Most of the passengers were unconscious. Vapour hissed, and lubricant dripped from torn hoses.
Molotch clambered out onto the dry straw of the field. The crash had broken several of his ribs, and they ground together as he moved.
‘Ow,’ he said. ‘Ow, shit. That hurts.’
He began to stagger away across the parched fields. The sky was a threaded grey of pre-dawn. To the north, where the Kells had once stood, an immense pall of black smoke hung like a shadow.
Ravenor caught up with him several fields away, near a small wood. The trees in the wood had been stripped of their leaves by the aftershock. Molotch had come to a halt, leaning against the bars of a broken gate. He was breathing hard and clutching his ribs. His face was drawn and bloodless.
He looked up as Ravenor glided towards him, and laughed sadly. Laughing made him wince.
‘I can’t run any more,’ he said, pain colouring his voice.
‘That’s good. I’m tired of chasing you.’
Molotch nodded. ‘This is the inevitable bit we were talking about, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ said Ravenor, and reached out into Molotch’s mind. Zygmunt Molotch did not put up a fight.
When the others caught up with them, Molotch was lying on the ground beside the gate. Ravenor felt Kys approaching, with Kara close behind her. Behind them, a little further off, Nayl was limping across the stubbled field.
They drew close and halted, staring at the corpse beside the gate. In death, Molotch seemed a pathetic and insignificant thing, not at all the sort of being that should have required decades of devotion, sacrifice and effort to bring down.
+I told you closure was overrated.+
Kara nodded. ‘It’s still closure,’ she said.
About The Author
Dan Abnett is a novelist and award-winning comic book writer. He has written over thirty-five novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies and, with Mike Lee, the Darkblade cycle. His novels Horus Rising and Legion (both for the Black Library) and his Torchwood novel Border Princes (for the BBC) were all bestsellers. His novel Triumff, for Angry Robot, was published in 2009 and nominated for the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent. Dan’s blog and website can be found at www.danabnett.com
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[email protected] For Andy Lanning the ‘A’ of DnA, and about time too
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2007 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Wayne England.
Map by Ralph Horsley.
© Games Workshop Limited 2007, 2011. All rights reserved.
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ISBN 978-0-85787-074-2
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Dan Abnett, Ravenor Rogue
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