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

[Kierdale]

Purity of Purpose

One

Hidden Content

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and in action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”

Such was a commonly held opinion amongst the artisans of the planet Fulcrum - and there were a great many of these, too many perhaps for a world of the Imperium of Man, perhaps a product of the world being mostly removed from the warfare of more outlier sectors, and indicative of the decadence to come when the Stygian Guard returned from their fateful mission to the planet of cults.

“It is not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

Words of an ancient master of the combative arts, this was something Otathis could comprehend. The Stygian Guard, descendants of Dorn, founded on the ideals of Imperial Fist captain Vladimir Pugh, had taken such an ethic as their foundation and had reduced themselves to upholding duty above all else. Honour, pride, ceremony, sorrow and joy, all these and more they strove to strip from themselves via training, meditation and pain. Oh yes: agony inflicted by the pain glove - a holdover from their parent chapter put to greater use - was shamelessly used to flay such superfluous thoughts and values from those who could not expunge them mentally. And then there were the teachings of the reclusiam: the Stygian chaplains seconded themselves to other chapters both scions of Dorn and otherwise, initially - and later only ostensibly - to gather tactical data they disseminated amongst their brotherhood once returned to their chapter. Another aspect of this work was to find the weaknesses amongst their allies in the Imperium and eradicate these flaws within the Stygian companies. Chief amongst these was master of sanctity Angra, the left hand of chapter master Sophusar and foil of first captain Viphic.

 

 

Loncia cursed and threw the stick to port, Inviolate Will banking and taking itself out of the way of a stream of cannon shells from their six o’clock. Hoph, strapped into the position behind him directed the gun servitors and the thunderhawk’s heavy bolter sponsons rotated to rake their pursuers. This forced the pair of Lightnings - the pale grey of the Imperial navy, with gilt Aquilas upon their wings and fuselage - to break off their attack, if only for a moment.

“Where’s our escort?!”

There came as if in answer, a roar of afterburners as a pair of Storm Talons in the same alabaster white as the thunderhawk dropped from cloud base with their engine pods angled aft for maximum thrust.

Angra, his skull-visaged helm fixed on the cityscape beyond, put his gauntlet on Loncia’s pauldron reassuringly as if to say “have faith in your brethren.” Despite the evasive manoeuvres Loncia was throwing the thunderhawk through, the head chaplain, his boots clamped to the cockpit’s deckplates, stood unshaken.

“Bracketing the bandits,” Hoph reported as the thunderhawk’s heavy bolters continued to stitch the air about the diving and rolling Lightnings. While their Storm Talon escorts were heavily armed, they were ground-attack craft rather than aerospace superiority fighters like the navy Lightnings. It would take coordinated fire to bring them down.

 

Otathis knew his Storm Talon could not match the Lightning for speed and, while the Talon was more manoeuvrable at low speeds and low altitude, up here kilometres above the surface he was in the interceptor’s realm. There was one advantage he had over the interceptor though: the Lightning’s weapons were mounted facing forwards, for like a lancer of old it would charge at its foe and slay them in a single devastating onslaught. The Talon however had a pair of assault cannons mounted in its nose and as Otathis struggled to bring his plane round to match the turn of his target he turned his head and the turret’s sensors followed his gaze. The navy fighter was being hindered by the inaccurate yet great volume of bolter fire from Inviolate Will, and this made Otathis’ job that little bit easier. He pushed the stick harder and the reticule projected upon his canopy light up red. He depressed the trigger and the twin assault cannons roared, sending in one short burst hundreds of rounds into the rear of the Lightning, ferociously eating though its armour and into its engines. He rolled clear, his wingman close behind.

“Rius! Where’s the other one?”

“I- I lost it, I don’t-“

“On your six, Talons. On your six!” the voice of Hoph cut through their channel and the heavy bolters on the thunderhawk’s wingtips and fuselage sponsons angled their fire behind Otathis and Rius’ Talons. Reflexively the pair split, peeling off so that whichever were pursued could rest assured that their wingman would fall onto the tail of the pursuer.

But the Lightning was a fast plane, and this one vengeful after seeing its own wingman downed. The wingtip lascannons spat crimson bolts and before Otathis could pull his Talon round, Rius’ exploded.

Repressing his sorrow at losing Rius, and his rage at the enemy, he settled his Talon onto the jinking Lightning’s six. It was then that the thunderhawk’s bolter fire began to start finding its mark and sparks flared on the navy fighter’s wings as rounds struck and armour began to spall.

“Back off, Inviolate, this is my kill.”

Even as he depressed the triggers and obliterated the enemy, he knew he would regret those words.

 

Inviolate Will dropped into the thick of the fighting, master of sanctity Angra, his bodyguard and two full tactical squads disembarking, weapons up and ready. The battlefield was a ruined cityscape - the capital Nidius, fallen and burned out buildings separated by rubble - and wreck-filled streets. Here the Stygians massed in a square, joining up with more squads lead by members of the chapter’s librarius and their allies in this mission, for on the opposite side of the square - both in hastily dug trenches and bunkered down in the ruins overlooking the open area - were hundreds of guardsmen, their armoured carriers and tanks. The vitriolic rhetoric of their commissars and priests could be heard in the brief lulls between salvoes and explosions. Misled fools.

Angra watched as his thunderhawk’s remaining escort, the storm talon piloted by Otathis, strafed the enemy lines, rockets streaking out from its pods and even at a distance of some half kilometre the roar of its cannons was fearsome. He watched as it throttled up and pulled away, skilfully evading return fire, weaving between buildings to set up another run. Otathis was a fine techmarine and an excellent pilot, but there was still much that needed to be hewn from him if he were to meet the ideals of the chapter.

The Stygian Talon was followed in its next pass by a Templar Talon and Angra cocked an eyebrow as a gout of promethium was shot forth from the low-flying black assault craft. Its nose turret had evidently been retrofitted with incinerators. Most curious.

The chaplain exchanged Aquila salutes with the approaching blue-armoured Stygian lexicanum Holusiax and his senior: epistolary Diarthet before turning to do likewise with the leader of their allies in this purging: chaplain Caedmon, clad in the ivory and sable of the Templars.

The Nantessi Insurrection would soon be quelled.

 

 

Angra found Otathis strapped within one of dozens of pain gloves within the reclusiam’s lower chambers, his face in a rictus of pain, his breathing quick and shallow, eyes clenched shut against the pseudo-agony ravaging his body.

He looked up at the techmarine’s finely sculpted body, sheathed in naught but sweat, suspended within the gossamer-thin web of the glove. He did not remove his skull-faced helm before speaking.

“Do you blame yourself for Rius’ death?”

Despite the glove being set to tertius level, Otathis evidently did hear his words. Bloodshot eyes opened and he responded through teeth clenched so tightly the enamel might splinter.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He was my wingman.” After spitting out the final word his teeth slammed together once more and there was a squeal as they ground upon each other. “He failed his duty.”

“Duty,” Angra nodded. “Good. Good. Then why are you here?”

“Perfection.”

“That which is complete...that which can be no better...or that which has attained its purpose. Which do you seek, Otathis?”

A groan of pain escaped the techmarine’s mouth. Evidently the chaplain’s question had disturbed his concentration.

“All, master.”

At this Angra removed his helmet, the stench of hot electronics and stale sweat assaulting his nostrils, and he looked up at Otathis once more, with raised eyebrows.

“You wish to be complete? What is it you lack, marine? Tell me and if forge master Zenelaius cannot provide it then the apothecaries surely can, no?”

“Greater skill, master,” Otathis spat, his face flushed, neck muscles bunched.

Angra laughed, a harsh bark. “Such cannot be obtained within the pain glove, Otathis. And at tertius level,” he glanced at the chronometer, for too long in the glove at such level could be permanently damaging, “you risk your body. And your mind.”

“To be the epitome, then.”

“In which case strapping yourself into your Talon rather than a pain glove, would do you more good, I believe.”

“To cleanse myself so that I might attain my purpose.”

Angra nodded at this, “Ah, well then. And what is our purpose, marine?”

“Perfection in combat. The completion of the mission. The fulfilment of duty over all else.”

The master of sanctity stepped closer to the suspended techmarine, nodded approvingly as he did so. “And you did so. You successfully escorted my own thunderhawk to the dropzone, and partook in the final assault. A handsome kill tally too, by all accounts.”

With his left hand he depressed a control on the pain glove’s control console and immediately the thrum of power cut, the wires went slack and Otathis tumbled to the cold, hard stone floor, his body shuddering, muscles spasming.

When he finally could exert control over his body once more he raised his head to find Angra’s hand extended down toward him.

“Rise, marine. Rise anew.”

 

 

Two

Hidden Content

“Just like Nantessi.”

That bought back memories. Dozens of sorties across the planet’s continents. Crushing the Imperial forces there. Men and women who would otherwise have been his battle brothers were it not for the weakness of their masters. A weakness which had allowed xenos to enslave their minds. That they had unquestioningly followed the orders of their betters spoke well of the guardsmen and navy units. They had held duty and the fulfilling of their mission paramount, as the Stygians did. At Otathis’ expressing his admiration for the enemy a Templar had laughed before cursing the heretics for not seeing the truth of the Emperor’s light and will, and given the Stygian marine a cautionary glare.

It had all ended there in the skies above and down in the streets of Nidius.

Rius had been lost. Otathis had submitted himself for scourging upon the ending of the campaign. Pain level tertius, twenty agonizing minutes.

He had been flensed.

He had been purified.

 

Here another insurrection but while Loncia had proclaimed it would be no different to that war in which Otathis had lost Rius, his wingman since undertaking the oaths of Mars, Otathis knew deep down that they all knew this war held more in the balance. The chapter had already lost its first company to this world over a year earlier.

Cyprius III.

A mission from the Ordo Hereticus. The inquisitor had had the effrontery to requisition almost the chapter’s entire veteran company. A show of power, he had said and the Stygians had acquiesced, as was their duty. No doubt it would be little more than a parade, the execution of a wilful governor perhaps, and a swift return to their fortress-monastery upon Fulcrum.

And yet they had not returned, and all contact had been lost.

Master Sophusar had thus summoned the rest of the chapter and taken its combined might on an overtly investigative mission, but the hard drills and preparation they had undertaken en route showed its true punitive purpose. In any less ascetic chapter it might have been called vengeance...

 

The capital city, Dion, stretched out across the continent below. He knew not when the rot had set in amongst the Cypriusians but their brief had been that Terra’s Due had not been received in decades. Such concerns meant little to one of the Emperor’s angels of death, but it was evident that great changes had been wrought in what had once been a relatively peaceful backwater Imperial world – as peaceful as any planet in a galaxy-spanning dictatorship could be. As he had descended from orbit the patterns had eventually become apparent. Stretching across dozens of city blocks, buildings had been demolished, seemingly randomly at first until one realised that the destruction wrote out strange symbols large upon the city itself. Eight pointed stars, circles bisected by spars and crescents and more, kilometres in diameter. Warfare did not cause such precise demolition, and he could not imagine what sane mind might order the reduction of buildings to rubble in such patterns. Had the buildings even been evacuated beforehand?

The tone from Pale Raptor’s - his Storm Talon - auspex drew his attention from the mysterious devastation. The machine spirit had detected a bogie inbound as he and Aroni aboard Ravenous on his wingtip had begun to close on the city. Hails from orbit had gone ignored but even the most basic of augury sweeps could detect that there was life and activity in the planet’s cities.

The blip resolved into a pair of Lightnings, and behind them more Imperial aerospace craft rising to meet them.

“Just like Nantessi.”

Only this time it was not merely a pair of storm talons escorting a thunderhawk. No, Otathis flew as part of the vanguard of the Stygian Guard assault. Storm talons, hawks and ravens leading the way for dozens of thunderhawks. The greater part of nine entire companies of the chapter.

The Lightnings were swept from the skies in a blink as the Stygian squadrons opened fire. They did not engage them in dogfights, tests of skill and mettle. Such was not the Stygian way - as had been hammered into Otathis once again after Nantessi - theirs way was to accomplish the mission as quickly and as efficiently as possible. No time for theatrics, but equally none for butchery.

Otathis watched as more and more of the Cypriusian craft fell from the skies, wings clipped, bodies broken. He looked at their gaudily painted hulls, myriad pastel hues, and he knew then that things would not be quite like Nantessi.

 

 

He was not there when first captain Viphic had met chapter master Sophusar. Only the master’s closest commanders had been present. Otathis and most of the chapter’s air power had been busy prosecuting the campaign. Pushing on with the mission the first company had been tasked with over a year before. Taking the fight to the rebel populace. No, more than rebel, they soon discovered. The Nantessi had been good, healthy men and women, blindly following the orders of commanders and a government entranced by Xenos. But the Cypriusians -they soon learned- were twisted and relished their madness.

Before going out on their second mission since planetfall, the techmarine pilots were taken aside and briefed by second captain Castor, master of sanctity Angra at his side. They were given their mission: the securing of a promethium refinery on the outskirts of the capital, details of enemy forces anticipated and a final order: that should any of the first company be encountered they should be executed with extreme prejudice for acts of treason and heresy against Golden Throne, the Lords of Terra and the chapter itself.

 

 

Reports came in that ground fighting in the capital was fierce. The populace - cultists and fanatics to a man - were blind to pain and sacrificed their lives gladly. Yet theirs was a disorganised warfare. Akin to the Greenskin and the Tyranid menace, and the Stygians changed their tactics accordingly.

It seemed whatever lunacy had seized the peoples of Cyprius, it left their attention frayed and short, for what airpower the chapter had faced during planetfall had been easily swept aside and little else was encountered, though those few they did face were suicidal. No amount of fire had managed to bring down a huge marauder bomber before it had managed to ram the thunderhawk Rectitiude.

With the refinery secured, squads of the 6th and 8th companies fortifying it after clearing out what resistance they found, much of the task force’s flyers began the flight back toward the chapter’s main FOB, Aroni aboard Ravenous taking lead, Otathis in Pale Raptor behind, with the storm raven Deliverance and another pair of talons at its rear.

 

 

It was as the five made their way back through the canyon-like streets, buildings high on both sides that they were attacked. The flyers’ machine spirits had been tasked with watching the ground and buildings for the enemy: likely cultists with rockets or the occasional crewed cannon, thus the winged creatures took them by surprise. Like a great black cloud they swarmed from a gaping hole high above in one of the buildings looming over the street, and swept down upon the Stygian flyers screaming like banshees. Lacking weapons other than their clawed feet and fang-filled maws they were incapable of penetrating the ceramite armour and so threw themselves at wings and fuselages, battering the marine craft bodily.

One of the rear talons was struck so hard it was pushed into the nearest building, the techmarine pilot unable to regain control as more of the harpy-like creatures struck. Rolling, it plummeted toward the street below.

The other raptor throttled up to pull away as bodies pelted it, only for its engines to suck in several of the furies at once, choke and send it falling earthward too.

Aroni and Otathis cut their forward motion, as did the pilot of Deliverance, the full downward thrust of their engines countering the impacts of bodies trying to pummel them from the skies.

Pale Raptor’s canopy cracked as one of the creatures struck it and the Talon wobbled upon the column of thrust from its engines. A gaunt visage, vaguely human yet drawn with starvation and madness, leered at Otathis through the crack-laced canopy before he stamped on a pedal, banking the Talon and slipping the beast from his nose. He brought his flyer round to find hordes of the winged creatures swarming over Deliverance’s wings and fuselage. The dorsal turret turned, its assault cannons roaring and pulping the enemy at such close range. But it could not wipe them all from the Raven’s hull, for it was not designed for engaging enemy at such close range.

“Scrape ‘em off me!” came the frantic voice of the Raven’s pilot.

While his skyhammer rockets would be far too risky, with short bursts of the assault cannons Otathis judged that he would be able to control his fire well enough.

“Cover me,” he ordered his wingman, Aroni, who rose up, swinging his own cannons left and right to scythe the still airborne beasts from the sky, limbs, broken wings and ichor dropping like rain.

He frowned as Raptor’s machine spirit kept shifting the targeting reticule over Deliverance itself, unable to properly lock onto the leathery, monstrous furies. Sparks flew from the Raven’s turret as the beasts jammed its cannons with their own bodies, the larger ones pushing the smaller onto the scalding hot barrels and into the weapons’ workings.

Expletives cut through the comm from the Storm Raven and Otathis untethered the nose cannons from the machine spirit’s guidance, the spirit giving a last tug on the weapons before reluctantly relinquishing control.

With a deep breath he remembered the agony he had experienced in the pain glove after Nantessi. How he had exerted his will to concentrate on Angra’s words. Purity of purpose. Perfection in duty.

He squeezed the triggers.

 

Three

Hidden Content

The war on Cyprius III was not going well. The tactics and strategies of the Stygians, honed over centuries of combat, the fat excised by their chaplains, were left wanting by the madness of the enemy.

More and more they lashed themselves, and yet more and more fell, the enemy revelling in the pain, in the bloodshed, in the excess.

Sophusar, master of the chapter, gave the word to break with their ways and ordered the infiltration of the enemy by the scouts. Soon came the adoption of their appearance - and their ways - , first with the scouts. Then more came to do likewise, initially as trophy taking in order to strike fear into the enemy, but eventually the ornamentation went beyond terror tactics. Into excess.

 

More and more missions. Otathis came to realise he spent more time in his talon engaging the enemy than maintaining it in the chapter workshops. And yet, thank the machine spirit, it was still strong, undamaged and hungry. He felt as much whenever he strapped himself in and chanted the mantras which awoke its spirit. Newer, longer mantras forge master Zenelaius had taught to his techmarines in order to keep the spirits appeased through such a long campaign. Words not of high gothic but of an unknown tongue, though evidently powerful, for Pale Raptor had never before flown as well under his control when in combat. It savoured the unleashing of rockets into the ranks of the enemy, it kept firing for seconds after he let go of the cannon triggers on strafing runs.

No longer did he torment himself in the pain glove. Such would be naught but a distraction from his purpose, from his time in Raptor. He could feel it. He could feel he was close to perfection. The perfect airborne predator.

 

At first he had reacted to the news in abject horror. The campaign now years-old, yet they had struck out quickly from the homeworld planning a punitive mission, they were now low on ammunition and master Zenelaius informed the pilots that no more rounds were available for the assault cannons. How would he vomit forth Raptor’s fury upon the worms who crawled upon the dirt? How would he appease its spirits cries for more fire, more blood, more destruction, to excess?

It was then that he recalled a battlefield years before. Storm talons flying over enemy lines spraying forth great gouts of fire. The Templars. Nantessi.

The refinery they had secured not long after planetfall.

 

Oh yes, that pleased Pale Raptor. That pleased his Talon’s spirit greatly as he overflew the Cypriusian cults and their neverborn masters. Raptor’s engines roared with glee as it shot sheets of flame down onto them. Men and women withered as oxygen was sucked from their lungs and their skin peeled, while the neverborn screamed as they were banished back to the Dark Prince’s palace, recognising a kindred spirit in their slayer.

 

Otathis was soon no longer seen by his brethren, ordering refuelling via comms whenever he brought his Talon back to earth. His fellow techmarines and their servitors rushed to obey his orders, for he had become a hero of the chapter. An epitome for the others who piloted the chapter’s vehicles. Master of Sanctity Angra extolled his skill and his devotion to duty.

It was as the climatic assault began upon the governor’s palace, Raptor’s spirit wilfully incinerating all beneath, friend of foe, sensational feedback rocketing through the MIU and into his withered brain, that Otathis finally resisted. He saw that he had gone beyond perfection.

He had become a horror. A monstrosity contented only in exceeding the last act of madness.

While the chapter had loosed itself from the shackles which had seen it no more than a tool, a weapon of the Lords of Terra, he himself was no more than a tool of the spirit which had overcome Pale Raptor. And with that final thought, that he had become no more than a slave, no freer than he had ever been in his strive for perfection, he had dove himself and his daemonic craft into the ground.

 

Thus it was that when Pale Raptor was eventually brought down in the ending days of the campaign, Angra himself ordered Otathis’ twisted remains not be interred within a dreadnought but rather forge master Zenelaius was to inter the pilot within a sarcophagus built into the recovered wreckage of his craft.

 

And Otathis did fly again, Raptor steadily changing in form over the coming years as the Stygian Guard ascended into the Psychopomps, suiting the will of its pilot as his psyche became fused with the daemon possessing its own spirit. And when the Psychopomps came to assault craftworld Carth-Lar, that which had once been Pale Raptor escorted master of sanctity Angra, aboard his thunderhawk, Violator, into combat once more...

[Kierdale]

I thank you for your many excellent entries in Chaos Flyers over the last two weeks. I must admit I have not yet read them all but look forward to doing so

I'm posting this a little early as I will be busy tomorrow, however there may still be some entries to come, so IF: Chaos Flyers is not closed until ten hours from the time of this message's posting. After that it will be closed for the purposes of rewards (though, as always, if you have more tales to tell feel free to post them at any time).

Here begins our nineteenth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2016:

Schism

The White Scars found their ranks divided early in the Heresy, there were Iron Warriors who refused to follow Perturabo and there are always those who – perhaps foolishly – hold fast to ideals which brethren have since trodden into the dirt while choosing to embrace higher powers. There are those who hear the call of deities other than, and perhaps even rival to, that which the legion or warband follows.

Tell us this week a tale of these individuals who opposed their legion or chapter’s fall or those who are drawn to gods other than those of the majority. Tell us of their loyalty, their struggles and their fates. Are they accepted, exploited...or expunged?

Inspirational Friday: Schism runs until the 8^st of July.

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Carrack. And to the victor chosen by Carrack, step forward and claim your Octed Amulet:

[EesiOh]

  On 6/24/2016 at 2:53 PM, Kierdale said:

I thank you for your many excellent entries in Chaos Flyers over the last two weeks. I must admit I have not yet read them all but look forward to doing so

I'm posting this a little early as I will be busy tomorrow, however there may still be some entries to come, so IF: Chaos Flyers is not closed until ten hours from the time of this message's posting. After that it will be closed for the purposes of rewards (though, as always, if you have more tales to tell feel free to post them at any time).

Here begins our nineteenth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2016:

Schism

The White Scars found their ranks divided early in the Heresy, there were Iron Warriors who refused to follow Perturabo and there are always those who – perhaps foolishly – hold fast to ideals which brethren have since trodden into the dirt while choosing to embrace higher powers. There are those who hear the call of deities other than, and perhaps even rival to, that which the legion or warband follows.

Tell us this week a tale of these individuals who opposed their legion or chapter’s fall or those who are drawn to gods other than those of the majority. Tell us of their loyalty, their struggles and their fates. Are they accepted, exploited...or expunged?

Inspirational Friday: Schism runs until the 1^st of July.

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Carrack. And to the victor chosen by Carrack, step forward and claim your Octed Amulet:

So submissions are now closed yes?

[Carrack]

Chaos Fliers

 

My usual disclaimer applies. I love this contest, and the setting of the Grim Dark Millennia, but I have the unused education of an east Texan student athlete, and I haven't written much more than my name on counseling statements, until I joined this forum a few years ago. :) So take what I say with a grain of salt and forgive my butchering of writing terminology.

 

Scourged - Superiority

 

What struck me most about this story, was the contrast between Tempus and Tekla. Both are well written in their own way. Tempus is a gritty, professional, and a hardened veteran. He has the fatalism of a man who is merely annoyed by his comrades dying noisily, the contempt for rear echelon of a frontline fighter, and the wherewithal to call in a six digit grid coordinate of a professional. The quarks in his dialect are a nice touch too.

 

Tekla however, is a highly skilled pilot, who not just shoots down two gunships, but takes one down in an awesome way that shows her inhuman timing and judgment, and that's before we really meet her. When we meet her she is a driven and devout chaos worshiper, willing to undergo horrific sacrifices to gain the gifts of the gods.

 

The transition between the two characters, one that I could identify, to another that is well written, but utterly inhuman, fascinated me. Also, the moment of transition from when who was the character driving the story, the moment that Tempus hears the arrival of the Hell Blade, was so well described, it was poetic.

 

Warsmith Aznable - The Silence of Space

 

This story impressed me with the details that added so much to the story. It was basically an action story about a chaos marine pilot, but it was rich with little tidbits of details that made a sci fi action story very believable. For instance, some of the terminology in the story like, nape of the earth, and aileron roll, helped me immerse in the story. Likewise, the pilot's attitude seemed like the way pilots have always been, cocky, elite, even resentful of walking like a grunt. I can tell that Warsmith did his research, or is well read, experienced, or otherwise knowledgeable on the material he used in this story.

 

Another good point of the story, was how seamlessly it fit into a larger tale. It was a story about one mission in a larger campaign, but more than that, the mission fit into a larger plan, it didn't feel like something written as a throwaway story.

 

EesiOh - Untitled

 

I liked the concept behind the 17th Wild Hunt. The enraged daemon prince, charging through fire as he led his horde of daemons, cultists, and mutants, evoked a primal imagery in my mind. The Wild Hunt seemed bestial and mythological, as much an expression of something primitive, as an actual fighting force, and this is an excellent take on chaos in my opinion. The dragon compliments this perfectly.

