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Memories of Broken Glass – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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MEMORIES OF BROKEN GLASS

Rob Young

‘The only sign of our passing should be the dead we leave in our wake.’

– Proverb from the Coclerati Book of the Wayfinder

A pair of parallel contrails raced across Kizmir’s jaundiced sky, the flyer’s wake leaving a white scar across the northern horizon travelling east to west. To the two snipers of the Cadian 217th on the desert floor below, it was a welcome distraction after more than sixty hours watching over an unchanged vista of red rock and swirling sands.

‘One of ours, do you reckon?’ Ullaeus asked.

‘Could be. Can’t be sure at this range,’ Darya said.

The flyer was at least twenty miles north of their position, too far to make out any markings on the craft and much too distant to detect the sound of the engines. But, as it was the first notable sight that either Darya or Ullaeus had seen in days, they both watched it with some interest as it ploughed its twin furrows overhead.

The skies above Kizmir were unlike any that Darya had seen before: a sickly yellow that put her in mind of the tender skin around a half-healed bruise. The sun’s heat bore down on the world like a physical weight, scouring every scrap of moisture from the planet’s equatorial belt. Any protection offered by the atmosphere had been stripped away by the inhabitants’ relentless industry, leaving a continuous desert that ran like a raw red wound around the planet’s middle.

Darya and Ullaeus were deep in the heart of that desert, in amongst the mountains of vitrified silicates and wind-blown slopes of shifting sand which some quirk of the world’s geology had rendered the glossy red of freshly spilled blood. Steep hills of glass broke the smooth sweep of the dunes, whilst the wind moaned through seemingly bottomless chasms of arterial crimson.

‘I bet they’ve got an air cooler in their cockpit,’ Ullaeus said as the flyer’s outline blurred before being lost to the heat haze rising from the western dunes. ‘Lucky bastards.’

‘Regretting your choice to be a footslogger, corporal?’

‘Not at all. It’s an honour to serve in the God-Emperor’s armies. How else would I get the chance to travel the galaxy and see the… beauty… of the Imperium?’

Darya snorted out a laugh and instantly regretted it as a powder-fine blend of salt and sand sprayed up from beneath her chin into her nostrils and into her eyes. She fought down the urge to sneeze or, worse, brush herself off and risk discovery by the enemy’s long-range augurs.

Both Darya and Ullaeus lay prone atop a glossy outcrop of vermilion stone, camouflaged against the terrain by their cameleoline cloaks and the dust and sand that had gathered on them over the last sixty hours, looking out over a crevasse that cut deep into the desert’s surface. The depths of the fissure hid a path that was wide enough for a vehicle to travel without being visible from the skies above, making it perfect for enemy armour and troops to travel unseen.

It was also the perfect place for an ambush.

‘Bloody dust,’ said Darya as the need to sneeze subsided.

‘It’s the heat that’s doing for me,’ Ullaeus said.

Darya understood her friend’s discomfort. Her shoulders and the backs of her legs felt raw beneath the sun’s unrelenting glare, despite the protection offered by the layers of her uniform, flak armour and cloak.

‘Are you feeling all right? No wooziness?’ Darya asked.

‘No, nothing like that yet. I just feel like a ration pack in a roasting pan,’ Ullaeus said.

‘Let’s do a target check anyway, just to be sure.’

‘Sergeant, I don’t need–’

‘Ullaeus, target check. Full brief,’ Darya said.

Target checks were a good way to test that a sniper’s cognitive functions were still sharp enough to continue a mission; even in clement conditions, long hours on high alert could cause the very best snipers to lose their focus. After sixty hours cooking in the Kizmir desert, even with short sleep periods and rationed pulls from water pouches, Darya wanted to make sure that her corporal was still up to the task.

‘Target is Hektor Ogier Talassan, marshal-general of the Kizmir Militia. Pledged his forces to the Archenemy without even putting up a fight.’

‘Good. Physical description?’

‘Eighty-four years old, Terran standard. Some scarring on the left side of his face after a lucky escape from a burning Chimera some years ago.’

‘And the plan is?’

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-80407-606-4

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