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Restorer – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Restorer

Chris Wraight

‘How did you fight like this?’ the tech-priest muttered.

Shiban ignored her. He was in considerable pain, but that was hardly unusual. It had not been unusual since leaving Prospero. He lay back on the medicae cot, watching his bodily fluids being pumped into cyclers and then back through the hard black nodes of his exposed carapace.

‘How did you even walk? Blessed Omnissiah, this is… crude.’

The tech-priest, who had not felt the need to introduce herself by name or rank since starting work on him, had commenced the examination amazed and had now worked herself up into something close to disgust.

‘We were at war,’ said Shiban eventually, his voice a hoarse whisper. ‘Always moving.’

The tech-priest looked up at him sharply. Her face, part-hidden under a gold-lined cowl, was lined and greyish. Her organic eyes were gone and iron plugs studded her hollow cheeks. ‘You had Martian adepts with you?’

‘Of course. They worked with what they had.’

The tech-priest tutted. ‘They must have been distraught.’

Then she got to work on the Shackles. More attendants arrived, floating on grav-pads or limping on multi-angled legs. Needles went in, thick ones designed to pierce his tough skin. Saws whined up to speed, aimed by las-line before cutting down at the flesh.

‘Do you wish for more pain relief?’ the tech-priest asked.

Shiban shook his head.

‘I can give you more. Unless you want the pain. Some of them do. The Imperial Fists, I discovered. They want the pain.’

Shiban could feel a hot wave of agony all over him now, flaring up from the multiple incision sites and spreading throughout his body. The attendants were removing glistening tubes and levers, yanking them bloodily from his innards.

Perhaps he was like a Fist, now. The pain felt good. He deserved it, after all.

‘Not too much metal,’ he murmured, jaw clenched.

The tech-priest shook her head. ‘Your bones are splintered. You need bionics.’

‘The minimum possible.’

She glared at him. ‘You might have gone into a Dreadnought. You know this?’

‘It is not something we believe in.’

‘No bionics. No Dreadnoughts. This shoddy work. Stupid.’

Shiban managed a strained smile. He could feel tugging at his muscles, the unpicking of old steel staples.

‘No doubt,’ he said, only partly to her. ‘We got back, though.’

‘A good thing too,’ said the tech-priest, fussily. ‘Another year of this filth in your body and you’d be on the morgue-slab, Legiones Astartes physiology or no.’

Shiban winced. Another blade went in, deeper now, burrowing after all those splines and slivers that had been lodged there for years. One by one the makeshift augmetics came out, pulled by callipers and dropped tinnily into stainless steel trays.

‘We did what we could,’ he said.

The tech-priest paused, her silver hands bloody. ‘Not a time for excuses,’ she chided. ‘It will all be over, with excuses. Even with your Legion back. All must be optimal, now. Every hour, every second. Until he gets here.’

Until he gets here. That was how time was measured now.

‘Pain relief?’ she offered again, cranking up a fine-toothed saw that looked like a miniature eviscerator.

Shiban let his head fall back.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I need to feel it. Cut away.’

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A Black Library Publication

Published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-817-4

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