When Malleus meets Maleficarum

[Vindicatus]

It was always the same questions from the one in the hat.

 

'How many were there?'

'Did you recognize any of the symbols?'

'Did you take part in the ritual?'

 

Always followed by a flash of light, by pain. The smell of burnt hair and searing flesh stung the man's nostrils as he lay strapped to an interrogation table, stripped bare before the Ordos' technicians. Fear and pain were replaced with contempt, a seething fury directed at that sardonic smile from the pale faced Inquisitor; 'If I weren't strapped down, I'd knock that fething smile off your face...that silly damned hat, too...' the man thought, cracking a smile to match the mental imagery playing out in his head.

 

The Inquisitor opened his mouth and spoke a word, but not a word anyone had ever heard. Several of the technicians recoiled as if slapped, two spouting blood from their noses, and the man gasped for breath as it felt like someone had dropped an anvil on his stomach. That word, if it could be called that, sounded like the roar of a waterfall, the crack and tear of fabric rent in two, splitting the air like a whip and striking with the blow of a thunder hammer.

 

The man whimpered, eyes wide; now he was afraid. His thoughts were no longer sacred to him alone, and he could feel the iron clawed grip of the Inquisitor tearing at the feeble resistance he was trying to put up to maintain his autonomy. His gaze was locked with that of the pale man in the hat, wanting so very badly to turn away, to shut his eyes and pretend this was a dream, but it was no use; the Inquisitor was using that very doorway his eyes had created to impress his considerable will upon, diving back to the first night back on the doomed planet they had plucked him from. Trapped in the cage of his own mind, he relived each moment as a ghost, a non-participant in the third, forced to watch all the horror play out before him in excruciating detail.

 

It was the screaming that drove him to his knees, watching in the dreamscape as the warp split open and blood poured forth onto the ground. Each drop hissed like acid when it touched the earth, heralding the chittering, slathering horde just beyond the tear in space. It was strangely beautiful to him, what with the swirl of colours; the purples, the reds, the blues, and colours unnamed or unimaginable swirling, beckoning him, tugging at his heartstrings. Just as it had the first time he'd seen them, flesh and blood, standing before the portal ripped in the fabric of the Materium. Lightning struck out of a clear night sky, and in the time it took his eyes to recover from the blinding flash, he saw bodies, mutilated, hung from poles or in cages, carved with foul symbols or gnawed upon by unspeakable things.

 

With the sound of thunder breaking overhead, a single streak of light in that oppressive, dark world streamed from the heavens, landing but scant meters in front of him and sending earth and asphalt spewing in every direction. Black rain streaked off the silver hull of the craft, but it's corruption never penetrated; indeed, the rain itself seemed to evaporate off of the craft, leaving it unmarred, unscathed by its insidious touch. The man sat in awe of the moment, listening to the occasional ping or pop of the hull cooling, before the hatches blew outwards, a small computerized female voice echoing out of it, as what sounded like a turbine began its ignition sequence.

 

"Statis governing protocol : Offline. Main reactor : Online. Weapons : Online. Sensors : Online. Psykometric stabilization field : Online. All systems nominal ---- Emperor be with you, Commander."

 

Confusion beset the man, followed closely by wonder. The voice had been so melodic, so harmonious; what was something so beautiful doing in a place like this, where horror reigned? His thoughts were interrupted by a diffuse blue light playing off the surrounding buildings, crumbled and destroyed as they were, recoiling at the sound of displaced air snapping hard at his senses. Just as the great machine stepped from the drop pod, playing its spotlight against the landscape, several Grey Knights dispersed from their landing formation, following their teleportation onto the planet. The very ground beneath those baroque suits of armour seemed to buck and heave, the corruption trying to reject that which was pure that stepped on it, only to be rejected in turn. No force, daemon or otherwise, could shake the faith of the Grey. As the armoured men moved about to secure their surroundings, the tallest of them, the most ornately decorated stopped in his tracks, turning slowly to sweep his piercing gaze across the street. Those glowing blue lenses stopped when they locked eyes with the man, trapped in his dreams. Again, the man felt the most crushing feeling he could imagine, but then more so. He felt defeat, sorrow, insanity prodding at his mind's eye as the Grey Knight held his gaze all the longer, but after forever and a day, turned to face outward, his deep, resonating voice voxing to his brothers, "Witches watch the approach."

