The Hunt for Pol

[LoDark]

Hello! :P

 

Well, here's a little story I've been working on for a short while. If I get a good response I'll continue with it. I haven't worked with any 40K fluff for a while, so I just thought I'd start this as a way of regaining a bit of interest in it. The background and its interpretations are by far the most interesting part of the hobby for me.

 

All comments and criticisms are appreciated and welcomed with open arms like a long lost relative. :)

 

 

The Beginning

 

 

"I...I don't want to die though," the man drew in another ragged, desperate breath, refusing to just lie down and die.

 

Sergeant Pol knelt down next to his man in the smouldering ruins and put his hand on the man's head.

 

"I know you don't. You don't deserve to die. None of us do."

 

The silence in the aftermath of the battle was unnerving. The city around them no longer burned in the raging inferno which had engulfed it only minutes before; or hours before; but was it important?

 

"Why did I join the Guard Sarge?"

 

"It's your duty son."

 

"I...I know. But why did I join the Guard?"

 

Pol smiled, "because you were too stupid to run."

 

The dying man laughed, and more blood began to run down his lip. "That sounds more like it! Where's the Emperor anyway? I thought he'd be here to see me off by now. Or Schmidt for that matter, the bastard. Why in the Hells isn't he here?"

 

"I'm sure he's on his way."

 

He wasn't. He'd been shot down on the assault of Building 386, at the other end of the plaza Pol now found his friend in. More Guard swarmed towards the rendezvous plaza every minute. A lot less than there had been to begin with. Pol counted two hundred and fifty men give or take from the Pent IVth, a unit which had began the campaign numbering in the thousands. He hoped that the other units had fared better, but he had a bad feeling the war was almost over for them.

 

He wiped some dirt off his brow. No, not dirt, blood. It didn't seem to be his, and he wiped it off his hand quickly in disgust, before whispering a prayer for the man dying in front of him.

 

A message came down his Vox Caster.

 

"Could all Sergeants meet at the Pavilion with the Captain. This is an urgent message. Any who do not make all haste will be shot."

 

Pol was tempted to call their bluff, but he knew it wouldn't be worth it. Every soldier was needed, they wouldn't shoot anyone, and they didn't have the power to. The Captain was trying to sow terror into a unit of soldiers who had just fought off Daemons from the depths of Hell, the rotting corpses of their old brothers in arms and men so devolved that they could hardly be called human. They had battled through buildings stained with the blood of sacrifices, pushed on through rooms full of tortured and ruined bodies, some still alive, which hanged from hooks or were nailed to walls. Sometimes the dead had screamed at them in their everlasting agony.

 

Somehow in the face of this, the Captain had lost the ability to conjure the same fear in Pol as before.

 

He turned back to his dying friend and said, "I'm sorry, I need to go."

 

He wasn't acknowledged by his companion, only the distant march of hundreds of boots replied.

 

The Pent IVth Company was losing.

 

***

 

Twenty miles away, a crackling sound was heard as the sky was literally ripped asunder by the appearance of another minor warp rift. It last only a moment, and only three Daemons stepped though to reality. The first was a Herald, an unusually large one, layers of slick red blood trickling slowly down its body. It had a freakishly elongated head. Its face resembled a skull; it had no nose, and its eyes were coal black apart from two glowing red pinpricks which could be interpreted as “pupils” sunk deep within its face. Two Large horns protruded from the top of its head. It held a large sword in one hand, which intensified the aura of dread that permeated the air. An eye in the hilt of the blade looked around, continually straining to break free from whatever curse was holding its owner within the blade.

 

The second was a much smaller Daemon. It loosely resembled one of the hunting hounds kept by some nobles throughout the Imperium, but warped beyond recognition. It had a hideously large head, framed by a large sail of flesh, and crowned with outcropping bone. It sniffed the air twice, before growling deep down in the pits of its throat.

