Secret War: Warhammer 40,000 by Ben Agar (reading eggs books TXT) 📖

his organisation by forcing his hand? But then why would she want Taryst to show himself in the first place? Could Garrakson know more than he lets on as well? He was our leader and longtime senior in Taryst's company?

But most importantly, what was the cause behind all this paranoia and why the hell was so much effort going into tracking down this low life gang leader?

The answer to that I could hazard a myriad amount of guesses upon.

I reached the end of yet another corridor; stopping at the edge, I pushed my back against the wall and glanced around the corner.

Two Hammers stood guard at the doorway situated halfway down the next hall; both were bulky men, both held autoguns, and both glanced about with nervous expressions.

Without hesitation, I stepped out and vacated the nearest ganger's brains out the side of his skull with one autopistol round. The other turned to me in almost admiral discipline, attempting to bring up his autogun to fire.

He managed it halfway before my las shots killed him, one blew through his ribs, and the other blew out his neck.

I ran on, unloading and reloading my smoking pistols on the move, then pushed my back against the wall next to the already open entrance. I could not help but think that perhaps this was a little too easy, and you also may be wondering why I am doing this? Why it is simple, and it is not what you may think if it is that I bring in Brutis Bones finally Glaitis will see me worthy and promote me to full assassin-hood? Well, that would be a bonus, but no. I am and have never been a particularly ambitious person. I have no dreams of ascending Glaitis and taking her blood-soaked throne (the metaphorical one, of course, but at times, I have wondered). No, I just wanted to have this frigging job done, finished so we can move on to something else. I hated this crap and was frankly sick of it; that is why I am throwing myself blind into the Wolves Den, killing anything and everything in my ways like a Hitman on heat. The poor Hammers who stood in my way were just the instruments for me to take my anger and aggression out on, almost like Vex was.

I physically winced at the thought and felt the guilt I had suppressed over the earlier hours boil back to the surface. I swallowed hard and forced it back down. I still had plenty more frustration to go around,
Now, with that finally explained, I took in a huge breath and slipped through the doorway. My pistols raised and covering the interior. The room I emerged into was large, at least eight metres in length and fifteen in width, a brightly lit rockcrete cave. Barren to an extreme, and there were twelve thick, square pillars, six along the diameters of the room. It was empty except for the one figure who stood in sight, right at the epi-centre, he had his back facing me, but I could see the heavy carapace armour he wore.

"Brutis Bones, I presume?" I said, covering him with my guns.

No answer; the man just stood deathly still and stayed silent.

"Hmm, right. I'm not going to bother to say for you to surrender. This place looks like it's been built specifically for a firefight, isn't a coincidence, is it?"

Again he replied with silence.

Something inside me snapped. "Don't you give me the frigging silent treatment, you bastard! Do you have any idea the crap I have been through to find you!"

"I can't believe that so many of my guards killed single-handedly by a kid," the man said abruptly. "A foolish kid playing at games far too large and complicated for him to even begin to comprehend."

I wasn't sure how to reply to that; what he had said had hit quite close to home.

"And nope, sorry kid, I am not your Brutis Bones; he is, in another castle, you could say."

I gritted my teeth, widened my eyes and tightened my hands on the grips of my pistols.

"How the hell do I know that you actually are him and not just lying?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice neutral; if this wasn't Brutis Bones, then Glaitis' intel must have been misled; no, I sincerely doubted that. If this were Brutis Bones, she would know, and if this man who talked to me now isn't him, then it would just reinforce that this is one of her feints used to force Taryst to show his hand.

The man shrugged. "You can choose to believe or not to believe, kid, either way, it's the truth, now I may not be him, but that doesn't make me want to live any less so..."

Then he spun, as quick as lightning, and he held a stubb revolver raised and firing.

All I could do was a lunge, diving behind the nearest pillar just in time. But I was not fast enough to dodge the one round which skimmed my left shoulder, the sharp pain erupted up my arm, and I yelped out as I hit the floor.

Getting into a crouch, I pushed my back against my pillar, cursing savagely. I had his back wholly covered, and yet the bastard still got the drop on me!

A few more shots rang through the vast room; then there was silence, the only sound the ringing clatter of empty shell casings falling to the floor.

"You really are him, aren't you?" I said.

"Maybe, maybe not," the man replied.

My reply was me suddenly leaning out slightly and wailing off four shots in his general direction.

"Well, either way, you're fighting me now, and either way, you are going to pay the consequences!" I said as I lunged out into the open, my guns blazing.



I ran, sprinting sideways and fired my pistols at my opponent, who ran with me. The bellowing, rudimentary consistent and combined sounds of our weapons discharging over and over echoed throughout the interior with a horrible, deafening cacophony. They tore into the decor, which wrought in a new and far more interesting scenery of bullet holes in the rockcrete walls and pillars.

