Inspiration Friday 2016: Thousand Sons (until 1/13)

[Kierdale]

Welcome to Inspiration Friday 2016.

Inspiration Friday is a chance for members to write pieces of fiction on set Chaos-related subjects, with a winner chosen at the end of each period and awarded a medal. As in the previous Inspiration Fridays, images accompanying entries are most welcome.

While previous incarnations were strictly weekly, I may give two weeks to work on some themes. I should also point out that, living in Tokyo, my Fridays start earlier than many of the Frater and so likely I will close and open themes early on Saturdays, Tokyo-time. Likely still Friday for most of you.

From 2016 onwards there will be a couple of changes to Inspiration Friday:

While I, Kierdale, will set the topic each time (or another member I appoint to take the helm in my absence) and will judge the first topic of 2016, the winner of each topic will be given the choice of judging the next topic’s entries and choosing the winner from those entries. Should they, for any reason, wish to turn down this duty then judging will revert to Kierdale for the next entry.

The cutoff for entries is 700 Saturday Tokyo time (2200 Friday GMT).

Judging Rules

1. Many of our members are non-native English speakers so grammar, spelling and punctuation should not be too harshly judged. That said, members are encouraged to type their entries in a word processor program which can help them with their spelling and grammar.


2. the judge should choose the one entry which, in their mind, exemplifies the IF topic of that week. Not necessarily the most action-packed, the longest, the coolest, etc.


3. The judge may, when posting their judgement, choose to give feedback on each entry. What they liked and didn't like, what they wanted to see more or less of.

Past Inspiration Friday Topics

Links to previous incarnations of Inspiration Friday, for reference:

Under Brother Nihm:

Aspiring Champion

Chaos Banner

Regarding the Legions

Favourite Model

Paint a CSM

Favourite Primarch

Why Chaos?

Under Tenebris:

Chaos Cults - Winner: Disease

Legacy Weapon - Winner: Xenith

Rank and File - Winner: Kol Saresk

Chaos Worlds - Winner: Marshal Sampson

Chaos Vehicle - Winner: Loesh

Call of Chaos Test model - Winner: Alan of Angels and Loesh

Chaos Battle - Winner: Cormac Airt

Minor Daemon - Winner: Tdf4638

Spooky Chaos - Winner: Dizzyeye

Chaos Stronghold - Winner: Carrack

Nemesis of Chaos - Winner: Kierdale

Chaos Navigator House - Winner: Marshal Sampson

Chaos Knight House - Winner: Kierdale

Chaos Santa - Winner: Castellan Cato

Chaos Dreadnought - Winner: none was chosen!

Chaos Warship - Winner: Conn Eremon

Interview with a Chaos Lord - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Interview with a Chaos Sorcerer - Winner: Kierdale

Chaos Space Marine Bolter - Winner: Son of Carnelian

Chaos Assassin - Winners: Carrack, Kierdale and Zhaharek

Intel Report on Warband - Winner: Kierdale

Betrayal - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Chaos Sword - Winner: Castellan Cato

Chaos Spawn - Winners: Carrack and Kierdale

Champion of Khorne - Winner: Slipknotzim

Chaos Heraldry - Winner: Teetengee

Equerry - Winner: Zhaharek

Chaos Tome - Winner: TDF

Chaos Crossover - Winner: Lord Pariah

Dark Mechanicus - Winners: Carrack and Kierdale

Daemon Forge - Winners: Zhaharek and Beachymike123

Battles of the Space Marines - Winners: Carrack, Warsmith Aznable and Tipper

Cult Leader - Winner: Zhaharek

Familiar - Winner: Kierdale

Nemesis of Chaos II - Winners: TDF and Conn Eremon

Ruination - Winner: Carrack

Chaos Sidekick - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Chaos Skirmish - Tactical Squads - Winner: Kierdale

Under Kierdale:

2015

Interview With A Warpsmith - Winner: Carrack

ETL Background (care of Carrack) - Winner: Kierdale

Lair of the gods - Winner: Scourged

Signature Tactics - Winners: Scourged and Majorbookworm

Berserkers of every creed - Winner: none.

Chaos Geneseed - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Tales of... ...Chaos Glory - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

A Stolen Relic - Winner: Beachymike123

Summoning - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Treadheads - Winner: Scourged

The Primordial Annihilator versus...the Greater Good - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Replenishments New Meat - Winner: Scourged

Chaos Halloween Horror - Winner: Dammeron, Scourged, Zhaharek and Teetengee

Interview with a dark apostle - Winner: Carrack

Chaos Power Armour - Winner: Scourged

Tales of Hubris - Winner: Teetengee

Chaos Titans - Winner: Scourged and Teetengee

Chaos Icons - Winners: MaliGn, Teetengee, Carrack and Scourged.

Bonus Challenge: Chaos Objectives - Winner: Carrack

2016

Memories of Terra - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Possessed - Winner: Captain Malachi

Chaos Steeds - Winner: Scourged

Traitor Regiments - Winner: Teetengee

The Primordial Annihilator versus...the Vlka Fenryka - Winner: Carrack

Campaign I - Opening Moves - Winner: Diabolist

Interview with a Daemon Prince - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Skirmish II - Upon Cursed Wings/Jump Assault - Winner: Teetengee

Lost in Space - Winner: Scourged

Imperfect Beings - Winner: Carrack

Obliterators - Winner: none

Lesser Daemons I - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Tales of Honour - Winner:Son of Carnelian

Tales of Dishonour - Winner: Fulkes

Campaign II - Assault - Winner: Scourged

Knightfall - Winner: no contest.

Architect of Fate - Winner: Carrack

Chaos Flyer - Winner: Kierdale

Schism - Winner: Scourged

A Chaotic Alliance - Winner: Squigsquasher

Chaotic Rites - Winner: Krautscientist

Retro-Chaos - Winner: Carrack

ETL-V model - Winner: Scourged

The Primordial Annihilator versus the Inquisition - Winner: Carrack

Interview with a Chaos Apothecary - Winner:Kierdale

Chaos Trophies - Winner: MyD4rkPassenger

The Primordial Annihilator versus the Sons of Sanguinius - Winner: Carrack

The Primordial Annihilator versus the Bugs - Winner: Teetengee

Aquatic Combat - Winner: Kierdale

Campaign III - Tables Turn/The Crucible - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Halloween 2016 - Winner: Carrack

Tales of Vengeance - Winner: MyD4rkPassenger

Unit Champion - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Iron Warriors - Winner:

Thousand Sons - Winner:

While each topic will close (with respect to who can win the medal for that theme) after a set period, members who find themselves inspired to write about previous themes are most welcome to post these as and when they can, but I ask that you please title your entry accordingly (e.g. “Chaos Warship”).

Inspirational Friday: Timelines of Treachery is a companion thread to this (and past and future Inspirational Friday main threads) for those who wish to organise their IF entries and present their warband's timeline. I know I just about my warband's timeline a lot, so the thread is to help both readers and writers to get their heads around which stories come where. By all means please add your own timelines as and when you can

Now, to kick off Inspiration Friday for 2016:

A bit of New Year’s desolation...

Memories of Terra

For those whose war bands are descendant from the Legions, tell us of the part they took in the great Siege of Terra, the endgame of the Horus Heresy. Where were they? What did they do and how did they make it out alive? How do they view those events? Are they haunted by their memories of past glories or victory stolen from their grasp?

For those of the Dark Ages forum: I ask you to give us a piece featuring your characters, be they loyalist or traitor, set in the Siege of Terra. Tell us of their exploits at that great battle. If they were not at that battle then where were they, what were they doing and how did they react when they learned of its ending?

For those of the Daemons forum: which of your timeless diabolical servants of the Four were present at the Siege of Terra, the endgame of the Horus Heresy. Where were they? What did they do? Were they finally banished or fled of their own accord? How do they view those events?

For those whose war bands do not contain survivors of the Heresy - such as my own - , you might choose to tell us how they view those historical events, or take a break from writing about your war band and give us a piece about the Siege.

The single greatest piece, that sole entry most fitting the topic, will earn reward...

Inspiration Friday: Memories of Terra runs until Friday the 15th of January.

Let us be inspired.

[Teetengee]

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Scourged]

  On 1/7/2016 at 4:51 PM, Teetengee said:

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

I second this motion.

 

  On 1/7/2016 at 3:19 PM, Kierdale said:

While I, Kierdale, will set the topic each time (or another member I appoint to take the helm in my absence) and will judge the first topic of 2016, the winner of each topic will be given the choice of judging the next topic’s entries and choosing the winner from those entries. Should they, for any reason, wish to turn down this duty then judging will revert to Kierdale for the next entry.

