Secret War: Upon Blood Sands, BAD Agar, Adrassil [children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

quickly as they could. Shooting their pistols with Delathasi suppression fire. Attelus didn't hit anything, but Adelana managed to get a guardsman in the neck and clip another's arm. They made it, and at the corner, Adelana continued to fire her laspistol while Attelus watched the stairs leading up. Delathasi moved to join them, firing from the hip.

Once she was there, they began up the stairs.

The cracking and rending were getting worse. They stopped, stumbling as the entire building moved and rumbled, tilting violently.

"Shit!" snarled Attelus as the agony in his leg flared. His heart sinking into his stomach.

Then, the lower staircase wall tore open like a chainsword wound, and blood sands burst through.

A second after, two guardsmen appeared in the entrance. One's torso disappeared in a bloody haze as Delathasi opened fire; the other managed a blurt of las, one clipping Adelana's shoulder before Delathasi could kill him.

Adelana cried out, and she and Attelus fell onto the stairs in a flailing jumble of limbs.

He managed to stop his head from hitting with quick hands, but Adelana wasn't so lucky as Attelus heard a crack!

Attelus turned to see Adelana laid, facing him, a large bloody gash on the side of her skull. Her eyes fluttered, barely conscious.

"Adelana!" he cried as he began to climb to his feet. "Adelana!"

Panic almost overtook him; he suppressed it with sheer willpower. Then, despite the pain it caused, he got up and picked up Adelana. Slipping her limp arm across his shoulders.

He roared out as the added weight caused more pain to course through his leg. But he ignored it and started up the stairs.

Delathasi continued to shoot, covering their back.

Every step was agonising; every step made him scream. His teeth were clenched so hard he was afraid they'd burst from his mouth. His brow furrowed so badly it'd hurt for hours later.

The vox crackled, and he could hear Hayden's voice but couldn't make out what the sniper said. His vision was hazy, boarded by white.

It felt like an age, every step was a war to take, and the entire time, Delathasi fired Adelana's bolter. He wanted to swap positions with the apprentice but knew even a slight pause might allow the enemy an opening.

He made it, and it was perhaps one the hardest things he'd ever done. Harder than running through the lower hive with daemons in pursuit. Harder than the subsequent fight with Feuilt.

Once at the top, he limped on and almost overlooked Hayden approach.

The sniper took Adelana off him, picking her up into his arms with ease. It caused Attelus to almost collapse, but Delathasi stopped him, and they started toward the windows. Now the walls were almost in complete collapse. Behind them, the balcony began to break down and fall.

They dived out a window a millisecond before the building finally fell. Attelus even felt the wall brush down his feet.

Attelus hit the sands and rolled with the forward momentum, but it didn't cause him any pain. His leg now numb.

Gasping, aching all over, but despite this, Attelus clambered up, looking for Adelana.

"Adelana! Adelana!" he roared. "Adel..."

He wandered off in his exclamation as he saw guardsmen, a good two dozen more. Lined out on the street, their lasguns covering them. Like the ones in the building, they were ragtag, beaten and battered. Wearing a mixture of uniforms unfamiliar to him.

"Well, shit!" said Attelus, expecting to be cut down in a hail of las.

But they didn't shoot.

"On your knees," said a commanding voice and a man in brown and grey carapace armour walked into view, hands behind his back. His patrician features scarred and craggy. His accent and annunciation as haughty as his gait. "Hands behind your heads."

Attelus glanced about and found Hayden and Adelana. Both had complied with the officer's order; poor Adelana was still clinging to consciousness, blood coated the side of her face and matted her hair. He started toward her, concern overriding his sense of self-preservation.

"On your knees now, young man! Fingers intertwined behind your head!" said the officer. "Or do you have a death wish?"

Attelus stopped, his hands balled into fists. His jaw clenched but did as told—Delathasi following suit.

"Check them!" said the officer, and eight troopers advanced, one to cover them, the other to pat them down.

"We aren't your enemy," said Attelus. "We're Inquisition."

The officer grimaced.

"I could believe that, actually," he said. "But in my experience, that does not mean you are not an enemy."

Attelus shrugged, unable to argue with such logic.

"Sir!" said the trooper, patting Attelus down as he found Attelus' rosette, turned and handed it to the officer.

He studied it, holding it high, with one eye closed.

"Hmm, seems legitimate," he said.

"Sir!" repeated the trooper as he drew Attelus' power sword from its sheath and handed it to the officer, handle first.

The officer eyed it, eyebrow raised, then took it.

"It does not look like much, but..."

Then the officer began to slash, slice, cut and parry. To Attelus, he seemed to move in slow motion, but his skill was quite impressive. Almost on par with Delathasi.

"This is one hell of a sword," he said. "The balance is perfect! If I didn't believe you were Inquisition, I do now."

"Well... besides the rosette," said Attelus, clenching his teeth against the pain. "Look! My name is Attelus Kaltos; we're of the Ordo Hereticus. Now, please state your name, rank and regiment."

The officer gazed at the sword, almost entranced by it.

"I am captain Sevrik Dantian of the Sovrithan 81st rifles," he said after a few seconds.

"Sovrithan 81st? Weren't you deployed to Kalivith?" said Hayden before Attelus could.

"Indeed," said Dantian, cutting Attelus' sword a few more times. "This is an amazing sword, a marvel of workmanship. Take them! Well, take them back to the commander!"

The two guardsmen hauled Attelus and others to their feet, and the barrel of a lasgun in his back prompted Attelus forwards as the others closed in around them in escort formation.

"I like this sword," said Dantian. "Think I might keep it."

Many of the guardsmen laughed sycophantically, and Attelus clenched his jaw. It took all of his willpower to keep himself from killing the captain. He sighed, slouched and looked to Adelana. She was stumbling, clinging to consciousness.

"My...My colleague, she needs medical attention," Attelus said. "She has a head injury-"

"Yes...I am aware of that, Throne Agent Attelus Kaltos..."

Dantian wandered off in his sentence, and Attelus waited, thinking the captain would say more, but he stayed silent.

Attelus sighed and ignored his captors as he limped to her side and slipped her arm over his shoulders. It caused pain to flare in his leg, but he didn't let it get to him.

"Colleague, huh?" said one of the guardsmen.

Attelus didn't take notice, and he couldn't help wonder: Kalivith was over three hundred kilometres south, so why the hell was a detachment of the Sovrithan 81st rifles doing all the way here? What were they going to do to them when they were taken to their commander?

Was Attelus' leg going to have to be amputated due to infection because of lacking medical supplies? Good luck trying to cut through the bone with anything less than a power blade, though,

Where were the rest of Attelus' squad?

What the hell was going on?

Why were guardsmen and cultists killing each other in one second then joining forces to kill them in the next? Was Adelana going to be okay? Attelus hoped so.

What the hell was behind that vision he had? What was waiting in the tallest tower?

So many frigging questions, but the most important of all was: how was he going to get his damned sword back?

 

Imprint

Publication Date: 12-15-2021

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
Three years after Secret War. Attelus and the other survivors are sent to investigate the war-torn world of Sarkeath. With Attelus' hallowed heroes, the men of the Velrosian 1st fighting on the surface, it's personal. Especially when their leader, General Tathe, had ordered a successful Exterminatus months before. Is this yet another scheme of their shadowy foe? Or a dead end?