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

[BitsHammer]

A little story about a Guard regiment dishonored:

 

 

Quietus

Seven months. It'd taken seven months for the men of the Regereth Fighting Fifth to take the hive. Over six hundred kilometers in diameter of habs, markets and the processing factories for ceramite plating for tanks and other armoured vehicles. Initial assessments had put the city under their control inside of a month as the weight of the full regiment fell on the city. The estimates were wrong.

It wasn't for underestimating the topography, nor the ability or armament of the enemy, but for something far fouler. It's taint seemed to seep into everything causing numerous outbreaks of disease amongst the men. Over a thousand had died in the first wave from the infections alone as the heretics held them off. One company had disappeared completely without a word into a pale yellow fog that had seeped from the factory vents. Not a single shot or vox transmission was heard from them and they were written off as dead. Since that wave two changes occurred. The first was that every man was to wear full protective equipment at all times, forcing them to drink their protein slurry meals through their water tubes while inside the city, the second was that officers were to accompany the men to watch them more closely to ensure that the taint does not affect them.

So for seven months Captain Jeseph Grimms lead his company through the city. The heretics weren't the only obstacle though, and the losses were steep everywhere. First there was the buzzing that overpowered even vox traffic and often caused men to start bleeding from the ears. Several companies independently identified the source from the city's vox system and forcibly, and in one case explosively, disabled the speakers in their area. Likewise transmitters and speakers were disabled as soon as they were identified, slowing the pace to a crawl as blindly turning a corner could cause a person to stumble into range of another of the infernal devices. So eight corridors of relative silence were opened, each making their way to the center of the city.

The second problem was encountered a third of the way into the city. There the heretics had seemingly disappeared, creating a calm that they quickly learned was premature. Here the dead had covered everything. At first it seemed like the place was just a pestilent sea of bodies, but even that assessment was proven wrong as the dead began to stir. Bloated bodies of corpse gas and maggots would rise and move towards the still living. Shrugging off all but the most grievous of injuries the bodies had forced them to slow further still as to ensure they didn't continue their assaults they were burned in massive pyres. Thousands of pyres and the loss of four companies had filled the space between the last of the heretical militia and the governor's mansion that stood at the center of the city. Rising on a plateau of ceramite and steel over the city the building was a fortress unto itself, an island amongst a sea of corpses. And now the waves of man crashed against it.

Grimms sipped his lunch ration through the drinking straw in his mask and watched as the heavy tanks repeatedly shelled the thick walls as his aide jogged up to him holding a dataslate. Part of him was amused that he'd developed a sense of telling his men apart despite not being able to see their faces. Another part of him was just looking forward to a hot shower and even hotter mug of recaff finally.

"I got the documents you requisitioned. You think we can find a way in there with these maps?"

Behind his mask Grimms smiled, "Of course. I couldn't keep wearing officer's rank if I was ever wrong." In truth it was only a small gut feeling but he'd long since stopped doubting them. He thumbed through the map and felt his grin broadened into a full smile, "Kindron, get me two squads and a box of demo charges. Unless these maps are wrong we have a way in."

Kindron didn't disappoint as he was back inside of fifteen minutes, with Delta and Epsilon squads in tow, two of the men towards the back carrying a box between them.

Grimms filled them in on the basics of the plan and they were moving, dropping back two blocks to an access cover to the city's sewers. Slipping down the ladder the men entered the sewers, Grimms taking point as a matter of habit now as his men filed behind him. Mentally counting off the paces in his head they made their way back through the drainage tunnel to where he was sure the mansion sat. Under it's heart he called a stop and pointed up, "Our way in gentlemen. Now if you'd be so kind as to knock we can go tell them the good news about the Emperor."

A couple men chuckled, more out of nervous anticipation then anything as the ring of charges were set up. Backing away nearly fifty paces they all crouched down and silently opened their mouths as Grimms counted down to them with his fingers. With a krump the pressure hit them as the ceiling ahead collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. Almost immediately they were on the hole and Grimms went through the bottleneck first, laspistol in one hand and a regimental officer's sabre in the other. Room by room they cleared the building from the bottom up only finding the dead as they continued up. The corpses were mummified things that seemed to have died suddenly in the midst of their daily lives, some eating a meal, others cleaning rooms. It wasn't until they found the small hospital that they found a living person.

The bloated form was spilling out the torn and rotting remains of medicae scrubs the green skin rotting in places, and covered in festering boils in others. As they entered with weapons drawn the survivor seemed to turn into a blur of movement as it crushed the throat of one man and disemboweled another in the time it took to exhale, clearing half the room in that sliver of a moment. Several of them opened fire, Grimms included, the hot las shots slicing into skin and puncturing the body, vile fluids and pus leaking from the wounds as the creature started to laugh.

"Come on, you come to my garden, uproot my beautiful plantings and the best you can do is small stings with your little weapons? I'd been hoping for so much more from you," three more men died as the beast spoke, the voice clearly an old man's mixed with a second voice that sounded like it was made from the buzzing of flies.

Grimms lunged at the creature with the saber, the blade biting through skin and peeling back fat. Even through the filters of his mask he nearly recoiled at the smell as bloated entrails rolled out of the creature's torn gut but he forced the rising bile in his throat down as he kept slashing, the creature now focused on him with a grin that was far too wide for its fat face. Whatever the thing had been before the uprising it was clear now that what humanity that had once been in the thing was lost now in the creature's bloated visage.

As Grimms hacked at the creature the beast deflected and parried some of the strikes with its hands while blocking with its arms with others all the while laughter continued to roll out of the creature's mouth like a waterfall of filth. "Come lapdog, surely you can show me more amusement than this! Show me that allowing you to get to make it through my garden was the right choice!"

Grimms was breathing hard now as his stamina was slowly being chipped away and he knew he needed something to turn the way things were going before the thing got tired of him and just killed him. His body involuntarily pulled back from the creature's flapping entrails as it moved around him and a plan formed in his mind. Lunging with the blade he allowed it to be turned away and used the twisting motion to slam his laspistol inside of the creature's gut before pulling back an empty hand. Falling back two steps he ducked just as the laspistol detonated with the force of a grenade, throwing bone and flesh across the room as the body was broken in two with a wet thwump.

The laughter grew louder as the torso trembled where it lay on the floor, milky white eyes looking up at Grimms, the buzzing undertone climbing in volume as it seemed to consume the body's original voice, "I knew I'd like you Captain. Yes, a man like you doesn't come around too often." The torso paused and coughed up a mouthful of phlegm before continuing, "Yes, I think I'll give such fine men a little gift. A gift full of life so that we may enjoy such company again." The coughing increased as the body tried to breathe with its ruined lungs before the body collapsed completely.

One of the men, Yungs, gestured towards the body with the barrel of his weapon at the corpse, "What did he mean 'life'?"

"Some foul thing we're better off not knowing I'd bet." was what Grimms was going to say, but the words were lost as the room was filled with a cracking noise before the body burst with pale green light.

Reports later say that the light covered most of the city, haloing out from the crumbling mansion with a deafening shockwave that flattened ruined buildings and damaged those that remained. When the light died the only things certain to the lord-general's scribes, the offensive was over, and that something tainted with the foul stench of chaos had occurred.

The next two weeks for Captain Grimms and his men were spent fighting back out of the city, no longer supported with arms and equipment but full of anger at the fact that they were suspected of being tainted by the ruinous powers. Something began to gnaw at him though as they pushed back out. Something that said the accusation might be right.

It'd started with Igness losing a leg to a rocket only to be back on his feet with in two days. Both feet in fact. If Grimms was a faithful man he'd thought it was a miracle of the Emperor among them as many of his men did but he began to feel that the truth may be something darker. But a good officer doesn't leave his men to just die so the fight continued. And so did the miracles. Thran regained an eye that he'd lost two years ago. Hewinson stood back up after being pronounced dead after he'd been caught in a fatal funnel entering a building. Quinton's throat vox fell out as his body regrew his once torn out vocal cords. Reports kept coming that the Emperor was on their side and blessing them and despite himself Grimms couldn't tell the men otherwise.

On the fourteenth day of fighting Captain Grimms fought through six lethal wounds to personally decapitate the Lord-General before falling over dead. Forty-nine minutes later he stood back up and for the first time in nearly eight months breathed fresh air. It was the first time in his life he could feel that living felt so good.

The remaining officers of the Fighting Fifth held a meeting to determine what to do now that they'd rebelled against the chain of command and lived through fatal wounds. Grimms was the first to voice something other than concerns, his voice calmly retelling the events inside of the mansion to those around him. After he finished his account he looked at the few dozen officers still left, his voice firm but soft.

"Something happened here, and I can't be sure it was brought on by the hand of the Emperor. Not with the way our name has been drug through the mud and the accusations of being tainted have come about. Something keeps us alive through all but a complete destruction of our bodies. Something that said that it wanted to play with us again." He paused and looked around at the men assembled, "So I believe we have a choice. We can use this 'gift' to find and destroy the foul taint that decided that we shouldn't be able to die in the name of the Emperor, or we can turn ourselves over to the powers that be and wait a likely shameful death. Both paths lead to dishonor and death, the only option I see is if we die on our feet as the Fighting Fifth, or on our knees like helpless casualties."

When Grimms and those who chose to accompany him left a single company's worth of men remained behind to await the fate of the Imperium's judgement. A week later as their ship, now freed of the Imperial Navy crew and plunging recklessly through the warp with a lone astropath who offered herself up in exchange for letting the remaining crew leave alive, the screaming began.

At first it seemed to be an isolated case. Frinkerson had cut himself shaving and watched in horror as arachnids came pouring out of the small cut, their bodies pouring out in place of his blood like an uncontrollable torrent. Marden dropped a knife into his own foot while fooling around and ended up with a boot full of angry wasps that tore at his flesh and attacked his skin. And the reports kept coming in. Men weren't bleeding when hurt but seemed to be full of flesh eating parasites, maggots and other creatures that crawled their way out of any cut, scrape or slash. The wounds didn't stay, sealing themselves up in minutes or hours. The worst of them took a week to heal as the man had been infected with some kind of flesh eating worm that kept burrowing out of his skin.

Grimms could feel the blighted things writhing beneath his skin as he sat in his darkened quarters, a mug of grain alcohol in hand. Had he made the right choice to fight fate? Could he stay sane long enough to find the creature that'd given them not just life, but the life of so many other things that now wracked their bodies in pain almost constantly? He swallowed the remains of the glass and was about to pour another when a knock on the door made him pause. "One moment." He slid the mask over his face, the pockmarked, writhing surface disappearing from the view of his guest, something most of the men now did to hide the horrors that were plaguing their bodies from themselves and others. He figured if that was what it took for the men to stay sane then he might as well oblige himself.