 

The next Daemon to emerge was a wholly different creation. It never stopped moving, but warped its shape incessantly from the moment it materialised. Its many mouths smiled and showed its bright white teeth and long tongues. It didn’t have any recognisable head, nor body. It twisted as if in agony slightly off the ground, coloured a vivid blue one moment, and a dark hue, like the deep seas, the next. Smalls licks of purple flame ruptured out of these mouths every so often. There was no pattern or symmetry to it. It was wholly unnatural.

 

The largest daemon looked round. There was an air of forced calm about the thing. A patient manner. It was only if you were standing closer than anyone in their right minds would stand that you could notice it was shaking slightly. Its tongue flicked out and tasted the air, and then the Daemon let it simply loll out of its mouth. It took in the view of the land in front of it.

 

The war hadn’t hit this part of the planet yet, it had been bypassed by the armies of both forces. It was still the beautiful planet that by right it should have remained. The smoke of war machines on distant battlegrounds clouded the ground from most of the sunlight, but some still broke through. It dappled a nearby tree in specks of bright light and its leaves shimmered and darted through the air. The grass whistled as a gentle wind passed through it. It was soft, the Daemon noticed.

 

It’s beautiful. This one thought entered its head, but only for a moment, but only for a moment too long. It scared the creature, although it didn’t show it. The foot soldiers of Khorne didn’t show fear. They reaped it from the still, silent corpses of their victims.

 

He was reminded of his task by a niggling pressure in the back of its mind, an urging from a different plane of reality. The Daemon remembered how its intended victim looked; it remembered his name, his aspirations and fears. It remembered his tragic past. The only thing it didn’t know was his future. As far as the Daemon was concerned, this was confirmation of its success.

 

Still, it wondered why it found the scene so beautiful. It struck it as wrong. Why had it been created with the capacity to do so? It didn’t question anymore, but trusted the judgement of its Lord.

 

A tumbling avalanche of bloodlust suddenly built up inside the Daemon. When it became overpowering it roared at the sky. The hound-thing did the same, before loping off in the direction of the scattered remains of the Pent IVth Company. The herald followed quickly after it. The Blue Daemon coalesced in one place for a moment, before giggling, then cackling, then screaming hysterically at the nearby tree and bounding off after its two companions.

[LoDark]

Part 2:

 

***

 

The meeting hadn’t lasted long, and Pol thanked the Emperor that that had been the case. What he didn’t thank the Emperor for, was the fact it became pretty clear pretty quickly that the Captain was an inexperienced fool with no inkling of how to get them out of their current situation.

He attempted to give the opposite impression to those around him, most notably the crass young Commissar Herrick who continually eyed the man from the shadows. The Captain was lucky Herrick knew as little about warfare as he did, otherwise Pol had no doubt at all that several bullets would have embedded themselves in the back of the man’s head by now.

 

As it was, the Captain was safe for now. He had ordered a defensive perimeter to be placed around the outskirts of the Pavilion’s surrounding courtyard. Throughout the rest of the day entrenchments had been dug by the common soldiers to give the area the vague look of a ramshackle castle. However, it was clear that the perimeter was far too long to be effectively by what little men there were. It also rendered all the tanks they had left trapped within its confines, destroying the manoeuvrability of the formation. There were several soldiers who would have taken the Commissar’s gun and shot the Captain themselves if they’d had the chance.

 

As night closed around the encampment and choked the last of the light the surrounding ruins, rendered painstakingly by a forgotten artist thousands of years ago, almost invisible to the guards standing only a hundred of so metres away. Sergeant Pol found himself and his Platoon stationed around a large campfire constructed alongside the south western wall of the defences. The smell of flesh permeated the air as the casualties of the earlier fighting continued to further the Emperor’s cause.

 

Even with the fire, it was still cold, but at least it was still quiet. The crackling fire drowned out the worst of the distant screams, and no sound had been heard nearby. Neither had any targets been seen, which set the Sergeant on edge. He checked his Lasgun for the tenth time in ten minutes, and waited.

 

“The thing about the Bugs is, the moment you turn your back, that’s the moment they appear.”

