Baits out shot

Something was out there, but he couldn’t see it properly. Even his genhanced acuity, further sharpened by the spatial rewiring of the sensory centres of his brain, couldn’t pick out what it was.

It was a shadow where no shadows should be, a ghost out of place on a world of ghosts.

Lucius smiled as comprehension dawned.

‘Ruen,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the downed eagle. ‘You see that?’

‘What?’ said Ruen, scrambling to the edge of the pillar and peering round its broken stub.

‘There,’ said Lucius. ‘Quickly.’

‘I don’t see anyth–’ said Ruen before a tiny thip, thip sounded and the back of his helmet blew out. He slumped over onto his side, both eye lenses shattered and scorched.

‘Idiot,’ said Lucius, swinging his bolter up over the pillar and aiming at the point where he’d seen the tiny, telltale flash of the needler. Most observers wouldn’t have seen the weapon’s las-flare, concealed within a shadow and shrouded by fallen debris.

But Lucius wasn’t most observers.

The Raven Guard would already be displacing, but Lucius could give him something to force his head down: bolt shells stitched a percussive path through the shadow.

***

Angel Exterminatus, Chapter 26