Blades of Chaos

[Gree]

Author’s Notes(Well this is the start of my stories for my main Chaos army, the Black Legion, I’m taking a break form writing my Claw’s series to exercise my chaotic writing skills here)

 

Please Note I am also Lord_Crull on Black Library Bolthole.

 

 

 

Chapter One-Hatred for Ten Thousand Years

 

 

 

The planet Kul Guldar-Eye of Terror

 

The man sat, alone, in the red-lit darkness of his chamber, quenching his sword in the blood of a fresh slave he had just slain so recently ago. He smiled in pleasure at the memory.

 

A cultist slave, brought in screaming and flailing, had been slain by him, right at the shrine of chaos, he slashed his throat open with a knife and poured the blood out on his blade, while the slave writhed on the alter to the Four Gods. He had appealed for Khorne to give him the hatred and strength to succeed, he appealed to Tzeentch to allow his plot to go smoothly, he appealed for Nurgle to give him fortitude, he appealed to Slaanesh to sharpen his senses with pain and pleasure.

 

Grendal Sartol looked around, making sure the blood flowed into the notches in his blade, intothe bright ceramite-polymer steel coating as he drew his power armored fingers across the silver hilt shaped like the eight-pointed star of chaos.

 

He was a tall marine. Clad in the black and gold armor of the Black Legion. A twisted series of crimson markings on one shoulderpad, proclaimed his allegiance to the Black Reapers sub-faction, while the unblinking Eye of Horus on the other showed his other allegiance. His armor was covered in various blades and spikes, all carefully sharpened. His armor trimmed gleamed dimply in the half-light, burnished and quenched with the blood of the dying slave.

 

Sartol’s features where strong, clean cut and powerful looking, cast in the mold of his Primarch, Horus, his hair was a black-grey, despite his strong features of a man in his physical prime. Black tattoos covered his deathly pale skin. He wore the massive pelt of a chaos beast he had slain in the massive deserts outside the citadel Osgilath, he had hunted it himself with he bare hands and skinned the beast, feasting on it’s mutated flesh as a show of strength to the warriors in his squad.

 

His room was simple, almost twenty meters long, it was divided into a sleeping area, a passageway leading to the training arenas, a large sacrificial shrine to chaos, and a place where he could maintain his weapons and armor. Sartol cast a look at the weapons wall, looking at the various bolters, pistols and various other weaponry on the wall, he inspected each one, nothing it’s meticulously maintained features.

 

His eyes stepped to inspect a arcane combi-plasma, won in the sacking of the forge worlds of Resis IV. It had served him well for many, many years, such was the value of it that many tried to take it from him.

 

None succeeded.

 

He cast his gaze from the wall. He would not be using that today. Instead he looked out as the great doors to his chamber began to open slightly, letting in a crack of light into the inner sanctum of Grendal Sartol.

 

A scurrying, slave thing, swathed in a thick black robe, crawled in quickly, not daring to look directly on Sartol. Briefly the chaos champion chose to look up the mutated creature as it debased itself before him.

 

‘’Yes? I trust you have did what I asked’’ he said, his voice strong, but hard, like a jagged knife.

 

‘’Yes master’’ came the shrill voice of the slave, who stole a nervous glance at the corpse of the other slave sacrificed to the Dark gods. ‘’I have done exactly as you asked Master, I saw him leaving’’ he replied.

 

Sartol looked at him, absorbing the information. Then, slowly he nodded. ‘’Good, good’’ he got up, finished cleaning his swordblade, with admiration, he examined it carefully, noting the edge.

 

‘’Good news’’ he said cheerfully. The slave did not dare reply.

 

‘’I was planning to use this one you, to test it’s blade, but I feel satisfied with both it’s sharpness and your performance’’ he said, his voice cruel and hard. ‘’Therefore, you can go. Go spread the word you have the support of the Third Blade’’ he commanded.

 

‘’Y-Yes Master!’’ he replied, in fear and ran out. Sartol laughed and walked out, fully pushing the doors, yellow eyes flashing with ambition as he smiled, revealing sharp, chiseled teeth.

 

The halls outside where crimson and moist. It had good reason to be, the entire hallways was lined with a substance that looked like rotten meat fused together, inside the meat messes protruded arms, legs and heads that writhed and stretched out. Sartol paid them no head, neither did he pay attention to the other chamber-cells that lines the vast hallways, he simply walked on and on to his destination, smiling al the way as he did so.

 

It was time.

 

 

Throne Room of Lord Heru’ur- Osgilath- Kul Guldar

 

The Osgilath stood, man miles into the sky, massive black and steel towers piercing as far as the eyes could see into the dead, rust colored skies of Kul Guldar’s tainted and corrupted atmosphere. Kul Guldar was a daemon world claimed many years ago by Lord Heru’ur, of the Black Legion, who led his warband the, Black Reapers to this world, enslaving it’s populace to build a mighty fortress to rule over.

 

Osgilath stretched dozens of miles in total, massive, barbed black towers concealing countless weapons systems. Upon each massive barbed spike was impaled a screaming slave.

 

The whole fortress had enough room to house the many thousands of the Black Reapers sub-factions of the Black Legion, along with the Reapers allies and massive populations of slave-cultists. Outside, lay a huge, sprawling city, extending for countless miles, here, in those dilapidated and horrific streets, came millions of more cultists who worshipped and died for the Dark Gods.

 

Daemons walked openly, making sport of those who dared cross them. Bloodletters talked the vast wastes, slaying all that crossed them, while Daemonettes pirouetted in the streets, looking for the crimson spray of death.

 

From all of this, ruled Heru’ur, Daemonseye Lord of Chaos, former Captain of the Luna Wolves 27th Company, Chosen of Abbadon the Despoiler, the Knight Slayer, the Soultaker, the Blood Marshal, the Black Reaver.

 

He sat, mighty on his throne of gleaming black iron and spikes. The back of the throne was fashioned to resemble a mighty daemon, with great black wings and a fearsome, fang-filled head that encompassed to whole throne. He was huge, he sat upon the great throne as it fit would barely fit him, a huge pelt of wolf fur and chianmail huge from his massive shoulders. The Eye of Horus was carved into one shoulder guard of his Terminator armor, the twisted crimson markings on another.

 

He had his great, horned helmet by his side, the crowns golden and twisting up from the sides, to resemble the crown of some ancient king, a large red marking ran over his left eye, mimicking his real one. His features where, strong, and harsh, also cast in the mold of Horus, the Primarch of the Luna Wolves, but his features where scarred and pitted heavily, he was bald. But his most favored feature was his eye.

 

His left eye was a glowing red orb, a daemonic transplant that contrasted with one flinty grey one that stared out with ancient malice and wisdom. The daemonic eye glowed faintly. Long ago he had lost this eye, instead of a normal transplant or a bionic replacement. He had ordered his Chirumeks to replace it with an eye cut from a daemon, reconstructing his left eye areas and his cheekbones into daemonic flesh.

 

Lying next to his throne was a massive axe, looking like it was carved out of blood-tinged metal. This was Dran’Caroth’id, the Great Guillotine, the daemon axe of which the spirit of an ancient greater daemon was bound millennia ago.

 

Looking at him, one felt a palpable aura of fear and power. For even a battle hardened Chaos marine, simply looking at him made one’s head feel nauseous and made despair grip the soul. That was one of the many daemonic gifts he had received over the millennia.

 

Four great black armored Terminators surrounded him, all heavily armed and guarding every angle of attack. They where the Executors, the elite bodyguard warband of the Black Reapers, Heru’ur’s personal warband.

 

The entire chamber was vast, twenty meters long and thirty meters wide. It was made of black-veined marble and dark iron pillars, giving the whole area a cold, regal look that suited it’s lord. A set of several massive windows, rimmed with spikes, lined one side of the chamber, revealing the drop below, revealing the city hundreds of meters below and the vast black deserts beyond.

 

At the other side was a row upon row of black spikes, each was mounted the head of a enemy warrior that Heru’ur felt particularly worthy, some of them where now preserved in stasis fields, hailing back to the time of the Great Heresy.

 

A dozen spikes were colored silver. On these where the heads of Imperial assassins, many had tried to kill Heru’ur over the millennia, none had succeeded. Heru’ur mounted only the heads of those who had came the closest to killing him. They all were there. Eversor, Culexus, Vindicare, and Callidus.

 

Then the doors at the end of the hall, great, black iron doors, opened. And the champions of Chaos entered.

 

First to come was Ashram Nightshroud, Sorcerer of the Black Legion, he wore black armor, as common of the rest of the warband, his features where cold and handsome, with slicked back black hair and a single, glowing purple eye in the middle of his forehead. He was covered n grey-black robes, in one hand he held a horned, bronzed staff, with a single golden eye, that excitedly blinked and shifted constantly like a living object. A product of the powers of Chaos. Under the other arm he carried a tall, bladed helmet.

 

Ashram’s face portrayed no emotion at all as he coolly knelt before the throne. He was the Second Blade of the Black Reapers, leading his own Black company in service of the warband.

 

Next was Koramak, the squat, powerful marine in terminator armor. Heru’ur’s old warhorse. The right side of his face was made up entirely of bionics, his right eye glowing green.

 

Millennia of hard-fought combat and grievous injuries had left almost half his body to be made up of bionic implants devised by the Churimeks and the Dark Mechanicus’s best adepts His left side of his face, and his remaining organic body parts, where covered in layers of scars and weathered to the color of a dull grey. This, combined with his craggy, serious features, gave him the appearance of granite.

