’atsub as a wiseman bandaged his burns.

‘They are magnificent,’ breathed the chieftain. ‘Iron angels of the Emperor.’

‘They are terrible engines of death,’ said D’atsub, nodding. ‘In this dark age, we need such things to survive.’

Cannons crashed. Missiles streaked through the air to detonate amongst the heretic lines. The Knights took long steps, their legs swinging through the air like those of mythical desert beasts, before crashing down with pile-driver force. Blood sprayed with every footfall, heretics bursting like gore-filled lanka bladders.

Packs of frenzied clansmen screamed as they charged, battering at the joints and cabling of the Knights’ feet and ankles to no avail. Some fired crude pistols and firelock muskets while others hurled fizzing potash bombs that detonated uselessly against the Knights’ armoured hides.

‘Even the guns of the iron engines cannot hurt them,’ said Pho’mada, as another volley of shots splashed blue against the shield of the nearest Knight. ‘See, their fury cannot overcome the blessings of the Emperor.’

‘I am glad that they fight on our side of this war, kin-of-my-kin,’ said D’atsub. ‘Imagine if such a weapon was to be wielded by the blood worshippers.’

Pho’mada scoffed. ‘These are divine engines of the Emperor’s will, D’atsub. Their purity could never be sullied by the hands of heretics. Be careful what you say, lest you stray into heresy yourself.’

D’atsub nodded, taking the occasional shots at the enemy as he watched the slaughter. Some amongst the Faithful Sons cheered rapturously and fired along with him. Others were silent, wide-eyed at the sheer ferocity of the Emperor’s judgement.

Soon enough, it was over. The last of the Gha’tna clansmen, their fervour finally spent, tried to flee into what remained of the Maze. The Knights’ fire brought stone columns tumbling down on them.

‘It is victory,’ said D’atsub as the rocks toppled and fires rose. The Knights stopped firing at last, and the sudden quiet was almost as deafening as the fury that preceded it.

‘None survive!’ said D’atsub, louder, turning towards his clansmen. He grinned fiercely as the realisation of victory struck him. ‘None survive!’ he bellowed, and his comrades took up the cry. ‘Praise the Emperor! Death to the heretics!’

Their cries rang out over the Circle’s butchered corpse-piles and by the shattered remains of the Maze to echo across the dune sea.

The Knights had defeated the minions of Chaos in this final battle.

Kandakkha was saved.

Luk walked Sword of Heroes across the dunes to compensate for the treacherous terrain. He followed D’atsub, who loped over the hissing sands on a fresh lanka.

Beware your flanks, lad, lest any have survived that massacre, whispered a ghost from his throne.

Better to mind the sand betwixt your toes, murmured another. A fall on sand’s more likely to kill you on this world than any backwards heretic…

‘Neither is going to kill me, old scullsmaids,’ said Luk as he watched his auspex and instruments. His steed rumbled, as though in agreement.

‘The clansman rides quickly,’ observed Lady Hespar from her position thirty yards behind Sword of Heroes. The rest of the Exiles were strung out behind her, the Knights spaced to watch one another’s flanks.

‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked Ranulf Vo-Geiss. ‘If iron gods strode at your heels?’

‘We are not gods,’ said Lady Kastarada. ‘Never allow such conceit into your thoughts.’

‘A turn of phrase,’ replied Vo-Geiss gruffly. ‘Just words.’

‘Words have power,’ said Maia. ‘Oaths are forged from words.’

‘You will not win with this one, Ranulf,’ said Hw’ss. ‘I hail from a world aligned with the Adeptus Mechanicus, brought up in the Forgecastles of House Krast, and still I am less dogmatic and literal than she.’

‘No wonder they exiled you then, Cogs,’ said Ekhaterina.

Luk checked his manifold.

‘Mind your duties, Exiles,’ he said, slowing Sword of Heroes to a standstill. ‘The lanka’s stopped.’

‘Finally,’ said Vo-Geiss. ‘An end to this time-wasting.’

Luk scowled but said nothing. Now was not the time to engage in yet another battle of wills with the Void.

The foothills of a volcano loomed through the swirling veils of grit. High on its slopes, Luk’s magnified vision picked out fresh lava trails crawling slowly downwards, glowing amidst the wind-blown sands. The lanka rider motioned towards a defile between two basalt outcroppings. They framed a pathway leading into darkness.

‘Inviting,’ said Luk. He sighed. ‘But we haven’t come all this way to balk now. Duty Unending?’

‘Yes, Knight of Ashes?’

‘You have the lance until I return.’

‘Understood – we will be vigilant. And Luk?’

He paused, halfway out of his throne.

‘Yes, Lady Hespar?’

‘Be careful, sir Knight. You’re no use to us dead.’

‘Understood, my lady.’

Luk uncoupled his neural jacks and felt the familiar lessening as the ghosts of his throne left him. He folded his haptic gauntlets in his seat, smoothing their wires down carefully. Checking that his bolt pistols were holstered at his hips, he unhooked his sheathed chainsword from its equipment rack and slung it onto his back. Fixing a rebreather and sand goggles in place, Luk clambered up the ladder to his cockpit hatch and out into the wind.

