Plague of the nurglings, p.1
Plague of the Nurglings, page 1
Book 1 ATTACK OF THE NECRON
Book 2 CLAWS OF THE GENESTEALER
Book 3 SECRETS OF THE TAU
Book 4 WAR OF THE ORKS
Book 5 PLAGUE OF THE NURGLINGS
Book 6 TOMB OF THE NECRON (coming 2021)
Book 1 CITY OF LIFESTONE
Book 2 LAIR OF THE SKAVEN
Book 3 FOREST OF THE ANCIENTS
Book 4 FLIGHT OF THE KHARADRON
Book 5 FORTRESS OF GHOSTS
Book 6 BATTLE FOR THE SOULSPRING (coming 2021)
Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
The Imperium of the Far Future
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Galactic Compendium
About the Author
About the Artist
An Extract from ‘Tomb of the Necron’
Warhammer Adventures
eBook license
THE IMPERIUM OF THE FAR FUTURE
Life in the 41st millennium is hard. Ruled by the Emperor of Mankind from his Golden Throne on Terra, humans have spread across the galaxy, inhabiting millions of planets. They have achieved so much, from space travel to robotics, and yet billions live in fear. The universe seems a dangerous place, teeming with alien horrors and dark powers. But it is also a place bristling with adventure and wonder, where battles are won and heroes are forged.
CHAPTER ONE
Betrayal
Las-fire lanced from the Profiteer, striking the inquisitor’s ship. Fire blossomed across the viewscreen, the sound of the impact reverberating around the flight deck.
‘Have you seen enough?’
Zelia’s eyes dropped from the hololith. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, and the recording of the battle fizzled out.
‘The inquisitor was telling the truth,’ intoned Corlak, Jeremias’s loyal servo-skull, as its tentacle-like mechadendrites manipulated the ship’s controls. ‘Captain Harleen Amity opened fire on the Zealot’s Heart.’
‘I realise this must be a shock to you,’ said Inquisitor Jeremias from his high-backed command chair. He was immaculately dressed in a long coat, the mask that covered half of his face expertly polished, no doubt by Corlak. Zelia and her friends, on the other hand, were in a terrible state. Jeremias had rescued them from a battle between bloodthirsty Orks and rampaging monsters, scooping them up in a teleporter beam. They were smothered head to toe in mud and Orkish warpaint, their smeared faces betraying the dismay they all felt.
Jeremias was right – the revelation that Captain Amity had apparently abandoned them on Weald had come as a surprise. In a very short time they had come to like the rogue trader – to trust her – and for what? According to the inquisitor, she had attacked his ship as he came in to offer assistance, before rocketing into the stars.
At least Jeremias looked as though he understood their disappointment, regarding them with sympathy as he idly stroked the head of his ever-present cyber-mastiff, Grimm.
‘Unfortunately,’ he continued, ‘none of this comes as a surprise to me. Harleen Amity is wanted for numerous crimes across the Imperium.’
‘Like what?’ Talen snapped, his arms crossed defensively across his chest. Of all of them, the former ganger had developed the closest bond with the apparently treacherous captain.
Jeremias shook his head. ‘Where to begin?’
‘You could begin with that business with the slaves, sire,’ Corlak offered from the flight controls.
The inquisitor raised a gloved hand to silence the servo-skull. ‘It was a rhetorical question.’ He smiled apologetically at the children. ‘You’ll have to forgive my familiar. He can be a little… literal.’
Mekki’s brow furrowed. ‘What did he mean by slaves?’
Jeremias sighed. ‘It’s a sad story, I’m afraid. Amity sold an entire flotilla of refugees into slavery, over four thousand people by all accounts.’
Zelia’s eyes widened. ‘You’re joking…’
‘If only…’ Jeremias replied. ‘She had been hired to protect those poor people, and yet she betrayed them without a second thought. She lost her Warrant of Trade, of course. Her family were dishonoured and she became an outlaw.’