 

The ending was good too. I liked how it showed the ties that bind the army together. Where Cernunos had followers who had been with him from the beginning, he also had a pact with Fearghal, and in the end, an offer for a more permanent inclusion in the Wild Hunt.

 

Squigsqusher - Blight

 

For me, the strengths of this story was its tone. The story started out with a healthy bit of suspense. The evil was out there, all around, but hidden. I know they are completely different things, but I was reminded of the first Jaws movie where you know the shark is in the water, and it has bad intentions, but the time it takes before biting some foolish swimmer makes the attack so much better. The sisters were prepared for the enemy but still surprised. Then when you think they got a handle on it, the real enemy shows up.

 

The other tone was that of horror. The Blight Drones were evil, not just a construct. The defeat and capture of the sisters was horrific. I have to admit that I liked the suspense better than the horror, but the horror was good too.

 

 

Kierdale - Purity of Purpose

 

 

The Fall of the Stygian Guard, from the perspective of the techmarine pilot, Otathis.

 

In part one, I was impressed with the description of Otathis and Angra in the reclusium, as Otathis scourges himself with the pain glove. I came back to this after finishing the story and I think this was the key scene for the tale, at least in my opinion. At first I thought it was foreshadowing Otathis's fall to Slannesh with his over indulgence of the pain glove ritual, but it was deeper than that. It wasn't the desire for the intense sensation that signified something within him that was receptive to Slannesh, it was his quest for perfection, and this was carefully pulled out of him by Angra's questions, although I'm not sure that was his intent. It probably was. It was a great way to show Otathis's motivation in any event.

 

Part Three also had a memorable scene for me. The physical corruption of Raptor, and the corruption of its spirit, was well written, but Otathis's revelation of what he had become was particularly good. His response to his failure to reach perfection, and the realization that he was an enslaved monster, was suitably epic, but in grim, dark, fashion, he was denied an honorable death. If that's not enough, the fights were good as well.

 

Who wins? I choose Kierdale. I don't know if this is allowed, but I liked his story the best, and there were very good stories this contest. However, if our IF organizer wants to skip out on the judgment of his competition due to time constraints, and I hope he doesn't, my runner up would be Scourged.

[Kierdale]

I shall graciously take that amulet! :D

It's been too long since I won one...and Scourged has plenty already :P ;)

 

 

And thank you for the commentary on entries, Carrack. It's always good to read. I must admit some sections of mine were a bit rushed (Otathis' realisation of what he had become, actually...but I'm glad it came over well) but I'm very happy with it overall

 

Just need to actually build him now.

[Kierdale]

I just finished reading everyone's entries for last week and thoroughly enjoyed them :tu:

 

As we haven't had any entries for this week yet, would you prefer I make it a 2-week IF?

[Scourged]

I should have mine posted by the end of the day today, maybe tomorrow. But if the others need the two weeks, that's fine with me.

[Carrack]

The extra week sounds good to me.

[Teetengee]

I would vote for extra weeks as well, but I'm still sitting here looking at my last three half finished stories and betting it won't make much of a difference...

It will probably be months till I can read all yours as well, which is a shame.

[Scourged]

As promised, here is mine for the week. I do apologize for length (again).

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Hopeless

“You know why Tenemus’al called us down here?”

Four fallen Astartes were gathered together at the chambers of their squad leader. It had been a great deal of time since their champion had abandoned them for his solitude, and they had grown quite restless. Finally summoned to his presence once again they were all equally anxious, though showing it in different ways. Chimsul’al was the one to broach the subject once they finally all stood for their summons.

“Do we care?”

And forever the instigator, Duthraka was the one to answer him. The two had always been quite different in temperament: one cautious and inquisitive, the other brash and blunt. One cut with a delicate skill of an epee, the other bashed in a skull with the weight of a mace. Yet they never seemed to irritate one another. Perhaps it was a shared fate at the mercy of the Gift which bound them all. The truth hardly mattered, though. They worked together without issue, and that was all that could be asked of them.

“We are all a part of his cadre, so yes, I say we should care.”

In chimed Kellios, splitting the difference in temperament between the two. He did not have the cautious skepticism of Chimsul’al, but nor did he have the overt brusqueness of Duthraka. Kellios had found a balance between the two extremes, often acting as a mediator for the rare arguments between the other two marines. But more than that, Kellios possessed a loyalty that was seldom found in the independent spirits of heretics. Whether it be to his squad’s champion or the Sorcerer Lord, Kellios would never waver in his loyalty.

“Depending on what he has to say, it won’t be his cadre for much longer.”

“Oh yeah? You going to be the one to overthrow the Flameborn?”

“Maybe I will…”

“Three failed challenges in the pits says otherwise, Duthraka.”

“Each loss a part of my strategy, Kellios. Before long I’ll know enough about the way Tenemus’al fights to overthrow him for good.”

“Right, you’ll just have to lose about ninety-six more times for that to happen!”

“It’s closer than any of you three have gotten yet.”

“Because none of us are foolish enough to challenge the Flameborn head-on.”

The bickering was not uncommon for the three traitor Astartes. It never spawned from any animosity between them, but actually their comradery. In the centuries since those first days of receiving the Gift their squad was one of the few to remain whole. Constantly challenging and sparring with one another had made them all stronger.

“So what then, Chimsul’al, you all have better plans to backstab our champion on your own?”

“If we did the whole warband would know about it, fool. Ever think that’s maybe why you’ve failed every time?”

“Whatever,” Duthraka finally relented, eagerly shifting the subject away from his failings, “why are we here again?”

“It’s amazing, Duthraka: for having the strength of will to embrace the Gift like the rest of us, you somehow lack even half the intellect of even a mortal thrall serving the True Master.”

“None of us know, Thrice-Failed. The Flameborn calls, and we answer.”
 

“Yeah? And he hasn’t called us down here for just one day shy of fifty. Why all the sudden, after forty-nine nights of silence from Tenemus’al?”

“I would assume that’s the very thing he’ll explain once he opens the door.”

Raumos had always been a man of fewer words than his brothers. He shared the same bond as they did, of course, but he rarely engaged them in these bickering matches. It served no point. It was not a practical exercise of mind or - when things often turned physical - body. And lately, he would swear that Duthraka was getting dumber. The less he interacted with him when the fool was in one of his moods, the better. But that would never stop Raumos from putting him in his place.

“You assume? Is that the best you can do, Raumos?”

“Yeah, it is. And unless you suddenly have become blessed with divination skills that would put the Sorcerer Lord to shame, it’s all you can do as well.”

“Whatever.”

That final stab at the group’s constant object of ridicule concluded any interaction between them for the remaining moments. Raumos was known for having the final word at all times, whether the others liked it or not. More often they didn’t like it because he was always right, and this time was no different. Nothing more could really be said until their leader opened the door-maw to his chambers and explained his absence.

Finally the fleshmetal door-jaws parted and slowly allowed entrance to the four assembled warriors. Gear-bones were grinding and squealing within the tainted mechanisms of the battle barge’s walls, tearing at the ears of the Astartes. Apparently the mortal crew of technicians had not made it this far into the bowls of Deception’s Call with their maintenance sweeps. After considerable strain on the living entrance the doorway was finally wide enough for the four warriors to step through. Blood-oil was falling in thick drops from yellow-stained teeth and gums of the door-maw.

The Flameborn’s squad walked into the chamber of their leader, each bearing different levels of disgust at their surroundings. Whatever malady of disrepair that was affecting the door-maw had begun to spread throughout the room. The patches of decking and bulkhead long ago changed into living tissue had become pallid and bruised. The eye-lamps had developed cataracts and were leaking the same blood-oil as the door-maw. A corroding rot had eaten a small patch in the ceiling, exposing a small collection of piping which steadily dripped condensation. Each little drop fell straight down and splashed on the bald scalp of the Flameborn.

And that wasn’t right either: Tenemus’al had never been bald. Why did he shave his head? And why would he willingly sit beneath the constant dripping of exposed piping? The feeling in the room had become quite unsettling to Kellios and Chimsul’al, both feeling a genuine concern for their leader. Something awful had obviously happened. Raumos appeared unphased to his squad, but the fallen Astartes was filled with contempt at the rampant disrepair in the small room; such behavior was not befitting of a leader Duthraka had yet to notice anything wrong, settling instead for barging forward and demanding answers.

“Tenemus’al, you mind telling us what exactly all this waiting was about?”

“Duthraka…”

“Seriously, we’ve spent almost two months sitting around waiting for you!”

“Shut it, Thrice-Failed.”

“No, Kellios, I want answers!”

“Look around, fool, and shut your mouth.”

Hearing the urgency in Chimsul’al’s voice finally quieted the loud braggart. The self-proclaimed schemer was now witnessing the unfamiliar corruption throughout the room, becoming all the more confused as a result. The poor brute looked so helplessly confused at the tainted chamber. The confusion and strain of comprehension on Duthraka’s face caused Tenemus’al to start quietly chuckling where he sat.

“Kneel, all, and get your answers.”

Something was definitely wrong with the Flameborn. He was speaking with a calm and measured voice he hadn’t had in ages. The little tics and stutters from the Gift’s strain on his mind were absent. His voice had become a hoarse, raspy mess of a sound - sand forced through a thin-weave grate. Something had changed the man in the forty-nine days spent in isolation. He was still Tenemus’al the Flameborn, Champion of the Scourged, but there was a new aura about him as well. Duthraka was about to speak again, but for once made the wiser decision to stay silent.

“How long have we been on this crusade of ours? Purging the universe of lies? Too long. And what have we gained for it? Nothing but death. For all our efforts, we have effected no change at all.. No change… Only death. We have long hoped to rid the galaxy and our minds of the same plight: humanity’s lies. But we have accomplished nothing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Each of the four Astartes was hesitant to respond. The question felt loaded, like a rhetorical statement only to prove an upcoming point. Raumos did finally respond, though. Their champion was clearly waiting for a response, and apparently had all the time in the world. Of the four, Raumos had feared Tenemus’al the least. Challenging their champion’s authority had always served to make his leadership stronger, and this moment called for such a renewal of strength.

“We have slaughtered millions and converted scores more. Loyalist and traitor know our legends and dread our presence. Their lies still spear into our minds, but the weight of the piercing falsehoods has and will continue to diminish.”

“So poetic; you could have been a remembrancer…  but no. Wrong. We have done nothing. The Gift torments you just as strongly as it did upon inception. You’re merely blinded by hope that you’re having any impact on your suffering. Everything you do is a waste of your energy and life, and you’ll accomplish nothing you set out to do. Only an empty death awaits you on this journey. It is best for you all to give up now, as I have. Because, after all… denying this reality is just another lie.”

Chimsul’al was growing more uncomfortable with each spoken word of their leader. This kind of hopeless talk was unknown within the warband. There would be an end to the Gift, a cure, and they would all find it, bringing death to all the galaxy’s sinners along the way. They all knew and believed this because it was the only way to survive. To give in to the voices was… an unpleasant fate.

“We’ve seen what happens to those who give up: the voices in the mind take control and tear you apart. The luckiest of the weak become catatonic, with the truly damned can only find relief from the muzzle of a bolter. We still believe in a future without suffering because we must, Flameborn.”

“You must believe these things because you’ve aligned yourself to the wrong cause. All of you have. You’ve enslaved ourselves to the wrong master since the beginning.”

“It wouldn't be wise to speak so poorly of Lord Dhelmas like that…”

“Not him, Kellios. He’s just as much a pawn as the rest of you. No, no, no… You all have been deceived, with the very Architect of your Fate weaving the deception. Like fools you embraced that false god, burning his sigil on anything and everything, glorifying him while he plots against you and laughs. Your curse-giver masquerades as your salvation, and none of you are wise enough to see it.”

“Oh, and you are?”

Raumos could not stand this proselytizing. This was far out of character for Tenemus’al. He had never been so grandiose or philosophical about the nature of their purpose and cause. The Flameborn served the warband and sought to multiply his glories while doing so. That was all. But now, to listen to him was to sit in audience to a mad herald, preaching endlessly of a righteous path. It was unbecoming of their champion, and Raumos wouldn’t stand for it.

“What do you think this meeting is about if I’m not? I am untouched by the Gift, and I wish to share that with you. I have shed my shackles of your false master and embraced a new life. I hold the secrets to freedom.”

“Fine. We’ll play your game, Tenemus’al. We’ll kneel here and pretend you aren’t spouting lunacy just short of asking the Sorcerer Lord to plant a bolt round between your eyes. We’ll indulge your new mental instability. The four of us will pretend we actually believe you for a minute. How do we purge the Gift, oh great and wise one?”

The thick sarcasm of Raumos’s words was not lost on the champion. Or the other three Astartes in the room, for that matter. Tenemus’al had become accustomed to his underling challenging his decisions in the past, but this new indignation was quite unexpected. Only two months ago, he would have found such a tone of voice inexcusable. Here and now, however, the champion found amusement in the sarcasm, smiling wide with his horrifically cracked lips revealing yellow and pitted teeth.

“Give up. Give up your hope. Let it all go. Let it rot and decay until the sands of your hopes fly away on the winds of the Warp. Humanity is rife with lies, and it deserves its punishment, but the path of the Scourged is a pointless one. You’ll never shed the Gift. You’ll never be free. So accept the futility of all that you do, and embrace the Despair. Once you do, all of your pain will cease, and He will bring you the peace and joy of acceptance you’ll never otherwise know.”

“Who is ‘he’?”

At the question the Flameborn chuckled in a dry, scratchy tone once again. Emphasizing the coming answer, he slowly gripped the arms of his seat and hoisted himself aloft. The joints in his armor threatened to rebel and break against the strain, but it held and allowed Tenemus’al to step forward. He walked away from the falling drops of the damaged piping and into the pallid light of the small chamber. The kneeling squad averted their gaze, unable to immediately lay their eyes upon the monstrosity that was now their leader.

The beautiful armor of an ocean’s deep sapphire and the midnight’s rich ruby was a rotted parody of itself. The plates were loose and starting to fall away from apparent disrepair. The paint had scratched or chipped away in droves, leaving the bare ceramite beneath to suffer the ravages of an unknown disease. The elaborate golden trim had decayed into a dull gunmetal covered in corrosion and rust at every angle. The face of their champion was sagging and loose, the skin both swollen and pale from malady. But yet, despite this horrific corruption of armor and flesh, the Flameborn was grinning ear to ear, thick blood oozing from the cracks in his stretched lips.

“You know full well who He is. He is the antithesis of the false master you’ve all been deceived by. He does not string along his servants with endless scheming and false hopes. He embraces his followers with love and joy, welcoming us all into his fold. All that He asks is that you shed your fear of despair and death and instead embrace them for the gifts they are, for that is the way of Grandfather Nur-”

“Do not say that name upon this vessel, Tenemus’al!”

“What have you done, Flameborn?”

“I am not the Flameborn; that man has died. At one time, yes, I was born into a new life and relished the warpfire of a god. But that life was a lie, anathema to all that we truly believe. I have since ended that life. I have found a rebirth as this beautiful corpse in front of you. I am revived as the Poxhost.”

“Lord Dhelmas will never stand for this, Flameborn.”

“That is no longer my name, fool!”

With a speed that should be impossible to a man already one foot in the grave, the Poxhost cleaved the broken and rusted remnants of his power sword in a wide  downward arc. None of the four were prepared for the ferocity of the strike, least of all it’s target: Kellios. The Astartes threw himself out of the way of the slash but was too late, feeling it cut straight through the soft armor beneath his chest plate. Kellios fell back, cradling the innards slipping out of his gutted midsection.

“What have you done, Tenemus’al?!”

“I have killed him. But that need not be his end. Do you hear that, Kellios-” he asked as he turned to the disemboweled Astartes on the ground bleeding out, “you will die today, yes, but you can be reborn as I have. All you have to do is embrace the hopeless despair of entropy and accept the gifts of the Grandfather. What say you?”

“Don’t do it, Kellios.”

“He will, Raumos. He will join me. You all will. I know it. Our Grandfather knows it. Kellios will embrace despair as I have, and so will all of you. Shed your misplaced hope and join me. This is the true path to punish mankind for their sins! Come, my brothers, and feel the joy of the Pox.”

***

“Well… this is… unpleasant.”

The Sorcerer Lord of the Scourged stared at the decrepit and corrupted fleshmetal of his vessel, feeling an unending disgust for the tumor and its attempt to spread. The once vibrant blues, purples, and greens of the daemonic skin his vessel wore were now putrid and sickly browns and yellows. Open sores were rusting through. Pipes and wires were spewing blood and bile. Clouds of flies had even begun to spawn. These were not the Warp changes he liked to see upon Deception’s Call.

He owed a large gratitude toward Villusial for sensing and containing the taint. By the grace of the Grand Plans of the True Master the neophyte had been in the area for his meditations. The aspirant had felt the birth of corruption and found the will to bury it in a flurry of hastily constructed psychic wards. It was a miracle he had enough strength of mind to telepathically reach out to Rahaund’ul and inform him. Quite a shame the fledgling sorcerer would now be forever bound to this location to keep the spread quarantined. Oh well. New talent can always be grown elsewhere.

“Is it contained?”

“Yes… Lord. I… I have it under… control,” stammered Villusial with a strained voice.

“Good.”

Satisfied by the aspiring sorcerer’s answer - and equally amused by his obvious attempts to impress - Rahaund’ul turned his attentions back toward the captives within the room, barely visible through the stained glass of the viewports. Unable to communicate through the wards as well as the thick bulkhead, and fearing what a telepathic connection could bring, the Sorcerer Lord opened his vox to the diseased Astartes within the chamber.

“Seems your flames have extinguished, Tenemus’al.”

The laughter crackling across the open vox line was a harsh and brittle sound. Rahaund’ul feared there was frequency interference thanks to the psychic shielding, but all signal indicators within his visor’s display showed a strong connection. No, he realized, Tenemus’al’s voice had just become that degraded, with the rest of his form even worse for wear. This taint was running thick.

“You’re very clever, Lord.”

“Oh? So I am still your Lord, yes? By the looks of things you seem to have altered your allegiances. You’ll forgive my lack of trust for you now.”

“Ah, Lord Dhelmas… always so distrusting. I am still a champion within the Scourged, am I not?”

“Not from the look, or smell, of things.”

“Ah, hah! Again so clever. But never clever enough to cleanse us of the Gift. Never clever enough to make the voices go away. Not as clever as the Poxhost. I found my peace and freedom, Dhelmas, and so have my men. We’re no longer chasing our tails through an endless maze your true master pointlessly weaves. We’re free.”

“Tenemus’al,” he began to reply, but paused, rewording his thoughts before speaking again with a sigh, “you have freed yourself of one blight to make yourself a slave to another, worse one.”

“We are not slaves, Rahaund’ul. We have shed our fears. We have embraced death and despair and they can no longer harm us. The Grandfather is generous. He has set us free, and with His gifts we will achieve our goal like we never could with the false master.”

“Seems you’re long past the point of reason then. So be it. Loyal to the cause or not, you’re still abominations of tainted filth, and you’re corrupting my ship. I have no place for you or your misplaced ideologies of death in this warband. Let us test how well your newfound abilities permit your continued existence when you’re cast into the Void.”

“You would send your brothers to their deaths so quickly, Lord?”

“My brothers do not wear armor that rots faster than their diseased skin, Tenemus’al.”

“But your brothers we are. We still wish to cleanse this galaxy of lies. Humanity torments you all with its falsehoods, but why? Why do they deceive themselves, Lord? Because they fear death. Every lie is a desperate attempt to escape the most inevitable of fates. But death should be embraced, accepted with truth not lies! Don’t you see? We want the same thing! Our motivations may differ, but our cause is united and just!”

“So now you beg me? You abandon your loyalties to the True Master, commit this foul treason aboard my ship, and yet you stand there asking to fight by my side?”

“We are still Scourged, are we not?”

“I’m not so sure, Tenemus’al.”

“We still swear our loyalty to the cause, Lord Dhelmas. We simply fight it for our reasons and not yours. You can trust us.”

“No. I can’t.”

With that the Sorcerer Lord closed the vox. Nothing more would be said to the diseased champion and his squad trapped within their chamber. No, he could not trust them. Their new allegiance was clear as the wretched aroma that filled the hallway. Their presence could not be tolerated in this holy vessel devoted to the True Master. The proper answer to the situation was an easy one to reach.

Rahaund’ul clutched his staff and held it in front of him. The crystal conduits within the artefact began to charge with his psychic energies and glowed with an unnatural green light. The force necessary to surgically cleave such a large section of the ship away and send it through a rift in realspace was within his power, but it would be taxing. Ensuring that no further harm would come to himself or Deception’s Call only made the task harder. He would normally link himself with Villusial to amplify his abilities but the weak neophyte was straining to simply maintain his ward. Laughable.

Yet, once the channeled power was achieved and the incantations began to fill his mind, Rahaund’ul hesitated. Tenemus’al - or Poxhost as he was calling himself now - did swear his allegiance. The fool’s own impassioned speech made it clear that their cause was still a shared one, even if he now worshipped a bulbous tumor of bile and plague. Could that word be trusted, though? The Sorcerer Lord had felt no stirring within the Gift that indicated the lies of a man standing so close to him.

Abruptly, the Sorcerer Lord let the energies within his staff dispel harmlessly. There was a benefit to having allies amongst the enemy, he realized. Tenemus’al was now a living corpse and a parody of life itself, but he and his squad could still be a useful tool in the battles that were yet to come. He would have to be watched endlessly. His taint and corruption would need to be held back at all times. But there was something to be said for having soldiers of the plague-born loyal to his cause. Satisfied with his revised decision, Rahaund’ul turned on his heel and walked toward the exit.

“Lord, are you…?”

“See to it that your wards are maintained at all times. Neither the taint nor the squad inside are allowed to spread beyond this hall.”

“But Lord, I… I…”

Annoyed, Rahaund’ul snapped himself around to face the neophyte. Was the untrained simpleton going to claim he couldn’t hold the wards? How hard was it to follow simple directions and maintain a psychic shield? There were infant mortals yet to be born in the subterranean decks of Deception’s Call that could manifest such a barrier in their sleep, and this pathetic recruit from the Maelstrom’s meager offerings was stammering with strained effort. That would be the last time the Sorcerer Lord accepted recruitment from the ranks of the so-called Oracles of Change.

Flicking his free hand in a whirlwind of signed runes and gestures, a small burst of aetheric warpfire exploded upon the pauldron of young Villusial. It splashed a freezing heat all along the armor of the exhausted sorcerer but caused him no harm. The flames were the ripple in realspace from the birth of a new familiar. A daemonic raven stood perched on the flame-kissed pauldron, head darting to and fro as it looked upon existence for the first time. Now knowing its purpose, the twin red eyes of the warp-bird glowed brightly. Immediately the strain on poor Villusial lessened, easing his psychic burden.

“Those wards are to stay maintained. If you fail, you had better pray that your death is swift and with little pain. If not, you will be at the mercy of either the five Astartes in that room, or the wrath of your lord. Do not fail me.”

Rahaund’ul Dhelmas turned again and left the hall for good this time, sealing the door with his exit. In an odd, unexpected way the True Master had gifted him and his warband once again. He did not yet know the purpose of this incursion - that would take a great deal of meditation and commune among the Warp Winds. But to have a new weapon was a boon nonetheless.

Scindus was not going to like this.

 

 

 

It's funny... normally my writing has been a way to expand upon the warband in my head, and those expansions lead to models and squads that I make. Those writings are the only reason I converted up a Dark Apostle to begin with, or bothered finishing a Terminator Lord. But this time was the other way around. I had the squad first, and had to justify their existence second. That made for a fun challenge.

[Kierdale]

Another week you shall have!

 

Teetengee, give us an entry! It feels like too long since your last.

[Teetengee]

Fine, have a thing :

Shattered:

Hidden Content

Escharon stood still in sea green terminator armour, freshly painted and emblazoned with the Blood of Horus. A helmet with a crown of blades hung loosely from his left hand, a snarling halberd in his right. The scars of Terra were only healed in his flesh, his face a twisted nightmare born of shattered helms and shattered trust. A legionnaire in black stood before him, an equally freshly painted yellow sunburst radiating out to arrowed points from his right shoulder. Horus’s body was gone, and Escharon stood still.

“Captain, the Warmaster orders your presence,” Balthazar spoke tersely, eyeing Escharon uneasily.

“The Warmaster is dead.”

“Abaddon is the Warmaster now.”

“Ezekyle Abaddon, First Captain? Perhaps. But Warmaster, no, I shall know no Warmaster but Horus,” Escharon continued, clenching his helmet and shaking, “Abaddon knows nothing of loyalty, nothing of the Truth. He desecrated our father the same as the Children. He abandoned our father’s war.”

Balthazar glanced behind him at the closed ranks of Terminators at the exit; he rested a finger on the activation rune of his power axe, quietly signalling his guard to do the same. “Abaddon did what he had to, a false Horus is worse than no Horus at all. The Sons of Horus are no more, that shame is not yours to bear alone.”

“No, that shame is Abaddon’s alone, for he destroyed our father, he lead a retreat, he let the legion fall.”