 

Without a word, they stepped off at a quick pace, followed close behind by the dreadnought that landed prior to them. The man watched them go, his lip quivering at the thought of all the work to be undone. His work. He was the one who listened to the voice, after being afraid for so long. It always assured him it would be alright, despite the things he did, the acts he commited that initially revolted him, lacking true understanding of what he was doing.

 

Strangely, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and the dream vanished as he was ripped back to reality by the man in the hat, slapped awake long enough to watch the Inquisitor pull a knife from a nearby table. Intense pain filled him as he felt the blade pierce his skin as the pale man carved a hexagrammical ward into his cheek, so calmly, coolly. "You lied to me," the Inquisitor said to him, and for whatever reason, he felt like he had let someone important down, as if his actions had caused great disappointment in some higher authority.

 

"Niles Tenneg, I hereby proclaim thee diabolus, anathema to the light of Our Holy Emperor, guilty of action, association, and belief in the daemonic that plagues this realm," the man in the hat said as he stood up straight, pulling his Rosette from under his collar, and producing a bolt pistol. Racking the slide, he pointed it down to the forehead of the man strapped to the table, unceremoniously pulling the trigger and sending spatters of gore in every direction, startling even the Ordos technicians at the suddenness of it all.

 

The Inquisitor decocked his pistol and returned it to his holster, spinning on his heel to walk away, long-coat flitting behind him, not even deigning to pause as he spoke to one of his subordinates; "Pull the Loyalist forces off the surface. Bomb the planet. Exterminate every vestige of life you can find."

 

He strode on a few paces beyond the more plainly garbed Interrogator, stopping to look over his shoulder for a moment, "Prepare a message to the Conclave...this heresy is seeded deeper than we originally thought."

 

--

 

Hopefully making it into a series of shorts.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

'If I weren't strapped down, I'd knock that fething smile

 

And thus we come screeching out into reality.. "Feth" is a very culture specific term, so unless your dude is Tanith it's pretty much a no-no.

 

And incidentally, it isn't even a curse - as explained in one of the latter GG novels.

[Vindicatus]

Not necessarily. The man may be a prior Guardsman, a traveler, a merchant. There's also no say in what the time period is, whether Tanith is dead and gone, or still shipping Nalwood to the far reaches of space for hideous prices. It's up in the air.

 

Cultural cross-over is pretty common amongst the giant mixing pot that is the Imperium. Being a soldier myself, I've seen it in countless places around the world. Just little things here and there, but you pick them up nonetheless and it becomes a part of you.

 

Besides, it's the only way I can get away with cursing without setting off the holy-no-no alarm. :lol:

[Captain Juan Juarez]

I disagree, but it's your perogative.

 

To be honest, you can do the whole curse-that-isn't-a-curse thing easily with use of phrases like "damn you..." and the like.

[Pavement Artist]

But let's be honest Juan, you're quibbling over a very minor point. It wouldn't be so bad but you failed to offer any other comments or criticism. I personally found it to be one of the best written pieces on the board. I think it has potential if you provided us with more instalments.

[Vindicatus]

Chapter 2 :

 

Hammer to Anvil

 

"...A man without faith will no longer be true, and a mind without purpose will walk in dark places." - The Spheres of Longing, II. ix. 31

 

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Months passed, and the trail was cold. Something was seeding the hearts of men against the light of the Immortal Emperor, something that no arm of the Inquisition could readily find. This fact weighed heavily on the mind of Maeus as he searched and toiled in the dark reaches of space as the insidious touch of Chaos seeped inwards towards the core of the Imperium. Worlds literally blinked out of existence in a torrent of blood and darkness, the sanity leeched from the denizens, pitching them into a frenzy for the Old Powers. So far, none had been able to stem the tide, until such a plague of apostasy afflicted a planet with a significant Guard presence.

 

Blood flowed in the streets of peaceful cities where parades celebrating the victories of the Imperium's heroes once rolled. The Guard put up a staunch resistance once they realized what was going on, however much it pained their hearts to destroy families, friends, lovers old and new to rid the world of the tainted touch of the Warp. So there they stood in the rain, thunderheads roiling around the cityscape; the buildings torn down, shelled, and burned out from the quick and brutal street-to-street warfare that enveloped the metropolis.