The mask secured he spoke again, "Enter."

The light grey robes of the ship's astropath greeted him, the woman's pale skin almost the same color, the only bit of color on her the red cloth she covered her eyes with and the gold icon of office she wore around her waist. "Captain Grimms, the men say you're the one in charge."

Two things stood out to him in that moment, the first was that with the ship in the Warp she should be in her chambers, the second was that her voice contained the sound of hundreds of wing beats, the feathery sound making the woman's normal voice light and musical instead of the flat and hoarse sound that usually came out of her lips.

"I don't know who you are, but if you don't leave my astropath don't think I won't kill you and continue blind."

The woman chuckled, "Aren't you already blind Captain? Chasing a creature you can't name, have never seen again and don't know where to look for?" She cocked her head to one side and then the other, the mannerism reminding him of the Glint Bird trying to work out how to get food out of a nut.

"Your point?" He could see small light blue feathers starting to break through the woman's skin now along the sides of her neck.

"I come with an offer from the Changer of Ways. He'll provide you information to help you find this servant of the Grandfather you seek."

"Why would he do such a thing?"

The woman chuckled, the sound more like a bird's song than a laugh at this point, "He and the Grandfather have been against each other for longer than time itself and he relishes in any chance he can bring change to the Grandfather's rotting stagnation. All you need to do is listen to him and he'll ensure that you get your chance to meet this creature. The journey will be long and hard for you, but I'm sure a man of your caliber can manage, yes?"

Realizing that he'd been slowly creeping forward in his seat he leaned back and folded his hands, "My ability to mange is beside the point. I don't want any more surprises and frankly being asked to be a pawn in some game I can't even see is something I can't just agree too."

The woman's neck seemed to lengthen as she bowed her head slightly in agreement, "Indeed, and I wouldn't come to a man such as yourself with such a worthless offer. No, we offer only information. Some of it will be vague and confusing to you Captain, but we promise that if you follow it that we'll be able to draw out the creature from where it hides amongst the Grandfather's gardens. It's a path of blood, both of friends and foes, but it's a path that will give you the chance you seek."

Grimms considered the options before him before sighing in resignation, "As if I really had a choice in this matter. I've already made myself a traitor to the Imperium in the name of revenge and am tainted with chaos itself. At this point I can't really see an option now that I've set on this path beyond your offer to make the journey a little shorter. So what do I need to do first?"

The woman smiled a little too broadly, "I knew you'd come around Captain. First finish your drink and I'll help your little witch here navigate the ship to the first destination of your trip. Make sure your men are ready, because if they aren't that immortality you carry won't be enough to win with."

Grimms nodded and set the glass down and grabbed the bottle, pointing it towards the feathering woman, "To damnation then."

She smiled before turning to leave the room, "To damnation indeed."

 

 

 

Honestly I'm not 100% sure if it fits the theme but it's the only thing that came to mind for this prompt for me.

[Son of Carnelian]

All excellent entries so far. Keep them coming!

[Kierdale]

I thank you for your entries in Tales of Dishonour over the last week.

I have not yet finished reading them, but look forward to it when I can grab a moment.

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 myself have one idea I did not have time to write, which I hope to post eventually).

And here begins our fifteenth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2016:

Campaign II - Assault!

Continuing the campaign initiated in Inspiration Friday: Campaign I - Opening Moves, we now come to the assault. Be it a landing action to make a foothold, a spearhead attack upon a vital objective or an all-out pitched battle, tell us of your renegades following up the first steps of the campaign with a full assault.

If you did not take part in the first chapter of this series, fear not. Please feel free to submit a part I and a part II (though this week you’ll only be judged on part II), or summarise the warband’s opening moves of the campaign within the first part of your entry for this week.

Inspirational Friday: Campaign II – Assault! runs until the 27th of May.

Let us be inspired.

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

EDIT: and a note, that the next (and penultimate) chapter of the 'Campaign' series will be a choice of 'The Tables Turn' or 'The Crucible', to be decided individually as best fits the flow of your piece.

[Son of Carnelian]

Hello everyone! I thought I would give everyone my thoughts on their stories before announcing the winner. I included my favorite line from each piece as well, as that is an exercise we did in my creative writing classes back in the day. 

 

The Sparks of Rose

Lavam, the Voice of the Black Maw and dark apostle, unsealed his helm and tucked it into the crook of his arm, to better take in the doom of the city of Rose. The smell of smoke filled his nostrils, unfiltered by his helm's rebreather. The heat from the burning city bathed his unprotected face in warmth. The contrast between the bright flames, and the black smoke of its filth encrusted fuel, was unmitigated by the lenses of his helm. The cries of women sounded natural in his ears, not dampened by the protection of his ancient helm. Lavam still relished the doom of an Imperial city, even after he had long lost count of how many cities he had destroyed.

Lavam glanced over at the instrument he had used in orchestrating the doom of Rose, Zanizar the Younger, heir apparent to the rogue trader dynasty of his father, a truly "rogue" dynasty. The young man looked distraught, troubled by the indiscriminate carnage of the sacking. Where had the rogue picked up morals? Certainly not from his father, or any of the pirates in his employ, and certainly not from the legionnaires of the Black Maw. Lavam chuckled to himself, perhaps he would have to reassess his view on the baseness of human nature with the revelation of the moral anguish written upon the face of Zanizar the Younger. Unlikely though, he had come across a few shining lights in the blackness that was men's souls before, and on a whim, tortured the confessions of their morality out of them. They had always learned morality from somewhere or someone, it never sprang forth unbidden from their souls. Considering what he knew of Zanizar the Younger's ways, which was considerable, the young man had likely been influenced by one of his paramours. Lavam would have to put a stop to that, but not today. Today he would enjoy the fall of yet another city.

It was beautifully orchestrated. Lavam had known, long before the storming of Rose, that it would be a target of the Black Maw's invasion. As he seeded cults to give him the disposable warriors he would need for the battle, he set Zanizar the Younger on the task of weakening the city's defenses. Long before the first howling cultist scaled Rose's walls, Zanizar had worked his way in with the petty munitorium officials that supplied the city's defenders. The officials were all corrupt, in the way that petty officials always were. Zanizar had offered to see to the provender of the regiments garrisoning Rose, at a substantial discount that could easily be pocketed. His only request, was that the providence of his rations not be looked at too closely. Of course they agreed.

The first shipments were sent, and though the fare was perhaps a bit coarse, nobody important complained. The next shipments were tainted. The gruel was laced with a cheap derivative of obscura plundered from Calebra Hive. The quantity of the narcotic was small, barely noticeable to a few of the guardsmen who were more sensitive to such things. Still nobody complained. The dosage was gradually increased, shipment after shipment. When guard officers complained, and the munitorium official demanded such tampering stop, Zanizar the Younger cut them an even greater discount. A few officials had had enough, their corruption was petty, and this tampering with the guardsmen food was beyond what even they could stomach. They were silenced, in some cases permanently, by their increasingly wealthy peers. The guardsmen themselves had no other recourse than to dine on rations, Rose was an industrial city, far from self sustaining, and already experiencing shortages from the Black Maw invasion of the subsector. Most guardsmen didn't care.

One week before the invasion, Zanizar stopped the shipments. By the time Lavam's hordes of cultists were at the walls of Rose, it's defenders were puking and defecating their guts out in the throws of withdrawal, unable to lift themselves out of their bunks, much less lift a lasrifle. The hordes of cultists poured into the city uncontested. They were now trying to win the favor of the gods with their brutal sacking of the city, just as Lavam had commanded. Thus the doom of Rose, and perhaps the doom of a spark of light in the soul of Zanizar the Younger. Lavam's soul, as always, was the blackest of the black. A smile crossed his unhelmed face.

Not quite John Locke, The Book of Common Prayer, or 2 Timothy, but I tried for a bit of moralizing, in grim and dark fashion, of course.

 

"Considering what he knew of Zanizar the Younger's ways, which was considerable, the young man had likely been influenced by one of his paramours. Lavam would have to put a stop to that, but not today."

 

A wonderful, perfectly-sized story. Set at the end of a narrative and taking on almost a television recap tone, Carrack's The Sparks of Rose has a lot of life to it. Sprinkled throughout are these marvelous character details, things that hint at a wider narrative without getting in the way of the reader's imagination. The story possesses a few moments where the reader is told rather than shown something, but these hardly detract from the overall effect. 

 

An entry running unopposed? Not on my watch! Anyway, check out Among Thieves

 

 

 

Among Thieves

There was no reason that a fully-armed Astartes battle barge should find itself waiting impotently in a literally empty sector of space. The reactors of the ship still hummed with energy while the weapons were primed and ready for an threat yet unseen, but there was nary even a mote of dust to fire upon. The coordinates for this destination did not belong to any established routes of trade or travel through any territory, Imperial or otherwise. By all accounts, this place was one of the few sections of the galaxy that was truly empty.

Despite the apparent pointlessness, quite nearly the entirety of the Scourged and their thralls sat in wait. None of the obedient subordinates knew the reason, though they dared not question the motives of their lord; his orders were resolute and not to be questioned. Yeteven the lord did not truly understand the exact purpose of his orders. Though he governed totalitarily over his men, Rahaund’ul Dhelmas was still  a servant to a higher master - the same as all those aboard Deception’s Call - and it was from that master that the orders came. “Shatter a gem, forge a bond,” were the only instructions provided by the Architect as to the warband’s purpose.  

“Lord, we’re being hailed. An incoming transmission from the Flawless Host vessel Impeccable is marked as mayday. They demand an audience with us. Shall I accept?”

Sure enough, looking at the vid feeds of the barge’s starboard flank, an outlandishly-painted vessel of Chaos was tearing through a hole in realspace. The escort ship poured into the vast emptiness around them as if on cue from the deformed comms officer. Knowing the True Master - well, knowing him as much as a mortal could, at least - Lord Dhelmas expected to hover alone in the void for days, rather than only three hours, before the purpose of this quest was known. That being said, a forced encounter with the Flawless Host was not within anyone’s expectations. Was it already time to pay their debts? Only one way to find out.

“Fine. Let’s hear what they have to say.”