At that, the room erupted in violence. Power weapons cut through armour and flesh, six in green and nine in black, although only one of those, Balthazar, in terminator plate. The rise and fall of hissing, glowing blades filled the small chamber with smoke, and then with blood, and then with screams, and finally, with silence.

Escharon stood, Balthazar’s axe lodged a foot deep in his left shoulder, humming as it melted away flesh and bone. He lay aside his blade and tore the axe from his shoulder, spinning it across the room till it lay still.

Balthazar dragged his crippled body across the floor to the exit, noting the small movements from the terminators throughout the room. He heard Escharon’s boot falls behind him and turned, shouting, “WHY? Think about the future, captain!

Escharon paused, then smiled mirthlessly. He reached down with his left arm to pick up the blade crowned helmet at Balthazar’s side. All that still lived in the room could see the flesh and bone of his shoulder flowing up and out through the crack in his armour, a great spiralled horn rising from his pauldron with a crunch.

Balthazar pleaded, “Abaddon is the only hope to retake the galaxy, we cannot win without him!”

Escharon raised the helmet across his body, aimed to deliver a killing blow, and knelt before his enemy, “Balthazar, darling. Let the galaxy burn.”

[Carrack]

To Change the Black Maw

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

-Prior to the invasion of the Aspis Subsector, on the Daemon Forgeworld of Xana II-

 

They call me Solomon the Mad, they call him, The Emissary. My name is solid as granite, if roughly hewn. It has been my name for eons, ever since I left Mars, and although I do not think of myself as mad, I know that to the unenlightened, and those still shackled by the stagnation that now embodies Mars of my birth, what is truly genius, is misunderstood as madness. The foolish have always claimed that there is a fine line between genius and madness, but in reality there is no such distinction. So I accept the name given me by my lessors, and know that the few who can comprehend my vision, will recognize the misnomer I am labeled with. The Emissary, however, does not wear his name comfortably, for iit is the only name out of the many he has that may have a semblance of truth to it. For an emissary he is, to the very Changer of Ways, and lies and disguise fit him better than the truth. He speaks for a god, so I must listen, but he speaks in my forge on the world of Xana II, where my power is considerable, and he can not simply demand my obedience, at least here.

 

He actually speaks, something I know he rarely does, but I have not risen to my position as an Arch Magos by allowing daemons to voice there thoughts directly into my mind. I have bound daemons almost as powerful as The Emissary to some of my greatest engines. He screeches out of his beak, "Dami gulgron Tzeentch si ur Black Maw, vrock Macar." The words of the Damned Tongue are accompanied by sprays of vibrant colored mists. I watch the mists change hues, which adds meaning and importance to the daemon's speech. I understand the Damned Tongue, along with other languages not meant for human ears, but find its use here inappropriate. This is my forge, The Emissary would do well to remember that. An internal command to my mastery lectern sends a jolt of energy into the pain wards of a distant cell. The daemon within, a near peer to The Emissary, screams in pain. I can see recognition within The Emissary's mismatched eyes, my theatrics are not lost on him. I respond in Low Gothic, a base language utterly devoid of significance or power, "I have delivered the flying carpet to Captain Macar of the Black Maw. However, the daemon bound to the carpet device will exert only a small level of influence upon the captain, his will is strong, but I'm sure you know this." With that The Emissary's eyes, one green and one blue, reflect twin discs of light that expand larger and larger, until they can bathe The Emissary completely in their light. When they do, they come together, and the daemon disappears when they meet and dissipate.

 

The Emissary's desire for Macar to seize control of the Black Maw is understandable, it is a play of the Great Game of the gods. His master wants to wrest the warband back to a lord who patronizes him, from the Blood God's favorite, Lord Carrack. While The Emissary has awarded me with knowledge of certain rituals I had been seeking, I too have my reasons for meddling with the Black Maw Warband. It had recently come to my attention, via a chance discovery by one of my magos, that Lord Carrack has been supporting the proscribed Null Bind School here on Xana II. The school had once shown promise with there techniques for loosely binding daemons to power grids, then siphoning off the power the bound daemon expended in its attempts to break its perceived weak bonds. Unfortunately, too many failures, some catastrophic, had led me, and the rest of the Arch Magos of Xana II to ban the school from our forges, less they cause irreparable damage to our production. In spite of the ban, the school has not completely stopped its experiments, and its disciples are occasionally uncovered. My magos revealed that Lord Carrack has been secretly funding the school, and harboring its exiles in his fleet and domains. Our forges cannot simply embargo the warband, due to its Black Legion colors, so I will support a new lord for the Black Maw, one I have made clear that the practices of his predecessor will not be tolerated.

 

 

Moments before the boarding action in the Battle for the Garland System, aboard Assault Bay 4, of the Bitter Revenge. }

 

 

Kadesh watched the blood ritual being conducted by Ekur. It was simple, violent, and inelegant. A slash to the thigh of the thrall, and a crude, but intimidating revving of a brandished chainsword made the thrall's heart race and eyes widen in fear, indicating the thrall's heart was pumping at a furious rate. Then followed the decapitating blow. The headless trunk was pointed at the dreadclaw still clamped in the assault bay, spraying blood across the ancient craft, and the severed head was driven onto an elbow of one of the landing claws. Kadesh had seen this ritual many times before, and still lamented its sight the same as the first time he had witnessed it.

 

The blood ritual was a symptom of the condition the Black Maw Warband had been reduced to in the last fifty years during the reign of Lord Carrack. These primitive rituals, all involving little more than the shedding of blood, were the only ones performed in public by the legionaries of the warband anymore. Lord Carrack, the Slayer of Multitudes, had brought the Blood God into ascendency in the Black Maw, and rituals to other gods, like Kadesh's, had to be done in private. It was a devolution of the warband's arcane might. So many powerful rituals learned by the warband had been discarded in favor of brute killings, quickly performed in an assault bay without an ounce of decorum or gravitas. Although this weakening of the warband was obvious to Kadesh and a small minority of the warband's legionaries, too many legionaries followed Lord Carrack merely to reap the rewards of his favoritism. The longer Lord Carrack steered the Black Maw down the Eight Fold Path, the slimmer the chances grew to right the course.

 

Kadesh waited until Ekur's squad mounted the freshly annoited dreadclaw, then altered his route through the assault bay to pass by it. As he did, he plucked an eye from the severed head with his right hand and slipped underneath the ramp of his own assault craft, the Consulia in Melius. Out of sight, Kadesh placed the eye on the grating of the assault bay deck so it "looked" upward. He had to scream at one of the mustelid scavengers that lived below the grating that had scurried beneath him, flicking its rasping tongue in anticipation of a quick snack. The scavenger had scurried away just as quickly, sounding its calls that eerily resembled laughter, but other than the creature's hungry curiosity, Kadesh's scream attracted no attention. Mad screams were far too common in the full assault bay to raise suspicion.

 

With the eye in place, Kadesh reached into his fetish bag and pulled out a tiny dropper. His giant fingers deftly put a drop of silver liquid into the pupil of the eye. Kadesh invoked nine names for the Architect of Fates, and entered a hypnotic trance as he stared into the eye. Cryptic messages began to form in his mind, "Follow the future to the heart of the enemy, there you will find the true enemy." "Trod above the flames, but let them pass overhead." "The direct route is a circle." Kadesh began to recover from his trance and stumbled up the ramp to his company's thunderhawk, pondering the meaning of the prophecy he had been given.

 

 

Presently, aboard the Angels of Immolation Battle Barge, Ember.

 

 

Kadesh rushed his squad across the gantry to the tower, and sheltered briefly underneath its protruding crown. The boltgun and plasma fire from the thinblood squad championed by Gomor had covered his advance well, but Kadesh had to get past the tower to reach his captain, who was already in the corridor beyond, which hopefully connected with Ember's spinal corridor. The canyons of refineries and armored promethium tanks below were a maze work of pipes and pistons, smoking stacks and whirling fans. Travel through them would be slow at best. An elevated gantry provided a pathway to the tower, but it was naked and vulnerable to the ship's defenders within the tower. The tower commanded the deck, and was positioned in front of the corridor Kadesh's captain had passed into. Kadesh and his squad had to brave the exposed path to keep up with their captain, who had simply flown over the canyon of machinery on his newly acquired daemon engine. Kadesh placed his melta bomb against the top hinge of their tower's solitary, fortified door, and took a step back to avoid the bomb's back blast.

 

The gantry at his feet disintegrated. Ember's defenders, loyalist dogs from the Angels of Immolation Chapter, had rigged the gantry with small charges at its connectors. It would have been a long drop to the machinery at the floor of the Promethium Storage and Production Deck, possibly a leg breaking fall, but Kadesh was saved from such disaster. It was not his fate to suffer such an inglorious fall. His squad mates, crowded against the tower to either side of his melta bomb, had reacted swiftly by driving their armor spikes into the wall of the tower to secure themselves, and Avarg had extended his ceramite clad boot out for Kadesh to grasp. As they hung precariously to the sides of the tower, Kadesh's melta bomb popped with the first stage detonator, then hissed as the melta charge burned its way through the top corner of the door.

 

With a heavy thud and the screech of torn metal, the hanging door was kicked open from within the tower. The defenders weren't waiting for Kadesh to finish his breach. A burst of flames immediately gushed out the ruined doorway. Kadesh felt the heat from the fire overhead through the flexible armor of his neck, but the heat was all he felt, not the kiss of the flames. He tossed a frag up into the ruined doorway as Avarg swung him to the side of the wall. Kadesh latched onto the wall easily with the appendage that used to be his left hand, but had mutated into a circular mouth filled with teeth of shimmering energy. Times like now, Kadesh saw the mutation for what it was, a gift of Tzeentch to manipulate fate.

 

Ready clicks sounded off in Kadesh's squad vox. His squad was prepared for the daunting task of climbing to the doorway, and fighting their way into the tower. That was the original plan, but Kadesh dismissed this notion, and with his lamprey like limb and the spikes and blades adorning his armor's vambrace and greaves, he started climbing around the tower to the corridor behind it. Lord Carrack and his ilk would have charged into the tower, irregardless of the disadvantage such an entry would afford. Such was the madness of those who collected skulls for the Skull Throne, but Kadesh would merely bypass the tower, and leave its defenders entrapped in a prison they had sealed themselves within.

 

As Kadesh led his squad around the tower, a pair of plasma blast preceded a louder pair of explosions, as Gomor's squad shot two armored fuel tanks. The old champion, reduced to commanding newly made Astartes, voxed Kadesh, and told him he would breach the deck beneath his feet, and move towards the center of the ship from a deck below. Kadesh finished his climb around the tower to see Captain Macar dispatch the last of a small squad of loyalist with an over handed, plunging thrust of Hilketa. He raced to join his captain at the junction between the narrow corridor past the tower, and a massive hallway, big enough to drive a Landraider through. It was the spinal corridor, and its walls were adorned with frescos of devotion to the False Emperor. As he followed Captain Macar into the hallway, he could hear the sounds of heavy fighting towards the center of the ship. Sounds of thunder hammers smashing into terminator plate, and power axes and swords cutting through power armor. Above the clash of combat, Kadesh and Captain Macar, the hopefully future lord of the warband, could hear the unmistakable bellows of rage of Lord Carrack, the true enemy of the few legionaries that wished to change the nature of the Black Maw.

 

 

 

[Kierdale]

I thank you for your entries in Schism over the last two weeks.

I hereby close that topic for the purposes of rewards (though, as always, if you have more tales to tell feel free to post them at any time. I’ll be posting my own soon).

Here begins our twentieth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2016, one of your own suggestions!

A Chaotic Alliance

A cohort of daemons, a warband of traitor or renegade marines or a turncoat Guard regiment is a formidable force, but sometimes their goals require them to ally themselves to other forces. To strike bargains and swear oaths to fight alongside those share their aims or those who might otherwise be their rivals or indeed their foes.

What brings these alliances into being? How well do the two parties trust one another and is that trust well placed?

I would have you tell us of an alliance your force has made with others, be they fellow pawns of the Infernal Powers, Xenos or even – could such blasphemy be possible even in a galaxy as insane as ours? – Imperial forces.

Is the alliance one of equal footing or is one the vassal, the hireling or the slave of the other? Willing or unwilling? Knowing or unknowing?

An additional aspect of Inspiration Friday: A Chaotic Alliance is that I encourage members to cooperate in the writing of pieces!

Accordingly, judgement of the twenty first challenge of Inspiration Friday 2016 will be shared between the winners of this challenge.

Inspirational Friday: A Chaotic Alliance runs until the 22nd of July (unless you think three weeks are needed? What say you?)

Let us be inspired.

Now go find your prom dates, unless you’re a lone wolf-type

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge:…me! I’ll be posting my comments and awarding the amulet later today. To the victor chosen by my facinorous self, step forward and claim your Octed Amulet:

[Kierdale]

My Schism entry:

 

For Not Being Able To Save Him

One

Hidden Content

“I’m sorry, brother.”

Hemeus knelt over the broken body of his squad mate, the alabaster white of his armour dented, scratched and chipped in countless places and black carbon scoring surrounded where laser blasts had succeeded in punching through the hard carapace of his scout plate. The squad had been tasked with reconnaissance, testing the enemy’s line, and had pushed too far. They had been ambushed by a platoon of guardsmen, Hemeus and Viorus surviving the initial firefight to make a fighting retreat back through the ruins and rubble-strewn streets, only for Viorus to fall four streets from Sanctuary.

Dagoso strode up to the kneeling scout while his bodyguard fanned out, bolters up, setting up a perimeter now they had slain the enemy pursuing the scouts. So covered in dust were the two scouts, one alive and one dead, that they could have been statues. The chapter’s homeworld of Fulcrum was a hub of trade and culture, with a great many fine sculptors...was that why the Stygian Guard were clad in armour alabaster in hue? The thought had never occurred to him, for such matters did not pertain to combat...but the artisans of Fulcrum knew little of war but for dramatization and parades...none would deign to portray such an image, nor could any of them truly understand it, he wagered.

“Chaplain?” Hemeus said, his attention drawn from Viorus’ corpse to the approaching Dagoso. In stark contrast to the armour of the scouts and that of the power armoured marines about him, the chaplain’s was as black as that of their Templar cousins they fought alongside here against the Nantessi Insurrection. His armour was austere, as was the Stygian way, with only his girdle book, his crozius and the skull-faced helm indicative of his post.

He came to a stop, looming over Hemeus, and after scanning their surroundings, taking in the fallen guardsmen, he turned his gaze upon the scout.

“For what do you apologise, brother?”

A single tear streaked Hemeus’ cheek, a line of healthy pink flesh visible upon a field of white and grey dust. “For not being able to save him, chaplain.”

“One need never apologise,” Dagoso spoke sternly, going on when the scout failed to respond. “If the regretful action was beyond your control then you have no need to apologise. If the action was of your doing then your apology will not undo what has been done. It is your duty to ensure that you do not allow such a mistake to occur a second time. Do not do that which might later necessitate the utterance of a useless apology. Strengthen yourself through greater forethought.”

The marines about them stood guard, their weapons facing outwards, some making fire lanes up the streets outside the ruined building while others scanned the adjacent and opposite buildings. None responded to Dagoso’s words, nor even appeared to be listening, for all of those battle brothers had heard the chaplain’s sermon on the hollowness of apology and the truth of duty countless times before.

“Was Viorus’ death your responsibility, brother Hemeus?”

“We were outnumbered, but I could...I could have...” the scout’s eyes were back on his fallen comrade now.

Dagoso looked to sergeant Nesid, leader of the tactical squad accompanying him. Nesid shook his head, having already noted the guardsmen his men had killed - those who had been pursuing the retreating scouts - and those the scouts themselves had slain.

“You could have done nothing, brother Hemeus. Ergo his death was not your responsibility. Perhaps it was that of your sergeant, Bera. If so, he took it with him in death. Either way your apology is more worthless than an empty bolter. It is of no worth to Viorus, Bera or yourself. Learn from what has happened here, brother Hemeus.”

The chaplain then knelt and closed Viorus’ eyes.

“We are the Emperor’s ferrymen. As we unceremoniously ferry his foes to that which lies beyond, so too do we our own dead. Leave him now, leave him for the apothecaries. Report to your captain for reassignment, brother Hemeus.”

 

 

 

Two

Hidden Content

“Concentrated fire! Bring it down!” Dagoso roared, his voice amplified by his helmet so that it was audible over even the thunder of the Stygian’s fire. “Bolters, thin the horde!”

A crowd of Imperial citizens charged toward the marine line, madness in their eyes and improvised weapons in their hands. Individually they were no threat to the astartes but in such great numbers they would overwhelm the Stygians. And in the middle of the crowd rushing like a tidal wave up the street toward them came a biomechanical monstrosity three floors in height. The six crab-like legs and what could be seen of its abdomen indicated it had once been a heavy loadlifter, likely from the city docks, but the pale-skinned, fleshy beast which composed its upper half was no man-made thing. It was the stuff of twisted fantasy. The flesh of its lower torso seemed to have exuded from crevices and vents in the loadlifter, coagulating into a fatty humanoid trunk endowed with three pendulous bosoms, each almost the size of a macrocannon shell, upon the right side whilst the left was thick with muscle. Three arms, two on the left and one on the right, sprouted from the torso; one on each side terminating in humanoid hands and the third in claw like some gigantic crustacean. The head was faintly bovine, but its face was creased and cut by wires which stretched from somewhere on its back across the fat flesh of its face and into its wide maw. Or perhaps the wires originated within its gut and exited its mouth, cutting deep into the beastly face. It wailed and shook its horned head, bloodshot eyes rolling as it rushed forwards, crushing people under its massive tread.

Lascannon blasts from the Stygian line shot forth, one clipping a leg and staggering the behemoth whilst another hit the flesh of its flank, ichor and hot fat spraying from the wound.

More Devastators turned their heavy bolters from the behemoth, finding their weapons impotent against it, to instead mow down more of the crazed citizenry. But they ran not from it but with it, for they were servants of the Golden Throne no more. Four Terran years earlier the corruption here on Cyprius III had become apparent to the Inquisition but who knew when the rot of decadence had set in? A generation ago? A century ago? Farther back?

As the behemoth barreled past, some stopped their mad charge toward the marines, drawn as if by some musk emanating from the daemon. Those who attempted to reach up and caress its quivering flesh were more often than not smashed to the ground by its legs or got in the way of the Stygian’s fire and were obliterated.

Bodies began to carpet the street, hampering the cultists to a degree but not the great daemon.

“Flamers to the fore!” Dagoso called out and those of his men armed with promethium vomiting arms took knees before the ranks of brothers pouring bolter fire into the Cypriusians. Behind them the Devastators continued their onslaught.

“Fire at will!” With that order great blasts of fire rocketed forth, a sheet of blinding flames stretching out from the marine line toward the foremost of the cultists. And yet they did not stop, not even check their pace. In their madness they charged on into the fire. That their screams were tinged with joy and elation, ecstatic wailing, shook Dagoso to the bone, but his attention was focused on the behemoth.

Twenty meters from them, a lascannon managed to blast much of the bicep from the claw-arm and it dropped, limp yet not severed, into the cultist mass. Several were cleaved in two by its edge and crushed under its weight as the ruined limb was dragged along behind the daemon.

At ten meters missiles rocketed forth into the daemon’s chest, barely having time to arm before they detonated, shredding flesh and exploding two of the breasts, eliciting a deafening scream from the beast. Its maw stretched so wide the wires sliced deep into its own face and one eye popped and ran.

But it could not be stopped.

It hit the Stgyian line wreathed in fire, enraged and aroused by pain. Legs stamped out, crushing and spearing astartes. Its humanoid hands swept down, taloned fingers slicing through ceramite like great scythes.

“Lay down a suppressing fire with the flamers and retreat! Retreat!” called out Dagoso, his voice choleric.

 

That had not been the first defeat for the Stygian Guard since their arrival on Cyprius III, and it would not be the last. The foe was more numerous than the termagants of a hive fleet, and more crazed than the Greenskin. The Stygian battle tactics, honed over millennia, refined by the watchful gaze of their chaplains - weaknesses of allies sought out, identified and then purged from their own chapter even - were found wanting. But their devotion to duty, that which they held over all else - over honour, over glory, over all emotions - was as steel and they fought on. The first company had fallen in their attempt, but the other nine companies would not turn from the mission.

And yet, after months of hard fighting, there came a call for change.

 

 

“Is it pride, or survival instinct?”

Angra drew a finger across his lips as he contemplated the question. He did not meet the gaze of he who asked it, but averted his eyes.

The words came difficult to his mouth, “You saw the death of the chapter here?”

He did not see it but heard the other’s nod.

“A vision whilst meditating with the Glove.”

Angra nodded solemnly. The nerve glove, also known as the pain glove, had been an instrument of the Imperial Fists - the Stygian Guard’s parent chapter - that they used to purify themselves.

“I would put to you one question: what do we hold above all else?”

“Duty. The completion of the mission.”

“Then we do what is necessary to accomplish it.”

The other nodded a couple of times, the weight of the decision pressing upon both of them.

 

 

“Is it all that different? We’ve always taken on the best tactics of our allies and expunged from ourselves what weaknesses we found in them,” Hemeus explained. “Is it so different to view the enemy thus?”

The four scouts of his squad nodded sagely at their sergeant’s advice. They were clad not in the alabaster carapace armour of the 10th company but in roseate silks and whorl-decorated leathers, their combat blades and bolt pistols concealed within voluminous robes and up sleeves. Their faces were adorned with paint and some had chains linking pierced ears, noses and lips.

“The duties of the tenth company have always been reconnaissance and sabotage. Master Sophusar himself now adds infiltration to that.”

The groundcar rumbled and bounced along on its bubble tyres, sergeant Hemeus keeping it to the shadows and the speed low as the Cypriusians did, lest Stygian air patrols catch sight of them. Not knowing for sure the technological level of the corrupted populace, which included the arms and armament of several entire guard regiments, the scout squad carried no comms which might have identified them to Storm Talons and Ravens as friends. If sighted they would be obliterated before they had the chance to show their true colours.

It was the scouts who were chosen to infiltrate the myriad cults of the Cypriusians not for their stealth skills, all marines of the chapter had passed through the tenth company and none had lost the skills they had learned there, but due to their size - their sheer bulk, which inspired transhuman dread in most mortals - it would have been impossible for a line marine to pass himself off as one of the corrupt populace. As it was the scouts with their considerable bulk, chose to infiltrate those enemy cults which they could pass themselves off as members of.

The icon daubed upon the building before them had been identified as belonging to a sect known as the `Epitome`. Its members sought physical perfection and in their quest they had horrifically disfigured themselves. Bodies were chem-bulked with muscle while faces had their bones whittled, skin stretched to produce almost baby-like features. A great many went in for tribalesque tattoos which, when picts had been shown to the librarius and members of the reclusiam, had been identified as marks of vile corruption. No further details had been divulged to the scouts.

“Wherein lies the secret of perfection?” came a high pitched voice from the figure shrouded in shadows beyond the door, only their violet eyes visible through the slot in the armourplate portal.

“Within the Prince’s Palace.” Hemeus gave the password. It had been extracted by chief librarian Diarthet from the mind of a captured Epitome member, along with the location of the safehouse they now stood outside of.

The portal swung open, perfumes and scents that threatened to make one giddy wafting out, and the five were admitted within.

“Brethren from one of the other districts?” the guardian was as muscular as any of the scouts, though his head was shrunken, sutures winding their way across his shaven scalp like mountain ranges. The right orbit of his eye had been bored larger and fitted with an enlarged, vat-grown eye, while the lids of the left eye had been hardened to keratin.

“South-five. It fell two days ago to the pawns of the corpse-god,” Hemeus was mentally revolted with himself for the words he had to speak, and would scour himself in the Glove upon his return to base, but his duty required this blasphemy, this small heresy.

“You are welcome here,” the brute motioned them into the dimly lit interior.

 

 

After five more visits to the Epitome den, Dagoso judged they had learned all they could and ordered Hemeus to have his squad eliminate the cultists there. They had garnered knowledge of the sect’s beliefs, its rituals, its relationships to other cults and, most importantly, details of the locations and operations of a handful of other cults both similar and wildly different to the Epitome. The scout squad was to infiltrate the den as per usual, and ten minutes later it would be hit by squads from the second and eighth companies: those of captains Castor and Dophesia. Chaplain Dagoso would be attached in order to collect any intel the scouts had overlooked, and to interrogate prisoners.

 

Dagoso shook his head in desperation, deactivated the device in his hand and the body before him ceased its spasming. The porta-rack was a small black box which fitted into the palm of a man’s hand - which made it even smaller in that of an Astarte -, wires snaking from it to be attached to certain points of the human anatomy (there were supplemental texts which dictated the best locations to apply the probes in the case of xenos) in order to inflict agony without causing actual tissue damage. Mental damage was an acceptable risk. Dagoso and the others of the Stygian reclusiam had used it countless times now on Cyprius III and he had, hoping against hope, used it again now...to no avail. The cultist chief had howled in ecstasy as his body had been ravaged and tormented, grinning even as foam poured from between his gritted teeth.

