Horus Rising

Horus Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Horus Rising Read Online Free PDF
Author: Dan Abnett
Tags: Science-Fiction
are—’
    The link broke. Loken hadn’t been about to give away his position anyway. There was something in this tower with him. At the very top, something was waiting.
    The penultimate deck. From above came a soft creaking and grinding, like the sails of a giant windmill. Loken paused. At this height, through the wide panes of glass, he was afforded a view out across the palace and the High City. A sea of luminous smoke, underlit by widespread firestorms. Some buildings glowed pink, reflecting the light of the inferno. Weapons flashed, and energy beams danced and jumped in the dark. Overhead, the sky was full of fire too, a mirror of the ground. The speartip had visited murderous destruction upon the city of the ‘Emperor’.
    But had it found the throat?
    He mounted the last flight of steps, his grip on the weapons tight.
    The uppermost ring platform formed the base of the tower’s top section, a vast cupola of crystal-glass petals, ribbed together with steel spars that curved up to form a finial mast at the apex high above. The entire structure creaked and slid, turning slightly one way then another as it responded phototropically to the blooms of light outside in the night. On one side of the platform, its back to the great windows, sat a golden throne. It was a massive object, a heavy plinth of three golden steps rising to a vast gilt chair with a high back and coiled arm rests.
    The throne was empty.
    Loken lowered his weapons. He saw that the tower top turned so that the throne was always facing the light. Disappointed, Loken took a step towards the throne, and then halted when he realised he wasn’t alone after all.
    A solitary figure stood away to his left, hands clasped behind its back, staring out at the spectacle of war.
    The figure turned. It was an elderly man, dressed in a floor-length mauve robe. His hair was thin and white, his face thinner still. He stared at Loken with glittering, miserable eyes.
    ‘I defy you,’ he said, his accent thick and antique. ‘I defy you, invader.’
    ‘Your defiance is noted,’ Loken replied, ‘but this fight is over. I can see you’ve been watching its progress from up here. You must know that.’
    ‘The Imperium of Man will triumph over all its enemies,’ the man replied.
    ‘Yes,’ said Loken. ‘Absolutely, it will. You have my promise.’
    The man faltered, as if he did not quite understand.
    ‘Am I addressing the so-called “Emperor”?’ Loken asked. He had switched off and sheathed his sword, but he kept his bolter up to cover the robed figure.
    ‘So-called?’ the man echoed. ‘So-called? You cheerfully blaspheme in this royal place. The Emperor is the Emperor Undisputed, saviour and protector of the race of man. You are some imposter, some evil daemon—’
    ‘I am a man like you.’
    The other scoffed. ‘You are an imposter. Made like a giant, malformed and ugly. No man would wage war upon his fellow man like this.’ He gestured disparagingly at the scene outside.
    ‘Your hostility started this,’ Loken said calmly. ‘You would not listen to us or believe us. You murdered our ambassadors. You brought this upon yourself. We are charged with the reunification of mankind, throughout the stars, in the name of the Emperor. We seek to establish compliance amongst all the fragmentary and disparate strands. Most greet us like the lost brothers we are. You resisted.’
    ‘You came to us with lies!’
    ‘We came with the truth.’
    ‘Your truth is obscenity!’
    ‘Sir, the truth itself is amoral. It saddens me that we believe the same words, the very same ones, but value them so differently. That difference has led directly to this bloodshed.’
    The elderly man sagged, deflated. ‘You could have left us alone.’
    ‘What?’ Loken asked.
    ‘If our philosophies are so much at odds, you could have passed us by and left us to our lives, unviolated. Yet you did not. Why? Why did you insist on bringing us to ruin? Are we such a threat to
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

The Whispering Night

Kathryn Le Veque

Different Dreams

Tory Cates

The Lazarus Curse

Tessa Harris

Rain Music

Di Morrissey

Breakdown Lane, The

Jacquelyn Mitchard