Pentimento, Nick Kyme [each kindness read aloud TXT] 📗

wagons, slaughtered with the same glee as their owners. The boy guessed they’d been abandoned when the folk fled for their homes. Or to the temple…

His gaze swept to the tall, steeple-topped building across the square. Built from coarsely hewn granite blocks, the God-Emperor’s temple was the oldest and sturdiest place in the village. Four columns fronted it, formed from thick tree trunks and arranged into a roofless portico. Each was carved into the likeness of an armoured warrior with a two-handed sword held before it, blade to the ground, and painted in the bright orange colours of the Shining Ones. The workmanship was crude, the knights rendered as blocky caricatures of the elegant woodcuts in the Saga Scintillant, yet there was an honest strength about them. They were noble. At least, they had been.

‘Heretic,’ the boy growled, seizing on another of Father Fairfield’s favourite words. The knights’ visors had been slashed and spattered with blood.

The beast couldn’t bear to look at you, he thought, staring at the claw marks. You shamed it.

Yes, he was sure of that, though it was an odd insight. No matter, the Shining Ones were the enemy of his enemy, which meant they would stand with him in the battle to come, even if only in spirit. The prospect thrilled him, filling him with renewed conviction. It made his hatred righteous. And with that blessing came another: he knew exactly where his quarry was.

Without a word he headed for the temple, no longer creeping but striding with his head held high. He didn’t need to look back to know his army would follow.

This is why I’m here. This was always why.

The heavy temple doors lay before the entrance, smashed into kindling. They had offered no protection for the souls that took refuge here. Doubtless the sacred aquila hanging over the altar had proved equally ineffective. Without faith to empower it, the symbol was just shaped wood.

‘What are we doing here?’ Jaktens asked as the boy stopped before the portico.

‘What we must, brother.’ It was a strange thing to call this man, who’d only ever been a stranger at best, but it was the right thing to say. ‘What we’re meant to do.’

That was when he heard the music for the first time. It was a gossamer crystal threnody, elusive yet insistent, alienating yet captivating, but above all, achingly distant. He’d never learnt the fancy words and notions it evoked in him, yet he grasped them instantly, as if the music had woven them into his mind. None of the others could hear it. It was for him alone, too refined for common senses. But when he reached for the chords with his gift they fell silent, leaving him with a terrible longing.

It is a song of futures yet to pass. Of paths undreamt that dream of being…

As he scoured the void he felt the beast rising through the fitful strata of its torpor, seeking him in turn – eager to wreak ruin again until all hope of beauty was snuffed out. The impossible music would have to wait. Perhaps it would be his reward for fulfilling this quest. Perhaps it belonged to them. The anthem of the Shining Ones…

‘We burn bright so others may live,’ the aspirant knight declared, raising his dagger to salute the desecrated statues. In the moonlight its blade shone pure white.

Then he led his army into the darkness.

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Warhammer horror

A Black Library Imprint

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Pentimento © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Pentimento, Warhammer Horror, 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: 978-1-80026-503-5

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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