Would we be any different? He found he asked himself. Did the Stygians not subject themselves to agony? Ah, but in that agony they sought purity, not joy. Joy and all other emotions were what they drove from themselves in the Glove.

He looked about as marines of the battle and assault companies swept the cult den, literally – with flame – in many cases, torching bodies. Artifacts were piled by the door for extraction. Books, sculptures, jewelry and datacards. Some of the scouts were stripping bodies and other goods to better camouflage themselves and aid future infiltrations. As per the chapter’s new doctrine. It sat ill with Dagoso, but the order had come down from chapter master Sophusar himself and so it had become duty.

Captain Dophesia, perhaps the chapter’s finest swordsman after the now absent first captain Viphic and after master Sophusar himself, approached the chaplain. Across his shoulder he had draped one of the Epitome’s tapestries, torn from the wall. It showed athletic figures engaged in various pugilistic and armed competitions, naked figures wrestling. Some were so entwined as to make the beholder question whether combative or carnal acts were depicted. Perhaps both. One of the captain’s hands rested on the pommel of his sheathed power sword, while the other swung a crescent amulet on a chain – another cult treasure by the looks of it – like a pendulum. He bowed his head in greeting and pocketed the amulet before holding out his hand toward the porta-rack in Dagoso’s hand.

“Shall I continue your work, chaplain?”

Dagoso looked pointedly at the cloth over the captain’s shoulder, shrouding his pauldron and the chapter’s icon.

“What need have you for camouflage as our scouts do, captain?”

The peacock swordsman grinned, “Tis but a trophy, chaplain. I-“

“What need have the Stygians of trophies?” Dagoso spoke admonishingly. “You set a poor example.”

The captain quickly hid a flush of anger, and held up a hand defensively, with the other he motioned to the bodies scattered about and the aftermath of the firefight.

“These were fine foes, chaplain, worth remembering.”

“Fine foes, captain? We care not the quality of our enemy. Only that they die. There are no foes but foul ones. And they need not remembrance.”

The captain of the eighth bowed his head in remorse, but the smile did not leave his face and it raised the chaplain’s ire.

“Allow me to finish here, then,” Dophesia continued, pulling the tapestry from his shoulder and casting it to the ground next to the prone cult leader.

“I fear it is for naught, captain. We will get more by consuming his brain.”

“Then leave that to me. For now, I’ll try that toy of yours for a while longer,” he accepted the rack and turned to face the bound, sweat-sheathed cultist as the chaplain departed, and he smiled wider. “Can’t hurt to try.”

 

 

Three

Hidden Content

“He has been found?” chaplain Dagoso could not keep the surprise from his voice.

The hololith flickered but master of sanctity Angra’s nod was clear. “Epistolary Holusiax was recovered this morning.”

Dagoso took in the news. Months earlier Holusiax had gone missing. Dagoso himself had been with and had seen him disappear in the blast of a battle cannon but, having been forced to withdraw in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers, they had not been able to confirm his death. In truth many had accepted that he had been slain. Not Dagoso though.

Apparently it was not so.

“And chief Diarthet?”

Holusiax’s master and the chief of the Stygian librarius, Diarthet had gone missing in a mission to take out a gathering of the strongest Cypriusian magi. The work of the scout company had facilitated the mission, and the congregation had been slain, but Diarthet had never returned. He had done his duty, but within the space of a couple of months the two brightest stars of the librarius had vanished.

“Nothing.”

“How is brother Holusiax?”

Angra paused before answering, as if choosing his words carefully. Though they had been separated for months by the calls of duty, prosecuting the war across the planet, Dagoso could sense a change in his superior. The stress of battle?

“He is...a changed man. Reborn. Stronger, I believe...though it will take time for him to recover completely. I am carefully debriefing him of all he learned while in captivity.”

“I understand, master. When might I expect recall to our base, if I may ask? I would speak with you over recent developments, and the direction of the war.”

“I have your reports, Dagoso. You are doing sterling work. Doing your duty. I need you there, out there on the front lines. Allow me to handle things here.” A smile crept into his voice, “You can congratulate the epistolary on his blessed return to us soon enough.”

Dagoso bowed, “The soul of the chapter is, as always, in your hands, master.”

And the signal was cut.

 

 

The war ground on, madness growing as blood was shed and ammunition ran low. The scouts were now barely recognizable from their foes, some taking to adorning themselves with the accoutrements of the cults even when armed and armoured for regular battle. So too some of the astartes. More than for mere disguise, the chapter had adopted terror tactics too now. Turning the enemy’s weapons against them.

And as they turned the tide of the war, its bitter taste grew fouler and fouler in Dagoso’s mouth.

 

 

“Concentrated fire! Bring it down!” Dagoso roared, his voice amplified by his helmet so that it was audible over even the thunder of the Stygian’s fire. “Bolters, thin the horde!”

It was that street all over again. But not only a mass of cultists this time but also mutants, abominations seeming amalgams of three or four individuals each, and fell beings from beyond the veil. Slender, purple-skinned creatures neither entirely male nor female, razor-sharp claws for hands and vividly hued locks whipped by ethereal winds which no mortal flesh could feel. And again a great behemoth strode through the morass. A `soul grinder` the cult texts had referred to these beasts as.

A howl grew from behind the Stygian line, the marines of which sported trophies of severed heads driven onto spikes, glory sigils and blasted icons daubed in pale hues upon their once pristine alabaster armour. Making the symbols of the enemy their own. Stealing their power. Humiliating and enraging them.

Dagoso muttered a sutra to the Golden Throne, a pledge to purify his men come the end of the campaign, as the screaming noise reached a crescendo which drowned out the cacophony from the enemy advance. And then the sound disappeared, replaced a split second later by a thunderous boom as their sonic weapons unleashed their pent up energy. Bodies both human and otherwise were tossed into the air upon the edge of concussive blast waves, while those who had been at the center of the explosions of sound were rendered into soup, their bodies rupturing violently. Even the soul grinder staggered under the assault, two legs and one arm on one side pulverized by the blasts.

Again came the growing banshee howl as the sonic weapons began to recharge and a cry went up along the Stygian line. Not a pledge to win victory for the Emperor, nor a declaration of the superiority of Man. A bestial, primordial roar.

Another series of blasts and the soul grinder was driven to the ground, its warped metal abdomen and legs buckled, its flesh riven and ruptured, chest heaving, broken ribs protruding through sagging flesh. It emitted a pitiful wail as much in climactic sensation as it was the monster’s death rattle, and fell silent with a sigh. Panic swept through the cultist forces like a blastwave, Cypriusians dropping to their knees and tearing at themselves in anguish. Lesser daemons staggered and ululated, their assault having lost its battering ram.

“Forward! Crush them!” the chaplain cried and the Stygian line advanced, step by careful step, bolters barking as they meticulously mowed down their disarrayed foes. This was how the Stygian Guard fought! Dagoso’s spirit soared as he saw his men as they had once been, before their coming to this accursed world. The disciplined, punishing fire, the steady advance. Squads covering squads, special weapons and heavier armament carefully choosing their targets. The madness of the war of Cyprius III appeared to be lifting.

“Support inbound, chaplain, storm ravens and the Inviolate Will.” The thunderhawk of master of sanctity Angra himself.

He did not see which of his men it was who made the announcement, but a smile spread across his face beneath his skull-faced helmet.

“Let them come, brother. Let them see what we have done here, for there will be nothing for them.”

 

 

The astartes who filed from the maw of the gunships were not Stygian Guard, or so one would think who had seen them leave their homeworld of Fulcrum to depart on this very mission years earlier. Gone was the alabaster of their armour, the unadorned, undecorated asceticism. Even more so than the marines under Dagoso’s command, those who now joined them wore armour painted in colourful pastel hues following no pattern or rules. Trophies and jewelry hung from their armour and spikes upon backpacks. Horns sprouted from helmets. Some went without helmets, their scalps tattooed with the sigils and icons their enemy had borne into battle. Some even had grown their hair long, dying it brilliant shades, spiking it and tying it in topknots. They appeared wilder than the wolves of Fenris. Chaplain Dagoso could do naught but slowly shake his head in reaction to the changes he saw coming over his chapter. And these marines were from the units in the main Stygian force, those kept closest to master Sophusar, those who pushed into the enemy’s heart...while he and his men had been tasked with flanking actions and far-off objectives. Had he inadvertently kept his men from the worst of this madness?

The ranks of roseate-armoured marines parted and Angra stode down the ramp of his gunship. His sable armour seemed untouched by the baubles and embellishments of his troops, to Dagoso’s relief.

The chaplain presented his superior with an Aquila salute, which Angra received with a nod before looking out over the corpse-strewn street. The bodies of Cypriusians remained, but those of the neverborn had either evaporated into thin air, leaving oily smudges, or dissolved into pools of ichor.

“Marvelous!” Angra proclaimed, “You and your men have performed excellently, Dagoso. The daemons were no match for you. You mastered them superfluously.”

Dagoso bowed his head, accepting the praise but uncomfortable with the florid language.

“I have someone with me who would meet you. Showing me that you have mastered our foes thus, both he and I believe you are ready to know more. To know more of what we have learned here, particularly since his return to us. Knowledge which will bring us final victory.”

“An end to the campaign, master?” Dagoso could not keep the hunger to leave this befouled planet from his voice. He yearned to scour himself in the Glove.

“Indeed. An end to the campaign, for this planet holds nothing more for us to learn. To experience. An end to the campaign and the beginning of our enlightenment.”

The street seemed exceedingly quiet. As if all present had stopped. No longer did Dagoso’s marines torch the pools of ichor with flamers. The rev of chainswords, tone dropping as they bit into flesh, finishing off the dying cultists, stopped. All stopped as the master of sanctity and the chaplain spoke, surrounded by the roseate-clad marines.

“Enlightenment?”

Angra’s tone turned melancholic, “Aye, Dagoso. For we have fettered ourselves too long. Shackled our wills to the words of fools acting in the name of a dead tyrant.” He shook his skull-faced helmet in regret. “No longer shall we hold ourselves back.” He looked out across the gore-stained street once more, taking in the Stygians there and their changed appearance. Dagoso followed his gaze. “We have them to thank for that, you know?”

The words of the peacock captain Dophesia came back to his mind. He shook his head in confusion.

“We do, brotherss. We do,” came another voice. A familiar one, yet altered as if through injury or as if the speaker’s tongue was too long for their mouth.

Angra stepped aside, revealing a figure more akin to a gorgon of legend than one of the Emperor’s angels of death. Upon a coiled, pink-skinned serpentine body was the blue-power armoured torso, head and arms of a marine. Yet from under the arms sprouted a second pair of lithe arms, far smaller and finer than the thick-thewed limbs of an Astarte, and lilac in tone. But the face, the face was immediately recognizable to Dagoso.

Epistolary Holusiax.

Dagoso’s bolt pistol was immediately in his hand and pointed at the monstrosity.

“Mutant!” he spat.

And a dozen bolt guns were raised against him, more still fanned out, pointed at the men under his command. Many of them likewise turned their weapons upon the newcomers.

“I know not what manner of corruption has seized the chapter, but I will not stand for it!” His eyes did not waiver from that which had once been an Astarte he could have called `friend` had such been permitted within their chapter.

“Chaplain Dagoso, stand down.” Angra’s voice was calm but firm.

“Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean.”

“Such is no longer the way of the Stygian Guard, Dagoso. As always we hold duty over all else. A duty to the mission, as dictated by master Sophusar. And we do all that is necessary to accomplish it. We use all that is necessary. And from henceforth our duty is to ourselves, not to the Empire of Man.”

“Blasphemy!” Dagoso screamed, his finger tightening upon the trigger.

“You would ssacrifice yoursself and your men for oathss which are already broken?” Holusiax spoke, a forked tongue flicking from a fang-filled mouth.

“The man who has nothing can still have faith.”

“You can have more than missplaced faith, Dagosso. You can live! Live for yoursself and all that you might dessire!”

The former librarian tilted his head, his eyes peering deep into the chaplain’s. Images, suppressed deep within him, feelings which he had thought stripped from him by the Pain Glove, began to well up in his mind. Pride, glory, joy, horror, sorrow.

“It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for oneself...I’m sorry, brother.”

He fired and Holusiax fell, the echo of his shot followed by a crescendo as the marines about them opened fire.

 

 

That many of my stories jump about the Psychopomps `timeline` a lot (I’ve been enjoying writing these last two back in their `just being corrupted` days) has given me an idea for a companion thread to Inspiration Friday.

Keep your eyes peeled...

[Servant of Dante]

I'm not sure how polished this is. It seems OK to me. I wrote most of it months age, but seeing this latest prompt made me want to fix it up, especially the ending. It's not very long, but I am happy with it. This concept took me a while to get on paper. One might even say it followed a . . . twisting path.

I'm pretty sure this fits the description of the competition, but let me know if it doesn't. Regardless, this is my entry for Inspirational Friday: A Chaotic Alliance

I hope you enjoy it!

Whisper in the Wind

The great daemon prince Kazar’drad sat in contemplation, endless warp eddies swirling before his eyes. A hint of a thought began in his mind: one amongst nine thousand, unnoticed, imperfect, incomplete. The nascent thought grew. It became a twisting lattice of improbable connections and inconceivable intricacy. As its beauty unfolded a slow smile grew on the lips of the ancient daemon.

023.M36

“Brothers, today is the day! Today we summon forth the master from the warp! Power and riches will befall us, and our names will be passed down through all of eternity; begin the Ritual!” Nine wicked knives fall, and the rays of a nine-pointed star are steeped in blood. A blue mist coalesces in the center of the rune, its tendrils whispering of things unimagined in a tongue beyond comprehension. A titanic, shadowy figure slowly appears from within the mist, the whispers become a roar as bright embers jump into its eyes; then, silence. The hulking form looms over the cultists. They begin to chant. Bright strands of lightning branch from the daemon’s fingers toward the nine, it cuts their ritual short as they are drawn into the jaws of the warp. Their devotion has been rewarded.

The daemon hoards of Daraur rage across the world of Mazan. Kazar’drad sits once more in contemplation, this time from atop a mound of sundered rockcrete and ceramite. The resistance is as feeble as he had known it would be. The world burns as the last pockets of mortal life are crushed from existence. Soon all is dust.

While the memories of mortal achievement settle as ash to the ground, Kazar’drad walks the barren plains. Periodically he stoops to pick up and examine some piece of scrap or another, only to place it back exactly from whence it came. For nine times nine days he searches, and his hoards have dispersed back to the endless tunnels of Daraur. For nine days more he sifts the ruin he has wrought, and finally he becomes still. On a continent across an empty sea the final speck of dust settles in timeless perfection to the ground, just as the great daemon lifts a scorched bolt pistol from the ground. Gingerly he opens its casing and examines the contents. After a few moments the casing is closed and the pistol is back beneath the ashes. Kazar’drad dissipates back to his throne in the warp on the sound of an imagined gust of wind. Not a single footprint remains to mark his passing.

729.M41

Klugan hummed happily to himself as he walked the roads of Kalta. After twenty-seven years of preaching and pleading he had finally managed to craft a lasting peace on his home planet. Cardinal Marisworth himself was coming to meet him, and the planetary governor had just last week presented to him an ornate bolt pistol, which he had been told was several millennia old. The elderly preacher had never been much of a warrior, but had gladly replaced his battered old autopistol with the gilded bolt weapon. He hefted it; it felt good in his hand. The precision of its aim was remarkable. He had found that he could track a target with it as accurately as he had with his old hunting rife. The roaming packs of zothai that had preyed on his family’s livestock had given him ample target practice, but that had been long ago.

Three days later, Klugan watched the Cardinal’s shuttle land in Pelengal. He still couldn’t believe that the venerable servant of the Emperor, warden of the souls of a hundred worlds, was here to se him. As he waved to the Cardinal and shouted a greeting over the throbbing roar of the shuttle’s engines, Klugan noticed something. A man was running toward the Cardinal from the other side of the shuttle pad, waving a knife! Klugan shouted a warning and drew his bolt pistol, carefully taking aim and bracing the weapon with both hands. The assailant was rapidly approaching the Cardinal from behind, and his guards didn’t seem to notice. One of them noticed him, however, his eyes widening, as he shouted a warning. Did they not see that the Cardinal’s life was in danger? The guards ran toward him. What where they doing? Klugan took his shot.

As he pulled the trigger, he felt the weapon jump to the left, toward the Cardinal. The bolt slammed into the corpulent old man, detonating in his chest cavity and splitting him in two. Klugan dropped the pistol in shock. He had just killed Cardinal Marisworth. How could this happen? Even though Klugan was no soldier, he had always prided himself on his excellent aim. And the assassin? He was waving an ornate pen. He was a reporter. Klugan fell to his knees and began to sob as the guards closed in, and the wind whispered through the streets of Pelengal.

Instances of 9 that are not obvious:

  Reveal hidden contents

36 and 27 are nine times four and three respectively.
729 is nine cubed, nine times nine times nine.
23 is the ninth prime number starting at zero (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23)

[Kierdale]

Judgement time.

Herein lies my rapid fire commentary, written while reading.

Scourged gave us Hopeless.I loved the camaraderie and banter between the four Scourged marines, and the fact that they openly discussed planning to overthrow their squad champion at some point in the future.

I liked that Rahaund’ul viewed Nurgle worship as slavery, and I love the name `Poxhost`. Having the acolyte given the permanent duty of containing the taint was also a great touch. Tenemus’al’s preaching of Grandfather Nurgle’s ability to rid the marines of the Curse was also extremely well written and convincing. It was interesting that Rahaund’ul finally decided to spare, or rather to keep, the Nurglites. I look forward to seeing how they are...used.

Teetengee gave us Shattered. Too short, brother, too short! I was left hungry (but as a Slaaneshi, aren’t I always?). I’d love to hear more of the trauma which must have torn the Sons of Horus after their retreat into the Eye.

I did love the final line though.

Carrack gave us To Change The Black Maw. That the daemon’s speech was accompanied by coloured mists was a very interesting and otherworldly detail. Good imagination. The description of his departure too. I liked the scheming and the reasoning behind the planned overthrowing of lord Carrack. Kadesh’ prophetic vision was well done, both suitably mysterious and confusing.

I think I would have liked to hear how Kadesh lost his limb and got the lamprey one (or perhaps I missed that in a previous story?). And hear how and why Kadesh follows captain Macar. Is it merely because the captain is the highest ranking and strongest Tzeentch-devotee in the band? Does Kadesh foster ambitions of overthrowing Macar once he had been made leader of the Maw?

I choose Scourged’s entry, Hopeless, as winner of Inspirational Friday: Schism. Teetengee’s left me wanting much more, Carrack’s felt like the seeds of a schism, the initial cracks, slowly spreading...but not enough to sate me. Hopeless gave me an excellent description of the corruption not only of a marine (willingly at that) but also his quarters, convincing preaching about the reasons for his conversion, and a most interesting response by his former brethren upon its discovery.

Scourged, step forward and claim your amulet!

[Teetengee]

It's a theme I want to deal with more, but this story was more about that line. Same words, different meaning is a concept Escharon has used repeatedly in the years since Terra, particularly in his dealings with the Black Legion in order to maintain his own identity. Additionally, it is difficult to write too much about Escharon's story in that time period, because he is supposed to be a somewhat unknown quantity even to his own forces in the 41st millennium. For instance, Escharon was a name he took after finding a more consistent center, which means any scene that the dialog would need to be reported in and that Escharon would be speaking with equals would have to be cut. (I have purposely avoided even naming his old self for myself, as it feels better and more true to the 40k universe to leave certain details out on occasion). Also, I am super busy these days, so that also affects things.

That's not to say I think your critique is invalid, I just wanted to give some context behind it. Plus, sometimes it is good to leave people wanting more as it won't (I promise) be the last time I write about these characters.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Coming back to the competition with the allies theme. Almost anyone can purchase the services of the 49th Grand Company, even Imperials. Someone a while ago said they wanted to see more of Inquisitor Dashwood, and here he makes a reappearance, continuing to use and be used by the forces of the Warsmith.

 

It is rather long, and not very action packed, but it highlights a piece of the puzzle so far as how the 49th operates beyond the Eye of Terror and the reach of Abaddon. In the most current unclassified annals of the Imperium of Man, the 49th Grand Company is known only as the Iron Hounds space marines chapter, with very little in their entry other than a short list of engagements providing assistance to Imperial worlds besieged by xenos. Few suspect the truth, or know what to do with it.

 

Hidden Content

Inquisitor Dashwood paused before the large ornate double-doors. His squad of Deathwatch space marines automatically formed a defensive circle around him, their bolters aimed toward the floor but held in the direction of every possible threat vector, whether or not it offended the sensibilities of their hosts.

Behind the Inquisitor’s small band were the space marines of the Iron Hounds delegation. Fabricator Volundr, Master of the Forge, led their contingent, his artificer helmet’s stoic faceplate hiding the feelings his semi-sentient and agitated servo-arms betrayed. On one side of him a mortal woman in a crisp, professional military uniform, brunette hair trimmed and shaped into regulatory austerity, and on the other a tall mortal man with loose, flowing jet-black hair and decidedly more casual civilian robes.

An honour guard of ten space marines flanked them, bolters at port arms, orange and black quartered paint scheme shiny and fresh, white skull helmets staring into the middle distance with parade ground discipline. Only the sergeant, bringing up the rear, was different. His bolt pistol and chainsword were stowed at his sides, and in his hands he bore a silver platter. The large lump upon the silver platter was covered by a white silk cloth completely obscuring its form, the only clue to its nature being a faint, dark spot beginning to soak through at one of the points of contact.

“Is there a problem, Aleister?” The military woman asked mildly, unconsciously straightening the bottom of her tunic after the long walk from the landing pad.

Inquisitor Dashwood did not respond to Commander Hayase’s prodding, but his look of annoyance was not lost on the ceremonial guard who flanked the gilded doors of the courtroom, nor the delegates and flunkies of the capital who lined the grand hall leading up to it. After taking a moment to force the bitter frown from his face, he nodded to the servants who stood with their hands on the great golden rings that would open the courtroom doors.

The great doors swung open, and the procession continued forward. A gilded servitor stationed just inside scanned their identities and formally announced them as they entered.

++Inquisitor Aleister Dashwood of His Most Holy Ordo Xenos++

++Fabricator Volundr of the Iron Hounds space marines chapter++

++Commander Hayase of the Iron Hounds space marines chapter++

++Nuncio Callixtus of the Iron Hounds space marines chapter++

The aristocratic nobles and ostentatiously wealthy merchants that made up the inner circle of the planet’s ruling class covered the polished marble floors of the grand chamber, arranged in fawning groups around the most elite power brokers among them. Throughout the announcement of the new arrivals the members of the court did their level best to not turn their heads to witness the procession’s entrance. The Inquisitor and the delegates of the Iron Hounds were pointedly ignored, the murmur of bored conversations and the eating of delicate, rare morsels lifted absently from golden trays carried past by neatly uniformed servants continued unabated.

Twenty space marines trooping forward being impossible to completely ignore, however, the group easily made their way without pause as the groups of courtiers moved out of their way as if merely floating away on a breeze. The planetary governor languidly resumed his throne upon their approach, and his closest friends and advisors arranged around him with the same carefully constructed dismissiveness, purposefully amused by the presence of the delegation.

“Aleister,” the Lord Commander drawled as the group reached conversational range. “You’ve brought rather a lot more than the ‘plus one’ on your invitation.”

Inquisitor Dashwood, took a moment to identify everyone surrounding the Lord Commander. He arched an eyebrow at the neat and tidy smearings of dust applied carefully to the sides of faces or brows, and the clean and purposeful rips and holes performed upon the designer brand and quite expensive military styled clothing they wore. A couple of them even had bespoke bandages, looking very much like the wounds of tawdry holo-dramas, and wore medallions of precious metal and glittering jewels alongside brightly coloured ribbons of exotic materials that bore only the most superficial resemblance to the sparse decorations of rank and service that Commander Hayase wore.

“Quite, your Excellency.” Inquisitor Dashwood affirmed, purposefully refusing to justify himself. He was, after all, a member of His Most Holy Ordos.

“I see you’ve brought a gift, so I suppose that makes up for it.” The Lord Commander smirked, leaning forward in his throne, attempting a better look at the silver platter carried by the space marines sergeant.

“Merely business, Excellency.” Dashwood waved a hand and the sergeant moved forward to place the platter at the visibly amused governor’s feet.

“The head of the xenos war leader, I presume?” The Lord Commander, lips twisted in savage glee, reached down and theatrically whipped the silk covering off the silver platter.

The court fell silent, all attention turning instantly toward the throne and the Inquisitor’s delegation, upon hearing the shrill, grief laden shriek of the Lord Commander.

“One does not keep Ork body parts around.” Inquisitor Dashwood imitated the governor’s bored drawl, the corners of his mouth twitching upward ever so slightly. “Such a thing is bad for long term stability post victory.”

“What is the meaning of this outrage!” A burly noble, the only present among the governor’s friends who had eschewed the tacky trappings of false valor and wore only a single, simple medal of service upon his breast, stepped forward and demanded of the Inquisitor.

