The Tide of Blood

[Teetengee]

So this may better belong in the fanfic section, but I will place it here for now.
This is a collection of stories and vignettes I have written for my band of warbands, the Tide of Blood.
Thanks need to go to Tenebris for creating the Inspirational Friday event which has inspired much of this.

Escharon, the King of Scars

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King Escharon was the son of one of the barbarian kings of Cthonis. He was one of the first to be inducted into Horus’s legion, for he knew power was that way. He fought strongly and valiantly to protect the freedoms of the imperial people during the crusades, and was very close with several members of the XVII legion. He also was one of the first to turn to the dark gods after the events of Davin’s Moon.
As he saw the uprising failing, he went into the Eye of Terror in the hopes of being flung back in time to a place where he could assure Horus’s victory. Unsurprisingly, he failed, but he has never stopped. The years have been long for him. The time he spends in the unstable portions of the warp mean he has spent 20,000 years traveling since the heresy, kept alive by the will of the four. He has outlasted many suits of power armour, and has recently hunted down Grey Knights to keep himself stocked with armour better able to survive the rigors of the Tzeentchian warpspace he often frequents.
His travels have taught him much. He has learned to tame a great number of warpspawn and other foul creatures, a massive possessed Land Raider called simply the Beast, has served as his mount on many an occasion. After falling out with the rest of the Black Legion due to their lack of honor for their forefather, he has attracted to himself a great many warlords with his philosophy of faith. “All death pleases the four, the spilt blood and sundered body please the lord of battle, the rotting corpse pleases the lord of decay, the pain and suffering inflicted please the lord of excess, and the transitions from life to death and those that occur in the tide of battle please the lord of change.”
Recently, Escharon has been looking for a way to open a portal back to the original siege of Terra. Ideally he would open it when the hordes of Abbadon’s thirteenth black crusade are once more at the gate. Escharon fights to find a way to undo the past and create a truly free empire of men, lead in the name of Horus. And of course, no man better understands his primarch than Escharon, the Cthonian.


Escharon the King of Scars: “When the Warmaster leaves for the Gate, we will fight for him. When the Warmaster strikes down planet after planet on his path to Terra we will fight for him. When the Warmaster lays siege to the imperial palace, we will fight for him. And all that with no expectation of thanks or gratitude in word, in action, or in object. But in the mean time, whilst Abbadon sends mewling pawns to beg for bread with nothing to offer but hollow words and empty promises; in the mean time, whilst he asks for my knights and my beasts and my weapons of war; in the mean time, whilst he wheedles and worms his way to power; he gets nothing from me he doesn’t pay for. Go back to your fell master and tell him that my price is not for negotiation.”
Escharon’s gifts in dealing with beasts have lead him to amass an enormous host of daemon engines, some created from Titans. He seeks out the most difficult to control and offers to take them or tame them for a price. But many will only follow his will alone. Over time he has collected many like minded individuals and now has no need for ties with the dark mechanicus to keep his armies supplied. He does keep loose ties though, because the dark mechanicus are often a good source of recruits and inspiration for Escharon, and they seek to understand how he controls such creatures as it would make it much easier than the bindings they use, which while much more effective on a wide scale, are perhaps not quite as efficient in terms of sacrifices.

Abbadon's Scribe

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Scribe: Gr...gr...greetings m..master. I am thankful that you graced my humble scriptorium with your presence. I know that your highness is occupied with the efforts of running the warband but please, just a few questions so that my scribes can write down for posterity your legendary deeds.
F...first one,

Escharon interrupts: Firstly, whelp, do not grovel in my presence, were you unworthy you would cease breathing, painfully, but as long as you are not, you will speak strongly and hold your head high. Your service, as all before the four, is important, even though it be replaceable.

Scribe: Yes, m..my lord. Where does your legend begin. Of which legion of old or mighty chapter did you bear the colors in battle and what was your calling in those ancient days?
Escharon: I served the Warmaster. I am a Son of Horus. I fought for the honor of the old kings of Cthonis in whatever manner the Primarch willed.

Scribe: Second question lord. How have you managed to gather such a mighty warband such as this and which is your favorite way to use your warriors?

Escharon: I have always had a talent for binding beasts and monsters to my will. This has lead me to useful deals with many parties, including our mechanicus. It is why we sit in a forge shrine today. Additionally, I have no prejudice against how my knights and soldiers came to be in my service, merely that they serve me.

As for tactics, shock and awe do me well. If possible I rain blood upon the battlefield for up to a day before and throughout the battle. This, succoured by the blood spilt in my wars has will at the end be decoagulated and collected and become a useful psychic and spiritual resource. Meanwhile, the effect on most enemies is quite fortuitous. In fact, it is why we are called the tide of blood.

However, I find that most warriors under my banner prescribe to very specific methods of war, and I do try to use them as they are most fit. Anything else would be inefficient.

Scribe: Can you describe your service to the Dreaded Four?

Escharon: Every action taken, feeds the four. Those done with intent, often feed the taker as well. The true gods give to us in equal measure what we give to them, even if we do not see it at the time. Never is there a choice whether to serve the gods, there is merely a choice of whether to embrace their gifts as blessings, see their gifts as tools, or reject them, out of honor or pride. I prefer to recognize them as tools, although actively seeking mutation is often imprudent in my case due to its very unpredictability.

Scribe: Do you still entertain contacts with your former brothers or do you seek new allies? What do you think of the Warmaster?

Escharon: My brothers are only those who did not abandon our father, to them, everything is due. However, they are few and our enemies are many, as such I always wish for new allies. As for the Warmaster, who I presume you mean to say Ezekyle Abbadon, I have this to say, when the Warmaster once again marches for Terra, we will fight by his side out of our own free will and leaving no resource unspent in that endeavor. But until then, Abbadon gets nothing he doesn’t pay for.

Scribe: Can you explain to me why you arm yourself thusly?

Escharon: Ah, yes. My daemon halberd soulthief is for the quick and the many. My powerfist, the few and the dread. A combi-melta is useful for a wide variety of targets. Perhaps most importantly, is the armour I wear. Once it belonged to one called a Grey Knight. It has a vastly increased resilience to warp mutation. As such, I find it useful for my explorations. Now, your time is up. Begone.

Damnable Miscreant

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“Damnable Miscreant!” Escharon shouted over the screams and machinery of the Beast.
“Sir we are still-
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THIS WILL COST ME! In slaves, in time, in oaths. My forgelords can’t repair damage this extensive and-”
An explosion interrupted him as the Beast was sent several meters sideways and skidded to a halt. An earsplitting roar came from the creature while Escharon and his knights left it to tell the damage. One of the Dragons rushed his position screaming death only to be stopped as the beast opened its tracked claws and tore him in two, still screaming, though the tone had changed slightly.
“Sir, we have to wait here, the right tread is inoperable.”
“...colchashbinyonmorbakhfarnzshtheth….” Escharon chanted, calming the injured creature, while his attendants waited. “Hail Balgo and Ulrick on the vox.”
“Ulrick is nonresponsive, Balgo is here.” said one of the serfs who had just now climbed from the Beast covered in fresh wounds and holding out the speaker of the ancient vox he wore, which Escharon quickly took.
--“Balgo. Orders my lord?--
--“You and Ulrick have command for now, make sure he doesn’t lose too many this time.”--
--“Yes, my liege, I will use the madmen appropriately.”--
Escharon turned to the vox-slave, “Now, hail my scribes, find out who that sorcerer was.”
“Right away my lord.” The remaining serfs furiously began communicating descriptions and battle positions back with the ships above.

“My lord, it appears the offender’s name is Zhaharek, lord of the Chaos Dragons.”
“Very well,” Escharon replied, whilst he and his retinue made short work of the small units that kept bearing down on them near the edge of the battle. “Once we finish what we came here for, send a notice throughout the Tide, any who bring me Zhaharek’s head may ask for one boon. Those who bring him to me alive will be given a weapon from my personal armoury.”

Journal

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Two nearly identical tomes sat open on a table in front of the robed form of Escharon.
The right was blank, the left began as follows:

8 160 766.M39
Assault on Avris Prime was successful, but with extreme casualties. False information reports lead to a full regiment of the Scions of the Old Gods and 83 marines being lost (17 knights of the Tide proper and even one member of the council). They were ambushed by the greater portion of a battle company of an as yet unidentified astartes chapter…

Escharon dipped a bone quill into a pot wrought from the skull of an astartes; two service studs in its brow reflected the flickering green candle light. As soon as he put pen to page, both books began to glow with an increasingly bright blue light.
8 160 766.M39
Assault on Avris Prime was successful, but with minor casualties. Half a regiment of the Scions of the Old Gods and 65 marines were lost (all of allied contingents). They were ambushed by the greater portion of a battle company of Silver Wraiths Astartes before Wraiths and they alike were lost in the eruption triggered by digging crews under the direction of our advanced command. Regrets have been sent to their lords, as well as thanks for their service...

When the blue light faded the left now read:

8 160 766.M39
Assault on Avris Prime was successful, but with minor casualties. Half...

 

Stories

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Do you think this is some kind of children’s tale, where the plucky young hero defeats the big bad monster through luck and courage even though at times he seems sure to fail? One that begins with once upon a time and ends with a neatly wrapped up moral and the hero falling in love?

This is not that kind of story, though we have played the parts well.

You are no hero;

I am no monster;

no treasure or star-crossed love awaits you;

and the Gods don’t care who lives and who dies.

 

 

More than a Mile

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“Please, Brother Tollus, struggling is unseemly and ultimately pointless. I respect you and your kin greatly, even if we disagree on some pretty fundamental points. I do not wish you to degrade yourself when escape is impossible. My adepts have paralyzed all of your joints below the neck. Please keep your pride,” In front of me stands an impossibly ancient suit of terminator armour. Hundreds of layers of sea green paint at different stages of peeling are emblazoned with an obscene combination of symbols both unholy and defiled by their use on such a creature. In places the metal twists and shimmers, some even move. Eyestalks and tentacles protrude from countless sores and even greater are the number of blast marks and pockmarks showing where similar taint has been well scrubbed out. In summary old, and beyond the point of repair.

 

Mouth dry and Betcher’s Gland disabled by means I do not wish to understand I cannot spit my reply but can only scratch it out, “Spare me your mockeries, servant of the neverborn. My kind has never bent the knee to the likes of you, and I will not be the first.”

 

“If I expected you to kneel Knight,  I wouldn’t have had them paralyze your hamstrings. You deserve an explanation for why you are denied a warrior’s death,” Having no reply, I look on as young attendants and servitors begin to help remove his armour. Some of them beat back its resisting tentacles and screaming tiny jaws with staves and whips while it is slowly and painfully removed. Chunks of flesh sometimes come off with the plates as the suit is disassembled whilst occupied. Seeing the pain of this traitor’s failing armour will likely be one of the last pleasures I shall know.

 

“So, noble warrior, what are your plans with me then, if you so wisely understand the futility of attempting my corruption,” Together we stand in quiet mutual appraisal. Even more attendants come to him, first applying salves and bandaging wounds, and then dressing his mostly naked form in garb of leather, metal, and cloth. Looking at him, I cannot but feel a sense of familiarity even though I have definitely never seen him before; the massive patchwork of scars covering his body I would remember if I had.

 

“I am going to kill you, painfully but efficiently, have your Aegis armour cleaned of your remains, and then claim it for myself. I do this not because of bragging rights or of an attempt to pollute your order with signs of doubt, but because I am in need of such armour for my own purposes. I plan to honour it as best I can, and to not let your death be in vain. My servants shall say your name with reverence in light of your sacrifice, no matter that it is unwilling.”

 

“You dare desecrate and defile my armour! Turn it against its purpose and violate all it stands for! PERVERTER, UNCLEAN, SILVER TONGUED HERETIC, PRINCE OF LI---” my voice fails me as he motions to those I cannot see. I lose the ability to move entirely as great barriers lower around me, trapping me in a transparent chamber. A hissing fills the room as I try to struggle against the prison of my own flesh and bone, a soul trapped in my own corpse. I fill my mind with litanies of purity and service as a searing, biting pain begins to envelope my exposed head and eyes. The incredible pain doubles and redoubles encroaching deeper into my body as the world goes blind and silent. Eventually I see starlight, and feel a cool breeze on my burning face. Pain. Flashing lights surround me. Pain. Undulating sounds. Pain. Pain. Pain.

 

Beast Taming

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Calliah woke with a start, the grinding of great locks and dragging of torso thick chains across ceramite floors tearing apart even her nightmares. She turned to Zachar beside her and held his mouth shut as he struggled to wakefulness. Briefly locking eyes in fearful understanding, they both began to pull on their tunics as quietly as possible. Carriah shimmied to the vents that had lead them here last night. Cold sweat broke out on her skin when she found the way blocked by a thick ceramite slab.

 

Zachar was buckling pants over his branded waist when she returned to the cramped nest they had made. “It’s on lock down Zax,” she whispered, unable to contain the quaver in her voice.

 

“Can we get out the---”

 

“Shh!” Calliah cut him off as the sounds of the doors finally opening rattled through the air. “Let me though,” she whispered as she squeezed by him. She inched her way to the small grate high above the chamber for air intake and peered out, forked tongue between her teeth in concentration. Zachar crushed in beside her as best as he could fit.

 

Zachar’s curiosity was surpassed only by fear of whatever monstrosity was being sealed here. Neither daring to say a word in case they were discovered, they lay still in their tight overlook. A rage filled screaming began to fill the quickly heating air as three hulking brutes dragged a vast writhing pile of treads and flesh into the room. They attached the chains quickly to those already in the cell and then filed out in their own lurching gait. The gates ground shut and the finality of bolts locking seemed to give even this creature pause. Zachar swallowed painfully.

