Collaborative story - Whispers

[Conn Eremon]

So . . . What's up with the dealio?

[Olis]

*Shrugs*

I dunno. I've re-messaged witchunter kraine but had no reply as of yet.

[Conn Eremon]

Awesome. :)

 

Well, this is the internet. It would have been strange if the whole thing went smooth start to finish. 

 

I'm sure he has a good enough cause, though, and we'll see it eventually.

[Dosjetka]

Soooo... what's the situation? Don't want to come across as impatient, but I'd hate to see this get lost in the depths of an under-populated sub-forum.

[Conn Eremon]

How about Olisredan makes a statement that, Hell or high water, the latest version of the story will be posted in the year 2013, whose ever version that is?

[Aqui]

How about Olisredan makes a statement that, Hell or high water, the latest version of the story will be posted in the year 2013, whose ever version that is?

If Kraine doesn't post his, I would be the last in the chain.

[Olis]

Okay, plan of action is - I'll attain a sitrep from our brother asap and, if the circumstances dictate, we'll go with the iteration Aquilanus had a hand in. If I hear nothing by Friday, then the Third Edit should be posted up. I will keep everyone abreast of any developments.

[Aqui]

Olisredan, on 03 Dec 2013 - 20:59, said:

Okay, plan of action is - I'll attain a sitrep from our brother asap and, if the circumstances dictate, we'll go with the iteration Aquilanus had a hand in. If I hear nothing by Friday, then the Third Edit should be posted up. I will keep everyone abreast of any developments.

Worst case is, he can always add his version at a later date if he hasn't been able to complete it

[Conn Eremon]

Considering the changes I made, and those made between the original and the one Ludovic sent me, I'm sure that Aquilanus' iteration will still be a fine conclusion to this project, if it ends up being so.

[Dosjetka]

Great, thanks Oli! :)

[Aqui]

Well, as Witchunter Kraine seems to be unavailable, here is the version I had passed on to him. I hadn't edited much in the main story, but I did add an extra part at the end

Fight

Trekking back to friendly lines had never felt so reassuring. Ar’tun, marching alongside his bloodied brethren, paused to take in the sight of the freshly fortified lines of the second wave. Sounds of battle still resonated across the plateau while he observed the handiwork of Perturabo’s sons, rendered dull by distance. On those walls, he could see the familiar colours and heraldry of the Word Bearers at their stations, no doubt ready to sally forth and keep the pressure on Horus’ rebels.

The Iron Hands were still engaged in heavy fighting while the Raven Guard and the Salamanders fell back for replenishment and respite. No one really knew what was happening with the Tenth Legion but word of mouth had told of Ferrus Manus boldly making a charge on Fulgrim, entirely unsupported by his brother Legions.

There had been no mercy, no quarter. It was kill or be killed. Precious few moments in Ar’tun’s life were like what he had felt in facing and killing Astartes on the battlefield. Truth be told, he had never felt more alive. The appalling damage to his power armour belied the kind of fighting he had been party to – he needed a new helm and the chest plate was unfit for purpose, riddled with bolt shell craters and displaying the telltale marks of melta scorching. It had been residue backwash but it was enough to play havoc with his armour interface ports.

Ar’tun turned, the war suddenly sounding much closer and much louder, his post-human reflexes catching the sight of the second wave opening up in sheeting hails of death and fire in sharp contrast. For the briefest moment, he thought Horus’ rebels had managed to sally through the rest of the Salamanders contingent and this was a defensive fusillade. As his brothers were smashed asunder by the avalanche of ordnance, his mind caught up with the horrible reality of the situation – betrayal had struck once more.

“Fall back!” came the cry, accompanied by calls to find cover and return fire. A battered Glaive crunched to a halt, its drivers compartment a smoking ruin and the left track links scattered by multiple missiles. Ar’tun scrambled as fast as he was able toward the ruined vehicle. In the lee of the tank, he met with seven others like him, line warriors. He immediately recognized Bran’tath and Firen, Pyroclasts both, recalling their deeds done earlier in the day but battle damage obscured the remaining five enough for him to fail to name them.

