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Road to Redemption – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Fire

Zeke awoke with the scent of smoke in his nostrils.

He fought his way to full consciousness, old instincts cutting through the smothering, aching blanket of his hangover. This wasn’t the sour smoke of the dried fungus trunks that Ava and Vorn used to heat their home, nor the whiff of char that meant someone hadn’t been watching the rat on the spit, or even the sweet scent of incense paying homage to the God-Emperor or a particularly recalcitrant machine-spirit.

This was smoke like he used to smell. Thick, choking, and scented with death.

He rolled off the pile of blankets which served him as a bed and clawed them aside, grimacing as the motion sent his stomach lurching. Too much Second Best last night. Too much Second Best most nights, but at least he didn’t get the shakes any more.

His questing fingers found the notches in the loose floorboard. He pried it up, tossed it aside, reached down into the narrow cavity beneath.

His hand closed on a belt. Leather from some unknown and unnamed creature, and still smooth and supple. He hesitated for a moment, even as the smoke reached down into his lungs and twisted them into a cough. He could leave this here, as he’d sworn to himself that he would. He was wasting time, and it wouldn’t help him face flames on the stairs, or climb out of the window if the stairs were already impassable. When Ava and Vorn had taken him in, rescued the sad sack of a broken man that he’d been and given him a place to live in exchange for his labour, he’d made himself a promise.

But if he’d meant it, why had he kept the belt at all?

God-Emperor, give your servant a sign.

He would take whatever came out. If the belt’s cargo slipped off it on the way out, or got caught on the floorboards, then he’d take the belt and the belt alone.

He withdrew his hand, and with it came his old gun belt. And on the belt were his two old holstered autopistols, his old spare rounds of ammo, and his knife.

Zeke exhaled. He stood up, cursing his unsteadiness, and wrapped the belt around him. That much, at least, came easily; his fingers remembered the motions, expertly guided the prong to the correct hole and tucked the loose end away. He was fatter now than he had been thirteen years ago, but that wasn’t saying much: he’d been little more than skin on bones when Ava had found him lying by the roadside.

Done. The belt was on. He pulled on his boots and crossed the floor of his room in two strides, for it wasn’t large.

More smoke greeted him when he opened the door, much more, accompanied by the crackle of flames and a wash of heat from below. This wasn’t just a cookfire run out of control, this was an inferno. Zeke leaned back to take a breath of comparatively cleaner air, then lunged for the door of his hosts’ room.

It was empty. The sheets on the bed – and they had a proper bed, Munitorum-issue frame and pallet, bought from a trader – were neatly made, and their few possessions were arranged tidily. They must have already been up and about when the fire started.

Zeke eyed the window, but he couldn’t save himself yet. What if the children were asleep, and their parents outside, unable to get in to rescue them because of the flames?

He dashed back out of Ava and Vorn’s room, across the narrow landing, and crashed through the door of the third and final upstairs room, where Essy and Donnel slept.

Both beds were empty, the covers askew – though that was not unusual – and the childrens’ dolls were on the floor. Donnel was eight, and had his tech-priest, Magos Volt, in robes of rough red cloth that Zeke had sewn himself, with much pricking of his fingers and swearing which he’d done his best to muffle. Essy was sixteen, and had an Adepta Sororitas doll called Sister Purity in chipped, dark green paint. She didn’t play with it any more, but Zeke knew she still treasured it, for it had been made by her father. A few years ago she’d liked nothing better than making it kill ‘heretics’ made of old cloth and twisted wire, while humming hymns in praise of the God-Emperor that Zeke had taught her. Ava hadn’t liked that so much, but Vorn had defended it.

‘Nowt wrong wi’ praising Him,’ he’d said stoutly, ‘nor wi’ killing wrong’uns. Emperor be merciful she’ll never have to do t’second, but she should learn t’songs to do t’first.’

Zeke had been only too happy to oblige. Still, he’d stuck to the hymns that focused more on the Emperor’s glory and divinity, and avoided the ones that went on at length about the blood and death meted out in His name. Essy was very unlikely to end up as a Sister of Battle, but she would still learn about blood and death in time. Let her have a few years of praising the Emperor for nothing other than His radiance first.

No Ava and Vorn, no Essy and Donnel. What hour was it? Had he overlain again? He had to get out, and not just for his own sake. Ava and Vorn would surely try to get back in to rouse and save him from the flames; they’d watched out for him for the last thirteen years, and weren’t likely to stop now. He had to get out so they didn’t risk themselves trying to get in.

He scooped the children’s dolls off the floor, tucked them inside his jerkin, and threw open the shutters of their window.

A scene of hell greeted him.

Zeke had heard a lot about hell. He’d spent much of his life considering it, for he was House Cawdor by birth, and Cawdor were the most penitent and pious of all the Great Houses of Necromunda. As a child, he’d been beaten repeatedly, and told he was going to it. As an adult, he’d done what – at the time – he thought was best to prevent others from going to it, until he’d fled that life before it killed him. For a while, he’d thought he was in it, although looking back now he could see that had simply been the self-pitying weakness of a broken man. Since Ava and Vorn had rescued him, he’d taken to living his life quietly and drowning any particularly intruding thoughts about it in bottles of Second Best. And now here it was, staring him in the face.

Floodgrave was aflame.

The entire settlement was engulfed in roaring fire: sulky, flickering tongues of blood red licking around the ends of roof beams; shimmering sheets of orange that lightened to a painful white in the central, hottest parts; even flashes of blue here and there, as some form of chemical burned away.

