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Cover

Rise – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Rise

Ben Counter

It was a rising and seductive pain; a delicious, serpentine thing that wound around his bones and seethed through his muscles. He felt it galloping up and down his spine, accompanied by the slow suffusing of his brain until his senses were bathed in red agony.

It would devour him, if he let it. It would become a part of him from which he could not separate, and he would never wake up.

Skanis demanded his body fight it. He felt his wrists and ankles straining at the straps that held him down. Another restraint around his neck choked him as his body arched against the slab. He forced his eyes open and his sight, sharpened by hours in darkness, picked out the glimmer of metal.

The face of the haemonculus grinned down at him. Its name surfaced from Skanis’ memory. Urviel. The haemonculus’ face was a mask made from the skin of another creature, fastened to the front of its skull by metal staples. Its emaciated ribcage was skinless and organs slithered between the white bones. Four many-jointed arms sprouted from his shoulders, each ending in medical implements and powered saws instead of fingers. A filthy length of hide was wrapped around its waist, with pockets and loops holding blades and drills of every dimension.

‘It wakes,’ said Urviel. One of its extra arms ran bladed fingers down Skanis’ chest.

‘Is it done?’ gasped Skanis. The tide of pain was receding, slowly relinquishing each joint and organ.

‘Oh, little bird,’ said Urviel. ‘It will never be done.’

Skanis thrashed against the restraints. A panic welled in him and he wondered if he would ever leave the haemonculus’ lab. He realised the creature’s promise to transform him could have been a trick to lure him upon the slab in order to experiment on him forever, to turn him over and over again into new shapes of malleable flesh until his life finally gave out.

Urviel held up a hand. A mockery of contriteness passed over its mutilated features. ‘I jest,’ it said. It released the buckle holding the strap around Skanis’ neck, then freed one of his hands. Skanis pulled at the strap around his remaining wrist as the haemonculus backed away.

The laboratory was almost pitch black and infernally hot. Body parts from a dozen species hung on the walls, arms and legs racked together, heads hanging by lengths of chain from the ceiling. Cages held heaps of spoil and rags that might once have been alive. The floor was swamped with noxious fluid. Every workbench and operating slab was covered in the detritus of Urviel’s work. Scalpels and forceps. Vials of corrosive. Rib spreaders, circular saws, industrial shears, bottled organs and a bowl of eyes.

Skanis released his ankles and slid off the slab. He stumbled, his legs unsteady beneath him. His body felt different – tauter, quicker and more sensitive. He still wore the battlegear of his warrior clan, now opened up in several places, recut and cinched in around his new, slenderer frame. The pain was pooling now in the areas the haemonculus had worked on – his knees, hips and shoulders, two hot red strips down his back, a deep throbbing ache in his bones. His whole body felt tuned up and tightened. He moved an arm experimentally, and the limb reacted with an insect-like quickness.

‘What have you done?’ he asked, his throat so raw that the words came out in a croaking hiss.

‘All that you asked,’ said Urviel. ‘I hollowed your bones. Your pelvis is new – something of my own design. Do you like vertebrae? You have many more. My speciality.’ Urviel’s fingers folded in on themselves like the fronds of an anemone. ‘I like spines.’

Skanis craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse behind him.

‘Indeed, it is as you wished,’ said Urviel, ‘They are there. Freshly harvested. I am so glad I found a home for them before they decayed.’

‘I have to use them.’

Urviel shook his head. ‘Not here. You will never leave the ground. You need thermal currents for the first time. I have seen it. Commorragh will not let you go with ease. You must rise above it first.’

‘Then I will.’ Skanis reached a hand behind him. He felt delicate frills of flesh there, and the nerve endings he found fired back sensations from skin and muscle he had never possessed before. ‘I will leave this city of filth behind.’

‘You will return,’ said Urviel. ‘It is addictive. You will never find another drug quite as intoxicating as the changing of the flesh, little bird. But before you go…’

Click here to buy Rise.

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 Alex Boyd.

Rise © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Rise, 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: 978-1-78572-950-8

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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