Whickering fire cracked off the framework of the Glaive, thuds and ricochets felt rather than seen. A brother, one of the lucky few to survive the first shots, speared by an incandescent Volkite beam fired by a warrior with a sense of irony who must have been making certain the Glaive was truly dead, crumbled and collapsed. It was Firen. Ar’tun felt an anger that had not registered until now. Masked by shock and self-preservation, disgust lingered as he looked away from the steaming body of the fallen brother. They had to move.

Return fire began as a desultory affair, with little more than boltguns being shot back at the Word Bearers, but soon heavier weapons were brought to bear. A missile launcher here, rotary cannon there – the incoming salvos eventually began to slacken and a roar from a thousand throats went up. Ar’tun risked a glance around the hull. The Word Bearers falsely seemed to have taken no casualties at all, but that was not the real concern. The hundreds of charging Astartes were. Pockets of resistance brought down dozens of Lorgar’s legionnaires, perhaps stunting the assault in places. It was never going to be enough though, as the majority swept onwards to take the fight to the Salamanders.

“We need to move.” Ar’tun said to the others, it was clear they would be overrun within minutes, if not less.

“What?” spoke Bran’tath, “Just run away?” Two more of the group nodded.

“If we stay we will die too readily. We need to move to a better position where we can deal more damage.” Ar’tun argued, attempting to appeal to Bran’tath’s more bullish, single-minded way of thinking.

Bran’tath looked as if he was about to argue but held his tongue.

Flight

Many days had been spent digging in with forces centred on Vulkan, fending off or surviving the worst the traitors had thrown at them. Any attempt to make it to the dropships ended in failure and more brothers slain. That was all before Vulkan disappeared.

The closing circle of enemy armour and infantry had winnowed away almost every Salamander left in Isstvan V. Very few had escaped the encirclement alive. Many of the brothers who had accompanied Ar’tun were gone, their armour and weaponry scavenged by necessity, until only he and Bran’tath yet lived. Bran’tath now sported so little Salamander equipment that it was difficult to tell which Legion he hailed. With barely any more than a laspistol, taken from one of the mad, frenzied mortals who followed the Emperor’s Children, and a combat blade, he was bereft of the very weapon that defined him.

Weeks had passed as the orphaned Salamanders trekked their way over the Lurgan Ridge. They had been tailing a suspected Raven Guard contingent for many days now, desperate to link up with any loyalists that lived. Every time they believed they were close enough to use the only vox link between them that still worked, all that came back in reply was mainly static, but more and more all could be heard was screaming. Bloodcurdling oaths to Dark Gods. Ar’tun did not know whether a faulty vox link was at fault, whether the Raven Guard that were ignoring them, or whether enemy forces had gained access to loyalist vox lines, though none of did not surprise Ar’tun. Over the past few weeks, Ar’tun had received many vox calls; some claiming to be well remembered brothers. The voices were wrong, the tone off. They were not what they claimed to be. Twice the pair survived traps using these calls as lures. Ar’tun was sure that the contingent they followed had been taught a similar lesson. Bran’tath was less sure. He wondered, loudly at times, if perhaps they were simply more concerned with their own survival than those of brother Legions.

Only occasional gunfire and explosions indicated where loyalists still held out. One particular battle drew their attention enough to stop and briefly watch. By Ar’tun’s reckoning, it had to be the Raven Guard they were attempting to link up.

With the sight and sounds of battle distracting them, the pair failed to register their own pursuers. Shadows detached from a nearby mesa, the winds plucking away any terror-cries that may have reached the ears of the Salamanders. Whipping over the landscape on jump packs bedecked with skins and finger bones, the three legionnaires readied their blades for the kill.