“I like you, Colonel Hart.” Dashwood looked steadily into the man’s eyes. The outraged colonel did not shrivel under the Inquisitor’s weighty gaze, and Dashwood awarded him with a slight nod. “This planet will need men like you going forward.”

“As for this particular outrage.” Dashwood gestured to the severed human head. “It is the fruit of selfish incompetence.”

“My brother-” The Lord Commander shrieked, standing on shaking legs and leveling an accusatory finger at the Inquisitor.

“Had the decency to fall in battle with the xenos aggressors.” Inquisitor Dashwood informed the governor tersely. “He paid for his sins in blood in service to the Golden Throne, if a little belatedly.”

The governor sank bank into his throne, pale and deflated, and buried his face in his hands. The scene was not finished, however.

“Nuncio Callixtus, I cede the floor to you.” Inquisitor Dashwood stepped aside, allowing the tall, thin man to come forward. The pale man smiled and leaned on his staff of office,  not bothering to brush away the strands of jet hair that fell across his face.

“As per your contract with the Iron Hounds space marines chapter, the Ork incursion in your system has been eliminated.” Nuncio Callixtus wrinkled his face in silent mirth as if he had just told an obvious joke. “The payment for our services has already been extracted from the war zones. In addition, we have levied a penalty fee against you. This has also already been extracted from the war zones.”

“Penalty fee?” Colonel Hart bared his teeth in anger. “Explain yourselves!”

“Commander?” Nuncio Callixtus turned toward Commander Hayase, who stepped forward and consulted a small dataslate retrieved from her pocket.

“Your contract with the Iron Hounds provided for logistical support and supplemental security, as well as the cooperation of six battalions of armoured infantry who were to lead the advances into key locations where the civilian populace was held prisoner by the xenos in significant number.” Hayase held the dataslate at arms length, refusing to wear her glasses outside of her personal quarters. She did not like looking physically inadequate, though she knew such a small thing was mere vanity. She continued her explanation in her clipped, all-business cadence. “Your supplies were routinely delayed, persistently of inferior quality, and never in the designated quantity. Your promised supplemental security forces were inadequate, being prone to desertion and often themselves complicit in the unsatisfactory status of resupply. Bluntly, they often stole the best for themselves, sold what they could to the black market, and ignored or bungled their primary mission the few instances they were called upon to repel the Ork forces that attacked our rear ground supply lines.”

Commander Hayase looked up from her dataslate into the faces of the gathered nobility to see if any raised objections to her account before she continued, and none did. Every single one of them had profiteered off the war in one way or another. Far from being ashamed by it, they were surprised such routine and petty affairs of profit were being called into question.

“On the performance of your six battalions, only four were willing to fight. One commander dug his troops in near the front but then refused to move them. One commander expressed his regret, made vague references to the weather, and then refused to acknowledge further efforts at communication with him or his unit.” Commander Hayase continued, frowning at the memory. “Of the four that did fight, one broke and ran on first contact with the Ork forces, and two were rendered combat ineffective following mass casualties inflicted while following ill conceived and poorly executed movements to contact. Only one of the provided battalions proved operationally effective, but was still forced to integrate with our own auxiliary troops to attack secondary targets instead of spearheading the effort to break through to and evacuate the civilians.”

“They were brave,” The space marines sergeant suddenly interjected. “But they were poorly trained and equipped.”

“As a result of your governments inability to rescue those civilians,” Commander Hayase shot an annoyed look at the space marines sergeant for interrupting her. “The Iron Hounds have confiscated them.”

“What!” The Lord Commander finally raised his head, a look of astonishment on his face.

“They have been transferred to the refugee decks of the Child of Calamity, and are now the property of the Warsmith.” Commander Hayase elaborated. “Your inability to meet the requirements of your contract with the Iron Hounds made this just compensation for us, while your inability to provide for the civilians made it necessary for their safety.”

“So far as past businesses is concerned,” Nuncio Callixtus gave the assembled nobles a cadaverous grin, “the Iron Hounds consider this contract closed. The Warsmith thanks you for your custom.”

“We will not stand for the abduction of our citizens!” Colonel Hart shook, face red with rage, reflexively place a hand on the hilt of his power sword.

“But you did, Colonel.” Inquisitor Dashwood moved center again to retake the floor from the Iron Hounds delegates. “The xenos captured and enslaved them, and for all the wealth of materials and populace of this planet, barely eight-hundred men with sub-standard flak armour and second rate lasguns had the will to even try to free them. Those civilians are now in the hands of outsiders, without whom they would still be in the foul hands of the xenos.”

Colonel Hart shrank back, anguished shame twisting his features, cheeks still flushed with anger.

“But hope is not lost.” Dashwood smiled at the staring nobles, the bitter Lord Commander staring blackly at him, slumped in his throne. “The services of the Iron Hounds space marines chapter delivered this planet from the xenos threat. Now the Iron Hounds will deliver this planet from its own moral indolence. Through fire will this system be born anew, reborn in strength and resolve. Through destruction will you be made whole again. And when our holy work is finished, never again will this population be unfit and unprepared to confront the xenos menace.”

The court drew in a collective gasp, and the aristocratic nobility and ostentatiously wealthy merchants that made up the inner circle of the planet’s ruling class began to look at one another wild eyed and afraid, paralyzed with uncertainty and dread.

“Four weeks.” Inquisitor Dashwood sneered at the hereditary ruler of the system. “Four weeks from the end of their contract with your government. That is how much time you have to prepare before my personal contract with the Iron Hounds begins.”

“Guards, seize them!” The Lord Commander demanded. The soldiers arranged near the exits and the walls with their ceremonial burnished chest armour and crested horse hair helmets looked at one another uncertainly, but made no aggressive moves toward the two squads of space marines who now leveled bolters in their direction.

“Ta-ta, Excellency.” Inquisitor Dashwood turned his back on the assembly slowly and deliberately, and stood that way for a long moment. More than long enough for any vengeful or outraged man to pluck up his courage, strengthen his fortitude, draw a weapon, and attempt to end his life. The opportunity past, the Inquisitor’s retinue of Deathwatch space marines, with an unusual number of Blackshields to any knowledgable observer, reformed their protective ring around him. The unusual procession reversed direction and marched out the way they came, as casually as a group dominated by space marines could effect.

As soon as the strange party had trooped out of the court room, the assembled elite erupted in an uproar. They pressed forward and surrounded the Lord Commander’s throne and demanded answers and a course of action. Colonel Hart, and a few others of similar resolve, made eye contact with one another and quickly withdrew with purpose, while many more sped away in a panic. A distressing number, Colonel Hart noted as he slipped through, seemed merely to be reveling in the novelty of the situation.

+++++++++

Inquisitor Dashwood walked at the front of the procession, joined by the plodding Fabricator Volundr, who thumped the long haft of his Mechanicum Axe loudly off the polished marble floor with every other step.

“That was not as interesting as I thought it might be.” Volundr grumbled, his modulated voice rumbling from his helmet’s vox grill.

“You lack perspective.” Inquisitor Dashwood answered him absently. Glad though he was of the senior Techmarine’s capabilities, especially in such potentially dangerous situations, he always found Volundr’s company tedious.

“Let us talk, for a moment, about perspective, Aleister.”

The party came to a halt at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. They were almost to the executive landing pads where their Thunderhawk waited to ferry them to the safety of orbit. The halls were closer and more functional here, and the owner of the new voice stepped from the shadows of a side passage alarmingly close to their formation.

There were two newcomers. An older gentleman in plain but expensive and well made robes who carried with him the presence of unquestionable authority. The other wore ornate, silver chased and rune covered Terminator armour, hard-faced and head protected only by the crystalline circuits and projector arrays of his psychic hood. This one carried a long hafted glaive, and his posture challenged the twenty-one space marines opposite him without a hint of fear or hesitation.

“This is outside of your domain, Heinrich.” Dashwood addressed his fellow Inquisitor with barely concealed disdain.

“Is it?” Inquisitor Heinrich asked sardonically.

“It is.” Dashwood sneered at the other Inquisitor.

“Dear Aleister,” Heinrich folded his bony, aged hands together in mock piety. “The path of the righteous is narrow, and its edges are razor sharp. Know that you have not gone unnoticed.”

“You haven’t brought enough firepower.” Dashwood challenged.

“Paladin Roland here is more than enough were I so inclined,” Heinrich held his hands out, palms up, fingers splayed, as if in offering. “But we are not there yet, Aleister. Yet.”

“Then speak; I am a busy man.” Dashwood said, exaggerating his annoyance. “I still have a lot to arrange before the end of the business day.”

“Oh this is just a social call, Aleister.” Heinrich said pleasantly. “And I believe I have already made my point.”

Inquisitor Dashwood of the Ordo Xenos stared long and hard at Inquisitor Heinrich Sprenger of the Ordo Malleus, who returned his gaze serenely.

“Pfeh.” Dashwood scoffed. He gestured impatiently to the Master of the Forge, “Vol, let’s go.”

“A moment.” Fabricator Volundr reached out with one of his servo arms. The powerful claw at the end of it gingerly took hold of the edge of a twisted purity seal attached to the pauldron of Paladin Roland. With a careful and delicate touch, the servo-claw untwisted and then smoothed out the litany inscribed streamer so that it lay flat and unfettered, while Paladin Roland refused to flinch or even acknowledge the Techmarine. When the task was complete, Volundr withdrew his servo-arm and nodded self-satisfactorily. “There we go: fixed.”

Without another word the two parties broke contact. Inquisitor Dashwood and his Iron Hounds associates trudged up the ramp of the awaiting Thunderhawk, which swiftly departed. Inquisitor Heinrich and Paladin Roland watched them go.

“Are you certain your interest in his affairs is wholesome?” Paladin Roland asked Inquisitor Heinrich bluntly, with no attempt at tact. He frowned down at the purity seal that the questionable Techmarine had touched, deciding to replace it at the first opportunity.

“Nothing we Inquisitors do is wholesome.” Inquisitor Heinrich chuckled. “But the ends justify the means."

[Evil Eye]

 

Rotten Body, Rotten Soul.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The corridors of the ship were dark, cramped and hot, Patroklos and his retainers barely fitting through the confines. Every step of his armoured boots made the rusted, greasy decking rattle beneath his feet, in a way that was extremely irritating to his immensely heightened senses. What little lighting there was in the vessel was a dull orange, and the air was heavy with a thick, sour vapour. Everything about the vessel offended him, yet he pressed on through the corridor nonetheless. There was business to pursue.

 

There were three of them in total, vastly different in size, shape and demeanour, but all possessed of a certain elegance and grace that seemed drastically at odds with their size, for even the smallest amongst them was far bulkier than any mere mortal.

 

In the centre walked Lord Patroklos, the Half-Breed King, the Scarred One, Fulgrim's Bastard. He was clad in ornate black and pink Terminator armour, trimmed with gilded filigree and decorated with all manner of vile fetishes, trophies and trinkets. Behind him billowed a scarlet cloak laden with chains carrying yet more hideous curios. His left arm terminated in a massive, long-bladed claw, its razor-sharp “fingers” occasionally crackling with warp-siphoned electricity. Upon his right arm was mounted a cumbersome looking biomechanical contraption, covered in glowing vents, throbbing tubes and steaming grilles. It was a rare weapon from the long-dead forge world of Kai, a plasma projector of arcane design that he was awfully fond of- the high-pitched whistle of evapourating flesh it made was quite exquisite. The only part of him that was not armoured was his shaven head, the left side of which was covered in pinkish radiation burns and heavy scarring.

 

To his left strode the sorcerer Sael Ikyther, the Bloody-Handed Bard, the Seer of Many Colours. His power armoured body was shrouded by a patchwork cloak of sumptuous fabrics, save for the curiously quiet power plant upon his back. His helmet was a smooth white mask, decorated with an intricate scrimshaw of jagged blood-red patterns, and clutched in his hand was a staff, topped with a silvered icon of the Dark Prince and decorated along its length with obscene carvings of cavorting maidens.

 

To his right was a female figure, clad almost head to toe in brass and iron armour, save for the occasional seemingly pointless aperture that seemed to accomplish nothing more than expose her pale flesh. Her eyes were obscured by a lavish helmet, and trailing behind her was a cape of human skin. Upon her back was a heavily modified Astartes power plant, and tightly folded about it were two bronze-chased servo arms, one terminating in a bloodstained chrome-silver pincer and the other in a macabre syringe. In on hand she held a needle gun of some form, whilst the other had been replaced in its entirety by a semi-organic scissor-bladed talon. This was Pryscylla Brazentongue, scion of the Dark Mechanicus and a master at the fusion of flesh, metal and daemon.

 

“This is an awfully long corridor.” sighed Patroklos, wearily. “Our host certainly does like to build suspense.”

 

Pryscylla shook her head, servos whining as she did so. “This excursion had better produce some form of favourable outcome.” she hissed, her voice feminine and slightly nasal but with a somewhat metallic ring to it. “I simply cannot stand this vessel; the air stinks and the vapours will damage my equipment.”

 

“Patience, both of you.” chuckled Sael in an almost sing-song voice. “This meeting will be bountiful. It is known. I have seen it.”

 

“Silence.” the Lord snapped, twitching his power claw impatiently. “It appears that our wait is over.”

 

Before the trio was an antechamber, considerably more spacious than the narrow walkway they had been passing through, but still claustrophobic nonetheless. At the far end of the chamber was a huge, iron-bound wooden door, cracked and oozing all manner of foul liquids. Guarding the door was a lone figure clad in rust-red armour and armed with a huge two-handed eviscerator chainsword.

 

“Who...goes there?” gurgled the figure, turning its head towards the three.

 

Patroklos stepped forward, his eyes warily darting back and forth for signs of more guards.

 

“I am Patroklos of the Emperor's Children, and these are my companions.” he said, his tone polite yet threatening. “We come to discuss matters of great importance with your master, Maalesius Gul.”

 

For a second, the guard remained silent. Then he nodded, the simple gesture almost unbearably slow for the Slaanesh-dedicated warlord.

 

“...Ah, yes...The priest did tell me...he was expecting...visitors.” the hulking creature slurred. “I shall...unbar your passage...at once.”

 

The guard turned to the door, setting his eviscerator to one side, and unclipped a heavy, rusted iron key from his belt. The key slid into the lock of the door, and with a heavy clunking noise, turned.

 

The door creaked open, almost painfully slowly.

 

“...Enter.” the guard intoned.

 

Patroklos simply nodded, and gestured his companions forward. Almost as one, they strode into the central chamber, where no doubt this...priest awaited them. As they entered the room, the door slammed shut behind them.

 

The room was dark, making even the corridor they had just exited seem bright and clear. The only light in the room came from small clusters of candles scattered about the floor. Any mere mortal, or even lesser Astartes, would not be able to make out the horrors shrouded within the darkness, but Patroklos, being bred of the stock of the Third Legion and blessed by the Dark Prince, could see (albeit with some difficulty) what lay hidden within the blackness.

 

There were several red-armoured giants in the chamber, which in stark contrast to the corridor they had just left, was quite impressively sized, with a fair amount of space and a vaulted roof. They were all kneeling, and though it was hard to hear, each one was uttering a low, deep chant, perfectly synchronized. The giants themselves were in various states of decay, some with vast chunks of their flesh missing, leaving gaping voids that dripped with ichor. Others had rolls of meat and fat spilling out from cracked, straining armour, whilst yet others had appeared to give way partially to mutation, limbs replaced with everything from chitinous claws to vestigial stumps.

 

But it was the smaller ones that unnerved Patroklos, the little figures amongst the Astartes. They were human- or had once been human- but were in various states of deformity. The Emperor's Child had no particular objection to such abnormalities of the flesh- indeed, upon the Degenerate's Creed he had a whole harem of mutants, one of his favourites being a woman with a huge scorpion-like tail- but these were not the beautiful, depraved creatures he kept the company of. Nay, these were hideously ugly, not merely changed, but decomposed. There were many of them struggling to join in the low chant- men with stunted limbs and weeping sores, women with sloughing flesh and protruding, tumour-struck bones, and children with naught but empty, bleeding eye sockets and toothless, inflamed gums. Looking to his left he saw an old man who seemed to have fungus growing from his back, and to his right an emaciated, jaundiced young woman nursing an infant who was little more than a head attached to a cluster of limbs.

 

He held back the urge to douse the chamber in cleansing plasma. Such disgusting...things should ideally be reduced to ash, lest they taint the galaxy with their ugliness too long, but if this was the company his contact chose to keep, so be it.

 

“Ah, Patroklos.” came a rasping croak from the centre of the room. “Welcome, my friend, to the Abbey of Pox, battle barge of the Congregation of Filth.”

 

The Slaaneshi lord, snapped out of his disgusted trance by the voice, turned to face the speaker, and found himself wishing he hadn't.

 

There really is no end of unpleasant surprises today... he thought to himself.

 

Sitting on the staircase to a rusted, wrought-iron pulpit was an Astartes, clad in the same rust-red armour as the rest of the Space Marines aboard the ship. Though his power armour was bulky and heavy, what little of him was visible seemed to barely fill it. His face was gaunt, his cheeks sallow and his reddened skin crusty and irritated. His eyes were white, featureless orbs, clearly stricken of sight long ago. His chestplate was decorated with a corroded pair of brass, skeletal hands, and the pauldrons of the suit were studded with spikes, upon which were hung rosaries made from knuckle bones. Above his head was what appeared to be a mockery of a psychic hood, seemingly crafted from bones that were obviously human but strangely small.

 

On one side of this figure was an utterly enormous Terminator-armoured plague marine, wearing a mask that made his face seem to consist of nothing but teeth. On the other was a youthful girl, wearing nothing but flimsy rags, with skin coated in lesions and warts and a gaping hole where her nose should have been. Behind the repulsive trio was a mouldering tapestry, depicting scenes of death and disease on ancient Terra, crudely woven yet strangely impressive. The morbid work of art appeared to show some kind of angelic maiden, borne upon fly's wings, guiding the spirits of the departed to another plane.

 

Patroklos fought down the bile rising in his throat and nodded.

 

“Hail, Maalesius Gul, Dismal Priest, Withered Seer of Nurgle.” he said, masking the contempt in his voice. “It is...pleasant to see you.”

 

Maalesius grinned, revealing yellowed, chipped teeth. “And hail to you, Patroklos, Half-Breed King, Scarred One.” he replied, his voice like the creak of rotting wood. “And what is it that you seek of me?”

 

“A fairly simple request, my friend.” the Slaaneshi lord said, as politely as he could. “My warband is soon to be raiding the world of Tor XV, a shrine world dedicated to the ecclesiarchy of the false Emperor. However, we lack, amongst other things, the engines of war necessary to penetrate the defences of the primary basilica.”

 

“I see...So essentially, you want my assistance in an assault upon a world of the puppet-god's lapdogs. Might I inquire further as to the details of this excursion?”

 

Patroklos nodded, and gestured towards Sael, who shuffled forward.

 

“The shrine world of Tor XV is a ripened fruit, just waiting to fall from the tree and be consumed by worms.” he said in his distorted voice. “We have already established cults upon the world courtesy of a...friend of ours. Even as we speak, they are making progress on the construction of, shall we say, gateways into the sea of souls. With but a simple ritual and the assistance of our friend here of the Dark Mechanicus, we will be able to emerge from the catacombs underneath the capital city of the planet...Camilla I believe its name is.”

 

The Nurglite seer tilted his head, stroking his chin. “I see. So, you have prepared for your arrival but lack the forces. What exactly will you be requiring?”

 

“We shall require daemon engines and fire support primarily.” stated Pryscylla, matter-of-factly. “Forgefiends, Defilers, Hellrazors, and the Blight Drones we know you are fond of. In addition we will require infantry forces, especially heavy weaponry teams. Any other forces would be appreciated, but are not necessarily required.”

 

She stepped back in line with her companions. Patroklos flicked her a slightly concerned look- he was worried her bluntness may have damaged the deal.

 

“Yes, yes...We can do that.” chuckled Maalesius. “But the question remains, what's in it for us? What will we gain from this little jaunt?”

 

Patroklos grinned, exposing sharpened alabaster teeth. “Ah, I thought you might ask that sooner rather than later.” he said, silkily. “Well, as it happens, this particular planet is positively teeming with mortals- particularly faithful mortals in fact. There will be countless millions to enslave, corrupt or sacrifice.”

 

“I can find mortals on any poorly defended agri-world. What makes these ones so special?”

 

The Emperor's Child laughed, softly. “Oh, these ones will make for great sport indeed, I can assure you. There are not just the usual pilgrims and priests upon this world. Nay, there are Sisters of Battle to be found here. The Adeptas Sororitas, whores of the corpse-Emperor. They are hard to break, for certain, but their souls will bring you great favour from the gods, be they offered as sacrifices or converted to the true faith.”

 

Maalesius's brow raised a little. “Oh? Sororitas you say? How many?”

 

“Exact numbers are unknown, but it is believed that Tor XV is a homeworld for one of the orders- the Order of the Blessed Hand, if I remember correctly.” Patroklos replied. “So there will be a great deal of them, along with their relics, weapons...and the younglings they train to join their ranks.”

 

“Hmmmm...”

 

The Nurglite psyker was deep in thought, stroking his chin. The almost-naked mutant by his side leaned in close to him, and whispered something in his ear.

 

“Your offer is attractive, for certain. But I must know...how many of these mortals do you intend to keep for yourself? I know full well the greed of those who follow the Prince of Excess.”

 

Patroklos nodded. “Indeed, though with time you will hopefully come to learn I am more...restrained than some of my brethren. But yes, your tithes. Given the amount of assistance we shall require, I feel a 50% split of the spoils seems fair.”

 

“Generous indeed, however we have no need for the petty relics of the Sororitas, nor their weapons and armour. So if I may, I would like to suggest a counter-offer. We will take 60% of the inhabitants of this world. You may take the remainders, and you may take as many of their trinkets and treasures as you see fit.”

 

“60%?!” spluttered Pryscylla. “Patroklos, you cannot consider such a ludicrous offer! He means to rob you blind!”

 

The lord shook his head, grinning. “Calm down, fleshsmith. I am no fool. We shall have a deal soon enough.” He turned back to Maalesius.

“Your counter-offer is reasonable. However, I would like to offer one final amendment. You may have 55% of the human livestock, and we will take the remainding 45%. Is that acceptable?”

 

Maalesius smiled and laughed, the sound dry and hoarse.

 

“Indeed. You are a generous one, Patroklos, and generosity is a trait much admired by Grandfather Nurgle. The Congregation of Filth will join you in this endeavour, my friend.”

 

Patroklos bowed, courteously. “Much appreciated, Dismal Priest. It will be an honour to fight alongside your forces. May your journeys upon the tides of the Sea of Souls be smooth and peaceful, brother.”

 

“And yours, Half-Breed King. We shall meet again soon, I think.”

 

With that, the three figures bowed, turned away and strode out of the room, the door opening for them as they did so.

 

===

 

“Why did you accept such a measly offer, Patroklos?” chided Pryscylla, her servo-arms twitching. “Surely Sororitas weaponry is not worth such a pitiful deal? The vast majority of it is inferior in every way to our own!”

 

“Hush-hush, fleshsmith. Our lord is fully aware of what he is doing.” giggled Sael wickedly. “There is something far more important than mere slaves he seeks on Tor XV...”

 

“Indeed.” Patroklos waved his now unarmoured hand over a holo-display, which flickered and warped at the gesture. The pixelated image coalesced into the form of a small, black cube, encrusted in daemonic runes wrought in gold.

 

“...The Gomorrah Cube?” the Heretek gasped. “But...what is such an artefact doing upon a shrine world of the false Emperor?”

 

“How it came to be there is unknown.” the Lord said, deactivating the holo-display with another gesture. “What is important, however, is that it is there. And soon, my darling, it will be ours.”

 

Pryscylla shook her head. “But surely our “ally” will be angered deeply that we have concealed the presence of the Cube from him? We do not wish to have a full half of our forces turn upon us.”

 

Patroklos laughed, harshly. “Well, I can see no reason for him to be angered. After all, did he not say that he had no interest in petty trinkets?” he said, slyly. “Besides...what he doesn't know cannot hurt him."

 

 

[Carrack]

Salt of Fire

  Reveal hidden contents

Jergal punctuated the stanzas he recited with fire from his sacred boltgun. The Book of Lorgar, 616-9:48, "We shall spring forth from the place where the worm dyeth not." The stanzas of 616 filled Jergal with exhilaration. He felt as if the book was an epistle penned directly from his most high gene-sire to his humble self. Jergal had dwelt in "the place where the worm dyeth not". It was on the daemon world of Sicarus. It was an eternally smoldering valley, filled with souls of the damned, blinded and forever feasted upon by maggots that never became flies. It was a grim reminder of the cost of failure in the quest for glory, for Jergal was surely as damned as any in the valley.

Shortly after the bolts fired their propellants, they slammed into the orange breastplate of the unbeliever and exploded, launching the mass of ceramite and genetically enhanced flesh into the arms of his squad mates, disrupting their own fires. With the unbelievers momentarily bunched together, Jergal pressed his own massive body into the corridor wall, and called forth his coterie's flamer bearer with the recital of the next stanza, "We shall immolate the idolator with the fire that is not quenched."

