Bringers of Death by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part Two

Mallax was founded on the few mineral and ore deposits that were ever found on this primarily agricultural world. Over the generations of decline which followed Agra’s loss of contact with the Imperium (cross ref. 666/852-hist: Age of Apostasy) the Mallaxians continued to mine these deposits and, in their manufactoria, to work them into agricultural implements and weapons of war.

As the ore deposits were exhausted, Mallax’s manufactoria were turned to the repair and maintenance of those Imperial artefacts and machines that had survived the generations since contact was lost - though their origin and the existence of the Imperium was already slipping into the realm of myth and legend. Mallax became the workshop of the world.

The other city-states, such as Primax (the site, its city charter suggests, of th first human settlement on Agra), Terrax and Mundax, looked down upon Mallax, despite their reliance on its workshops for the maintenance of their agricultural machinery and the weapons with which they occasionally fought their petty wars.

Contempt turned to envy, however, as the invaders rolled across Agra’s verdant continent. Only one city had sufficient stockpiles of weaponry, ancient and patched though much of it was, to stand a hope of offering any real resistance.

- Extract: ‘Inquisitorial communiqué

747923486/aleph/Samax IV’ Author: Inquisitor Selene

Infantus. M41,793

An ancient lantern held in his damaged hand, the stubby greenskin pistol in the other, Brael moved as swiftly as he dared along the tunnel beneath the city. Though the tunnel floor had been worn smooth by the passage of countless feet in ages past, the roof was of uneven height; the threat of dashing out one’s own brains on an unexpected overhang was very real.

The lantern gave off a thin yellow light and the scent of animal fat. Its glow illuminated a few paces of the tunnel ahead, but neither Brael nor the men who had followed him down the shaft into the darkness beneath Mallax needed to see too far along the tunnel to guide them towards their destination. The shouts, screams and loud guttural roars, punctuated by the occasional gunshot were enough.

It had been almost three weeks since Brael and his men arrived at Mallax. They made their way warily through the deserted districts outside the city’s tall curtain wall and identified themselves to the sentries - although Brael was sure that they had been tracking them for some time before making their presence known. After a short debriefing, they were assigned to a defensive station atop the wall and a reserve station below the battlements where they were to spend their off-duty hours.

A week after they had reached Mallax, the vanguard of the invaders’ army had topped the horizon. As more and more of the infernal machines roared into view, carrying with them the greenskinned plague that had wiped the Agran people from the rest of their land, the harrying attacks began. Two- and three-wheeled war engines rushed through the outer districts, firing up at the defences, testing them.

Brael was of the opinion that they weren’t trying to breach the wall.

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