Struck from behind, Bran’tath tumbled from the escarpment in a tangle of limbs with his attacker. Ar’tun brought his boltgun around to bear, unleashing bolts at a pair of oncoming midnight clad streaks. One Night Lord crashed into him, both following the Pyroclast over a steep cliff. At the bottom, Ar’tun quickly regained his composure and backed away from his foe, keen to draw a bead on the traitor’s skull. With his combat blade out of immediate reach, it was the best he could do. The impact had done something to the Night Lord’s jump pack, one of the turbines firing a weak burst just enough to throw the legionnaire off-balance. It gave Ar’tun time to put a shell through the Night Lord’s lens

Bran’tath and another Night Lord scrambled in the dust and scree, clawing and desperately grasping at each other. The Raptor seemingly had the advantage with his combat blade embedded to the hilt in the gut of the Pyroclast and a second held at bay mere centimeters from his face. Bran’tath’s renowned strength proved the superior, forcing the blade away from his own face. When the Night Lord began to jerkily extricate himself from the melee, Bran’tath’s other arm shot out and gripped the cables that linked the warrior’s helm with the rest of the armor along the back of the neck. The Night Lord thrashed, barbed gauntlets shredding Bran’tath’s face, as Bran’tath inexorably forced the blade up through the bottom of the jaw to the hilt.

Above them, the remaining Night Lord slunk into the blackness.

The Pyroclast pushed the body off and away, gingerly sitting up. He had to be careful not to cause any more damage than had already been done. Ar’tun examined the entry point. He looked Bran’tath in the eye, the wounds on his face already scabbing over. Bran’tath grunted and pulled the blade out of himself, throwing it away as he forced himself to stand; waving away Ar’tun’s outstretched hand. Dimly, it registered in Ar’tun’s mind that Bran’tath was attempting a show of strength for Ar’tun’s benefit. In another age, he would have feigned in return, but now he was too numb to care. Their supply of armor sealant had been used up days before. It was only one more chink in their armor, among dozens others.

Bran’tath knelt to pick up a fallen bolter that a Night Lord had dropped. The rapidly blinking light shining from the eyes of a baroque gargoyle face on the weapon’s body seemed at first nothing more than outlandish embellishment typical of the terror-inducing Astartes who had once wielded it. Once more, Ar’tun’s mind wandered. In another age, he would have been more reviled by the poor artisanship than the hands that had fired it. The reality was much more horrifying as the weapon, perhaps designed to respond to the dead legionnaire’s genetic imprint, detonated. Bran’tath, in spite of his prestigious stoicism, yelled in pain as the blast blinded him, shrapnel shredding is face once more, his arms now ending in blackened stumps.

Ar’tun grabbed his brother as Bran’tath’s knees gave out, and lowered him. The cries of pain died down as Bran’tath gritted his teeth against it, vials of combat stimms and pain suppressants built into his armor long since run dry. Little could be done now. A team of Apothecaries, aided by the machinist skills of the Techmarines, could have perhaps saved Bran’tath by stabilizing and augmenting him with bionic replacements for his torn eyes and hands. None were here now, and it would not change a thing if they were. If Ar’tun tried to take Bran’tath with him, death would find them both at their next encounter with the traitors. He had seen the traitors force grotesque mockeries ahead of them, all bearing armor that showed them to have once been Astartes of the loyalist Legions. A fate worse than death awaited Bran’tath if he left him here alive.

Bran’tath sensed what was going through Ar’tun’s mind. He spoke to Ar’tun in an ancient Nocturnean dialect, ritualized words of sacrifice that others have failed to translate properly into Imperial Gothic, the coagulating blood forcing a drunken lisp to his speech. Ar’tun stood and raised his boltgun. The deep thump of the final detonation vibrated in his very bones when in close proximity. At any other time, such a sensation would have pleased him, the knowledge certain in his mind of an enemy destroyed. Now, it felt like a tremor that resonated in his core, destabilizing his very soul.

Gathering fallen gear, careful to avoid any left by the Night Lords, Ar’tun checked his boltgun. It remained undamaged although some scratches marred the markings on the casing. It failed to inspire him with strength and fortitude as it once had. He had to move on. Though no direction entered his mind, Ar’tun was drawn to where the battle that had distracted them raged, though few sounds of fury reached his ears now.

Still the wind wailed and gnashed at him, driving grit at Ar’tun and reducing the tapering sounds of battle to almost nothing. Cresting a rise only brought fresh adversity as the skies opened, rain slashing down in repeated blankets of tainted water. The dust and sand, once free to whirl about, was almost immediately damped down, affording Ar’tun better footing on the wet berms. On more rocky terrain, the going was far more treacherous because of the slick, wind worn surfaces.