Zeke’s knees were liquid. He clutched at the window frame to support himself, aware of a panicked sob building in his throat. He’d always been told he would burn, always been told that this was his fate because he wasn’t good enough, brave enough, didn’t love the Emperor enough… and Zeke had no argument with any of those statements.

But he didn’t want to burn.

He could feel heat from behind him, now. The rest of Ava and Vorn’s house was catching; the flames had licked up the stairs. They’d reach him soon, and even if they didn’t, the ground floor would surely give way as the flames consumed it. It was perhaps that thought more than anything else that catalysed Zeke into movement. He couldn’t put into words why being crushed by a burning building was even more horrific to him than the notion of burning alive, but it was.

He leaned out and looked down, then jerked back as flames from the window below seemed to rear up to meet him. He couldn’t hang off the edge and drop down: his legs would catch fire. He had to get completely clear of the building.

Zeke placed his right boot on the windowsill, grabbed hold of the frame with his right hand to steady himself, brought his left boot up, took hold of the top of the window frame with his left hand, ducked his head through so it was out past the line of the house’s wall and he was leaning slightly forwards…

‘God-Emperor, grant that I may live this day, or if I may not, that I die quickly,’ he prayed. That was all the mercy he dared ask for, and probably more than he deserved.

He jumped.

The packed dust of Floodgrave’s street rose up to meet him alarmingly quickly. He landed, throwing his weight to one side into a roll as he did so, to avoid blowing his knees out. Bella had taught him that: she’d been House Escher once, before she’d cast those loyalties aside in favour of dedicating herself to the Emperor, and Zeke could have sworn that she’d been part-spider from the way she seemed able to move anywhere she pleased, climbing and jumping and falling with no trouble.

Bella’s lessons had been long ago, but they’d stuck. Zeke rolled back up to his feet with a slight twinge in his left ankle but nothing more, and his right hand already dropping to the grip of an autopistol. It was amazing how old reflexes came back, even after lying dormant for so long.

‘Ava!’ he shouted, looking around desperately. ‘Vorn!’ On instinct, he pulled a clip of ammunition from his belt and slid it into place, racked the action, chambered a round. There was no point in having a weapon if it wasn’t ready to be used.

Flames rose on both sides of him. Every building he could see was burning as though it had incurred the Emperor’s own wrath, but there were no people. No one was running, no one was shouting, no one was screaming, no one was desperately trying to rescue possessions or put out the fires.

The whole settlement was dead, and this was its funeral pyre.

Zeke stumbled back towards the flames billowing from Ava and Vorn’s ground floor, fighting against a sick feeling in his stomach and wary for the creaking sound that would suggest the whole structure was about to come down. He had to see. He had to know…

The wash of heat was like a physical force, but he shielded his face and pressed on. He’d long ago given up the mask that was one of the badges of his House, and for the first time in over a decade he found himself wishing he still had it, but it was a futile thought.

The flames died for a moment and he took a step closer, forced his watering eyes to focus as he looked inside, into the simple room where he’d spent happy, contented evenings over the last thirteen years. He’d discussed the nature of the Emperor with Vorn, laughed at Ava’s jokes, and watched her belly swell twice. Essy’s first little brother hadn’t lived, for the coughing sickness had taken him, but Donnel had been stronger when he’d arrived. Zeke had watched Donnel grow from mewling babe into a delightful, clever child, and Essy from a young child into a young adult, each of them with their own dreams, hopes and aspirations. The Necromundan underhive might break those dreams, as it broke so many other things, but there was always a chance that they would endure.

The window cleared for a split-second, allowing a clear glimpse of the room within. Zeke made out two blackened, burning shapes, before the flames flooded back and he staggered away involuntarily, gasping for air and wiping at his eyes. It was enough. His eyes filled with tears for a different reason, and he dropped to his knees in the street. The pain in his chest had nothing to do with the tainted air all around him.

They were dead. Zeke had seen enough dead and burning bodies to recognise what he’d just seen. Ava and Vorn, perhaps the best two people he’d ever known, full of quiet strength and generosity, good humour and the solid courage to make their own life in a little settlement in the underhive, were dead. And he, a wreck of a man – no, the afterthought of a wreck of a man – was still alive.

How he wished that he had the strength to accept the God-Emperor’s will as he should.

He forced himself back to his feet. He was too late for Ava and Vorn, but what about the children? He hadn’t seen them in there. Had they run? What about the others in the town? Surely everyone couldn’t have been caught unawares and killed by the fire while he’d merely lain sleeping? Perhaps even now there was someone trapped, in need of his help…

Snake-Eye Val’s place was closest. The old woman pottered around it well enough most of the time, but her knees were going. She wouldn’t be able to get out easily. He should try there, before…

Before the fire reached all her liquor stills.

The building blew apart in a roaring, raging fireball. Something hard and flaming struck Zeke on the shoulder, knocking him staggering, and his courage shattered. He turned his stagger into a full-on sprint and fled, running between burning buildings with whimpered prayers that they wouldn’t fall on him, over the rickety fence which marked the borders of Floodgrave, until he reached the corroded old still that Abram Hackett had dragged out there a few years ago after the water from it had made him sick three times. He climbed inside and hugged his knees to his chest, whimpering and shaking.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Black Library.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Daniel LuVisi.

Road to Redemption © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Road to Redemption, Necromunda, 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.
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ISBN: 978-1-78999-334-9

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For anyone who’s had to make the least worst choice.

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