As Luk’s boots hit the sand, D’atsub guided the lanka over to him. The leathery beast honked and thrust its snout at Luk, sniffing him suspiciously.

‘Is that it, then?’ he asked over the moaning wind.

‘That is it, offworlder,’ said D’atsub, pointing reverently at the sulphurous defile. ‘The Path of Fire and Shadow wends between the Gnashing Rocks, unto Lorgukhu’s maw. There will you find the one you seek.’

‘Your people have a reassuring way with names,’ said Luk.

‘Ours is an unforgiving planet, offworlder,’ said D’atsub. ‘Everything here kills. Everything demands respect, and so our fathers’ fathers gave respectful names. We are reminded always to treat Kandakkha as it deserves. It helps us not to die.’

Luk sketched a half bow.

‘I meant no disrespect. Your clan has honoured its half of the bargain, and you have my heartfelt thanks.’

‘You came with the wrath of the Emperor, in our hour of need, Knight of Ashes,’ said D’atsub. ‘You are our saviours, and it is we who thank you. Even your name is auspicious, for it bespeaks the breath of Lorgukhu.’

‘The Oracle,’ said Luk, squaring his shoulders. ‘No. She will not kill me. She will give me what I need to finish my hunt.’

‘I hope it is so,’ said D’atsub. ‘We will wait. If you do not return by the time the sands turn black, I will lead your comrades back to safety, and we shall sing songs of mourning in your honour.’

Luk nodded wry thanks, then set off towards the shadowed cleft. As he went, the volcano, Great Lorgukhu, rumbled angrily.

Passing between the craggy outcroppings, Luk entered chill shadow that was quite at odds with the fiery wrath far above. A veil of sulphur-smoke drifted before him. It parted at his advance. Sheltered from the wind, Luk could hear the hiss of his rebreather loud in his ears.

The path wound and twisted, its walls jagged. Rock rose high overhead as Luk moved onwards, the sky becoming a narrow band of grey-white above him. Rounding a corner into deeper darkness, Luk flicked on the stablight strapped to his shoulder. He started as it illuminated bleached skulls, impaled upon thin spikes of stone. Beyond them, a cave mouth yawned in the volcano’s flank.

‘Throne! This planet,’ muttered Luk. He popped open his holsters and advanced. Passing between the macabre fetishes, Luk kept his breathing steady as he walked slowly into the cave mouth. His stablight pierced the darkness, revealing a rough stone floor scattered with rocks and fragments of bone. An old metal chest sat in the cave mouth, aquila-stamped and rusting. More bones dangled from the cave’s low ceiling, suspended on twists of wire.

‘Human,’ he whispered, moving carefully past the fetishes and taking care not to touch them.

‘Theatre,’ came a thin female voice from the darkness. ‘Designed to keep the locals from my door.’

Luk froze, hands on his pistol grips.

‘Who speaks?’ he asked. ‘Do I address the Oracle of the Silver Eye?’

A chuckle rose from the gloom.

‘You do, Knight of Ashes. Such is my dubious honour.’

‘You know who I am?’ asked Luk. Uncomfortable memories of sorcery and betrayal played through his mind.

‘I know who you once were, Luk Kar Chimaeros,’ chided the Oracle. ‘What kind of seer would I be, if I did not?’

‘That is not an answer,’ said Luk. ‘And that is no longer my name. If you know who I am, then perhaps you are acquainted with whom I hunt. It would be her way to set a trap with secrets as bait.’

‘They have poisoned you,’ came the voice, sad now. ‘The ones whose betrayal you seek to punish. They stole your trust. Your faith.’

‘They taught me the truth of people’s hearts,’ said Luk, voice tight. ‘But you still haven’t answered me. You could be her thrall. You could be her. Give me one reason not to draw my weapons.’

‘You sought me, Knight of Ashes,’ came the voice. ‘Not I you. You stand in the mouth of my cave, not I in yours.’

‘And yet…’ said Luk. His hands didn’t leave his weapons.

From the darkness came a heavy sigh, followed by slow shuffling. The sound was dry, rasping, like snakeskin on stone. Luk stepped backwards and drew his pistols. But the figure that swam from the darkness in no way resembled Alicia Kar Manticos.

Luk’s stepmother was tall, raven-haired and beautiful. This woman was ancient, hunched and rounded like a weathered rock. She wore a hessian robe embossed with faded aquilas, and an Imperial eagle topped her battered walking staff. Her skin was a leathery mass of wrinkles. Her eyes glinted from beneath drooping lids, their gaze sharp as flint. Yet it was the woman’s forehead that drew Luk’s attention, and the mouldering velvet blindfold that bound it.

‘A Navigator,’ he whispered.

‘What I was is no concern of yours, Knight of Ashes,’ said the old woman. ‘What I am is all you need to know. You’ve felt the taint of sorcery. You’ve witnessed the allure of Chaos. Tell me, am I she you seek and fear?’

Luk could feel the power that radiated from the figure before him. It made the hairs on his arms stand on end and his heart thump. But there was nothing unclean about it.

‘It reminds me of the Shrine to the Emperor in the Draconspire,’ he said.

