Warhawk, p.45
Warhawk, page 45
That was reserved for the glowing, gold-clad figure who leapt out of the craft and plummeted to the ground.
The scavengers were overcome. One of them, their primitive brain responding to a perceived threat, squeezed the trigger of their weapon and rattled off a few harmless shots blindly into the sky. The others simply stood motionless, their expressions hidden but their slack-limbed postures speaking of the potent mix of terror and awe that froze them in place.
The glowing figure landed, a giant amongst them, and I felt the wave of power that washed out from it. All the scavengers fell, like puppets with their strings cut.
The giant looked up at me and spoke, in a voice I heard with my mind as much as I did with my ears.
‘Come out, my son.’
I could have resisted. I could have refused. It would have taken all of my will, but I could have done so. However, I had no wish to, for I recognised this figure, from my dim, confused memories of the time before, and its presence filled a void in me I had not, until that point, realised was there.
I stood up, and walked over the dust to where the glowing figure stood.
‘I thought I had lost you all,’ it said, in tones of wonderment. ‘And now I find you here, after all this time, on my very doorstep.’ It knelt down and reached out to me. ‘Let me look at you.’
I submitted myself for inspection. I do not know how else to describe it. My head was turned this way and that, but I could tell on some level that I was being examined in a manner that went far beyond the visual. A nagging sense grew in me that there was something wrong with me, that I had been damaged in some way.
‘Is everything… as it should be?’ I asked. There was a hesitation before the voice answered, but when it spoke, it sounded as sure and certain as stone.
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
I should have been reassured, and yet I was not. Now I thought on it, I could feel that not everything was as it should be. There was something missing, something I could not verbalise. I was not complete. Something had, at some point, been taken from me.
‘It is a shame about these people,’ the glowing giant said, looking at the limp bodies of the scavengers around us. ‘But they could not be allowed to repeat what they saw here, even if they had not seen you. You are all that is left to me now. No one can know of you.’
‘But what am I?’ I found the courage to ask. ‘And who are you?’ ‘I am the Emperor,’ the giant replied, its voice warm. ‘I am your father. As to what you are… You are my son. Do you know your name?’
I looked up at it, peering into the glow.
‘I am Alpharius.’
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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
First published in Great Britain in 2021.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.
Internal artwork by Mikhail Savier.
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ISBN: 978-1-80026-605-6
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To Hannah, with love.
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