Horus Rising Read Online Free PDF Page B

side and began to stride towards the empty throne.
    ‘What are you doing?’ the elderly man asked.
    ‘Where is he?’ Loken cried. Where is he really? Is he invisible too?’
    ‘Get back!’ the elderly man cried out, leaping forward to grapple with Loken.
    There was a loud bang. The elderly man’s ribcage blew out, spattering blood, tufts of burned silk and shreds of meat in all directions. He swayed, his robes shredded and on fire, and pitched over the edge of the platform.
    Limbs limp, his torn garments flapping, he fell away like a stone down the open drop of the palace tower.
    Ekaddon lowered his bolt pistol. ‘I’ve never killed an emperor before,’ he laughed.
    ‘That wasn’t the Emperor,’ Loken yelled. ‘You moron! The Emperor’s been here all the time.’ He was close to the empty throne now, reaching out a hand to grab at one of the golden armrests. A blemish of light, almost perfect, but not so perfect that shadows behaved correctly around it, recoiled in the seat.
    This is a trap. Those four words were the next that Loken was going to utter. He never got the chance.
    The golden throne trembled and broadcast a shock-wave of invisible force. It was a power like that which the elite guard had wielded, but a hundred times more potent. It slammed out in all directions, casting Loken and all the Catulan off their feet like corn sheaves in a hurricane. The windows of the tower top shattered outwards in a multicoloured blizzard of glass fragments.
    Most of Catulan Reaver Squad simply vanished, blown out of the tower, arms flailing, on the bow-wave of energy. One struck a steel spar on his way out. Back snapped, his body tumbled away into the night like a broken doll. Ekaddon managed to grab hold of another spar as he was launched backwards. He clung on, plasteel digits sinking into the metal for purchase, legs trailing out behind him horizontally as air and glass and gravitic energy assaulted him.
    Loken, too close to the foot of the throne to be caught by the full force of the shockwave, was knocked flat. He slid across the ring platform towards the open fall, his white armour shrieking as it left deep grooves in the onyx surface. He went over the edge, over the sheer drop, but the wall of force carried him on like a leaf across the hole and slammed him hard against the far lip of the ring. He grabbed on, his arms over the lip, his legs dangling, held in place as much by the shock pressure as by the strength of his own, desperate arms.
    Almost blacking out from the relentless force, he fought to hold on.
    Inchoate light, green and dazzling, sputtered into being on the platform in front of his clawing hands. The teleport flare became too bright to behold, and then died, revealing a god standing on the edge of the platform.
    The god was a true giant, as large again to any Astartes warrior as an Astartes was to a normal man. His armour was white gold, like the sunlight at dawn, the work of master artificers. Many symbols covered its surfaces, the chief of which was the motif of a single, staring eye fashioned across the breastplate. Robes of white cloth fluttered out behind the terrible, haloed figure.
    Above the breastplate, the face was bare, grimacing, perfect in every dimension and detail, suffused in radiance. So beautiful. So very beautiful.
    For a moment, the god stood there, unflinching, beset by the gale of force, but unmoving, facing it down. Then he raised the storm bolter in his right hand and fired into the tumult.
    One shot.
    The echo of the detonation rolled around the tower. There was a choking scream, half lost in the uproar, and then the uproar itself stilled abruptly.
    The wall of force died away. The hurricane faded. Splinters of glass tinkled as they rained back down onto the platform.
    No longer impelled, Ekaddon crashed back down against the blown-out sill of the window frame. His grip was secure. He clawed his way back inside and got to his feet.
    ‘My lord!’ he exclaimed, and dropped