Rahaund’ul Dhelmas did not care much for those of the Flawless Host. Of the few Slaanesh cults that he had met, yes, Rahaund’ul would admit they were among the more tolerable. But like the rest of their ilk, in their fervent praise of their lesser god, the Flawless Host all carried an insufferable pride, and adorned themselves with such garish colors and designs. Were it not for promises made long ago, he would have ignored their desperate hails.

“Oh thank the Perfect Prince that you’re here! Scourged, we need your help, and we need it now!”

“Who is speaking, and what do you want?”

“I am Draezius the Untouchable and I’m calling in a debt to be paid, Lord Dhelmas. Favors are owed from the days served together at Persico Tertius. I the name of perfection, I demand that you take up arms and defend our ship.”

“That’s not your demand to make of me, Draezius.The deal between our warbands was forged with Eleaxus, from a time long before you ascended to anything resembling rank amongst your kind. Most assuredly, you were scant but a zygote within a cloning vat during campaign that forged this bond. I owe your leader plenty, but you nothing.”

“Lord Dhelmas, there isn’t time for this! Were I able to contact my own lord, I assure you he’d command you the same as I do. Whilst our fleet was in transit, webway raiders ambushed us within the Immaterium. They targeted our Gellar fields and forced us into realspace, separating the fleet, culling the weak to hunt. Eleaxus still fights without us, but we are fleeing for our lives. It is by the grace of the Dark Prince that we found you so soon!”

Quaint, but it was not the Dark Prince that orchestrated this chance encounter. Dhelmas knew that, and by now the entirety of his warband realized it too. This chance encounter is the very reason the True Master ordered them to this exact location. But that, no doubt, did not matter to Draezius. His frantic demands made it quite clear he cared not for the reason. Shallow minds always demand action instead of understanding.

“By luck or not, Draezius, it appears you were not lying. A smart move. You have three Torture Cruisers on your rear, and they seem to have done considerable damage to your ship.”

The Sorcerer Lord had verified the story of Draezius after glancing at the hololith auspex in front of him. A cadre of three void hunters chasing the battered Impeccable, all four of them racing directly toward the Call. Primary shielding of the Impeccable was gone, with secondary barely holding. The three cruisers were maneuvering for final firing solutions. Without intervention, all those aboard the escort ship would die to void fire, or worse. The Champion of Slaanesh had not exaggerated his claims.

“All the more reason to act quickly, sorcerer! They won’t anticipate your presence and together we can turn the tide on these twisted Eldar filth, all for the glory of Slaanesh! Once you have a direct line of sight, open fire, and we shall unleash our payloads from safety once you’ve drawn their fire. Our debts will be squared and our alliance will shine like a diamond in the night!”

Rahaund’ul nodded curtly once and ordered the link between the vessels closed. The sorcerer contemplated the warfare quickly drawing near to Deception’s Call. The three cruisers were closing the gap on the badly damaged Chaos escort, and would no doubt rend it to shreds if left alone. By now, they were sure to have noticed the imposing battle barge in their path and would react accordingly. The fight would be brutal, but the Call would emerge the victor, if badly damaged in the process. All things considered, the decision on how to proceed was an easy one.

“Initiate full bombardment with dorsal cannons until shields are overloaded. After shield failure concentrate all cannon fire on the engines until they’re dead in the void. Disable all communications via the fusion beams, but leave any life support intact.”

“Uh… Lord…?”

“Do it. Now.”

***

The attack was swift and decisive, seeing only a handful of retaliatory shots fired. It had gone better than envisioned, actually. The vast array of weaponry fitted to the battle barge was overkill when compared to any smaller vessel. Almost boringly, the skirmish had succeeded exactly as the Sorcerer Lord expected, devoid of any complications. In the face of such impossible odds, the Impeccable never stood a chance. It was defenseless and motionless between the Call and the three cruisers, a gaudy prize caught in a deadly stalemate between the opposing parties.

Rather than the flesh and purple of Draezius upon his screen from before, a lithe figure with pallid skin was staring back at Rahaund’ul. It’s deceptively frail figure was clad in chitin-like armor plating adorned with jagged edges and barbs. It’s apparently-feminine face greeted him without a helmet, offering an amused-but-confused look to the Astartes. No doubt this was the leader of the trio of cruisers, waiting for an explanation of the supposed betrayal she just witnessed.

“I am the Sorcerer Lord Rahaund’ul Dhelmas of the Scourged. I trust you can speak High Gothic, eldar?”

“Of course, Mon-keigh. I am Archon Yaelindra of the Blackened Tear. Your actions were… unexpected. Why turn on your allies to aid us?”

She spoke slowly, and with a very forced tone. Human language was never easy for the xenos, but the Sorcerer Lord appreciated her effort. Direct conversation would be much better than relying on any form of translation.

“I have my reasons. In light of that, I’m here to offer you a deal: the crew is yours, Astartes and mortals alike. Take them all and do what your kind does best. No doubt those on board deserve every unspeakable horror you will force upon them.  In return, I ask that you leave the ship and supplies for us, as I’m sure you have no use for them. We’ll each take what we want, and leave each other in peace.”

Yaelindra stayed quiet for some time. Soon enough, though, she waved a hand dismissively at her side, and the warning chimes of multiple weapon locks ceased their echoing on the bridge of Deception’s Call. The crew all shared a relieved sigh, dropping their own weapon locks on the three enemy cruisers. A deal, it seemed, had been struck.

“Accepted, Dhel-mas of Scourged. Your generosity this day will not be forgotten. Consider a tenuous friendship earned with the Blackened Tear.”

The Sorcerer Lord was satisfied, for the moment. Sure, he did not truly believe the xenos filth would honor this new ‘friendship’ she proclaimed, but only time would tell. Still, the three cruisers were dormant, even as boarding shuttles began to crash into the sides of Impeccable. And yes, a debt to the Flawless Host still needed to be paid, but at least he managed to gain something out of the arrangement. Before ending the transmission, he offered Yaelindra one final thought:

“Oh, and Archon… when you drag their leader, Draezius, into your pits, be sure to tell him my debt is paid.”

 

 

 

 

"Of the few Slaanesh cults that he had met, yes, Rahaund’ul would admit they were among the more tolerable."

 

I like how Scourged's Among Thieves really plays up the fact that even newer warbands like the Scourged who haven't been around for 10,000 years still have an extensive history, with alliances and oaths stretching back through time. One hardly ever sees such an expansion of the lore in that way, but I think that this story accomplishes a lot in a short amount of time. I would have enjoyed more of a dialogue between Dhel-mas and the Dark Eldar. It's a racial dynamic rarely explored and I think the story could have benefited greatly from more of that exchange. 

 

A prequel to my most recent story!

 

I hope you like it.

 

Hidden Content

"Brother, are you sure about this?" Rifat asked of Asil.

 

"How many times do you plan to ask me?" Asil answered, and concentrated on working the crude bellows of their makeshift forge.

 

The two armourless space marines were crowded into the ancient, rusted shipping container that had served as their home since they had jumped ship what they believed was several months before. Their temporary home was one of thousands in the shanty town surrounding the unnamed space port on the ludicrously named New Terra. It was night, and bands of multi-hued arouras undulated between the surface and the stars that shone above, along with a million tiny points of light from the home fires of the countless hovels. The two lived in what was considered the "quiet" part of the shanty town, though the night was still filled with the chattering of late night revels, worship, brawling, and terror.

 

"To give ourselves to a God when we have only recently won freedom..." Rifat stared at the glowing hot brand that Asil moved about the bright coals.

 

Asil turned the brand over a few more times before answering him.

 

"This is more than freedom," Asil gestured toward Rifat with the white hot brand. "This is power. We choose this path, and if we are worthy we will be Chosen. But in the meantime none will dare to attempt enslave us again."

 

There was more that Rifat wanted to say, but he saw the determination in his brother's eyes. Asil had always been stronger, smarter, and luckier than Rifat. Asil had never acknowledged this, but Rifat knew that without Asil he would have never been selected to be a space marine, nor would he have survived the trials, and he would have been dead many times over since their so-called ascension to the status of post-human warrior-slaves of the Dread Lord Batuqan.

 

"Steady your hand if you cannot steady your heart." Asil smiled at his younger brother, offering him the handle of the brand. As Rifat took up the brand and held it at ready, Asil ran his hand over his bare chest to make sure it was clean. "Do it right the first time. I want a collection of skulls, just not on my skin."

 

Rifat seared the stylized skull of Khorne into the skin of his brother, directly over his primary heart. Asil startled Rifat by snatching the brand from his hand and immediately plunging the still red hot brand into the flesh of Rifat's chest.

 

"There!" Asil clapped Rifat on the shoulder and discarded the brand. "I saved you the trouble of worrying about it even a second longer!"

 

"So what, do we chant about blood and skulls or something?" Rifat, newly made warrior of the Blood God, was very uncertain as to how he had should feel or what he should be doing. He had thought he might feel different after it was done, but he did not.

 

"Chanting is for those who are not uplifted." Asil said after a quiet moment of consideration. "Let's just go kill some people."

 

"With what?" Rifat asked. "All we were able to make it off the ship with were a pair of dull knives and a bolt pistol with no bolts."

 

"We rise from nothing; that is good I think." Asil said, looking around their hovel, finding their knives and handing one to Rifat. "First we find someone with sword or an axe, then we use those to find chain weapons, and maybe those to find power weapons. We can do this."

 

"Well then, blood for the Blood God, I guess." Rifat said with an uncertain smile.

 

"Skulls for the Skull Throne, brother." Asil said gravely, then used his old combat knife to slash a deep gash across one side of his chest.

 

Rifat, seeing a different look in his brother's eyes already and afraid to be left behind, immediately copied Asil's slashing gesture, spilling his own blood in kind.

 

+++++++++

 

Asil and Rifat had never been on an Imperial world before Auriga Prime. A sleepy backwater with nothing of note, Auriga simply had the misfortune to be a necessary stop for fuel for the so-called Black Corsairs, the hodge-podge of a warband that the two brothers had joined in order to get off New Terra and find a proper war to participate in. Asil now led a squad of 8 space marines, including himself and his brother Rifat. They wore red power armour and chased their victims with an assortment of homemade axes, only Asil having a working chainaxe.

 

"Where are their warriors?" Rifat asked Asil. The would-be Berserkers strolled through what looked like a market area. The cleanliness and permanence of the buildings caused Rifat to stare, especially at the strange goods in the shattered shop windows. "Of what use is this place or these things to anyone?"

