The God-Makers, a practice story of sorts

[Gorkimedes]

Born from the cold dark depths of the Liber Astartes http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/282417-pan-humanism-warband-of-the-god-makers/  an excuse to practice my creative writing! 

 

1                                                                                         

 

     The city around him died a quiet death. Silence it is not what one would expect at the heart of a battle. But as Hartha was carried from one rooftop to the next by his jump pack that was all he heard. Sonic dampeners in his power armor were set to max, filtering out even the loudest of noises. He could feel his twin hearts beat in his chest and his teeth itched with anticipation. Auto-senses could remove him from the stimuli of war but not his desire for it.

      Down on the street below he saw his next group of prey. A large group of guardsmen were fleeing before the warband's oncoming assault. I should let them leave, the Truthspeaker did not bring us here to kill. He recalled a fading memory of a data-center. The warband's leader had been his usual cryptic self not revealing exactly what they sought, just where they would find it . With a silent laugh he raised his chain-axes feeling the ignition switches. The bastard can wait a few moments longer!

 

     Symbols swam across the display in his helmet, counting the number of enemies and assessing their threat level. A large red seventy six flashed across his vision. Barely a moment passed after his armor finished its calculations before he moved. The roaring jump-pack slammed him into the group of guardsmen with the force of an artillery strike. He grunted as, for a brief moment, pain shot through his knees and spine. The force of his descent had pulped the man he had landed on, the weight of his armor driving what remained of the man’s body into the cracked stones below. The guardsmen had a few brief seconds to react before he was upon them.

 

      Twin chain-axes tore through flesh and flak armor with similar ease. To Hartha’s deafened senses the slaughter played out like some cruel parody of war. He waded through the soldiers with a super-human swiftness that left the unaugmented men appearing like statues. It seemed to him that the deaths around him were happening at a distance, as if someone other than himself was causing the slaughter. One man fell to the ground mid stride, his leg torn clean from his body. Another had his head crushed by a bone-shattering sideswipe of his chainaxe. An arterial spray shot from the dying mans neck that to Hartha’s transhuman senses seemed to linger in the air.

       All of this in a silence that hurt far more than the ineffective struggles of the mortal soldiers. He ached to feel a part of the slaughter he was bringing upon this world. It grew harder to think. Without realizing, he had dropped his axes and had begun to tear the men swarming him apart with his hands. One tried to stab the back of his knee with a bayonet; he repaid the man’s foolishness with a kick that shattered the man’s pelvis into dust. Hartha paused and watched the man’s silent screams. Instead of triumph he felt confusion, his thoughts blurred as he beat the mass of bodies back. Rings of red swam at the edge of his vision pulsing in unison with his hearts.

      Hartha reached up and undid the lock that held his helmet in place. Pulling the helmet off he roared to the sky as the song and smell of war flooded his senses. With new found abandon he threw himself into the slaughter. A frenzied calmness came over him as he submerged himself in slaughter. With fist and tooth he ripped the remaining guardsmen apart. As the metallic taste of death stained his lips he forewent all higher concerns. Complex thoughts of battle plans and objectives melted away and old grief dissolved.

      

      The relief was short lived. Of the few men that remained none had it within them to resist him. As he ran them down he could already feel his mind clouding with complexity again. He stomped on the body of a man already dead. Bringing his armored foot again and again down onto the unrecognizable mass of flesh, trying in vain to prolong the thrill. 

 

      “ You” said a feeble voice cutting through the receding blood haze.

 

       Hartha paused and looked down to find an eviscerated guardsman staring up at him.

 

       “ F-fools” Continued the dying man “ There are billions of us upon Raos’Le…The Emperor’s vengeance will come.”

 

        “The Emperor?” laughed Hartha as he ran a blood soaked gauntlet over the Aquila on the front of his armor “Who do you think this slaughter is for mortal?”

 

        Hartha looked around searching for another kill but the street was empty.  Along the ground dying men littered the stones and gutter. They continued to cry out for awhile and then silence returned in a new form.

[Angelos Dante]

A great story! loved it, will there be more?

[Gorkimedes]

Thanks! Yes, I have an idea of where I want to take it next.