 

I think this is a great idea for the new format. I don't remember if was something we had discussed in our brainstorming a while back, but I'm glad you thought of it if it wasn't. Having an archive of all past stories and their winners is great as well (damn, I really won eight times?).

 

Love the new thread. Love our starting topic. It's going to be a good year, ladies and gents.

[jifel]

New year, new projects... I only just read over the contest rules and last years events but I think I'll jump in for this! 

[Paradigm]

This is great, I dont know how I missed it over the years. How would you like the stories submitted? Also what time zone are we using for the deadline?

[Kierdale]

I'm glad to see there's interest!

 

The cutoff for entries is 700 Saturday Tokyo time (2200 Friday GMT). I've edited it into the OP too.

 

As in previous IF threads, please post your entries here in this thread.

Having a look at some previous IF themes and entries will give you an idea of what usually goes on/gets submitted. :)

 

I look forward to reading everyone's work!

[Kierdale]

A few times last year I set IF topics which I didn't actually intend to write entries for myself, but ended up doing so...and this is another. I wondered about doing one about one of the traitor legions and giving my Psychopomps a rest, but ended up making it a Psychopomps story - in a way - after all in the end...

 

 

The Edification of the Dead

Hidden Content

For six times six days and nights the doors of master of sanctity Angra’s chambers had been sealed.

Six times six days and nights earlier the chaplain’s body had been carried, half its head missing, born aloft by his devoted cultists both human and abhuman, from the shuttles to his rooms aboard the flagship Charon. Hewn from crown to groin in a single blow by the enemy chaplain, those who carried him appeared as if anointed by his bright crimson Astartes blood as it drained from him.

The corruption of the Stygian Guard had been discovered and the Black Templars had been the hammer of His wrath as it fell upon the traitors’ homeworld of Fulcrum. Chaplain Caedmon had confronted the fallen chaplain and, disarmed of his crozius, had cleaved him with a brother’s sword, taking a severed half of Angra’s face as a trophy before the tide of bereaved cultists had driven him back from his kill.

And so, for six times six days and nights the dark apostle’s acolytes, his cult cardinals and those magi from Cyprius III he had chosen to spare, gathered in prayer about his dreaming corpse.

 

 

He had, in his two centuries of life, fought in countless battles across myriad worlds. From sand-blasted Xenos fortresses to pirate hideouts upon frozen tundra, from deep oceans to the hard vacuum of deep space. Small punitive actions as one of a squad of scouts through to vast ground-shaking engagements which had called upon his entire chapter to fight alongside other chapters of marines and innumerable troops of the Imperial Guard and their rumbling tanks. He remembered every single battle with the eidetic memory of his genengineering.

But the war-torn vista before his eyes was unknown to him.

Cannon-bristled towers ranged before him, their faces carved with such masterful statuary that the devastation which was so incidentally being wreaked upon them was the foulest of crimes. Missiles and shells streaked up at them from those struggling across the torn killing fields at their feet and in turn equal volumes of ordnance fell from the arms of the defenders in those towers and guarding the parapets of those walls. The victories and glories displayed in the marble friezes were forgotten, steadily defaced by breaching charges, the work of sappers and explosive shells which fell so constantly and seemingly indiscriminately that who knew which hit and which missed their marks? Those monuments to conquests in the name of Mankind were soon to be forgotten as those who had fought alongside one another to wrestle the stars from the claws of Xenos and those mad enough to deny the right of the Emperor, those heroes now faced one another as a prodigal son lead his fallen brothers and their own legions of sons against that most mighty of fathers and those sons who had remained loyal.

This was Terra.

 

Angra knew not how he observed these events, for not only had the darkness claimed him as the Templar’s blade had cleaved his skull, but he had never as boy or Astarte set foot upon holy Terra. Another grudge the Stygian Guard had denied they bore; that the Emperor’s Ferrymen had never been honoured with recognition upon His world.

An ancestral memory then? He knew these events, deep in her very being, he knew them to be the final days of the Horus Heresy - that great war which had riven the Imperium of Man and hailed the coming of Chaos - but to the best of his knowledge none of his bloodline had served before him. Genetic then, experiences entwined within the helices of his geneseed. As scions of Dorn, there was a good chance that a bearer of his geneseed had, some ten millennia earlier, fought against the forces of the Infernal Powers upon the walls of the Imperial Palace.

What would that ancestor think of the current bearer of his seed having assisted in the corruption of an entire chapter to the worship of the Primordial Annihilator he had fought so hard against? Pleasure, no doubt, that Angra had been slain by another descendant of Dorn: a Templar.

He looked out across the battlefield. Rough floorplans of buildings could be seen for dozens of square kilometers before the palace walls, where structures had once stood and had either been flattened by the defenders in preparation for the siege or by the exchange of fire as the forces of the Betrayer had advanced through their cramped streets. Few walls stood now and those ruins that did gave meager cover to the legionaries who sheltered behind them before charging forth toward the next scrap of protection. The floors of several buildings had fallen through or been torn open by shell, bomb and missile. Power armoured figures could be seen advancing through the crepuscular, debris and dust-choked basements, scuttling like beetles, thankful for their shelter from the light and the weapons of those upon the walls. But he and they knew that those catacombs would not stretch beneath the wall. The castellan of the palace, the lord of the VII legion, was not so foolish as to allow easy passage. Above and below, the palace - now a fortress - was fast.

The Red Angel had delivered Horus’ terms and they had duly been rebuked by the noble true Angel days earlier and thus the siege had ground on.

From his lofty viewpoint he could see the chevron-decorated iron armour of one legion of traitors, far off the gore-splattered blue and white of another. Daemonic hordes scampered and scuttled between and amongst them while battle titans strode through their midst, pummelling the walls and defenders while their opposite numbers responded in kind from behind the walls. Towering gods of war which had conquered planets and fended off Xenos hordes in days-long battles were lain low in minutes in this crucible of war.

But where was he? He realized he viewed the destruction not from the ramparts of the palace. He could see the dirty yellow of his primogenitor legion upon those far off walls.

Her head turned about, seeking other players in this final game. Here were Perturabo’s sappers, there Angra’s berzerkers, beyond sight those who would become the Black Legion, he felt the sons of Prospero - the majority naught now but ghosts within shells - through the warp but could not see them. But where, where were those she had been sent to observe, sent to serve?

Sent by who?

There. Off in the hab-blocks to the south, where the siege had not yet flattened all which man had raised. She could sense the distress. Not just the fear of those who had to come to terms with the blasphemy of the Emperor’s sons turning against him and unravelling his great works, but the abject terror of those confronted by fallen angels in the flesh. Come for their flesh, for their blood, for their souls. Her master screamed in the empyrean, not the birth scream that had heralded the Prince’s becoming, but a thirsty cry for more anguish, more excess.

The herald of Slaanesh turned from its perch atop the ruin, turning its back on the siege and leapt, falling dozens and dozens of meters to the torn ground. She paused, admiring her reflection in rainbow-hued lake of oil-skinned water filling a vast crater before heading off in the direction of the Phoenician’s sons.

 

Angra recognized the nature of the she-devil whose conscience he was astride. He had seen such daemons, more gracious and even more deadly than the regular daughters of the Dark Prince. But why? Why was he here in this limbo and what was he to be shewn?

The histories of the Imperium of Man were known to him. As a master of sanctity he knew more than some of the rank and file, but how many of the truths he believed he knew were bona fide? Ten millennia had passed since that day and war had never ceased. In war truth was always attended by a bodyguard of lies. Many of the truths of the past had been hidden away, twisted and rotted only to slowly seep out to those who sought them and would not know the most honourable of lies from the horrible, unbearable truth. A measure of this shroud had been withdrawn from his eyes with the chapter’s fall to Chaos.

 

The herald tittered to herself as she scampered across the debris-strewn landscape as if aware of his presence. She pirouetted upon white armour-clad corpses slumped over bikes riddled with bullet holes: the leftovers of a Scars outflanking action. She cavorted across the burned out hulks of battle tanks and time warped, Angra being unable to discern how long it took them to find the Emperor’s Children.

Ennui having set in with the protracted siege, it being more the forte of the sons of Perturabo, Fulgrim had seemingly taken his legion off to ravage the still-inhabited hab blocks. Those who had not been able to evacuate, or had resisted the order to do so, now faced the legion which had fallen to the worship of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. While legionnaires satiated lusts and desires their genengineering should have made them immune to, their apothecaries concocted exotic philters of madness. From the vital fluids of those they caught, combined with the ichor of their daemonic servants, and even from organs harvested from their loyalist brethren.

