Exodus - Steve Lyons Read online

  Something else was up there too: another light, brighter, whiter and purer than the others. It streaked towards the darker lights, and Teilloch’s breath caught in his throat. ‘It’s a ship,’ a young man beside him gasped. ‘An Imperial warship. They’re still fighting for us up there. That has to be it.’

  Teilloch had thought he had seen the last of hope. It returned now, riding the tail of that blazing comet. It was headed directly for the hateful, pulsing light – whose smaller brethren moved to intercept the white light, too slowly.

  The lights collided, and Teilloch let out a cheer. He wasn’t the only one. Though the rioting continued, there were scores of people like him – beaten soldiers and traumatised civilians – who had fallen still and silent, just gaping up at the display in the sky. Then, the bold white light flared triumphantly, and died; and hope drained from their upturned faces. The pulsing, hateful, sickly light burned on, as if nothing had happened.

  Teilloch looked at his gun, his useless gun, clutched in his sweaty hands. He looked down at his uniform, its bold colours. Perhaps nothing really had happened up there, but even so. These colours stood for something, didn’t they? He had to act now, he thought, before he lost his audience. He hopped up onto a cracked podium, which against all odds still hosted a proud bronze statue, and pointed to the sky.

  ‘Listen! I don’t know who they were,’ he announced, ‘the heroes aboard that ship, but they have reminded me of something I shouldn’t have forgotten. That I, that you, that all of us, belong to the Imperium of Man. And while our Emperor sits upon the Golden Throne, we are never defeated.’

  It was working. They were turning their faces towards him. Teilloch ignored his heart’s hammering. He let the words tumble out of him. ‘So, let our enemies come, and we shall do as our kind has done for forty millennia. We shall fight them to our very last breaths. We shall defend this precious world of ours. For every square foot of Katraxis that the xenos take, let them pay a price in blood.’

  Something caught around his ankle: an Imperial flag, dirty and torn. He recalled that the governor’s groundcar had passed this way. He picked up the tattered piece of cloth and waved it proudly. ‘Are you with me?’ he demanded of the crowd. ‘Are you with the God-Emperor of Mankind?’

  Some of them shouted that they were, waving weapons and fists – not many, but it was a start, and the sentiment was already spreading.

  Then, suddenly, there were more gasps and cries, drawing Teilloch’s eyes skyward once more. The clouds had drawn in and it was beginning to rain, thick and heavy.

  Except the closer the dark droplets fell, the more evident it became that it wasn’t rain. They were far too large; as large as birds; as large as people? It suddenly occurred to Teilloch that the droplets might be bombs. ‘Get down!’ he screamed.

  He dived from his pedestal as a bomb careened towards him. It ploughed through the effigy of the Imperial hero above him, which was reduced, at last, to bronze-plated matchsticks. It smashed through a warehouse wall and lay steaming in the wreckage.

  Teilloch lifted his head gingerly. A deathly silence had fallen, or perhaps his ears had been deadened. There had been no explosion. As dust from the object’s landing cleared, he discerned more details of it. Its casing was mottled, greenish-purple – plant matter? It was shaped like a teardrop and, yes, it was larger than a man.

  The casing had cracked open and there was something inside it, something indescribably awful. Teilloch glimpsed snapping claws, a twitching tail and a glistening, segmented wormlike body, thrashing to get out. Not bombs, he realised with a creeping sense of horror, but pods!

  ‘They’re here! The xenos are here!’

  He had meant to bellow the words, as a rallying cry, but they came out in a deathly whisper. Sounds crashed in around him again. People were yelling and screaming and running, but some – the bravest few, the most faithful – were brandishing weapons, as Teilloch had bade them, preparing to defend themselves.

  He recalled Alvado’s words: ‘I enlisted to protect these people.’ Teilloch had lost sight of that, forgetting the value of each individual life – but he could see clearly now. He checked that his autogun was loaded. Arch Teilloch prepared to fight with his people, for his world.

  He was ready to do his duty.

  About the Author

  Steve Lyons’ work in the Warhammer 40,000 universe includes the novellas Engines of War and Angron’s Monolith, the Imperial Guard novels Ice World and Dead Men Walking – now collected in the omnibus Honour Imperialis – and the audio dramas Waiting Death and The Madness Within. He has also written numerous short stories and is currently working on more tales from the grim darkness of the far future.

  After the withdrawal of Imperial troops is ordered from the ice world of Cressida, a squad of Valhallan Ice Warriors are sent on a rescue mission.

  A Black Library Publication

  First published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,

  Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Cover illustrations by Phil Moss.

  Exodus © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Exodus, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.

  All Rights Reserved.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-78572-827-3

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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