 

This was the First Blade, and one of the few that Heru’ur completely trusted. This was not one to be trifled with.

 

Then came the loud, harsh footsteps of an impatient man. The massive, hulking, red and crimson form of Garlok Jaggerjaq stopped into the throne room. He was a massive bear of a marine, standing almost a full head taller than any except Heru’ur.

 

He was a devotee of Khorne, a former assault captain who had long since converted to the powers of the Blood God. Long ago he himself recruited several of the Berzerker Surgeons who transformed the World Eaters into ravening killers, and had it performed with himself and his followers. His whole posture, although mostly silent, was full of hidden violence, and the promise of death. His red and black armor was heavily trimmed with gold and burnished skulls embossed into the guards of his MIV plate.

 

His helmet was fashioned into a form of a grinning skull, with great golden horns rising above the sides, fashioned in the image of Khorne’s icon. He too carried an axe, but his was a great double headed juggernaut. He wore a massive fur pelt just like Heru’ur.

 

Form his backpack rose several large spikes where heads where impaled, the head of Warboss Gharlag, the head of Captain Estial of the Sons of Guilliman chapter, the head of a genestealer patriarch, slain only recently. These were only some of his massive collection of skulls, these were most recent skulls taken, Garlok had an entire hallway full of polished and mounted skulls to pay tribute to his god Khorne.

 

His commanded the chief assault company of the Black Reapers, his ranks containing many former World Eaters who had joined, they where rightly feared as the best assault specialists in the warband.

 

He was the Fourth Blade.

 

A large, black armored figure came. A stink issued from him. A bloated, filth covered figure who carried his gas mask like helmet under one arm. One shoulder guard bore the sigh of Nurgle, the other the Eye of Horus. His face was rotten and skeletal, covered in opened, festering wounds, just like the rest of his body. Parstus Majorius, the Seventh Blade, always smiled through thin dead lips. He had a perpetually jovial and good humored face.

 

He took joy in everything, unusual for any Chaos marine, but not of the Nurglites. As a worshiper of Nurgle he was blessed with countless plagues, until his body bloated and rotted to the point where he was incredibly tough, even by a space marine’s standards.

A follower of Nurgle took bleak joy in all things, for they had already accepted that everything would eventually rot and be reborn again in disease. Grandfather Nurgle loved his children, and so did Parstus.

 

Then, the Third Blade came.

 

Tarmak, was of medium height, not especially unique for a Chaos marine, except for the ridge-like growths of his head. That extended over his forehead and bald scalp, his face was twisted and bestial.

 

Tarmak the Prideful, they called him. He embodied the very essence of the self-aggrandizing need to be strong among the Chaos marines, he demanded total obedience among his company.

 

He carried a power scimitar and wore a chainmail loincloth, his armor was embossed heavily with silver so that it shown brightly over his pauldrons and greaves, his blue eyes burning with intelligence.

 

Behind them came the Fifth Blade. Ferual Delgro, the Fleshmaster, skittered on his insectoid legs, his perpetually masked face stating out as the multiple tentacle arms flexed on his back.

 

Delgro was a former Apothecary in the 27th company, unique and skilled. But when the Heresy came he joined many other traitor apothecaries in the study of Fabius Bile. When he returned he was only the Fleshmaster now.

 

He was in charge of healing the warbands wounded and implanting new geneseed into new chaos marines, either from the dead Black Legionaries or from captured loyalist geneseed stocks. He was also the closest thing the Black Reapers had to a mad scientist.

 

Then came Darged Tomand, he was a former Techmarine, who had long since infected himself with the Obliterator virus and allied himself with the Dark Mechanicus.

 

He was neither man, nor machine, but a techno-organic mix of both, shrouded in a cloak the color of dried blood, he moved without a word into his assigned place. He was the Sixth Blade

 

They had all come, all knelt before Heru’ur, the Eighth Blade of Chaos.

 

‘’I have summoned you here for a purpose’’ Heru’ur’s voice was deep and baritone, serious and commanding, all of his champions felt a shiver of fear pass through their spines

 

‘’Ashram?’’ he turned his head to the Sorcerer who got up and bowed. ‘’I have recently informed Lord Heru’ur of a vision I have seen, am important vision’’ he explained.

 

‘’What kind of vision?’’ Koramak rumbled.

 

‘’Yes, Sorcerer’’ Garlok spot out, glaring at him behind his skull mask. ‘’I would dearly like to know that’’ Ashram coolly ignored his time.

 

‘’I have seen the Key, hidden on a planet far from here, on a world called Jarnus IV, that place holds the key to empowering our lord Obscuras’’ he said, naming the Daemon Prince that the Black Reapers served.

 

‘’The key? What is that?’’ Tarmak questioned.

 

‘’An artifact, it will unlock the boundaries of the warp even when far from the eye, the very form of the Key pleases the Gods, it makes sacrifices that would number in the thousands, number in the dozens, making concentration of warp energy easier’’ he explained.

 

All went quiet at this sort of information. ‘’And where did you say this was?’’ Tarmak asked.

 

‘’Jarnus IV, but I have seen something else too in that vision’’ he explained.

 

‘’Well what is it?’’ demanded Tarmak.

 

‘’The Golden Child, a babe, with skin of gold and eyes of fire, in a field of blood, opening the Key, I have foreseen this’’ Ashram explained. Tarmak glowered at him.

 

‘’Golden Child? What sort of nonsense are you babbling abou-‘’ his words where cut off as the doors where kicked in.

 

The form of Sartol emerged, holding his sword, smirking in triumph. ‘’It’s time for you to die, Tarmak the Prideful’’ he proclaimed, pointing his blade at Tarmak, as he shot to his feet.

 

‘’What is the meaning of this Sartol?’’ Tarmak drew his blade.

 

‘’Don’t insult our collective intelligences my lord’’ he rang out the last part mockingly. Sartol stepped closer, continuing. ‘’I’m obviously challenging you for leadership of the Third Company’’ he snarled.

 

‘’Oh, a fight, this should be amusing’’ Parstus commanded in an amused tone. Garlok was silent.

 

‘’Of al the audacity, you do it here?’’ rumbled Koramak, glaring at him.

 

‘’Silence old man! I handle my own affairs’’ Tarmak shot back. ‘’For how long you live’’ replied Sartol as he prepared to leap. ‘’You don’t have your lackeys here Tarmak! You can’t run here!’’ Ashram observed the exchange silently and turned to his lord.

 

‘’Lord Heru’ur?’’ he asked. The great chaos warlord simply observed them both.

 

‘’Clear the area, the challenge may be issued anywhere at anytime outside of battle’’ he said simply. ‘’Blades only’’ he commanded.

 

The rest of the Chaos champions feel back as the blades clashed.

 

Sartol attacked with fury, ringing a flurry of blows, turning the activation switch on his sword, wreathing it in a reddish-purple aura as Tarmak did the same for his own blade, causing sparks to fly from the two fields as they clashed.

 

Tarmak then attempted to kick him away, but Sartol was ready for that, leaping back with a smirk on his face, snarling, Tarmak sidestepped a return thrust and brought his sword around for a decapitation strike. Leaning back, the tip of the blade cut a shallow wound, arcing across Sartol’s nose and cheek, a thin line of blood appeared before the wound was almost instantly clotted by his Larraman cells.

 

Leaping back Sartol dove inward, launching with a single great strike that sent Tarmak skidding back, snarling Tarmak brought this head back and smashed it into Sartol, causing them to stagger forward as he rained a series of blows upon the challenger’s blade.

 

Sartol caught the blade arm of the older chaos champion, then he brought his own sword around to lop off the arm, but Tarmak twisted free at the last moment, the blade gouging a massive has in one shoulder guard, drawing blood briefly before it too closed up.. Tarmak snarled at the slight, more concerned at the insult than any pain, before lashing out, kicking Sartol back again, and leaping at him, scimitar held at ready, striking at the challenger’s left side.

 

Rapidly Sartol detected the danger, eyes widening, he responded by rapidly switching his sword to his other arm, blocking the blade there, but Tarmak snarled, pressing on as Sartol’s sword gave way and his own connected home.

 

Sartol’s arm was severed below the elbow, the arm falling to the ground as red-black blood was staunched by more Larraman cells, Tarmak’s triumph was short lived as Sartol leapt forwards inside his guard. A combat knife appeared in his right arm, from where he had withdrawn in and he slammed it into the side of the Third Blade’s head with all his strength, penetrating the skull.

 

Snarling he wretched it out and stabbed in again, and again, until Tarmak’s head was little more than a mutilated pulp.

 

‘’Enough’’ came Heru’ur’s voice. Sartol froze, letting the corpse fall.

 

‘’You have killed him’’ He said simply. ‘’Therefore, you are now the Third Blade’’ he announced. Sartol felt his twin hearts beat in joy and excitement over the death of his hated rival.

 

‘’But’’ then a massive feeling a nausea and despair coursed through Sartol’s body, driving him to the ground in shock at Heru’ur’s power. ‘’You will not interrupt my council so blatantly again, is that clear Third Blade?’’ Heru’ur spoke.

 

‘’Y-Yes sire’’ he forced out, choking at the immense feeling of despair that forced itself into his soul. Then the feeling stopped and he groggily got back to his feet.

 

‘’Delgro, have your Chirumeks repair his arm’’ Heru’ur looked at Sartol. ‘’It speaks well that you would sacrifice your arm simply to gain victory, I will need such men in the coming battles,’’ he explained.

