Black Leviathan by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hunter’s Snare

Josh Reynolds

Chapter One

The tau base was not hard to spot, even through the swirling, wind-borne snows, and hidden as it was amongst the harsh-edged crags and white-capped slopes of Rime Crag. It rose out of the snowy rock like a blister, and the peaks it nestled beneath, parasite-like. It was too smooth, too serene for the wilderness it sought to dominate.

In that way, the tau bastion was much like those who had built it. They sought to inflict an unnatural and ill-fitting harmony upon the universe, a universe which was not theirs, not by right of blood or battle, and to force around a manufactured aleph that which had required no centre, or, rather, had many centres to choose from.

They wished to tame the storm. That alone proved them mad at best and monstrous at worst. These thoughts were uppermost in Kor’sarro Khan’s mind as his bike hurtled through the driving snow towards the tau bastion, the icy flakes melting against the bare flesh of his scarred cheeks and stinging his golden-hued eyes. He could have worn his helmet, but the thought of even that little amount of constriction upon his senses was anathema to the huntsman, protective photolenses be damned. The air of Agrellan was so toxic that it seared even his altered lungs, but the pain only added spice to the experience. He’d conquered worse worlds than this, poisonous atmosphere and all.

The captain of the Third Minghan of the White Scars and the ordu’s Master of the Hunt leaned into the snow, glorying in its bite as he urged his bike to greater speed. The enemy fortress loomed up, growing larger as he drew nearer. Lights flashed across the top of the outer wall. The enemy had spotted them at last.

Instinctively, he leaned to the side, and his borrowed bike responded with a growl of its engines. Wheels skidded, and the pulse burst seared the air where he’d been a half-second later. More followed, and he guided his steed through the oscillating web of weapons fire with the grace of the berkut – one of the great, golden-feathered eagles which nested in the mountains of Chogoris. To Kor’sarro’s eyes, the bursts of energy moved slowly. He did not bother to speak a warning into the subcutaneous vox implant mounted beneath his jaw. Those who travelled in his wake could see as well as he, or he would not have chosen them.

Each was a warrior without parallel, even among a Chapter which was reckoned full of such, and their trophy-racks were as heavy with skulls and scalps as his own. If the Emperor had decided that the lives of some of them must be claimed as the blood-price for a successful hunt, well, so it was, and would ever be.

And this hunt would be successful. He had sworn such, during the Rites of Howling, and had come to the Damocles Gulf, and the hive-world of Agrellan, to see to the keeping of that oath. He would take the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.