The Legacy of the Dancing Templars

[cathar the great]

This is the first chapter of a short story I will do about my new Space Marine chapter, the Dancing Templars, fighting against my DiY chaos renegades, the wretched guild.

 

Now, first I have to note a couple of things:

• - Without telling you too much, this fan fic will include my own ideas about the eleventh founding (one of the deleted foundings in the codex). Some people don't seem to like reading about this, so these people can just skip this
  - This is the second fan fiction I am writing about the Wretched Guild. The first one I did (and still have to finish) is in GERMAN, and can be found

here You don't have to do this, that would be bad for the majority of people here, who can't speak german.
- I am not english, I am from austria and english is my first foreign language, so if you find unfit vocabulary or grammtical errors, DO tell me, so I can further improve my english (I know I'm gonna regret this lol)
- I do hope I put this up in the correct section of this forum. If not, please move it, Mods!

 

So, without further ado:

 

Grimlin, Chosen Champion of the Wretched Guild held on tight to a hook in the wall next to him, as the ageing Thunderhawk made its steep decline through the atmosphere of the planet Inuyama. The ship was probably older than the warrior himself, which would date it back to the days before the treachery of the Emperor, but it still held together. The machine spirit, crippled, twisted and evil as it was, still held control over its systems, while the Tech-Adepts tried to keep both spirit and machine satisfied.

 

Yet the journey was still rough, the thermal conditions of the planet’s upper atmosphere playing with the transport like a wild animal with its prey. But this caused the Chosen Champion no harm. He was calm, like always before battle, his senses heightened to inhuman degrees, ready to strike out and kill. His only problem was that he still had to restrain himself, not only for as long as the journey to the surface took, but for many days to come.

 

Because Grimlin and his small contingent of Space Marines were only the vanguard of the Wretched Guild’s main fleet. They were to scout the surface of the planet’s largest continent, searching for areas suited for the larger portions of the army to land.

 

The leaders of the Guild had put great responsibility on Grimlin, and he was proud to be of service. He was, in a way, perfect for the job. As an expert in bike-mounted warfare, the Chosen Champion knew how to analyze the terrain of a battlefield and make very fast decisions. But his aggression was also barely kept down and occasionally burst out, even without any enemies at hand.

 

So he held on tight to the hook inside the Thunderhawk, not only to keep himself from tumbling through the cramped compartment of the ship, but also to keep himself from slicing up the ceramite wall with his power sword and jumping out, firing all his weapons at once at whatever the local bird population looked like.

 

To occupy himself, Grimlin did one last visual check on his bike. This machine was, compared to his other wargear, very new. He had scavenged it off a fallen Space Marine Commander some hundred years back, who had dared oppose Grimlin and his warband in the struggle of the 13th Black Crusade. Back then, Grimlin had not known of the Wretched Guild and its holy mission, and all he had fought for was revenge for his fallen comrades on Terra ten thousand years before. The bike had had many both cosmetic and practical makeovers. The damaged synchronized bolter system had been replaced with two bolters from Grimlin’s small personal weapon collection and the front guard had been made for Grimlin by one of the Wretched Guild’s armor crafters. It resembled a grinning demon head. The engine had been rebuilt many times, making the bike faster and swifter than most.

 

The nine other bikes in the Thunderhawk looked a lot like it and while some of Grimlin’s warriors had older models, all bikes were freshly cleaned by the Guild’s slave workers, the residue of dirt and clotted blood scrubbed from their guards and wheels. They were ready for their mission, all the exhausts covered in light armor plates to silence the motor sounds to a minimum.

 

Lost in thoughts of the upcoming slaughter, Grimlin needed a few seconds to realize that the voice of Vendaxa, Lord of the Wretched Guild and commander of the Inuyama-Mission, was talking to the squadron leaders. “Prepare for landfall in the next minutes. Spread out and secure your immediate landing areas. We will meet at the designated rendezvous point in two hours. Kill anything in your way, but try to avoid major enemy contact. Vendaxa out, praise the Demon God!”

 

“Praise the Demon God!” Grimlin muttered under his breath, and his heightened sense of hearing recognized his warriors do the same. “Mount and activate, you bastards!” he said over his squad internal vox channel. “And ready your weapons, just in case.”

 

The Thunderhawk made one final shudder and the ramp at the far end snapped open. The transport was still in the air, flying over a shallow stream, high needle trees flashing by left and right. Grimlin, one of the bikers next to the ramp, jumped on his bike and started the engine with a roar. The bike made a leap forward and he hit the ground in the same moment two others of his squadron did.