 

"Can you imagine a people so decadent in their obscene safety?" Asil sneered. "I see now why the Legions of Old turned against these weaklings."

 

The sounds of bolter fire echoed through the streets from a distant firefight, causing the Khornate space marines to stop and look to Asil for guidance.

 

"Who would waste bolts on slave stock?" Rifat asked.

 

"No one in their right mind." Asil said, looking above the line of roofs at the spire of an unknown structure less than a kilometer away. "I have heard from the other war leaders that Imperials gather at fanes to their dead Emperor to stand and fight. Perhaps there is a fight worth having on this planet after all."

 

Asil needed to issue no orders, but simply picked up his pace to a quick trot. The others, eager to follow a leader with strength and conviction, simply followed.

 

++++++++

 

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" Asil's chainaxe roared as the space marine waded into the panicked crowd.

 

"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" His squad answered, following him into the herd of prey.

 

Rifat followed, lashing out with his homemade axe to the left and right. He cleaved great wounds into those who strayed near him as he followed his brother and the squad, but he did not chase down and end his victims. Rifat did enjoy the scent of blood and terror, but he did not feel the passion for slaughtering these weak, pathetic Imperials that his brother and the others obviously felt. This did not seem like a worthwhile use of their time. There was, perhaps, treasures or great weapons and artefacts to loot, something useful to take that would make their lives and positions easier to maintain among the Black Corairs.

 

"Get out of the way, idiot!" Rifat shoved a particularly slow old woman to the side as he made his way into the temple of the Imperial's Corpse Emperor.

 

A sudden crescendo of bolter fire erupted, and the mass of humanity suddenly surged away. Rifat ducked behind a stone pew, but the heavy bolter rounds were chewing through a group of people several rows ahead of him. Rifat was not sure he understood the situation.

 

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" Rifat heard the voice of his brother Asil above the crashing din of combat. The sound of Asil's voice inspired confidence in him, and Rifat scrambled to his feet to locate and rally to his brother.

 

A spiritu dominatus,

Domine, libra nos,

From the lighting and the tempest,

Our Emperor, deliver us.

 

A lone voice, somewhere through the smoke and dust ahead, rang out. It was quickly joined with several others.

 

From the blasphemy of the Fallen,

Our Emperor, deliver us,

From the begetting of daemons,

Our Emperor, deliver us,

From the curse of the mutant,

Our Emperor, deliver us,

A morte perpetua,

Domine, libra nos.

 

The rattle and bang of bolter fire continued, joined by the revving of chainswords, and past Asil and his surviving warriors of Khorne, Rifat beheld the warriors of the Emperor for the first time in his life.

Rifat had never seen anything like these females, these small, pale imitations of space marines. He laughed and raised his bloodied axe, eager to join his brother's assault on their position around the altar. Rifat saw Asil raise his chainaxe in defiance and prepare to charge, and then in horrifying slow motion, Rifat saw his brother's shoulder explode in a shower of gore, his precious and hard won chainaxe spinning away. In those few horrid moments, Asil's squad was gunned down to a man. All except Rifat, who stood in the back of the Imperial temple, disbelieving his eyes.

 

"Sic haeretici." Intoned the older woman who had fired the shot from her bolt pistol that had laid low Asil. Asil, rasping for breath through blood filled lungs, struggling on one knee to stand, retched a gob of blood and growled.

 

"Asil." Rifat whispered, taking a step toward his brother, anguish in his heart. The brand of Khorne upon his chest began to itch.

 

"We welcome with open arms all who would repent their sins." The elder Sister of Battle stepped down from the dias, leveled her chainsword in Rifat's direction, her eyes meeting with his and transfixing the would-be Berserker with their malevolent zealotry.

 

Rifat's head swam and his vision was suddenly vivid and sharp. The air burned his lungs in short, ragged gasps, and his hearts painfully hammered the walls of his ribs. He looked at each of the power armoured women in turn, the looks of haughty, pitiless scorn searing into his brain forever.

 

"Ecce perfidiae." The elder woman sneered at Rifat, striding to stand before the still struggling Asil. With a swift motion, the Superior gunned the throttle on her chainsword and flicked her wrist, never once looking away from Rifat.

 

"Asil." Rifat moaned, feeling his blood run cold as he watched the head of his brother roll toward him down the aisle.

 

Rifat dropped his axe and ran, unsure if he would ever be able to stop.

 

Warsmith Aznable's tale of brotherhood explores the advancement of one in the eyes of the Khorne, and how sometimes we take the equipment we always see Space Marines wielding for granted. Not since AD-B's stories have I read such a desperate account of the state of the resources available to servants of the Dark Gods. That being said, I found the action just a bit hard to follow and didn't grasp what had happened at the climax of the story upon first read. 

 

A little story about a Guard regiment dishonored:

 

 

Quietus

Seven months. It'd taken seven months for the men of the Regereth Fighting Fifth to take the hive. Over six hundred kilometers in diameter of habs, markets and the processing factories for ceramite plating for tanks and other armoured vehicles. Initial assessments had put the city under their control inside of a month as the weight of the full regiment fell on the city. The estimates were wrong.

It wasn't for underestimating the topography, nor the ability or armament of the enemy, but for something far fouler. It's taint seemed to seep into everything causing numerous outbreaks of disease amongst the men. Over a thousand had died in the first wave from the infections alone as the heretics held them off. One company had disappeared completely without a word into a pale yellow fog that had seeped from the factory vents. Not a single shot or vox transmission was heard from them and they were written off as dead. Since that wave two changes occurred. The first was that every man was to wear full protective equipment at all times, forcing them to drink their protein slurry meals through their water tubes while inside the city, the second was that officers were to accompany the men to watch them more closely to ensure that the taint does not affect them.

So for seven months Captain Jeseph Grimms lead his company through the city. The heretics weren't the only obstacle though, and the losses were steep everywhere. First there was the buzzing that overpowered even vox traffic and often caused men to start bleeding from the ears. Several companies independently identified the source from the city's vox system and forcibly, and in one case explosively, disabled the speakers in their area. Likewise transmitters and speakers were disabled as soon as they were identified, slowing the pace to a crawl as blindly turning a corner could cause a person to stumble into range of another of the infernal devices. So eight corridors of relative silence were opened, each making their way to the center of the city.

The second problem was encountered a third of the way into the city. There the heretics had seemingly disappeared, creating a calm that they quickly learned was premature. Here the dead had covered everything. At first it seemed like the place was just a pestilent sea of bodies, but even that assessment was proven wrong as the dead began to stir. Bloated bodies of corpse gas and maggots would rise and move towards the still living. Shrugging off all but the most grievous of injuries the bodies had forced them to slow further still as to ensure they didn't continue their assaults they were burned in massive pyres. Thousands of pyres and the loss of four companies had filled the space between the last of the heretical militia and the governor's mansion that stood at the center of the city. Rising on a plateau of ceramite and steel over the city the building was a fortress unto itself, an island amongst a sea of corpses. And now the waves of man crashed against it.

Grimms sipped his lunch ration through the drinking straw in his mask and watched as the heavy tanks repeatedly shelled the thick walls as his aide jogged up to him holding a dataslate. Part of him was amused that he'd developed a sense of telling his men apart despite not being able to see their faces. Another part of him was just looking forward to a hot shower and even hotter mug of recaff finally.

"I got the documents you requisitioned. You think we can find a way in there with these maps?"

Behind his mask Grimms smiled, "Of course. I couldn't keep wearing officer's rank if I was ever wrong." In truth it was only a small gut feeling but he'd long since stopped doubting them. He thumbed through the map and felt his grin broadened into a full smile, "Kindron, get me two squads and a box of demo charges. Unless these maps are wrong we have a way in."

Kindron didn't disappoint as he was back inside of fifteen minutes, with Delta and Epsilon squads in tow, two of the men towards the back carrying a box between them.

Grimms filled them in on the basics of the plan and they were moving, dropping back two blocks to an access cover to the city's sewers. Slipping down the ladder the men entered the sewers, Grimms taking point as a matter of habit now as his men filed behind him. Mentally counting off the paces in his head they made their way back through the drainage tunnel to where he was sure the mansion sat. Under it's heart he called a stop and pointed up, "Our way in gentlemen. Now if you'd be so kind as to knock we can go tell them the good news about the Emperor."

A couple men chuckled, more out of nervous anticipation then anything as the ring of charges were set up. Backing away nearly fifty paces they all crouched down and silently opened their mouths as Grimms counted down to them with his fingers. With a krump the pressure hit them as the ceiling ahead collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. Almost immediately they were on the hole and Grimms went through the bottleneck first, laspistol in one hand and a regimental officer's sabre in the other. Room by room they cleared the building from the bottom up only finding the dead as they continued up. The corpses were mummified things that seemed to have died suddenly in the midst of their daily lives, some eating a meal, others cleaning rooms. It wasn't until they found the small hospital that they found a living person.

The bloated form was spilling out the torn and rotting remains of medicae scrubs the green skin rotting in places, and covered in festering boils in others. As they entered with weapons drawn the survivor seemed to turn into a blur of movement as it crushed the throat of one man and disemboweled another in the time it took to exhale, clearing half the room in that sliver of a moment. Several of them opened fire, Grimms included, the hot las shots slicing into skin and puncturing the body, vile fluids and pus leaking from the wounds as the creature started to laugh.

"Come on, you come to my garden, uproot my beautiful plantings and the best you can do is small stings with your little weapons? I'd been hoping for so much more from you," three more men died as the beast spoke, the voice clearly an old man's mixed with a second voice that sounded like it was made from the buzzing of flies.

Grimms lunged at the creature with the saber, the blade biting through skin and peeling back fat. Even through the filters of his mask he nearly recoiled at the smell as bloated entrails rolled out of the creature's torn gut but he forced the rising bile in his throat down as he kept slashing, the creature now focused on him with a grin that was far too wide for its fat face. Whatever the thing had been before the uprising it was clear now that what humanity that had once been in the thing was lost now in the creature's bloated visage.

As Grimms hacked at the creature the beast deflected and parried some of the strikes with its hands while blocking with its arms with others all the while laughter continued to roll out of the creature's mouth like a waterfall of filth. "Come lapdog, surely you can show me more amusement than this! Show me that allowing you to get to make it through my garden was the right choice!"

