The Vargans

[Wendigo]

-- 1 --

 

 

 

Among the mercenaries on that frozen alien plain were the Vargans, barbarian refugees from beyond the pale turned ruthless hunters of their fellow man. They were tall, pale shaggy men, their drooping mustaches crusted with icicles that gave them a forlorn, almost comical air.

 

 

 

For all their barbarian dress and archaic weapons, their were true survivors. As the vast mercenary host degenerated into every man for himself in the flight across the ice sea for the last spaceport, they stuck together, fighting off attackers and preying on the weak. They slaughtered Imperial and daemon-worshipper alike, scavenging their own prey and others'.

 

 

 

When I encoutered these Vargans on the very first day of the retreat, I was having the worst day of my life...

 

 

 

 

 

...The artillery fire was making me queasy, like a sailor tossed on a stormy sea. The very earth -- the rock-hard permafrost -- was rolling and bumping wildly, throwing men off their feet by the pitching motion alone. An orbital bombardment is one of the most awesome spectacles in the galaxy. They say that men a kilometre from an impact point are atomized in a micro-second, too fast to know they are dead. I was fifty or more kilometres from the strike zone, and I was thrown off my feet and into a fresh impact crater made by a giant red-hot vitrified glass marble that had arc'ed in like a ball of fire from closer to the impact.

 

 

 

The crater saved my life. It was unnaturally hot in the hole, and the air was sulphorous, and the red-hot marble of glass still rested at the bottom of the crater -- but I was alive. The rest Warmaster's headquarters staff was not so lucky. Of the Warmaster himself -- may he sit at the right hand of the Immortal Emperor -- I only ever recovered a boot, still containing his blessed foot. His boots were unmistakable, wrought of exquisite dark-red Vulkan salamander leather, quite the finest pair of field boots in the entire Sectior, as they ought to be. The Great Man was roasted to cinders in the inferno, along with all but one of his faithful Personal Guard of two hundred and nineteen souls... I was the sole survivor of the secondary effects of the orbital barrage.

 

 

 

Not long after, as I lay dazed at the bottom of the crater, I heard the rumble of tracked vehicles. I scrambled up to the lip of the crater. It was part of an armoured company, a short, high-speed column of main battle tanks. They ignored my waving and then my flare, and thundered past me at full speed, commanders staring down at me contemptuously from turret hatches, nearly running me down. I was saved a second time by that same crater. As I huddled on the inner slope of the crater, I knew in a terrible instant that the whole army had desintegrated, and I was utterly alone on the frozen fields of that nameless planet.

 

 

 

Whereas before I had cowered in the hole in a physical daze from the concussion, now I huddled there in a kind of emotional fugue state. This time, the sound that roused me from my stupor was a thundering of heavy feet -- a stampede of enormous cattle, or perhaps of the mythological Elephant. It came closer, and my chest rumbled and vibrated in sympathy with the powerful hoof-beats, a most unpleasant and alarming sensation. An electric hum rose nearby, and it made my hair stand on end and my skin prickle. I smelt the hot-dust smell of overheated metal, like the engine of an old tank.

 

 

 

In that infernal atmosphere, hazy from smoke whipping across the icy ground, the first humanoid figures sprinted past me.

 

They were too small to be making that thundering noise. They seemed to move silently in front of the oncoming wall of noise.

 

 

 

It occurred to me belatedly they were running away from something -- whatever was making that noise.

 

 

 

 

 

Under the thunder of the onrushing hooves, I heard a scratching, rattling sound, much higher-pitched.

 

 

 

And then, I heard the gong of infernal bells, bonging deep and loud, pealing out the coming of doom.

 

 

 

And then I heard the final sound of that symphony, drowning out the screams of the dying and the snap of laser weapons -- the only truly human sound, and therefore, because it appeared in the midst of that hell, so truly inhuman -- the sound of deep-throated, chanting voices -- a war song.

 

 

 

What happened next was the first time in my young life I had experienced a moment a surreality: through a background of smoke, one of them appeared, at full stride, ripping through the battlefield haze in a burst of whorling smoke eddies. It was like he was from a vid, and I was too. Eight feet tall. Impossibly muscular. Moving too fast for something that big, that heavy-looking. A sprinting ten-ton two-legged tank, but enamelled in blood red, draped in barbarian furs, bearing a crudedy-riveted boltgun without adornment.

 

 

 

The scratching, rattling sound was the sound of archaic chain mail flapping against ceramite armour plate. The gong of infernal bells was the sound of their heavy ceramic armour plates bumping and rubbing. The maddening buzzing was the incredibly strong electrical field radiating from their backpack power plants. The sound of hooves -- it had sounded like a great herd -- was the thud of their armoured boots pounding the packed snow and frozen dirt. And the singing -- the singing came from their metal faces, from the ornate speaker grilles mounting inside the leering skulls and dragon heads into which forms their helms were sculpted.

[Yaj]

Very enjoyable.

 

Is there a reason for the large spaces between paragraphs?

[voi shet magir]

No doubt the formatting translated poorly between a word processor and posting.

 

I decided I liked this before finishing the first sentence. Oh, but now that I have post stalked you, I am very happy with another thread you started. yes very good