A sun, like burning embers, rose on this day of fate, a blood-red sky to spell the end. With the wind in her back, Torindreth stood upon the cliff’s edge, looking down on this planet’s capital city some thirty kilometres away, her fur-collared cape dancing behind her in the rush of air. Not once did she blink, her eyes bleeding…
‘This droning,’ growled Ulreddar into his comms array, ‘is incessant.’ ‘Oh aye,’ came the crackling response from Ôboryn. ‘And to think you called this “the perfect extraction” before it started. Ha!’ At first, the mission had seemed such: breathable air, an idyllic and untouched lushness all around, a temperate clime with lakes and rivers pockmarking the terrestrial expanse they harvested—all…
The sea of the Ethereals swarmed with relentless wisps of agony, missed opportunities and the regrets and fears of millions unborn. The eddies bracketed her ancient vessel as a creature from the depths stirred the sea below her. Blood trickled somewhere nearby, as the forgotten winds of the Blighted frothed to feed at the vestiges of her soul. An enormous…
‘T’ was the last letter Agnes drew with her quill. She indulged herself for a moment as she regarded her work. ‘Si hoc legere potes, nimium scis et occidi oportet,’ was the string of letters in High Gothic. Agnes had given each grapheme her full attention and drawn them with all the grace and beauty she could muster. This was…
As she walked beneath the tall marble halls of Aegis, residence of House Strategos, Sister Lepida decided that Canoness Ismene had done quite well for herself. The Strategos had been ruling the planet Pallas for more than a thousand generations, a boon gifted by the Lords of Terra after an ancestor distinguished herself in battle. Now retired, Ismene was a…
Segmentum Obscura Nachmund Sector Agriworld Auru One Aurun 22nd Regiment, Imperial Guard Trooper Dwyer rolled the filter of his tabac stick between his fingertips, before bringing it to his lips. He patted his camo blouse pockets for his lighter with one hand, while scanning the swamped trench. His other hand held tight to his lasrifle web sling, a comforting…
The woman had felt each of those fifteen lashes dig into her skin and muscles. The executor, one of the cadet commissars, had been anything but slacking in his task. Biting on a leather belt, her arms forcefully cuffed around a pole, she had managed not to scream or burst into tears. That she was proud of, more so than…
++ Do not look to us for kindness. Do not look to us for hope. We are not the kind children of this new age. We are the rocks of its foundation. ++ Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the VII A flash of light burned in the black of space. Is this it? thought Cassian Torr, Captain of the 117th Company,…
Now: ‘Hyades! Hyades! Hyades!’ howls the monster in the void. The voice of the Daemonship – hot with fury, rank with spite – screams across every spectrum, defying the silence of the hard vacuum. Its name echoes in an endless, maddening refrain. You don’t want to hear it. You don’t want to acknowledge it. But your auspex, dispassionate, shows that…
Credits: Colyn DeGraaff (Creative Director), Thomas Pham (Publishing Editor), Tim McGrady (Editor), Jack Shelton (Editor), Zev Benjamin (Editor), Ebony Gary (Editor), Joy Snow (Editor), and special thanks to Mia Pallas (Community Lead).