‘Which is why she has no crew,’ Zelia realised.
Jeremias raised a curious eyebrow. ‘No crew?’
Zelia shook her head. ‘Only a servitor…’
‘Grunt,’ Talen added.
Zelia shrugged. ‘I always thought it was odd, but she said that she didn’t need anyone.’
The inquisitor laughed, his voice echoing around the sterile flight deck. ‘More like no one wanted anything to do with her.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ Talen said. ‘She saved us. Looked after us.’
‘Looked after this, you mean,’ Jeremias said, pressing a button on his chair’s arm. A hololith glimmered into view beside him. It was the Necron Diadem that they had been trying to return to Zelia’s mother, the ancient relic that had caused a Necron war-fleet to destroy Talen’s home planet.
The inquisitor pointed at the artefact. ‘Amity yearns for revenge. With that Diadem she could destroy any planet under the Emperor’s protection. That is what she and her accomplice wanted all along.’
‘Her what?’ Zelia asked. Surely he didn’t mean Grunt?
‘Her inside man. Or should I say… Jokaero.’
Now it was Mekki’s turn to look amazed. ‘You can’t mean… Flegan-Pala…’
‘The alien you took in on your travels? Of course I do. Didn’t you think it was odd that a rare xenos just happened to hitch a ride on your escape pod? Tell me, how did Amity find you?’
‘She followed our distress beacon,’ Mekki replied.
‘And who built the beacon?’
The Martian jutted out his chin. ‘I did.’
‘Based on your own designs?’
Mekki fell silent.
‘Well?’
‘It was Fleapit,’ Talen said, replying for him. ‘Mekki only helped.’
‘He did slightly more than that,’ Zelia insisted.
‘No,’ Mekki admitted. ‘Talen Stormweaver is correct. I assisted, but the beacon was Flegan-Pala’s design.’
‘The beast was signalling for its mistress,’ Jeremias concluded.
Zelia wasn’t ready to accept that. ‘That can’t be right. There’s no way he was working for her.’ She felt her cheeks flush despite the chill of the flight deck. Nothing about this ship exuded warmth, neither the heating vents nor the surroundings, the obsidian walls so polished that they became mirrors, the various immaculate cogitator consoles. There was no character, no sense of who this inquisitor really was, the décor as blank as the mask Jeremias wore over half of his face. And here he sat, casting judgement on their friend. She couldn’t let that stand.
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Fleapit was on Targian when it was destroyed,’ she said. ‘He’d been held captive for years.’
‘How do you know?’
The simple question confounded her. ‘What?’
The leather of his chair squeaked as he sat back. ‘How do you know the beast couldn’t be working with her?’
‘He told us?’
‘You speak his language?’
‘No, but Mekki…’
Her voice trailed off. Admitting that Mekki had attempted to forge a link to Fleapit’s cybernetic implants probably wasn’t a good idea, especially when talking to an inquisitor.
Jeremias leant forward in his chair, the grox-leather creaking. ‘Mekki did what?’
‘I… communicated with him,’ Mekki admitted.
Jeremias’s jaw clenched at the revelation, a vein throbbing at his temple. ‘You are a psyker?’
The Martian shook his head. ‘No. It was a data-exchange, nothing more. Flegan-Pala had dropped into a hibernation cycle.’
‘Mekki tried to wake him up,’ Talen said, jumping to his friend’s defence.
Mekki nodded. ‘And in the process, I learned a little about his past. Images, that is all.’
‘And you believed them? You believed a xenos?’ The inquisitor looked at him sadly. ‘Mekki, aliens cannot be trusted, especially a life form as devious as a Jokaero. Especially a life form in the employ of Harleen Amity.’
Zelia didn’t want to believe any of this, her head spinning with every fresh revelation. Talen, on the other hand, seemed convinced.
‘She played us all along,’ the ganger muttered. ‘And I trusted her… we trusted her.’
Jeremias rose from his chair and placed a comforting hand on Talen’s shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Amity has deceived a great many people over the years.’