The memory of the ravaged corpses of the White Scars came back to him.

To distill narcotics from the handiwork of the Master of Mankind himself! Such heavenly blasphemy!

Angra drank up the sights he saw, realizing what it was he was meant to see. To learn.

On and on through the ruins the herald danced, shewing him the debauchery of the Emperor’s Children. The ways of Slaanesh.

The herald slowed as it sensed another great being, and Angra felt it too. Were he in command of the eyes he looked out from he would have averted them, such was the weight of presence of a primarch. And this was no longer a `mere` primarch but had transcended to daemon princehood. He tried to tear his eyes away, to shut them, but the herald drank up the greater daemon’s aura jealously, her eyes wandering over the serpentine body, the four strong limbs and toward his face.

Angra reeled at the perfection he saw.

He cried out to be released.

Let the abyss take him for he could not hope to surpass what he beheld, nor ever find satisfaction again!

 

Darkness.

“I have been since the beginning. One of the Prince’s first daughters. A whim given form. I was there when the Great Betrayer came closest to undoing his father’s works. The reign of Chaos was so, so tantalizingly close!”

“You would have us continue your master’s work?”

“Our master, for you and your brethren became his long ago. You will not continue what I have shewn you. You will surpass it! You will see the Palace, you will exercise his will and you will be the ruin of those who sired the Dark Prince!”

“But I am no more. I am slain. You show visions to naught but a wraith.”

“I will remake you. As my sister remade your sorcerer. We shall be as one and we shall be the voice.”

 

“I accept. I am yours.”

 

 

And thus after the passing of six times six days and nights the doors of master of sanctity Angra’s chambers opened once again.

[Carrack]

Sons of Horus Sargeant Vinno

Designated 16-144-8-6

  Reveal hidden contents

 

After donning his horned, black great helm, Vinno, the Champion of the Chosen, looked over the assembled forces in the assault bay. Horrors of humanity's past once again made ready for war on their grandfather's soil below, as they had done so many times before. The scene had changed, as had the act, but the actors still played their same roles, save one, the lord of the Black Maw, he had assumed the role of the protagonist, the role of their father. Lord Carrack stood in the midst, directing the assault as well as his ship, The Bitter Revenge, all the while addressing his men. Vinno ignored the words of his lord, he had heard them all before. Instead he remembered the words of his father that fateful day so long ago, at the start of it all. His father had spoken words of illumination. The words that had lifted the curtain on the lies of the Emperor. The words that had revealed the reward of their efforts in the Great Crusade, to be discarded for bureaucrats and administrators, to be cast aside like some tool that had lost its usefulness. Words that had revealed the truth behind the mask of secularity. Words that unveiled the glory of the Dark Gods. His father had spoken words of betrayal. Words spoken so eloquently, as only their father could, twisted the act of patricide into a noble and necessary act of vengeance. Words that not only betrayed everything they had previously fought for, but ultimately betrayed his legion, leaving them broken and lost, exiled to hell. Perhaps it would have been different if they had won. Vinno no longer cared. He knew he would finish what was started that day, not today, not tomorrow, but the final act was coming soon.

 

They entered the assault craft, just as they had done above the birthplace of humanity. Vinno looked over the Chosen of Lord Carrack as they strapped into the inertia harnesses silently, save for the insane mutterings of Paimun, and the frothing mantras of blood and skulls from his icon bearer, "Saint" Tiam. They had all been on the deck of the assault bay of the Vengeful Spirit, but none had been under his command that day, for those Astartes had been lost 10,000 years earlier. He had long since forgotten their names. He wished he could forget that inglorious day in its entirety.

 

The assault bay opened. The dock clamps released. The pod rushed out the magnetic launching rails to fall on the world below. In spite of the countless times Vinno had dropped since Terra, a tingle went up his spine to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. It must have been the result of his ruminating over the memories of Terra. It had gone catastrophically bad. Just like the battle had gone at large. Upon entry to the polluted atmosphere of the Throne World, an AAA round had struck his pod. The pod had been holed. Fragments had ricocheted around the interior of the pod, killing most of his squad and damaging the guidance system. Vinno's pod had skewed off course by a matter of a few degrees, but at an altitude where a fraction of a degree was enough to take him away from the sprawling palace of the Emperor. Away from his objective to secure the breech in the walls, and have any chance of impacting his fate and the fate of his brothers. He had screamed in rage the whole way down, to the surprise of the Chosen, he did so now as well. They stirred with the passion of his anger, his old squad that day would never stir again.

 

The pod slammed into the tundra and blew open its doors. On Terra, Vinno's pod had crashed into the ground on its side, partially burying itself in debris after only one of its retro jets had fired. The crash had killed the remainder of his squad save one, he remembered his name now, Callan. But Callan had taken a severe wound when a steel girder broke through the drop pods topmost door and smashing his helmet, and the skull beneath it to one side. Callan had gone into a regenerative coma. Poor Callan, he had been locked into his harness, and blocked the only way out of the ruined pod. As Vinno stepped out of the pod he currently had dropped in, he drew the same power sword that had cut him free from his pod on Terra, at the cost of his last squad members life. Today he would not be as hesitant as he was back then, if similar circumstances presented themselves. As the Chosen followed him out the pod, and into the burning breech in the walls of the snow covered city, Vinno commenced slaughtering every Imperial he could find, just as he had done in the data sinks of Western Anatolia, the site of his ignoble crash back on Terra, with the seed planted with uncontrollable rage that day, having grown into the monster he had become.

 

****************

 

"Adept Tertious Hanzel, you have been warned about recording that number many times." Said Adept-Controller Pinnious. The Junior Adept, still bleeding from the beating, replied, "But if I didn't record 1614486, the resupply of ration packs would never have been sent to the Pillars of Fortitude, and they are besieged, the guardsmen there could starve." The Adept-Controller replied, "So they starve, we have our orders to never record that number, no matter the consequences. So you will report to Reclamator Section, and they will determine your fate, wether that is penitence and further chastisement, or to submit to servitor lobotomy." A trickle of warm liquid ran down Hanzel's leg. He asked, "Can you at least tell me why that number is taboo?" After a moment the Adept-Controller replied, "In a long forgotten time, this data sink was set upon by the Arch-Enemy. It is said that he had the number 16-144-8-6 painted across his armor. He slew so many of His servants in this data sink, that it was decreed by the Adept-High Recorder that that number would never again be counted or recorded in this data sink again."

 

 

[Warsmith Aznable]

I'm so glad the Inspiration Friday challenges are back!

I'm not sure I got to where I wanted to be with this, but it was interesting to write anyway. It has a callback to one of my other stories, but as a whole does not have much to do with the 49th Grand Company as it stands in the 40k setting. Mostly I was going for atmosphere more than anything else.

Sorry if it's too long for everyone to bother with; I know that keeps some people away from my writing.

Hidden Content

In the Destroyer squads his eccentricities had gone unnoticed, largely because nobody wanted to think about what the Destroyers did on the battlefield, much less what they did when they were off-duty. Or so it had been the case before the Warmaster rebelled and their Primarch, Perturabo, had declared for Horus. The Destroyer squads, reluctantly employed even by the Lord of Iron’s grim sons, had enjoyed a reevaluation by commanders whose priorities and rules of engagement had been radically altered. This was how his work on the battlefield had been noticed, and how he had been elevated to the newly expanded ranks of the First Company.

He had yet to learn whether his new rank would provide the personal freedoms he had grown used to. What was to be his first deployment within his Tactical Dreadnought Armour was mere hours away. The Big Show. He didn’t know who had first started calling it that, but it was the accepted euphemism aboard the strike cruiser. Despite the last nine years of open rebellion, Legion loyalty tests, and bloody purges, nobody in his Grand Company seemed ready to call it what it was: the invasion of Terra itself.

Nobody had come looking for him yet.

He enjoyed his isolation, especially before and after major operations. His personal chamber, hidden deep within the spaces normally abandoned by anyone except the unluckiest naval ratings or most paranoid ferals, was completely sealed off from light. He lay on the smooth tile floor, concentrating on the scalding water that showered over his naked, outstretched form, and breathed deeply the steam. None of the other Astartes knew about his meditation chamber, and his mortal servants could not physically bear to enter when it was in use.