 

Gunfire and screams could be heard beyond the lines, in the city streets greatly controlled by the Ruinous Powers, often followed by hideous gurgles or pleas for mercy, for the Emperor. Maeus looked down at a book of psalms to He-Who-Is-All he had attached to a chain leading to his jacket pocket as he stepped off of the landing craft, being all too familiar with the sound over the recent months in search of the source. He could see beyond the lines of trenches and quickly erected barricades the darkening line of cultists heeding the call of the Warp, whipping themselves, each other into a frenzy with a flurry of knives and lashes. Spewing blood, and foul scripture of their new masters, the legion came on, making the Guardsmen begrudgingly shoulder their weapons, checking las-charges and cleaning actions in preparation for the fight to come.

 

The Inquisitor was greeted off the makeshift landing pad by the Lord Commandant's adjutant, offering the members of the Holy Ordos a brisk salute as they passed. Several members of the Grey Knights acted as body-guards and advisors, though as Maeus passed the ranks of Guardsmen on his way to the command tent, few felt as if the pale, armoured human needed protection. He radiated a certain air of power and authority that not even the strictest of the Commissariat could match, striding with a sort of certainty that none could emulate, looking back to what they had fought previously.

 

"The Emperor protects," Maeus said, greeting the Lord Commandant with a disdainful growl. The commander gulped and made the sign of the Aquila in return, nodding his head, "The Arch-Enemy has been driving at us day and night, using the sidestreets to avoid our artillery and snipers, until they make a push." The grey-haired, fatigue-bedecked Commandant gestured towards a holo-table, the map outlining the schematics of the city, "Here, here, and here is where they use the main through-fares to reach our lines, massing at the large intersections before making a push. They choke the lines with bodies to get close enough to lob grenades...crude things, merely explosive satchels, but lined and packed with nails, glass..anything that makes a projectile," the Lord Commandant explained, trailing off as Maeus raised a hand for silence.

 

"I know," he said in a gravelly voice, looking to and studying the map with piercing, jade eyes, "Smeared with filth, inscribed, and defiled with unholy runes to corrupt the Guardsmen it does not kill." His eyes lifted to meet that of the Commandant's, who only nodded in agreeance. The holo-table suddenly began to show static lines, only briefly at first, but soon becoming more consistent in nature, blotting out the map itself within a minute.

 

"They're coming!"

"Arm yourselves!"

 

Cries went up across the line of Guardsmen as they mustered forward to the lines, the Lord Commandant jogging out of the tent to behold a sight that instilled a feeling of dread in his gut. Soldiers in blackened silver armour strode amongst his own men, and he could tell that their very presence made his men stand up straighter, lean into their rifles with more surety than before. Tapping his adjutant, he nodded almost absentmindedly towards Maeus as he stepped past the elder commander and unslung his Daemonhammer from underneath his coat, his Rosette swinging from around his neck, "Alert the far edges of the line and the artillery batteries.." he paused, a slight smirk touching his lips for the first time since this siege began, "Tell them....tell them the Inquisition has taken to the field. Tell them the Emperor is with us." With a smirk, the young adjutant spun on his heel and took off at a run to reach the vox station and put out the call.

 

Val'Gherric was met just shy of the Guard barricades by Brother-Captain Berros, a smile on the face of the aged Space Marine, "We meet again, Inquisitor," he greeted, forcing the rarity of a smile onto the Agent's face. Striding with the Grey Knight, they wove through the the barricades and sandbag pillboxes, the mortar pits to reach the front-most trenchline. They stood in silence to watch the seething mass of bodies begin to surge forward at a slithering gait, but the whip-crack of lightning was drown out by the distance, constant sound of thunder. It was low, but deep, rumbling in the most core part of the gut and making the puddles gathering in the mud show rapidly deepening ripples.

 

Maeus turned to look behind the lines, towards the command tent, seeing a fast-approaching black speck against the grainy clouds lining the horizon, the thunder getting louder, the line of cultists swaying in place, their gait halted. Just before the craft reached the encampment, it was easy to pick out the repeated flashes of cannonfire, tracers spitting forth so fast it almost made a constant red stream as the black Thunderhawk ripped past. The constant 'bbbrrrrrrrrrrrr!!' of twin Punisher cannons began to stitch a bloody path through the armies of the Ruinous Powers on that first pass, and a victorious cry went up from the Imperial lines that drown out even the descending roar of the engines as the craft pealed off to make another pass.

 

"Just like old times," the Inquisitor said to the Captain, turning to look at the men around him with slow, panning gaze as he raised his Daemonhammer high. "In the name of the Immortal Emperor, OVER THE WALL!!" he shouted, his psy-amplified voice echoed in the hearts of every loyal soldier that stood there now.