The flames filled the corridor, burning the unbelievers. It was a literal interpretation of the stanza, but a fitting one. The timing was uncanny. In truth, Jergal did not need to recite the stanza, for his coterie knew the words by heart. They were written into the flesh of the sorceress in their midst. The sacred words glowed red through her robes and mail, casting a hellish glare on the engraved walls of the unbelievers' ship. Where the light shown, the engravings subtly changed. A depiction of the unbelievers' primarch penning his infamous codex with quill and ink, altered to that of the great fool carving into his false manifesto with an athame dripping in blood. Such was the rebellion her mere presence stirred in reality. She was Gelvira the Scroll, and she was why Jergal followed the Scion of the Black Legion, Lord Carrack. Her genesis in the depths of the doomed Red Hive of Siliquastrum had been foretold.

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

There were signs and portents, for those able to discern them. On the evening of Gelvira's birth, the majestic psyber-eagle that roosted in the bell tower of the Inquisitorial Bastion was evicted from its nest by a huge ash vulture from the wastelands of Siliquastrum, sub-sector capital. On the night that the profane stigmata first emerged onto Gelvira's pale skin, a hivequake rocked the Red Hive, killing or displacing millions. This was the very hour that the "Inscribed" constellation would have been ascendant on long destroyed Colchis. Her coming was announced across the very stars.

As for the text itself, it takes the form of a winding red tattoo calligraphing the the long lost 616th tome of the dreaded Book of Lorgar. The script covers the hive girl's skin from just below her hairline to the bottoms of her feet. The penmanship is said to be identical to that of Lorgar, the Daemom Primarch of the Word Bearers. Gelvira, a rare beauty, from the lower levels of the Red Hive, did not know the nature of the power transcribed into her flesh. She just knew that whoever looked upon her uncovered body went mad, or worse. Where she walked, the veil of reality weakened, colors shimmered, shadows danced in the corners of her vision, and barely heard whispers promised the impossible.

Where once she was merely a great beauty chased by panderers of the underhive gangs, soon her hunters became far more sinister; the witch hunters of the Inquisition, and the Sacred Chapter of the Broken Seal, Jergal's chapter, to name but a few. However, others could read the signs same as the sons who were intended to receive the lost tome of their father. Lord Carrack's mad prophets and diviners read the signs, and he snatched Gelvira from the seat of the Siliquastrum Subsector, before destroying the city, and its control of the subsector. With the promise of allowing the Broken Seal to transcribe the 616th Book of Logar, Lord Carrack won the services of Jergal's chapter in exploiting the severing of the head of the Siliquastrum Subsector. The Broken Seal fought beside the Black Maw, conquering and laying waste to the disorganized subsector. Their service done, they left with the 616th tome, to return to Sicarus in triumph. Jergal was left behind to lead an honor guard for the scroll upon which Lorgar had written his Word.

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

The flames bathed the unbelievers in their merciless caress, catching them on fire, yet they stood firm, for though their blood had been diluted over the ages, they were still Astartes, their resolution was unassailable, until Gelvira revealed The Word into their corpse worshipping minds. They cracked, not just in their resolve, but in their sanity. Their rigid adherence to a foundation of lies was torn apart with the truth of The Word. They struck each other with bone-crushing blows, even as the flames burnt their armor and flesh. They struck themselves. They tore off helms to rip open their throats so they would never have to raise voices to the truth of the warp. They gouged out their eyes, ripped out ears and tongues, so they would never have to experience reality again through those mediums, for it had been shattered and they knew it to be a lie. Their last moments were an eternity. Unconcerned, Jergal marched through the burning carnage with the words of the next stanza on his lips, "We shall salt the souls of men with the flames of my word." Jergal went forth with his coterie, further into the unbelievers' ship. He had an abundance of such salt, to season the souls of the enemy and prepare them for the unquenchable fires of damnation. For he bore The Word, and by The Word he would burn the galaxy.

[Kierdale]

Some excellent entries!
I know that there is (at least) one more entry to come. A team effort, in fact...

 

 

And some may have noticed I opened a companion thread: Inspirational Friday: Timelines of Treachery for those who wish to organise their IF entries. 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 :)

[Kierdale]

I thank you for your entries in Chaotic Alliance over the last two weeks.

I hereby close that topic for the purposes of rewards (though I know there’s at least one more to come).

Here begins our twenty first challenge of Inspirational Friday 2016:

Chaotic Rites

Rites and ceremonies. The Emperor’s Children would celebrate the coming victory upon the eve of the battle itself, the Dark Angels have their Feast of Malediction, the Imperial Fists their scrimshawing remembrance of fallen brothers. What are the ceremonies and rites carried out by your warband or regiment? What are their sources and purposes and how have they changed or been perverted over time? Are they in preparation for war, celebration or remembrance afterwards or do they have some other purpose?

Inspirational Friday: Chaotic Rites runs until the 29th of July

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Scourged. To the chosen victor: step forward and claim your Octed Amulet:

[Scourged]

In terms of judgement, I'll more than likely get to that around Monday. I've been fighting off a mild case of Nurgle's affections the last couple of days. Blah.

 

Otherwise, on to the main course. In the spirit of alliance, Kierdale and I have spent the last couple of weeks collaborating on a joint effort. I can only speak for myself in the matter, but the experience was remarkably fun and led to a great deal of goo ideas. Too many of them, even! So, what happens when the Psychopomps and the Scourged get together and unite for a common goal? Find out in our joint story:

 

Crystal and Flesh

 

Part I: Mistaken Identity

Hidden Content

The deal had gone sour.

The deal was supposed to go sour, for that was how ambushes worked, but not this soon or in this way.

The fact that Castor had had to make a deal was a first, for he was Adeptus Astartes - albeit a renegade one now - a warrior supreme and former captain of the Stygian Guard’s second company. He not a broker, a fixer or a merchant. Warfare was his business, slipping blades into guts rather than credits into palms. And yet here he and a team of his Reapers were: their ambush being sprung by the very morsels it was intended to catch.

Until those morsels had started screaming two word again and again, he had been waiting in the dark, dead-end alleyway, his weapons - his axe and his heavy flamer - clamped to his backpack, his claw open, his stance passive and inviting. The shadows of the dark alleyway dimmed the vivid, contrasting colours of his armour, lending them a pale, sickly shade. The rosy pink became as livid flesh, but his was an imposing silhouette. Larger than most marines, and heavily armed, he was evidently more than a warrior of the line.

Standing thus on a cursed world on the very cusp of the Eye, a haven for scum and villainy, was anathema to him. Tactical madness on his part.

Though whilst he stood there invitingly, the weapons of his Reapers - his personal cadre of Psychopomps he had drawn from across the warband’s squads - had tracked their targets for a couple of blocks, into the trap. Combi-weapons for the most part, enabling them to deal with whatever they need kill; but also webbers, for they intended to take their targets alive. When the targets had raised their own weapons - they had never been holstered for they were understandably wary - and began their screaming-chanting, Castor had known both that their planned ambush had been discovered and that these were not the devotees of the Weaver of Destinies which he sought.

“The lies. The lies! THE LIES!”

Castor had thrown himself aside as bolt shells impacted around him, one catching his pauldron and putting him off balance. Though there were no doors or windows in the surrounding buildings, a fully armoured Astartes had no problem charging through walls and he was glad he had worn his helmet; he might be crazy (though by whose standards?) but he was not stupid.

Aelial had once been an Imperial shrine world - like Belatis IV, Innocence III, Macharia and Kierdale’s World, but worship of the Imperial Cult had been corrupted there. Some said it had been by the Word Bearers themselves: the First Heretics, but it mattered nought. The very system had been pulled from its place within the heavens and deposited at the border of the Eye of Terror. Those who had not been killed in the madness and rioting as corruption spread were driven over the edge, their sanity stripped from them and the planet descended into pandemonium.

This had all happened centuries earlier and Aelial was now a twisted shadowport: a haven for renegades of all stripes and faiths. Here, on the orders of master Sophusar of the Psychopomps, captain Castor had set about contacting rogue Astartes who served the Architect of Fate. Why? He had not been informed, but he knew the ways of the Great Conspirator and understood that he need know only his part in his master’s scheme:

The capture of one particular kind of Astarte who served The Changer of the Ways.

Xeolus, the captain’s second, hadn’t needed to give the order to open fire, for as soon as the weapons of the renegades in their gold-trimmed blue and red armour had risen toward Castor, the Reapers had opened fire. His own combi-bolter’s underbarrel plasmacaster had been primed since the Reapers had set up in the ruins to the sides of the alleyway. If things went badly then he knew they would need to resolve things exceedingly quickly. Xeolus figured it wasn’t wise to engage the pawns of Tzee - he daren’t even finish thinking the name - The Architect of Fate, and if one did, better to smoke them before their master noticed they were missing.

His first shot was swallowed by some kind of void which appeared from nowhere scant centimeters before it impacted the lead enemy, but the second overpowered whatever occult defences protected the marine and, melting easily through his plastron, blew out the enemy’s chest. Before Xeolus had time to note the bloody ragged hole his attack created - another sign that these were not the ones they sought - he had changed his bolter’s fire mode and triggered a burst of bolts at the next target in line.

Flames engulfed the enemy rearguard as two of Xeolus’ men fired their weapons’ flamers, having snuck close enough through the ruins to use them.

But the enemy moved with the speed of living, vital Astartes – again, not those they sought - guided by He Who Sees All Futures and the Psychopomps’ ambush began to turn against them. Bolt shells picked off the two Reapers who had flamed the enemy, shot with perfection through the cracks and holes in the buildings. The six remaining enemy marines turned as one to face Xeolus and Numeial before they were about to step out and shoot the enemy in the back. Xeolus quickly checked his step and reached out to stop Numeial too late, the Psychopomp Reaper lifted from the ground by the enemy volley and thrown back a bloodied mess.

Xeolus cursed as the enemy seemed to read every dirty little trick the Reapers tried.

Signalling the rest of his squad, he ordered them to pull back toward the dead end of the alleyway, toward Castor, bolt shells eating at their cover as they went.

“Scourged,” Galuste identified the enemy as he threw himself into cover next to Castor, Xeolus and Xyleus. The squad had hunkered down behind the thickest wall they could find. “The armour, that chanting.” The squad’s scout, he had been the first onto Aelial and had done a lot of recon. Both the location and its inhabitants.

“Well, they’re ssure whipping uss alright!” grinned Xyleus, reloading his bolt gun and licking its steaming barrel with his unnaturally long tongue, chuckling with pleasure as it burned him.

“Judging by their armour,” Galuste went on, “they-,” he swore as a bolt caromed off the scalp of his helmet, “-turned from Terra not all that long ago.”

“We have sso much in common! Why all this fighting? We shhould invite them over, have a picnic, compare notess.”

“Bucket on,” ordered Castor, pointing a finger at the mouthy, unhelmed Reaper.

“Your lies! We hear them, debauched devotees of the Dark Prince! Your every petty gambit. Your leader would even sacrifice you in order to take us alive!” came a tormented shout from the other end of the alleyway, causing Galuste to look accusingly at Castor.

“He probably meant master Sophusar,” the captain lied.

“A plan?” Xeolus spoke up, reloading his own weapon. The click and clatter of reloading went along the line of Reapers, accompanied by the hiss of blades being unsheathed. This was why Castor liked Xeolus: he was always focused on the mission. It had been a defining aspect of the Stygian Guard: the chapter the Psychopomps had once been, and Xeolus - his trusted lieutenant - still had it. Despite the corruption and bloody-minded ambition of the universe they now lived in, Xeolus was still able to loyally and determinedly focus on the task at hand. And Castor knew it was probably going to be the marine’s downfall. Stabbed in the back by one of his brethren with more ambition or one willing to make a daemonic pact in order to get ahead. It was sad, but Castor would make what use of Xeolus he could while he could. At the back of his mind he began thinking who might be the one to eventually supersede Xeolus...and would they then aim at his own back?

“None whatsoever,” Castor replied flatly. “And that’s how we’ll beat them,” he quickly added to silence protests before they were mouthed. It had been Xeolus’ demeanor which had inspired him. Fight how they used to fight. A good old stand-up fight. Weight of fire. Maneuver. Pound the enemy into the dirt. Scions of Dorn, their bolter drill was still tight.

And so they did; captain Castor, master of the elite Reapers, Xeolus his lieutenant and the remaining seven Reaper rising from their cover, bolters up and blazing.

No dirty tricks.

No gambits.

No stealth.

No feints.

No lies.

Just honest violence.

And it worked. Victory belonged to the Reapers. Castor raised the last of the Scourged with his daemonic claw fastened about the marine’s throat and, in the first expression of anger that day, scissored the man’s head from his shoulders. He shook his own head as the bright Astartes blood fountained over him, and sighed.

“Where and how in hell are we going to capture one of the Thousand Sons?”

Casting the body to the ground he turned to the rest of the squad. “Back to the ship for a rethink.”

***

“What in the blazing soulfire of the Eye do you mean they’re all dead?!”

+I mean exactly that, Telioch: the entire scouting party we sent to the surface is no longer responding to hails. Any telepathic attempts to communicate are met with the silence of a dead mind. Not to mention that the streaming data of each of their in-suit vitals has flatlined-+

Must the psychic bastard always insist on speaking with his mind instead of voice? And with that condescending tone?

“Yes, Khalo, thank you; I got it. They’re dead. Thanks. Noted.”

That’s just perfect. No, really, perfect. Without even any word or confirmation regarding the location of the Thousand Son and his automaton retinue the vanguard party was slaughtered to a man. And by whom? It could have been their target, sure, but also any one of their many rivals with the Eye, or a sudden pack of eldritch horrors made manifest. There was no way to know. This was exactly what Telioch didn’t need to happen.

“Alright, alright. Fine. We’ll make due.”

+You don’t sound too convinced, Toren.+

“Of course I don’t, Khalo. We just lost half of our expedition force in a matter of minutes, apparently, and we have no idea who or what did it. Our target sorcerer might be cackling to himself among the corpses of our men right now. Or, worse yet, he might not even be on this planet after all. We’ll never know now!”

+I never did say that we had no knowledge of what or whom ambushed our vanguard, Toren.+

And just what did that mean? What was Khalo not telling him? These word games that his fellow sorcerer insisted upon playing had been a mind-numbing frustration ever since leaving together on this pointless hunt. Were all Word Bearers this needlessly haughty and verbose, or was it just a penchant that only Khalo the Defector forced Telioch to endure? Were it not for the prize awaiting his success, Toren Telioch would never have accepted this assignment.

“What are you talking about, Khalo?”

+Crewman, explain to the Lord here what you told me,+ ordered the summoner with to a human officer suddenly present in the conversation.

Telioch looked down at the frail, shaking mortal in front of him. Had the welp always been there, standing at Khalo’s side? Those little mortals could be so quiet and insignificant when they were afraid. But to his credit the balding man, his pale skin adorned with shimmering blue tattoos written in ancient Tachylean, kept his back straight and chin high even as his hands shook and his voice trembled.

“Lord. Auspex reports following the… loss of alpha squad showed a shuttle leaving their last known position. We… uh, we traced the shuttle and confirmed that it docked aboard an escort-class vessel. An Astartes frigate.”

“Designation?”

“Initial scans show an original identification tag as Indomitable of the Stygian Guard. Codes have since been changed to read as the Indulgence of the Psychopomps.”

What in the Ruinous Powers is a psychopomp? Or who, rather? Telioch reflected on the news as he dismissed the scared mortal away with the flick of his wrist. Obviously someone had known when and where his vanguard was going to be. That was the only way such an ambush could befall them. But who dared to deceive them? Who even could deceive the Scourged? And that still wouldn’t answer who these Psycho-whatsits actually were.

“Khalo… you swore yourself to the powers of the Warp long before I ever did.”

+Aye, yes I did, though now I have seen through the deceptions of worshipping such undivided of a cause and now relish my servitude to the True Master. Still, I have bore witness to many things since my servitude with the XVII Legion.+

“Yes, that’s nice. Anyway. In all your time in the Eye, you ever hear of the Psychopomps?”

+...no.+

“Well then… I guess we’ll have to find out who they are.”

+What do you plan to do, Toren?+

He had absolutely no idea. Nothing like this had been anything close to anticipated by the sorcerer. Toren Telioch was not an Astartes gifted with the tactics of void warfare. He was not a skilled negotiator and delegator. His ability to manipulate and deceive were quite poor. And even on the battlefield his skills were average, at best. A strategist and leader was never a man Telioch would be.

At most, he was two things: a capable sorcerer of telekinesis and pyromancy, and a self-preservationist. Centuries spent hiding behind walls of cover and skeining the knowledge of arcane and forbidden lore earned him a skillset that did only one thing: keep him alive. Openly striking out at the enemy frigate and engaging in a fruitless exchange of volleys would surely jeopardize his treasured self preservation. No, this was not the time for an open skirmish. He would need to strike fast and decisively before fleeing to safety; it was the only way. But, if possible, the actions upon Aelial deserved swift retaliation that he would deliver.

“You! Mortal! Uh…”

“Ensign Vronsky, sir.”

“Sure. Vronsky. Has the Indulgence made any attempts to leave or locate us?”

“It looks like… no, sir. All engines and systems are idle.”

Okay then. Things were looking up, if only slightly. Maybe this wouldn’t be too difficult after all. They could get the drop on their attackers and return the favor, right? Sure. Their frigate, The Falsified, was equally armed and powered as their quarry’s. But with the element of surprise, the assumed equality of the ships would shift heavily in favor of the Scourged. Retribution may yet be in hand.

“Helmsman, turn us port twenty degrees and engage only primary thrusters at four percent. Armsman, have the lance and forward battery armed and charged. Once we’re in range for a firing solution, cease the engines but do not engage the weapons. Not until my command. Voxman, be ready to request an open channel with the Psychopomps, but again wait until my order.”

The little vermin scurried about, saluting the imposing sorcerer and running to their stations. In quick time, The Falsified was slowly drifting through the upper atmo of Aelial toward the dormant enemy frigate. According to the helmsman they would reach final positioning in fourteen minutes. From there the vile aggressors onboard the Indulgence would pay for their transgressions on the planet.

Maybe then, with this interruption put behind him, Telioch could finally finish this quest. To date, neither he nor Khalo knew why Lord Dhelmas sent them to the very fringe of the Eye to hunt down a Son of Magnus. Not that he cared, really; Telioch was glad to take any excuse to get away from the rest of the warband. Like Khalo, so many of them had become consumed by their idolatry of the so-called True Master. They all really believed the Gift was actually a blessing. How? How could it ever be that? This power was a damnation, and Telioch wanted freedom from it.

His research into a cure had turned up next to nothing, however. Nowhere in the annals of collected knowledge was anything resembling the Gift ever described or diagnosed. It was an anomaly, birthed in the Warp and given to them all by the True Master. And therein was found Telioch’s personal boon for hunting a Thousand Son: of all those throughout the galaxy that serve the Ruinous Powers, who better to know the secrets of their mutual Master than the XV Legion?

Interrogating a Prospero-born would not be easy. Frankly, Telioch doubted he had the skills to do it. But he would try. If the sorcerer would not break, he would bargain with the captive to get what he needed. And if that meant letting the prisoner “escape” before returning to Deception’s Call in return for a shard of information, then so be it. If it meant freedom from the Gift, disobeying the orders of the Sorcerer Lord was well worth it. But first thing was first: elimination of their ambushers.

“Lord, we’re in position. Weapons are hot. Forward shields raised. Waiting for your signal.”

Telioch hesitated in order to bask in a self-congratulatory glory. Everything was ready, just waiting on his word. There was no reason this plan wouldn’t work. They had approached undetected. No one was the wiser of their actions. Even for him this was a winning strategy. The threat of his ambush might cause the Psycho-whatevers to throw up the white flag. Hell, if all things went very well he could be flying out of here with a brand new vessel and crew. Perhaps start a warband all his own - a warband with which he could hunt more forbidden lore to free himself of the Gift! Thanks to his cunning, this could be the start of-

“Lord, the Indulgence has raised aft shields and energy signatures indicate their weapons are live. They have also transmitted a communique.”

Damnit.

“Fine. What does it say?”

“‘Scourged: stand down. You’re not the servants of the God of Fate we seek. No further hostilities required.’”

+Oh? Almost sounds like our new friends are in search of the same Sons that we are, no? Our vanguard’s demise was nothing more than mistaken identity. One would almost think that our aggressors feel remorse for their error, though I’m sure the threat of our weapon arrays have aided their guilt.+

“Yes, so it seems, Khalo.”

It’s true; that mistaken identity would explain the ambush upon the vanguard. It made sense. Telioch and crew were here to hunt the Thousand Sons, so it was within reason that another warband was here to do the same. It made sense. And it could also be the bait in an elaborate trap once again. This could no doubt be one large rouse in an attempt to lash out at the Scourged. It’s not as if they’d made many friends in the Warp, after all. But Telioch felt no stirring within the Gift, and Khalo made no indication that he did either. For the moment, the words of their enemy could be trusted.

“Voxman, open a line. I want to discuss terms with our new friends.”

***

Before he had finished the sentence, Castor could feel the weapon pointed at him.

“What are you doing, Casstor?” Xyleus spat, looking at the back of his commander’s head over the sights of his bolt pistol.

Castor hoped the comms officer had cut the channel before Xyleus had spoken, or the Scourged would be opening fire on them at any moment to take advantage of perceived bad morale or a fermenting mutiny..

“I could ask you the same question, Xyleus,” the former captain of the 2nd company said, slowly turning, finding the large muzzle of Xyleus’ pistol in his face as he expected. The other Psychopomps on the bridge, and the mortal bridge crew, watched the standoff. Several of the marines had hands on weapons though there was no indication of which side they stood upon.

“We killed them eassily enough down there. Let’ss finish them here in orbit,” Xyleus’ long tongue lolled out comically, but the look on the rest of his face was one of angry disbelief at his superior’s actions.

“Three of your fellow Reapers are dead, Xyleus. I think they would disagree with your appraisal of the situation.　Down there we ambushed them,” Castor turned back to the great transparisteel viewport and pointed his clawed hand at the globe of Aelial and the miasma of the Eye beyond.

He was not scared that Xyleus would shoot him in the back. There was no glory in that, little sensation beyond enjoying the victim’s shock - but his Reapers specialized in ambushes and sabotage, they’d had their fill of such awe many times before - so he felt he was safe enough for the moment.

“Now they have the drop on us.”

“No further hostilities required?!” Xyleus mocked. “You think they’ll just forgive and forget?” he spat.

Castor wondered how things might go if Xyleus did attempt a mutiny. Though it had been him who had put together the Reapers: taking the best marines he could from the Stygian Guard’s remaining nine companies after Cyprius III as they fragmented into cults and sects, to form a new elite group, they were driven by ambition. The ambition to be better than the rest of the chapter-turned-warband, and to be better than each other. The better a marine’s standing, the more spoils of war he received. Equipment, trophies, slaves and indeed the blessings of their patron deity: Castor’s claw, Xyleus’ tongue, Cesai’s taloned feet, the breast protruding from Idola’s armoured torso. Aury‘s Slaangor face. All were rewards for their dedication, for acts committed or souls taken in Slaanesh’s name.

Xeolus would stand with his commander, of that Castor was confident. Galuste and likely Cesai too. Aury possibly. Idola, like the daemonettes his body was steadily becoming more akin to, was capricious and an unknown.　And Arosa, he would likely turn his weapon on Castor at the drop of a hat if only to garner Xyleus’ attention and praise. Then likely do in Xyleus once his back was turned too.

Castor’s power axe was clamped to the back of his powerpack and his heavy flamer was in his arming chamber – not that it would have done him much good here upon the bridge of Indulgence. A blast from it would likely take out a few of the mortal crew too. But could Castor swipe Xyleus’ head from his shoulders, or at least his hand from his wrist, with his claw before the other got a round off? His claw was not a powered gauntlet but rather an oversized appendage of daemonic flesh and despite its size it was a remarkably swift weapon.

The eyes of the former second captain met those of the ambitious Reaper, the latter’s tongue licking the air as if to taste the tension. Xyleus’ lips peeled back in a grin. He could sense Castor’s muscles tensing, and his finger tightened ever so slightly on the trigger of his bolt pistol.

“C-captain, we are being hailed by The Falsified. They want to talk.”

Castor smiled back at his would-be killer as Xyleus stood down, holstering his pistol after a second’s wait.

No matter what happened by the time they left Aelial, Xyleus would be dead, of that he swore to Slaanesh.

With nary another word spoken on the matter, Castor and a collection of Reapers made way to The Falsified. Their parley took place aboard the Scourged vessel, Castor taking Xeolus, Galuste and Idola with him. He also had Xyleus accompany him, not trusting the Reaper left on their own vessel. And if things turned nasty, Xyleus had undeniable skill in close combat. He had volunteered to venture across to the other warband’s vessel as a show of, if not friendship, then openness. That he intended them no harm and that he was, essentially, offering them his life and that of his men, should the enemy demand retribution for their losses on the surface. Not that he’d give his life easily, of course. They went armed.

