Agoria. Federation Capital world. Nighttime. ‘Kira Coriolanous of the House Coriolanous, sobriquet: Red Princess, age: 21, accreditation: Rogue Trader [foreign title/unrecognised] and master of the Terra’s Stride, displacement: sprint frigate/Galleon-class, archeotech primary asset, allegiance: Imperialis Terranis – Hostile Maximus, you stand here in our custody, representing yourself, your villainous weapon master and surviving two score accomplices, as you face accusations
Once, a lifetime ago, he had been Corporal Orton Merryk, an upstanding member of the 55th Almorian Grenadiers. Now, he was Gash. And the gods were cruel to him. He sighed as he looked out the armaglass windows at the desolate wasteland around the observation post. The uplands of Larzac IV were nothing but twisted canyons, even more twisted rock
The village would have once been described as quaint. Situated in idyllic, sun-drenched lands with gently rolling hills, it nestled securely in their shade. Its streets were clean-cut and well-maintained, filled with picterhouses stocked with the latest holodramas and quaint little cafes. The bathhouse Sister Maryem was in was lined with clean ceramic tiles; white and blue swirls chased each
In a place that’s near to nowhere, yet never far away, There blooms a wondrous garden, a haven of decay. No map can mark its borders; no chart can show the way. The Garden ever changes where the Lord of Flies holds sway. +++ It was a beautiful day in Nurgle’s Garden, though day and night meant little there. The
The wolves hunted at night. Or that’s what I thought they were. They were elusive shapes, shadows that moved fluidly. Always hunting, picking at the lost, the stragglers, the exiled. We locked ourselves in; even our lights were dimmed. Wolves don’t exist, Mother would say. Not on our world. The books told me otherwise: wolves existed. Long ago, before Old
After thirty-four years standard of doing menial work in the Archivum of the Holy Inquisition, two highly trusted and valued menials—a fellow named Falden and myself—were called in for special preparations for the arrival of Inquisitor Syphox. The coming of an Inquisitor was often no special matter, as they usually came to the Archivum for reporting, research, or simply socialising
Our only sin was memory. We remembered our transformations, not as the holy apotheosis that was preached to us by the Dark Angels, but as the warping and the mutilation that it was. The cutting, the sawing, the cries of all the other children squirming under the apothecarium’s knives. Then came the growth, the burgeoning and blooming of the body
‘No one thinks about the grades of corpse starch.’ A small, elderly man by the name of Esurian Semper told a group of trainees hoping to become Mortis Keepers, the civilians charged with rendering human remains into the staple food of the hive. ‘They don’t understand that there are such things as moisture content, milling quality and fungus levels in
‘The worms that walk,’ Khait of Prospero said, scholarly surprise tingeing his transhuman baritone. ‘We do no—’ A fist clad in ceramite the colour of dried blood smashed through the creature’s approximation of a head. Corpse-white maggots scattered across the ground, yet even decapitated, the writhing mound that was supposedly its body remained upright. ‘They also talk,’ Racka Utó observed.
Credits: Colyn DeGraaff (Creative Director), Jack Shelton (Publishing Editor), Darren Davies (Editor), Zev Benjamin (Editor), Ebony Gary (Editor), Joy Snow (Editor), and special thanks to Geneviève Laprise (Community Lead).