Grimms was breathing hard now as his stamina was slowly being chipped away and he knew he needed something to turn the way things were going before the thing got tired of him and just killed him. His body involuntarily pulled back from the creature's flapping entrails as it moved around him and a plan formed in his mind. Lunging with the blade he allowed it to be turned away and used the twisting motion to slam his laspistol inside of the creature's gut before pulling back an empty hand. Falling back two steps he ducked just as the laspistol detonated with the force of a grenade, throwing bone and flesh across the room as the body was broken in two with a wet thwump.

The laughter grew louder as the torso trembled where it lay on the floor, milky white eyes looking up at Grimms, the buzzing undertone climbing in volume as it seemed to consume the body's original voice, "I knew I'd like you Captain. Yes, a man like you doesn't come around too often." The torso paused and coughed up a mouthful of phlegm before continuing, "Yes, I think I'll give such fine men a little gift. A gift full of life so that we may enjoy such company again." The coughing increased as the body tried to breathe with its ruined lungs before the body collapsed completely.

One of the men, Yungs, gestured towards the body with the barrel of his weapon at the corpse, "What did he mean 'life'?"

"Some foul thing we're better off not knowing I'd bet." was what Grimms was going to say, but the words were lost as the room was filled with a cracking noise before the body burst with pale green light.

Reports later say that the light covered most of the city, haloing out from the crumbling mansion with a deafening shockwave that flattened ruined buildings and damaged those that remained. When the light died the only things certain to the lord-general's scribes, the offensive was over, and that something tainted with the foul stench of chaos had occurred.

The next two weeks for Captain Grimms and his men were spent fighting back out of the city, no longer supported with arms and equipment but full of anger at the fact that they were suspected of being tainted by the ruinous powers. Something began to gnaw at him though as they pushed back out. Something that said the accusation might be right.

It'd started with Igness losing a leg to a rocket only to be back on his feet with in two days. Both feet in fact. If Grimms was a faithful man he'd thought it was a miracle of the Emperor among them as many of his men did but he began to feel that the truth may be something darker. But a good officer doesn't leave his men to just die so the fight continued. And so did the miracles. Thran regained an eye that he'd lost two years ago. Hewinson stood back up after being pronounced dead after he'd been caught in a fatal funnel entering a building. Quinton's throat vox fell out as his body regrew his once torn out vocal cords. Reports kept coming that the Emperor was on their side and blessing them and despite himself Grimms couldn't tell the men otherwise.

On the fourteenth day of fighting Captain Grimms fought through six lethal wounds to personally decapitate the Lord-General before falling over dead. Forty-nine minutes later he stood back up and for the first time in nearly eight months breathed fresh air. It was the first time in his life he could feel that living felt so good.

The remaining officers of the Fighting Fifth held a meeting to determine what to do now that they'd rebelled against the chain of command and lived through fatal wounds. Grimms was the first to voice something other than concerns, his voice calmly retelling the events inside of the mansion to those around him. After he finished his account he looked at the few dozen officers still left, his voice firm but soft.

"Something happened here, and I can't be sure it was brought on by the hand of the Emperor. Not with the way our name has been drug through the mud and the accusations of being tainted have come about. Something keeps us alive through all but a complete destruction of our bodies. Something that said that it wanted to play with us again." He paused and looked around at the men assembled, "So I believe we have a choice. We can use this 'gift' to find and destroy the foul taint that decided that we shouldn't be able to die in the name of the Emperor, or we can turn ourselves over to the powers that be and wait a likely shameful death. Both paths lead to dishonor and death, the only option I see is if we die on our feet as the Fighting Fifth, or on our knees like helpless casualties."

When Grimms and those who chose to accompany him left a single company's worth of men remained behind to await the fate of the Imperium's judgement. A week later as their ship, now freed of the Imperial Navy crew and plunging recklessly through the warp with a lone astropath who offered herself up in exchange for letting the remaining crew leave alive, the screaming began.

At first it seemed to be an isolated case. Frinkerson had cut himself shaving and watched in horror as arachnids came pouring out of the small cut, their bodies pouring out in place of his blood like an uncontrollable torrent. Marden dropped a knife into his own foot while fooling around and ended up with a boot full of angry wasps that tore at his flesh and attacked his skin. And the reports kept coming in. Men weren't bleeding when hurt but seemed to be full of flesh eating parasites, maggots and other creatures that crawled their way out of any cut, scrape or slash. The wounds didn't stay, sealing themselves up in minutes or hours. The worst of them took a week to heal as the man had been infected with some kind of flesh eating worm that kept burrowing out of his skin.

Grimms could feel the blighted things writhing beneath his skin as he sat in his darkened quarters, a mug of grain alcohol in hand. Had he made the right choice to fight fate? Could he stay sane long enough to find the creature that'd given them not just life, but the life of so many other things that now wracked their bodies in pain almost constantly? He swallowed the remains of the glass and was about to pour another when a knock on the door made him pause. "One moment." He slid the mask over his face, the pockmarked, writhing surface disappearing from the view of his guest, something most of the men now did to hide the horrors that were plaguing their bodies from themselves and others. He figured if that was what it took for the men to stay sane then he might as well oblige himself.

The mask secured he spoke again, "Enter."

The light grey robes of the ship's astropath greeted him, the woman's pale skin almost the same color, the only bit of color on her the red cloth she covered her eyes with and the gold icon of office she wore around her waist. "Captain Grimms, the men say you're the one in charge."

Two things stood out to him in that moment, the first was that with the ship in the Warp she should be in her chambers, the second was that her voice contained the sound of hundreds of wing beats, the feathery sound making the woman's normal voice light and musical instead of the flat and hoarse sound that usually came out of her lips.

"I don't know who you are, but if you don't leave my astropath don't think I won't kill you and continue blind."

The woman chuckled, "Aren't you already blind Captain? Chasing a creature you can't name, have never seen again and don't know where to look for?" She cocked her head to one side and then the other, the mannerism reminding him of the Glint Bird trying to work out how to get food out of a nut.

"Your point?" He could see small light blue feathers starting to break through the woman's skin now along the sides of her neck.

"I come with an offer from the Changer of Ways. He'll provide you information to help you find this servant of the Grandfather you seek."

"Why would he do such a thing?"

The woman chuckled, the sound more like a bird's song than a laugh at this point, "He and the Grandfather have been against each other for longer than time itself and he relishes in any chance he can bring change to the Grandfather's rotting stagnation. All you need to do is listen to him and he'll ensure that you get your chance to meet this creature. The journey will be long and hard for you, but I'm sure a man of your caliber can manage, yes?"

Realizing that he'd been slowly creeping forward in his seat he leaned back and folded his hands, "My ability to mange is beside the point. I don't want any more surprises and frankly being asked to be a pawn in some game I can't even see is something I can't just agree too."

The woman's neck seemed to lengthen as she bowed her head slightly in agreement, "Indeed, and I wouldn't come to a man such as yourself with such a worthless offer. No, we offer only information. Some of it will be vague and confusing to you Captain, but we promise that if you follow it that we'll be able to draw out the creature from where it hides amongst the Grandfather's gardens. It's a path of blood, both of friends and foes, but it's a path that will give you the chance you seek."

Grimms considered the options before him before sighing in resignation, "As if I really had a choice in this matter. I've already made myself a traitor to the Imperium in the name of revenge and am tainted with chaos itself. At this point I can't really see an option now that I've set on this path beyond your offer to make the journey a little shorter. So what do I need to do first?"

The woman smiled a little too broadly, "I knew you'd come around Captain. First finish your drink and I'll help your little witch here navigate the ship to the first destination of your trip. Make sure your men are ready, because if they aren't that immortality you carry won't be enough to win with."

Grimms nodded and set the glass down and grabbed the bottle, pointing it towards the feathering woman, "To damnation then."

She smiled before turning to leave the room, "To damnation indeed."

 

 

 

Honestly I'm not 100% sure if it fits the theme but it's the only thing that came to mind for this prompt for me.

 

"Rising on a plateau of ceramite and steel over the city the building was a fortress unto itself, an island amongst a sea of corpses. And now the waves of man crashed against it."

 

An excellent story with lots of twists and turns. Much of the story feels natural and character driven, which I appreciate. Still, the dialogue could use more work to go along with the excellent prose on display here. Honestly though, the descriptions create such an incredible atmosphere I also feel like more dialogue might bog it down too much. 

 

An excellent week! Believe me when I say that choosing a winner took all of today, with my mind going and back and forth across all the entries at different times. Still, we can only have one champion this week and with all that in mind, I choose Fulke's Quietus as this weeks victor! Claim your pendant in the name of Chaos!  

[BitsHammer]

I thank you for the honor and the insight. I'll work harder to make my dialogue live up to my prose in the future.

 

And I look forward to seeing what everyone writes in this next week.

[Teetengee]

Is there any chance we could have two weeks for this one, given the start of the ETL?

[Kierdale]

Firstly congratulations, Fulkes :tu:

 

 

Is there any chance we could have two weeks for this one, given the start of the ETL?

I thought about it but will the first week of the ETL make us that much busier than other weeks of it?

If enough members want two weeks I don't mind making the change though :)

[BitsHammer]

I can go either way with this since I'm judging and not writing this time.

 

Plus I don't have any ideas for this prompt anyways.

[Teetengee]

Firstly congratulations, Fulkes

Is there any chance we could have two weeks for this one, given the start of the ETL?

I thought about it but will the first week of the ETL make us that much busier than other weeks of it?

If enough members want two weeks I don't mind making the change though

First four and last four will probably be busiest. It was more because it is just generally busy that two weeks gives more time than one. At least for these more interconnected stories, I don't write them in one sitting.

[Warsmith Demetrios]

 

Hope I'm not bending the rules too much with this Inspiration Friday, since technically the assault isn't being enacted by my 25th Grand Company, though rather they are defending against it. However, I found the need to share this little tidbit, and hope perhaps I can serve to inspire some other brothers in Chaos even if I do not win. Enjoy!

 

"A Debt Paid"

 

 

“Greigor!” He could hear his Warsmith roar over the vox, the intensity of which threatened to blow out both the bead and the warrior’s own eardrums.

“Greigor you damn whoreson, take you’re men and fall back to the inner walls immediately!”

All around the Iron Warrior, the signs of a fiercely pitched battle were evident. Bodies that had once been members of the 25^th’s mortal auxiliaries lay twisted and bloodied amongst flaming industrial wreckage, shattered cybernetics stemming from their dark skitarri cohorts mixed in with them in equal number. Yet, in comparison to the amount of enemy that lay dead at the Astarte’s feet, they were merely a drop in a vast ocean.

