Hero of the Imperium, page 89
‘Sir,’ Lavant replied, ‘when you work with demolitions, you learn to take proper care.’
‘Well said. Carry on, then. And Lavant? Do something with that moustache.’
As a mark of rank, Straken had his own quarters: two tiny rooms at the end of the corridor, full of engine hum as if located in a giant beehive. Guard doctrine stated that he was supposed to have his own servant, but it had been a long time since anyone had tried to supply him with one. After telling one quartermaster that, metal hand or not, he knew how to wash his own backside, they had left him alone.
His spare clothes hung waiting. In an alcove he found a Munitorum supply box. It contained a data-slate, a box of foul-tasting cigars that had been a gift from a Cadian major-general he’d once helped out, a machete in a grox-skin sheath, and a small vox-phonograph, together with a row of neat little cylinders, each holding one of Guttman’s symphonies. Straken reached into the box, took out the data-slate and activated it at the Libram Devotio. He flicked it to a random page and, silently invoking the Emperor, read the first line he saw. It had been a superstition of Captain Corris, now deceased.
‘And they gathered at that place, for to make a host, and took the battle unto the unholy.’
No doubt about that, Straken thought. A good omen.
On the thin pillow on the fold-down bed, someone had laid the long skull of a land shark. It was the same one that had bitten off his right arm, the one he had killed back on Miral, when he had been certain that he was about to die. He’d carried it into a dozen battles since then, tied to his belt. The skull was cumbersome, but it brought him luck. At any rate, he hadn’t seen a land shark since. He tied it back in place and, feeling ready, strode out to meet the general.
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