 

‘’I am honored my lord’’ Sartol grinned. He had finally gotten a Grand Company of his own. Feelings of sweet vengeance on the arrogant Tarmak and his own cruel satisfaction coursed through his body.

 

‘’Now Ashram, explain to him again your vision’’

[Brother Gathurn]

Very nice.

[Gree]

The Barrack Halls of the Third Black Company-Osgilath

 

Over two hundred Astartes filled the room. It was the Third Company’s briefing hall, almost a hundred meters in diameter, it was incalculably vast. They all stood facing a large pedestal where Sartol stood proudly.

 

The stood each in their own squads and cult groups. Larmath stood with over fifty Khorne Berzerkers, their armor painted red and black, he carried his crimson helmet under one arm, brass recurve horns spouting out from the sides. His face was strong and brutal. Sartol had sought him out, they had been neophytes together in the Luna Wolves legion, before the Heresy, one of the last members of the scout auxiliary inducted when Horus had turned against the False Emperor.

 

Dtar stood, with almost thirty Plague marines, calm as ever. He and his men stood further away from the rest of the Grand Company, due to their stench and odor. Dtar was one of the first to turn to Nurgle, out of the despair of Horus’s death. He now commanded the Nurgleite worshipers of the Grand Company, he was another one his supporters.

 

Then came Arenio Areli, the former Thousand Son, now commanding the Third’s own cabal of sorcerers, only he and four of his apprentices where present, the rest of his command where automatons that where stored away.

 

Then where Visis, the raptor champion, standing there, sleek armor gleaming and lighting claws retracted, the commander of the jump-pack assault Raptors of the company.

 

Then was Vegor, one of his most fervent supports, commanding his own squad, the Skullrenders. He stood, clam, scanning the crown with paranoia, the others where there too.

 

Reftor, Brackurt, Krazzin, and then Torgoth, the formerly designated successor of Tarmak glowered at him, his serpentine features, barely concealing his hostility to his new commander.

 

And finally, Morgord the leader of the Possessed was there, his cold handsome features taking in as much information as he could, for a second his features seemed to warp into a fearsome daemonic mask, but then it would pass, only his cold visage could be seen.

 

Vastak, his second on command of his squad of Chosen veterans, stepped back to allow Sartol access to the platform.

 

‘’Brothers!’’ he announced, standing underneath a massive carving on an eight-pointed star The entire room was constructed out of the same grey marble, threaded with gold as Heru’ur’s throne room.

 

He help up the bloodied and pulped head of Tarmak. ‘’Your old leader is dead! I killed him in fair combat’’ he threw it away. ‘’Let his name be forgotten’’ he commanded, a look of triumph on his face

 

No one particularly liked Tarmak, domineering and arrogant to the extreme, he had offended many in the Grand Company, Sartol had long since searched for an opportunity to betray him.

 

Sartol looked at his left arm and flexed in, hidden beneath his armor was a black bionic limb that appeared to be made out of some insectiod, glossy armor over the muscle-like gears. His new daemonic, techno-organic arm felt as perfectly natural of his old arm, which he had been unable to reattach because of the butchered nerves from Tarmak’s power sword. He felt no sorrow over it’ s lost when he had archived this kind of victory.

 

‘’Hail Sartol the Third Blade!!’’ someone in the crowd start. Arenio followed, along with Vegor close being, slowly the rest of the Grand Company joined in, Torgoth the last and most reluctantly.

 

Sartol basked in the praise for several minutes, letting it stroke his ego. He felt cold, cruel satisfaction creep upon him once again. He banished it. He held a hand

 

‘Enough’’ slowly the chanting stopped, his brow furrowed. He wasn’t as good at Heru’ur at getting people to shut up, but it was a start, he though as he mentally shrugged.

 

‘’Larmath!’’ he shouted. ‘’Tarmak degraded your skills! Has he not referred to you as bloodthirsty dogs?’’ a roar of affirmation answered him. Sartol smiled, this was too easy.

 

‘’Then you will be my hounds of war, I want you to be the first tear the throats of the enemy out!’’ he replied back, appealing to their warrior pride. ‘’There is no other I want killing, don’t make me walk a battlefield that is not paved with the blood of your enemies!’’

 

He heard roars of affirmation.

 

‘’Dtar, you where shunned by Tarmak for your worship of Nurgle! No more!, you will spread your plagues among the weakling followers of the False Emperor as you please’’ he continued.

 

Dtar gave him an acknowledging nod but made no other gesture. He mentally frowned, clearly, even after countless centuries Dtar was not going to be coming out of shell anytime soon.

 

‘’And Arenio! You will have vengeance for your home planet, no longer will you be forced to tell portents of every whim of Tarmak’s! I give you freedom!’’ he proclaimed. Arenio began to clap in response.

 

‘’Vegor! Reftor! Brackurt! Krazzin! Torgoth! Visis! Morgord!’’ he said naming the senior sergeant-champions . ‘’For ten thousand years I have fought with you! Under various Champions since the Heresy!’’

 

‘’I was there, at Isvtaan with Lord Horus! I was there at Davin where the primarch was reborn! I was there at Yardant with Lord Abbadon! I was there at Terra besieging the False Emperor!’’ he shouted.

 

‘’I was there with you through it all! Tarmak bickered and played politics, instead of continuing the holy slaughter in the name of the gods. Before you where like wolves led by a sheep, now one of your own wolves has come to lead the pack’’ he announced.

 

There was redounding cheers. ‘’You are returned! I have returned you like Lord Abbadon did for us all! He gave us everything! I cannot promise as much as he can, but I can promise you this’’ he took a breath.

 

‘’I will promise you blood, vengeance and glory against the weakling Imperium of Man! Against the brutish ork! The decadent elder! The Ravenous Tyranid! The naive Tau! The accused Necrons! I promise you that!’’

 

‘’WE ARE RETUREND!’’ the chanting continued.

 

 

High Orbit over Kul Guldar

 

Over the orbit of Kul Guldar the Black Bane hung, the massive battleship, a precursor of the later Despoiler- class battleship, carried Heru’ur’s Executors and Karomak’s first grand company along with Ashram’s warriors.

 

A massive fleet of various chaos warships, numbering a dozen and a half ships, hung, laden with warriors of chaos and their equipment. They where in the void like blood red daggers.

 

The Hammer of Damnation, Sartol’s ship, hung beside the Black Bane, in it carried the entire Third Grand Company of the warband, over two hundred marines and their equipment, along with twenty thousand cultists.

 

The entire army of the Black Reapers, almost fifteen hundred Astartes and well over a hundred thousand cultist-slaves, now lay sequestered aboard their ships. Sacrifices to the gods where made up captive to anoint the new journey in blood, the sorcerers had read the portents and sighs, and saw that they where indeed good.

 

Aboard the command room of the Black Bane. Heru’ur Daemonsneye, lord of the Black Legio, gazed pitilessly into the void, his mismatched eyes blazing with cold, reserved hatred.

 

He cast his gaze over the bridge. A combination of command center and throne room for him. Heru’ur himself, although competent at navel warfare, had no great joy for it.

Therefore, Marcinus Caltran, a traitor commodore of the Imperial navy, now one that served Chaos, captained his vessel, the latest in a long, lone line of commanders.

 

Heru’ur looked into the void again. He spoke only a single word.

 

‘’Execute’’

 

With a tear in reality, the fleet moved off into the warp breach, out into destiny.

[KEEPER]

I'm not much of a Chaos fan, but you've Defiently drawn me in. One c+c, take a little more time and re-read you post you will be able to catch some of the small spelling and grammer errors. Looking forward to the next chapter.

[Gree]

Thanks, I've already got a friend working to edit the first peice.

 

Chapter two-Bloodfallen

 

Jarnus IV-Talian West

 

Colonel Wyder sighed as he took his midday walk on the long walkways that bordered the living barracks, watching the dull sun of Jarnus IV shine down upon the flat grey expanse of Talian West Spaceport. This was such an insult, posted to a simple mining world far in the Segmentum Tempestus. He and his regiment had fought highly in the Waluf wars against the greenskin, losing hundreds of brave souls, but acquitting themselves with bravery.

 

He, and the rest of the 37th Mortant had been s proud to receive an official commendation by the Lord General himself, and then crushed, to be assigned to Jarnus IV, a peaceful world with the closest thing to conflict was the local miner riots.

 

He had no idea who four regiments of His Majesty’s Imperial Guard had been assigned, the 37th, along with the 184th Cadian, the 55th Cadian armored and the 393rd Vahallan.

 

Jarnus was a small world by Imperial standards, with a measly population of only fifteen million, the PDF themselves numbered barely a hundred and fifty thousand. It boggled his mind that veteran regiments where on it, along with a local Fortress-Chapel of the Sororitas.

 

He cast his eyes over Talian West. The spaceport was the only means of mass orbital transportation on and off Jarnus. He and the rest of the Guard had arrived there, almost two years ago. Talian was little more than a massive set of space facilities and a few orbital defense lasers, surrounded by living quarters for the workers who operated the facilities and the nearby mag-rails that transported ore from the planet’s mines.

 

The biggest Imperial presence here was the few Administratum halls and several local chapels, along with the 37th’s living barracks and a few local entertainment establishments.

 

In all it was not much.

 

There was not much to do outside of the spaceport. Outside of the cities , Wyder snorted, calling Talian a city was almost an insult, there was nothing but mining villages and towns.