 

The Inquisition was now taking the fight back to the Enemy, but even as Maeus stepped out of the trench and started his running-gunline towards the cultists, he knew they were no closer to discovering the cause. Swinging his hammer hard into the torso of a bewildered, sickly beast-of-a-man and sending gobbets of pulverized, smoking flesh onto the pavement, the Inquisitor smiled knowingly to himself.

 

'Not yet, anyways,' he thought, belting litanies of contempt and hatred as the combined forces of the Lord Commandant and the Grey Knights met, enveloped, and engulfed the Enemy.

[Vindicatus]

Chapter 3:

 

Seeing is Believing

 

Though we find ourselves in shadows, no blackness will enter our hearts... - The Six hundred and Sixty Six Secret Words

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Of all the things that drove courage from the hearts and minds of the men under Val'Gherric's mandate, the screams perhaps had the most lasting effect. Whether they were long and baleful, or clipped upon execution, each seemed to ring through the streets of every city upon Fenalis, telling the tale of woe to all within earshot. This was the seventh such planet under the scrutiny of the Inquisitor, each one piecing together more of the puzzle as to how each succumbed to Chaos, and the patterns seen thus far by the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus were all too clear.

 

Maeus walked with his squad of Guardsmen and a token few Grey Knights through a deserted hab, making their way floor by floor to cleanse the areas that they had wrested back from the Great Enemy. Each door kicked open brought new horror upon the minds of men already shaken by seeing their world rent asunder about them, but not to the Inquisition. Each massacre, every ritualistic slaying brought new meaning and purpose to the forces behind the grand scheme of things, allowing a better grasp of the enemy which they all fought against. Every so often, they would find a survivor, pinned in some gruesome way to the floor or a hellish effigy, begging for the mercy to seek the Emperor's peace. With great thanks, they lifted heads and exposed chests to the sacred stormbolters the Grey Knights wielded, their last breath seeming a sigh of relief as the life left their bodies.

 

They had been stalking the upper most floors for an hour now, seeking out the sound of a particular keening wail, each of the Guardsmen who hadn't the stomach for the work beforehand now murmuring the wish to end the suffering of the poor soul. Down the dusty hall they made their way, lamp-packs affixed to the end of their weapons shining this way and that to chase away the darkness when one such Guardsman found the source. A small girl sat in the corner of a room with a tallow candle by her side, rocking back and forth as she wept.

 

Scratch-scratch, scratch-scratch.

 

The sound echoed through the small room as she clutched her soiled rags to her body, a single hand reaching out to worry at the rotting, wooden floorboards.

 

Scratch-scratch, scratch-scratch.

 

Her hand moved towards her face, as if to wipe the tears from her eyes, only to continue the motions, over and over again, each scratch pulling at a new piece of the floor.

 

In no way did the girl seem injury save for the paleness of her skin, the sickly nature of her flesh on her bones; any such girl of such a young age, deprived of food and subject to the horrors of the Arch Enemy would look twice as dead. The Guardsman approached as the others searched adjacent rooms and apartments, whispering for silence "It's alright, li'l one," he murmured to her as he looked to the corners of the room, "We're here to help you, to get you out of here..." he trailed off as he knelt next to her. His hand felt to her shoulder to pull her away from the corner gently, and the Guardsman immediately felt sick to his stomach, able to feel the wasting of her body and the way her bones poked through her skin.

 

Immediately her weeping ceased, the hand clutching her rags snagging his wrist and bringing his palm close to her face, as if to nuzzle it. Thinking he comforted the poor whelp of a child, his gaze drifted, following the lamp-pack's glow to the floor where she had been scratching. Blood coated the grains of wood, and as he swept his weapon across the panel, shapes seemed to appear within the blood. Confused, bordering terrified, his pulled his lamp-pack up to shine towards the girl's face, and to his horror, realized that the girl had no eyes.

 

Nor was it really a girl. The poor thing had gouged out her own eyes and was dipping her bony, elongated fingertips into the sockets to scrawl ancient, forbidden runes on the flooring when he had found her. And now, she was clutching his arm, sniffling turned to sniffing. With the lamp in her face, she reared wildly, standing up so that the chain rattled at her ankles, hissing all the while. Words stolen from the Guardsman's mind, he rose as well, only to then realize that she was taller than him, each limb elongated to a sickening degree and jointed in the wrong direction. "Duh....D-duh..D-nnng....Nnnnngggg!!!!" he tried to vocalize as the she-beast grasped his throat and shredded his windpipe to lap at the viscera that sprayed into the air. The sound of his dropped lasgun brought the attention of a Grey Knight to the room, poking his head in to see the pooling blood, and the foul occupant.

