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

of my league that even if I was full equipment with armour, everything I would be nothing but a speck to it. Even less of a nothing than that damned pilaster it had just destroyed with nought but its forward momentum and its shoulder.

I crawled to my feet, a clumsy and hard action as my sweat-slicked hands almost slid out from under me twice. The task of getting up must have taken me no more than a few seconds but felt like a lifetime; any second, I expected the thing to bear down on me to deliver the killing blow, but it never came and once up, I turned, and I ran. I ran like the coward I am.

My heartbeat so fast my chest hurt, my whole body shook so hard I was in utter agony. I sprinted as quickly as my aching legs could go, but still, I never felt it was nearly enough.

I made it out the door and turned right, the way I had come and barely a millisecond after the Arco Flagellant crashed the entranceway.

I never looked back; I didn't dare. I just ran and ran as my arms flailed about like curtains in the wind; my breaths came out as agonising rasps. Every step I made felt like a million more, and I never looked back, but I could feel its presence behind me, tailing me, descending on me like a predator about to pounce upon its prey and with every step, I took I expected to feel its axe cut through me.

Those corridors seemed to go on forever; these were the corridors which mere minutes ago I had slaughtered my way through, and I now ran for my life through them. Terrifyingly I almost tripped over many of the dead gangers I had killed. Even in my fear-fueled state, I was able to see the irony that falling over one of them meant falling to my demise.

When I finally made it out of that maze, my body almost ejected itself out the door, out into the club beyond, and the relief that washed over me in reaching it here was completely and utterly unjustified.

But despite myself, I slid to a stop and turned to look back and found the monster wasn't there, that somehow, someway, I had lost that inhuman thing in the maze, as the corridor behind me was completely and utterly devoid of life.

Perhaps it wasn't as manoeuvrable as I was through those sharp turns, so it had lost its way? And I was too busy mindless in my flight ever to notice?

I glanced around and, to my complete horror, found that the partygoers hadn't moved an inch since my earlier exit; they all stood gaping and staring at me with terror milked eyes.

Something deep down inside me said that the Arco Flagellant would never be lost. That it would hound me until I was dead or it was, I knew soon, very soon that it would come down that corridor and massacre anyone and anything in its path, these people included. I could leave them, run and run, leave them to be slaughtered, delaying it further so I could have a slighter semblance of a chance to escape.

And why not? They were nothing! The sons and daughters of haughty, arrogant, corrupt aristocrats and bureaucrats! Whatever the galaxy would never mourn them, they were nothing, just dozens of lives among trillions more.

But yet they were innocent, these people, these men and women they had come here to dance to enjoy themselves. To forget their worries and find some slight joy in this Emperor-forsaken universe, millions of people die every day, whether killed by the numberless Xenos that ravage humanity on every front or those of our petty species, the insignificant members of humanity like myself. Perhaps I could conquer my cowardice and work for once to prevent even just a few of those millions of souls instead of being a contributor. If I died, and even if one of them survived, they would remember the small skinny bastard who gave his life to protect them; That my sacrifice would mean something for someone.

I was wrong; I was the nothing I had died inside almost a decade ago when war had ravaged my world, my country, my home. When war separated me from my mother and forced me into a world of ruthless scavenging, a life, toiling away for survival amongst the ruins among the rest of the beasts I-.

It was then that I noticed that despite everything, I had kept hold of my pistols.

I smiled, bowing my head, and felt the tears abruptly swell in my eyes and roll down my cheeks, this was the first time I had cried in a very long time, and boy, did it feel good. I thanked the Emperor that I had my answer, and seemingly almost on cue, I heard the repeating, quick-fire plodding sound of the Arco Flagellant's running at the end of the corridor.

I raised my pistols and cocked back the Hammer of my auto; perhaps this was the retribution for what I had done to Vex; perhaps this was my vindication for my selfish cowardice.

The smile never left my face even as the creature bared down upon me, and my shots fired ineffectually off of its thick hide.



A voice, a womanly, low soft, beautiful voice spoke in the impenetrable black, a familiar voice. One I felt I knew well but could not recall to who it belonged to It came off somewhere distant, far, far out in the blackness.

Was this death? Was what the church of the Ecclesiarchy taught about death complete crap? Was death just this black void of nothingness?

I had never believed. My mother was highly religious, but I never was; we were opposites. We were so similar in our personalities but different in our beliefs; we would clash countless times, verbal fights of stunning ferocity on both sides. Now I think back at it; it was a miracle that the Ministorum never found out about my Heretical words. That my mother loved me enough never to tell them.

