emerged the dark eldar slaver and his servant, a gold‐skinned native. The shambling Traitor Marine was dragged out of the ship’s hold by means of anchor chains and barb cuffs. It took an entire platoon of Septic infantry to get him out, hauling taut on his collar, wrist and waist chains as he bayed and roared at the indignity.
The interior of the palace was broad and high‐ceilinged. Ivory tiles lined every surface, cool and sterile. Some were arranged in concentric spirals while others formed hypnotic helix patterns across the ceiling. It might have once been beautiful, but there was an air of darkness that spoke of its new occupiers. The tall windows were muffled by dark, heavy drapes to seal out the golden light. Septic soldiers patrolled the corridors or stood sentry in the galleries.
The monstrous captive was led to the council chamber, where the barons of Ur had once held court.
Much had changed since the coming of Nurgle. The tiled walls were scummed with gangrenous mould and mildew. Although the High Baron still sat upon his basalt throne, his 147
face was haggard and his hair white. He was only thirty‐two years old, but had aged forty years since the invasion. He was surrounded by his subjects – courtiers, advisors and scribes. They were all dead, their skin grey and their eyes white, but some still stood upright, locked in grovelling poses. Others still had been afflicted with the black wilt. Dirty nobles in filthy finery lurked in the corners like rodents, their wrists chained to the walls as they gnashed hungry teeth and wailed from dead lungs.
As a reflection of the city itself, the court still stood as a dead shell of its former self, unchanged from the outside but decaying from within.
Next to the High Baron stood a warrior‐captain of Nurgle, a Plague Marine with a rhinocerine helmet and large, swollen hands that could not fit into armoured gloves. He leaned down to whisper into the ear of the High Baron, ‘You may speak.’
And so the dark eldar slaver negotiated for the price of his captive. The High Baron responded, but each time at the behest of the Plague Marine. He was a mere meat puppet, his eyes wandering aimlessly as the Plague Marine prompted words into his mouth.
They settled on a sum of two hundred slaves, of which at least one hundred would be strong, human males, to be paid immediately. In addition, two tonnes of high‐grade adamantite from the newly reconstructed mines would be paid later, once the infrastructure was completed.
The deal done, the High Baron bowed low and said, ‘May the Emperor protect,’ with a bored expression that spoke of thoughtless monotony.
His words incurred a slap from the Plague Marine, his large, black palms knocking the High Baron to the ground.
Without paying any attention, Sindul strode out of the chamber. The belay team of Septic soldiers following him strained against the chains of a raging Blood Gorgon.
A PROCESSION DESCENDED into the hab quarters. The Septic had yoked Barsabbas to a stone chariot, chaining his limbs tightly against the basalt frame and pulling the ponderous platform on grinding stone wheels. The denizens of Ur mobbed the streets to catch a glimpse of him. For hours, the city’s address systems had announced the capture of an invader. Horn speakers from the ramparts promised the ‘bringing to heel of distant enemies’ – in turn, the survivors of Ur, those not too sick to show fealty to their new rulers, came to see him.
They dragged the slow and trundling carriage through the neatly ordered industrial tier with its smoking foundries and running rivers of molten metal. The air there was cooled by turbine fans the size of small hills that whooped with a constant urgency.
Barsabbas was taken up into the residential tiers, past layer upon layer of stacked, multi‐storey villas. Although several children picked despondently through the street litter, the tiled streets were dominated by Nurgle infantry who patrolled in squads.
They led him up and up, towards the apex palace and where the chimney columns protruded through the void shields to belch black clouds into the atmosphere. There, the nobles and prestige castes of Ur, those who had sworn obedience to their Nurgle overlords, now waited to see him: the captured trophy.
Barsabbas had expected more of the barony. But the denizens of Ur were a sad, sick group, milky‐skinned from the sun protection of their void shields, their faces wrapped in glare shades. Their clothes were crumpled and filthy.