 

“How’s that?”

 

“Well, the things are so quick and quiet, when they want to be of course, you’ll never know where they are. There was a story I heard once. A group of ten soldiers, hiding in an underground bunker from a Tyranid attack. One entrance. One room. All ten of them waited there for a week for reinforcements. It didn’t arrive for two. Even an hour before backup arrived there was contact with the unit. A message was sent stating that their situation was stable even as two Valkyrie Transports moved in on their position. But when they arrived, and when they blew open the door, they found the whole squad butchered. The door still locked from the inside. No sign of what had done it, no sign of how it got in or got out, but it sure as Hell did.”

 

Someone laughed, “You still telling that old tale Derrar? Kid don’t listen to him, it’s not true.”

 

Derrar growled, “Course it is! I heard it from a reliable source. In case you’d forgotten, I was actually a part of the Bloodstar Campaign.”

 

Pol knew differently. The man had been drafted into the Guard when his planet had been re-conquered by the Imperium. He did however let the man keep his lies. Pol knew the man would have wished he had died the day before if word spread he used to be a heretic. Only Pol knew, as only Pol had lived long enough to remember.

 

All the others were gone, all gone, all gone...

 

The vox crackled into life, and gave them one simple statement, “movement noted.”

 

The Platoon stood up. Those lucky enough to have a gun with a safety mode took it off. Some fixed bayonets. The soldiers who had fallen asleep were kicked into consciousness. All moved silently to the ramshackle barricade closest to them and trained the guns on the darkness beyond.

 

Silence. The screams had stopped. The unit held position for five minutes and no further movement was seen. Then a quiet shuffling could be heard. It was interrupted every so often by a groan. Still no targets presented themselves.

 

Another five minutes passed, with the quiet shuffling of assailants just out of sight continuing uninterrupted by gunfire. The men knew they didn’t have enough ammo to fire if they couldn’t confirm a kill. Then a private next to Pol slapped his arm, and pointed towards the centre of the ruins beyond.

 

“There sir. There’s something there.”

 

At first Pol couldn’t make it out, but it shuffled closer and closer, until it’s shadowy outline was clearly visible as that of a man. It cowered in the darkness for a moment, just out of the illuminating light of the bonfire at Pol’s back.

 

“Hold your fire,” he whispered.

 

The creature stood still for a minute more before stepping into the light.

 

It was a soldier. One from their platoon. Pol recognised him as a man he’d once known. He had been called Aren. Someone else recognised him as well, and his whispered name rippled through the platoon.

 

Aren was no longer alive. This was rather clear. He swayed slightly, his uniform was bloodied, and his eyes seemed distant. His jaw gaped as he stood there. More notably, half of his torso was missing, along with his left arm. Still, he stood in front of his former comrades now.

 

“By the Emperor...” someone whispered.

 

“Steady your aim, and continue to hold your fire,” ordered Pol.

 

Moments passed, but they seemed like hours. Then out of the blue, Aren’s gaze snapped down from the distance to focus on each of the men in the line in turn. His mouth closed for a second, and then he spoke.

 

“Sir,” he whispered, “sir. The corridor’s clear. Squad ten just cleared it. It’s safe.”

 

A pause.

 

“Certainly, I’ll call them now. Squad ten. Come in squad ten.”

 

Another pause.

 

“Sir, sir there’s no answer. Yes sir. I’ll Boad, with me.”

 

Another pause. This one longer.

 

“Boad, do you see that? There’s something there. By the Emperor, it slaughtered them. Keep you gun up dammit Boad, it’s coming this way.”

 

Another pause. Then Aren opened his mouth and screamed. It was a gut wrenching scream. It went on for about a minute. Every so often it was interrupted by Aren’s cries for mercy. He pleaded with his assailants, then just carried on screaming and screaming.

 

A tear ran down Pol’s cheek.

 

 

Someone further down the line was sick.

 

“Sir, can we shoot him?”

