A WARHAMMER 40K STORY
A Man Of His Word
..1..
IT WAS A SIMPLE PROMISE that had dropped him into this mess. Waist deep in mud, surrounded by man-eating lizards with teeth as long as your trench knife. One simple 'By the Light of the Emperor, you have my word' promise to a sister he could barely even remember, who could be alive or dead, or on the other side of the galaxy for all he knew, and it was going to get him killed.
Greon Reacchus placed the racitor gun up to his chin for the umpteenth time. He scanned the marshlands through the iron sighting-hoops at the end of the ancient hunting musket. The nib of his forefinger gathered moisture against the iron trigger. If there was one thing he knew about the southern El Arboran delta it was that no man should be stuck out here on his own by nightfall, and expect to see it through to the morning.
Dusk was cutting long red fingers across the sky and soon the racitors would be crawling up from their watery burrows in search of prey. Human meat the pinnacle of their ophidian tastes, and the only thing to satisfy their scaly, capacious bellies.
Greon's arms were already beginning to shake.