He lost his physical self in the dense, hot vapor and scalding waters. He was free to think about any one single thing with no distraction, or to escape into a timeless oblivion without thought or self.

He did not need anyone to alert him that the time was near, however. Through the deck he felt the telltale vibrations in his back. The only thing of such magnitude that could disturb his silent reverie in this section of the ship were the firing rites of the macro-cannons.

He needed to join his new squad.

But Terra and the Warmaster need not exist for just a while longer.

+++++++++

Halfway through the arming process he realized that his servants were not engaging in their usual noisome verbal checklists and banter. There were four of them, an old man, his two sons, and the eldest son’s wife. The old man’s grandson, who normally played quietly in the antechamber, was also not there, another feature of their usual routine he realized was missing.

“What is it?” He asked, turning to the old man who was fidgeting with the torque settings on his air ratchet as his younger son guided one of his pauldrons into place using a servo-arm mounted into the ceiling.

“Nothing, my lord.” The old man answered quickly.

“Is it important?” He asked. As a Destroyer he had spent much more time with his mortal servants than with his brother Astartes. He was not so far removed from them that he could not sense the subtleties of their moods.

“Only to us, my lord.” The old man replied with a grim smile.

“The boy?” He guessed, and noted the careful mask of nameless servitude slip from their faces momentarily.

“Yes, my lord.” The old man replied slowly, pausing from affixing the shoulder pad to the Terminator suit. “He has been removed for selection trials.”

“He will be fine.” He rolled his shoulder to test the connexion. As the neural links warmed up he could feel the son’s hands still absently gripping the edges of the plate. “He need only survive the implantation process. This operation will cause enough casualties that the Legion will not be careless with the lives of pre-screened candidates.”

“This operation...” The old man sighed, holding a hand to his head and leaning against the arming chamber wall wearily. His daughter-in-law took his arm to support him.

He looked at the distressed mortals for a long while, then opened his weapons locker himself and grabbed the nearest two weapons without much thought and trundled toward the bulkhead access.

+++++++++

His Grand Company, the 49th, long rumoured to be a dumping ground for misfits and wild cards too loyal and useful to simply liquidate, had many individualistic and squad level traditions. But arriving in the squad bay he noted that he could no longer tell who each member was with a simple visual anymore. As per orders, all personal markings had been removed from their armour and the squad icons had been stripped and replaced with standard IV Legion markings. He had not decorated his new TDA yet, so it hadn’t been a bother to him, but the order had caused some grumbling among the older veterans.

“Ready for the Big Show, new guy?” The sergeant asked him as he stood in the hatchway, the last of the squad to arrive.

“Yes.” He replied, running his seventh internal diagnostic since he had left his arming chamber.

“Old habits?” The sergeant’s helmet nodded in the direction of his hands,.

“Eh?” He followed the sergeant’s gaze and realized that he had armed himself with dual plasma destroyers instead of the more usual sidearm/melee weapon combination. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Are you certain your head is on straight?” The sergeant asked, and he through his black carapace felt the sergeant accessing his armour’s network and running an evaluation on his physical state.

“Would it matter if it wasn’t?” He asked, hefting the two plasma weapons and looking around the room for extra ammunition. The usually spartan squad bay was crammed with boxes of various types of expendable supplies, and he busied himself with reconfiguring his supply rig.

“I suppose not.” The sergeant conceded. “I’ve heard they’ve emptied out the apothecarion.”

“Time, sergeant.” The squad Second called out, a heartbeat before the ready rune appeared in the vision of each of the squad, calling them for company assembly on the flight deck.

+++++++++

He had never seen the Grand Company fully assembled before. Not like this, anyway. Usually he stood with the Destroyer squads to the rear during parade, and his concept of the Grand Company as a unified whole was mostly the backsides of power packs and the distant drone of the Warsmith in his turned down vox. He had never needed a briefing or a morale talk in the Destroyer squads; his mission had always been the same. Only the terrain had ever changed, and over the years he had realized there wasn’t even much variation of that despite having a whole galaxy to subdue.

From his new position flanking the Warsmith and facing the rest of the Grand Company he saw things much differently. The Apothecarion had indeed been emptied, and the Armoury too, as well as the more ceremonial naval postings on the strike cruiser. Every Astartes physically able to walk had been put into a suit of power armour, and those that could not had been physically reduced for Dreadnought deployment, as well as other makeshift siege engines filling that role. Not one Astartes would remain aboard; everyone had a part to play in the Big Show down on Terra. Nearly 2000 space marines were arrayed before him, and even though they gave their attention to the Warsmith he felt as if they gazed upon him personally. It was an odd feeling, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

“You heard the Primarch’s broadcast, and I have nothing to add to it.” The Warsmith said. “We are going to be in the thick of it. Rally to the Grand Company standard and move forward. If your boat comes down too far from the rally point, head toward the beacon signal at the first opportunity, otherwise find someone who looks like they know what they are doing and follow them. At all times move forward. Get to your assault boats, we drop in fifteen. Iron Within!”

“Iron Without!” The flight deck rang with the response of hundreds of space marines slamming a fist to their chest, and then the tramping of armoured boots as they fell out and headed for their transports.

+++++++++

He had learned many tricks in his time in service, and one of them was to plug into the crew chief channels and use them to backdoor into the assault boat’s outer cameras. It was a simple trick, and he idly wondered if anyone else was doing it as the dataflow resolved into a viewable image.

He got his first live glimpse of Terra itself. He had known what to expect, but his imagination had not provided him adequate preparation for the fierce battle that still raged in orbit.

It was if the stars themselves had caught fire and were crashing through the atmosphere.

+++++++++

The primary order to move forward at all costs now seemed to him absurd. His assault boat, despite being in the main drop and launching at the same time as the Warsmith’s, had quickly become lost in the floating maze of fire and death that was Terra’s near orbit. He did not even know what sector or even continent he was on, and the vox was so crammed with blaring beacons, confused vox traffic, and competing jamming signals that it was useless for anything but local squad level communication, and sometimes not even that.

His assault chalk’s only good fortune was that their boat’s pilot had somehow identified and managed to land among a concentration of IV Legion. There seemed to be no forward, however. There was nought but a sea of Iron Warriors surrounding him, moving indeterminately among the field of mounded rubble. The assault boat had barely enough room to land and drop its ramp, and after trudging less than fifty meters on Terra’s surface the density of their brother Iron Warriors became so thick that movement in any direction quickly became impossible.

His sergeant had removed his helmet and was yelling angrily at anyone and everyone around him, but nobody seemed to have any idea what was going on. The sky was filled with smoke, explosions, and the racing and dodging forms of various aircraft, some of which occasionally dropped bombs or made strafing runs around his position. Each time one of the flyers came in low there was a hail of bolter shells as the thousands of frustrated space marines loosed their fury heavenward, and more than one flyer broke apart and crashed into the teeming ranks below.

The noise was constant, the multiple barrages and artillery going in every direction combined to form a backdrop of rolling thunder. Eventually he shut off his external pick-ups to try and drown out the sound, but he could still feel the distant thunder in his bones. His helmetless sergeant seemed to be frozen in an eternal, angry scream as they milled about, and he wondered how long it would be until the man was irrevocably deafened by the noisome fury.

+++++++++

It had been perhaps days, though at least many hours, and finally some momentum in a given direction developed. He took one last look at the shrapnel riddled hulk that was the remains of his assault boat, then turned to trudge along with the mass of Iron Warriors. In his Terminator suit he could see over the heads of the ranks of space marines in front of him, but for a long while the only thing revealed to him was the heads of the ranks of space marines in front of them.

Gradually he became aware of an incline. Tracers and lasbolts zipped and careened over the top of it, and occasionally artillery blasts blew chunks of masonry and space marines into the air to shower upon the heads of those still churning their way upward. When it came his turn to crest the ridge he simply brought his plasma destroyers forward and loosed random suppressing fire in the general direction to his front.

This whole world seemed to be made of broken masonry and jagged trees of rebar. Wherever he had come down, it had once been a densely urbanized area. For as far as he could see, there was nothing but collapsed buildings stretching to the horizon. The only features of terrain were the undulating remains of toppled towers and the foundations they had broken away from. Enormous pits like wounds in the earth revealed the tumbled and broken sublayers. Smoke and fire was the only sky, and both roiled out from the landscape into towering columns to join the hell that was beneath his feet to the hell that was above. To avoid disorientation, for it was sometimes hard to tell where one thing began and another ended, he concentrated on the helmets and backpacks of those marching before him.

All he had was a direction to move. Forward became his whole purpose to exist.