And before the day was out, they were back on the surface of Aelial, this time alongside the Scourged. The hunt would begin again, but this time with numbers bolstered by new - if temporary - allies. The sour deal had turned a bit sweeter.

 

Part II: The Hunt Begins

Hidden Content

Colorless rainbows of energies wove around and through him in this place. They touched him but left no sensations in their wake, their unknowable paths through this plane undeterred by his presence. With a spectral hand he reach to touch them, to divert a rivulet of diluted destinies and let them flow through his being. Wisps of untold promises and uncertain futures wove their way to his mind in an instant eternity.

He could taste the portents of coming doom with his eyes, though the sounds of uneasiness froze his nonexistent skin. He could smell the looming threat of death as clear as the muddled sensations of failure trembling though a body that held no matter. Further he poured through the ever-flowing instant of whispered informations, his mind piecing and parceling each tangible strand as it occurred. Though little more could be found from this stream.

The gambit was a failure.

Black-feathered wings of corporeal thought propelled him through this realm. He needed more. The threads he need pull glowed to him in this sightless world, his enduring training propelling him to the right directions without need for thought. But it would be a dangerous endeavor to attempt another read. No amount of stealth could hide his presence in this place. Senses were meaningless to mask when thoughts chimed louder in the darkness. Still, one weaving current burned his non-seeing eyes with its brilliance. This was the thread he needed. He would go to it.

It called to him. It was so quiet and gentle, a beckoning of a lover in the dark beneath the sheets. It needed him, just as he needed it. It drew closer to him in the miasma of emotions. Or was it he who was moving toward it? Direction held no meaning in this realm, so it mattered not. Closer he moved, knowing this was the stream of unconsciousness he needed to divine the coming nights. He knew because the energies told him so. They were everything he needed, and more. He just need come closer to touch them and let them flow through him. Let them consume him.

No. Not right. It was not right. He strayed too far, grown too greedy. This path was death. Immediately he pulled away, tugging hard on his ethereal tether to pull him away from this nonsensical place. He needed to exit, and now. But he was not a novice, nor a fool. Even escaping at the speed of thought was not fast enough, so he readied himself for the coming fight. They would try to take him. They would try to feed. They wished to devour him for an ageless eternity.

They could try.

The glowing currents came to life, now specters of malign sentience and hunger careening toward him. They wished to taste his soul. The closer they drew, the more predatory the wisps of raw energy became, growing forms that looked of toothed beasts from old Terran oceans. They hungered, they always hungered. Pitiful.

It took no effort to disseminate their forms. The glowing light-blades of his multiple arms tore through each and every one of them, bisecting their spirits and banishing the motes of consciousness back to the churning sea from which they were never born. It was effortless. It was rote. But he did not let the lack of difficulty distract him, as larger predators would soon follow. With his exit in sight, he left this world and returned to the place where his physical body waited.

***

The seated, motionless sorcerer’s body shook with hard convulsions and coughed out stale air that had gathered in the unused lungs. Multiple hearts beat with an intensity to flood his dormant muscles with oxygen and stimulants even as the cold sweat covered his skin in a solid sheen. With his mind now returned to his body, Nesumontu worked to slow his breath and calm himself after his abrupt disconnection from the Warp.

The meditations were becoming far more difficult.

Half a day had passed upon Aelial, though weeks were spent in another realm mining the limitless threads of possibility. Such was the discongruent nature of time in the Immaterium. He had divined little of events to come. Fragments mostly. Even for psychic statements of unending possibilities the messages he found within the Warp were vague, at best.

Nesumontu’s mind was weakening. The thought had been terrifying him for the months since he first noticed. Prognostication had been an effortless chore not so long ago. He would barely have to tap into the skeins of Fate to read them as easily as a children’s primer. But he skills were fading. Something needed to be done. When the whispers in the Warp spoke of goals attained on Aelial he knew answers would be found there, and so came with no hesitation.

But he had not come alone, he learned. Nesumontu’s exodus to this Chaos bastion had been too hasty. Rumors of his movements spread easily among the communes of the traitorous. He and his seclusive brethren were not known to move so readily through the crowds, so a sudden appearance of a Thousand Son drew quite the attention of many.

That’s when he saw visions of the Hook and the Whip, coming for them. Damnable half-blood renegades… To turn to Chaos for such pointless selfish motives was reason enough for Nesumontu’s scorn, but that they had the audacity to try and hunt him only enraged him more. A simple modicum of misdirection should have been enough to turn his pursuers upon each other and leave him in peace. That, however, was apparently not the case.

The visions had changed: the Hook and the Whip were in tandem now, and moved with greater speed. His hunters were coming, and supposedly working together.

Nesumontu could not allow this. There was not enough time. Though the alcoves of this abandoned church from days long before the Great Crusade bore so many fruits of delicious lore, he had not yet found the essential pieces to repair his addling mind. He needed more time. But escape was not an option. No, he would have to fight. Well, not him per se.

A list of names cascaded through Nesumontu’s mind in a half second, and immediately he felt the stirrings of half-life around him. A score of Rubricae stirred to life around him in the small pulpit littered with discarded tomes. It was not their bodies that stirred, but the dormant consciousnesses within. Keyed to their master once more, the Rubricae came to the ready in moments.

All may be dust inside of their shells, but a more fearsome bodyguard could not be asked for. Having worked with them all since times before Ahriman’s folly, Nesumontu was all-too familiar with his retinue. They worked in tandem in every conceivable way, their actions tied to a subconscious tether upon his mind. Once battle would flair into a full conflagration he would need to spare no singular thought upon his servants and they would still yet know his every whim. And the hour which would demand such impeccable service was fast approaching, no doubt.

The blue armored Rubricae moved into various positions with a natural grace that betrayed their automaton nature. Half wove themselves into two concentric rings around their master at the heart of the pulpit, shielding him in all directions. The remaining half fanned outward, seeking out fire points at the broken stained glass windows throughout the walls of the small forgotten church. All of them raised their enchanted bolters and scanned for any approaching enemy, and there they would stay until the fight truly began.

Nesumontu hoisted himself to his feet with the aid of his scepter. Closing his eyes he recoiled his mind into itself once more. But this was not the meditations of the Corvidae at work. No, the Thousand Son sorcerer was channeling the battle rites of war.

***

Even for a corrupt and decimated Chaos port of call, Telioch found this decrepit section of Aelial exceptionally downtrodden by comparison. No life, human or otherwise, could be detected within 300 meters of this area. The air was thick with a sickly fog that glowed like the nebulous Eye behind the planet. Echoes would chime and shadows would dance, but nothing lived in this sector of the tainted planet.

No wonder their target was held up here.

+I still do not believe that the information you acquired was worth the price we paid.+

“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear, Khalo. But there wasn’t much choice in the matter. We needed to know where the Prosperan was, and we got what we needed. The acidic tinge of warpfire billowing around that church only confirms it further.”

+But the cost of our last remaining Tachylean thralls was a hefty sum. We now find ourselves about to attempt an ambush on a fortified position with only half of our original firepower.+

He wasn’t necessarily wrong. A healthy contingent of Changemongers had joined the expedition, serving as soldiers and crew on the minimized frigate. As always, they had been quite convenient to have around, even if so overzealously devoted to the cause. Without them, now, Telioch was left with a mere seven Astartes of no particular note, and of questionable saliency. Lord Dhelmas naturally kept the strongest and most unbroken of minds within the Scourged for his own endeavours. Those passed out to underlings were always a bit more… damaged.

“I’d much rather take my chances without the mortals - whom would no doubt have died in the first volley anyway -  then return to the Psychopomps empty handed and have to deal with a disappointed Castor and his men again. I don’t feel like that conversation would go in our favor.”

+A valid concern.+

Entirely valid, yes. Castor and his Reapers were perhaps more weary of their arrangement than Talioch. The parley aboard The Falsified was a curt and tense affair. The Psychopomps were adorned with all manner of trophy, trinket and mutation devoted to the Goddess of Excess, a garish and contrasting sight heightened to threatening degrees by all manner of brandished weapons and aggressive stances. The rituals and rites the heathens insisted on performing at the deals conclusion were… unsettling, at best.

Everyone had come away from the meet unharmed, but Telioch was in no rush to share a clustered confines with those zealots again. The presence of such debauched devotees to another god was quite uncomfortable. Though, the wandering thoughts of the accompanying retinue had been most amusing to hear. Perhaps Castor would love to know what exactly his men were planning beneath his gaze. That information might come quite handsomely rewarded…

No. Another thought for another time. The depraved warriors of brilliant pinks and unnatural fleshtones were no doubt already in their positions, ready to storm the rear and upper levels of the tiny church in surprise. Only after, of course, Telioch and his meager cast of babbling Astartes drew the main fire and attention of the numerous Rubricae and their master. By the True Master, what a terrible plan for them.

Still, it made the most sense. It would get him killed, sure, but it made sense. Neither he nor Khalo detected any kind of psychic sensitivity among the Psychopomps, save for maybe a latent skill in their leader. Skilled in combat and ambush they were, yes, but they would be impotent playthings if caught in the grasps of a proper sorcerer. Besides, Khalo was eager to square off against a kindred spirit of ages long past. The turncoat Legionnaire was eager to test his might against a champion from another such illustrious lineage. Telioch was fine with that. Yes, by all means, Khalo could engage their victim while he stayed safely tucked away until a sure strike was imminent.

And so the hammer of tormented flesh would strike from the shadows and beat their enemy against the crystal anvil. Maybe it would work. Or maybe they would all die while the Thousand Son laughed at their pitiful strike. And since bolter rounds glowing with blue warpflame had begun to rapidly tear through the sky toward their meager line, it was time to find out.

***

While the citizenry of the Imperium of Man still bought and sold goods and services with currency - be it labelled Imperial Geld, Aquilas, Eagles, Talanton or countless other names and denominations - within the Eye such wealth was worth little. Barter, bodies and souls, these were the currencies with which the devotees of the Pantheon traded. In a way it was a return to a far older age, before man had discovered rare metals and ascribed worth to them.

Bodies and souls.

The price for the location of the Son of Prospero had been paid by the Scourged, for which Castor was thankful and he counted it as a lesson learned. He had brought the Indulgence, its mortal crew and two squads of his Reapers on the mission but had not thought to bring anything with which he might have bartered for information. He needed the crew in order to return to the chapter with their prize and was unwilling to sacrifice any of his men. Well, perhaps one, now...

He smiled as he remembered their toast upon The Falsified at the end of their parley - a Reaper tradition - and the repulsion their newfound allies had fought hard to hide before declining to partake as politely as they could. It had always been a tradition of the brotherhood he had forged that before the commencement of a mission each would sip the milk of Slaanesh from Idola’s breast. It renewed their bonds to each other and to the Dark Prince. The Scourge’s abhorrence as they had witnessed the supping Astartes had been a source of much mirth on their flight back to Indulgence.

But now for greater acts. The assault. The Scourged sorcerer Talioch had warned them that the Thousand Son would be even more difficult to ambush than his own Astartes had been, so the Reapers’ usual stealth approach was dismissed. Instead the Scourged would initiate the assault from the front and would hold them there, while the Psychopomps assaulted from the rear.

A hammer of tormented flesh (the Psychopomps had been delighted at that appellation) against an anvil of crystal, or similar florid language, Telioch had said. A test of martial skill against ones who had fought for the Imperium over ten thousand years earlier, and against it over those ten millennia since! Castor felt honoured to match himself and his men against these veterans of the Great Crusade. They had armed themselves accordingly. Plasma and melta. Good for the confines of the decrepit old fane the Thousand Sons hid within, and more importantly good for punching through power armour. Castor let out a slow breath, attempting to calm his racing hearts, but the thrill of combat had taken him. It beat a tattoo in his chest and in his mind. He could feel voices calling to him, the voices of the neverborn. They hungered for souls, but these were the denizens of the Dark Prince’s palace not the drudges of the Prince’s rival who called out simply for blood and skulls, no, Slaaneshi and his coterie demanded to be entertained before they dined upon the essence of taken lives.

He could feel it and in the gaze he shared with his brother Psychopomps he knew they could feel it too. Cesai’s taloned feet scratched at the debris-strewn street impatiently, Xyleus’ tongue flicked out again and again, tasting the pheromones and the stench of death-to-come upon the air. When they heard the sound of gunfire coming from the other side of the building the beast-faced Aury unleashed a deafening bray which echoed through the streets and the ruins, and they began their assault.

Charging across the narrow street the ten Psychopomps made their way toward the small derelict church, four moving to one side of a designated point, five to the other, with Meus and his meltagun up the middle. He knelt a safe distance from the wall as his brothers stacked either side, raised his meltagun and vapourised entry into the building, slagging the ferrocrete with ease only for him to be hit as he stood once more. The bolt shell, for the weapon’s report was as such, struck him in the middle of his plastron. Normally such a shot would have ricocheted off that thickest part of a marine’s armour yet this bolt burned its way through with great ease, detonating within his torso and ending his life, crumpling the Reaper to the ground.

Castor heard Meus’ scream as his soul was devoured.

There was no time for mourning. As the Stygian Guard they had never allowed themselves such an indulgence, and as the Psychopomps there was no satisfaction to be had in it. His body would be recovered come the mission’s end, for gene-seed was even more valuable and rare to renegades than it was to those who still swore fealty to the Golden Throne. With luck the progenoids in his neck would be recoverable.

Cesai did, however, dart out to grab the melta gun from his fallen comrade’s hand. That would come in handy immediately.

His fellow Reapers charged through the breach, the edges of which were still glowing and running like wax.

Within the church the sound of gunfire was even more intense. But for the filters of a power armoured helmet it would have been deafening, and it was that clamour which only saw to further stimulate the Psychopomps, most of whom had adjusted their audio dampeners to allow just enough of a skull-shaking racket through. Unable to fit his bestial head into a helm, Aury’s eardrums were immediately ruptured and he was bathed in an audio sea of silence. This sense stolen from him, it was as if all others were enhanced, perhaps a gift of their patron, and he threw himself aside as the first of the azure-clad astartes hove into view. Holes in the church’s ceiling far above allowed columns of light to pierce the dusty darkness within, illuminating the baroque armour of the Thousand Son. Gold trimmed the blue armour and a great headdress rose up from the crown of its helm, beneath which eye lenses glowed a baleful green.

“Target!” he shouted, narrowly avoiding the spray of bolts from the Rubric's weapon. They did not know how many Thousand Sons there were, only – thanks to the Scourged – that there was one sorcerer: Telioch’s quarry, and `a number of Rubricae`. The Psychopomps, on orders of master Sophusar himself, needed one of the latter. Alive, if alive was the best description for them. What they had learned, with great difficulty, suggested that the non-sorcerer Thousand Sons did not live quite as most astartes did. They also knew that these `rubrics` were slow, painfully slow compared to one blessed by the Lord of Excess, and Galuste darted forth intending to tackle it to the ground only to have his legs shot from under him by another pair of Sons deeper in the church.

At least that meant they didn’t have to take this nearest one down carefully.

“Kill it!” screamed Castor and a couple of blasts from Idola and Xeolus’ plasma guns threw the rubric marine backwards, smoldering holes in its chest.

The Reapers swiftly made their way into the church, entering into rear offices. Perhaps once the study and quarters of whatever priest had led the faithful in this region of Aelial before its corruption. They knocked over furniture to use as cover, only for the inferno bolts of the enemy to blast straight through, taking one of Cesai’s unarmoured feet off at the ankle. He let out a scream of agony, collapsing behind a stone pillar. Putting a couple of blasts through the doorway into the chancel and main chamber of the church, hoping the rubrics still possessed a duck reflex, Xyleus knelt by his comrade to examine the wound. Ichor mixed with Astarte blood poured from the truncate limb.

“You’ll live,” he said, licking the semi-daemonic cruor which smeared his hand, eliciting a maddened titter from Cesai.

With a crack of masonry Idola and Arosa toppled the statue of an Imperial saint, its face already heavily disfigured, and the Reapers took cover behind it.

They could hear gunfire from within the chancel: the Scourged pushing from the other direction. The Psychopomps now needed to keep up the pressure and squeeze the Sons between the two warbands.

 

 

 

And the rest.

 

Part III: Heat of the Forge

Hidden Content

The unmistakable sound of a melta gun slagging through a thick wall had been a melody of sweet relief to the ailing assault of the Scourged. The detonation of concentrated heat was the signal that the flanking force of the Psychopomps had finally arrived. Their abrupt arrival was a pleasant disruption to the enemy’s rank within the abandoned ruins of the church. Had the dust-filled automatons been capable of surprise like their flesh-and-blood master they would have responded to the breach with appropriate shock. Instead, half merely turned with slow precision and redirected their defense, but that was enough.

 

Though the arrival was fortuitously punctual and in-keeping with the plans of the assault, it had not come soon enough to protect Siskamel’s squad. He, nor his men, had not anticipated the destruction that the Thousand Sons could deliver in such short work. Their bolters and ammunition burned with the incandescent fury of soul fire and tore through their armor in ways no traditional rounds could. That the two Lords had not warned them of such infused munitions did not make sense to Siskamel. They must not have known.

 

The bright blue bolts had illuminated the dim streets and alleyways around the church as Siskamel’s squad charged through the fusilade to the decrepit wooden doors. He and the six other marines with him ducked as they ran and bounced between piles of rubble and stone, dodging the incoming fire from the limited fire points of the church. His squad scrambled and hurried while the two Warp-wielders behind them simply strode at a comfortable gate, the fire-infused rounds of their enemy harmlessly deflected away by sorcerous auras generated with their psychic might. As always, envy of their skills tore a pit in Siskamel’s gut.

 

The breaching had been left to Thiemes’ul, though Siskamel needed to scream the orders at the dazed marine three times before he acknowledged. Thiemes’ul had fallen into one of his stupors at the most inopportune times: rolling his head from side to side as his left hand twitched to write his endless stream of consciousness in the air to no one. If he was muttering the voices in his head again the sound was deadened by the aggressive bolter fire all around them. A crack of a bolt pistol’s handle was enough to finally clear the head of the confused simpleton, earning laughter from the more stable Astartes in the group.

 

Thiemes’ul’s bulk had been exactly what was needed to break through the doors and garner the Scourged and entrance, but it cost him his life in the process. A bolter round of impossible flame collided with the thick armor on his chest and tore through it as though the ceramite was simple parchment. The explosion of the round was instantly fatal, but the blue flames burning away his flesh in rapid time assured that the death was complete.

 

Three minutes passed before another casualty of the Scourged. Neres was the second of Siskamel’s squad to fall, though it thankfully came after the destruction of two of the blue and gold automatons. An ill-timed dive from one battered heap of rubble to another resulted in a sorcerer's beam striking his power pack. The small explosion rocked the room and Siskamel’s squad was down yet another warrior. Telioch and Khalo had long since slipped away from their suffering ranks, weaving through cover to reach their prize at the heart of the decrepit shrine to beliefs long dead. Siskamel did not mind, however - they were doing what was needed.

 

That was when the violent thrum of melta echoed in the chamber. Finally, it was time to press the assault. With the Thousand Sons pinned beneath their forces it would be only a matter of time before victory was theirs. The superior numbers of the much-older force mattered little when so out-maneuvered. Siskamel rallied his squad over the vox to charge.

 

“Now! Their numbers are effectively halved thanks to the Psychopomps. Cut the distance and make them fight on our terms. Those inferno rounds would be worth a damn if we cut them apart with hands and blade. Time to show them who are the honored servants of the True Master!”

 

The five Astartes of sapphire and garnet quickly rose from their cover and charged into the shrinking lines of their enemy, bounding over fallen columns and broken seats, crunching remnants of painted windows beneath heavy footfalls. Siskamel powered forward with Bhusomias at his side, the much slower Rubricae thankfully unable to turn and fire into their charge. The remaining three of his squad were running toward another cluster of automatons, but only two made it: Ylskar was thrown clear across the room as a beam of blue-white Warp energy shot straight through him.

 

“Thrilling speech, Siska. I do sure hope Lord Telioch heard you.”

 

“Close the line and fight, Bhusomias. This isn’t the time to bait me.”

 

That man could not stand Siskamel’s reverence for the sorcerous elite of the Scourged. But how could one not? These were the Astartes so skilled and honored by the True Master that they suffered not the ill state of the Gift. No, instead they were empowered by it, able to bend the nature of reality around them with magicks from the Warp. Siskamel would kill to have abilities like that, so of course he paid the Lords their due reverence.

 

Not that Siskamel was without abilities. He must possess a natural leadership, otherwise Lord Dhelmas would not see fit to grant him command of the squad, or impart him upon this quest. The difficult and unpredictable nature of this squad was just a further showing of his profound ability to lead, yes? Who else could lead these ramshackle men but Siskamel? He was no slouch with a blade, either. The stream of dust pouring out of the Rubricae before him was evidence of that.

 

“You’re pathetic, Siska, you know that? You can try and earn the good graces of the Lords all you want, but it won’t matter. It’s not like they can simply give you power. You either have it or you don’t, Siska, and you are very lacking.”

 

“I said close this line and fight, before you end up a corpse like Ylskar.”

 

“Hah! End up dead? From what? This joke of an Astartes,” Bhusomias pointlessly inquired of his leader, punctuating his rhetorical question by raking his chain blade through the wrists of the Rubricae, “can’t even touch me, and nor can the rest. If anything you’ll be the one to fall and that little power sword of yours will be mine, as will the squad.”

 

“I said that’s enough-”

 

His endless prattling had become quite annoying lately, and was getting worse. Bhusomias’s jokes about mutiny were hardly new, but they were becoming more and more frequent. The isolation of Siskamel’s squad on this quest only made the situation worse. The squad leader was so close to finally losing his patience lately, and Bhusomias could no doubt sense that, doubling-down on his irreverent comments and insults.

 

“And who knows? Maybe after that I’ll cut down Telioch and Khalo on the trip back to Deception’s Call and show the Warp-wielders that they’re not as powerful as-”

 

Something snapped. Everything went white. The Thousand Sons were gone. The church was gone. The rest of Siskamel’s squad was gone. Aelial was gone. Reality was gone. All was white, save for Siskamel and Bhusomias, with the latter of the two unarmed and naked in this new plane. Siskamel, meanwhile was still brandishing his power sword, and both were burning with an angry energy.

 

“Wait, what? Siska? What happened?”

 

“Do not speak of the Lords with such disrespect, fool!”

 

Siskamel pulled his arm back then thrust it and the blade it carried forward with tremendous ferocity, piercing the nude form of Bhusomias clean through the neck. Whatever this plane was, it granted Siskamel a strength he never before had. Emboldened with a fury as white with heat as the existence around him, the squad leader concentrated on the obliteration of the loudmouth Astartes dangling on his sword. The skin on the naked marine grew pale and shriveled, collapsing in upon itself. The scream of a dying soul filled the void as the body of Bhusomias collapsed inward and flowed into the blade.

 

The white was gone. Siskamel was in the church on Aelial once again. And Bhusomias was dangling upon his power sword at the neck, limp with lifelessness. The squad leader flicked aside the corpse and quickly returned his attentions to the battle with the remnants of the XV Legion. The soul of the braggart was within Siskamel now, channeled into him via his blade. It gave him strength. It gave him knowledge. But most of all, it gave him power.

 

As the tide of the battle shifted to its inevitable conclusion, Siskamel powered through one Rubricae after the next, testing the limits of his new and growing psychic abilities. Something dormant had awoken inside of him. It was a foreign and fleeting feeling at first, but soon Siskamel realized that consuming Bhusomias’s soul had granted him sorcerous powers. Perhaps he had been finally blessed by the Gift, and was not so different from the Lords after all. Perhaps he may even become one of them after this day.

 

***

 

“Meus: dead. Cesai’s missing a foot.”

 

“Galuste will live but he’ll need carrying.”

 

“Aury’s deaf.”

 

“WHAT?! I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

 

“Leave Galuste and Aury here. Rearguard.” Castor gestured his orders to the Slaangor-faced reaper and quickly checked his forces. Trustworthy Xeolus and Idola were there, firing through the doorway into the church. Then there was the bastard Xyleus and his adulator Arosa waiting ready to charge. Not great.

 

“Cesai, drag your sorry self along if need be but I need you with us.”

 

He got a nod and Cesai hobbled over in a crouch, lowering himself to lie behind the toppled statue, and extended his arm under it, triggering a blast from his plasma gun. Sandwiched between the flagstones and the statue the heat released from the weapon’s vanes was terrible, scorching the stonework, but the blast blew out the leg of one of the rubrics. A follow up shot from Xyleus took its head off.

 

Castor swore.

 

“Nice shooting but try to take one alive! I don’t want to go back empty handed!”

 

With Cesai covering them Castor triggered a blast of his heavy flamer, engulfing the doorway before the five mobile reapers charged into the chancel to find several of the Thousand Sons waiting for them, glowing bolts from their enchanted bolters forcing the Psychopomps to seek cover almost as soon as they entered the larger chamber, and another number of the Rubricae were facing the other way, firing on the Scourged’s own squad.

