The Iron Clad

[Visitor13]

Haven't finished reading yet, but this is so badass!

 

EDIT: Just finished this and WOW! Every character, every scene just lives a life of its own.

[Thorisin]

Not usually a fan of CSM fiction, fan or otherwise, but this captured my attention and I look forward to reading more.

 

 

I like the character development and plot generation. Many layers that work well together so far.

[Llagos_Tyrant]

Chapter VIII

 

Lights across the room flickered and danced shades of green and yellow as Inquisitor Kolchak removed her gold helmet. Her bleached white hair fell to her shoulders as she did so, and she rolled her neck back for a stretch long desired. Her armoured hand was cold as it rubbed her neck, but even that didn't sate the disappointment of such a short release. It had been a long day, and her experience with Librarian Thosh had still left her shaken. That man had read her like a book. He had read her emotions. He'd even managed to read her memories. Then again of course, he wasn't really just a man, was he? Could he even be called human anymore? It didn't matter so long as he kept his distance. She would certainly do her best to accomplish that.

 

She opened her eyes and surveyed the room, easing into the familiarity. Ammunition boxes and food casks had been strewn about the room, and many were lidless or half covered in the hurry to seize their contents. By the large observation window on the far side of the room, her cot lay propped up on it's stilts - although she hadn't touched it in two days. The rest of the room was an unmanned orchestra of command consoles, communication nodes and daises that had only been half explained to her. The center of the room though - that's where the projection arose. The image of the Javik Sub-Sector in green and yellow showed the different planets and moons in the system, and a black checkered pattern discerned the rebel territories across them. 

 

The sun arose in the middle, and it's magnificent fire burned like the Emperor's Fury, although the rebels had blasphemed and named it Hypoxa's Eye. Some tribute to the Governor-Consul of this damned system. Yara was in rebel hands, for whatever good that did them - the planet had been destroyed in the Horus Heresy and never recovered.

 

The command room of one of the few loyalist outposts left in the system was becoming a dull and forgotten place. Day by day, pockets of resistance would be snuffed out across the system, and guardsmen assigned to the command platform were shipped elsewhere to help in fortification or the fighting itself. Now, she was the only person in the room, and it gathered dust in her absence. 

 

“Inquisitor.” said a voice, echoing itself. It was more of an acknowledgement than an invitation to conversation, and one of the Grim Apostles stepped out from the shadows across the projection. She looked a moment longer and saw it was Sergeant Hellas. To the codex, he was a Veteran Sergeant – to the Grim Apostles who honoured their own titles, he was simply an Honoured Sergeant.

 

“Veteran Sergeant.” She answered.

 

“Curious, isn’t it?” he whispered, the bright green lenses on his helmet shining as he rolled his head back and looked at the projection before them. “Humanity struggles against a universe against them, and we still find time to stab each other in the back.”

 

“Not just humanity.” She answered, taking off her armoured gauntlets. “Horus wasn’t human.” She said firmly.

 

“No.” Hellas answered with a quick glance down to face her. “No he was not – and yet he carried their faults. As do we all.” The sergeant sounded more grim than usual, rather fitting for his chapter she imagined. “Some of us more than others.” He said, a tinge of regret in his voice.

 

“What are you here for, Apostle?” she asked, propping a boot on a communications node and unbuckling the straps. He stared at her for a moment, and briefly she considered the irregularilty of removing her armour in the company of such a warrior – such a threat, she corrected herself. He looked away, disinterested and uncaring.

 

“We’re losing this war.” He said.

 

“Librarian Thosh doesn’t seem to think so.” She retorted. “Or do you question his judgement?”

 

“I did not say we had lost it." he paused. "Librarian Thosh has a … twisted reputation in my Chapter, Inquisitor. I would suggest you look into it.” His words were slow and considered. Something lurked in them that she wasn’t sure she was meant to look for, or meant to miss. She made a mental note to pursue it.

 

“I already have.”

 

“Then you know who we’re dealing with.” He said, still gazing at the projection as if he was tracking movements, listening to reports and awed in the false glory of a bloody slaughter of man against man. For all she knew, that could have been exactly what he was doing.