 

The land of Jarnus IV was in the middle of a transforming, once a verdant forest worlds, the Imperial arrival six centuries ago had transformed into a wasteland-dotted world. The rivers where soaked with refuse and carbon, to the point where no man could drink from the river, on occasion patches of deadened trees and healthy plant life still stubbornly existed along with the ash-covered wastes.

 

Wyder snorted, it was a real hellhole out here. He doubted it could get much worse than this.

 

 

Jarnus IV-High orbit

 

The chaos fleet ripped a way into reality two days ago, at the edge of the system, outside planetary sensor range of the orbital augers of Jarnus IV. Moving cautiously they advanced on the dark side of the planetary system.

 

Aboard his ships, Heru’ur’s sorcerers cast a variety of spells to cloak the advance of the Chaos fleet, making them sensible to ground-based augers. Hundreds of slaves where sacrificed in the holds to power the spell.

 

Arenio, aboard the Hammer of Damnation, had performed the ritual for Sartol, even as the deepest holds of the ship ran red with an ocean of crimson, Sartol himself and his warriors where preparing for the assault. Arenio, assured him that, while they could freely scan the planet at will. They could not be scanned in return, however, he warned, such protection would be short lived once they launched an assault.

 

Sartol did not care, he had only one chance at this, and one chance was all he needed. Ordering the Hammer’s slave crew to scan the planet with long-rang augers he wanted. He did not have to wait long, results came back from both the Hammer’s augers and the other ships. Rapidly he received instructions from a transmission straight from the Black Bane.

 

The primary assault was to be the spaceport, for three purposes. One, to deny the Imperials reinforcements from orbit, two, capture it so that the own cultist army of the Black Legion could be safely landed. And the last was to take out the defense lasers. From what the Chaos fleet had been able to gather, there where only two places that had any real anti-orbital defense, the spaceport and the capital.

 

And the capital was protected by a powerful void shield. Only a ground assault could be made now. So the first military target was the spaceport. Heru’ur chose Sartol, Garlok and Ashram to deploy.

 

In the chaos champion’ s opinion, three grand companies on a single, moderately defended spaceport was overkill, but in the end he did not really care. There would be death and glory regardless. His entire company was prepared within the hour, weapons cleaned and consecrated, armor locked into place, war rites performed, and the Dreadclaw assault pods moved into position.

 

The clock hit zero hour.

 

No orbital bombardments where launched, the fleet could not afford to damage the space facilities too badly before they where able to be captured, only Deathstorm drop pods where authorized by Heru’ur.

 

The Hammer of Damnation and the Bloodclaw, Garlok’s flagship, moved into low orbit along with the Black Bane, carefully plotting the trajectory arcs, the ship’s daemonic logic-engines fed the information into the malevolent machine spirits of the Dreadclaws and Deathstorms. With a wide spread wave, the drop pods fell through the atmosphere, seeking the target, some of them fell off course around the city, others hit the defensive trenches dug around Talian.

 

But most hit the spaceport, the Deathstorms landing with thunderous thuds and blast doors opening, to reveal banks of autoguns and missile launchers, that opened fire throughout the main facilities and living space. Hundreds of civilians and Guardsmen where shredded in the torrent of firepower, cut down before they could react. The drop pods continued to fire until they ran out of ammunition in their holds.

 

When they fell silent the spaceport as transformed into a scene of devastation. Wyder, inside his officer’ s mess preparing to eaat supper, was still alive, unlike many of his officers and troopers. Rapidly, he hauled off the nearest surviving Guardsmen and headed towards the Talian armory, activating the spaceport alert system, rousing the surviving guardsmen as fast as he could.

 

Out of the originally eleven thousand strong garrison of the spaceport, five thousand Mortant and six thousand Jarnusian PDF, where cut down to a mere seven thousand by the drop pods. The civilian casualties where uncounted.

 

As the alarms rang out, and Guardsmen rushed out of their barracks and bunkers to man the trenches and gun positions, the first Dreadclaws where already arriving from the skies.

 

Garlok’s Group

 

Garlok’s Dreadclaws landed far more gracefully than the earlier Deathstorms, the assault pods disgorging their holds full of Khornate chaos marines and Berzerkers into the wrecked spaceport. Unlike the drop pods that the loyalists used, the older Dreadclaws had an access hatch at the lower end, allowing their occupants to move with the protection of the lower blast shields against enemy fire.

 

But not that the Black Legionaries needed it.

 

Garlok dropped down at full run, his personal guard of elite, chosen Berzerkers, with gold trimmed chainaxes, followed him as he thumbed the activation switch on his power axe, coving it in a red aura. His bolter, in his other hand, blew the forms of several dozen Guardsmen to pieces as he scanned the area. His drop pod had landed behind a heavy bolter gun nest that was being hastily set up to combat the Deathstorms.

 

Over thirty guardsmen whirled around in horror and surprise. Bolt pistol fire blew several of them apart, as Garlok felt the Red come over him, in two great strides he was upon them as blue las bolts began to lance out. Decapitating a Guardmen in a single sudden strike, three more Guardsmen where simply cloven in half in single swings form the huge Black Legionary as he moved with eye-blurring speed.

 

‘’BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!’’ he howled as his Berzerkers dove in, massacring the Guard platoon.

 

All around him, for the next mile, his grand company slaughtered the Guardsmen who had come up to destroy the Deathstorms, caught and overextended, the Guard fell back desperately, screaming captains and lieutenants struggling to form a defensive line.

 

A gaggle of PDF tankers, ran from their barracks to the Leman Russ hanger, if they got to those war machines then they could turn the tide against the Chaos Berzerkers who had dropped in like a storm. They never go there, a squad of chaos marines gunned them down and then set fire to the vehicle hanger planting melta bombs to the vehicles as they did so, rending them useless.

 

Other Berzerker squads spread out, in the tight hallways and corridors of the spaceport facilities, they had a field day, their vastly superior close combat skills serving them well. Realizing this, Wyder, ordered his men out in the open, to fight there as much as they could.

[Gree]

Sartol’s Group

 

Sartol muttered the last of his prayers to the Four, asking for the aid of each, swearing his devotion and listing his deeds as the seconds counted down from the chronometer in time with the rumbling that filled the Dreadclaw as it plummeted down. He appealed to each of the four gods. But most of all he appealed to Khorne, he and his warriors in his squad where followers of Chaos Undivided, meaning they did not worship any power over another, consistently.

 

Consistently being the key word.

 

They worshipped each as facts of the greater power that was Chaos. When they entered battle, they gave blood sacrifice to Khorne, removing their gauntlets and slashing their palms, offering the blood in a liquid container in front of the Blood God’s shrine. Although all where worshipped equally, it was at different times, and now battle, the time for full out war, was the moment to beseech Khorne, promising him skulls and souls in his name when they spilled blood.

 

When the drop pod hit Sartol was first out, helmeted, his horned, devil-visored mask firmly in place, red eye slits glowing as he and his squad of nine other chosen veterans of the Black Legion came out. They had landed over thirty meters away from the trench line. In the distance he could see the drop pods of Larmath’s Berzerkers land behind the Guard defenses and among the rear staging areas.

 

His thing, cruel mouth curved into a smile. Lucky dog, Larmath was, a lucky war dog indeed. Next to is own pod, several meters ahead, landed Vejor’s Dreadclaw and his squad, which was under fire from a autocannon battery.

 

Two chaos marines where cut down under the cavalcade of heavy shells., another lost a leg and toppled over as Vejor bellowed commands to advance and open fire. Across the trench line other las-rounds and heavy weapons fire where coming in at the emerging chaos marines. Sartol dove forward, squad following him. ‘’Open fire at that’’ he commanded, sending several shots at the autocannon emplacement with his bolter as his squad obeyed instantly.

 

Two Guardsmen, manning one of the autocannons where slain by Sartol’s shots, blown to pink mist that clouded the enclosed emplacement, then the autocannon fire immediately slackened.

 

‘’That’s another favor Vejor’’ he came in over the vox as the other chaos champion merely nodded in return, charging forwards as one of his chaos marines hurled grenades at the Guardsmen, who ducked behind the parapets. Sartol followed.

 

Dtar’s plague marines where also advancing steadily. Dtar sighing as he took in the pleasant (to him) sensation of the polluted, dusty air, taking in the subtle toxins caused by centuries of pollution. He and his plague marines where walking through a storm of lasfire and heavy weapons rounds with ease, shrugging off wounds that would have killed or crippled even a normal Astartes.

 

One of his plague marines grabbed a shrunken head from his belt and threw it into the trenches, where it exploded in a sickly purple gas. Choked, horrified screams sounded briefly before that section fell silent.

 

Behind them, Kesrok, his Havoc-champion, was bellowing orders for the grand company’s Havocs to form up, bellowing out targeting orders for various PDF bunkers across the line.

 

A trio of las rounds hit Sartol in the chest as he closed the lest several meters to the trench, hurling grenades as he went. He was pleased to find the Guardsmen shooting at his chest. Just as he thought, these where new conscripts, hardly a challenge at all. A normal human, when trained to shoot, often shot at the chest or largest parts of the body, this was an instinctive psychological reaction.

 

Most human militaries trained their soldiers to do this, as normally shooting one in the chest was both easy and normally fatal to most beings. However this worked poorly against Astartes. The chest and shoulder guards of power armor, while being the largest parts of the armor, where also the thickest, several lasguns shooting there would not do much to the armor, as opposed to a joint or one of the limb pieces.