 

Xeolus popped up long enough to send a plasma blast in the back of one of the rubrics firing on their allies of the day.

 

“Making friends?” Xyleus sneered, slamming his back into the column Xeolus too sheltered behind and almost pushing the other out into the line of fire.

 

“A kill’s a kill. The more of them dead, the better.”

 

“Oh, and what about when all this is over? You’d rather the Scourged were still battle-worthy?” he drew his long tongue over his fangs and raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t.”

 

Neither had chance to continue the discussion as Idola waved them down as he raised the melta gun he had taken from Meus’ corpse, burning a shot straight through the column and into the rubric advancing behind it. His shot slagged its right shoulder and as they heard its bolter clatter to the ground Castor charged out, the others stepping out of cover to provide overwatch.

 

Hurdling pews and fallen masonry the former second captain got a good grip on his power axe. He found the rubric had been staggered and toppled against pews by the melta blast, its right arm motionless on the ground. It bent down to retrieve its weapon and he had to stop himself from buying the blade of his axe in the back of its ornate helmet. The neverborn screamed to him, thirsting for its soul. How easily he could have taken its head! But between the Psychopomps and the Scourged there were now few rubrics remaining. He knew his allies’ sorcerers were now engaged with their Thousand Son peer – the howling screams from beyond the veil and the blasts of impossible colours were proof of that - but he blocked this from his mind. That was not his mission.

 

He kicked the bolter and the still attached arm away, sending it spinning and skidding away under benches, raising the knee of his kicking leg into the Rubric’s ceramite mask, knocking it upright and a couple of paces backwards.

 

He swore he could feel the guns of his comrades on his back, ready to take the shot at the rubric as soon as he cleared the line, but he did not. He would not.

 

He spun his axe, loosening his wrist, as the rubric raised its one good arm. Evidently he still knew how to fight.

 

He was going to have to take it apart one limb at a time.

 

***

 

Telioch and Khalo narrowly avoided the eldritch bolt fired by the Thousand Son, which did manage to pierce through one of the charging Scourged behind them. It was too close for comfort, however. The speed with which this sorcerer could react and cast was phenomenal. The Scion of Prospero seemed to predict their movements and actions, as befitting of a diviner's skill. They were dead men, for sure. Better to let Khalo face off against him first, as he wanted. No sense both of them dying right away.

 

+Such a small universe this is. I do believe I know our legionnaire friend. Nesumontu is his name, should I be correct. We met with the Ark Reach Cluster so many eons ago. It was a brief meeting, but mutual impressions were made. I will relish this reunion of sorts.+

 

“Well that’s fantastic, Khalo. I’m happy for you. Really. Now, can we get on with it before he tears us apart?!”

 

+You overestimate his skills, Telioch. Though he is touched by the True Master and the Cyclops, he has grown weak. I feel it. His powers have been waning. We have been made to believe he is an equal or more to Lord Dhelmas himself, but this weakling possesses all the challenge of a buzzing gnat. We are not in as much danger as you fear.+

 

How could he possibly know that? All Telioch could sense was a fathomless pit of power and knowledge pulling like a black hole from where the sorcerer stood. Beneath that ceremonial helm and the pale robes was an occultist of such ancient strength that he had never seen. But, he supposed, the same could be said about Khalo.

 

“Fine then. He’s all yours, as we discussed. I’ll make sure I’m ready to-”

 

+There will be no need, Lord Telioch. There will be no need…+

 

Khalo’s last words coursed through Telioch’s mind with a resolute will. From the safety of a shattered stone column he watched the turncoat Word Bearer walk into the heart of the battle’s maelstrom. The confident sorcerer tore away his horned helm and cast it upon the battered floor of the church. Laying his eyes upon his comrade without a helmet for the first time, Telioch suddenly knew many things: he knew why Khalo did not fear their prey, he knew why he felt so comfortable summoning their daemonic hosts, and he knew why the man never spoke with physical words.

 

The face of the Word Bearer, no longer confined in its ceramite prison, literally unfolded and expanded for all to see. The lower jaw grew longer and longer, stretching into a terrifying maw that opened down to the bottom of his fused rib cage. A sickly trio of blue tongue flicked around like sentient eels while the hooked beak of his top jaw grew. Endless rows of needle teeth sprang out at all angles from the pulsating gumline. Where a gaping throat should be was just a series of more mouths, each like the giant one in which they resided. A single horn spiraled out and up from his left temple, while the right side was littered with hooks and claws and all manner of boney protrusions. Then there were the eyes - so many of them - all across the few untainted patches of skin that remained. The head of the beast that is Khalo was all eyes, horns, and mouth. And then it spoke.

 

Nesumontu - do you remember me? We met upon Shrike, so many years before. I am Khalo Kh’dal of the XVII. My, how the times have altered our legions, no? Yours feared the changes and fell to dust, while mine embraced them and welcomed the Warp into our lives.

 

The voice of Khalo was clear as day, though his unnatural mouth did not articulate the sounds. Nor was it spoken via telepathic link to which Telioch had become so accustomed. No, the voice of Khalo existed in the room via some daemonic force. It was the air they breathed which burned their lungs. It was the echoes of the chamber rendered silent. It was the screaming winds of the Warp running invisible through realspace. It was everywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing. No one heard the voice of Khalo, but everyone felt it.

 

“Khalo. Yes, quite a long time it’s been. The events of Shrike have long been burned into my memories. You’re looking… so much like the rest of your brothers. Yet your armor does not. Had a change of allegiance, did we? Felt pity for the weakness of renegades, and thus wanted to show them the true strength of an Astartes? Or did Lorgar cast you out for showing preferences among the Pantheon?”

 

Clever jests, friend. No, I merely found one source among the Undivided that would yield true power. To use the parlance of my benefactors: The Gift that the True Master bestows upon us has granted me a power I could never find otherwise. To know all of humanity’s lies… so intoxicating. If you could but shed your pointless prejudice against the greenhorn you, too, could know such power.

 

“Many among your new warband feel otherwise, from what I hear. The rumors say many, like your companion, aren’t so keen on your Gift. But I’m glad you’ve found a home for yourself, Khalo. We now serve the same master since our time beneath the Aquila. Sounds as if you and I should be allies once again, and yet you hunt me.”

 

True. My new warband desires your services, willingly or not, and it is to them that I am now most allegiant. Lord Dhelmas wishes your company upon his battle barge. And who better to be the emissary of his invitation than an old friend. Will you come with me, brother Nesumontu? There is little point in resisting.

 

“Were time in this universe in infinite supply, I would still lack the desire to spare a single living moment entertaining the whims of inconsequential renegades that know nothing of the Long War. Why you choose to sully yourself by associating with souls so unworthy to look upon veterans of the Great Crusade is beyond me.”

 

All of this exchange happened as the two ancient sorcerers dueled upon the pulpit. At times it was a physical fight, their staves slicing and thrusting at one another, the blows parried and dodged at all turns. They danced around each other, ignoring the fallen terrain and bodies of the ambush. Each time one would gain an advantage of footing the other would strike at a weakness and shift the flow. Their martial prowess was evenly matched.

 

It was also a aetherial fight, with warpfire and arcing energies thrust at one another at every turn. The flames would dissipate on unholy auras and the bolts would miss their marks, cutting through the already battered remnants of the church. The atmosphere of the room was charged with such unnatural energies thanks to the constant barrage of sorcery between the two men. Should the fight continue it would cause a permanent rift in realspace, thanks to Aeliel’s proximity to the Eye.

 

It was an endless stalemate between their respective powers. As Khalo had said, they were evenly matched. Among their warbands, each would be classified as mid-tier with their knowledge and power of all things arcane. But here, in this church, on this planet, they were the two strongest psykers any could find. Truly, if they were left to themselves the fight would grow eternal, their endless blows constantly punctuated with their verbal jabs.

 

And that is why Telioch concentrated on the largest piece of fallen column in the room and forced it to fly like a battering ram into the Thousand Son. The mass of marble pounded into the back of the sorcerer’s neck and propelled him across the small room, slamming him into the wall. As insurance that their prey was unconscious he repeated the blow before telepathically tossing aside the rubble. Telioch, quite sure Khalo would object to the interruption, spoke first.

 

“You were taking too long. We needed him alive, after all, and if that kept going you two were going to kill each other, and all of us with you.”

 

Khalo wanted to object. The fight was well under his control long before his opponent was unceremoniously knocked aside. But Telioch did make a good point. They were here to do a job, not to indulge in reunions of times long since faded away. It had been fun, and Khalo lost himself in that amusement. He began the painful ritual of pulling his possessed flesh into itself once more that his helmet would fit upon his head, sealing him away from the world once more.

 

+You could have at least warned me first.+

 

Telioch, binding Nesumontu in rune-warded iron shackles, simply shrugged.

 

***

 

Castor crouched over the Rubric. It had been no match for him but even now, missing both arms and its legs hacked until they were too mangled to hold its weight and had buckled beneath it, he could almost feel its desire to continue, to stubbornly keep fighting no matter what.

 

His first thought was to admire its strength of will, but in truth was it not just an echo of the marine who had once lived within that armour? The Psychopomps had once, as the Stygian Guard, held duty over all else. They had fettered themselves to duty.

 

Aye, he realized now that he despised it. The Rubric was a relic. A relic of an old age, when man had sought to conquer the galaxy in his name. And then it had been turned, it had learned the truth of the galaxy, the power of chaos, and had become naught but a pawn for a greater will: the sorcerer. In ten thousand years it had accomplished nothing beyond blind obedience. It had learned nothing, likely it was incapable. To worship Slaanesh was to strive to exceed oneself. Again the urge to slay it, to obliterate this pathetic wretch, this scrap of a marine, rose up within but with his will he suppressed it and began to rise. The sounds of the sorcerous battle still came deafeningly from the far end of the church and he would lead the Psychopomps in lending what aid they could.

 

His helm struck the muzzle of a weapon as he rose.

 

“Xyleus,” he spat, “You bas-“

 

“Not me, ssir,” Xyleus’ voice came from a further back.

 

“I’ll take over now,” came the voice of the gunman.

 

“Never knew you had it in you, Xeolus,” Castor admitted over the gunfire from the Scourged’s still-continuing firefight at one end and the psychic battle at the other. Stray bolts of who-knew-what struck the stonework overhead sending sparks of stone and ectoplasma cascading about.

 

“The Rubric. The Reapers. The glory,” Xeolus voice shook with excitement.

 

“Xeolus,” Xyleus spoke in a warning tone, his weapon aimed in both Castor and his would-be usurper’s direction, “Whatever you’re doing, we need to be leaving. Now.”

 

Like him, the others were eyeing the dueling sorcerers warily, keeping to cover as psychokinetic blasts and bolts of power were deflected by mental shields.

 

“Allow me a moment of satisfaction!” spat Xeolus. “Long have I served willingly at your side, `captain`. Long enough to get this close. Allow me to savou-AAAIIIIEEEEEE!”

 

Castor did not see what it was that struck his former lieutenant, something from the miasma of light, sound and soul-shaking power that was erupting from the duel upon the altar. When he did turn, keeping his own head low, he found Xeolus’s body in flux. The power of the Changer of Ways had been unleashed, unplanned, upon the traitor. Faces pushed out of the ceramite of his armour, screaming out all the schemes he had planned. All his ambitions and bitter grudges poured from the faces that ran like wax as Tzeentch’s power played idly with his existence before, in scant seconds, growing tired and extinguishing him.

 

Castor played his heavy flamer across the twisted thing until it popped and ran and skill peeled from bones.

 

By the time black smoke rose from Xeolus’ corpse the clamour of gunfire had died out and a measure of silence settled over the broken church. Curses and the clatter of weapons being rearmed, but the roar of weapons discharge and the souls-tearing sounds of sorcery being unleashed, the very fabric of reality torn at will, were no more.

 

Xyleus stepped out from cover and looked about nervously, his weapon up but no longer pointed toward his captain. “Now are we leaving?”

 

Castor pointed his claw toward the maimed rubric, a material like sand leaking from its truncated limbs. “Pick this up. I’m not done yet.”

 

And he turned to stride up the aisle.

 

 

Part IV: The Spoils

Hidden Content

“Ylskar, Thiemes’ul, and Neres were lost in the assault; the Rubricae were formidable.”

 

The squad leader and the two surviving Scourged stood as a small and formal triangle before the Lords, reporting in. It was a wholly unnecessary gesture, as Telioch and Khalo could clearly see the aftermath of the horrendous skirmish within the church. All parties involved suffered a large amount of injuries and casualties, though the dismantling of a Rubricae may not truly be considered either. Still, both the Scourged and Psychopomps got what they came for.

 

“I see that, Siskamel. And what of the loudmouth, Bhusomias?”

 

“He… ah, he…”

 

+Don’t bother, aspirant. We already know. His death by your blade revealed your latent potential. We tend to take notice when the Gift gives birth to another Warp-wielding mind.+

 

In truth the awakening of Siskamel had barely been a ripple in the Immaterium tides that flowed unseen through this plane. Though his power could grow with time, it wouldn’t be by much. Still, a sorcerer now he was, and leadership of this motley, disheveled crew was no longer befitting of his new rank.

 

“Upon our return to Deception’s Call you’ll begin your training with me and the few other aspirants we have. For now, take, uh…”

 

“Chemla’ul and Syka.”

 

“Yeah, those two. You three haul that back to The Falsified and keep him under strict watch. Now would be a fantastic time to practice your warding spells, Siskamel. Dismissed.”

 

The three haphazardly turned and did as instructed, dragging Nesumontu by the arms and out of the church. Eventually they would inter the sorcerer in his temporary new home aboard their frigate for the return trip to the warband proper. The warded iron shackles would keep him frustratingly dormant for the trip, Telioch wagered. Or, at least they’d better. Once the crew and quarry were long out of range, Khalo and Telioch addressed each other privately.

 

+You were uncharacteristically kind to him. Might you finally be acquiescing toward the benefits of our warband, Telioch?+

 

“No. I can’t stand that sycophantic apple-polisher. His ascension will only make matters worse, as now he’ll feel himself an equal among us. No, we have a guest approaching, and I mean to keep up appearances.”

 

Sure enough, Castor was walking down the aisle to meet with the two ranking sorcerers of the Scourged. Behind him his men were performing similar duties to their own of collecting their prize and making away with it. Against the odds they managed to snag themselves a Rubric, and a “live” one at that. Though, what they planned to do with it without anyone having a clue how to utilize it was beyond their understanding. No matter - the alliance was done, and both parties reaped the benefits.

 

“Well… seems we both have what we came for.”

 

The Psychopomps captain watched as the three Scourged warriors dragged the Thousand Sons sorcerer away in irons. A part of him could not help but think of ways their prize could have been better bound; joints kept at the very point of dislocation, ligaments and tendons taught agonizingly. He shook off the thought as he was addressed. He nodded and looked about at the destruction.

 

“Indeed.”

 

He did not speak much nor met either’s eyes, and had no wish to do so. He knew sorcerers could bewitch one with their words and their gaze. These two had succeeded in capturing one of the Thousand Sons of the primarch Magnus himself. He now wanted to be away.

 

“I think our business here is concluded. Your assistance here is adequate reimbursement for the… incident earlier. I’ll consider this grounds for no bad blood between our warbands, unless our leaders determine otherwise between themselves.”

 

“There are no grudges on our part.”

 

He did not inquire about the Scourged’s losses, for in truth he did not care now that the mission was over. While they fought alongside one another he needed as many of them alive as possible. Now that it was over...well, the Eye was the Eye and who knew when the two warbands might end up facing one another as foes rather than allies?

 

+Oh, and Castor, do know that the True Master watches over you. It was by no accident that the errant bolts from my engagement with Nesumontu rendered the mutiny of your man ended before it began.+

 

Castor was halfway through his about-turn, and stopped, unable to resist looking with surprise to the one named Khalo. What insight did the sorcerer have to offer him?

 

Telioch, however, was less amused by the statement. Why, Khalo? Why would you bother telling him that? Khalo always insisted on fostering the psychic development of mortal and Astartes alike. Often such things were harmless, but this was hardly a random crewman of the Scourged or Changemongers. There was no reason Castor needed to know about his latent psychic abilities. It didn’t help them in any way, and could only make the opposing lord overconfident and seek to change the terms of their arrangement. Telioch did his best to mask his frustration and further explained to the Warp-touched warrior.

 

“We mean to say that your devotion to the Pleasure Prince seems to have granted you a boon. There’s a shadow in your mind, Castor. It’s still young, still not quite ready to make itself known, but it’s there. Your personality has split, and as this twin mind grows it gains more and more identity. How odd that he is a psyker yet you are not. Though he isn’t much yet, he has enough wherewithal to name himself: Pollux.”

 

The voice he had imagined he heard. The aura he had almost seen about the Rubric. His lucky escape from Fulcrum years ago. And Xeolus’ death just now. He could not help but look about, turning as he did, and he heard his own voice whisper a single word, "Brother", before laughing as if amused that their existence had been revealed. But he saw nothing.

 

“Perhaps when next we meet it will be he who commands that body of yours, captain Castor."

 

Castor knew of possessed. The Psychopomps had blessed captive Astartes of loyalist chapters Q’tlahs’itsu’aksho and other daemons inhabiting their flesh. But this, was this different? Was this Pollux a daemon? Or had his psyche truly fractured? And did his twin really mean him harm, had it not protected and guided him? Or was that just to preserve the vessel it intended to conquer? A part of him thought to seek the counsel of masters Angra and Holusiax, if not the ear of lord Sophusar himself...while another part of him wondered if he were not safer keeping the secret to himself.

 

“Very well. If you have nothing more to add, then neither do we. This experience has been… tiring, but fruitful. May the Gods see fit to never have our paths cross again.”

 

And with those parting words, the three ranking Astartes turned and left, moving to join their respective warbands and disembark to their leaders. The price may have been high, but each came away with their long-sought prize: A Rubric marine for the Psychopomps, and a sorcerer for the Scourged. With nothing more to discuss all that remained was to return to their ships and depart in opposite directions. Though none present on Aelial or in orbit had any desire to join forces with the other once more, Telioch felt a familiar dread that such a day would come once again when it was least convenient.

 

***

 

As soon as Indulgence returned to the Psychopomp fleet, Castor had his men transfer their prize to the flagship, Charon, and the awaiting lord Sophusar. Aboard the vessel he mused over the mission and their allies in it. Telioch, Telio, Talio – a retribution or punishment whereby an evil is returned perfectly like that committed against us by another. No doubt the Scourged had been aware of the etymology of his name. They all had their daemons to bear.

 

The maimed Rubric was soon bound in barbed chains of iron, each individual link etched with wards of spite and pain, upon a catafalque of green-veined marble within the librarius’ quarters. The serpent-bodied Holusiax looked over the baroque azure armoured warrior while his sorcerers formed a circle about them. The Keeper of Secrets, Ki’ma’gureh stood in the shadows at the chamber’s wall, silent but for the occasional tinkle of its jewelry and the sound of its breathing from the flared nostrils of its bovine face. Castor stood opposite Holusiax, at the Rubric’s right side. He had earned the right to witness this act and learn why he had been tasked with the Thousand Son’s capture. Castor could not help but wonder if Holusiax could perceive the split in his psyche. His twin, Pollux.

 

And at the head of their captive stood lord Sophusar in his ornate terminator armour, brass pipes and daemonic faces rearing up overhead. Three Slaangor bore the great Falx Horrificus, his massive weapon adorned with the faces of Eldar gods hewn from statues along with other more grisly trophies. The lower half of the Chaos lord’s face was covered by a mask, his mouth by a brass grill. He carefully removed the mask, undoing the buckles and pulling it loose to reveal the hideous scars dealt him by the Avatar of Carth-Lar years before on the maiden world of Viarphia.

 

Holusiax spoke first: “I have divined that this was once battle brother Alim, master. Of the sixth fellowship of the fifteenth legion.”

 

“Alim? Let us hope this `wise man` will grant us a measure of his knowledge,” Sophusar replied, his voice smooth despite his disfigurement.

 

“The Infernal Engine, my lord?” Castor inquired. This device was one the Psychopomps had created from the Pain Glove of her parent chapter, which allowed another to pierce the conscience of a captive undergoing torment.

 

“Brother Alim here would likely feel nought,” Sophusar replied. “Sadly, I shall have to take his very essence in order to get the answer I seek.”

 

With that he put his great gauntleted hands on the sides of the Thousand Son’s helm and began to pull as if to remove it. The Rubric marine did not initially resist but as the master of the Psychopomps increased his strength the captive began to thrash.

 

“Soon this false existence will be at an end, brother Alim. I commit your soul to the Great Sea...and to your master, the Architect of Fate.”

 

This sacrifice to Tzeentch was unheard of within the chapter, but it had been Ki’ma’gureh’s own instruction to the lord that the answer he sought could only be attained thus.

There was a sound like ancient, corroded seals being drawn open and a howl of air which almost seemed a scream as the helmet began to separate from the Rubric’s neck armour. With a final flash of baleful green from its eye lenses the helmet came loose and the scream died without an echo.

 

Particles akin to sand began to pour from the truncated neck of the torso for no meat body resided within, and likewise the helm itself was filled with a similar dust.

 

Sophusar bowed his head in reverence before raising the upturned helm, as a chalice, under his nose. With a great intake of breath he inhaled much of the dust and his eyes rolled back in their orbits.

 

The Keeper of Secrets’ jewelry jingled as it looked on with glee.

 

Lord Sophusar staggered a couple of steps backwards and the Thousand Sons helm topped from his suddenly limp hands, shattering like a cheap ceramic upon the ground as if having aged eons since its removal. He gurgled as his mind was wracked with visions and light poured from his eyes, illuminating his clamped-shut eyelids from within.

 

“What...what do you ask of me?” he whispered hoarsely. “What is the price I must pay?” His words from the fall of Carth-Lar came back to his lips once more. “I presented the Dark Prince with no less than a world of souls!”

 

“But not all,” Ki’ma’gureh spoke in a voice almost teasingly, to itself.

 

The light died in Sophusar’s eyes and he began to breath once more, opening his eyes after several seconds. He looked from Holusiax to Castor before revealing his epiphany.

 

***

 

Nesumontu could not move within his prison. Nor could he see. What he could sense was the slow dripping sounds of thick liquid within his small chamber and a subtle inertial force upon his body. He was on a ship, and it was moving.

 

Then he remembered: the ambush, Khalo the Word Bearer no more, the duel, and then… pain. The other mongrel sorcerer must have struck him from behind while unawares. Truly, if such a spitlick pysker of a know-nothing warband could achieve such a gambit Nesumontu’s abilities must be slipping.

 

Again and again he tested his limbs, but the did not move. In truth, he could not feel them. He still possessed the arms and legs, but they were frozen with a deadening numbness he could not immediately discern. Oh, nevermind - stasis fields. Of course. They had bound him with isolated stasis fields to render him immobile. Clever. Assuming these Scourged weren’t total amateurs that would also mean the cold, harsh weight around his neck was an iron band of warding runes, keeping his powers in submission.

 

Well done.

 

Nesumontu did not have long to reflect on his confines, however. It did not take long before his consciousness returned that the squealing of horrific mechanics signaled the opening of the door to his cell. The brilliance of the hall outside flooded around the opening door and promptly illuminated his chamber, his enhanced eyes quickly adjusting. Who had come for him so quickly?

 

“We tried to tell you that our invitation was a friendly one. You could have just accepted and this would all be far more comfortable.”

 

“I’m not amused, renegade. Kill me or set me free. I’ll give you nothing that you seek.”

 

The figure stepping into his cell was the second sorcerer from Aelial, the one accompanying Khalo. The language of his body and posture bore no ill-will to the Thousand Son, but that did not mean Nesumontu would oblige his demands or questions without resistance.

 

“Listen… I don’t know why Lord Dhelmas wants you. He would not say, only informing me that this was of a great importance for days yet to occur. Vague, I know, but when are men of our ilk not? Still, Lord Dhelmas wishes to share in your knowledge… but then again, so do I.”

 

“So that is why you’ve come here? Because you must know I will not speak another word until I am assured I will have my freedom. Grant me safe passage away from you, this vessel, and your Lord, and I will answer your questions. Will you do that, Scourged one? Will you betray your warlord and satiate your own selfish curiosity?”

 

The figure in the doorway spoke no reply or gave any indication that he was considering the once-and-final offer of Nesumontu. He stood, motionless, for many minutes, concealed by the haloing light filtering around his armored figure. Finally, with three steps he crossed the threshold and slowly closed the door behind him. The suffocating black of a lightless room again forced Nesumontu’s eyes to rapidly adjust. All that could be seen how was a pair of green glowing lenses staring him down, but the Thousand Son knew he could hear a smile on the other sorcerer’s voice.

 

“Tell me everything you know about the Crystal Labyrinth and Impossible Fortress.”

[Kierdale]

I too had much fun collaborating with Scourged on 'Crystal and Flesh' :tu: Many thanks again.

 

I hope we'll see more collaborations in IF in the future :)