 

The stream really was shallow and thus no obstacle for the wheels of his bike. He rapidly gained speed as he followed the flow of the water upwards. One glance back told him that all nine bikers of his squad had left the Thunderhawk without problems and were now following his lead in tight formation. The transport itself was already gaining altitude again.

 

Grimlin had started leading the squadron out of the stream and into the forest when he heard a loud explosion and the night of Inuyama was lit up. He looked back to see their Thunderhawk declining again, flames emerging from three massive holes in the engine section.

 

Then bolter fire hit the biker next to the Champion and the warrior was thrown off. “Enemy encounter, enemy encounter!” Grimlin shouted on all frequencies. The need for vox silence was certainly over. All around him and his squad, enemy soldiers emerged, shaking off camo cloaks and aiming their bolters. They were scouts, loyalist space marine trainees.

 

To be killed by one of these cubs was one of the greatest dishonors Grimlin could think of. He kicked the thrusters of his bike and opened fire with his bolters, catching a scout bold enough to step into his way in the chest. Half a second later he rammed the unfortunate child-soldier, hurling it through the air. Still travelling at insane speed, he took out his bolt-pistol and aimed at the nearest enemy, thus encouraging his own warriors to do the same. He snapped of a couple of shots, but only one hit, and he saw the reactive bullet punch into the arm guard of one scout, throwing him to the ground.

 

Up ahead Grimlin saw a clearing and behind it, the forest narrowed and the trees were to near to each other to allow him and his squad to travel on. He holstered his pistol and raised his arm for all to see, and drew a circle in the air, then he closed his fingers into a fist. Turn and engage.

 

He burst out of the forest into the clearing first, and saw more scouts jumping from behind the trees to take aim at his squad. Only a second before he crashed into the wall of trees, he swung his bike around, drawing a curved arc into the ground. He came to a halt centimeters from the next trees, swung his second weapon from behind his seat and opened fire at the puzzled scouts in front of him. The erupting flames caught three of them directly in the face, immediately setting them and the trees around them on fire.

 

Grimlin’s second in command, a biker named Jaeden halted right next to him and pulled out his own flamethrower. Together, they covered the clearing in flames, while the other bikers kept going, firing their bolters and pistols until all enemies were dead.

 

When it was all over, Grimlin dismounted and checked casualties. He had lost three of his warriors of his squad, a loss of course, but nothing to worry about for the ongoing campaign. Many warriors of the Wretched Guild wanted to be in Grimlin’s squad, he would have more cannon fodder once the fleet arrived. But they had killed twenty scout-children, which was a terrible loss for any loyal space marine chapter.

 

“Lord Vendaxa, this is Champion Grimlin, we have encountered unknown enemy forces.”

 

Vendaxa’s voice came back seconds later, barely audible because of the static. “We all have, brother Grimlin. We have yet to identify them. Come to the rendezvous point as soon as possible. We will regroup and adjust our plan.”

 

“Yes, my lord.” When Grimlin mounted his bike again, he could not help but smile. He had feared he would go completely insane in the next few days, with nothing else to do but scout the area and mark drop points for the fleet. But now they had encountered enemies, loyal servants of the false emperor even, and they would have to fight them. And burn and slaughter them, and drink their blood and nourish from their broken bodies.

 

The Wretched Guild would bring war to Inuyama.

[Marshall Strat]

Well written introduction. Your English in this is technically correct. Stylistically, though, some of your phrases could be reworked to flow better. For example:

 

Because Grimlin and his small contingent of Space Marines were only the vanguard of the Wretched Guild’s main fleet. They were to scout the surface of the planet’s largest continent, searching for areas suited for the larger portions of the army to land.

 

Might be tried like this:

 

Grimlin and his small detail of Chaos Marines are the vanguard of the Wretched Guild's invasion force, charged with scouting the largest continent and identifying suitable landing sites for the horde to follow.

 

Does that help?

[cathar the great]

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of constructive critsism I need. I have started studying English this year, so I hope it will get better in time ^^

[Marshall Strat]

For your first year of English, you're doing well.

[cathar the great]

For your first year of English, you're doing well.

 

Oh sorry, that came out a bit wrong lol.

 

I have relatives in the states and we used to visit them every summer, so I have been learning English since I was a small kid. I started reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy stuff in English when I was about thirteen, which is nearly eight years now, lol

 

But now that I'm actually studying it at the university, I am getting better a lot, now that I start to understand the way the language works. I actually like it a lot more than German, which is a rather primitive language IMO.

 

Writing texts in Latin will be my next goal, but that's really far away, I really only started learning it this year and so far I can't do much with it ^^