Blood Gorgons - By Henry Zou Page 0,21

steady; he did not fire. The trident darted forwards, calculated to miss Muhr’s neck by a razor’s breadth.

Muhr flinched.

‘Not now!’ Hazareth boomed into the squad links. ‘We can’t afford this now.’ The deep bass tones were so loud that they glitched the broadcast with shrill feedback.

‘This is not how Gammadin would have led us,’ said Hazareth. ‘Is this leadership? To divide the Chapter when our ancestral grounds are threatened?’

30

‘Ancestors? Bassiq is nothing more than a harvesting site for genestock. We can find others,’ Muhr said dismissively.

‘You are a petulant child,’ said Sabtah, his trident still rearing. ‘Where is your pride?’

‘I am a realist. We don’t need to risk ourselves at the summons of some distant, half-remembered populace,’ Muhr responded.

Sabtah looked clearly disgusted, as if Muhr was speaking about something else entirely.

‘This is not about that. Someone has touched my chattel and property. We don’t turn a blind eye. We hit them with the weight of our entire arsenal and inject the fear of angry gods into them.’

Hazareth drummed his heavy tail‐end against the ground in agreement. ‘Without history we are nothing. We are nomads, and history should mean everything to us. Without pride or connection to our roots we are nothing.’

Muhr was not convinced. The psy‐fire did not leave his eyes. If he chose to, the rites of challenge allowed him to slay anyone who opposed him. Even Hazareth, but that would not be wise now.

‘I propose a scouting deployment. Five squads,’ said Sabtah, bristling. ‘You cannot deny us that.’

‘I will personally answer to that,’ Hazareth agreed. ‘I will select the squads from my own company.’

There was no more Muhr could say. Hazareth’s company was his to command and only Sabtah could countermand such an action. Several dissident Blood Gorgons leapt up and began to voice their protests. Others howled them down. Muhr hissed and recoiled, displaying displeasure by baring his teeth.

Unseen amidst the pandemonium, Sabtah squared up to face the sorcerer. The old warrior was in his face, his jaw set grimly. ‘What do you know of brotherhood?’ Sabtah growled. ‘The witch‐psyker takes no bond. You know nothing of brotherhood. Remain with your coven and leave the business of war to us.’

THE CAULDRON BORN prepared for warp jump at first cycle. The reclamation of Hauts Bassiq was under way.

The coven summoned Yetsugei for his blessing. The witch‐surgeons sang and chanted to the gods. Gun‐servitors were anointed and their nerve receptors plugged to the vessel’s lance batteries, ordnance turrets and the hull‐bound gun citadels that studded the vessel’s orange hull.

The floating fortress shifted on its gravitational axis as its warp drives gathered power.

Even in the expanse of space, the space hulk was a leviathan. From a terrestrial telescope, the Cauldron Born resembled a blend of paleo‐gothic shipcraft and oceanic fish. High exposure to the warp and the Eye of Terror had mutated the vessel’s structure. The neotropical flora that infested the ship’s interior had expressed itself on the ship’s exterior, but on a mammoth scale. Barnacles of lamprey lights clustered like eyes on its hammerhead prow. Large sail‐like fins edged with delicate, translucent fronds rippled along its flank.

Muscular ridges and weeping fungal colonies contrasted with the architecture of its hull.

It entered the warp‐sea slowly, laterally decompressing a void into the fabric of the materium. It sent ripples of gas flowing outwards and disturbed the orbit of minor asteroids and moons. Then, with a final, trembling burst of its engines, the warp‐sea swallowed the fish whole.

31

THE MIDDLE‐DAYSUNS of Bassiq seemed to burn the air, boiling it so hot that every breath stung the nostrils. It grew so hot that sleep during these rest hours was impossible.

Roused from a fevered dream, Ashwana woke up feeling ill again. Her armpits and neck were burning with a throbbing, almost rhythmic pain. Rolling over she tried to bury her face in the straw mat but the clattering became persistent. For a while she blinked, angry at her grandmumu for having woken her. A final, loud clatter brought her up and Ashwana snapped back the curtain that separated her sleep nest from their carriage.

‘What are you doing?’ Ashwana groaned.

‘Going hunting,’ muttered her grandmumu, rummaging through a barkskin case of tools.

‘ Eish! We’ve talked about this. It’s too dangerous,’ Ashwana whispered.

Her grandmumu Abena wasn’t listening to her any more. Her old, creased face was stern with determination. She discarded a flint stone from the case, tossing it to the pile of unwanted tools at her feet.

Ashwana tried to stand up but she was too weak and the