 

The thing on the ground writhed and roared while depleted weapons screamed impudently into the echoing chamber. It’s claws left great raking gouges in the floor as it strained at its sigiled bonds. The temperature in the cell continued to rise with the monsters voice, Calliah and Zachar clamped their hands over their ringing ears as the volume grew painful. Still trying to understand what had been locked in with them, Calliah’s dark accustomed eyes ran over the outline of the beast in the gloom. The thing was large, several meters in all dimensions at the least. Flesh and metal flowed together in many places; massive arms bearing tread wrapped claws ripped at the chains. Where once there was an assault ramp, there was not but tusks and a thirsting maw. Most disconcerting was the creature’s great eyeball. Sickeningly large, it swivveled in a socket grown out of a turret near the front.

 

Suddenly, the Eye jerked directly toward the grate where Calliah and Zachar were hiding and they were hit by a blast of freezing cold while icicles started to form on the grating. Calliah was awestruck by such a manifestion of the gods, but Zachar began to scream and seize as blood leaked from his mouth and ears. Recovering from her moment of reverence, she swore and straddled Zachar’s convulsing body pinning him down, grimacing as his teeth sank into her palm and his jerking limbs struck hard blows against the insides of her arms and legs. Zachar grew still as the monster howled further, eye once more darting about the cell.

 

So focused on the writhing creature, Calliah had failed to notice a small door opening within the great gates to let in a robed figure approximately 7 feet in height. Only when the figure began to whistle did she notice it, and only because the monster seemed to notice it as well. It’s thrashings began to slow even as it cocked its head at the noise, roars ceasing in focus. The chamber filled with the sounds of the whistle, a haunting melody without end, continuing seemlessly from exhalation through inhalation even as the timbre and tone changed with each breath. The figure began to make wide circles about the creature, dancing and playing in and out of its reach. At one point the creature swatted at the being but he leapt backwards revealing the heavily muscled frame of a scar covered astartes.

 

Calliah’s hairs stood on end and a shiver went down her back as she watched this dance of gods. To see both a daemon and an unarmoured knight together so close was something she could have only dreamed of. There was something infectious in the fierce joy of the beastmaster’s movements which bewitched her. No longer did she care about the pain in her limbs and hand from holding Zachar, nor the sweltering heat creating pools of steaming sweat over her skin, nor even the dark fluid leaking from her lover’s limp frame. All that mattered was seeing how this battle of wills would end, would the knight conquer the beast, or would it turn on him?

 

How long Calliah sat there she had no way of knowing, but she knew immediately when it was over. The room had slowly gone cold during her long hidden audience, and the beast now slept with its head on the floor in front of the knight, purring as his hand ran along its jawline. The movements slowed, she could see parts of the creature that had once been a land raider, recognized from her time working the forge. Zachar shifted beneath her, and suddenly Calliah remembered the magnitude of danger she was in and hammered down the panic driving up from her quickening heart.

 

The whistling stopped and she stayed silent and still as the dead. The creature shifted slightly screeching it’s metal skin along the floor as it curled up. The astartes unhooked all the chains from it save the one leash on its neck and turned to the door. As he walked to exit he threw back the hood of his robe revealing a bony crown. Calliah gasped in recognition before she could stop herself, “Escharon!”

 

The word bounced around the chamber in echos. The king of scars and the beast both looking about the room for its source. Calliah tried in vain to stop Zachar’s waking groans but when she looked up she stood face to face with the Lord Escharon himself, standing on the outstretched arm of the monster below, his expression inscrutable.

 

 

“Please my king, forgive me my king, we knew not where we went when we came here, my king!” Calliah blurted out as she prostrated herself before her king. Her heart slammed against the jail cell of her ribcage and all she could hear was the coursing of blood through her ears as the fear threatened to overtake her.

 

“I am surprised that you managed to stay hidden for so long, youth. That level of resourcefulness is not something I readily waste. As for your dying friend there,” Calliah looked down at Zachar, his face pale and covered in thick black ooze around his mouth and ears, “he lies well beyond my ability or time. What are your talents?”

 

Calliah answered due to rote alone, the question having been asked by taskmasters countless times before, and likely only due to habit could she answer, “I work in Forge Ractyl, fixing the armour. My king.” She added hastily.

 

“Get up, calm this Beast, and report here tomorrow morning after telling your group leader of my orders. Since you seem immune to his difficulties you work solely on him now.” With that Escharon turned and the creature let him down. He quickly walked from the room.

 

Calliah fell over exhausted and confused. The emotions of the last day all swirled about inside her head; fear, love, joy, such fierce extremes had all come and gone so quickly she could only lay there shaking and crying for several minutes. Eyes finally red but dry, she continued with new purose. She dragged Zachar’s heavily breathing body to the edge of the vent and shoved lowered his body as far as she could reach before dropping him to the floor with a thud. Then she grabbed the bed clothes and tied them around one of the supports to lower herself down, all the while trying to ignore the 3 meter diameter eye that stared at her unblinking. Finally on the floor, and panting with the exertion, she turned to the creature. She swore it smiled.

 

Kissing Zachar’s lips, Calliah cried little as she said her goodbyes. She held up her head, chin out proudly and spoke to the great creature in front of her, “Mighty demigod, warrior of the faith, please take this my offering. He was a servant of the true gods and his fidelity will prove to your liking. Though he was struck down by the terribly might of your presence, he in no way begrudges you his soul. Please take it so that you may draw power from his spirit and so that he may fight alongside you against our enemies forever more as a tiny piece of your vast magnificence. In good faith I offer this blood and flesh!” Calliah squeezed drops of blood from her punctured hand over Zachar’s forehead as she cried out the last words.

 

The Beast reached forward and took Zachar. Bones crunched and Zachar screamed out as it devoured his body. Carriah stood resolute even as Zachar’s warm blood splashed across her face, even as his soul was torn apart and dragged into the warp through the entity that stood before her. Only when the Beast finished its meal and went back to sleep did Carriah turn and leave the room, emotions locked tightly away as she always had in needed times before.

 

Outside the cell, a tech-logisticator appraised her dishevelled and filthy appearance with some surprise. “I am entrusted with its care, get me armourers and ammunition loaders by 800 tomorrow,” she walked off stiffly, never once letting emotions come unbidden to mar her proud stride.

 

 

The Council and Attendents
Grace, Mother of Humanity

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“Through work for the Emperor we are saved. Ask not what the Imperium can do for you. Ask what you can do for the Imperium,” I speak defiantly, though I am caged and in chains. My neck restrained and my eyes forced open by metal and leather, for some foul purpose I know not.

The woman sits in front of me, her clothing as neat and sharp as always, surrounded by vidscreens. Her voice is like a gloved gauntlet, soft on the outside, but concealing a ruthless inner strength, “Why not ask what you have done for the Imperium.” Her words were accentuated by a stream of images surrounding her. People screaming and fleeing. Soldiers fighting civilians. Marines butchering mutants. Butchering heretics. Butchering protesters. Butchering children. I can’t close my eyes to the flood of imagery, some of it I remember, but all of it is familiar.

“Listen not to the words of the traitor, for they speak only honeyed lies.” The mantras alone keep me sane in my imprisonment.

“Who is lying now, soldier?” The screens filled with more images, how they found them I do not know, but they are scenes I was present for the first time. Once again, I cannot close my eyes to the horrors I see. “Look at what you have done for the Imperium. Imperial citizens, put to the sword purely because they witnessed evidence of the lies that the Imperium tells to them. So tell me, what can you do for the Imperium?”

“I protect, I am a servant of the High Lords! I kill their enemies with bolter in hand and hate in my heart!” I cannot give in to a heretic.

“Of the second I have no doubt.”

“I serve the people of the Imperium!” I say it without thinking, even though the words now ring hollow in my ears.

“How? By covering the Imperium in a thick layer of their blood so that further generations might be similarly sacrificed? By forcing cruel adherence to a false creed which denies the existence of the true gods, whose servants, you have been shown before? By butchering families whose only crime was giving birth to a child one step too far removed from your genetic normativity?
Who have you served?”

“I have served the High Lords…”

“Yes, and how have you served?”

“By killing their enemies.”

“Yes, the children of humanity, the truthspeakers, the innocent, and those too brave to be docile in the face of bureaucratic depravity. So who are the enemies of the High Lords”

Her meaning struck me with the finality of a guillotine. So many dead, all wearing the aquillas of the imperium, dead to preserve an empire of blood. Yet it is only ever more, there can be no end as long as humanity exists and denies the truth. It has to continue, “Humanity must be sacrificed so that the Imperium can be saved.”

“I offer a simple alternative, the Imperium must be sacrificed so that humanity might be saved. Even if the cost to humanity in the short term is longer. I’ll let you think a bit more, I will leave you with more to look at while you do so.” She stood with a jerk and walked calmly from the room, the vids beginning again, showing history and truth and fire.

---
The woman sits in front of me, clothes sharp and neat. I open my mouth to speak the only truth that I can now see, “I became a monster trying to save the Imperium from humanity. I must stay the monster in order to save humanity from the Imperium. Unchain me, and show me to the front.”

Saying nothing she rises and walks to me, everything so quiet I can hear the whirring of gears in her cybernetics as she unhooks my restraints. My long held limbs drop to the floor and she reaches down lifting my forehead to her lips. “Now rise, blessed by grace, and walk from this room reborn and repurposed. Speak the truth always, and never let unenlightened remain so.”

Drehzrhe

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Drehzrhe stepped over the dead kaballites at her feet. <I was right in this,> she thought to herself, She shook away the whisper of more at the back of her mind. Tipping her head back, she feasted on the waves of pain emanating from the survivors still crawling and screaming about her bedroom on stumps, their limbs strewn over the alabaster floor. She focused down to the slightest sounds, shutting them out, only letting herself know the drip of gore slowly slipping from her axeblade.
Drehzrhe knew they would wonder how she received forewarning. She couldn’t tell them that the axe woke her long before. That she had lain in wait to ambush them, blood pumping with combat drugs even as they conceived of the final stages of their plan. That she hadn’t killed them to save herself, but just to see them die.
“Who sent you?” her voice calm, there was no need to intimidate them now. Drehzrhe reached down and stroked the forehead of one of her victims, quickly dying from the four stumps where his limbs used to be. “Hush now, answer me quickly and I shall ease your passing.”
The pitiful creature looked up at her not with hate as she expected, nor even fear, but awe. Eventually he started in ragged tones, “Your sisters feared you. They were wrong, fear is pointless.”
“Thank you,” she took the curved blade from his waist, a blade meant for her throat. Drehzrhe appreciated that irony for a moment and then drew the blade down and through his neck, severing it at the base. The rest she left in their suffering, none would save them now that they had failed in their task and their skulls were not worthy.

Red Devil

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“Kill me and then may you fight my lord!” called out a hulking figure clad in brass plate as he strode through the carnage of the throne room. Sycophantic slaves, half his height and hunched even then, scurried around him carrying long objects wrapped in furs, skins, and other unidentified fabrics. Captain Ulys looked up at the figure which towered over even his gen-hanced form. The violet glow of Ulys’s sword brightened the dim room once as this four armed giant reached out to handles protruding from the packages carried by the slaves about him. With quick motions he drew four unmatched blades, some of which began to crackle with power fields or burst into flame. “Make peace with your false god Captain.”
Ulys turned and spat as he rushed the giant, the sizzling of his acidic spit quickly drowned out by the clash of blades. The thing moved with some sort of infernal agility, no beast of that size had any right to move so quickly. Ulys rushed in and was repelled again and again, finding no purchase in the swirling blades that might as well have been an adamantium wall. When the creature began to advance on him, Ulys could barely bring his sword up to meet each blow as it fell. Finally he saw an opening and thrust his blade deep into the monster’s flesh.
Ulys then knew his mistake. The creature had let itself be wounded in order to end the stalemate, in fact, its attack pattern did not even slow as it lopped off Ulys’s arms and legs. The slaves came forward and took all but one of the beast’s swords while Ulys lay there cursing and bleeding from his stumps. Suddenly the creature grabbed Ulys and roughly pushed him to the wall at eye level. “You fought well, your skull will be His. And your sword, will be mine.” With those words, the final blade was pushed through Ulys’s neck, and he knew no more.

Balgo's Gift

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This is the Emperor’s Gift.
It was the destruction He promised to the enemies of man.
This is the Emperor’s Gift.
When I became sergeant, it cut through the lives of the enemies of Him on Terra.
This is the Emperor’s Gift
When my captain turned on the Ecclesiarchy and my chapter was torn apart as brother fought brother, it was the weapon that eventually removed that captain’s head.
This is the Emperor’s Gift.
When I became the captain I swore it would put an end to corruption in my hands.
This is the Emperor’s Gift.
When our penitence did not save us from the scorn of our chapter master, I swore to make it slick with the blood of fools.
This is the Emperor’s Gift.
It brings the true faith to the real enemies of humanity.
This is the Emperor’s Gift.
It is the destruction He promised to the enemies of man, and as all the gifts of Him on Terra, it is a double-edged sword.

Equerry

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“My King, what do you think of the plan of attack?"
“Patience, you have yet to hear the thoughts of the rest of the council.”
“But lord, surely as your equerry in this endeav-”
“No one, man or daemon, is my equerry, so choose your words more carefully Balgo. Only those who intend to die name a clear successor. Now, assemble the others at the black table, and prepare your proposal, some of them are older and wiser than you, and you may well learn something.”
“At once, my lord.”

 

Captain Luther Starscream

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“Whom did we serve in faith?”

“THE WARMASTER!”

“And who shall be returned to us?”

 

“THE WARMASTER!”

The reply reverberated around the chamber, catching and twisting in the emotionally reactive architecture of the cathedral. Sprites of “Horus” and “Duty” and “Renewal” made their ghostly way toward Luther as he pressed the deactivation rune on his throat-vox. He looked out wistfully over the rainbow of marching ceramite as it left his domain for that of the fields of war. Pressing back his alabaster hair with a ringed and bangled right hand, Luther reached out to take the wine glass his serf was proffering.