Talen didn’t look ready to fo
Jeremias smiled at them, displaying a row of perfect pearl-white teeth. ‘Such spirit. You are remarkable children, really you are. To have endured so much at such a young age…’ His hand slipped from Talen’s shoulder and he marched towards his servo-skull. ‘But Master Stormweaver is right – now is the time for action. Corlak, how long until we arrive at Aparitus?’
‘Within the hour, sire,’ came the clipped reply.
‘Excellent work as always, my friend.’
Zelia wasn’t familiar with the name. ‘Aparitus?’
The inquisitor double-checked the navigation console. ‘A nearby forge world. I have a contact there who should be able to assist us.’
‘A forge world?’ Mekki repeated, a hint of concern creeping into his voice.
The inquisitor smiled at the Martian. ‘Yes. You should feel right at home.’
‘Why?’ Talen asked.
‘Forge worlds are factory planets,’ Zelia explained, ‘usually modelled on Mars.’
‘Where I was born,’ Mekki muttered darkly.
‘You could sound happier about it…’ Talen said, but this time Mekki didn’t respond. He didn’t even look up when, a few hours later, the Zealot’s Heart dropped into Aparitus’s thick atmosphere. The skies were a sickly yellow, the landscape dominated by gigantic manufactoria that belched dense smoke into the atmosphere.
Jeremias took control of the ship as they zoomed towards a towering metropolis, the smog-filled air crammed with transports that flitted from building to building like bloat flies buzzing around spoiled meat. Corlak, meanwhile, fetched rebreathers for Zelia and the others, masks that fitted tightly over the mouth and nose linked to oxygen canisters that could be clipped to their clothes.
‘These will provide oxygen for one hour,’ the servo-skull told them. ‘Most buildings on Aparitus filter the air, but the atmosphere outside is heavily polluted.’
The ship shuddered as Jeremias brought it down on a landing bay outside the city. ‘Not that we should be spending much time pounding the streets,’ the inquisitor said. ‘We’ll teleport directly to Nalos.’
‘Your contact?’ Talen asked.
Jeremias nodded. ‘A tech-adept I have collaborated with on a number of occasions.’ The inquisitor’s boots clacked as he marched towards the teleporter, followed by Grimm and Corlak. Talen joined them on the pad, but Mekki hesitated.
‘Come now,’ the inquisitor said. ‘We must hurry if we are to stop Amity.’
But Mekki didn’t move, staring at the teleporter in trepidation.
‘It’s okay.’ Zelia came close to him, stopping short of touching his arm. ‘I didn’t enjoy being scooped up by that thing either. But it’ll be fine. We’ll be together.’
Mekki took a deep breath and followed her to the teleporter.
‘Ready?’ Jeremias asked.
She nodded and Corlak activated the device. There was a hum, then a crackle, and then Zelia’s body was thrown into a storm of light.
CHAPTER TWO
The Cognis
The first time Zelia had been teleported had been disorientating, but not unpleasant. She and her friends had been rescued by Jeremias from certain death on the Orks’ planet, and the journey to the Zealot’s Heart had been over in a literal flash.
This time was different. It was as if she had been plucked from the ship and pulled into a tornado. Lights flashed in front of her eyes and her ears were assaulted by unearthly screams that clawed at her mind. Then, in the blink of a watering eye, it was over. She stumbled, released from the effects of teleportation, nearly falling flat on her face. She blundered into Talen, who gulped air in an attempt not to be sick.
‘That was rough,’ he croaked.
She could only nod in response, her throat parched.
Jeremias’s deep voice cut through the fog in her head. ‘Every journey through the warp is different. Some are more traumatic than others.’
‘The warp?’ Talen parroted, glancing at Zelia. ‘You said travelling through the warp was dangerous.’
She had, back on the refugee ship from Targian. Zelia felt a stab of regret at how confident she had been back then, how superior she’d felt compared to Talen, who had never headed into space before. How quickly things changed.