‘The Emperor? Yes, I am his instrument, praise be to Him in all His infinite might and wisdom,’ replied the Oracle, and Luk was surprised at the bitterness in her tone. ‘Now, if you have satisfied yourself that I am not a heretical sorceress, I’d appreciate it if you’d holster your weapons and ask what you came here to ask. These old bones do not enjoy prolonged periods of standing.’

‘I…’ began Luk, then shut his mouth and holstered his pistols. He bowed deeply and proffered the sign of the aquila.

‘I apologise, lady,’ he started again. ‘As you say, I have learned mistrust, but I meant no disrespect to one so blessed.’

‘Blessed?’ she scoffed. ‘Blessed, am I? I would tell you how old I am, young Knight, but you wouldn’t believe me. My only company on this barren world are local fools too fearful to even look me in the eye.’

‘I didn’t–’ said Luk, but the Oracle interrupted him.

‘That metal chest you see upon my threshold? They leave offerings in it. Food and drink, when I am lucky. Without them, I’d be dead within a week. Emperor only knows what I shall do the day I hurt myself, or sicken with something. Die, probably. Alone. My home is a rocky hole at the foot of an active volcano, and I haven’t tasted decent amasec in decades. Yet here the Emperor sent me, and so here I reside, until our lord and master has no more use for a withered old seer. So, if we’ve done with my blessings, I’ll ask you again. Speak your piece, and let me get back to my meditations, hm?’

Luk rallied as best he could.

‘Lady,’ he said. ‘You know whom I seek. I would ask you where she is, so that I can end this hunt and reclaim my honour.’

‘You are honourable, sir Knight,’ said the old woman, her voice softening. ‘They could never take that from you. Without your honour, your nobility, you would not have assembled these Exiles that you lead. They follow you because they see your honour, even if you cannot.’

‘One of them, perhaps,’ said Luk. ‘Mostly they follow me because they are indebted, or because I give purpose to their hate.’

‘If you say so, then so it must be,’ said the Oracle, her voice knowing. ‘One way or another, Knight of Ashes, I hope this may prove an end to your long hunt.’

The Oracle reached into her robes. Luk reached for his guns again, believing for a moment that he had been fooled after all. Yet the old woman withdrew a roll of parchment that looked scarcely less weathered than she. A bone-white ribbon kept it furled.

The woman proffered the scroll, and Luk took it from her warily. She gestured, an impatient flick of shaking fingers.

‘Well? You’ve waited long enough for this information,’ she said. ‘Read it!’

Luk unbound the ribbon from the scroll and unfurled it, careful not to tear the crumbling parchment. Carefully, he read the words inscribed in crabbed hand upon it.

‘She is there,’ said the Oracle. ‘This I saw long ago, before even you Became. That is where your once-mother lies in wait for you, and I warn you now that she knows you are coming. You are not the only one to gaze into the weave of fate.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Luk, his voice hard. ‘I will go there, and I will end this.’

‘You may do,’ said the Oracle. ‘But there again, you may not.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Luk.

‘What means more to you, Luk Kar Chimaeros? Your honour? Or your family?’

‘I have no family,’ he replied.

‘You have a home world. Friends. Those for whom you care.’

‘I can’t think about them,’ he said. ‘Not until this is done.’

‘And yet,’ she said. ‘You must. Even now, a terrible shadow falls across the world of your birth.’

‘Adrastapol?’ asked Luk. ‘What do you know?’

‘More than I ever wished,’ she said.

‘Speak plainly!’ he snapped. ‘What threatens Adrastapol? I will send a message, warn them of its coming.’

‘That will not be enough,’ she said sadly. ‘The Emperor has shown me this. Either you choose your hunt and abandon all those you love to perish, or you turn aside to rescue them.’

‘What of Alicia?’ he asked angrily. ‘If I return home without concluding my hunt, will I lose her trail?’

‘I know much, Knight of Ashes, but I do not know that,’ said the Oracle. ‘I know only that you must choose your path wisely. Much rests upon your shoulders.’

Mistrust and anger warred within Luk’s heart. He crumpled the scroll, causing flakes to crumble from it.

‘This could all be her machination, her way of shaming me and evading my pursuit yet again,’ he said.

‘It could be,’ said the oracle calmly.

Luk shook his head and thrust the scroll into a pouch at his waist.

‘I came here for answers,’ he said. ‘You give me only questions.’

‘So it is, for those who seek to read the weave of fate,’ she replied. ‘Trust me that I take no pleasure in this. It is as much of a burden to speak these words as it is for you to hear them. The quarry of your hunt is foul and deserves to be purged with the Emperor’s light. Yet the threat to Adrastapol is as real as you or I, and without you they will fall. Even with you, perhaps. But can you truly turn away and know that you did not try?’

Luk stood a moment longer, silent. Then he bowed again, stiffly, and turned away.

‘Thank you for your words,’ he said as he strode away. ‘May the Emperor watch over you.’

‘And you, Luk,’ said the Oracle. ‘Choose wisely…’

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A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Cover illustration by David Alvarez.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-798-6

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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

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. 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; and

* 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.