Four other Iron Warriors stood with Greigor, each covered in the blood and viscera of their attackers. He had known these men since before The Heresy, fought and bled with them on countless worlds. They had battled at the gates of Terra, fled into The Eye of Terror, and spilt blood in the name of vengeance for ten thousand years. They had followed each other to hell and back, yet Greigor knew in his twin hearts that today would be their final battle.

“I’m afraid I cant follow that order Lord Warsmith,” Greigor replied sullenly, looking out at each of his men with sullen eyes, “the Blood God calls us to his hall.”

Each of those warriors, though obviously members of the IV Legion, bore the distinguishing features of Khornate devotion. Pieces of armor had a coat of red where once gunmetal shined bright, while skulls and brass icons were chained, tied and bolted across their plating. Axos and Vathian bore skull-capped topknots atop MK III helms, Brennal’s power pack had sprouted several vertebral columns that clacked and pulsed with the promise of bloodshed, While Feram had grown nearly head and shoulders taller than all his brothers, his muscles barely contained by the confines of his power armor.

Greigor took this moment to examine himself, a deep sense of shame coming about him. His chest plate was wrapped in thick, rune inscribed chains, a brass icon to the Blood God hammered into the center. Somewhere between the present and his descent into berserker status, the yellow hazard marks on his shoulder pauldron had turned a deep red below the iron skull of the legion. Hooked chains hung from his waist, while trophies of skulls and teeth clattered together in the chemical-smelling breeze.

A dread sense of deja-vu had descended amongst the Astartes, each full well knowing that the events several millennia earlier had come to a climax, one which entailed death which they had so wished for since that fated day. Cramped for almost three months in the lower levels of the crumbling fortress, locked in with only serfs and slaves with untold millions of greenskins overrunning their brethren above, Greigor had led his men in their efforts to find salvation. Using up their mortal companions as labor and eventually nutrition, they managed to breach their way into the chambers of their former lord’s heretek coven.

+Break this vessel that binds me+ the voice that seemed to be made up of a thousand cries of anguish and roars of rage had whispered through the dank air.

+I can give you power. The power you need to save yourselves. That you need to continue you’re Long War+ the daemon had promised the desperate mortals +All you need do is free me+.

When Greigor had found the source of the being’s calls for aid, the exoskeleton of some unfinished daemon engine bound by thick obsidian chains, he looked to his brothers, bloody and ragged, with no hope for survival left in them. They were operating on pure instinct, knowing nothing else but survival and not having the ability to give up. Greigor was not ready to die, nor was he ready to let those who he had fought alongside of thousands of years go to the grave.  He knew his actions were selfish, yet when he broke the chains and smashed the runes of sealing, he didn’t particularly care.

“Damn it Greigor, you are brothers of the 25^th and Iron Warriors, do not throw you’re lives awa-“

Greigor couldn’t bare it anymore, cutting the vox feed. Since that day he had been indebted to the herald he had freed, blood and skulls for Khorne being the tax. It was an existence where he could feel his senses and rationality slipping away, a constant war to retain his sanity in the face of an overwhelming bloodlust. It was exhausting for all of them, and Greigor knew this was not a life any of them particularly wished to live for anymore. Theirs was not the path of the World Eaters; they were Iron Warriors, sons of Perturabo. They had paid their debt ten times over as far as he was concerned, and if Khorne disagreed, he could have words with them at the gates of his realm.

“Brothers,” Greigor proclaimed loudly, stepping amongst his men with a new fire in his eyes, “the enemy comes for us once more, and it is apparent that this time they will triumph on this field.”

They looked on at him silently, and he hoped that, in their final moments, the god that had shackled them to his will had enough respect to allow his warriors clarity enough to understand what he had to tell them.

“Our brothers have ceded this land to move to a more advantageous position behind the inner sanctum. I pray they may yet survive the battles to come.”

He could hear them now, behind a shroud of industrial smog and debris from burning factories and breaches in the outer walls. A sea of bodies, each individual possessed by a murderous frenzy that drove them forward.

“Brothers, we do not go silent into the Valhalla we have yearned for!” Greigor raised his chainsword, revving its teeth as he somehow felt the spirit returning to his men.

“The bastards who forced us to this point knock at our door! They come to slaughter our brethren and topple all our accomplishments to the ground!”

The air was electric, a clairvoyant rage descending over his brothers, who cursed and reared their heads at the thought of such a thing.

“We will not allow this to stand! We have yearned for this day, yet we will not just roll over and die for this menace!”

He could see their silhouettes through the smog now; the vanguard would be breaking through in mere moments now.

“Ours is a noble death! We are sons of Perturabo! Warriors of the Blood God!”

The hulking forms of the first orks barreled through the shroud like wild beasts, beady red eyes spotting their adversaries and faces erupting into toothy grins at the promise of a fight.

“IRON WITHIN! IRON WITHOUT! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

“WAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!” 

 

[Scourged]

Hello everyone! I thought I would give everyone my thoughts on their stories before announcing the winner. I included my favorite line from each piece as well, as that is an exercise we did in my creative writing classes back in the day.

...

I like how Scourged's Among Thieves really plays up the fact that even newer warbands like the Scourged who haven't been around for 10,000 years still have an extensive history, with alliances and oaths stretching back through time. One hardly ever sees such an expansion of the lore in that way, but I think that this story accomplishes a lot in a short amount of time. I would have enjoyed more of a dialogue between Dhel-mas and the Dark Eldar. It's a racial dynamic rarely explored and I think the story could have benefited greatly from more of that exchange.

Many thanks! I great do appreciate it, as trying to expand the wealth of lore on renegades is something I try to do every week. The Legions, fractured as they are, don't deserve to have all the fun. And I see what you mean about more of a dialogue between the factions. I probably could have used more of that... but now I have many fun ideas to play with later.

Firstly congratulations, Fulkes

Is there any chance we could have two weeks for this one, given the start of the ETL?

I thought about it but will the first week of the ETL make us that much busier than other weeks of it?

If enough members want two weeks I don't mind making the change though

First four and last four will probably be busiest. It was more because it is just generally busy that two weeks gives more time than one. At least for these more interconnected stories, I don't write them in one sitting.

...if possible, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for two weeks as well.

[Kierdale]

Alright, alright! Two weeks! :D

[Kierdale]

Campaign Part II: The Psychopomps Attack

Hidden Content

Farseer Emrana turned as soon as he sensed the anomaly. His second sight seemed dulled, numb, as if a greater power had laid a veil across his mind and now he realized it he could not recall when it had begun. Still, the rift in reality was as clear as if someone had gashed open his own flesh. Such an intrusion was near impossible in realspace but for the art of the Warp Spider Aspect, who achieved it with far greater finesse. Some crude form of teleportation? But the heavens were clear. No xenos ships, indeed no starships at all but for the craftworld’s escort of dragon- ghost- and other ships...but perhaps for how long?

The warlocks at his side turned a microsecond after him, sensing the same. An intrusion yet not an invasion, they could sense as much. Who would be insane enough to attack craftworld Carth-Lar in such small numbers with even a madman’s confidence of success? Unless the attackers knew of the losses the Eldar had sustained on Viarphia not long ago...

His attending warlocks immediately made for the rift they had sensed, Aislin turning back when she noticed Emrana was not following them.

“Go,” he jerked his sharp chin in the direction the other warlocks were headed in. “Rally and direct our defence.”

Aislin nodded, her fine features already hidden by her tall helm, “And what of you, master Emrana?”

He looked up once again to the star-field overhead, searching the void but finding naught, before replying.

“I will ensure no more come.”

 

 

The Erinyes had not dallied in the houses of healing. They were no butchers who bent their knees to lay skulls at the foot of Khorne’s throne. There was no glory in the butchering of invalids. It was true that Slaanesh thirsted for every Eldar soul, but the Dark Prince would have a fine banquet soon enough if the Warp Talons stuck to their mission rather than lingering to slaughter the sick. The urge to revel in killing, to desecrate the bodies and minds of the Eldar pulled at their souls. Pulled achingly strongly, but they steeled their wills and denied the lust of the neverborn ichor pumping through their veins. They cut their way through patients and healers alike, bursting from a high window, their jump packs screaming like hellhounds and spitting baleful green fire. Though their mission was paramount in their minds they were not without a spite born of their devotion to Slaanesh: The last of their number to leap from the window gave in a little to temptation and jumped with an injured Eldar under each arm, the turbines of his jump pack screeching in protest as they were pushed past their limits...until the Erinys, at the apex of his leap, released the two Xenos, letting them fall to their deaths below.

Before their jumps took them back to the wraithbone streets and paradisiacal gardens of the craftworld, there came a high fluted note which carried eerily throughout the great starship from its towering minarets through statue-filled courtyards to winding labyrinthine alleys.

A call to arms.

The pavement cracked as their claw-toed, ceramite boots struck its surface. One of their number came down upon an Eldar rushing to the nearest armoury, crushing the slender alien under his immense weight. Before the Eldar could even get a good look at the intruders the Erinyes leapt into the sky once more. No deception, no misdirection, they made directly for their target as they knew time was paramount. Should they fail in their mission the craftworld would slip from the fleet’s grasp...and they themselves would be stranded aboard it. Thus they shot upwards, kicking off walls and rooftops as they bounded, beast-like toward the aft quarters of the craftworld.

Towards its engines.

 

 

Angra, dark apostle of the Psychopomps, turned his asymmetric visage upon the sorcerer Holusiax across from him on the bridge. Truly they embodied the fallen chapter’s worship of the Dark Prince of Chaos: the former master of sanctity had been struck down, his body split from crown to groin, by a chaplain of the Black Templars during the flight from their homeworld and had for his multifarious sins been saved by Slaanesh. The left side of his face - and perhaps that of his mind too - was now that of a Q’tlahs’itsu’aksho. A daemonette.

Holusiax, once the chapter’s chief librarian, had lost his lower body in the blast of a battle cannon on the planet where they had all fallen. Captured by the cults of that world he had been visited, tempted and seduced by a herald of the Lord of Pleasure, and his body remade in the form of a naga, complete with a second pair of daemonic arms beneath his great Astartes limbs.

The sorcerer ended his meditation, his astral communion, opening his eyes to meet Angra’s steady gaze and nodded.