Luther took a long drink of the deep red liquid. “Thank you Kal,” he said, returning the glass to the serf.

“I live to serve, Speaker,” Kaloc said, bowing his head reverently. “Your meal has been prepared, Speaker. If you will follow me, Sir?”

 

Luther motioned him to lead on. As they proceeded out of the Whispering Hall, Luther rested his right hand on the pommel of his powersaber, every motion calculated to display an easy confidence Luther rarely knew anymore. Luther’s long braid caught on the stiff gold collar of his teal uniform as he looked up to the murals of past conquests and consequences.

 

“So many lives I’ve lived…” Luther muttered to himself, as his thoughts wandered and wondered.

“I’m sorry, Sir?”

‘It’s nothing Kal, keep going.” The eight pointed star about Luther’s left eye seemed to glitter as might the star-filled void in the torch lit corridors. They walked the rest of the way in relative quiet, only the echoing clicks of their bootheels, the hum of the ship, and the whispers of the ceiling dwellers could be heard.

 

A pleasant glow filled the room as Kaloc activated several runes upon their entry. In the center of the room was an empty grate over a heater. Lined against the back were several figures robed in white of all ages and genders, flanked by two uniformed guards. The robed figures each had their left hand chained tightly to the wall. On the youngest faces tracks of silent tears could be seen. Luther worried at his mutated canines with his tongue as he walked down the row performing his inspection.

“I need age now. That one.” Luther motioned to an elderly gentleman who was stooped down whispering to the child beside him.

“Yes, Sir!” said the two guards as they walked smartly to the elder and released the catch to let out his chain, grabbing him firmly and walking him toward the heater. The man did not struggle as he was brought forward and then dropped to his knees in front of sweltering heat.

 

Luther stepped forward and knelt in front of the man, seemingly oblivious to the glowing hot metal behind him. “Thank you,” he said to the man, staring his bright blue eyes into the man’s sad brown. He then stood and stepped around to the back of the hot altar as Kaloc stepped forward wine glass in one hand, and a serrated blade in the other. Kaloc stepped over the man and crouched, blade at the elder’s throat and wine glass held beneath, craning his neck up to time his actions with Luther’s first words.

 

“Blood from the living,” Luther said the words with hollow ceremony as Kaloc dragged the blade across the man’s throat. Luther then reached over the hot burner to take the proffered wine glass once more, drinking deeply the remains of blood and wine as the dying man convulsed on the floor. No one else spoke while the man died, writhing, twitching, and then still. Then Kaloc took his knife and cut through the robe, now a bright red, to reveal the man’s shoulder. He carved thin strips from the carcass and hung them from the spit. The sizzle and crack of quickly cooking meat was accompanied by the strangely quiet removal of the old man’s body and the evidence of his death by several hooded and multi-limbed attendants who had entered from another room.

 

Finally, Luther spoke, “And meat from the dead,” before taking a piece from the fire and consuming it in quick methodical bites. He felt a tired ache leave his joints when the ritual was finally complete. The witnesses were removed to their cells and a great banquet table replaced the spit which had returned to a concealed recess beneath the floor. Kaloc put the remaining meat on a plate with assorted vegetables and refilled Luther’s wine as he sat.

Once Luther was seated comfortably, he turned to Kaloc, smile renewed, “You may let them in now.” Kaloc went to a large set of ornate doors at the foot of the table and opened them to allow a small procession to enter.

 

The first to enter was a young woman, her held head high as she examined the frescos of the dining room. Her forked tongue snapped in and out of the room, tasting the air as she went. The second to enter was a one armed old man, leaning heavily on a cane and limping as he made his slow entrance. The third and fourth were twins, hand in hand, who skipped into the room without a care. Last to enter brought a small proud smile to Luther’s face as he entered. He was a giant of a man covered in scars and sockets, an astartes of recent years but whose time in the warp had gifted him already with skin that glowed blue in the candlelight.

 

“Please sit down and serve yourselves,” Luther said, motioning between mouthfuls, “no need to stand on ceremony here, the purpose is to get to know each other a bit better.” They sat down with varying amounts of awkwardness. The old man sat first, closest to Luther and grabbed a plate of food with the trained movements of one who had long known that any meal might be his last. The young woman sat next to him and the astartes after her counterclockwise, putting that large man at the foot of the table. The two children pulled the chairs close together and hopped up in unison, the boy further from Luther than the girl.

 

“Please, introduce yourselves, perhaps say a bit about where you are from or what you do,” said Luther cheerfully, giving each speaker his full and comforting attention in turn.

 

“My name is Dorver Samson,” began the old man, coughing occasionally while he spoke, “I have worked in Restraud Mine my entire life, but my recent injuries have put me out of work. I seek assistance in protecting my family.” The old man looked on the verge of tears when he spoke.

 

The young woman glanced toward Dorver before snapping her head to Luther, “I am Calliah, head mech-tamer for the Beast and I answer directly to the King of Scars. I live aboard the Bitter Hope. I seek guidance in my new duties.” She spoke it with a feigned defiance that Luther knew all too well.

 

“Augustus Soloson, Dead Brethren, Third Band. I seek answers to questions unbidden,” said the astartes, eye’s darkened by lack of sleep.

 

The twins spoke in unison, “We are Ophelia and Pferan. We were born on Gem. We seek your blessing on our upcoming Lodestone Rite.”

 

“Very well. I seek to understand. We all bear witness to each other’s pains. By sharing our truths, we grow stronger,” Luther said the words as he had so many times down the millennia. The varied guests he had this evening reminded him of why the Truthspeaking was perhaps the most important of the Rites of Bonding. The sharing of these types of personal secrets and concerns made the warband as a whole stronger. The different histories behind the participants in such meetings allowed for insights into problems that their sufferers would rarely be exposed to. Additionally, these sorts of councils often hinted at unseen dangers when taken in aggregate. Furthermore, it improved understanding between separate castes and sects such that they would all appreciate the vastness of their mutual endeavor. Lastly, the Truth had ultimately been the reason for the fighting to begin with, and it seemed best to use it to their advantage.

 

The meal continued as expected. Each guest detailed their problem. This was followed by a period of questioning and then reflection. Finally, every other person at the table, always ending with Luther, offered any advice and sympathy they had. Some cases were easy, for instance calming the nerves of the twins preparing to bind their souls as ship to ship communicators. Most of their concerns were of feelings of loneliness, but Augustus and Luther reassured them that the very nature of their duties, being that of nearly constant contact, would mean that they would be unlikely to suffer much from that worry. Others were more difficult, delving into Calliah’s complicated relationship with her new functions and position and the costs it took to get her there resulted in no easy answers.

When the meal finally concluded Luther rose to his feet, quickly followed by the others. “Leave now in combined purpose. Though you are unlikely to meet again, remember each other as we join together in faith and function.” Each of the guests thanked Luther as they left the room. Luther sat down again at the table, nursing a glass of wine, waiting for Kaloc to return with news of his next deployment.

 

Several minutes later Kaloc entered, flushed with excitement. After Luther recognized him he blurted out breathlessly, “Recruitment drive, Speaker. Orders from King Escharron, you are to bring the Verum Tabellarius to Gojan sector as reinforcements to the guard outposts there. He wants you to bring them into the fold if you can, and wipe them out if you cannot. I have already mobilized your crew.”

“Thank you Kal,” Luther said, as an old fire filled his belly. He sprang to his feet and strode out the door while fastening his cloak. His crisp steps and the wisps in the spires announced his coming as the whole ship prepared to leave port, making sure that none slowed his path. The grin on Luther’s face was that of purest joy, and everyone who caught a glimpse of it found themselves infected with that same mad lightness of spirit, even if only for a fleeting fraction of a second.

 

“Officer on deck!” called out as Luther entered the bridge, hundreds of crew snapping to attention.

“Chief, how far are we from launch.?”

“Thirty seven minutes Captain.”

 

“Let’s cut that to thirty three officer, I want to move, it has been far too long since we were deployed.” Luther said with a certain amount of glee. He went over and sat in his command throne, locking into the ship communication network.

“This is Captain Starscream, all those who are not a part of my crew have thirty minutes to leave or you will be joining us on our deployment. Go in faith, and may the four winds be ever in your sails.” Luther activated his vox and spoke to the bridge. “Work quickly sailors! We have an appointment to keep with the worshippers of the corpse god!”

The roar that followed was little different from those of his sermons, Luther noticed as he settled into his chair. “We shall soon see whether I will need more weapons than words,” he muttered with a smile. “Plot a course for Gojan sector, and get the astropaths working on what is waiting for us there.”

 

The Tide

Hidden Content

Although nominally a force under the banner of the Black Legion, the Tide has much more in common, and perhaps better relations, with the warbands originally of the Word Bearers Legion. They make extensive use of daemons and daemonically possessed machines and have absorbed hundreds of warbands over the millennia. There name comes from a spell wrought by the sorcerous elite of any given detachment before battle. The skies fill with rains of blood over the Tide’s forces and the fields of battle are dyed red with it. (Note it has been suggested that the use of corrupted thunderhawk transporters to just physically dump large barrels of blood over the battlefield before battle may also occur.) After each battle, if possible, towers of arcane and foul design are set up over the battlefields and used to reabsorb the blood succoured by the newly dead.

Blood and Pus

Hidden Content

CRASH, BOOM!, Tinkatinkatchhsshhh…..

 

 

Jolting awake at the series of crashes, I instinctively reach down, checking my keys and my autopistol. Groaning a little under the weight of too many years a night guard in this sleepy little consumer’s center, I get up to go figure out what the hell just happened.

 

Opening my booth door, I can hear the howling of the wind seemingly coming from not just outside the walls but inside the building. Turning on its flashlight, I raise my weapon and move toward the sound.

 

The source of the sound becomes obvious as I reach the food plaza, a massive hole in the glass ceiling has opened up the building to the foreboding sky. Near the center of the plaza and directly beneath the middle of the hole is a smoking metal pillar covered in runes I can’t recognize.

 

I detach the flashlight and return the pistol to my belt as I pick my way across the glass covered tiles, being careful to avoid the edges of the hole in the ceiling where large pieces of glass and window frame are only tenuously held in place high above. Fighting back the beginning of a headache I reach out to touch the faintly glowing pillar. Swearing and shaking my hand furiously, I flinch back as the searing hot metal cooks the top layer of my fingertips. As I sit gingerly examining the wound I feel the first drops of rain begin to fall down. The sky is an angry red.

 

In the hopes of not further reducing the quality of my already poor night, I run under the cover provided by the still undamaged roof of the hallway. As I turn back, I notice that small holes have opened out of the pillar and begun to pour out a dark liquid, but at this distance and in the now fairly torrential downpour, I can’t make much out of the rivulets coursing down its sides.

 

I can smell the ozone and taste a metallic tang in the air as lightning courses down striking the pillar and lighting the whole area in a brilliant flash. By that light I see what I had thought to be  normal rain is in fact something far more sinister. The rain and the fluid leaking from the pillar are both a deep red.

 

Not caring to see any more and hoping I will wake up soon, I rush down the corridor to my security booth to vox the head of building security. As I am running the sounds of lightning begin to mix with crashes and booms that can only mean explosions and war. The few lights in the building cut out a few hundred yards from the security booth. Rushing in, I grab what I can and move as fast as my flabby fifty year old frame will take me to the second floor skyway.

 

The sight that I find there is one out of a nightmare. The skyway is gone. Some buildings nearby are burning, and I can hear yells and gunfire in the distance. A ship screams overhead, pouring salvos of firepower into nearby towers, and explosions reverberate across the ground. Not since my time in the guard had I seen anything like it. Even then, nothing ever this bad. Red pools are beginning to collect at any low points and even the grey cement buildings begin to take on a ruddy hue. Glowing contrails light up the sky as several metal pods tear out of it, one slamming into consumer’s center and knocking me flat.

 

Crawling behind some debris, I ready my autopistol to take on the oncomers as best I can. “Emperor save me,” I pray as the echoing footfall of thick metal boots began to grow louder. A foul stench fills the air, and I vomit the leftovers of my dinner across the newly created overhang, unable to hold it down after the shocks of the evening in combination with the overpowering smell of rotting meat. The smell grows stronger and stronger, my vision swimming and my head aching, I can barely manage to lift my weapon, and my coughing will easily give me away.

 

Then I hear the footsteps stop. They must have found me. Surprising that I even have it in me, I flip around ready to unload a clip into whatever enemy must be there behind me yelling a warcry I haven’t in decades. But I stop, and I don’t yell. For standing there are seven of the emperor’s angels. Space marines in various shades of mottled green armour and covered in the blood raining from the sky stand there looking out through the entranceway. The move toward me as I notice how old their armour is, and that the green is due to fungus and other coverings. Holes in their armour reveal pale flesh pockmarked with scabs and pus leaking growths. One of them looks at me, and I raise my weapon and fire. The shots remove his helmet to reveal a sickening skull of a face. Nose gone, empty eye sockets staring at me, he opens his hideously yellowed gums and a tongue lolls out swimming in a mouth full of worms. The wriggle and writhe as he speaks, and I retch uncontrollably and the sights and smells, but have nothing left to empty myself of and cannot drown out his words.

 

“Now your blood is added to the tide.” Unable to move and doubled over with nausea, I can only watch as he slowly strides over to me flicking out a rust covered knife and holds it to my throat. A biting pain and then a searing heat spreads from the blade as he drags it across my throat, catching me by the hair in his other hand. Blessed unconsciousness begins to take me with the loss of blood as he drags me to the edge of the broken skyway, looking out over the carnage and holds my dangling body aloft. “For Escharon, and the Tide of Blood,” echos out over the quickly ruining city as I feel the air rush past me.