+++++++++

The autoreactive lenses of his helmet blacked out momentarily, and when his vision returned the fiery mushroom cloud filled it entirely. He was well familiar with nuclear weapons, having detonated a number of low yield devices himself during his time in the Destroyer squads. He automatically lowered his center of gravity and leaned slightly forward with his forearms in front of his face as best as he could manage in his cumbersome Terminator suit. The destructive winds tore over the landscape and despite his best effort he found himself thrown into the Iron Warriors of the ranks behind him. Or was it before him? He no longer knew.

His chronometer was fried, as were several of his more delicate electronic subsystems. The most vital systems of his Terminator armour were hardened against electro-magnetic pulse effects, as were even the basic space marine power armours. His weapons were no longer in his hands, but as he scrambled to find his feet again he came to be standing with a power sword. He had no idea to which of the corpses around him it had belonged, or if he had wrested it from the hands of one of the Iron Warriors that still moved around him, but it had an active power source and was well balanced; he was not going to give it up. Somewhere, he hoped, his plasma destroyers were doing someone else some good too.

There was still a crush of space marines around him, but there was a little more room to move.

There was also still somehow a direction that those around him regarded as “forward,” and so he once again joined the mass of movement.

He no longer had visual or vox contact with any of his squad or anyone else who had come down on his assault boat.

+++++++++

He didn’t know which side the Warlord Titan belonged to. It didn’t seem to matter, so long as its terrifying strides did not bring it any closer to him. The terrible violence of the background noise was so overwhelming that the firing of its apocalyptic lasers did not stand out. There was a static charge in the air, he was sure it was somehow related to the titan’s presence, but he didn’t know in what way.

Eventually it no longer loomed over head, though he could feel the earth shaking vibrations of its ponderous movement for hours. He could only move forward. He couldn’t look at or even think about anything to the left or right, and backwards had ceased to exist as a concept.

+++++++++

There was much more room now, and he was glad for it. He had been on Terra perhaps weeks, at least days, and the entire time until now had only known the shoulder to shoulder, plastron to back pack, agonizingly slow pace of the movement Forward.

He stopped and worked his elbows around to loosen the kinks in his bones and in his armour.

There was a confusion in the movement around him, and he noted with astonishment that those surrounding him were moving in directions other than Forward for the first time in what seemed an eternity.

Confused, he looked to his left and to his right, unsure of what to make of the smooth sided constructs that stood so strangely upright in this mad world of uneven and broken terrain.

Walls.

He stood in a broken gap in a defensive curtain.

He was in the middle of an insane and desperate melee.

The space marines to his front, in between himself and the sacred Forward, were a bright and provocative colour. His iron clad brothers of the IV Legion had breached this wall but were being pushed back by a fierce counter-attack.

He then knew a rage unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and pushed past his stalled brothers, breaking into a headlong run Forward. In a dozen juggernaut paces he was surrounded wholly by the brightly coloured enemy space marines, but still he drove Forward. He lashed about him with his power sword, cutting deep into those who stood before him until he was once again surrounded, pushed close and trapped on all sides by the crush of bodies.

His power sword was upraised, but he could not move to swing it effectively. His off hand was pinned to his side by the shoulder pad of an enemy. He could do nothing more than yell incoherently into the hate-filled faces of those pressed tightly into the death filled gap.

And still he struggled Forward, one foot and then the other. The servos of his Terminator suit whined and ground, and he smelled electricity and smoke and blood, but he knew nothing but rage and the desire to move Forward.

And suddenly, he was running free again. Like a tidal surge finally breaking a sea wall, the tide of iron poured past the kill box of the breached defensive curtain and into the artillery positions and redoubts supporting it.

+++++++++

He was standing alone. How could such a thing exist in a place like that? There was no longer any sky or horizon, only a choking pall of dust and smoke. When had he taken off his helmet, and why?

The silence was perhaps the most frightening thing he had experienced in his lifetime walking Terra’s surface.

Another figure lurched out of the darkness, stumbling heavily. Not an Iron Warrior, not in that colour. The space marine moved clumsily and painfully, laboring under the broken and dead power pack upon his back.

“Why?”

He didn’t know which of them had said it, but he suspected it was the other from the hate-filled expression and accusing eyes.

He lashed out with his sword, slicing cleanly through the space marine’s throat without decapitating him. The enemy had not had the strength to avoid the blow, and simply sank to his knees as his life’s blood gushed out of his neck.

He watched as the hateful expression turned to anguish. It was not a personal anguish, he noted. One might expect that of a murdered man in any other circumstance. This enemy grieved more deeply, selflessly, and it struck something deep inside of him.

“WHY!” The word gurgled and bubbled out of his mouth, drowned by blood and the world weariness of the doomed.

Moved by an impulse, he knelt beside the dying space marine. He used his free hand to guide the enemy from his knees to a prone position on his back. He watched grimly as the enemy mouthed the word through bloody, numb lips once last time as the light faded from steel grey eyes.

He realized he had no answer for the corpse.

+++++++++

He lay in his new isolation chamber, letting the scalding water wash over his naked, outstretched form and breathed deeply the steam. The strike cruiser was gone. Not destroyed, not captured, just gone; nothing was known of it. He could not remember leaving Terra, or even most of what had happened there. He hadn’t learned of the Warmaster’s death until weeks after his escape, but he had somehow managed to find his Warsmith and what was left of his Grand Company. Nobody he talked to seemed to know where they were going. Nobody he talked to seemed to know anything. But that did not bother him; it did not seem to matter anymore.

“First Captain.” The small vox set into the wall summoned him. His new isolation chamber did not need to be hidden like the last one, but he did sometimes wish he was still just a simple murderer in a Destroyer squad once more.

He knew he needed to see to the First Company and its many, many new recruits.

But the Primarch and the Warsmith need not exist for just a while longer.

I hope you enjoy it

[Paradigm]

Here is my submission. It certainly isn't my best writing, but I had a lot of fun with it. I just hope it makes sense to others.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I have been a mortal servant of the eighth legion for over a decade. I’ve been commended, I’ve been punished, I’d survived.

 

I’m going to die. I’m lying face-down. Blood is swiftly filling the footprints and ruts in the mud around me. My blood. The impact crushed my chest. My breaths are frothy and shallow. I can’t feel my legs.

 

The damp earth pushes up between my fingers as I try to right myself. I don’t have the strength. I manage to turn my head. I feel the mud drip down my face. I see the battle rage on, reflected in the bronzed carapace protecting my shoulder. The rest of my squad had moved on.

 

Lying there dying, I start thinking about my father. As a young child I’d asked why we kept the skull on the brass plinth in our entryway.

 

“To ward off the Corpse-God, son.”

 

“What is the Corpse-God?”

 

“He is an evil spirit who comes for those who fail the legion. Son, I’ll tell you a story.

Centuries ago there was a great war fought between the forces of justice, and the forces of evil. The Corpse-God sought to enslave the galaxy and bend all to his will. He crafted the Legions of Terror to destroy all who opposed him. He crafted a hell he called Terra, where he resides to this day, consuming the souls of all who will not serve.”

 

“Why,” I’d asked, “why would he do this?”  

 

“He is evil.”

 

“But, why father, would he take their souls?”

 

“Human minds cannot fathom the thoughts of such creatures, son. His legions were sent into the galaxy to sow terror and enslave our world, and all the others. There were many legions, perhaps hundreds, but I do not know the true number. We only speak on a few. One legion though was led by a great warrior who could see the future. “

 

“The Haunter!”

 

“Yes, my son. The first, of the legion made from adamantium. Because of this, he was the strongest of will, and gifted with the art of foresight.”

 

“This is why the seers always wear trinkets made of adamantium?” I’d asked.

 

“Yes, son, adamantium is the vision metal, and what this legion is made of. This is why they always know everything, and why none can hide from them. This is why there is no crime here, and why all do their duty. Adamantium is the element of peace.”

 

“Is mother a seer?”

 

“Hah, thankfully no. She wears her bracelet because she merely likes it.”

 

“Did the Corpse-God make all his legions out of it?”

 

“No, son he didn’t. It is too bad, as then all his legions would have seen the truth, as ours did. Some were crafted of choking fog, and others blood. Some were made of iron while others were birthed from his very head. But, these are other stories, for another time.”

 

“How can you make something out of fog?” I remember my confusion.

 

“It is time you learned this story, son, the others wait. “

 

“But, Father I --”

 

“You will listen.”

 

 “Yes. Yes, father.”

