Status Updates From The Bleeding Stars (Warhamm...

‘Let me spear him. I will keep the beam narrow.’ ‘Perhaps he should,’ Dzukar added. ‘We cannot have him complicating this moment of crisis.’ ‘It would be a pity, though,’ Trazyn said, opening a dimensional pocket and withdrawing a void-black cube. ‘For if you fire, I will be forced to activate this. And, trust me, venerable colleagues, you will not like what is inside.’

Trazyn basked in their consternation. After all, it had not been quite as easy as he’d suggested to gain entry to this chamber, and as a reward, he allowed himself a moment to savour their wrong-footed silence. He didn’t laugh – that would be crass – but he did record the moment so he might chuckle over it later.

‘We know who you are, Trazyn of Solemnace,’ Dzukar snapped, reactor flaring in irritation. ‘I recall that the last time you were caught here, we issued a writ of banishment. To return would be to die.’ ‘And yet’ – Trazyn spread his arms, as if to acknowledge a multitude acclaiming him in welcome – ‘here I am.’

Emerald steam billowed from the ramparts atop the Volakhan Gate, venting from the overtaxed gauss blasters of the Oruscar Dynasty Immortals. ‘Move not!’ Revkkah ordered, striding among her phalanx. She was so lost in the intensity of the battlesphere that she spoke the order aloud along with the interstitial broadcast. ‘Gird your necrodermis! Harden your joints! They are coming again!’

Robert Rath has written some of the best BL stories of the last few years. Here, he returns to a character who he unquestionably made his own in a pivotal moment for the setting. This story didn’t need to be written but I’m so very glad that it was.