 

Pol didn’t answer for a moment, then relented and gave a nod. Three shots were fired at Aren, and he fell to the ground like a tons of bricks. But he carried on screaming.

 

He carried on screaming all night, until just before dawn, when he stopped. As the Sun rose, the men could see that Aren’s body had somehow disappeared. They also noted the ring of impaled corpses which had been erected last night just out of sight around the camp.

 

They grinned at the men. And the men prayed for a saviour.

[Corsair]

Interesting story and very nice writing technique.

 

I especially like the way you have hooked interest throughout both parts, especially with the daemons.

 

Looking forward to a third part.

[Gavin]

Excellent pace and tone that holds the attention. I'm sold on it.

[LoDark]

Hello!

 

I apologise for the delay since the last update, it was due to the fact I was abroad and computerless, but I'm back now, and have found time between my revision to complete this latest update to the story. Enjoy! :)

 

Ash floated and drifted across the old battlefields as the Daemons continued forwards with purpose into the warzone. It was hours before any other life was met. Even then, none of the mere mortals dared challenge the daemonic arrivals, but instead they hid in the shadows, and shied from their unforgiving gazes.

 

Good. Let them know their place.

 

Whispers on the winds carried word of their presence ahead of them. Soon news reached the main camp. They weren’t the first Daemons to have trodden upon the planet, but they were certainly the most powerful. And more worryingly, they hadn’t been dragged kicking and screaming from the warp into servitude as part of a summoning process by one of the Chaos Sorcerers. They were independent, and this worried the men who claimed to worship them.

 

The Hound led them onwards, invariably towards the largest concentration of enemy soldiers and their commander. The hours stretched into days, and yet not once did they tire or falter. It was only too soon that they found the ruins around them open up to make way for a Grand Temple. It had once been a great memorial of the Emperor, but now it was warped almost beyond recognition. The Saints that had battled for decades in carved stone above the entrance were defeated. The stones had moved, and the Daemons once laid low by their blades now towered over their rockcrete effigies in triumph as the immortal mortals cowered and prayed to be spared.

 

A ragtag company of worshipers stood guard outside. Also scattered around the courtyard were the gently swaying corpses of the dead, staring into space. The soldiers stepped aside to let the Daemons through, some going to their knees and thanking the Gods for the powerful weapons they had sent them. A great few more cocked their primitive guns and eyed the Daemons warily. The Tzeentch creature stopped halfway down the line of soldiers and simply floated there in silence. No one knew as to why, but none liked it.

 

The Hound followed the Herald to the top of the stairs of the Temple before turning and growling at the assembled Guard. It lay down, and then eyed them, daring any to try and enter the Temple. The Herald continued inside even as the statues turned to bow to it.

 

“It’s here,” whispered a hysterical psyker in one corner of the Temple. He babbled wildly to himself and covered what was left of his gouged eyes. The main hall stretched on into the distance, and it’s tall arched ceiling dripped blood from above. The pews were now unoccupied apart from the skeletons of lonely faithful, those who hadn’t had the sense to leave even as the soldiers of Chaos had broken down the city’s defences, and marched up to them, and shot them, and left them to rot.

Around twenty men stood at the opposite end of the hall, crowded around a table covered in maps. They were flanked on either side by lesser Daemons, Furies. These screamed and took flight to cower in the crevices of the roof as the herald approached. The men turned around and drew their pistols, and one man raised a twisted metal staff in front of him, as if it would protect him.

 

The Herald Approached regardless, and as he reached 100 feet away, without breaking step, he whispered, “Who is in command?” with an almost serpentine hiss.

 

All heard him, but no one moved.

 

The Herald was 50 feet away when the he asked again. “Who is in command?” There was more venom in his voice this time.

 

The man with the staff tightened his grip until his knuckles were white, and clenched his teeth before stepping forward from the rest of the crowd. He stood tall despite his fear as he proclaimed “I am.”

 

The Daemon stopped three feet away from him. But man held his gaze, stretching his head back to keep eye contact with the Herald, which leant down to inspect him.