 

 “Our legion is the eighth. They were the first to realize the evil of the Corpse-God. They declared their freedom, then destroyed the forge of their creation, so no more could be created by their evil master. At first, the other legions hated them, because of their freedom.

Slowly though, others realized the truth, and sought their freedom as well. Eventually all these legions decided they could truly be free, if only they could convince their creator to recognize it. So, they went into the domain of the Corpse-God himself, to meet with him and free all the worlds and legions, once and for all.  

 

There, the Corpse-God refused to see them. Finally, he agreed to meet the eldest of the free legions on their ship. The eldest legion, being made from bone and moonlight, was a weaker one, but ours mistakenly followed them, because of their age.

But you see son, it was a trick. The Corpse-god sent two of his avatars to slay his wayward sons. The first to invade, was a winged daemon, mockingly called ‘The Angel’. Because the daemon was made of blood, he was too weak to hurt the legion of bone and moonlight, and they killed him. The other avatar was a golem cast from gold with fists of ebony, known as Rogul. He slew many of the legion but could not kill them all. The Corpse-God decided to go himself to kill what remained his rebellious children. Lest his golem could not complete the destruction alone.”

 

“Father, what happened? Were they saved?”

 

“Somewhat, my son. Before the battle, each legionary in the eighth plucked their eyes from their own heads and gave them to the legion of bone and moonlight, so their allies too could see the future. The eldest legion covered their armor with the seer’s eyes. This gave them the foresight needed to know of the Corpse God’s treachery. But it came at a cost, the eighth legion, strongest of all, could not see to fight with them, and so waited in the shadows…

 

You look ashen, Son,” said my father.

 

“I will be fine, Father. Please, continue.”

 

“Alright…

 

The Corpse-God manifested, and the legion of bone and moonlight were ready. The strongest among them stepped forward for a duel.” However, even the seer’s eyes could not save him, the Corpse-God stabbed with a spear crafted from the deepest of evil. No eyes can see in the darkest darkness. The spear pierced the warrior’s heart, but before he valiantly died, he managed to land a single strike to the Corpse-God. It was truly a rogue blow, for it crumbled the Corpse-God into nothing but scattered shadow.

 

In that moment the golden golem crashed into the fight. Upon seeing his master’s remains he knelt in fear of the other warriors. However, the legion was weary of the fight, and allowed him to gather what he could of his allies and depart…

 

Son, stop breathing so loudly, it is exhausting my patience.”

 

“I’m sorry father, I will try to be quiet. Please, I want to know about the skull.”

 

I looked up at my father, he seemed very far away.

 

“A great betrayal happened, Son, for when the eighth legion asked their allies to return their eyes, the legion of bone and moonlight grew jealous. They chose to flee in fear of their adamantine brothers, but keep the eyes for themselves. To this day, the eighth legion trusts no one.

The legion blindly grasped, helpless without sight. ‘We must craft new eyes!’ they cried out. Eventually they found a bit of scattered shadow of the Corpse-God, and built them. This is why they have the blackest of eyes, and always surround themselves in darkness. It also gave them their touch of cruelty, as some of their vile master resides within them.”

 

“Father, why then do we have the skull?”

 

“You are bleeding, Son”

 

“The Haunter…” I whispered.

 

“Yes, the Haunter was larger than any other legionary, being the first. When he leapt to his death—

 

--Son, you must rest. You are obviously dying…”

 

Lying in the damp earth. I cry out to my father, barely moving. My eyes no longer see the battlefield. I see nothing but memories. “Father, please tell me…  

 

Why do we have the skull of the Corpse-God?”

 

 

The midnight armored demi-god came upon the grenadier, and laughed into his vox.

 

++ This one has been gutted. He is still living, babbling to his father. ++

              

He picked up the grenadier by his leg. The bronze-armored soldier dangled limply, still mumbling.

 

++ Wow! Listen to this, Parthius. ++

 

Another demi-god turned, his helmet painted into a bony, daemonic grin.

 

++ Always foolish, Chavo. Leave him. His ridiculous mumbling irritates me. ++

 

++ But listen to this nonsense, it’s entertaining. He could make a good pet. ++

 

++ Half the mortals believe this garbage. Thousands of years will do that to a story. He isn’t worth anything to us now and has the markings of a veteran, give him peace. ++

 

++ “Fine, but I’m taking his head. I’ll laugh every time I see it.” ++

 

The demi-god Chavo, laughed as he pulled the grenadier’s head from his shoulders. He turned it around and wiped the blood and grit from the now slack face.

 

++ ”I would have named him Freedom,” Chavo giggled. ++

 

 

 

[Scourged]

I had an idea and I ran with it. For the most part, I think it worked. I'll let you all decide for me.

 

Misplaced Honor

 

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Misplaced Honor

“You fight well, heretic.”

“Same could be said for you, angel.”

This was the first that the combatants had spoken to one another - or at all, for that matter - in over an hour. Their struggle had been a constant stalemate since its inception, neither fighter truly giving up ground to the other. The warrior in red endlessly charged and bellowed with voracious ferocity, his fist and claws viciously striking in tandem. The warrior in blue defended and counterattacked in silence, dual blades crackling with orange energy with each deflecting blow.

Fervently the embattled champions had fought, dueling at the center of the pitched melee composed of their respective squads. Armor of ruby and sapphire pushed and fell in ebbing waves of battle, numbers dwindling as one soldier fell to the next. The passing hour had slowly filled the cobblestone city square with blood, ceramite, and corpses. Even as the last of the crimson angels fell - a scant few azure Astartes the only survivors - the champions fought on.

What had started as a fight to hastily execute the other had slowly transformed into an honorable duel between warriors. Rage and bitterness had dulled into a respectful contest of skills, though still possessing a lethal edge. Only now, as sanguine stains tarnished stone and snow around them, had they both come to a brief ceasefire, appraising the melee’s aftermath and succumbing to an exhaustion that neither would admit.

Truly, company captain Vanni Montalis had never worked this hard to smite a traitor.

“Your men have decimated mine, heretic. I was wrong to assume you and your squad were as pathetic as the rest of your tainted brotherhood...”

The passing hour had been a long one for the Angel Vermilion. When Vanni had charged his opponent at the start, he anticipated a brief skirmish ending as the rest had: a thick smear of fresh blood upon his armor, and a mutilated corpse oozing out of ruined plate. Instead, the company captain found himself repeated repelled, treading on his back foot and forced to resurge time and time again. This was a level of skill Captain Montalis had rarely seen since the end of the Crusade.

“...but you will not win, heretic. Your kind never does. You and I will fight, and you will die. I will exterminate what remains of your pitiful warband. Your blood will seep into these tainted streets and face oblivion beneath my feet. I fight in the righteous name of the Emperor of Mankind, His will be done. I am fueled by the passion of my fallen Primarch. I am a brother of the Angels Vermilion, descendants of the Blood Angels. You will know the wrath of Sanguinius! And by his blood, you will burn.”

Normally a speech like this would rankle the ire of any heretic. They would, blinded with their own petty hatreds, charge at Vanni, spewing their own declarations of the Warmaster - curses upon his name! - or their false gods or some other nonsense. In their unfocused rantings the angel would quickly smite them, without hesitation. Yet, this heretic was different. Rather than charge and scream of pointless allegiances, he stood, and calmly replied.

“That was a good speech, angel. But it fails to impact, coming from anything but a primogenitor.”

“I am one, renegade. I speak my words exactly because of my heritage. It is because of my illustrious tenure with the IX Legion that I was awarded command within the Angels Vermilion. Know that my words carry the weight of the galaxy, as I have stood in the presence of Sanguinius and the Emperor alike!”

“Oh… forgive me, angel. I wasn’t aware I was in the presence of a veteran of the Long War. Consider me honored.”

The traitor offered a ceremonial bow, quite surprisingly. Whether sarcastic or not, it was an unexpected gesture.

“You amuse me, heretic. Your breed seldom remembers what it means to have honor. Though you do not deserve it, I shall pay you the same respect. You and I shall finish this duel not as savage brutes, but as true warriors. Tell me, heretic… what is your name, and your legacy?”

“I am Scindus Dhelmas, of the Scourged.”

“...is that all? Have you no glories to boast? No resplendent victories to tribute? What of your long and noble heritage in service to the Warp? Or the pathetic tale of your fall from grace?”

“They would not interest you, loyalist.”

