Contents

Cover

Motherlode – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Motherlode

by Nick Kyme

I

A spike of pain burned in Raus’ left knee as he stumbled and hit the ground hard. He felt the black obsidian vibrating as soon as his hands touched it and realised the Fortress was about to shift again.

The Stygian Aperture was ahead. He could see the landing platform and the junk freighter, Long Hauler Gamma-3-ß, anchored to it, waiting for them.

‘Rein!’ he cried out.

His brother turned, a scowl on his scruffy round face, and doubled back. He huffed, blowing out his cheeks as he hefted the sniper rifle slung over his right shoulder. He was diminutive, barefoot and wearing olive-green fatigues, almost the exact reflection of his twin. A ratling. Raus was getting to his knees as Rein grabbed the collar of his grubby Militarum uniform.

‘You’re supposed to be the one who’s light on his feet, Raus,’ he snapped. ‘Tell me you haven’t dropped it.’

‘I haven’t dropped it,’ said Raus, and then patted his kitbag to confirm that he actually hadn’t dropped it. ‘Why are we running so fast, Rein?’ he asked, as they got moving again.

‘Well…’ Rein huffed, red-faced and out of breath. ‘Just best to get a shift on, eh?’

‘You got him though, right? Shot that pointy-eared sadist. You said he went over the edge, Rein. The edge, right?’

Rein made a face as if he were weighing up tabac-leaf but hadn’t quite got the portions right.

Raus let the silence last for a few seconds, their flat feet slapping noisily against the obsidian deck of the Fortress. The Stygian Aperture was almost within reach.

‘He’s dead – you told me, Rein.’

‘He might not be dead.’

Raus spat, grabbing Rein’s uniform and half strangling him while they ran. ‘What?!’

‘Ruddy Throne, Raus! Let go,’ he said, struggling to prise his brother’s fingers from around his neck. ‘You’ll send us both rump over crown.’

‘I’m light on my feet, remember,’ said Raus. ‘Reckon I’ll be just fine.’ He let go.

‘He’s probably dead. I mean… I definitely hit him. He was fast. Scary, scary fast, but I definitely got him.’

‘Where?’

Rein frowned, nonplussed. ‘Here? In the Fortress. When we found the archeotech dump.’

‘No, you berk. Where?’

Rein’s face brightened. ‘Oh… I’d say… hmm, the shoulder…’

‘The ruddy shoulder! Not exactly a kill-shot is it? Was it a good hit?’

‘Definitely glanced him.’

‘A glance! Murlock’s hairy arse, Rein. He could be running around right now. I’m surprised we haven’t had a knife in the back already!’

‘Ah, yeah, but I knackered his rebreather too. Nicked the tube, you see. It’s been bleeding out ever since we ditched him. And by the time he reaches that vacuum chamber…’

Raus grinned, a charming and pearly white scythe of teeth that had found as much trouble as it had spared him.

‘Oh, Rein…’

‘Was that good?’ asked Rein, a knowing look in his eyes.

The Stygian Aperture loomed and the two ratlings bolted straight through it as it began to close up and reform behind them.

‘It was very, very good.’

The Long Hauler beckoned.

‘Now then, Raus,’ said Rein as the boarding ramp cranked down, ‘shall we get back to Precipice and become as rich as Roboute Guilliman?’

Raus patted his kitbag and felt the hard, unyielding metal of the box he had stuffed inside. ‘I think that would be a ruddy fine plan, Rein.’

‘After you, dear brother,’ said Rein as he reached the edge of the ramp, ushering in Raus with an unnecessarily flamboyant flourish.

‘I don’t mind if I do, brother,’ he said, a feral glint in his beady eye. ‘I don’t mind if I do.’

As the junk freighter boosted its engines, slowly turning in the heavy gravity well of the Fortress, a lone figure, panting and half-dead, staggered onto the landing platform. He had barely made it through the Aperture. He watched as the ship pulled away, ignorant of his presence.

Akrahel Drek glared at the junk freighter’s gradually diminishing silhouette. His fingers tightened around the bone hilt of the venom blade in his right hand. He slowly caught his breath, the flesh-knit fashioned into his armour working to repair his broken body. His ship, the Hatchethand, waited nearby. Its sharp, byzantium and segmented contours pleasingly matched Akrahel’s kabalite warsuit. The mutants hadn’t thought to scuttle it. They obviously believed they had killed him. Either that, or they were in a rush.

The communication device in his armour still worked, and he activated it now.

‘I’m coming back…’ he said coldly. ‘No, I didn’t get it. But I know who did.’

He cut the connection. Like his quarry, he could not linger but managed a smile as he watched the other ship disappear into the wreckage field.

‘We’ll meet again soon…’ he purred, wiping the blood off his lip and revelling in the hot, metallic taste of it. ‘And when we do, pray that I don’t take you alive.’

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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.

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ISBN: 978-1-78030-760-2

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