 

The man spoke again.

 

“I am in charge Daemon. I am the Sorcerer Kano, and I am the Commander of the armies of Chaos on this planet. As such, it is your master’s will for you to serve me, and to further my conquest.”

 

Silence greeted him.

 

“That...that is of course, why you were sent.”

 

The Daemon’s tongue whipped out and tasted the air around the man, tasted the sweat and sensed the fear permeating from the man in front of him. He leant back and laughed.

 

The Kano glanced at those around him with a questioning look, and was reassured to see that they were still there. However, it didn’t save him from the Daemon’s great blade as he turned back. The blade screamed as it quenched itself on the sorcerer’s blood and the Daemon roared with it. A red light illuminated the darkest corners of the room and the Sorcerer Kano’s soul was ripped from its body.

 

The men behind him dropped their weapons in fear, and then dropped to their knees. Outside shooting started sporadically before quickly dying down under the insane laughter of the Servant of the Changer of Ways, and the low menacing growl of the Herald’s faithful Hound.

 

The Daemon asked again, “Who is in command?”

 

The men answered, in unison this time, “You are.”

 

The Daemon bared its teeth in a warped smile and headed back to the entrance. The psyker that had been babbling in the corner had killed himself by forcing his head into a solid wall of rockcrete on numerous occasions, judging by the amount of blood surrounding him.

 

Outside, his Hound stood up to greet him, leaving behind the mutilated corpses of the five men who had tried to force their way into the Temple when the screaming began. Below, the Servant hovered as it had before, but now it was surrounded by far less soldiers, and all of them had felt the sudden urge to bow to their new Daemon leaders. Scattered around the Servant were the remains of those who had refused to do so. Charred remains, spatters of blood, and missing limbs littered the courtyard. Several of the corpses had clumps of grass growing inexplicably from them wherever the Servant’s warp fire had blessed their mortal husks.

 

The Herald looked on. The first step was complete. Everything was falling into place.

[LoDark]

Wow, I'm bad at keeping to schedules. :)

 

Anyway, I have an update, so here it is:

 

“Status: deceased. He was killed during heavy fighting in the northern sector of the city. Sorry Sergeant.”

 

Pol smiled sadly at the medic, and nodded his thanks before turning away. Another brother killed in action. The city burned, and the Captain continued to waste men in useless reconnaissance missions. The only thing the Command had learnt from such missions was that they were surrounded, as no matter which way the soldiers were sent, they didn’t come back. Some joked it was because they’d been saved by the rest of the army, waiting just outside the city. Even so, a mantra soon passed between the men:

 

Don’t volunteer to go see what’s where,

You won’t come back, and no one will care.

There had been some positive changes in their situation though. Commissar Herrick had passed away in the early hours of the morning. The cause of death had been officially undisclosed to the army, but when Herrick’s face had been found moulded to one of the palace’s walls, as if it had always been there, the soldiers began to suspect it had not been a natural end.

 

Derrar said that it must be a peace offering from the cultists who wished to surrender. But he also said that his Father had started talking to him at night; and just before he’d shot himself, he’d said he was sick of the laughter of those standing just behind him, that no one else could see or hear.

 

As Pol approached the makeshift barricade where the remainder of the squad was stationed, one of the Privates came out to meet him. He saluted.

 

“Any news sir? Did they return?”

 

Pol clasped the man’s arm and looked him in the face. “No, I’m sorry. Same story as before. I’m sorry for your loss.”

The young man clenched his jaw and nodded, saluting again. Pol moved round him to enter the squad’s bunker.

 

“Sir?”

 

Pol stopped. “What is it soldier?”

 

“I’ve been thinking. I didn’t think he was coming back a long time before you broke the news to me. It’s starting to sink in. Not truly of course, but I mean, I can live with it. I can think about it later. I can think of him later. As I think about the rest of my family left behind. But you know what I’ve decided?”

 

“No soldier.”

 

“I’ve decided to kill every damned chaos scum which has the audacity to stand before me, and show their scum of a God how it’s done.”