 

Not like the Cadians, not like the Cadians who Sartol fought for centuries in Lord Abbadon’s Black Crusades, they where warriors of fire and steel, these so called Guardsmen where just lambs to the slaughter.

 

He reached the trench, dropping in, his power armored bulk crushing a Guardsmen, puling him into a red mess, decorating his greaves with a wash of crimson fluid as he shot his bolter point blank, shredding two Guardsmen. Lasfire stabbed at him point blank, but for only briefly, Sartol laughed at the terrified faces of the Guardsmen as he crashed into another, crushing his skull with a single blow and beheading two more with quick strikes. His sword fell again, and again, cutting down Guardsman after Guardsmen as he ran along with wide trench, about five meters wide, he guessed, his squad dropping behind him.

 

‘’Spread out, take out the bunkers, no mercy, no prisoners, we don’t have time for slaves’’ Sartol ordered as a trio of frag grenades was hurled his way as he crossed a corner leading to the rear trenches.

 

He leapt back as it exploded, sending shrapnel at him. His power armor protected him form most of the impact as he shielded his face instinctively. Two bits took him in the knee and another in his armpit. Angrily he ripped both of them out, after casting aside his bolter for a free hand. Then he stopped the forms of a half-dozen Guardsmen who did it, now firing at his wounds. Sartol grinned, they where learning.

 

He leapt back, unable to retrieve his bolter, as the lasrounds blew away small chunks of ceramite from his joints areas. Pain lanced through his body briefly, but it was nothing compared to willingly losing his own arm.

 

Two of his marines came up, Sartol gave a short bark and they headed around the corner, bolters opening fire, shredding the Guardsmen as Sartol took the opportunity to dive forward with a cackle and retrieved his bolter. Putting it away, he took out his bolt pistol, and shot a fleeing Guardsmen dead as he, and four others headed down the trench, killing all that they could, transforming the place into abattoir of death.

 

In the close quarters of the trenches, a chaos marine was equal to a dozen Guardsmen in the kind of close combat, Sartol and his squad of Chosen veterans doubly so. Now they where among the enemy, who stood no chance. If it was a long range duel then things would be different, but here, the Guardsmen had lost both the advantage of numbers and firepower, on occasion the Guard would overwhelm a Chaos marine or get lucky, but they where well out of their element here.

 

But the only thing Sartol cared about now was the slaughter.

 

‘’Move out! The defense laser is three hundred meters to the north!’’ Sartol commanded.

 

‘’Finish this group, take out the rear area trenches and move on!’’ he repeated as he spotted the form of an Imperial Guard officer charge out from the corner of his eye.

 

He let the chainsword the man carried, to deflect off his shoulder guard, gouging away a chunk of armor. The chaos champion did this deliberately, to see the fear in the officer’s eyes. Then he gutted him with his own blade before shooting him with his bolt pistol point blank, blowing off the officer in a shower of blood, casing the mangled and eviscerated corpse to hit the ground with a dull and meaty thud.

 

There was no sweeter sound to Sartol’s ears.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Command Bunker, to the Rear

 

A Berzerker howled as he decapitated another Guardsmen, diving forward to hit another in a shoulder charge, crushing his chest cavity with a single massive blow, another strike cut a terrified Guardsmen in half at the waist. He and two others rampaged down the rear trenches, staging areas where troops could be funneled to the front properly. He was part of Larmath’s Berzerker squads who had dropped into the rear.

 

At the end of the trench, he kicked open a bunker and entered, shooting the first Guardsman he saw, blowing a massive hole in the torso of the human as he turned to meet him. Then a melta beam blew off the upper half of his body, another Berzerker that entered lost his arm to a melta beam, turning armor and ceramite to slag, as a third was shot by over a dozen lasbeams.

 

Wyder and over a dozen Guardsmen had been waiting. ‘’Now!’’ Wyder yelled, diving forward as the one-armed Berzerker came to meet him, chainsword and chainaxe clashed together as the remaining Berzerker was blown away with a melta shot. Wyder’s bones jarred as he fought against the enraged Berzerker, who was still a potent foe despite the loss of his arm. But his soldiers came to his rescue, firing lasrounds at the highest setting into the Chaos’s marine’s back armor joints.

 

With a final groan the Berzerker collapsed under that barrage and Wyder beheaded him with a two handed stroke. Panting, the Mortant colonel set the chainsword down, spitting at the corpse.

 

‘’Where the hell did they come from sir?’’ one of his meltagunners asked.

 

Wyder shrugged. ‘’Dammed if I know’’ then a grenade landed in the open doors. A Guardsman rushed to throw it back out, then a bolt round blew his head off, the grenade dropped from his nerveless fingers and went off. Five Guardsmen who blown to pieces, and Wyder was thrown back hard against the concrete wall of the bunker as the huge shape of Larmath swept in, opening fire with his bolt pistol.

 

Larmath was in the Red, he could almost feel the beating of his enemies hearts, he could feel every part of his body consumed in the holy rage, every part of his mind, gearing itself to kill the enemy. Many called this state mindless, many fools who witnessed saw a reckless warrior with no regard for his well-being, or any of his allies. Larmath knew well that they were fools.

 

In the Red, everything was so clear, he noted the arrival of shells, the positioning of lasguns, they simply did not bother him, his body would already be reacting as he focused everything into killing the enemy. That was the Red, to engulf oneself in a sense of total rage, and then controlling that rage to lash out at the enemy, allowing to become one with his god Khorne, and yet not lose himself and become a ravening beast.

 

The Red was to experience every spray of blood, every terrified feature, every once of hatred within ones body, and to shape it as a weapon to strike outwards form the warriors soul. A measure of Khorne’s own fury. Larmath moved forward in the Red, recognizing the meltagun troopers as the first that would have to die, one was tumbling about, an arm mangled by the shrapnel from the frag grenade.

 

He decapitated him and shot the other meltagunner point blank, blowing out his chest cavity, the last five Guardsmen raised their lasguns to fire at him, but it was too late, even as they did so Larmath was upon him, unnatural speed coursing through him as a result of the Red. His power axe fell down and down, splitting torsos and carving through brainpans, in two seconds all the Guardsmen where dead.

 

He then whirled around to block a chainsword strike by Wyder before counterattacking with a flurry of blows at the Colonel, that would have seen a lesser swordsman dismembered on the ground. Larmath looked into the sweating, crimson face of Wyder as he struggled.

 

‘’Impressive’’ he forced out of his vox unit. To match me like that’’ Larmath said.

 

‘’But now it ends’’

 

He activated his switch. A crimson aura engulfed his axe and the blade sliced through the chainsword and took off the surprised Colonel’s head in a single strike. The head hit the round softly with a thump.

 

Larmath picked it up and impaled it on a trophy rack mounted on his armor.

 

‘’Blood of the Blood God’’ he said simply, exiting the trench.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Sartol’s Company-Second Line Trenches

 

Sartol rounded the corner after tossing several grenades about, the screams of the Guardsmen and the thumps of dead bodies ringing sweetly in his ears, his power sword hacking through the bodies of the stumbling and wounded Guardsmen. Several more Chaos marines followed behind his, helping to slaughter the Guardsmen with chainsword and bolt pistol, one marine had a flamer and was using it judiciously to clear out bunkers and bomb shelters.

 

More chaos marines emerged across the no mans land, running forwards to reinforce the ones who had already come through the trenches lower to the ground. Las-fire and heavy weapons retaliation where sporadic at best. Sartol could feel it now, the Guard where beaten, they had already hacked through hundreds peicemental in the trench, with minimal losses to the Chaos marines. He could feel victory.

 

‘’Sartol! Leman Russes!’’ came the voice of Dtar, speaking coldly over the channel. The Chaos champion finished off the Guardsman he was gutting, and peered over the lip of the parapet.

 

His enhanced vision and helmet easily picked out the forms of five Leman Russ tanks heading across the outskirts of the city, from a large tank hanger near the defense laser, which was still spitting death into the sky. It seems that the weakling servants of the Corpse Emperor, managed to get a collection of tanks readied. The Russes, opened fire, blowing several chaos marines to pieces, another round blew three more to a pulp.

 

Heavy bolters began to chatter, opening fire.

 

‘’Get into the trenches’’ Sartol snarled as the surviving marines in no mans land began to drop into cover. ‘’Havocs! Target hen!’’

 

With that order lascannon beams and krak missiles shot out, turning a Russ to scrap metal, other teams sent a stream of heavy bolter shots, krak missiles and lascannon rounds into another, disabling a track. The Russ stayed there, turning it’s turret to target the far off Havoc Teams. It never got the chance as lascannon beams destroyed the Guard tank and reduced it to scrap metal.

 

The other Russ tanks had spotted the Havocs and fired, the shells impacting close to the captured PDF bunker the chaos marines had taken control. The remaining three moved forward, recognizing the Havocs in the first trench as the greatest threat. Sartol watched with barely concealed glee, as the Tanks crossed the second trench. These fools! Chaos marines, bent down in the confines of the trench, attached krak grenades to the thin under armor of the Russes.

 

These had to be PDF, he hardly believed that trained Guardsmen would make such an elementary mistake as this. One of the tanks exploded, the krak grenade striking a weak point, another two where halted, their tracks disabled. Then, both of their crews, turned their turrets around almost at the same time, realizing the danger they where in. A chaos marine from Torgoth’s squad came up, and shot the tank with a meltagun.