“Very well. I am Vanni Montalis, 4th Company Captain of the Angels Vermilion, formerly 6th Company 2nd Squad Sergeant of the Blood Angels. I am the liberator of Hammus. I am the slayer of Tymboch the Visceral and his Bloodbrood. I survived the killing fields of Urisarach. I dethroned the Triad Kings of Desmona. But most of all, I defended the Eternity Gate alongside the mighty Sanguinius! I have survived your heresy a thousand times over and will be victorious here once again.”

“Oh. That’s nice. Hardly impressive, but… nice.”

Such… such impudence! Where was the honor he feigned to have just moments prior? Vanni was a fool to ever believe the words from Scindus’ mouth was genuine. How dare this disgusting heretic belittle Vanni’s accomplishments?! Montalis’ pedigree as an Angel Vermilion alone is more than enough cause for reverence, but to have no reaction toward his service in the Battle of Terra? To not immediately be filled with ire when reminded of humanity's darkest moment, and the traitors’ greatest defeat? Any other treasonous dog would have immediately responded, but this mongrel was unmoved. Disgusting.

“Don’t act as if you are unphased, heretic! You may care not for my triumphs, but the Heresy demands respect, regardless of allegiance! And the Siege of Terra is a lineage your breed holds dear to their blackened souls. I’ve listened to your ilk curse me endlessly upon learning I am veteran of the Siege, whether Legionnaire or renegade. All of you who dwell in the Eye scream tirelessly about your supposed “Long War,” and yet you are apparently unmoved when confronted by your own origins. Do you not share this same hatred?”

“I have learned truths you could never perceive. I possess knowledge you could never comprehend. I did not attend the infamous Siege, but I know more about it than you ever could… and I’m unimpressed.”

Amongst every traitor the captain has ever faced, a misplaced pride in the past burned was shared between them all. Those brothers in the Legions who fell, they at least contained souls worth a moment’s mourning for this reason. Though evil beyond redemption, they paid homage to the most pivotal moment in humanity’s history. But this descendant of Chaos speaks of the Heresy as though it was nothing more than a skirmish on a backwater world? The feeling burning inside Captain Montalis was now well beyond disgust. It was utter contempt.

“I know now I was mistaken to perceive your actions as a sense of honor, renegade. You are worse than the filth from the fallen Legions. You have no reason to align yourself with Chaos, yet ignorantly do so anyway. You’re a disgrace to loyalist and traitor alike.”

The champions of red and blue resumed their duel. The rage was back, relit anew by such blatant disregard for heritage. The vermilion captain  roared once more and threw himself forward, auras of power and lightning dancing on his gauntlets once more. The warrior, Scindus, rose his blades in defense as before, and the fight began anew.

“It would do you well to honor your legacy, heretic. I know the significance of those events - I was there. I fought in the days of the greatest betrayal. I stood ground with my brothers at the Eternity Gate and repelled every one of your treasonous kind. I slayed more of the enemy on that day than all the lives you have ever known, heretic. I watched our beloved Primarch accept the challenge of a great daemon and break its spine over his knee. I know of pains and glories of which you NEVER will!”

“I much preferred your silence, angel.”

Vanni hurled his fist again and again, arcing in wide haymakers and sweeping up in devastating uppercuts. His claws slashed and stabbed, seeking purchase on any scrap of blue armor they could reach. All it would take was for one of his rapid swings to connect, one hook of an arm or a leg with the claws, and the warrior would be slowed just enough to be broken beneath the swinging fist. The angel punched and clawed again and again, rage giving him strength and speed. He would wear down the heretic, he would crush him and his subordinates, and victory would belong to the Imperium once again.

But the fortuitous strike never came. Each swing of the powerfist was sidestepped or ducked. Each swipe of the lightning claws was evaded and parried by blades. Vanni would strike, but Scindus would counter strike. Soon, the ebbing and flowing tempo of their previous battle had returned, both sides on an equal footing. And the longer the fight endured, the more a dark rage bled into Captain Montalis. If he could not break the heretic’s body first, he would break his spirit.

“I pity you, heretic - you will never see the Golden Palace. Were you to even glimpse it from orbit you would weep. You would fall to your knees and beg the almighty Emperor for His divine forgiveness. By simply witnessing the glory of Holy Terra you would renounce your blasphemous life and seek penance. And there, at the birthplace of humanity, you would remember this moment and pay proper reverence to my heritage as your final living thoughts.”

“I doubt that.”

More rage. More furious thrusts and cuts of weapons. More showers of sparks flying as blades met and scraped. More dirt and snow kicked into the air as they battled. More sweat. More exhaustion. But this fight could not last forever. Vanni knew it, and he was sure the heretic knew it too. Before long, one of them would make a fatal error. One of them would stumble on the loose cobblestone, or miss a deflection, or clip the other with enough force to craft an opening to strike. The end would be soon.

“You are nothing, heretic! We may be fighting on an even keel, but this scrap is meaningless. I will win, just as I have every other battle. But you will not be remembered. Your warband will be forgotten. This planet will not even register in the annals of my chapter. You renegades are all worthless motes floating in the universe, devoid of any real threat. I have fought and slain warriors of real worth, from a time of true battle: the Eaters of Worlds, the Warriors of Iron, the Thousand Sons… You are nothing compared to them!”

“Enough. I can’t listen to this anymore.”

Again with this impudence! As if this fight would end because of his impatience. Vanni Montalis would never finish until his opponent was obliterated. This heretical whelp, this insult to the name Astartes from an unknown, insignificant renegade chapter stood absolutely no chance to-

It was at that moment that two burning points pierced his abdomen. A wallowing scream erupted from his mouth, the sound of his pain overshadowed by the sound of his defeat. Vanni crashed both fists down on the blade, shattering them and rendering their power fields inert, but it didn’t matter. The blades’ remnants remained inside his chest, the irreparable damage done inside him, and blood quickly draining from the two large wounds. The vermilion captain dropped to his knees, knowing his defeat had come and his death was near.

“I am no Legionnaire. I did not partake in the Heresy. No, I wasn’t there, Captain Montalis, and I do not care. I have known the legends, and I have been told the glories, but I do not care.  I was not present as your illustrious Siege, angel, but the influence of both allegiances have cursed me and my brotherhood. I have been dammed by the Emperor, and I have been damned by the Ruinous Powers. Both have forsaken me.”

Finally allowing his annoyance to show, Scindus paused his speech to roughly kick the dying angel onto his back. The Scourged marine stepped upon one of the open wounds and pressed his weight into it. The broken blades shifted inside the mutilated torso, shredding what few working organs remained. Even as the last of the blood was leaving the beaten captain, the cerulean champion continued.

“Your legacy is meaningless, angel. With your death there is one less survivor of the Heresy, and it will fall deeper into legend, until it too is forgotten. There is no glory in what you do, just as there is no glory in what the newest Warmaster does. I serve the truth, and exist to punish those filled with sin. None are innocent, not even your beloved Primarch. So go on, speak on while you still can of honor and heritage, but it falls on deaf ears. A legacy means nothing when it is built upon lies.”

 

 

[EesiOh]

I would like to enter this week, I feel like it would be a good opurtunity to flesh out the Slient Laughter buuut... Word is broken, and I cant really decide how i want to write it so it looks like a pass this week 

[Teetengee]

  On 1/12/2016 at 10:34 PM, EesiOh said:

I would like to enter this week, I feel like it would be a good opurtunity to flesh out the Slient Laughter buuut... Word is broken, and I cant really decide how i want to write it so it looks like a pass this week 

Google Docs are your friend!

[EesiOh]

  On 1/13/2016 at 12:21 AM, Teetengee said:

 

  On 1/12/2016 at 10:34 PM, EesiOh said:

I would like to enter this week, I feel like it would be a good opurtunity to flesh out the Slient Laughter buuut... Word is broken, and I cant really decide how i want to write it so it looks like a pass this week 

Google Docs are your friend!

 

its my whole patop though, esspecially the mouse, it just seems that Word also gets quite heavily affected 

[Scourged]

So, okay... had me an idea for a possible new weekly topic (...figured I'd share the idea before I go off exploring it myself ):

Imperfect Beings

So often the source of inspiration is the achievements and success of a warband, but their faults and defeats can prove just as inspirational. What weakness(es) or flaw(s) have led to such a defeat for your warband? It could be a flaw in the personality, or a weakness of the flesh, or a failing in the mind. Is it an imperfection of a single warrior, or does it manifest throughout every member of the warband? Is it of minor consequence, or does it greatly affect every campaign?