 

Pol smiled and turned to inspect the Private closer. He was short, shorter than most of the unit. Luckily for him this meant his uniform actually fitted relatively well, for they only came in two sizes: two small for most or too big for most. He had grey, sullen eyes, which betrayed him as a clever man, if dark and brooding.

 

“What’s your name lad?” he asked.

 

“Private Cal sir. I’m one of the new recruits from just outside this system, from the Second Uno Sphere. I was going to be a historian for the Administratum until the recruitment drive was made. Apparently the recording of every Library book lost on the planet for the last five hundred years is of less immediate importance to the High Lords of Terra than my death here.”

 

“Hmm,” Pol carried on into the bunker with the private trailing at his feet. The bunker was recently built. The platoon erected it around the ashes of the campfire they had been forced to guard on the night of Aren’s return. They now took up permanent residence here. It offered additional cover from any cultist assaults, and protected them from enemy bombardments. Not that there had been any, but Pol liked to be on the safe side in such situations.

Indeed, the cultists seemed totally uninterested in finishing off the last of the beleaguered army. Unless they were planning some ambush they seemed content in picking off the Captain’s foolish attempts at scouting the surrounding area, and killing off a high ranking officer every now and again.

 

“How’s the vox network corporal?” Pol asked a soldier to the left of the main entrance.

 

“Still dead sir, they seem to be blocking it. No sign of the space fleet still, although we assume they’re still up there. Also no sign of the other regiments. The one across the river... what was it called? I forget, but anyway, we haven’t heard from them since last week. I’m assuming the worst, but then I’ve always been the pessimist.”

 

“Of course you have,” Pol frowned a moment, “what makes you think the fleet is still above us if no orders have been relayed?”

 

“The sky cleared momentarily earlier sir. The ships can be visibly seen,” answered a nameless voice.

 

Pol poked his head out the door and looked up. If there had been a gap in the clouds, which had seen fit to turn a blood red colour, it had long since passed.

What are they planning?

Almost immediately the vox caster crackled as if in answer. Someone jumped up and point a gun at it. The corporal

immediately set himself to fiddling with the transceiver.

 

“Someone fetch one of the senior officers!” called Pol. Someone ran out the room.

 

It continued to crackle for about a minute as the Corporal cursed everything under the sun and the unit looked on. No one had yet arrived back at the bunker.

 

As suddenly as it started, the crackling stopped. Then the voice began.

 

“You have three days ‘Sergeant’ Pol,” the raspy voice spat out his rank and sneered, “That is all you are allowed. The attack begins tonight. Don’t let yourself down.”

 

“Three days until what?” asked Cal.

 

“What’s he on about Sarge?”

 

Pol took a step towards the caster, “Who is this?” he demanded.

 

“You have three days until help arrives. That is all you are allowed. Don’t let me down.”

 

There was a pop which emanated from the vox caster, making the corporal jump back. A moment later it melted into the floor, bubbling and fizzing and making a noise peculiarly like laughter.

 

The squad turned to Pol suspiciously. A number raised their rifles. As the Captain himself arrived a moment later he knew he’d been out-manoeuvred. As the tale was retold and he was led away at gun point, he didn’t bother to complain.

 

What does it mean?

 

***

 

Across the city, it pleased the Herald to know all was going to plan. Three days. Three days were all Pol would need. With the Commissar dead and anyone who possibly had the authority or enough respect from the company to replace the useless Captain dead or indisposed, the Herald felt confident that his plan would continue without any disturbances. No one would challenge the Captain’s continued imbecility, even as the end drew near. They would be forced to follow him to their end for lack of an alternative. It was exactly what the Herald needed Pol to see.

 

He watched as his Tzeentchian ally condensed again in the distance momentarily, before evaporating, and condensing again closer to the camp.

 

He would have his part to play in time.

Three days for Pol to do his part. Two days until the Prince arrived. The herald smiled at the thought of his net tightening.

 

Blood would be spilled.