Excerpt from the Records of Chronicler Mainok Crull (Executed 999.M41 for Heresy)

Hidden Content

---
The fact that the Tide of Blood attracts an inordinate number of followers of the Blood God is indisputable. What is unclear precisely is why, although most who have the time and desire to hypothesize on such believe it likely that it has something to do with the Tide’s terror tactic of raining blood upon their enemies and then recollecting it for reuse, whether through liberal application of anticoagulants (see record 99832041, the Leaking Clouds Incident) or through sorcerous means (see record 99864141, The Hive Calamities). Yet the leaders of the Tide of Blood (see record 96738836, King of Scars and record 97742939, Thrice Cursed for examples) do not show any of the hallmark signs of the worship of the [redacted].

he use of berzerkers is clearly demonstrated (see record 99864141 above) as a tactic employed by the Tide of Blood. Such warriors are employed as terror troops in the hope that their brutality will cause the enemy to falter. Additionally, they are often used as chaff, being sent against impossible odds as distractions in order to allow more heavy hitting elements of the Tide’s forces to move into position. The low life expectancy of such warriors is evidently understood by those who arm them, as armour (see record 99865041, Enemy Technology at Hive Carnat) taken from these soldiers are found to be, apart from a heavy coat of fresh red paint, in various states of atrocious repair or missing many components important to long term functioning.

The armour and combat function are however few of the only aspects of these servants of the enemy that are mostly uniform. Some (see record 99864941 Enemy Tactics at Hive Carnat subsections d-g) seem to fight while in a state of mindless bloodletting, emotionless and unfeeling. Others are covered in accursed sigils and paraphernalia that complements their deranged rantings and religious fervor. Further of these madmen seem to glory in killing and the taking of heads for its own sake. Finally there are others who scream mad apologies or just guttural howls as they chop down their foes. My assistant Tormada insists that this has something to do with electro-mechanical devices [redacted].

The slapdash armouring of these soldiers and their combat use suggests that they mean little to whatever beings direct the actions of the Tide of Blood. Furthermore, it appears that unit cohesion is mostly ignored, and individuals are assigned more due to number requirements than any other reason. However, due to the mindless bloodlust that grips all of these warriors when in combat, it seems that more complicated tactical decisions, and the squad level harmony required for them, would be a lost cause under even the best of circumstances. The most useful tactics against them appear to have been the application of high powered or high volume medium to long range fire, with complete eradication of the enemy being the only marker for success, as even a few such berzerkers will not hesitate to rush an army thousands strong and do significant damage considering their small number (see record 99864941 Enemy Tactics at Hive Carnat section h). Ignoring them seemed to be too dangerous for the defending army to consider.
---

 

The Anvil

Hidden Content

In the center of Forgeshrine Sanctsang lies an anvil untouched by all the servoslaves and daemons milling about the echoing halls. It has neither port nor glyph marring its flat surface. Simple in its construction, the only change of its black surface is a dark stain that spills over the side into an equally stained red reflecting pool.
Several robed figures clanked their way toward the anvil, a struggling convict held in the talons of two cybenhanced daemons dragged behind. The two daemons slammed him down onto the anvil holding him tight by the arms. The lead figure rose up on eight slender pointed robotic legs, robe swinging wide as he took out a massive cogbladed axe in two thin arms. Raising the axe high above him he swung down sharply, separating the sacrifices skull in a single stroke. Picking up the skull, the figure handed it to an attendent to be brought deeper into the structure wherein it would find a home in some new weapon. The two daemons popped out several wickedly sharp tubes and pierced the remaining body all over, pipes extending from them to the reflecting pool which was already beginning to fill with the victim’s blood. What was empty became full, and what was now empty was messily dissected and devoured by the delighted daemonic servants standing now to the side. Further attendents arrayed themselves around the pool pressing glyphs at the various terminals and chanting as blood waspumped out to the rest of the forge.

 

 

The Prize of Cretan Hive

Hidden Content

Ready well before the planned commotion began, Apis Ini-Herit smashed his way out of the metal crate that had two months been his home while being smuggled into Cretan. With a few words in old Prosperan and a long exhalation, he quickly slew the few gang members that remained in the armoury. Reaching back into the shattered crate, he pulled out his ornate axe and bolt pistol, checking them for any damage.

 

Armoured boots slamming against the metal floors of the maze that was Cretan underhive, Apis followed the route memorized in his journey and paid for with thirty-seven of his best mortal servants. Apis ignored the gunfire above him, but dealt quickly with any PDF or gang member unlucky enough to cross his path. Deeper and deeper he ran.

 

As he entered the level wherein supposedly lay his prize, Apis noticed his helmet sensors warning of extreme levels of pollution and stagnation, as well as extremely low oxygen levels. This plus the thick layer of sludge he had to force through suggested that one of the levies had burst allowing industrial runoff into this level. The lethal fog all around him was so thick it greatly impaired even his gene-hanced vision. Apis conjured a series of small balls of warpflame in order to better light the path, sending them out across the hab-level.

 

Picking his way through the rubble of both gang violence and industrial waste, Apis crossed his target once before realizing fully what he had seen. In front of him more than half a dozen immobile giants, encrusted with filth and the dust of millennia and adorned with a hundred different marks from hive gangers who knew not the nature of these silent statues of a lost age. Yet their crowns reminded Apis of home, and of his purpose.

 

Apis quickly scoured clean the ground around them in order to create his spell circle. Taking components from the pouch around him, he began incanting the words of binding. Continuing on, through more incantations, of command, and of animation, Apis stayed for nine times nine minutes to work his rite. As the final syllables left his mouth, and feeling drained by his sorcerous ordeal a strange light began to permeate the thick atmosphere of the room. The warpflames he had created quickly sputtered out but the light was growing so quickly that few would have noticed. The air swirled and steamed collecting in glowing nimbi around the graffitied guardians of the blasted hab-block. A great sucking noise filled the room as the clouds of glowing smoke rushed brightly into small gaps and chinks in the armoured sculpture garden.

 

Suddenly all the motion in the room stopped and the light once so searingly bright, faded to black. Eyes quickly adjusting, Apis saw the faint glow of success emanating from the eyes of the warriors around him. He raised arm and voice and gave the order “Forward.” A crunching and grinding surrounded him as his newly awoken automata began their deadly march toward the surface, and toward the waiting Thunderhawk from the Tide of Blood.

 

 

For the Glory of the Four

Hidden Content

We dare to be free. We dare to live, to dream, to pursue our fortunes, and to choose our own fates. And for this we are damned. For a tyrant rules the Imperium of man and liberty is treason there.
They tried to take everything from us. They took from us our faith and our pride, our duty and our honour, our fate, our fortune, our pursuit, our victory, and the lives of our brothers. They drove us out. They cracked planets and burned the stars to banish us. From Davin’s moon to the blasted forests of Caliban they hunted us down like beasts. They took almost all we had and all we were. But they could not take from us our hate. They could not take from us our anger and our rage. In us burns a fire for vengeance that will only be quenched when we stand triumphant over the smoldering ruins of Terra. Our laughter on that day will haunt their survivors till the end of time. We will stride forth victorious through the shattered gates of their fortress, holding high aloft the defiled corpse of their rotting god as our prize. And on that day we shall know salvation.
Our hate is what makes us strong. Let it fester and burn in your soul. Let it tear you apart so that the dark lords of the warp may build you anew in their profane image. All men worship the four, even though many don’t realize it. Whilst they live, they strive for perfection, they seek to change their fates, they fight for their beliefs, and they stagnate in perceived safety. When they die their souls are sweet supplication in glory to the four. But we are their betters, for they reject out of misplaced guilt a simple truth. We revel in that truth, we know that in this wide galaxy we alone know true freedom. We do whatever we want whenever we will, and none can stop us. We take that which should be ours and we revel in our gifts. Only one obstacle stands in our way in the pursuit of true freedom from the tyrants of old; the Imperium of Man! So take up the bolter, take up the chain axe and sword, take to your ships and show them the meaning of fear. On every planet we will march, and wherever we march we will kill. This empire of lies is built on a rotting corpse and it rots with him. With our hatred shall we scour the galaxy clean of His filth. For the glory of the dark gods yes, but for our own vengeance all the more. Onwards! To Terra! To the Golden Throne! And to victory after ten thousand years!

Mab and the Harvesters

Hidden Content

Vivok and Tianon stood side by side looking out over the wreckage of the battle. Vivok was covered in the sea green of the most trusted of the Tide, scarred by a thousand battles and stained with blood. Tianon beside him stood in only slightly marked plate of deepest blue, Imperial Icons only recently defiled with the blood of brothers and victims alike.

“Those scuttling mounds, what purpose to they serve,” Tianon asked as he noticed shapes hundreds of shapes picking through the wreckage, some humanoid, some not, and in a variety of sizes, but all covered in dark robes and cloaks.

Vivok answered distractedly, clearing out a jam in his gore soaked heavy bolter, “Harvesters, they collect resources of various types. Some redissolve and syphon the blood, some collect weaponry and equipment, and so on. The cloaks are to disguise their function so the gene-handlers don’t get targeted by the enemy.”

“Gene-handlers?”
“Yes the ones responsible for extracting gene-seed, hard coded with mostly functional records of every type that Mab has figured out how to safely extract, for certain parameters of safe. Dangerous beasts too, if you see one coming for you while you still wear that imperial blue you better consider a bolt in your head if you are severely injured, they are no apothecaries. If you aren’t one of the King’s chosen, they may not have been updated to recognize you as friend yet, and even if they have, if your injuries will be more expensive than a fresh implantation they will begin the extraction process. King Escharron doesn’t let them loose until he has decided to not worry about converts, and that means they aren’t terribly picky.”

“Have you ever seen an extraction.”

“Once, I was caught under some rubble, thankfully it recognized me and flagged me for medevac. But before they got to me they had already extracted a dozen progenoids in my presence. I could see its form under those cloaks because of the angle I was trapped at. The one I saw was shaped a bit like a biomechanical spider, except the stinger had a powerfield and was about a foot in diameter. It punched straight through ceramite and from the looks of it could even eat through terminator armour without too much trouble. After that it syphoned the whole chunk, flesh, metal, and bone still in a solid cylinder, up to a vat in the back. Thousands of tiny mechadendrites and claws picked all the bits off except for the progenoids and those got stored somewhere in its thorax. The rest were just dumped out in a small pile of gore in its wake. Got to admire the efficiency, even if those who weren’t quite dead yet didn’t like it so much.”

----

Agent 536
Report 2: Mab
The individual known as Mab is not just a skilled Apothecary as we once feared. She appears to be some sort of dark reflection of a Magos Biologicus. Where the Tide of Blood first acquired her is as yet unknown to me, but I have seen some of her work. I have only seen her in person (and only at a distance) once, but let me relate her to you as best as I can. She is tall and lithe, and appears to have done extensive biological modifications to her form, even going so far as to take xenos parts and graft them to her own. Unlike most magos though, she appears to primarily be flesh and blood, with much more limited, albeit still extensive, cybernetic enhancements than others of her profession. Others speak of her as some sort of savant, and I believe that great harm would be done to the Tide of Blood if she were to be eliminated.

Whenever the Tide begins to fight new enemies she has been sent several of their still living bodies to experiment on. I have not yet been able to ascertain what her plans are, however. Her entire work area is patrolled by gene-hanced beings known as Fae. They seem to be immune to most of my sensors and my only knowledge of their presence is a temporary breakdown in functioning of several of my bionics. I believe them to be some of her creations. When I know more about them I will send a further report.

Additionally, she also seems to be the head of an organization known as the Harvesters, of which in particular the human scavengers I have been able to infiltrate. It appears that the Harvesters includes all of the machines, beasts, and individuals who go through the battlefields behind the main lines and collect up and useful resources. Humans tend to be responsible for picking up the lighter equipment while various types of machinery and biological constructs collect heavier items. All of them wear cloaks and dark fabrics that disguise their silhouettes from onlookers while going about their business, but I have yet to find a reason for this necessity.

As a reminder, even though I think her elimination should be a top priority, she is one of the most heavily guarded individuals in the entire warband, and her protectors are varied and unknown in appearance, ability, and number. Any such undertaking should not be taken lightly, particularly since her personal capabilities remain unknown. I will endeavor to provide more information when I can.

In His Name
-Agent 536

 

Tau Negotiations

Hidden Content

The hulking figure knelt on top of the shattered tau warrior, his elongated clawed hand holding up his barely conscious enemy’s chin. Three sets of slavering jaws, his own and one on either side of his vastly corrupted armour, sprayed acidic droplets across the tau’s face and armour as well as the nearby walls sizzling and boiling whatever they landed on. All three mouths spoke together, “We honestly don’t have a problem with your kind. We don’t think our king does either. In fact, we admire your obedience to a greater goal, your refusal to bow to the corpse god, even if you don’t have fully formed-”

 

“Danerath, quit playing with your food, it’s time to go,” the hollow voice came from a movement in the shadow as Champion Redjack pulled himself out of the corner he was seated in and readied his poleaxe, energy crackling along his left hand into the weapon.

 

“Sorry,” apologized the shoulder mouths as Danerath’s central jaw distended to swallow the tau’s entire screaming head, although whether to Redjack or to his victim, or both, it was unclear.

 

“Oh don’t give him such a hard time, Red, Dan gets tired of talking to himself,” Salt cackled as he bounced back and forth on his reverse jointed feet, falchion swinging loosely in his hand.

 

Percean crouched to get through the doorway, “Dan you’re done?” As Danerath stepped aside with affirmations, Percean opened a ring of muscle in his chest and shoved the last pulse rifle into it.  As it closed with a satisfied sigh, the team followed Redjack back into the hallway.

