Click....click....click....

The metallic noise was repetitive and quiet, a sound barely heard but irritatingly present at the same time. It echoed softly from the upper hanger of the Umbral Vos, from the Aerie of the Lost. 

Chains hung from the ceiling of the former hanger, strung about with skin-trophies and tally-skulls from noted kills. The pervasive smells of blood and fear-sweat were muted and overpowered by a harsh tang, a burnt ozone that lingered on the mind as much as in the nostrils. Like most areas in the Umbral Vos, the shadows outnumbered the light, but in the Aerie the shadows moved and chattered.

The Warp Talons, the Gloamclaws of the Strikeborn, roosted here in the dark. Glowing red eyes peered from the shadowy nooks as the flock restlessly waited for prey. Only one was fully visible, the Flaymaster, the pack leader, the kneeling reaper. Amathys was daemon-touched like all the Talons, his form covered in liquid darkness that ebbed and flowed across the midnight armor. Arms loose at his side, the Flaymaster let his curved claws click open and close in a constant tick as his head remained bowed.

His vox hummed with a brief message from his lord. The claws closed once more then flared open as the Night Lord rose. His Talons flitted to him, distorted silhouettes of Astartes in the gloom. The Flaymaster let out a soft call that brought each Warp Talon to readied stillness.

"We hunt."

Flaymaster Amathys

Warp Talon Packmaster of the Shrikeborn, The Gloam-Clawed

“I am the scream between heartbeats. The claw in the dark. The last thing your soul remembers.”

— Amathys, moments before phasing into the Materium

Where Stained Lord Carrow is the soul of the Shrikeborn, Flaymaster Amathys is its wrath made manifest- a Warp Talon of terrifying speed and savagery, whose claws have torn through the hearts of a hundred worlds. Once a Raptor Sergeant during the Great Crusade, Amathys was lost to the Warp during a failed boarding action in the Eye of Terror. He returned decades later, changed in mind but not yet broken.

Unlike many Warp Talons, Amathys retains a shard of lucidity, a flickering ember of identity that keeps him from becoming a mindless daemon-host. He speaks rarely, and when he does, his voice is a distorted whisper, as if echoing from a place just beyond reality. His armor is fused with warp-bone and shadowed metal, and his lightning claws shimmer with ethereal flame when he phases through the veil.

Amathys leads the Shrikeborn’s Warp Talon strike cadre, known as the Gloamclaws; a unit that specializes in phase-assaults, appearing mid-air or within enemy strongholds in a burst of warp energy and screams. Their attacks are surgical and horrifying, often targeting psykers, command staff, or relic-bearers. Survivors speak of claws that pass through walls, screams that echo inside the mind, and a figure wreathed in shadowlight who watches without mercy.

Despite his monstrous nature, Amathys is fiercely loyal to Carrow. He views the Stained Lord not as a master, but as a tether to reality, the last anchor keeping him from vanishing into the Warp forever. In battle, he fights with a predator’s grace, but when the killing is done, he often kneels in silence, as if mourning what he has become.

To the Shrikeborn, Amathys is both a weapon and a warning: the price of power without purpose. To their enemies, he is the end of all.