 

The superheated beam ignited, melting through the thin rear armor of the turret with ease and ignited the ammunition stock, reducing the tank to a fiery orange inferno near the trench.

 

Sartol did not have any meltas near, but he did not need any. Vastak, jumped up form the trench, his second in command’s power fist activating as he leapt on the tank, and straddled the turret. With one swift tug, he peeled away the hatch of the tank with ease and dropped a pair of frag grenades into the hatch before leaping away, a streak of fire and smoke shot up from the hatch as the crewmen where slaughtered by the grenades.

 

Vastak landed on his feet and rolled back into the trench as Sartol took stock of the situation.

 

‘’Excellent work, but cutting it a little close there Brother’’ he chuckled.

 

‘’I was confidant Sartol’’ Vastak replied, joining him.

 

‘’Don’t worry about it.’’ Sartol laughed, reloading his bolter after scanning the rest of the horizon, the Imperials had no more tanks this time.

 

‘’Let’s go! All squads move out. Time to take the defense laser!’’ he commanded over the vox-net.

 

‘’And for Khorne’s sake stay close to the trenches!’’

[Gree]

Talian West

Sartol led his company slaughtering their way across the Guard trenches to the defense laser and the command bunker for the entire anti-orbital defense systems on Talian West Spaceport. Chaos marines armed with meltaguns blasted ways into the defense laser facility, and in less than a minute they had all been slaughtered by the victorious Chaos Space Marines of the Third company.

 

Less than thirty minutes after the first Chaos marines had landed on Talian from low orbit, all resistance ceased as the last of the Guardsmen simply collapsed as a fighting unit and fled, Garlok’s Berzerkers pursing them, slaughtering the survivors.

 

Few made it out alive.

 

The Black Bane, the Bloodclaw, the Hammer of Damnation, and other chaos ships now came in that the defense lasers where gone, immediately, huge bulk landers came form the landing bays of the orbital transport ships. Like immense, fat-bodied locusts they landed among the faculties of Talian as the Chaos marines quickly captured and sent the Imperial starport equipment to use in transporting the vast cultist armies of Chaos.

 

They came in all different shapes and sizes. The armies of the Black Reapers where made up of a variety of different warriors, recruited from everywhere in the Eye of Terror’s vast dark expansion.

 

Rank upon rank of chanting and mutated cultist-warriors, dressed in looted flak armor over bloodstained robes and carried captured Imperial lasguns, made up the bulk of the first who landed. Then came the ground of mutants and other rabble, even lower on the totem pole than the cultists. Massive armies of mutated and gibbering slave things all came, almost all of them barely human.

 

Hundreds of chaos-twisted ogryns, great beasts pumped full of combat drugs and surgically modified for only one purpose, to kill in the name of the Four Gods. Many of them also sported mutations. Cells of sorcerers and rogue psykers came, regular human warlock and warp-dabblers pressed into service of the Black Reapers. Behind them came a variety of hired pirates and mercenaries.

 

Tank after tank of defiled Leman Russes, Hellhounds and Chimeras, among various other models and makes of Imperial tanks, also came out, to serve as the armored fist alongside the Predators and Land Raiders of the chaos marines.

 

Then came the Incardi, the Chaos human elite. Warriors in heavy flak mail, bearing hellguns and high-power autorifles. They where the best of the cultist warriors, trained and indoctrinated into their own brotherhood of warriors, drilled and equipped to be equal to the finest Imperial Guard formations. The Incardi Death-brigades, the elite of the elite, where armed with carapace armor, hellguns and bolters, stood themselves as the elite Incardi equivalent to the Imperial stromtroopers.

 

They had an infamous rivalry, with the Blackshield, the last to come, former stormtroopers who had long since sworn themselves to Chaos, the Incardi believed themselves superior for having never served the Emperor, and coming from the eye, the Blackshield believed they where better simply because they where once stormtroopers themselves.

 

Nonevertheless, they where both dwarfed in dark majesty by the Black Legionaries themselves. Giant figures came down the Stormbirds and Thunderhawks, the Blades of Chaos leading them.

 

The assembled hosts of Chaos came, for hours on end, the fleet unloading more and more troops and equipment, quickly turning the spaceport and the area beyond into a giant military camp for chaos.

 

Of course, in order to clear the room for chaos, the Imperials had to be cleared.

 

At first it was random, as chaos marines and cultists ransacked the homes of the civilian workers, slaughtering and torturing entire families in an orgy of violence. Then came orders for civilians to be rounded up and sent for field sacrifices. Fights and minor disputes broke out over who would be sacrificed to which god and where they would be sacrificed, often the disputes carried out into full-blown slaughter. Such incidents where quickly suppressed by their Chaos Space Marine masters.

 

Regardless, the main Chaos army had arrived.

 

Jarnus IV would know fear.

 

Trenches outside of Talian

 

Chaos Space Marines spread out through the abandoned trenches, executing the dead Guardsmen in the aftermath of the storm, as massive landers landed form the skies with fresh troops for the Chaos troops. Sartol walked along the trenches, flakboard groaned under his power armored boots, as he casually shot anything that even twitched with his bolter. He was bored, all of his excitement he had derived during the fight had dissipated. Two of his personal squad walked behind him.

 

Then he came across an open bunker, pushing aside the doors he looked around, the entire place was a charnel house, filled with corpses and smeared with blood, everyone was dead except for one Guardsman.

 

Sartol’s autosenses detected a life sign right in front of him, kicking aside a corpse, he soon saw a wounded young man clutching a shrapnel would to the stomach. He was bleeding badly. Bolters where raised to dispatch him, but Sartol waved a hand. He holstered his bolter and removed his helmet, giving it to another Chaos marine, exposing, his pale tattooed features to the world. Then he smiled at the Guardsmen, chiseled teeth showing.

 

‘’My, my, you are pretty badly wounded there, Imperial, you don’t look so well’’ the young PDF soldier did not answer, overcome by fear, shock and pain. Sartol’s enhanced sense of smell detected piss along with the smell of blood and filth.

 

‘’I’m not a bad man, I’m quite fair you see, I have a sense of honor, unlike most of my brethren’’ he said. He mentioned to a Chaos marine.

 

‘’Your meltagun, now’’ he commanded .

 

The Astartes gave him a strange look but Sartol merely repeated himself.

 

’’I said give me your meltagun, now’’ he said as the marine reluctantly gave him his tank-busting weapon.

 

Grinning now that he had it, he placed the weapon five feet away, at the other end of the wounded Guardsman and then walked back over.

 

‘’Imperial, I am going to make you a deal’’ he said kindly.

 

‘’Go over and reach that meltagun, if you do manage to do it, I’ll let you take a free shot at me with that thing, ‘’ he smiled, as the young guardsman started at him with utter shock and fear.

 

‘’Now come on now’’ Sartol said in a friendly tone.

 

‘’I won’t attack you, and neither will my companions, go on, do it’’ he made encouraging motions with his hands.

 

Slowly, the young Guardsman moved, carefully and wincing with pain as blood continued to trickle out of his gut wounds. Hauling himself painfully to his knees he went to work. Slowly, inch by inch, he crawled over to the meltagun, each tortuous movement, causing him to sweat and spit out of sheer exertion. Tears began to stream out of his eyes just as he approached the last few inches of the Meltagun.

 

Just as his fingers where about to close around the stock, a shot rang out, and the Guardsman’s head exploded like a rotten melon. Sartol lowered the smoking bolt pistol.

 

‘’Oops, I lied’’ he joked, walking over and grabbing the meltagun and then tossing it back at his original owner.

 

‘’Why did you do that?’’ the chaos marine asked. Sartol merely looked at him.

 

‘’Isn’t it obvious?’’ he snorted. ‘’It’s because I could, remember this, there is nothing more thrilling in life than taking a life, not because you need to, but because you can’’ Sartol smirked.

 

‘’There is nothing else that makes a person feel like they are a god then seeing a person die needlessly for you. And I like feeling like a god, I wonder if that is how Khorne feels’’ he said.

 

He shrugged, putting back on his helmet, becoming devil-masked once again.

 

‘’Let’s move on, there is nothing left here.’’

[Roguemarine]

i defintaley like where this is going, keep up the good work..

[Gree]

Orenis II-over a Thousand years before.

 

‘’My lord, we have discovered the locations of the Throne, that you have requested’’ Torgoth, second in command of the third grand company of the Black Reapers, stated to Tarmak respectfully.

 

‘’Good then, I assume the witch here found it out?’’ the newly appointed Third Blade said, referring to Arenio in the corner of the command bunker, who stood still, if he had any anger, Sartol could not detect it behind his mask.

 

They where in a command bunker, one of the many surrounding Orenis Primaris, the capital city of Orenis II, a large and important agri-world that supplied grox-meat to the local sectors, including Cadia.

 

It was the Eleventh Black Crusade, and Lord Abbadon’s forces where striking out, seeking certain artifacts on worlds for the Despoiler’s next plan to destroy the hated Imperium of Man. Before they set out, Tarmak had murdered his predecessor, in an ambush outside the Osgilath, that was barely two years ago, an eyeblink to the millennia old Chaos Space Marines.

 

Orenis was ruled by a heredity dynasty of Kings, who possessed the scepter of Ash-tarok, a weapon that was supposed to be able to enhance the psychic abilities of the user.