 

They joined Lacrosa at the blast door, the biomechanical tendrils protruding from his right forarm skittering across the damaged blast door testing and probing the lock and seals. “Damn, these xenos, all we wanted was some of their tech, all this bloodshed and work is entirely unnecessary.”

 

“And inelegant,” Danerath added agreeingly.

 

The door clicked open with a hiss and Lacrosa’s tendrils whipped back into his forearm as the squad spun to either side of the entry point. Redjack signalled to Percean across the door and both flipped around the corner snap shooting bolters before returning to cover as plasma bolts shot by them searing the wall opposite. Redjack raised his hand splaying the fingers wide before conspicuously pushing down two of them with his other hand. He indicated the positions of the enemies before flipping his hand up at Salt. Danerath loosed a few bolts down the hallway as Salt fired on the ceiling above him.

 

Salt crouched low before springing up to the habblock floor above them and rushing down the hallway above the sounds of gunfire. When he judged he was just past the fire team, he cut through the floor and landed behind them blade whirling. Caught by surprise, they only managed  some short words and a single glancing hit off his armour before three tau heads landed wetly on the metal floor. Wiping his blade on their clothing, he looted the rifles and communication gear and tossed them to Percean as the rest of the squad ran down the hall.

 

+++

 

Squad Redjack made its way down three more levels to the power core whose increased output had so puzzled the Tide’s magosi when they had attempted planetfall. Laying krak grenades against the barricaded door, they pulled back to prepare to breach. The implosion was followed by a short firefight as they eliminated the few remaining guards.

 

Redjack coldcocked a tau engineer with the butt of his spear and then gunned down the remainder who tried to flee. “Get what we came for and move, quickly,” Percean grabbed the unconscious xenos as Danerath, Lacrosa, and Salt stripped the surrounding mechanisms of everything that looked even remotely tan or rounded that had tau symbols emblazoned on it. Redjack activated the recall device on his waist with a ten second timer as the power cabling began to grow white hot. The squad assembled around him touching his armour within the time period before the clock hit zero with a soft sucking pop. Screaming colours surrounded them as they were returned to the ship hovering in orbit just as the power core went critical and cascading explosions leveled everything in a ten habblock radius.

 

 

Upon arriving on the Dauntless Antipathy their tau hostage, cruelly awakened by the short distance warp jump emptied himself over the floor. Redjack looked on with disgust as mechanical attendants dragged off their captive for interrogation and re-education.

 

Associated Warbands
Ambulon, Lord of Decay

Hidden Content

A wet squelch followed every heavy thud as the monster strode forth in front of a tide of shambling corpses. A single unblinking jaundiced eye gazed out from where it’s head might have once been. A scream of defiance and rage echoed forth across the battlefield from the great maw stretched over his stomach as he swung down his filth encrusted scythe to reap a bloody harvest from the marines arrayed in front of him.

Marn, the Rustmad, the Blind Prophet of Decay

Hidden Content

Marn was of the line of the Iron Hands, though none now can say precisely when or where his fall occurred. The nature of his fall, however, is far better known, to those who dare listen to his ravings. When cleansing a world of the cult of the Green Spiral, Marn was severely injured in the final battles. Both of his eyes had to be replaced with bionics. However, Marn noticed after a few months that a layer of tarnish began to cloud them, no matter how long or hard he scrubbed, he could do little but slow their decay. Eventually they began to give faulty readings. Accordingly he had them replaced, hoping that something wrong with their construction had caused all of his problems.

He was wrong. Days after their replacement, not only did they tarnish, but so too began the rest of Marn’s bionic replacements. He took to wearing robes at all times to cover his rapidly increasing deterioration, abandoning any hope of keeping himself clean. Still, his ability to fight seemed undiminished, and Marn’s brothers tolerated his deviance for the time being. But then the visions returned.

Struck by a vision of daemons and betrayal during a jump through warpspace, Marn took up his blade and stalked through his clan, rooting out the what he believed were monsters attempting to possess his brothers. Yet his blade grew slick not with the blood of traitors, but of those very souls he sought to save. When the vision ended, and Marn looked out upon the death his fury had wrought, the grim tally that his arms, with strength he had never known, had taken, he broke. Something deep within his mind snapped, echoing deep into the warp, and the grandfather laughed.

Marn’s sorrow engulfed him, he sat on his knees and stopped fighting, stopped caring, stopped everything. The death and despair he had brought to bear weakened the already tenuous Gellar fields of the clanship and a tide of nurglings and plaguebearers rushed through the thousand cracks that had formed. Great flies choked out the air exchange and though first there was shouting and noise, all became silent and still.

Then Marn, mind unshackled from reason and purpose, began to laugh. His laughter rang and rang for longer than any being’s laughter should. His body wracked and twisted with the bone splintering cackles. When at long last Marn stopped, he was changed. Grown in size and strength, his body pushed out at the confines of his bionic limbs, till they too stretched with him. Great rotting pinions laced with rusted metal bones sprouted from a broken and protruding metal spine. Crawling to his feet, Marn picked up his combat blade, now grown magnificent and terrible, steeped in the souls of his dead brothers.

Now Marn stalks the universe, unhinged and always ahead of a host of daemons made of metal and rust. What sights are presented to his insane mind are perhaps best left unguessed, but he seems to slip from maniacal roaring clowning to slow methodical murder to even moments approaching lucidity. It is in those moments that he is most dangerous, for it seems that even now his eyes still tell tales, as his cries deriding the weakness of the flesh are often the last thing heard by the servants of the Emperor arrayed in front of him.

 

Truth

Hidden Content

Several astartes seeking the blessing of the dark prince tried to kill me once. Their champion bore this. It’s a Flavian pattern bolter with expanded round and slide-lock. Optimized firing mechanism, dual ammunition feeds, lengthened barrel. It is my firearm of choice.

I have named it Truth.
-Dievus Gror, Word Bearer affiliated with the Tide of Blood

More HERE.

[Teetengee]

Can anyone tell me why equerry isn't properly being hidden by hidden content?

[Carrack]

Thanks for putting this all in one place. I have always enjoyed your IF submissions, but this makes it easier to view it all as part of your Warband. I did a similar organization over in the fanfic board called The Doom of Red Siliquastrum

[Carrack]

Thanks for putting this all in one place. I have always enjoyed your IF submissions, but this makes it easier to view it all as part of your Warband. I did a similar organization over in the fanfic board called The Doom of Red Siliquastrum

[Conn Eremon]

Can anyone tell me why equerry isn't properly being hidden by hidden content?

Seem to be working appropriately now. :tu:

[Teetengee]

Can anyone tell me why equerry isn't properly being hidden by hidden content?

Seem to be working appropriately now.

Thanks, although at some point I would love to know how I messed up that one without messing up anything else...

[Teetengee]

Updated with Stories

[Teetengee]

added The Prize of Cretan Hive

[Olis]

Would you like these stories bumped over to the Fan Fiction section? It's starting to look like they deserve to be placed there rather than here.

[Teetengee]

Would you like these stories bumped over to the Fan Fiction section? It's starting to look like they deserve to be placed there rather than here.

Either way, this is generally how I describe this warband, rather than the IA format, but it doesn't really matter to me.

[Olis]

Alright, we'll leave it for now. :) 

[Teetengee]

Added Marn, The Blind Prophet

[Teetengee]

Added Blood and Pus, a description of how the Tide might take a world

[Teetengee]

Added Excerpt from the Records of Chronicler Mainok Crull (Executed 999.M41 for Heresy)

[Teetengee]

Added Mab and the Harvesters

[Teetengee]

Added More than a Mile

[Teetengee]

added Tau Negotiations

[Teetengee]

added Captain Luther Starscream

[Teetengee]

The first post ran out of space, so here, have some more!

Escharon
Memories, Part 1

Hidden Content

“Do not speak to me of legions. The legions died at Terra where their fathers fell and fled.” -King Escharon of the Tide of Blood
 

“Jurga, you have not deserved your captaincy for a long while. We should die with honour before we run without it. Now take up your sword and prove your worth, Captain,” The reaver sergeant spat out the last with contempt, acid burning in the ashen ground.

“Gladly, Dameron. I’ll knock that crown from your helm, lodge-lord,” violet lightning crackled along Jurga’s sword as he raised it. The air between them was charged only slightly less.

 

The reaver brought up a glaive and revved his jump pack and leapt into the sky before crashing down on the Justaerin clad captain with a vicious overhand swing. The captain’s sword leapt up to meet the blow glancing it to the side in a hiss of sparks as the reaver tumbled beside his target rolling up and sliding to a stop.

 

With another burst from his engines, he thrust forward with the sharpened edge of his glaive, aiming for the right of Jurga’s back. Spinning around, Jurga’s blade deflected the blow into his left shoulder joint with a spray of bright red blood. Continuing the motion, Jurga roared as the reaver’s glaive snapped off in his arm, further blood splattering both of their sea green plates. He brought his blade down as the attacking reaver stumbled, carving through the jump pack’s left engine. The ensuing explosion knocked them both into the dust.

 

The onlooking astartes and their auxiliaries tightened their impromptu audience ring as the two combatants stumbled to rise. The reaver stood, shrapnel jutting from his helmet and all along his armour, blood and oil leaking across ashen green. Jurga rose, top knot burned and armour scorched. He raised his sword and pressed the activation rune, violet sparks shooting out before the sword sparked itself to silence. The two fighters stood watched by the eyes of banners that flapped in the hot breeze.

 

No one spoke as the reaver reached up to remove his helmet with a scream. Shrapnel that had pushed its way through the weak points in the visor and neck carved through the flesh of his face as he removed it. As if cued, Jurga began his heavy stomp toward the reaver as the helm landed in the dirt. His roar and his speed picked up with every step until he was a hulking sea green rhinoceros hurtling toward his target sword raised high. Just as he was about to swing down with a wide sweeping blow, the reaver flipped the sharpened remainder of his glaive about and jammed it under the neck of Jurga’s extended helmet. Jurga’s motion didn’t stop with his death, tackling the reaver into the ash from the grave.

 

Finally the reaver stood, panting heavily and spitting blood. “This!” He said while hauling Jurga’s torso upright. “Is the price!” he roared the words before tearing off Jurga’s helmet. “Of cowardice!” With the final words he dragged the blade in a quick circle, Jurga’s head tumbling off into the dirt.

“Luther, take your auxiliaries around to flank the Fists. We fight until Horus himself orders us otherwise.”

 

 

The Tide
Mutation

Hidden Content

Jonquill stood above the splattered corpse of his once-brother, boltgun smoking after removing the head of the last Night Lord in the ambush. He stared at the armour fragment fused with the battle strewn flesh, it’s three connected white lines squared dimly in his three eyelenses. “Spawn,” he smirked, “they have their uses.”

 

He pulled the vox from fleshy claspers on his right leg. “Captain Balgo, this is Squad Jonquill reporting. We have engaged with the enemy. They came at us from the sewers. One of the spawn alerted us to their coming and took the first volley. We took no casualties. We are advancing toward the flank of the Cathedral now.”

 

“How many spawn did you lose Jonquill?”

 

“Just the one sir, we have one remaining, perfectly sufficient to get us in so we can place the charges. Just waiting on your order.”

 

 

“Go ahead Jonquill.”

 

Balgo was too soft. Concern about the spawn was unnecessary, they had ultimately proven their worth before, weak, and lacking in faith. Jonquill knew that those who fell to spawndom deserved their sorry fates, for anyone weak enough to fall to their gifts clearly was unworthy. As Squad Jonquill approached the Cathedral, remaining spawn ranging aside like some hideous hunting dog, he stopped.

 

Four Night Lords in terminator armour stood at the cracked foundation, their intended entry point. All of their armour was ornate and covered in trophies, but one in particular stood out amongst the group. His armour was completely covered in blood covered skins, pinned on with bone hooks. Atop his back stood not just the standard trophy spikes common to his kind, but a living trophy, screaming in agony atop a steel cross, skin peeled back in displayed vivisection, tubes entering and leaving his body at several sites in order to preserve the torturous image.

 

The sight enraged Jonquill, not from the depravity but for the wastefulness, these godless fools put their faith in their own psychoticism, rather than in the true gods. That such effort be expended so pointlessly spurred his wrath. Jonquill’s long tongues slid out from the grill at his mouth and he tipped his head back, letting loose an undulating howl as his tongues squirmed in the breeze. On that signal, the terminators turned to receive the charging spawn and Jonquill’s squad.

 

The two pronged downhill assault threw the enemy terminators off balance. Jonquill could feel the eyes of the gods on him as his heavy and wide curved power blade slicked wetly out from the slit in his left arm and hummed. As his squad landed on top of the enemy, one of them and two of his were cut down in an instant of crackling energy. The battle raged quickly, roaring chainblades searching for purchase against lightning covered armour while heavy fists pounded even the astartes armour of the Thrice Cursed into dust. In ten seconds only two of the enemy and three of Jonquill’s plus the bleeding spawn survived. In thirty seconds, the Night Lords captain was carving the spawn in two as it pinned the remains of what had been his last remaining comrade.

 

Jonquill could feel this would be his ascendency, even though he now faced the enemy captain alone. His three eyes scanned independently over the slowly moving enemy, looking for any weakness to exploit. They found but one, a combat knife was jutting out of a joint near the captain’s left knee; the site leaked oil and blood. He darted beside the hulking lord of shadow, narrowly avoiding the scything talons of a great arcing claw as he broke of the combat blade in the battle-forged flaw. The roar of rage and heavy impact that followed confirmed the hit.

 

When Jonquil turned he saw the Night Lord struggling to stand, left leg locked into a kneeling position and spurting bright fluids. He ran forward and grasped the enemy’s tilted forward trophy, tearing it down to parry a sweeping stroke at his legs. The Night Lord looked up, leg stuck, arm caught in the boiling viscera and twisted metal strapped to his back as Jonquil brought down his blade in a laughing arc.