 

“A Psyker whose mind was addled by the Astral Claws Librarian Varok Decuna for flaying the minds of a moon colony of thousands to find the location of a chaos artefact, which then vanished without a trace – and a man censured by two  consecutive Chapter Masters of your Chapter, and an assortment of three others for ...” Her voice stopped in her throat. "We?" She asked, crossing her arms.

 

Slowly he turned his head towards her, and for a moment, she thought she saw intrigue through the opaque lenses that glared into her soul. “You know much of his history, but nothing of him.” Hellas took a step towards her, and carried on walking at a brisk pace. Immediately, her hairs went on end at the thought of fighting this monster. Stepping in front of the light of the projection, Hellas reached up to pull his helmet free and wrenched it off his head, the clasps clicking their release before the clunk of the helm on the floor reverberated through the room.

 

Hellas stopped just short of her, and through the darkened silhouette that drew around him, she could make out a pair of burning blue eyes, swirling like the gasses of a dust nebula folding in on itself and spinning out and into the void before falling back again. "He is the demon of the chapter, sent out to hunt what no one will and what no one can." Honoured Hellas stepped forward into the light and she saw him truly for the first time. In the light, his eyes went demure and the raging blue seas within his eyes turned into a pale, smoky, amethyst. His jaw was wide and his cheeks were gaunt, and he had a heavy brow - but his entire face was set by wrinkles.

 

"You see them, don't you? Not everyone does." The harder she looked, the more she realized that they weren't wrinkles at all. "When Decuna drove Thosh mad in penance, he managed to regain his composure within a year. No one knows how - but when he returned to my Chapter, he was stronger than ever and he left his mark on those who had wronged him." As he spoke, the lines became more pronounced, and gray - like cracks in marble, and they almost seemed to sway when she looked away.

 

"And how did you wrong him, to deserve this mark?" She asked, reaching up to touch the Apostles face. Faster than she could see, Hellas grabbed her hand where it was and grabbed her by the back of her neck, pulling her in close to face him.

 

At little more than a whisper he began. "I ..." as if struggling for the words, he began again anew. "I ..."

 

She looked up at him, puzzled and confused. "It does not matter." He concluded, and his face went hard as the stone the cracks belonged to. "The Librarian is a threat to all of us, but I cannot act against him. He is a psyker beyond anything I have faced in my centuries with him, and -"

 

"Centuries?" she interrupted, astonished.

 

"Listen to me." Hellas shouted, a trickle of blood begging to pour from the corners of his eyes. "There is nothing he is not capable of, and no one he will let stand in his way.I cannot move against him, for I am bound to him and all that he is in ways you will not understand." He yelled in two voices, and his visage grew darker - the lines more pronounced as the cracks grew deeper and splintered into others, bleeding into each other. "In ways that I do not understand." he admitted, turning from her as the trickle of blood began to seep it.

 

Walking across the room, he began his parting words. "I am a thrall to my Chapters demon, Inquisitor. He is off the leash, and just as I was not the first he took - I will not be the last."

 

Inquisitor Kolchak winced in horror when he turned back to her, but she did not flinch and she made no sound. His face was red with the blood that poured from his eyes, and it coated his chest plate as he spoke again.

 

"Your Ordo must help you, because we cannot kill him alone." Honoured Hellas fell forward then, into the darkness at the edge of the room - but there was no sound of him hitting the floor because he did not. He was simply gone instead.

[Llagos_Tyrant]

This isn't a new installment but kind of an update. I'm reworking the story and have been eliminating and rewriting some characters. I'm doing it on my own time and will probably be putting it up anyway but is there interest in seeing this rebooted? There will be some major differences but I wanted to gage interest - and also see if anyone had any advice about what they liked about this and what could be done better in a second installment? 

All help appreciated.

[Carrack]

I started reading this with the last chapter first, and felt compelled to see how it got started. Within a short time frame I have read the first two chapters. I hope this fact conveys my appreciation of your writing.

 

One thing I like about your characters is that they are not all stereotypical templates fleshed out with a few details, they seem to have some counter point to their character that makes them more believable. For example the Warsmith's resentment of his gene father, and the renegade naval officer's spit and polish. I've been trying to develop better characters myself and feel that using this technique will go along way for me in that regard.

Please continue.