Is stubbornness so ingrained within your gene-seed that you will never surrender, even when obliteration is certain? Maybe your champion cannot survive without feasting on Astartes flesh and has become a liability. Does ambition drive your subordinates to backstab and usurp their leadership at the first hint of weakness? Perhaps your warband is cursed with rampant mutation, or a necrotic touch that rapidly decays weapons and armor to uselessness.

[Teetengee]

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.”

 

part 2 will not be coming before the deadline, but this first part can stand alone for now

[Kierdale]

Many thanks for your entries on the theme of Memories of Terra.

Our next Inspiration Friday topic is...

Possessed

Tell us about these (blessed? cursed?) renegade Astartes. Their position within the warband, how they are viewed by their peers (With envy? Pity?), how they entered (willing?) pacts with the neverborn who now reside within them. Are they forever possessed or do they give up their bodies in preparation for combat? Were they originally members of your war band or were captured loyalists offered up for daemons to inhabit?

Inspiration Friday: Possessed runs for two weeks until Friday the 29^th of January.

Photographs of models are not necessary but are much appreciated.

Lastly, I will be announcing the winner of Memories of Terra ASAP and offering them the honour of judging Possessed.

Let us be inspired.

[Teetengee]

can we also do "counts as" possessed? I recently had an idea, but I don't know if they qualify strictly for possessed or not

[Kierdale]

Do you want to PM me about the concept? :)

I am planning a dedicated 'Counts As' IF in the future (e.g. My warband has possessed drop pods which count as dreadclaws, etc.). If you feel that would be more fitting then you could wait.

But by all means PM me and tell me about it.

 

Oh, and Scourged, thanks for the topic suggestion. I added it to the list :tu:

[EesiOh]

Marked For Death 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 Xaroth looked down at his left arm in despair, for once he was glad of the fact that the members of the Bloody Harvest lived in such tiny and confined spaces, none of his brothers would see the terrible flesh change that was beginning to afflict him, starting from the arm up. Even as he looked at it the light blue crystalline flesh was slowly at a rate of millimeters claiming more of his arm. Ever since had ascended the ranks of chosen he had felt the raw power of the daemons clawing at his soul, drawn as they were by sanguinius’ dormant psychic curse that he and all his kin carried in his gene seed. What sparked the change from marine to bloodthirsty brute, seemed to draw daemons of Khorne to it like moths to a candle. All members of the Bloody harvest knew that there were 4 ways their lives would end. A normal death, As a Daemon Prince, as Berzerker member of the Bloody Harvest equivalent to the death company or with invasive possession by a Khornate daemon drawn to the innate rage in his very DNA. The kind of possession that Xaroth knew he was beginning to experience. This was no mere gift of Mutation, that much Xaroth knew by the way that occasionally his thought weren't quite his own, or that when he slept millennium old memories of slaughter carried out in galaxies Xaroth didn't know the names of, or atrocities carried out in strange daemon worlds in the empyrium. He knew eventually one way or another his fate would be death. At the hands of his own warband or at the hands of enemies, either way someone such as he was literally and figuratively marked for death. Since Allesadnro had joined the Bloody Harvest some of his pathetic ‘purity’ rhetoric from the hated Archangels had somehow carried over and Drakos had for his own reasons gone along with the Blood Wing warlords arguments that while daemons were useful they should never be allowed to sully the purity of a battle brother and as such any warband member being possessed willingly or not would have to be put down. Xaroth looked down at his arm again before leaving his room wearing the customary crimson robes of the bloody harvest, which luckily for him were long sleeved. He went to the armoury and making sure no one was around bade his serfs to armour him quickly. He had managed to swear them to silence after killing and eating one of their number in front of their eyes and so was not worried that they would attempt to inform anyone of his predicament, but should another member of the warband enter the armoury only one of them would be leaving it. As the last bit of armour, his left hand gauntlet was being attached another member of his chosen squadron walked in. Artos was an old veteran, said to have betrayed the Blood Angels during the heresy itself. Whether that was true or not Artos was certainly a very old and very dangerous veteran. Xaroth offered a silent prayer to the Skull King that Artos had not seen his hand but the momentary flicker on the Veterans face as he entered seemed to indicate otherwise. Artos simply stood by the doorway and let Xaroth leave in a hurry but the knowing look he gave the warrior sent a chill down his spine.

It wasnt until months later when the change had taken over all of Xaroth’s left side save his face that he was discovered. Whilst sparring against Artos, each warrior wearing their robes in lieu of armour and using blunted swords, Artos angled his sword perfectly for a chop that would have left a massive bruise and possibly cracked the bone of Xartho’s wrist had it not been for the crystal skin. Instead the sword shattered. Eyes blazing with rage at the fat he had been finally an openly discovered Xaroth ripped the sleeve off of his robe to show Artos. Knowing he was a dead man he simply wished to end his discoverer before his own death. He drew his arm back to punch the Veterans head clean from his shoulders, but was interrupted by the report of a bolt pistol discharging followed by first the back and then the front of his head exploding. Garet, who had been nearby had noticed and drawing his pistol quickly ended the life of someone who he had once seen as miles above himself, a lowly member of a combat squad. Artos grinned, wiping Xaroth’s blood from his face and walked over to Garet “We have a new vacancy in our squad, care to join?” he boomed before walking away from Garet and yelling at some serfs to dispose of the carcass in an incinerator

 

Not super happy with it but it was fun and its a good way to shake off some rust

[Teetengee]

  On 1/16/2016 at 1:04 AM, Kierdale said:

 

-snip-

Lastly, I will be announcing the winner of Memories of Terra ASAP and offering them the honour of judging Possessed.

-snip-

And the winner is?????????

 

also, pm sent

[Kierdale]

The winner of Inspiration Friday: Memories of Terra will be announced this week by dark apostle Angra of the Psychopomps.

Blue-skinned Caryatid flutters into position before the fallen chaplain and unfurls a long scroll of parchment. The apostle focuses his warm brown human eye and his glowing jade daemon eye upon the fine script and clears his throat before speaking, two voices speaking as one.

We had six entries for Memories of Terra, for which you have my deepest thanks.

Carrack gave us 16-144-8-6, the tale of a Black Legionnaire taking part in a drop assault, experiencing memories of the siege of Terra and his ill-fated drop during that combat ten millennia earlier.

Warsmith Aznable gave us the tale of an Iron Warrior at the Siege of Terra. I loved the confusion and sheer madness of the assault that you managed to portray so well. The scale too. Losing track of time. The snapshots of events. I particularly liked that you didn’t identify the enemy, just noting their colourful armour. I’m sure it mattered not to the Iron Warrior whether he faced an Angel or a Fist.

Fortnight - I liked the father explaining to his son that the legions had been made from different materials. The twisted version of the Great Betrayal that the father tells the son was excellent, painting the Night Lords in such a noble light, tragically betrayed.

Scourged gave us Misplaced Honour: a continuation of one of his previous entries, a duel between -at the time of the Siege- a Blood Angel and one of the Scourged. A veteran of the loyalist side of the Long War, and a renegade who cares nothing for tales of the Great Betrayal or legacies built upon lies.

Teetengee gave us a duel between a pair of Sons of Horus: one of the Reavers and no less than a Justaerin, at - it appears - the opening of the Siege of Terra. We must await Part Two to know more (I’d like to hear a bit more set up/setting, and perhaps foreshadowing of who the Reaver becomes).

And Kierdale gave you a dubious account of my own half-remembered daemon-granted visions of the Siege and the exploits of the 3rd Legion upon Terra.

I hereby announce the winner of Inspiration Friday: Memories of Terra to be Warsmith Aznable for his piece which showed us the scale and madness of the Siege of Terra perfectly.

Please accept your reward of the Octed Amulet:

And you are hereby offered the honour of judging Inspiration Friday: Possessed. What say you?

[Warsmith Aznable]

  On 1/17/2016 at 1:47 PM, Kierdale said:

I hereby announce the winner of Inspiration Friday: Memories of Terra to be Warsmith Aznable for his piece which showed us the scale and madness of the Siege of Terra perfectly.

Please accept your reward of the Octed Amulet:

And you are hereby offered the honour of judging Inspiration Friday: Possessed. What say you?

I claim the Octed and the right to sit in judgment of my peers! Bring forth your stories of possession!

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

That Daemon Forge XI started which has a Daemonic Possessed theme if anyone wanting to convert up a single model, unit or tank base on there cool background for Inspiration Friday background.

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/318279-daemon-forge-xi-daemonic-possessed-theme/

[EesiOh]

at this point i guess I win by defualt. everyone you have 5 days left, put your back into it