I believed that the Emperor was never the god that people proclaim him to be, but a great man whose wisdom and power was indeed God-like. But how could he ever have wanted this for us? All the suffering, all the death? The rampant poverty, the chaos, the mindless religious fanaticism in his name, the millions of planets dedicated to the hives of organised chaos and the meek, brainwashed bureaucrats who knew nothing but their small boxes and the Cogitators at their fingertips our whole encompassing bureaucracy?

If this were indeed death, I wouldn't mind; I felt safe here, I felt truly free just floating in this black, in this nothingness and that voice, that beautiful, beautiful soft voice oh I could listen to that voice forever.

Slowly though, the voice came closer, as if whoever the voice belonged to silently walked toward me through the black.

I wasn't scared, never was I scared, and I could start making out the words that became more explicit as the voice came closer. What was it that it said? It sounded like a prayer of some kind, the prayer like the voice felt familiar, but I couldn't quite recall what it was.

Then it stopped, the voice; gone, and my heart emptied at its absence. Was I supposed to spend the rest of eternity without its comforting words, without its company?

Wait, my heart? What?

"Attelus," whispered the voice in my ear. "Open your eyes."

Without hesitation, I did as told and found myself alive, lying in one of the many beds in Taryst's medicae facility and that the voice had belonged Castella. She sat at the end of my bed, her hands clasped in prayer against her forehead with her elbows on my duvet.

She was so beautiful, and to see her there filled me with such indescribable joy at being alive.

I tried to open my mouth to speak out to her through my dry, crack lips, but all that I could manage was a pathetic rattle as though my body had forgotten how to talk.

She stopped her praying and looked at me, her eyes were red with tears, and it hurt me to see such beauty marred. But her smile, oh her smile, it was a smile of indescribable happiness, one of great relief, a smile which showed the weight which had left her shoulders.

I tried to move my hand to beckon her closer, but my whole world became racked with pain at the effort, utter agony, which made me close my eyes and grunt out in response.

It took me until then to realise I was covered from head to toe in bandages and to see the drip cord which fed into my arm.

But she got the hint and leaned closer, nearing her ear toward my mouth for me to speak, and I said, "Stop praying; I'm trying to sleep."

Castella threw back her head and laughed out loud; it was a sweet sound, a beautiful sound from a kind person who seemed to utter nothing but sweet sounds.

She laughed so hard she had to wipe a tear from her eye, and she sat back down on her chair.

"It's good to see that you are still yourself, Attelus," she said.

I tried to smile, but even that hurt.

"You have been out for a long, long time, my friend," she carried on.

"How...Long?" I fought to say.

Her eyes widened into a pained expression that told me I really didn't want to know.

"I...See."

Her perfect face suddenly curled up, and tears ran down her cheeks. The change in emotion was so fast that I didn't know how to react.

"Th-thank you," she squeaked.

I couldn't manage to ask what she was thankful for, but she still answered.

"Thank you for proving to me that you still are a good person. Ever since I had first met you, I knew you weren't like the rest of us, that you weren't evil, that you still cared for more than just yourself. Thank you for proving to me you still are human," she sniffed heavily and wiped away her tears with her forearm, "after-after what you did to Vex I began to doubt you, I had begun to believe that you had devolved into the monster, but I see now that doubt was unfounded. You stood alone Attelus, against an impossible enemy; you willingly put yourself on the line for the good of others, you-you."

She couldn't continue her sentence as she teared back up again.

"And-and thank you that now I know no matter what happens, no matter how hard it is, you will still be that good, kind, compassionate person inside. I just regret that we couldn't have got there in time to save you earlier, and for that, I am sorry, Attelus, I am truly, truly sorry."

Even if I had been able to speak then, I couldn't have; I was taken aback at her emotional outburst, never in all my career that I would have ever suspected that Castella cared for me so much, never.

She was always a friend, the only person I could talk to with humour and trust, who saw me as a person and not some know-nothing apprentice.

But then I realised something; I couldn't recall at all what had happened in that club after the Arco Flagellant had charged me; how the hell had I survived? Had any of the club goers escaped? What exactly had happened?

Castella sniffed again, and as if reading my mind, she said, "you did it, Attelus. You held off that monster for long enough that those people could escape; you went one on one with an Arco Flagellant long enough that Elandria, Hayden, Darrance, and I could stop it before it could cause any more damage. If you had died Attelus, your sacrifice would not have been in vain, and I swear I'm telling you the truth; I know you aren't the most trusting person in this world but believe me, on this,