‘It can be,’ Jeremias said, not giving her the chance to reply. ‘But short journeys shouldn’t leave too many scars, either physically or psychologically.’
‘That’s comforting.’ Talen peered at Zelia. ‘You okay?’
She nodded, stepping off a teleportation pad as grimy as the Zealot’s Heart had been pristine. They had materialised in a gloomy corridor, the air stale but breathable.
‘Is this where your friend lives?’ she managed to rasp.
Jeremias looked around them, his face twisted with distaste. ‘I said he was a contact, not a friend, although I’ve no idea why we didn’t appear in his workshop. Corlak?’
The servo-skull hovered over. ‘The teleportation corridor was diverted here.’
‘To the hallway?’
‘Apparently so, sire.’
‘Then we will need to walk,’ Jeremias said, striding towards a flight of iron stairs that rose up in front of a heavy door. The cyber-mastiff bounded up the steps, and Jeremias led the children up three steep flights. At the top was a passageway bathed in the greasy glow of a flickering lume-globe.
Talen screwed up his nose. ‘This place makes Rhal Rata look good.’
Zelia had to agree. The metal walls were tarnished and the corridor smelled of oil and sweat. There were scum-rat droppings on the floor and dusty spinnerwebs hanging from the low ceiling. It was stuffy too, making Zelia’s shirt stick uncomfortably to her back. Jeremias strode ahead, heading towards an arched door at the end of the passageway. He looked so out of place here, his impeccable clothes at odds with the squalid surroundings.
The inquisitor stepped aside as they reached the door, Corlak sweeping past to rap on the metal with a mechanical frond.
‘Open up for Jeremias Drayvan of the Emperor’s Inquisition.’
Behind them, Jeremias sighed. ‘Really, Corlak. There is no need to be so formal. Nalos is expecting us.’
Even so, when the door slid back, the inquisitor’s red-robed contact dropped into a deep bow, his hunched back cracking. ‘Inquisitor,’ the adept wheezed in a thin voice. ‘It is good to see you again.’
Jeremias didn’t smile. ‘And you, although I wonder why I found myself delivered into a dingy corridor rather than your chambers?’
Nalos wrung his gnarled hands together. ‘I apologise for the inconvenience, sire. I disconnected the teleporter array in my workshop for security reasons. I didn’t want any… unexpected visitors.’
The inquisitor’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I trust you aren’t talking about me?’
‘No, my lord. Of course not. I meant my fellow adepts. They have become… curious of late.’
‘About your work?’
‘Yes, sire.’
The inquisitor hmmed and ushered Zelia and the others inside.
‘What kind of work?’ she asked as Corlak shut the door behind them.
Nalos shot a glance at the inquisitor. ‘You brought children?’
Jeremias regarded the bedraggled bunch with something resembling, but not quite achieving, paternal pride. ‘Extraordinary children, who have suffered much at the hands of the universe.’
‘You have a kind heart, sire,’ Nalos fawned, but the inquisitor waved away the comment dismissively.
‘He didn’t answer your question,’ Talen whispered to Zelia.
She shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t.’
To say the workshop was cluttered was an understatement. Benches were scattered randomly around the cramped room, their surfaces piled high with the kind of gizmos that usually piqued Mekki’s interest, although for some reason the Martian was hanging back. He didn’t even seem interested in the flashing cogitator terminals that covered the walls or the screens that scrolled with an endless stream of data.
Zelia realised that she had never seen Mekki with one of his own people. Nalos wore scarlet robes trimmed with gold, and much of his haggard face was hidden behind a stark metal grille that covered his mouth and nose. His eyes had been replaced by glowing red irises and he stooped beneath the weight of a dozen or so mechanical arms that were fixed to an arthritic back. His gnarled hands were covered in metal rings and his feet replaced by curved metal claws. Only the skin around his bionic eyes was exposed, his head cowled by a thick hood, but there was no mistaking the curiosity with which he peered at Mekki.