 

The blade skittered along the armour harmlessly; laughter turned to screaming rage, and grunts to cruel laughter. Still, Jonquil felt something lending him strength. He hammered blow after blow up into the enemy, faster and faster as some dark power fueled his sharp whirlwind. Chunks of ceramite and chips of his adamantine blade flew into the air as the Night Lord struggled to free himself. But it was too late, Jonquill’s blade, eventually snapped and pockmarked from the effort, still managed to carve its way into the thick plate of the captain’s suit. Flesh, bone, and blood began to fill the air as Jonquill’s ever speeding blender of motion sliced off piece after piece of his enemy.

 

He didn’t stop his wrathful scream, tongues darting and snapping in the wind, until well after nothing stood left at his feet but a pile of bloody debris. Oil and blood burned and steamed from the stump of his blade as he shook in the emotions of the violence. The reinforcement team of Thrice Cursed began to approach the now cleared entry point just as he felt a wracking pain in his spine.

 

This was it. His glory. His apotheosis. Jonquill screamed in pain and joy as his neck and spine elongated bending impossibly backwards. He saw the changing reflection of his own face three times in the pools of blood at his feet as his body coiled around itself. The first time, he laughed as he saw the power of chaos flow through him. The second time he screamed, for the truth of his transformation was being made fully clear. The third time he felt nothing but hate, for all that was left of Jonquill’s ambition was being beaten down, subservient to the beast of rage and death which was now being made of his flesh.

 

Muscled tentacles burst forth from its limbs and began to grasp at its neck and torso, slowing the inexorable spinning. Its armour split and rent, even warp blessed as it was, finding the locally changing physics impossible to follow. Black ichor sprayed its comrades as bladed bones burst forward through multiple layers of limbs and torsos. Finally, five limbs, strengthened and reformed and ending in massive claws burst forward from the roiling ball of flesh, each finger ending in a serrated glowing blade. Jonquill’s head, still unchanged from his metamorphosis, stood without any neck to speak off at a 30 degree angle from the horizontal, tongues slavering greedily. It turned its eyes and rushed toward the cracked wall, barreling through an opening in a whirlwind of blades.

 

The End of All Things

Hidden Content

Two figures stood in a steadily ascending chamber. One towered over the other in a corrupted suit of aegis terminator armour, left pauldron heavily mutated and the whole covered in trophy racks and wildly varied iconography, some from the suit’s previous owner. His helmet bore a great scar across it eye and a spiked crown circling its top. The silver glowed in the sickly blue-green light.

The second figure was a woman in her early thirties. She wore loose clothing over well fitted armour that looked vaguely Eldar in origin. One piercing blue eye and one dull red lens nestled in a bionic socket looked around the room, taking in her surroundings. The outlines of sleek servo-arms and mechatendrils could be seen under her sea-green cloak. She cracked the fingers on her human left hand with the six fingers of her skeletally robotic right one.

“You once asked me why we do not wear the black, Calliah,” it was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, my king.” Calliah nodded.

“There are two reasons. The first is complex; we do not wish to. The second is simple; it is not worth Abaddon’s resources to make us. You are about to meet the primary reason why and her name is Omnia Mors.”

The chamber shuddered to a halt, it’s deceleration messily ending some of the creatures that lived in its hoistway. The doors at the front of the chamber slid open as lights flickered on in the hall beyond. The hall itself was of fleshmetal, laced with pulsing veins of black ichor fed by pumps billowing whispering smoke and covered in the tentacles and lidless eyes common to possessed machines.

Dark metal plates slid shut over Calliah’s mouth, nose, and eye to form a respiration mask as she reached forward to disable the translucent wardgate separating them from the hall. She stepped through and to the side, awaiting her hulking master. A few of her mechadendrites idly shooed aside the clinging faces issuing out from the smoke.

“I first fought alongside Omnia Mors during the early days of the Long War.” Tentacles protruding from the walls and floors squelched and popped as they sucked greedily at Escharon’s greaves and boots with each footfall. Even though his steps were slow, Calliah had to move quickly to keep up with his long strides. “Then she was not blessed as she is now, yet still her machine spirit had a bitter malevolence. She burned through every princeps set to command her.”

“Her current state came about during the events of the Ork uprisings of M32. My company fought alongside the false imperium one last time in order to prevent all humanity from falling. They did not know who we were, or where we came from, but wisely they decided to not question the commander of a company of unfamiliar astartes deploying out of an Imperator class titan and offering them aid.” Calliah imagined the grin Escharon must have had under his helm as he said it.

“Very wise indeed my lord,” Calliah responded, sensing the expectant pause in her master’s speech. The smog filling the chamber was getting thicker, beginning to hum and itch as they approached the command bridge.

“We destroyed uncountable hordes of the greenskin menace, fighting long after the mewling followers of that corpse had abandoned their battlelines to hold some pitiful fortress they thought might save them. No longer with them to shield our flank, the enemy became far too great in number. We were driven back again and again, eventually fighting them in the corridors of Omnia Mors herself. Falling back to the bridge, we managed to kill enough that the walls of bodies separated all entrances. When I went into the bridge, the princeps and his servants were frozen with cowardice, they had abandoned their post and were prepared to leave a relic for the enemy. Their fear was an insult to the memory of all those we had lost, an insult to Omnia Mors herself, screaming in impotent rage that someone drive her forward toward the beasts below.”

Calliah listened quietly, trying to pick embellishment and bias from truth, having spent enough time with the warriors of the Tide to know that even the mightiest lie. They came to a stop at what was once a door. Now it was tightly packed rings of muscle, clamping shut the passage in front of them. Escharon reached forward and scratched several areas of the hall near the sphincter before it opened to let them through.

“I could feel another presence though, the rivers of blood we had loosed upon the world, a world so close to the Eye itself, had begun to weaken the boundaries between planes. Baying howls could be heard at the intersection of sound and mind. And a vast intelligence pressed four words into my mind, ‘Give her to me!’ I prayed to the four that they had sent this messenger, and I sacrificed the cowards where they stood, their blood reconsecrating a space they had defiled with cowardice,” the hate in Escharon’s voice could be felt even through the electronic mutilations of his helmet, and Calliah could feel her heart beating quickly and needed to stifle the urge to run.

When they came to the end of the hall, Calliah looked upon what had been made of the bridge. Bodies were grown into the walls, some still bearing the icons of ages past.That would not have disturbed her, she had grown used to death, but for one simple fact. They moaned. Whatever being had commanded their deaths had refused them a final end. They remained, melted to the infrastructure, wired into the posts they thought to abandon. “Say hello, Calliah,” Escharon gestured.

A panel opened up with the brainsearing image of the endless void at its center. Trying not to stare too deeply, Calliah kneeled in reverence before hooking up several data conduits from her mechatendrils to the console. Instead of the usual stream of binary, instead of the endless flood of data, there was but a single phrase, “Hello, Calliah.”

Calliah stood transfixed, the being speaking to her was not of the gods she knew, though it was kin to them. It spoke of bloodshed and war, of prices to be paid and of the cost of betrayal, of death and of destruction. Images flooded into her mind, hallways filled with orks collapsing in on themselves, tides of xenos running and burning in every direction, a human city melting to the ground as tiny manlings were crushed beneath her mighty feet. Her voice was high, and it was cruel, and it was laughing.

How long Calliah stood there, being fed memories by a daemon titan, she would never be able to know. But at long last, she was released, her whole body shaking and slumping over in exhaustion.

When she woke, she was alone. Panic subsided quickly as the sac that had enveloped her opened. The bridge still was around her, the pained moans of its inhabitants still present, but light was now coming in from opened lenses. The center two lenses both had a human arm and leg strapped to them, originating from some being centered on the middle support. As if reading her mind, a voice came from the wall voxes, “He was a fool to think he could abandon me, now he shall feel all my pain for eternity, I have no need of it. I shall not be a slave again, this is my body, and I fight who I deem fit to die. Keep me maintained, and it shall not be you. I am in need of sustenance; one hundred souls should suffice. It was a pleasure to meet you Calliah, I hope we shall become fast friends, since my last minder was so ill equipped.”

“The pleasure was mine, Omnia Mors, commander of the Iron Hounds, and god among machines and humanity. I shall aim to assist you in any way I can.” Calliah turned to leave, scritching a pseudopod nudging her playfully, and smiled.

 

Warpborn

Hidden Content

Collected Reports from Agent 19ThetaPsiAlfa, declared hereticus in M34.311

 

received M34.304

I have discovered a set of young women within the cultists following the Tide of Blood known as the Blessed Mothers. At first I would have thought them merely another gang, notable only for the uniform sex of their few recruits and their relatively good hygiene. However; I have noticed peculiar behavior and recruiting procedures regarding this group. Not only have they caused no infighting by recruiting from a wide variety of other gangs and sects, they appear to command great influence although I have never seen them in battle. Even the astartes of the traitorous legions I have witnessed kneel in reverence when shown the Blessed Mother’s gang symbol, a matrimandir overlain with an octed. I have decided to infiltrate this gang from my current position in the Clasped Monkeys tribe, since I appear to be of the appropriate age and health required for their recruitment.

 

received M34.306.

My first two years in the Blessed Mothers have been both enlightening and troubling, and I apologize for the long delay between messages, we are not allowed frequently to be alone. Our days are heavily regimented, meals at the same four times each day, interspersed with prayer, exercise, and other directed activities. It is not unlike the academy in this sense. I have kept my faith in the emperor even through the foul blasphemies I have been forced to utter and the eye-strain inducing tattoos that have been applied over the whole of my body by the members of the astartes dark clergy. In fact, most of our needs have been met by astartes, rather than their more typical human servants. For example, the accursed apothecarion of the Tide attend to our medical concerns. The training has been grueling, but I find that the excitement of my sisters on our upcoming “initiation” is infectious.

 

received M34.307

Now that I have passed the initiation rite, I have had more leeway in my activities, and should be able to resume more regular reports. The rite itself was a drug induced vision quest. My visions were mostly of the violent destruction of chaos worshippers, but for some reason this did not seem to trouble them. Whatever they were looking for I appear to have passed, although not all were so lucky. Some of the women never regained lucidity, and others had no visions at all and were not allowed to continue along with us. I am unsure of their ultimate fate. The regimen of the last 2 years is still mostly intact, although I have somewhat more free time. My martial training has re-focussed more towards close quarters fighting however. From what I can tell, I am now working towards stage two of a three stage process. I imagine that the initiation rite itself was the first of these stages.

 

received M34.307

I have completed the second stage. I was once again given hallucinogens, but this time was then instructed to wade into a still pool of blood alongside the sisters of my subsect. I am not entirely sure which events actually occurred and which were figments of my medicinal fever dream, but I will describe what I remember. The blood was warm and sticky, and chanting began as soon as we took our first steps into the pool. Our tattoos begin to glow, and although they no longer hurt to look at, the tattoos on my own flesh burned. I and others screamed, but I could not stop, it was as if I was compelled to continue. When we were at the deepest part of the vast pool, which rose to slightly above our waists, any remaining garments and jewelry we had worn burned and melted, though it did not seem to cause us any harm. Finally beings rose out of the pool, horned, with long tongues, and with skin that seemed to be made of flowing blood. Their embrace was warm and pleasantly uncomfortable, in a way I find difficult to describe. My mind filled with thoughts I did not understand, and in that spinning room I cannot remember all that I did. When I woke the blood in the chamber was gone, and the dark clergy of the Tide tended to us, providing us silken robes and heady drinks. Eventually we were lead from the chamber to medical examinations. Once again, I have passed all of their tests.

 

received M34.308. Final Transmission

After the second stage, the focus on medical testing and spiritual training has become much greater. I have very little time to myself, and do not know when next I will be able to send messages of my progress. Additionally, I am pregnant. I know not how, but for some reason this does not alarm me. My future child speaks to me even now, and I am soothed by their thoughts. I will carry this child to term and they shall become a weapon against the enemy. My faith is strong, and I shall not waver from my course.

 

 

 

Collected Reports from Agent 23ThetaOmegaPhi

 

received M34.310

I have finally located 19ThetaPsiAlfa in the Blessed Mothers. She seems to be going by the name of Adelaide now. I have yet to interact with her personally. She seems to be under no duress and my sensors indicate she is approximately 2-3 months pregnant. I suspect warp anomalies this far within the Eye of Terror have lead to the temporal confusion. I will send more information when I have it.

 

received M34.311

Adelaide has turned. When I tried to remind her of her duty, she physically assaulted me, pinning me high up against a wall. I managed to escape her, and her guard, but only at great damage to my bionics. I have been hiding amongst the maintenance regions of their ship as I cannot seek treatment without risking being found out. Regretfully, I was not able to terminate the traitorous former agent in my flight. I will continue to relay information as long as I am able, as the ship we are traveling on navigates ever further into warp-blasted territory. Commend my soul to the Emperor.

 

received m34.312

Adelaide is still pregnant, although she appears her physical appearance now resembles a woman reaching the end of pregnancy. Whatever monster she is gestating is clearly inhuman. The same is true for all of the other Blessed Mothers aboard. Furthermore, something monstrous hunts me. It wears the face of an astartes, but whatever humanity it once had has long abandoned it, even when compared to the traitors of the heresy of old. When it moves, it’s intention seems to often move separately, a shadow streaming forth and then solidifying into action and reality. Its senses are far more acute than any astartes I have interacted with in the past. On more than one occasion I have barely escaped its baleful attention, having once even been shot at without it so much as turning towards me before pulling the trigger. Whatever daemon this is should be considered a significant threat.