 

"ARMS, BROTHERS!" the Knight called out, his fist extended as he hammered off multiple rounds from his wrist-mounted bolter, the gunfire drawing other's to the room. Rushing into the apartment and wielding his holy blade, he swung it in a wide arc to find it caught on the forearm of the beast, the contact making ethereal lightning dance upon striking, the false-light playing across the room to show more runes. Thousands of runes, from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, all etched in blood and painstakingly scripted with the blood of what once was innocent. They began to hiss and spit on the wood as the Grey Knight sought a better striking position, others stepping in and adding chants of castigation, litanies of holiness and banishment to the first's gunfire.

 

With an overhead blow, the daemon tried to crush the Knight beneath it, and with weapon raised over his head horizontally, he blocked it, forced down to his knees with his head bowed in concentration. Withering gunfire seemed not to bother the beast in the slightest, nor did it drag the attention of it away from the brother it tried to smash beneath it's fists. Maeus rounded the corner and only took the briefest of pauses before turning his run into a crouched vault, one foot planting against the back of the Knight on his knees and bringing his own daemonhammer in a fierce two-handed blow downwards across the creature's neck and shoulder. Stunned briefly, hissing at the symbol of the Aquila now punched and seared into it's flesh, it wheeled on Val'Gherric, who was recovering from his landing in between the Knight and the beast.

 

More gunfire, more shouts, more holy libels from the Knights of the Ordo, and Maeus frantically parrying for his life. Each finger was like a sword, pointed and easily two feet long, stabbing at him from odd angles, and while he was doing all he could to turn them aside, he was on the back peddle and quickly running out of room. Each Grey Knight took up a sorrowful chant, standing close to one another with weapons readied at the beast, their armour glowing diffusely about the edges in the barest shades of crimson. The chant rose, and Maeus couldn't spare himself the moment it would take to figure out what they were doing.

 

Louder it became, droning out even the hissing, purring cackles of the daemon as it lanced at the Inquisitor multiple times, scoring hits between shoulderplate and chest, and along the sides of his face. Finally, in a cascading note of pure harmony, the right boots of the Grey Knight's stomped once in unison. Like flame to flash-paper, the runes lining the floors, ceiling, and walls evaporated, turning the overconfident beast into a shrieking, tortured wretch. Four Knights came on to the Inquisitor's aid, slashing, hacking, blocking, and thrusting with their holy weapons, the hits they scored leaving their mark now. Ichor flowed and crackled against the ground as wounds began to show on it's body, now lacking the strength to hold itself to it's mortal frame. Each Knight wheeled back to strike simultaneously, and while the daemon tried to block the strike to come, it hadn't the power to fend them off any longer.

 

Val'Gherric, laying against the back wall, shuddering lightly from blood loss, watched as the twisted, horrendous face of the beast resembled if only for a moment the serene features of the little girl. She seemed to look to him. At him, as if calling to his very soul to look back at her, to see what she had become, what she had been made. With eyes closed, the girl smiled, before the image vanished in a gout of blood as the blades connected, severing head from body.

 

The candle in the corner guttered out, and what Guardsmen didn't flee in utter horror of the scene flicked on their lamp packs amidst the panting Astartes marking the body of the slain with hexagrammic wards and symbols. Rushing to the Inquisitor, they helped him to his feet, though he swayed from his wounds, each breath a hiss through clenched teeth. At his behest, they left the hab and resorted to setting satchel charges at the base, and dousing the remaining rubble with holy promethium. Brother-Captain Berros met Val'Gherric at the medic station as the Inquisitor ground his teeth and bit through the pain of the stitches being sewn into his flesh after ritual cleansing.

 

"Have the Guard pull the records on every Schola on the planet; every teacher, every transfer, every book and reference, every lesson plan," he growled out, setting his eyes back to the ground as he replayed the image of the girl's face in his head, over and over again.

 

"That daemon didn't simply possess the girl; she had no psychic talent, nothing to make it appealing for the daemon, nothing to draw him in to her, nothing any of us could sense," he paused, flexing his arm against the stitches, "Someone taught her those runes...and then she was drawn into madness."