Read Online First and Only by Dan Abnett - Free Book Online Page B

nearest to him with point blank shots to the back of the head. As others scrambled to get out of his way, he turned his gun to full auto and blazed at them, killing five more, six, seven.
    Corbec leapt to his feet, horrified at what he saw. He swung his lasgun into his shoulder, took careful aim and shot Drayl in the middle of the chest. Drayl barked out a cough and flew backwards with his feet and hands pointing out, almost comically.
    There was a pause. Corbec edged forward, as did Mkoll and most of the men, those that didn’t stop to try and help those that Drayl had blasted who were still alive.
    ‘For Feth’s sake…’ Corbec breathed as he walked forward towards the corpse of the dead guardsman. ‘What the hell is going on?’
    Mkoll didn’t answer. He crossed the concourse in several fierce bounds and slammed into Corbec to bring him crashing to the ground.
    Drayl wasn’t dead. Something insidious and appalling was blistering and seething inside the sack of his skin. He rose, first from the hips and then to his feet. By the time he was standing, he was twice human size, his uniform and skin splitting to accommodate the twisting, enlarging skeletal structure that was transmuting within him.
    Corbec didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see the bony thing which was erupting from Drayl’s flesh. Watery blood and fluid spat from Drayl as the Chaos infection grew something within him, something that burst out and stepped free of the shredded carcass that it had once inhabited.
    Drayl, or the thing that had once been Drayl, faced them across the yard. It stood four metres high, a vast and grotesque skeletal form whose bones seemed as if they had been welded from tarnished sections of steel. The head was huge, topped by polished horns that twisted irregularly. Oil and blood and other unnameable fluids dripped from its structure. It looked like it was smiling. It turned its head from left to right, as if anticipating the carnage to come.
    Corbec saw that, despite the fact that all fabric and flesh of Drayl had been shed away, the obscenity still wore his dog-tags.
    The beast reached up with great metallic claws and screamed at the sky.
    ‘Get into cover!’ Corbec screamed to his terrified men and they fled into every shadow and crevice they could find. Corbec and Mkoll dropped into a culvert; the scout was shaking. Along the damp drainage channel, Corbec could see Trooper Melyr, who carried the company’s rocket launcher. The man was too terrified to move. Corbec slithered down to him through the fetid soup and tried to pull the rocket launcher from his shoulder. Melyr was too limp and too scared to let it go easily.
    ‘Mkoll! Help me, for Feth’s sake!’ Corbec shouted as he wrestled with the weapon.
    It came free. He had it in his hands, the unruly weight of the heavy weapon unfamiliar to his shoulders. A quick check told him it was primed and armed. A shadow fell across him.
    The beast that was no longer Drayl stood over him and hissed with glee through its blunt, equine teeth.
    Corbec fell on his back and tried to aim the rocket launcher, but it was wet and slippery in his hands and he slid in the mud of the culvert. He began to mutter: ‘Holy Emperor, deliver us from the Darkness of the Void, guide my weapon in your service… Holy Emperor, deliver us from the Darkness of the Void…’ He squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Damp was choking the baffles of the firing mechanism.
    The thing reached down towards him and hooked him by the tunic with its metal fingers. Corbec was lifted up out of the channel, dangling at arm’s length from the abomination. But the baffles were now clear. He squeezed the trigger mechanism again and the blast took the beast’s head off at point blank range.
    The explosion somersaulted Corbec back twenty paces and dumped him on his back in a pile of mud and slag. The rocket launcher skittered clear.
    Headless, the obscenity teetered for a moment and then collapsed into