Making it to the next pillar and leaving the clatter of spent shell cases in my wake, I pushed myself up against my cover. I lent outlet off a few shots with my Laspistol, then I spun to the other side rockcrete cover and neatly caught my enemy off guard as he attempted the same manoeuvre. The man barely made it behind his colonnade as I opened fire. Then without hesitation, I moved, running toward the other side in an attempt to bridge the gap while I wailed away with my pistols to keep the bastard pinned to prevent his reconciliation.

Without hindrance, I found the other side of the same colonnade that my opponent cowered behind, pushed myself against the pillar, then slid out, pistols raised and found the man had gone.

I snarled out a curse, turning just in time to catch him as he came around the other side of the pillar and desperately knock his raised stubb revolver's aim off course. The round once meant to cave in my skull shot off, its fate only to create yet another smoking crater in the wall, and I followed on, kicking out viscously at the man's groin. The man sidestepped the attack with almost contemptuous ease and attempted to bring his gun to bear on me again. My inner-outer block smashed the shot aside, after which I opened up with my autopistol.

Despite the shot being point-blank, the man still managed almost to dive out the way; instead of exploding his ribcage, the round impacted against his shoulder guard, its kinetic force caused him to turn in mid-lunge, and he hit the floor clumsily, I could clearly hear him gasp out his lungs ejected air with the impact.

I didn't hesitate, shooting once! Twice! Hitting him as he rolled across the floor, but that was all I could muster before he made it behind the next pillar, and my pistols clicked empty.

Sliding around the first colonnade, I knelt and began reloading; I had six clips left, four for my autopistol and two for my las. Along the way of my massacre, I had pilfered them off the corpses of my many victims, and I could also hear my opponent following suit along with his pained gasps and grunts as he performed the task.

"You know," I said as I slammed home a fresh clip into my autopistol. "You would be dead if you weren't wearing that carapace."

"I know," he replied, and I could not help but be surprised by the sadness in his words. "You're good, kid. I'll give you that."

"I know," I echoed back.

"Perhaps even good enough to kill me," he went on, "and that I actually wouldn't mind, I have lived a long life kid, killed a lot of people I really wouldn't mind. Going out with one final blaze of glory."

I grinned. "Well, if you're so keen to die, why don't you just step out and make this easy for me?"

The man sighed. "You and I know I can't do that; your boss, Taryst, wants me alive, doesn't he? There is more at stake here than one old man and his lowly life; my mission demands that I live amongst the populace of Omnartus to complete it, so I can't give up; I can't let you kill me or anyone; else."

It was my turn to sigh, "and what the hell is it that is exactly at stake?"

"More than you could imagine."

Something in those words made sudden indescribable fear crawl up my spine, fear even more potent than the presence of the blank, fear even more potent than the psychic activity of earlier.

"W-what do you mean? Who the hell are you?" I managed.

"I'm nobody, no one. But I know who you are; you are what I said you were earlier, nothing but a kid, a kid caught up in games far too complex and adult for him. Just some poor, innocent kid who's been thrown into this mess and for what I am about to do, I am truly sorry."

I gritted my teeth; somehow, the fear was even more potent than before, my heart shuddered in my chest, and my hands began to shake uncontrollably.

"Sorry? W-what the hell are you sorry for?" I demanded.

"For this."

I heard a beep, the brief pure sound of a press of a button, small non-descript, but somehow it held more weight than any of his words.

I flinched in fright as I heard a nearby, small section of the wall slid open, revealing the darkened room beyond and what stepped out from its depths made my heart turn to ice.

"I am truly, truly sorry."

It stood at three metres tall, its enormous bulky body utterly corded with a musculature not at all possible for a normal human being. It was naked except for a torn old loincloth, it's pink, the swollen skin was covered all over with countless hideous scars, both its hands had been severed at the wrists surgically replaced with two huge, razor-sharp axes, and its teeth filed into ugly incisors.

The Arco Flagellant didn't make a sound, no roar from its smiling maw as one would expect from such a monster, and that somehow made it even more terrifying, silently, and with grace belying its bulk, it turned its attention to me then lunged for the kill.



Despite my utter terror, I still managed to dive out the way of the Arco Flagellant's charge. I landed and neatly rolled into a crouch and turned in time to see it practically eviscerate a frigging three metre thick solid rockcrete pillar with just one swipe of its huge axe. It then shoulder barged straight through, carrying on as though it was nothing. The wanton destruction showered the surroundings with chunks of rockcrete and an explosively ejected cloud of dust.

This was one enemy I couldn't defeat; this, this thing was so far out