As the sun rose above the horizon, the rain diminished to a drizzle and the wind abated. Here, where the previous night’s battle had been fought, lay a corpse-strewn field. Iron Warrior grey could be seen, scattered among the black of dead Raven Guard. Ar’tun shook his head. Despite all that he had seen and experienced, still he could not believe this betrayal by warriors as stout, brave and honorable as he.

Urged forward by some quiet pressure in his thoughts, Ar’tun picked his way through the bodies, mindful not to disturb them lest they be booby-trapped. The Raven Guard were not above such tactics, either.

From the crest of the next rise came a sight that stilled the breath in Ar’tun. Thousands upon thousands of World Eaters amassed in the distance, marching in his direction. With them came artillery, armored support and their own Primarch: Angron, clearly visible despite the distance separating them.

The Salamander scrambled back into the cover of the rise, unwilling to make a mistake as stupid as revealing himself after all he had survived. Raising himself to spy on the horde brought another revelation: The Raven Guard were close. A kilometer to the southeast gathered a host of two, perhaps even three, thousand loyalists. Joy turned to horror as missile trails emerged from the World Eaters – they had unleashed an artillery barrage. No doubt, Angron would be following that up with a massed charge, as was his want.

With a snap decision, Ar’tun determined that he would rather die among those brethren down below. He rose, only to collapse as something slammed against his armor just below his pack. Though it failed to penetrate, the bolt’s following detonation cracked the armor, sending a shard into his spine. Angrily forcing himself to turn over, Ar’tun turned to see another Night Lord, undoubtedly responsible for gunning him down, closing the distance between them rapidly. With his archaic heraldry, crusade armour and blood daubed helm, Ar’tun suspected he was a Crimson Son. Little more than a cadre of veterans, this one legionnaire was not unique and would die just like the four others that the Salamander had slain. He deserved a better death than this.

Ar’tun fired his pistol with a cry on his lips. Charging up the dune, black sand spilling and thrown aside by his advance, the Night Lord laughed, laughed, at his defiance, not even bothering to return fire. To his credit, the Night Lord did his best to avoid being struck but still Ar’tun found his mark. First one, then two bolts punched into the chest plate, just before the edge of the right pauldron, but it did little to slow the maniacal traitor. Another ten paces and the Night Lord was upon him, leaping from his lower vantage to land upon the Night Lord, combat blade leading the way. In the distance, entirely unnoticed by Ar’tun or the Crimson Son, black Thunderhawks descended from the clouds.

Ar’tun deflected the strike, deftly turning aside the knife and hacking at the Night Lord with his own small blade, shearing the blade from the hilt as a block failed to keep the Night Lord at bay. Being this close to each other worked in the Night Lord’s favor; Ar’tun’s fading strength and exhausted spirit failing to match the enemy’s ferocity. As a result, the Night Lord grappled with his opponent, wrestling Ar’tun’s arm away in an attempt to find openings to stab his own knife. In return, a series of pounding strikes to the helm with Ar’tun’s free hand knocked the headpiece loose. Ripping it free with a furious cry, the Pyroclast failed to keep the Night Lord’s weapon at bay as it penetrated a crack in one of the arm plating. Undeterred by the temporary disorientation, the traitor resumed his assault, smashing his own bladed and barbed fists into the Salamander’s helm.

Fending off the blows with one arm, Ar’tun stretched out his other in search of anything to prevent him from losing his life. Sand was the first resort, providing brief respite when it bit into the enemy’s eyes. The second was his broken combat blade, doing little more than carving a deep line in the Crimson Son’s cheek in Ar’tun’s wild swinging. A dry crunch told of his helm cracking under the barrage. Again, he threw sand but the Night Lord turned his head, a laugh once more beginning to emanate from the grimly smiling face now that he was sure he would win. The laughter died when Ar’tun swung the discarded combat blade as hard as he could. The blade embedded itself into the thick neck muscles of the Night Lord. Though he missed the throat or any major arteries, it caused the Night Lord to jerk his body away from the jagged remains of the blade. Using the opening, Ar’tun grabbed the Night Lord and bodily hugged the traitor tightly to him. The Night Lord began screaming abuse at him, spittle and sharpened teeth Ar’tun’s only sight through his cracked lens. Ar’tun raised his broken knife above the enemy and brought it sharply down. Though such a blade would have shattered even more upon the hardened bone of an Astartes, by chance the shards slipped between the vertebras in the neck, severing the vital nerve endings that travelled along the spine.