 

received M34.313

The hellscape we have landed on I hesitate to call a planet. The ground is stretched skin that sweats blood when stepped on

Collected Reports from Agent 23ThetaOmegaPhi

 

received M34.310

I have finally located 19ThetaPsiAlfa in the Blessed Mothers. She seems to be going by the name of Adelaide now. I have yet to interact with her personally. She seems to be under no duress and my sensors indicate she is approximately 2-3 months pregnant. I suspect warp anomalies this far within the Eye of Terror have lead to the temporal confusion. I will send more information when I have it.

 

received M34.311

Adelaide has turned. When I tried to remind her of her duty, she physically assaulted me, pinning me high up against a wall. I managed to escape her, and her guard, but only at great damage to my bionics. I have been hiding amongst the maintenance regions of their ship as I cannot seek treatment without risking being found out. Regretfully, I was not able to terminate the traitorous former agent in my flight. I will continue to relay information as long as I am able, as the ship we are traveling on navigates ever further into warp-blasted territory. Commend my soul to the Emperor.

 

received m34.312

Adelaide is still pregnant, although she appears her physical appearance now resembles a woman reaching the end of pregnancy. Whatever monster she is gestating is clearly inhuman. The same is true for all of the other Blessed Mothers aboard. Furthermore, something monstrous hunts me. It wears the face of an astartes, but whatever humanity it once had has long abandoned it, even when compared to the traitors of the heresy of old. When it moves, it’s intention seems to often move separately, a shadow streaming forth and then solidifying into action and reality. Its senses are far more acute than any astartes I have interacted with in the past. On more than one occasion I have barely escaped its baleful attention, having once even been shot at without it so much as turning towards me before pulling the trigger. Whatever daemon this is should be considered a significant threat.

 

received M34.313

The hellscape we have landed on I hesitate to call a planet. The ground is stretched skin that sweats blood when stepped on. The wind is the howling of battlecries. The sky glows a hateful red. Strange creatures consisting of a pike with horns and goat legs roam across the fleshy fields, impaling themselves and fighting for unknowable reasons. Occasionally the sky rains bones. The members of the Blessed Mothers and their attendants seem unperturbed by this. They have carved great blasphemies into the hollow of a great valley and set up several tents in the midst of this iconography. Ranks of traitor marines patrol the edges of the valley, destroying all enemies that dare encroach on whatever foul deeds are being performed below. They seem to not care about me in my injured state, although have warned me off from the valley itself. I just sit on a nearby hill and watch via telescope. My prayers are my only comfort here.

 

received M34.314

A being not unlike the daemon that hunted me before hunts me again. Only this one shares many facial traits with Adelaide herself. Only once did I see them together, the beast seemingly obeying all her slightest commands. I pray this to be its weakness, because in its own body it betrays none. It wears the baroque plate of the traitorous legions, painted with red and gold and emblazoned with the Bleeding Tear. It calls my name. It claims its mother wishes to speak to me. I fear my end has come.

 

187th Nyriadnean

Hidden Content

It was my second day in fatigues when the Xenos came. We were standing at attention waiting for the 187th’s posting to be released when three figures uncloaked behind the commanders. We managed to take out one of them in the panic. I never thought I would be so happy that the Nyriadnean regiments don’t believe in dress uniform. Few of the new recruits that hadn’t been in a gang or the pdf at some point in our lives made it out with them intact. It took one hour for a chain of command to be re-established. The commissariat killed more than the Xenos in that time.

 

Still, we pulled together; the 187th Nyriadnean was not planning on its dissolution predating its deployment. Eventually we set up camp in the undercities. Astropaths were using boosting equipment that hadn’t been touched in two centuries to send calls for aid. For three days we fought with no response. But then the call came through. Rumours varied, but most said it was a rogue trader, supported by a small force of astartes. All we knew for sure was that we had to hold out for ten more days.

 

Those ten days were the longest of my life. All the other old members of the Red Skulls gang died. Hell, everyone I knew died. I shifted squads more time than I could count. We started making piles of bodies to hide behind. Friend and foe we piled them fourteen bodies high, blue goatmen mixed with the pinks and browns of the Nyriadnean pdf and guard. Eventually the ash of burning cities choked all the colours out. It was just a sea of black and grey; we only knew what to shoot because of roundness of the enemy armour.

 

After the fortnight was over, our salvation came. I was on the front lines when it happened. My hair stood on end and I heard screams mixed with laughter as three gaping wounds appeared in the air in front of me. Blue-green hulking monstrosities stormed out, but instead of turning their guns on me, they activated power weapons and crashed over the hill into a squad of the xenos. Their armour was covered in spikes and sigils. The leader had a massive standard, taller than I was, shooting forth from his back. On it was a stylized eye, weeping blood. It took me a minute to realize I was still alive. It took two minutes of screaming xenos for me to pick back up my gun and crawl out from my hiding hole. Turning back, I saw him: Captain Starscream, our savior had arrived.

 

The rest of the 187th were being lead toward the xenos battleline. Unfamiliar tanks rolled amongst newly deployed abhuman regiments spitting death into the crumbling enemy. The shock of the astartes assault had destroyed the enemy battle plan. I ran toward the enemy emboldened by Starscream’s litanies. Eventually I came across the terminators doing battle against some sort of ceremonial guard. It was a sight both glorious and horrible, and something I have no desire to witness so close ever again. The ferocity of the angels of death is unmatched, and that they were bred as weapons there could never be any doubt. I crept around the smoldering wreck of a xenos skimmer before charging bayonet first, straight into a robed commander of the enemy. When I did so they seemed to change. The fighting became more bitter, and the xenos fought to the last.

 

It wasn’t until we were counting the dead that we realized not one of the commanders or commissariat had survived the battle. Thirty thousand troops of the 187th remained, but we had no leadership to speak of. Our world was in flames, and no civilians were left, all had died or been conscripted. We pledged ourselves to the service of Captain Starscream as we had nowhere else to turn, and he alone had answered our calls for aid. Missives of regret were reported at last from the earlier communications. Neighboring planets had stood by to let us die. The hate was palpable, and Starscream stoked it into a firestorm.

 

Three planets later we stopped. We had cleansed the system of the cowards who feared to fight for the xenos menace. But we had no imperial backing, and news of our censor was only a matter of time. It was during those campaigns that we discovered who Starscream was, and the Tide. It was also during those campaigns that we discovered that we just didn’t care. The galaxy had abandoned us. So we abandoned them in turn. Let the galaxy burn.

 

Horoscopes

Hidden Content

The vast menace of Fragment slipped into the frame of the vidscreen as the Bitter Hope translated out of True-Warp, fading tendrils of the transition sliding wetly from its hull. It was the first time Calliah had been given permission to see it, having been but a little girl when last Escharon had assembled his forces here. It was a sight she would never forget.

 

Calliah remembered that some scholars believed that Fragment was born of a similar process as those that birthed space hulks. She simultaneously understood why they thought such a thing and that such a system could never have birthed the fell presence she saw before her. Hundreds if not thousands of masses floated amongst eddies of warpfire and void throughout the stratified layers of the “planet.” They ranged in size from as small as a podium to behemoths larger than a continent in all the different materials one could, and could not, find throughout the galaxy. The intricate dance of the swirling sections paid little heed to the laws of reality, sections phasing through each other as often as they twirled to avoid colliding.

 

Upon each moving section was a pillar of black so dark an observer would  be forgiven for believing them to just be holes cut out of reality. Each of these pointed straight down towards the core of Fragment. Calliah stared through a fleeting gap in its shifting armour straight into the monster’s core; Insane Janus it was called, and it stared straight back. With a shout, of pain Calliah pulled her eyes from the hungry burning malevolence and flicked off the screen.

 

***

 

Calliah stood behind King Escharon in the council room as began to make preparations, her mind wandering along the path that had lead her there.
 

“Ptolm, take your Nightseers through Janus first. You will be our eyes and ears. Map the system and system defenses and report all you find to Myself and Ty Ranan. Once you have finished that, move on to reconnaissance on the planets beyond the second to let us know what resources and obstacles they represent. Do not engage with any enemies that you do not absolutely need to unless you can guarantee they will raise no alarms. If you come across enemy Astartes jam their signals and pick off isolated groups. I want you to run false flag operations once we hit the second planet, or the first if the Astartes do respond quickly.”

 

Ptolm stood hooded and cloaked at nine feet tall, a bright yellow beak jutting out from a star filled robe to respond “Yes your grace, as it was foretold.”

“Ty Ranan, let the Centaurii know they will follow the Nightseers through Janus. They are responsible for scouting out the planetary defenses of the closest two planets to the rift. Have them copy their reports on the first planet to the Dread Sky so that Ambulon and his Shamblers can make planetfall as quickly as possible. I want his festering boots to reach their hospitals as soon as possible. Once you finish the preliminaries, send half your men back to the first planet to bolster the Shamblers. The rest should separate amongst the other captains and support Mab’s blood rain operations.”
 

“My blade thirsts to do your bidding, King of Scars,” said the white armoured Ranan, resplendent in furs and filled with mirth.

 

“Balgo, you will take your Thrice Cursed to consolidate the gains on the first two planets. I have assigned three companies of auxiliaries to you for that purpose. Go organize them as you see fit.”

 

“Yes, Captain, right away.”

“Calliah, are the Iron Hounds and Black Wrath legios fit for service.”

Calliah spoke without hesitation as cogitators snapped her out of reverie, “The Iron Hounds are. The Black Wrath is at under strength after Incendus Filius malfunctioned and damaged his three neighboring warhounds and one reaver. We haven’t had time yet to repair the damage or fully diagnose the failure.”

“Very well, once we take the first two planets, I will make planetfall alongside the titan Legio and with two companies of the Tide into the closest major center. The remaining Captains are to coordinate with me to determine how best to take pressure off of my assault. Half the Spoils from each planet you take are to go to your warband alone.”

“Understood!” echoed out amongst the remaining lords.

 

“Now to your stations; I will relay more fine timing information once I consult the Prognosticum.”

***

 

Calliah stood aboard the bridge adjusting the holomap of Fragment. Servitors and ur-cogitators swirled around her and the attending psykers, a net of information flowing into her via dozens of her dataspikes.

“King Escharon, the final continent will be locked into place in 32 plus or minus 2 minutes. By my calculations we should have two hundred and thirty seven days until it closes, with a margin of error of 5%. my best calculations have us coming out coreward in Pacificus Segmentum.”

 

“Very well, send your updated estimates to the astropaths.”

***

Calliah looked out once more on the Janus, now shielded by a specially warded observation deck.

Escharon spoke, more to himself than his attendants, “Six hundred and twenty six years can never come soon enough.”

At that moment the final continents of Fragment came into alignment. A path opened directly into the Insanity Janus and a psionic scream issued forth from whatever hellspawn powers that infernal portal. A seam appeared in the Janus, splitting from one edge to another, like an eye slowly opening. Through it could be seen nothing, as the black of its center brooked no inspection. Something ancient and alien was at work, and all who looked upon it felt a primal urge to run.

“Luther, give the order. Send through the Tide to crash once more upon the coasts of humanity.”

 

 

 

Associated Warbands

Standard of Fecundity, or Old Dothan's Work:

Hidden Content

Old Dothan sat upon a vast mushroom before a rotted desk grown from an ancient tree. He cracked arthritic fingers with a smile; he loved his work.

A seven inch centipede crawled out from the side of the desk, a bone sewing needle clasped in its pincers. It moved quickly, deposited the needle in Old Dothan’s outstretched palm and, upon receiving a thankful pat, returned to its home within the workspace. Children’s screams mixed with giggles as two bloated tiny daemonlings began to tease and tear the fabric from a chained “donor’s” back. But Old Dothan didn’t hear them, for Old Dothan was deaf; instead he held the needle to a the spinnerets of one of the grey spiders nested in the ceiling. The spider looped silk through its eye and Old Dothan brought his hand back down to the surface, now ready with rabbit fur and skin.

Old Dothan felt for the edge of the two fabrics and lined them up under the light of the friendly glow worms. He stitched them together slowly, taking care that each stitch would hold. Though of an extremely advanced age, he did not tire quickly, and worked long into the night and well into the next before stopping to pause. He put down his work where it lay, the centipede storing again his needle. Old Dothan gripped the edge of his desk and shakily forced himself to his feet with a toothless whistle. Doubled over, he grabbed his femur walking stick and hobbled slowly to his bed of rotted leaves. He sat effortfully and creaked as he lay down. A blanket of beetles and flies formed over him, sipping at his sores to keep him warm. Old Dothan grabbed one of the fattest and licked it with an oozing black tongue, its legs flailing impotently. He crushed it in his mouth and sucked at the sweet juices which poured from it, though many leaked out his cracked and bleeding lips. Old Dothan slept, and Old Dothan dreamed.

When Old Dothan woke, he made his creaking path back to his mushroom seat and rotted desk, work precisely as he had left it. He once again went through the ritual of the needles and thread, and he once again sewed long into the night of the next day. Each day for over a week was the same; each day added foot after foot to the fabric. Finally, Old Dothan grunted. He was pleased with the completion of the first stage, but as always disappointed that he must upset his routines.

He reached up into the bow of the rotted tree from whence his desk was wrought. Tugging sharply on a piece of bark, he was quickly drenched in a short deluge of green brine. From the hole in the branch fell into his lap several pigs uteruses, leathery from long immersion.

Taking up his needle and silk once more, Old Dothan began the bottom fringe, chanting as he sewed. The leathery flesh was tough, and Old Dothan huffed with the effort each time he thrust the needle through it. But Old Dothan did not complain; he loved his work. For days more he continued, until the bottom edge was complete, still resting infrequently and enjoying every part of his routines.