The daemonette half of Angra’s mouth pulled wide in a feral grin revealing ranks of needle-like teeth and its green eye widened in anticipation while he turned to the bridge crew. The deck plates beneath their feet shook and the moan of stressed metal echoed throughout like the wails of a tormented captive, for Charon’s warp engines were propelling the craft beyond its limits. Nor was it alone, for the chapter had gathered its disparate cults and ships for this climactic assault. The favour of the Dark Prince and the infernal artifice of his daemonic servants stilled the sea of souls before the Psychopomp fleet, both aiding its swift passage and dampening bow waves of wild emotion which might have alerted their prey of their coming.

Receiving the signal from the dark apostle, the helmsman began the countdown. As soon as he began, the two senior officers turned and made their way aft toward the launch bays for the entire warband would descend upon Carth-Lar to feast upon the souls of the Eldar and they would not be absent from the reaping.

 

 

No two craftworlds were identical. Vast spaceships constructed countless millennia earlier, many had at their core originally been trading vessels sailing the void betwixt the worlds of the Eldar empire. Journeys between the stars took centuries and so the massive crews - communities in their own right - had had a sense of independence and self-reliance. In this way they inadvertently saved themselves to a large extent from the decadence of their species. Making contact with Eldar worlds only a handful of times each millennium, the changes coming over their people were glaring to those of the craftworlds. As the end approached, the starfarers had fled the madness of their worlds, finding their planet-born kin wanton and debauched. Sick in both mind and body.

Thus it was the craftworlders were saved from the Fall of the Eldar.

Ulthwé, Biel-Tan, Alaitoc, Saim-hann...some of the largest and strongest of craftworlds. Carth-Lar had forever been in the shadow of its greater cousins; a position it did not resent, for those of Carth-Lar held the rebuilding of their race’s once-supreme empire above all else. The creation of and tending to maiden worlds, and the shunning of contact with the lesser races of the galaxy; that path led only to temptation at best and destruction at worst. So the seer council had ruled and Carth-Lar had sailed the course they charted. The `reign` - for so it was referred at the time with mirth and now with sadness by the Exarchs - of autarch Qarasion had been a thorn in the side of the farseers. A thorn now excised and expelled.

Captain Aedan rested his chin atop his slender, steepled fingers, sat upon the command throne of his dragonship. A barren, lifeless rock of a planet hung in the darkness beyond, and in the foreground the mass of Carth-Lar powering its way through the void off to lower starboard. From this distance - within extreme range of both vessel’s weapons so that each could cover the other - it was impossible to judge the craftworld’s size. The only hint was that fellow ships, on picket duty as he was, were tiny in comparison to the mothership. Still, it was hard to imagine that it could accommodate millions of individuals comfortably. But now a great many of its halls and towers were empty. Entire structures of apartments were devoid of life, the populace having dwindled over the millennia; the desperation of his race weighing heavily upon their souls. Few young, pitifully few young, had been born over recent centuries. That steady decline had been aided by war. No matter how much they strove to avoid conflict, theirs was a universe of unending war, and the populace of Carth-Lar had paid a heavy toll.

He stroked the armrests of his throne. The Spear of Brionach had recently completed repairs after its battle with the Psychopomp fleet in orbit over Viarphia. That his ship of wraithbone had been healed faster than the ghastly injuries of his kin had shaken him. A ghostship, it was crewed by the dead as much as by the living, spiritstones implanted into its superstructure so that Eldar souls might crew it in a manner akin to wraithguard and lords. The Spear had given as good as it had got, taking a good tally of Chaos ships...likely the last combat it would see, he reflected. Since Viarphia the council would be even more careful with the lives of their people. They would sail the interstellar depths, tend their worlds and likely only seed new ones if surveys and prophesies were exceedingly promising. Aedan’s martial training, centuries at the batteries, helm and later command throne of an Eldar battleship, fought with what he knew his destiny to be. The battles he had fought under Qarasion’s fiery command...the assault on Espardu, campaigning through the Tuldar Rift, battling the Orks on Vulkna, Peisu and a dozen other worlds and systems, the nerve-wracking face off with the Tau at Klemetri, the ill-fated mission to Fulcrum...perhaps that last had been the beginning of the end. Their attempt to head off the corruption of the Mon Keigh’s Astartes. Again and again Qarasion had attempted to destroy that cancer, while the council had ordered her to step down and let them take the craftworld as far away as possible. Then they had lost Mesusid...and recently Viarphia. And the Avatar with it.

He nodded gravely to himself as he watched the craftworld on the viewscreen. It was a hollow world now in more ways than one. No longer would anyone oppose the council. No longer would Carth-Lar’s forces sally forth. He would become a custodian now over the crumbling remnants of his people.

And so it was, in his melancholic reverie, that he barely registered the transition alarms as the membrane of reality was rent asunder and ships poured forth from the loins of hell until the psychic scream, the roar of a hungry god come to finish gorging itself as it had ten millennia before, shot out from the rent in space filling every Eldar soul on and above Carth-Lar with terror. Many of the infirm and elderly, those whose time upon the mortal coil was nearing its end, and what few newborns lived on Carth-Lar had their minds torn asunder and their souls ripped from their bodies.

 

 

The Charon - capital ship of the Psychopomps - lead the renegade battle fleet: Harbinger of Hades, Dionysus, Briseus, Enorches, Supreme Excess, Satyr’s Spear and other battleships following with lesser destroyers and frigates, Naga’s Bite, Nimiety, Rudra’s Trident, Silenus Priapus’s Blade Durga’s Call and the cult troopships Kronia, Pan’s Gathering, Aeogocerus and more in their wake. As soon as they tore their way back into realspace, eddies of impossible colours rippled away as their Gellar fields dropped to be replaced by void shields. Before many had even fully decanted from the warp, they opened fire upon the craftworld and its escort fleet. Lasers split the void with crimson blasts of energy, cannon shells and missiles streaking out painfully slowly in comparison. Caught unawares, many of the Eldar vessels failed to raise their holofields in time and much of the attackers’ opening salvo struck true. Wraithbone was sliced and burned by the blasts of turbolasers, the hulls of ghostships torn outwards by explosive decompression after being punctured, crew screaming impotently as they were sucked out into hard vacuum. Shells similarly chipped, cracked and then tore into hulls, some primed to explode within, blasting apart ships, buckling bulkheads designed to protect against decompression. Others detonated incandescently, vomiting forth payloads of promethium that ran like water within the innards of the alien ships. More reached past the escorting dragonships, aurorae and shadowhunters to strike the craftworld itself, targeting its own formidable armaments. Again and again the Psychopomp fleet fired, great capacitors on gundecks running hot, blistering the flesh of their servitors and filling the arming chambers with the reek of hot electronics and roasted meat. Overseers whipped gun crews to haul vast shells into cannon breaches faster and faster, the strong trampling the bodies of those who fell. Great guns rolled back as they spat forth rounds larger than battle tanks, black clouds of burnt propellant gusting from within breaches hauled open once again, the overseers flogging and gesturing to their deaf-mute charges for more shells to be loaded and launched. None knew whom the enemy were, only that rounds needed to be loaded and fired, loaded and fired lest the ship they were aboard be blasted from the void.

Explosions stitched the cityscape-surface of Carth-Lar, sending plumes of debris and smoke up into the ship’s sky. As point defences were activated torpedoes began to be swatted from the skies by lasers, but one torpedo found its mark: a large pulse lance housed within a dome of thickened wraithbone panels. The resulting fireball threw debris up, out of the craftworld’s atmosphere and sent cracks shooting through the surrounding sectors. Screams echoed through the rubble-strewn avenues of their world as Eldar tore themselves from the casualties of the attack, racing to their guardian arms and armour to prepare defences.

 

The escort ships raced to react to the sudden assault, activating their holoshields so that they dissolved into blurs of multicoloured light; the faster they moved, the more diffuse they became and thus the harder to target. Even ships’ augurs had trouble locking onto them. They darted away from the craftworld, drawing the enemy’s fire. One, an eclipse carrier whose name translated into Gothic as Bloody Rookery, failed to raise its holoshields fast enough and claxons sounded throughout its hangar bays. The deck crew raced to launch the ship’s compliment of darkstar fighter and eagle bombers before the captain positioned Rookery between the enemy and the craftworld itself, engines failing yet burning brightly with stuttering thrust. She was already taking fire and he knew that he could but sell his life and that of his crew as dearly as possible. Shots speared through her solar sails and engines, crippling her for Satyr’s Spear to skewer her with a concentrated blast of lances followed by shells. Even as she broke up, fighters were screaming from her hangars, the last ones engulfed in a fireball as her engines detonated. While the captain had been valiant in shielding his world with his ship, the sheer volume of fire with which the enemy assaulted his craft drove its burning remains down into the upper reaches of the craftworld’s artificial heavens and, captured by Carth-Lar’s gravity, she fell.

Solidified warp energy shaped by boneseers, wraithbone was one of the toughest materials in the universe yet as the destruction of the Rookery proved it could be broken and as the ship’s hulk plummeted through the craftworld’s atmosphere it burned and fragmented further. Great lengths of superstructure smashed down into the surface of Carth-Lar. Buildings were crushed and flattened, the lives of those within extinguished in an instant, parks and forests peppered with flaming debris which ignited the rich foliage there. A great cloud of dust was kicked up.

 

As if in vengeance, Satyr’s Spear was the first of the Psychopomp vessels to be destroyed. As soon as the Eldar vessels raised their holoshields it became far more difficult for the forces of Chaos to target them and the Eldar vessels began to make use of their speed and maneuverability. The once-Imperial vessels focused their assault on the craftworld, their eagerness to feast upon it like starved buzzards was both startlingly obvious and their main weakness. The dragonship Wavebreaker came about, forward batteries hammering the Satyr’s escort vessels, but she saved her plasma torpedoes for when the battleship’s drives came into its sights. Concentrated fire from sister ships stripped its rear shields and before a single void could be regenerated Wavebreaker launched a salvo of torpedoes before rolling and pulling away. The plasma warheads struck the engineerium, great blasts of superheated gas burning through thick adamantium plate with ease and destroying several of the Satyr’s engines. The battleship was not driven from her course, however the Wavebreaker’s torpedo run was not the full extent of the attack for as soon as the great dragonship had pulled away a trio of aurora cruisers had fallen into an attack vector behind it, such was the speed and maneuverability of the Eldar vessels that they could change their course and perform deceptive attacks with ease. These three too loosed their torpedoes and the Satyr’s engine decks were punched clean through. Her main reactor went up a split second later, bursting the ship from within like an overripe seedcase. Eldar and Psychopomp vessels alike peeled away as the battleship was engulfed in explosions, having fired off only a fraction of her ordnance. The great barrel of a turbolaser from one of the port batteries flew off into the void, launched by explosions within, cartwheeling a hundred kilometers in seconds and scything through the spine of an escorting cobra destroyer which had not evaded fast enough. The smaller vessel too went up in a blinding blast.

