throat. ‘You had something,’ he said slowly. ‘I saw.’
‘You saw what you saw,’ Baalbek replied unflinchingly.
Behind his goggles, the Plague Marine slitted his eyes. He thumbed the well‐worn nub of his bolter’s safety.
‘Shoot me,’ Baalbek dared. ‘Execute an unarmed Blood Gorgon without evidence or explanation. Do it and see what riot ensues.’
‘Maybe I should. Your mob is nothing more than genetic waste,’ the Plague Marine hissed.
But Baalbek knew their jailer wouldn’t shoot; such an act would have consequences.
Although they were captives, their state of confinement was made under a pretence of eventual allegiance to the Nurgle Legions. Muhr had declared that once his rule was cemented and his dissidents disposed of, the warband would be accepted within the Plague Marine fold. Bond‐Brother Baalbek would prefer death than the corpulent existence of a Plague Marine, but for now, that pretence worked in the Blood Gorgon’s favour.
‘I’ll remember you,’ the Plague Marine said silkily. ‘I have a good mind for faces. You are dead. Nurgle whispers me this.’
The bond‐brothers waited until their captor’s footsteps drifted off down the corridor.
‘Betcher’s gland,’ Hybarus nodded knowingly. He wormed a finger into his mouth and twisted out a loose incisor.
Swallowing the last remnants of bone, Baalbek ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth. Using the poison glands made his mouth furry and thick with mucus, as if he had eaten something highly acidic. Surgically implanted into their salivary glands, the Betcher could release a limited amount of corrosive and highly toxic venom each day. It was a practice rooted in the traditions of pre‐Heresy, when the primarchs’ Legions had not only 130
been warriors but crusaders. The Astartes were preachers of the God‐Emperor and their words burned with righteousness. Symbolically, they had spat on the heretical texts of old, wiping them blank through the teachings of the Imperium.
The bone tablet had corroded into a fine grit that left Baalbek swallowing saliva gingerly.
Bouncing his tooth off the cell wall, Hybarus stood up as if possessed by a great revelation. ‘Our distraction,’ he said, crossing over and patting the round gas pipe that provided thermal heat for the cell.
‘It will be difficult, those gas mains are reinforced,’ Baalbek replied. The volatile gas mains and petrochemical pipes that carried the ship’s interior energy systems were sheathed in rubberised skin almost a quarter‐metre thick and laced with steel thread.
‘It will take some time, but it can be done,’ Hybarus concluded. He laid a hand on the pipe’s python‐like body, testing the smooth, solid surface. Without warning he spat on it, ejecting another broken tooth.
As Baalbek watched, the streak of clear saliva started to hiss, the chemical reaction beginning to froth the rubber sheathing. It would take some time, but it could be done.
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TIME COULD NOT be marked with any regularity in the dungeons. Each day cycle blurred with end‐night as the Plague Marines attempted to distort their captives’ senses through temporal isolation.
Captain Hazareth no longer knew how long they had been confined. Locked up and separated, he knew very little and as a commander of men, that bothered him. He knew not of the disposition of his men, their general morale or even their exact locations. But he knew they would follow him when the time came, and that was all he needed to be sure of, at least for now.
Hazareth slid the genekey out from beneath the nail of his index finger. The splinter was small and his fingers thick and flesh‐bound. It took some time to coax and dig the micro-worm out but with practice, Hazareth could now do it with some ease.
He closed his eyes as he fidgeted with the genekey and resumed his count. There was no chron in his cell and Hazareth had taken to marking the passing of time by the beat of his primary heart. Forty‐eight beats was one minute, 2,880 was one hour. Over thirty‐four thousand for one ship cycle. Only five ship cycles until the plan was under way.
‘You are distressed?’ asked Blood‐Sergeant Volsinii.
Hazareth opened his eyes. Volsinii was his blood bond; a warrior of four centuries.
Grey‐skinned and contemplative, there was little that escaped the gaze of his jet‐black pupils.
‘I am impatient,’ Hazareth replied. It had already been two cycles since he had received word, whispered through venting grates from cell‐block 22D – Baalbek and Hybarus’s cell –
that they would provide a diversion. Details were not shared for fear of discovery, only that he would know the diversion when he saw it. Hazareth only had to rely on the