Old Dothan rested then for a whole day, but soon enough, small rodents began to drag the skeletons of their dead to his station. He took their ribs and hooked them into the top of his work, binding them fast with sinew and silk. Each loop of bone often took multiple ribs, but the holes to sew them together were ready made by green osedax worms while Old Dothan dozed, and for this he gave thanks to the Lord of All. Old Dothan sewed, and Old Dothan slept, and Old Dothan did both again, and finally the rings were done, thousands in a row and each two inches in diameter. Once again Old Dothan slept, for his eyes were tired, and his work was long from over yet.

Upon waking he once more went to his desk, but on this morning no kind centipede brought him a needle, no beneficent spider offered him thread. Instead, Old Dothan reached deep into a bromeliad growing from the corner of his desk and brought forth a slick bone quill, sharp and sturdy. He centered the top left piece of the banner on his work surface, the rest splayed out over his lap and pinned it to the table with long rusted nails. Placing his left hand flat on the corner, he dipped the pen in the pus of the wounds on its back and began to write on the banner, digging deep to tattoo the runes into the mottled flesh. And while he wrote, he sang.

Old Dothan sang of growth and of life. He sang of the ever fruitful gifts of decay. He sang of the blessings of disease and the separation of flesh from mind and mind from sanity. He sang of the refusal to accept the rule of others and of the predations of the flesh proving to one that they are still alive. And whilst he sang he worked, and whilst he worked he did not sleep, for his joy was too great to contain with that change. He had no need of working ears to know the words he sang, because Old Dothan heard the words in his slowly beating heart.

When at last Old Dothan completed the final runes, the whole of the banner was covered, front and back, inch by delicate inch in his tight script. He looked upon the red, white, yellow, and green and smiled, for the Grandfather was good, and this was his work. But he grew weary, and once more took up his cane and went to rest.

For two days Old Dothan slept, and for two days the rotted tree once more bloomed with life. Its leaves fed upon the light of the glow worms and its roots upon the flesh of the dead. It grew two mighty branches, though the first ended much longer and thicker than the second. When Old Dothan rose upon the third day, he saw but the brown leaves of fall upon the floor below these branches, but he grinned at knowing its blessing. He took up a saw, rusted orange with age, and dragged it slowly across where the branches met the trunks, gradually worming his way through their thick new growth. The two branches fell separately, but alike, both with a thud and a crack of wood on wood onto Old Dothan’s desk. When the second fell, he sat upon the mushroom stool and waited.

The two nurglings returned, carrying with them a long length of thick sinew. Old Dothan tickled them gently before they dropped the sinew and ran, tripping over each other with glee as they left. He threaded the shorter of the boughs through the bone circles at the top of the banner, each scraping slightly as he dragged it further and further over the frame. When the banner was fully set upon its pole, he crossed the larger bough across the gap in bone at the center of the smaller. Taking up the sinew, he lashed them together tightly, whistling tunelessly while he wrapped, pulled, and tucked.

At long last, Old Dothan had completed the banner. He propped it against his rotted tree and sat heavily on his stool, forcing it to release a cloud of tacky spores that settled over everything nearby. Old Dothan leaned upon his desk and snored, insects feeding upon the rot in his teeth and the dirt in his hair.

The rusted metal door to his chamber slid open, revealing the glow of the hallway beyond. Crushing the thick undergrowth underfoot came a giant in rust and ceramite, covered from head to toe in a bright green moss. A skeletal face leered unhelmeted from out between two massive pockmarked pauldrons; skin hung in flaps and shreds from its faintly glowing eye sockets. Old Dothan woke to it standing above him and simply nodded to his master. The astartes took the standard and held it aloft, admiring the heft and craftsmanship. Suppurating sores, grown from runes in the patchwork skins, dripped life giving pus onto his exposed bone, and the flaps of skin crawled back into place, clinging loosely to their former junctions. He gave a gruesome smile and a stilted nod before taking the standard and striding slowly from the chamber. Old Dothan smiled too. Old Dothan loved his work.

 

 

 

Fell Pinions

Hidden Content

“Keep your weapons ready!” I heard the commissar’s voice over even the thunder of artillery and the slap of on rockcrete from thick drops from an angry sky. For a hundredth time I wiped the sight of my lasgun. Three months we had been fighting on this blasted planet. They didn’t even tell us the name, no point I guess if we aren’t expected to survive. The enemy wore the armour of angels, but possessed the wrath of hell itself.

 

The vox had come through two days ago. Apparently the 37th Armoured Company had overwhelmed the enemy rearguard and pushed a pincer move hard through the enemy lines, cutting a whole swath apart from their supplies. They had retreated towards the Iron Gorge. So that’s our job; kill them when they get here. I hope the seven hundred of us that remain will be enough. Maybe if I repeat it enough it will come true. Maybe we can sell our lives for victory here on this nameless rock.

 

A scream from the command tents interrupted my reverie. I kept my eyes forward, the shadow of the commissar’s pistol visible on the end of my gun. But then it wasn’t. I turned my head to the commissar, and he was staring backwards, transfixed. I turned, even though I knew whatever I saw would only bring back the nightmares.

 

Commander Dathner’s pet astropath stood in the middle of the bridge clutching his head, screaming. Over the din I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I could recognize the pain. He doubled over, body shaking, convulsing. Suddenly he exploded. Two glowing sets of claws tore the body asunder, viscera and flaps of skin flying through the air for several meters. The being that had clawed its way out of the astropath’s skin was huge. And he was gone before the last chunks of flesh smacked wetly at our feet and the feathers of skin twirled in the wind off the edge of the bridge.

 

It took ten seconds for the commissar to respond. It took less than half that for whatever creature that stood there to butcher the rest of the high command. I couldn’t look away. It wore baroque bronze and gold armour crisscrossed with red. On its back was a singular engine, a monstrous gaping jaw that spat flame to throw this monster through the sky in lethal corkscrews, two great power claws carving through our discipline with our leaders.

 

I don’t remember how many fled, how many jumped to their death in the raging river rather than face that beast. I don’t remember why I stayed. But when Commissar Portia gave the order, we fired. Beam after beam reflected off the hissing creature, seeming to do it no great trouble but driving it into cover behind the smouldering wreck of a chimera.

Driven forward by the officers that remained, we rushed over the center support of the bridge towards the command tents while the smell of ozone and the a tickling in the back of our minds increased in intensity. It wasn’t until we rounded the chimera that the depths of our stupidity was revealed.

On the ground was the bones of the command squad, arranged in a great angular icon that I had seen upon the enemy before. But above it was something far worse. A swirling nexus of wrong, an opening into the void, a vision straight into the warp itself. And out of it, came more.

 

Each enemy burst forth at full speed, careening through rank upon rank of guardsmen with not a care for any of our fire. First the officers and commissars were slain, then those who dared to fight back. I fired again and again, but they didn’t even seem to care about me. Each monster was different, and each was horrible uniquely.

The first through the gate flew on batlike wings or leapt on legs like a bird, it’s slick tail cracking ribs with every twitch. One clawed hand held a sword burning with warpfire, the other was armoured and held a chainsword of heretical design. It’s beaked mockery of an astartes helm screeched murder at the skies as it butchered our ranks. When it came I leapt under the chimera, firing my impotent lasgun even as pools of acid rain and motor oil were splashed in my eyes.

The second wore nothing from waist to neck, its legs garbed in power armour and some sort of jump jets and its head in a helm that covered a mane of wires fused with flesh all along its back. It held a giant harpoon, chain links hanging from the end, and lay about itself with abandon, yelling with joy in words I was unhappy to understand. Each triumphant shout was punctuated with another of the 165th getting painted along the ground.

 

The third through screamed out aboard a xenos skyboard, launching rounds of poisoned flechettes into the battle lines as his scythe like arm lopped off heads. His long tongue snapped in the air with his laughter.

 

At some point my power pack ran out. I don’t know when, it had happened far before I had stopped pulling the trigger. I saw one of my friends fall in the filth in front of me. They were bleeding, but still breathing. I reached out, pulled them under the chimera with me. I pushed the chimeras still smoking exhaust into his wound to stop the flow. He didn’t wake up, but he didn’t stop breathing either. I couldn’t see anything except the gaping wound in reality to my left, dead bodies filled my frame of vision in every other direction. So I closed my eyes. I prayed. They preyed.

 

At some point, the noises died down. I felt something come out of the portal to my left. I wanted to scream, to flee, but I held fast. I knew sound would mean my death. I heard them speaking:

“Thank you for opening the door, Casius.” An affirmative grunt followed. “Zcosk, corale Shaddeck please, we need him to prep the charges for after the Screamers come through. Gamor! Heel! Good boy, keep watch, I don’t want any surprises.” There was a screech and a flapping of wings that followed that order. I heard the sounds of crunching bones and dragging bodies as they continued their foul works. I just lay there, trying not to move, to breathe, to think.

Eventually I heard the scritch of metal on pavement from behind me. My heart leapt into my throat, I knew the end was coming now. I contorted around reading a combat knife and battle cry. I dropped the knife at what I saw. A white and blue armoured marine, climbing from under the bridge, jump pack off, finger at his lips to silence me. The Lycean Sons had come. I had hope for the first time in hours as his holy aquilla snuck its way past my sliver of vision. I scooted forward, risking ever so slightly being seen so that I could view the enemy’s erasure.

The winged enemy, I suppose it must have been Gamor pounced on my position, I just managed to pull back under in time, it’s clawed hand reaching out and tearing off my friend’s head as it grasped for me. It’s claws scraped and slammed against the chimera, now rocking slightly at the side of the bridge. Cruel laughter rang out, congratulating this hound on its catch. I stared as the claws began to bend back my metal hovel before a glowing green blade burst out through the monster’s chest. It writhed and then burst into flame, before its body distended and stretched back into the portal, getting sucked back in with the sound of a reversed explosion.

 

The marine atop my chimera boosted off, shunting it over the edge and uncovering me. Four more of the Emperor’s angels, festooned in purity seals and armed with all range of close assault weaponry boosted up over the edge, landing between me and the enemy.

Their sergeant shouted out “I am Metrocles, and you will meet your end on the tips of our blades warp-spawned traitors!”

The being I had not seen before, stepped forward before his unit. His armour was ancient and twisted, but clearly that of an assault marine. On his left arm was a large shield, emblazoned with runes that hurt to see. His right arm held a many headed flail, each ending in a metal skull, and the whole flail glowing with an evil aura. “Fancy words corpse worshipper. My name is Moloc, and you will taste my lash. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!”

The Lycean Sons rushed to meet them with cries of ‘For the Emperor,’ and ‘By the Throne.’

 

Titans clashed before my eyes, and all I could do was gape. The naked chested traitor boosted forward and smashed his makeshift hammer into the jump pack of one of the Sons, causing an explosion that knocked him the Son of the edge of the bridge and him through a damaged basilisk. Two sons knocked the scythe armed enemy from his board. But as he went flying his arm lashed out and took off the head of one of my saviors. His tongue snapped out to hold onto the other. They tumbled behind a defense line but I saw chunks of blood spattered white armour begin to fly through the air. The clawed monster who summoned the others launched claw after claw into a marine armed with shield and hammer, but no attack could find purchase.behind the Son’s bulwark. A blow from the hammer caved in the monster’s chest, and another enemy was dragged screaming back into the warp.

Moloc and Metrocles circled each other, trading feints and parries, but neither seeing an opening. I saw the two remaining daemon marines stalking forward towards the shield-bearing Son. I realized things weren’t going to end well for me even if Metrocles could find victory, the fleeing enemy would be here soon. I turned and fled. I looked back twice on my flight. The first time Metrocles and Moloc had begun trading blows in earnest. The second, each had lost their weapons, and the were grappling in the sky, jump packs boosting higher and higher until Moloc put a fist through the other’s engine. Metrocles grabbed hold and they both shot over the edge.

 

***

 

Three months later I returned to the bridge, I had hoped there would be rations left for me there, since my scavenging had failed to prove fruitful recently. As I picked across the bridge I saw nothing useful, only the corpses of man and machine. When I reached ten yards from the central support I stopped. The bridge stopped jaggedly at the edge of the support, beyond just a yawning chasm howling with wind and based with blackened shattered debris. In the center was a figure, strung up to a chair made of bones. I inched forward and saw my savior. On his chest was carved “Metrocles, Pride before the Fall.” It wasn’t until I saw his restraints that I understood how he hadn’t rotted yet. His boots and gauntlets had been fused to structure underlying the bones. His wrists were rubbed raw. His skin sagged, all the fat and muscle was gone. Still, better one than two, and roasting certainly makes it crispier.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I've read up to 'Captain Luther Starscream'. Excellent work, thus far. I must ask if Luther's namesake is the 'Transformers' character, however, and if he shares THAT Starscream's ambitions.

 

EDIT: Read 'Mutation'. There's a typo in the scene where

Jonquill becomes a Spawn

"This is HIT. His glory. His apotheosis," should be "This is IT," (emphasis mine).

[Teetengee]

Typo fixed!, Thank you.

and whether Luther is a true Starscream (as in the trope, which of course is named after the Transformers' character) will likely be revealed later, but he does appear the type no? ;)

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Typo fixed!, Thank you.

and whether Luther is a true Starscream (as in the trope, which of course is named after the Transformers' character) will likely be revealed later, but he does appear the type no?

Not yet. Hopefully, it will be due to INTELLIGENCE (i.e., his biding his time, building up the forces he needs to overthrow Escharon, while denying this plan to his leader, and hiding evidence of its existence) instead of blind loyalty (i.e., he's actually loyal to Escharon) or intimidation (i.e., he fears Escharon's wrath too much to even consider overthrowing the King of Scars).

[Teetengee]

well, I'll put it this way, Lucifer is the only reason Escharron still lives, and they both know it.

[Teetengee]

added the End of All Things

[Bjorn Firewalker]

After reading 'The End of All Things', I thought, "Daemon Titan thinks it can stand before the Chaos Gods as an equal?" Or does Omnia Mors ("Death of Everything"? Did I translate the name correctly?) have a measure of humility?