 

The Black Reapers had been charged, along with two other warbands, one of the Emperor’s Children, and the other of the Word Bearers, to take Orenis’ II, deny the Imperials the food supplies and take the scepter The fleet had come in, destroying the orbital facilities of Orenis and coming in vast numbers, too much for the pitiful defenses of the agri-world to take out, landing drop pods by the hundreds into the cities and towns.

 

The first weeks of the campaign had been good, the Black Reapers annihilated army after army of pitiful conscripts, even the arrival of the Imperial Guard only served to barely stalemate the legions of Chaos.

 

Only the arrival of the Titans legions and forces from three different Astartes chapters, the Space Wolves the Imperial Fists, and the White Consuls, did the Chaos assault grind to a complete and utter stop. With warriors capable of meeting the Chaos marines blade-to-blade, the Black Legion found itself equally matched, Sartol himself slew many loyalist marines with his blade.

 

But it was not enough, slowly, but surely, the Imperials began to force the armies of Chaos back as more and more Imperial enforcements came to the planet, reinforcing their brethren. Even elements of the Grey Knights had begun to arrive, even Heru’ur, eager to prove his title of ‘’Knight slayer’’ ,earned after the massacre of the Grey Knights at Knruth seven centuries earlier, was challenged by this wave of new arrivals.

 

Heru’ur himself led a strike against the capital city, mustering his entire warband in an attempt to take out the city and cut off the leadership of the Imperials in one blow so that the war could end quickly.

 

‘’Sartol, Larmath, take your dogs and retrieve it for me, I will lead the rest in the assault against the Fists’s defensives positions’’ Tarmak stated, as they pored over a holo-map. The entire bunker was cramped and poorly-lit, not that it mattered to the enhanced eyesight of the marines.

 

‘Dtar, you will finally be able to prove your stinking hide, by acting as my meat shield in the assault’’ he stated bluntly, as usual, Dtar did not react at all, as was typical behavior for him. Tarmac again showed his lack of respect, Sartol mused. I would have gotten more out of my brothers with flattery and appealing to their pride, not threats, he mused.

 

And that bastard Torgoth, seemed to go along with it, being Tarmak’s every loyal lackey, he mused hatefully.

 

The throne of the Orenisian Kings was a beautiful thing, formed of pressed moon-gold and green jade, carven to resemble a most kingly aspect. It seated the Kings of Orenis for eight millennia now.

 

And Tarmak, in his own arrogance and pride, wanted it to show off his newfound authority over the members of the third grand company, to show his power and pride once more.

 

All this flying in the face of Heru’ur’s tactical instructions.

 

‘’My lord’’ Larmath forced out.

 

‘’With great respect, my brothers are warriors, Khorne would be surely pleased if we led the assault on the Imperial Fists’s position, there we would be able to put our close combat skills to good use’’ he informed him.

 

Tarmak looked at him with contempt. ‘’Larmath, have you forgotten what good dogs do? They obey, and you are being a disobedient beast. Sartol could see the Berzerker champion’s face harden and admired the Berzerker champion’s control at suppressing his cybernetic cranial implants urging him to kill Tarmak.

 

‘’Khorne may be your god, but here, I am your own personal god on this battlefield, do you understand, dog?’’ Tarmak spat the last par tout.

 

‘’You may be a god, milord’’ Sartol interjected.

 

‘’But Heru’ur and Cero Obsurcas still rule over us all, and they command we proceed with our objectives’’ he should have not let that slip out, as Tarmak whirled around to face him.

 

‘’And with that, you will be guarding slaves for the rest of this conflict, Sartol’’ Tarmak spat out. Sartol felt rage take his soul, but he forced it down, not here, not now he reminded himself.

 

‘’I am master, I am king, I am god and I will have my throne’’ Tarmak commanded.

 

‘’Now, go, dogs’’

 

Talian West Spaceport

 

Talian West was transformed into a place resembling a scene from some playwright’s hell. Buildings where blasted out husk, being pulled apart by Chaos soldiery for the construction of field fortifications. Drop ship after drop ship landed from the skies, each carrying hundreds of more cultists and soldiery to the earth, great drop ships ferrying from the skies and into the depths of space, from each of the Chaos ships in orbit, like a bee pollinating a hive.

 

Smoke rose high in the air as the sun set down, the day after the Chaos forces had taken the spaceport, casting the area, in a blood-red glow, adding more to the hellish appearance of the spaceport.

 

The few surviving citizenry of Talian West, the downtrodden workers of the city that manned the orbital facilities and the mag-rails, that brought tonnes of precious ore to Talian for of-world transportation, where quickly rounded up. Man, woman, child, it hardly mattered, the young and the old where executed coldly and the few healthy survivors rounded up, and sent to the front line fortifications where they would be worked to death, rebuilding the shattered fortifications surrounding the city, or forced to build moments to the Dark Gods.

 

Much like the chaos host that assaulted Armageddon over four hundred years earlier, moments where needed to be built in order to summon the Dark Gods’s greatest servants to reality. Great spiraling towers where beginning to take shape, like broken spines over the shattered wreck of Talian West, slowly, they where being constructed, when they where completed, daemons would walk the earth.

 

Sartol walked along the slave lines, the captive workers of Talian West marching alongside the various slave mutants brought down to work on the great monuments to the Dark Gods. Although they would take at least several days to fully complete, Sartol could see they where already taking shape into the familiar icons of the dark Gods, he had seen them constructed many, many times before, and he was pleased.

 

He walked along, the warriors of his Chosen squad, trusted and blooded warriors who had fought alongside him for ten millennia, among the few that he completely trusted. He walked down the flakboard ramps that lead to a lower depression in the ground where a series of new icons was being constructed alongside a set of concrete defense bunkers on the southern edge of Talian.

 

Looking around he spotted Torgoth, his former rival. He strode over. ‘’Torgoth my friend, I trust your spirits are in good order?’’ he asked the chaos marine, who merely looked at him with barely concealed contempt.

 

Torgoth had always been Tarmak’s lackey, following his every order and command, assuming, that he could succeed the chaos champion when the day came, but he had not, and Sartol could feel the wound fester.

 

He reveled in it.

 

‘’Tolerable, Sartol’’ he said coldly to the Third Blade

 

‘’Lord Sartol to you, brother Torgoth’’ he grinned, noting the look of displeasure on Torgoth’s scarred features. Chuckling, Sartol took off his own helmet and handed it to a nearby marine.

 

‘’I’m just joking brother’’ he came aside him.

 

‘’My my, you look so gloomy? Is there something wrong?’’ he asked kindly.

 

‘’I only appreciate the task you had given me’’ Torgoth replied. They both knew that guarding slaves was Sartol’s way of saying ‘’screw you’’ to the former bootlicker. It was sweet, sweet revenge for the Third Blade

 

The Third Blade looked over the crown of slaves, observing each and everyone’s faces, noting who and what looked alike.

 

‘’You are too morose, I will cheer you up’’ he said. Quickly, he spotted two faces in the slave line being led away to the work site, and ordered his chaos marines to bring them there.

 

They where two girls, one a young woman, and the other a teenager, both smeared with dirt to the point where they resembled women much older than they, their hands and feet where little more than a mass of blisters and clauses.

 

To put it bluntly, they looked like hell.

 

The older one remained strong, emotionless as Sartol came to her, the younger one broke down, streams of tears and snot covering her face as she was consumed by despair at the sigh of the smiling Chaos marine.

 

‘’You two are siblings I assume?’’ he asked politely, they remained silent.

 

‘’Answer him’’ a chaos marine guard growled. After a few moments, a mumbled yes came form the older one.

 

‘’Good’’ Sartol simply he pointed at a cultist slave-guard standing near them.

 

‘’Give me your autopistol now’’ he commanded, a stuttering cultist murmured an affirmative.

 

Sartol took it, emptying out the chamber and throwing it to the ground, inspecting it carefully, then he spoke to the older woman.

 

‘’Woman, I am giving you a choice, kill your sister, if you do so you will be taken from here and treated like a Queen, you will never work a day’s life here again’’ he explained to her, still smiled.

 

Torgoth was startled at that.’’ Sartol-‘’ he began.

 

‘’Of do please shut up Torgoth, that is ‘’Lord Sartol, by the way’’ he shot back before turning his attention to the woman.

 

‘’This autopistol has only one round left, kill her with it. And don’t even think of trying to use it on me, I will remove your limb before you can pull the trigger and make you suffering a hundred times worse than this place’’ he threatened.

 

He tossed it to her. It landed on the dirt, staring incredulously at it on the ground. She picked it up, her sister began crying harder as she held it testing it’s weight. Sartol watched in fascination.

 

He began to point it at her sister.

 

‘’See?’’ Sartol said.

 

Then she put barrel in her mouth and squeezed the trigger.

 

The autopistol clicked. Sartol blew her head off, the bolt round reducing her upper body to a red ruin. Casually Sartol shot the other crying girl in the head killing her. He holstered his pistol.

 

‘’I forgot to mention, I lied about the one round, I completely emptied it’’ Sartol said.

 

‘Family is strong, she wanted to sacrifice herself for her’’ Sartol shrugged. ‘’I already anticipated that now let’s bring someone who is NOT family into the equation’’ explained. He barked orders and the corpses where cleared away.

 

Two more people appeared, both older men, who looked like hell, bruised hands and covered n dirt, blood and filth. Sartol smiled.

 

‘’I’ll make this short and simple, Kill each other, the survivor is freed and treated like e king, how does that sound?’’ he asked them.

 

After a few second they flew at each other, fingers outstretched like claws. Sartol observed them in fascination. One of older, but more well built, another was younger, but smaller in build.