Instantly, the Night Lord went limp.

Despair

Ar’tun pushed the Night Lord off him and pulled himself back up to the uppermost edge, just in time as the Raven Guard transports took off, drawing distant fire while they ascended into the clouds. His battered features witnessed his best chance to leave this forsaken world depart. Here, next to a fallen brother’s corpse, he stared at the boltgun the Night Lord had dropped. It was within reach, though he had not noticed it in the frantic struggle moments before.

Where would he go now? This close to Angron’s horde, alone and with Vulkan missing, he was left directionless. The Night Lord, no doubt a huntmaster or sergeant, lay unmoving. Ar’tun stared into his eyes, staring back at him, still alive with hatred. He wanted to say something, but no words came. They stared at each other for a few moments more, as the loud whine of the Raven Guard transports faded away and the desperate fire to bring them down trickled away.

Ar’tun reached for the boltgun. One more traitor dead.

Retribution

It was even worse than he thought. The longer he kept going, the deeper the despair he felt. Astartes were programmed at their very core to never feel such emotions, but he felt them now and it sapped the strength from his bones. Ar'tun had reached a plateau, stretching further than even his augmented sight could see. Even now, heavy ordinance was dropped, never relenting, never stopping. How anything could have survived this was unthinkable.

But he had to think. He had to find a way to rejoin the fight. He had to find something to make his now broken existence tolerable. An Astartes was raised to fight. His armour was ruined, the lack of any adequate equipment made sure of that. He checked his HUD. No Stimms, no ceramite repair gel, no food packs. He armour had so many holes that he could swear he could feel the cool breeze through them. Maybe. He could not remember the last time he had actually slept, relying on switching off parts of his brain for these past few days was taking its toll.

He checked his Bolter again. Two clips, plus a few grenades he had scavenged. If he encountered trouble, the fight wouldn't last long. It didn't need to. All he wanted to do was to either make it back to his fellows or die trying.

Further ahead, he could see a massive crater, older than the others by a few days. Heading towards it, he noticed a burnt out Land Raider. Hope was a luxury he could ill afford, but if even a few Bolter clips survived, he might last longer. On his final approach, he noticed the hull was so buckled by heat and impact damage, that it had bowed inwards. Even more surprising was that the metal frame was still glowing from the energy discharge. Ar'tun shuddered.

Did he imagine a noise behind him? Swinging his bolter around in a sweeping arc, he noticed a fallen Astartes trying to sit up. It was impossible as there was nothing below the rib cage. The sight was pitiful, but despite himself moved closer to satiate his curiosity.

An Iron Hand.

The Marine was trying to raise his arm, but underneath, there was barely enough torso for it to be attached to, much less achieve such a feat. It did not stop him. Ar'tun made sure the fallen Warrior could see his armour palldron, and the son of Ferrus tried to speak. What was left of his armours vox, squealed and stuttered, electronic static uttered instead of intelligible words. Somehow, Ar'tun knew what he was trying to say. Beside him lay a filthy ragged piece of cloth. Were it not for the fallen warrior, he would not have seen it. Picking it up, he vowed to ensure it would be returned.

"And you Cousin? Do you wish for release?"

The lens within the Iron Hands helm flickered and died, the head lolling back limply. There was nothing more. Ar'tun tucked the rags within one of his empty pouches. As he did so, he felt a choking rage within him. The urge to block it was unbearable, but he looked at the carnage ahead of him and at his feet. The skies were black as the void, full of dust raised by ordinance impacts. It felt like he had not seen the sun in years. Within his own mind, he took the bile rising in his chest and used it. The temperature had dropped rapidly since the bombardment. Steeling himself for the journey ahead, his hate would keep him warm.