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Man of Iron – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Man of Iron

By Guy Haley

‘You do it,’ said Raus.

‘But it’s your bloody turn!’ said Rein.

Rein’s twin looked at the bone dice meaningfully, then grinned meanly at his brother. ‘We don’t do it by turns, we do it by dice, Rein. You lost, so you’ve got to do it. Those are the rules.’

‘Your rules, Raus,’ moaned Rein. ‘The game is fixed.’

‘If I fixed them, why would you agree to them?’

‘Did I agree or did I not, Raus?’

‘You agreed, Rein, you agreed.’

Rein pulled a face. ‘I did not.’

‘It’d be different if you’d won and I’d lost.’

A swipe of a small, fat hand, and the dice vanished back into Raus’ pouch.

‘I’d say I was suspicious, because it’s always my turn,’ said Rein.

‘Is it my fault you’re lousy at dice?’ Raus nodded at the monitor. A low quality image, bent by lens distortion, depicted a small coterie of tech-priests waiting in Long Hauler Gamma-3-ß’s main airlock. ‘Go on, they’re waiting. I don’t like the look of them. I especially don’t like the look of that.’ He pointed at the heavy combat model automaton guarding them. ‘If we don’t hurry up there could be trouble, and I don’t want trouble, so go and wake him up. They obviously want him, not us.’

‘But how can you tell?’ said Rein, who was still sulking.

Raus rolled his eyes. ‘They’re tech-priests! We live with an enormous robot – they’re not here for your cooking, Rein.’

‘I don’t like waking him up. Let him deal with them.’

‘They might get on board if we wait,’ said Raus. ‘This was a Mechanicus ship,’ he said meaningfully.

‘It still is a Mechanicus ship, Raus.’

‘Exactly,’ said Raus.

Rein deflated. ‘I don’t like it down there.’

‘Neither do I, brother, or we wouldn’t be having this argument, would we?’ said Raus. He patted his brother on the shoulder. ‘Now get on with it.’

The 3-ß’s hangar was crammed with so much junk that only a ratling could have made his way through the larger part of it. In most places detritus filled the space completely: a compacted mass of wrecked machines, garbage, old supplies, clothes, gewgaws, scrap and every other conceivable type of human rubbish, held together by webs of cabling that time and motion had bound into impenetrable knots. The route the machine used to make its way to and from its nest at the middle was clear, but because the robot used those spaces Raus felt exposed in them, and no self-respecting ratling let himself get caught on the hop, so he crawled and shimmied his way through tiny holes rather than taking the easy route. It was this kind of thinking that kept a ratling alive.

Rein and Raus had made a complex run of burrows through the junk. For all that neither of them liked the hangar very much, there was too much valuable stuff buried in there for them to stay away for long.

Rein emerged from a greasy crawlspace into the open area the robot called its home. He stopped at the edge, eyes darting around. Ratlings had a preternatural sense for danger, and Rein’s was wailing hard.

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A Black Library Publication

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

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Paul Dainton.

Man of Iron © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Man of Iron, Warhammer Quest, 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: 978-1-78030-767-1

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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