Dan Abnett - Prospero Burns

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

‘Exactly,’ he grunts.

‘The unprecedented. Like… Astartes fighting Astartes? Like the Rout being called to sanction another Legion?’

‘That?’ he answers. He laughs, but it is a sad sound. ‘Hjolda, no. That’s not unprecedented.’

I am lost for a reply. I am never sure when he is joking. We are looking towards the forest line. The first flakes of snow are fluttering down.

‘Are there wolves on Fenris?’ I ask.

‘Go and look for yourself,’ he tells me. ‘Go on.’

I look at him. He nods. I start towards the forest line across the snow. I begin to run. I pull my pelt, the one Bercaw gave me, tight around me, like a second skin. In the enormous darkness under the evergreens, I see eyes staring at me: luminous, gold and black-pinned. They are waiting for me, ten thousand pairs of eyes looking out at me from the shadows of the forest. I am not afraid.

I am not afraid of the wolves any more.

Behind me, the Wolf King watches me until I’ve disappeared into the trees.

‘Until next winter,’ he says.

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

Follow him on Twitter@VincentAbnett

Belatedly, for Evan McNeill

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2010 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Neil Roberts

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ISBN 978-0-85787-125-1

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