 

Finger scraped at eyes, knees sought guts and skin was peeled at by sharpened fingernails, in less than a minute the younger man stood, wounded and battered over the corpse of his rival, having snapped his neck.

 

He turned to the Third Blade expectedly. Sartol shot him in the head with his pistol.

 

‘’Why did you have them fight to the death then?’’ Torgoth demanded. ‘’You just cost us valuable manpower’’ Sartol grinned and looked at him.

 

‘’The point is’’ he began, kicking the corpse.

 

‘’Is that I am in charge, me, I am now god here, you remember now do you Torgoth’’ he sneered.

 

‘’And I, well I don’t forget, ever’’

[Roguemarine]

keep it going man, this is awesome

[Gree]

Jarnus Primaris-Grand Square-Three days later

 

‘’What do you mean you don’t have any more clocks left?’’ Barthus Merro said to the shopkeeper in the clock store. They where both standing at the counter in the small cramped shop.

 

The clock keeper shrugged at the Guard officer. ‘’Time have been hardly lately’’ he said. ‘’Folks have been buying up a lot of clocks lately, before not there was not much of a demand for it’’ he said honestly.

 

He was cleaning his counter free of dust, when Merro came in looking for a clock, the man was bald, and on the wrong side of forty, he looked rather apologetic as he informed the Cadian of that fact.

 

‘’Well, I’m going to be need one’’ Merro was a tall, powerfully built man, with short blonde hair and dark blue eyes, with a pale complexion. He wore the uniform of a Cadian Guard captain.

 

He was one of the officers of the 184th Cadian regiment assigned to Jarnus as part of the garrison, with the news of the Chaos invasion, he had come naturally to a store in the Grand Square, to buy a watch.

 

The whole store was almost empty when he got there, clocks and watches gone, bought up in the furious frenzy when the news of the invaders had finally filtered through the propaganda channels. People wanted to keep time with the curfew after all, he supposed, or just wanted something to channel away the feat, he shrugged. He was no psychology expert.

 

Jarnus Primaris was a real city, unlike Talian, large and bustling, it housed almost six million people, over a quarter of the planet’s total population, it was the political and communications hub of the planet.

 

‘’Fine, I’ll come back later then’’ he said.

 

‘’Good day’’ the shopkeeper replied, as he went back to cleaning his counter.

 

Merro sighed and walked back out into the streets, the golden sunlight hit him as he did so, walking down into the steps and into the gold-wreathed streets, right into the hurrying crowds of the Grad Square.

 

The Square was one of the most oldest and important sights are the Primaris. It was one of the first places the initial colonists build and it had only expanded from there into bustling trade up. Four vast statues, the initial founders of the colony, towered at each end of the square, a massive fountain, carved in the shape of a bounding horseman, spat water into a large basin around it.

 

The multitude of masses hurried back and forth, families and businessmen, youths and off-duty PDF troopers, shopkeepers and workmen, all hurrying back in forth in their daily business. Even with the news of a chaos invasion of the widespread panic, life still went on here. Merro stopped his adjutant, Knifesmith and waved him over, pushing through the thick crowds.

 

‘’You got it?’’ he asked.

 

‘’Yes sir’’ Knifesmith lead him, pushing through the crowds.

 

‘’I got the aircar you wanted.’’

 

‘’Good, now we won’t have to trudge through the mess of plebeians anymore’’ Merro sighed. They came to the nearby parking lot that led to the Grand Square.

 

‘’It should be over there’’ Knifesmith pointed. Then to his horror several local gangers where looking it over.

 

‘’Hey!’’ Merro shouted. They whirled around and began to run away.

 

‘’Damn kids’’ Knifesmith muttered. Merro sighed and went over checking the sleek, green aircar for damage. He found only a few kicks and dents. He shrugged.

 

‘’At least it’s in good condition’’

 

‘’Yeah, of yeah’’ Knifesmith pulled out a watch.

 

‘’I got you this’’ Merro took it grinning.

 

‘’Thanks, you’re a lifesaver’’ he pocketed it.

 

‘’Now let’s go’’

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Talian west Command briefing

 

The Stormbird had come down, a great dropship, a relic of the Great Crusade, one of the few of it’s kind left to the Black Legion, as most of it’s drop ships had been replaced by the newer Thunderhawk at the start of the Heresy and captured from loyalists over millennia of warfare.

 

The huge ship landed down in the landing zone, the doors slamming down as a quartet of the Executors marched out, black terminator armor gleaming in the afternoon sun darkly as they scanned weapon back and forth. Then came Heru’ur, massive fur cape swirling around his terminator armored form, head helmeted in his horned helm and carrying Dra’Caroth’id in one hand and a combi-melta in the other.

 

He and his retinue made their way down into the spaceport, into a wide circle, painted in blood by the slaves, The rest of the Blades where there, gathered to meet the Eighth Blade.

 

They made room at the sides of the Eight pointed star, taking their places on each of the ‘’spikes’’ that radiated from the center. His Terminator bodyguards holding back, Heru’ur entered and took his place at the head of the circle.

 

‘’My brethren’’ he said, his voice booming. ‘’We have taken Talian’’ he looked over them.

 

‘’I am pleased with your results, it was a swift victory, we have had problems with the after battle sacrifices, some heathen decided to go against my will on which of the captive should be sacrificed, they are dead now’’ he stated simplely.

 

‘’Now let us talk plans’’ he looked at Ashram.

 

‘’Ashram? Have you and your Sorcerers discovered anything?’’

 

The Sorceror shook his head. ‘’Yes and no’’

 

‘’What do you mean by that?’’ Koramak asked.

 

‘’The Black Gate is not here, but somewhere else, from further scrying it’s in the capital city’’ he reported.

 

‘’If it’s in the capital then we don’t need to strike elsewhere’’ Sartol concluded.

 

‘’We would need to do so for slaves and sacrifices’’ Gartok said. ‘’Khorne will be pleased by such a harvest’’ he stated.

 

‘’But that is a secondary objective’’ Heru’ur reminded them.

 

‘’As always, the Black Gate remain our main objective, we will handle the other cities, but such tasks are the Incardi’s job, the work of the mortal warriors’’ he stated.

 

‘’No, the Black Gate takes precedence over such things’’ he explained.

 

‘’But there are other cities on the continents’’ Sartol asked. ‘’You cannot expect us to simply leave them be, we do not have the manpower to strike at all of them.’’

 

‘’Then we will eradicate them from orbit’’ Heru’ur said.

 

‘’Khorne will not be pleased at such a waste’’ Gartok replied.

 

‘’Khorne will have his share in the coming battles, of that can assure you’’ Heru’ur replied.

 

‘’Then why don’t we bombard Jarnus Primaris then? And search for the Gate after the Imperials are gone?’’ Sartol asked.

 

‘’For a number of reasons’’ Koramak said. ‘’We could easily destroy the Gate there by accident, we don’t know where it is, only that it is in the general area, right Ashram?’’’’ the sorcerer nodded.

 

‘’And for the defensive line we’ve seen the Imperials rebuilding near Jarnus Primaris?’’ Sartol asked.

 

‘’Yes, that the other part of our meeting’’ Koramak said.

 

‘’I will not destroy the defensive line for two reasons’’ Heru’ur said.

 

‘’The place where they are located in a defensive line twenty five miles long and has been located near bastions of magnetic ore, interfering with scans, the only way to get a proper lock-on from obit would be to use an Icon right at ground zero’’ he explained.

 

‘’Obviously we are not going to do that for anything but teleported troops’’ he continued.

 

‘’However the second is that the Gate may also be buried there, as such we cannot risk even the slightest chance of accidentally destroying it with something as indiscriminate with an orbital bombardment’’

 

‘’That line-‘’ Koramak began. ‘’Is an old one, from the interrogations of the Imperials, I’ve learned that they have used it before, against the greenskins, four centuries ago when they invaded’’

 

‘’I sent scouts to reconnoiter it, and from orbital scans I’ve pieced an image, three lines, heavily fortified with numerous smaller trench lines, and built in artillery with rear staging areas, a drop pod assault is going to take time, and this time we do not posses the element of surprise’’

 

‘’It’s located between a large set of mountains to one side, and a carbon rich river, to the other, making flanking it hard to do’’ he stated.

 

‘’In addition to that the capital city posses defense lasers and void shields, maintaining a direct orbital assault there impossible, an drop assault at the trenches will be risky to our ships since they will have to move into low orbit, and our invisibility no longer protects us’’

 

‘’Normally it would not be a problem, I care little for the cultist’s ships in orbit, but for our Brothers there is still some small risk our transports could get destroyed in the low orbit while deploying’’ Koramak stated.

 

‘’Then we will simply try an overland assault, we have the full warband here, plus tens of thousands of cultists, I want to scout the rest of the line so I can form a battleplan for myself’’ he stated.

 

‘’Then we shall batter them’’ Heru’ur said simply.

 

‘’For we are the Black Legion, and we will not be denied’’

[Walter Payton]

Fantastic, not sure about Osgilath as a name, but hey, each to their own.

 

The plot is good, the descrpitions are nice. There are a few bits of prose here and there that sound a bit...convoluted, but that could just be the intricacies of Tzeentch ;)

 

I like the names (apart from [strike-thru]Osgiliath[/strike-thru] Osgilath). Don't kill too many of my beloved Fists though, or I may be forced to send the Phalanx round to your house, and you will be incinerated!