As the chain of explosions reached Satyr’s forward magazines there was a tremendous eruption which momentarily drew the attention of all ship crews who could see it, and those on the surface of the craftworld looked up to the skies, cheering and screaming words of bloody vengeance.

 

 

The Erinyes had been drawn from the elite of the Psychopomps’ premier companies and specifically those marine most receptive to the touch of the warp. They had fought on Mesusid and Viarphia amongst other clashes with the forces of the Eldar, and so Eldar architecture and design was not entirely alien to them. To one who had not fought for their life in the twisting confines of Eldar settlements before, the labyrinthine passages and tessellating courtyards of the craftworld would have been disorienting. There was yet one more factor which drove the Warp Talons on toward their target with precision. While the consuming of the Banshee Exarch’s hand had enabled them to track down another of the Exarch’s squad through the warp and facilitated their coming, they had also been granted a feast of Eldar brains. The alien’s equivalents of the hipocampus, amygdala, the cingulate gyrus, the thalamus, hypothalamus, epithalamus...every part of every Eldar brain which could be pried from heads taken on Viarphia had been set before the five Erinyes for consumption. They had gorged themselves upon this grey matter, in some cases too impatient for their servants to kill and scoop the meat from captives, the daemonic astartes had cracked the aliens’ skulls and eaten their brains whilst the captives were still alive. Assailed by the memories and anguish of dozens of Eldar as they ate, they exercised supreme concentration in sifting that which they needed - a sense of familiarity with the craftworld, knowledge of its highways and byways - from what would simply incite and excite them: the memories of pleasure, of wrath, of horror.

But in cutting such a direct course they showed their hand to the Eldar and defences could be directed against them.

 

 

Farseer Emrana alit from the gunner’s position of the viper and hurried into the edifice before him, past squads of guardians, their shuriken catapults arrayed outwards. A pair was quickly setting up a weapons platform. Within, he found the bonesinger Aedh.

The two exchanged deep bows, even during such dire straits formalities were not put aside.

“We are assaulted, from within and without.”

The bonesinger, his pale robes decorated with the glyphs of his trade like that of the armour he wore atop it, nodded and bade the senior seer continue. He would not ask questions, for he knew the farseer would tell him all he need know exactly as he needed to know it.

“We must take Carth-Lar to safety.”

Aedh’s eyes immediately moved to the planet far ahead of the craftworld, a barren rock with its star burning brightly beyond, but no more than a second later he realized the true meaning of the farseer’s words and he took a deep, calming breath.

“Open a portal here? With war waged in the void about us?” Perhaps it was born of desperation, their homeworld assaulted, but protocol be damned, he would ask questions, for what the farseer was suggesting was far from standard protocol!

He received a solemn nod in answer, but could feel the Farseer’s anger at his questioning of his superior’s order. So be it; if they survived he would willingly face sanction.

“What you ask of me risks the lives of our fleet-“

“Lives they would give willingly, for it is their duty,” Emrana replied curtly, adding quickly to forestall further protest, “I and the rest of the council have communed.”

Aedh closed his mouth. What good would it do to question the council, his betters? It was they who plotted the craftworld’s course.

“Act quickly while you can, for the enemy are already on Carth-Lar,” Emrana continued before looking to the heavens. Through the collapsing fireball of the enemy battleship’s death could be seen streaks of fire. Engine trails, and worse.

“And have your brethren rouse our sleeping kindred. They will be needed.”

 

 

The heavens above burning as starships dueled and brawled, the Erinyes sped toward their target. Human reactions, even the enhanced ones of an Astartes, could not alone have saved Tisiphone, it was the daemonic blood - the ichor of the neverborn - filling his veins which allowed him to fire his jump pack in time and take himself to safety. One of his kin was not so lucky and the Warp Talon screamed in anger as a monomolecular web shot out and spread over him, tightening rapidly. In less than a second the razor wire net had constricted over his twisted power armour and, unimpeded even by the armoured ceramite, it began slicing deep into his armour and the meat within. The other Warp Talons spared their doomed comrade not a glance as they spread out, seeking their foe. The netted Talon’s body collapsed in diced, wet chunks and the pitter-patter of ceramite fragments as his killer stepped from the shadows of the forest the Talons had been traversing. Clad in armour of white and red, of a bulk greater than most aspect warriors, he hefted a bulky, heavy-barrelled weapon. A Warp Spider. The knowledge they had consumed in their pre-mission feast had taught them as much. Though knowledge could not make up for lack of experience: the Talons had never faced a spider before and as the Eldar charged at them the Chaos marines raised their assorted claws, tridents and whips only for the Spider to disappear just before their weapons made contact with him, his jump generator taking him into the Warp.

Megaera’s trident and one of his brothers’ claws raked the air where the Spider had been a split second earlier, their blades merely catching the wispy edges of the rift as it sealed, the wound in reality curling and fading like smoke. The two shared an angry look, both having wanted the kill...neither realizing how easily they had been played, for another Spider appeared from the warp with impeccable timing, positioned so that one Talon blocked the other’s view, immediately unleashing a blast from his deathspinner to catch the two renegades so close together.

An elbow shove by Megaera drove his brother into the still-expanding web of wire, eliciting a blood-curdling scream and saving Megaera’s own hide.

This second Spider though was not as agile as the first and he found himself tripped by Tisiphone’s whip of daemonic flesh. The barbed weapon wrapped itself about the aspect warrior’s ankle and cut deeply as it constricted. Before the Eldar could activate its generator, Megaera drove his trident into its abdomen, punching through the carapace armour with ease and pinning the Spider to the wraithbone floor. Tisiphone uncoiled his whip rapidly and though the three knew that they had to keep moving toward their target, for surely there were more ambushes awaiting them, yet the deaths of their two kin demanded immediate retribution.

Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone gathered round the skewered, struggling spider.

 

 

The thunderhawk Whipoorwill roared across the void betwixt the Supreme Excess and craftworld Carth-Lar, weaving through the debris which filled the skies, its pilots throwing it into rolls and spiraling dives as Eldar vessels tried to swat it. Even as it closed distance toward its target, a landing zone highlighted on the cockpit HUD, its gunners fired at targets of opportunity: the turbolaser blasting apart a nightwing fighter before it could turn its own weapons on the gunship, and as they neared their destination the sponson and wingtip guns opened fire. While the ship had originally been armed with twin-linked heavy bolters these had since been replaced with great skull-muzzled hades autocannons, their barrels spinning rapidly and roaring like Cerberus himself as they spat hundreds of cannon shells at Eldar ground forces. Squads of Guardians were mown down, support weapons exploded under the fusillade and even darting jetbikes were clipped and sent spiraling into buildings, crews tossed from their mounts.

Even before the Whipoorwill’s landing gear touched down on the greensward its front ramp was down, roseate-clad Psychopomps firing their boltguns, boots mag-locked to the deckplates. Many jumped to the ground before the hawk landed, firing one handed and drawing chainblades, so eager were they to slay the children of Isha. Screaming prayer to the Dark Prince and challenges to the Eldar they raced across the grass toward the hurriedly constructed defences.

As Whipoorwill was pouring power back into its engines and lifting off once more, sister gunships were landing about it, disgorging their forces. From some came more squads of renegade marines, havocs who set their suspensor-fitted boots in wide stances on the turf before opening up with their heavy weapons, the elite of the fallen chapter with their sonic weapons which cut a destructive swathe through the defenders regardless of cover or armour, possessed Astartes from several chapters - a fearsome number of whom had once been fellow scions of Dorn as the Psychopomps had - who bounded toward the enemy with loping gaits, each now more beast than man. Some had the heads of daemonettes and other daemons of Slaanesh, many had powerful slashing claws, some were winged, others quadrupedal and a few were of such unstable form that they changed in the blink of an eye. The armour of many had merged with their flesh so that they were inseparable.

From the mouths of other gunships came the whine of anti-grav engines as landspeeders shot forth, skirts of hook-tipped chains whipping in their wake. The lead speeder struck a wave serpent, its multi-melta penetrating the xeno tank’s shield and obliterating it in a huge explosion. The crew of the speeder howled with joy and banked their vehicle to charge along the line of defenders surrounding the park the gunships were coming down in, a hook caught a guardian who did not manage to duck fast enough, and yanked him screaming into the air.

From yet another gunship’s ramp leapt a squad of pastel-painted bikes. The Black Stallions: scouts and reavers for the Psychopomps with a lust for speed to match that of the maddest of greenskins, they could not wait for their ship to land and launched their promethium-guzzling mounts from its ramp still half a dozen meters from the ground, screaming as they went. Turf and soil exploded upwards as their huge tires bit into it and they accelerated across the grass toward the park’s edge and the city beyond, their eyes wide with the electrifying thrill of racing madly into battle, delirious and frantic wordless cries emanating from their mouths. Most of their bikes were armed with twin boltguns, leaving the riders to their chosen melee arms: whips, axes, chains, tridents and a good number of weapons stolen from conquered enemies. Some had replaced their bolters with melta guns, others plasma. Yet more lacked any armament on their bikes but a second marine rode behind the rider - or even stood, chains anchored to their armour or flesh keeping them from falling - armed with flamers fed from the bike’s own fuel tanks. With these they played flames across the enemy, into buildings they raced past, or onto the chewed up ground behind the bikes, lighting their own trails.

It was with the Black Stallions that the sorcerer Holusiax came to the field. His mount was what had once been an attack bike. The gunner’s low sidecar and its heavy weapon had been stripped out and replaced with a platform upon which the fallen librarian stood, his snake-like body coiled beneath him. His upper arms, his Astarte ones, gripped the armoured, spike-festooned and glyph-etched front of his chariot-like platform while the lower pair of arms - those of slender daemonic flesh lilac in hue, lay ready upon the hilts of a pair of deep red-bladed daggers, each decorated with the glyph of the masculine or the feminine, sheathed in scabbards of flayed daemon skin. While the Stallions howled with joy he exercised his iron will, repressing his urge to give in to the thrill of the chase and destruction, and maintained vigilance: the Eldar were psykers supreme and while he had clashed with them before, never had there been so many as there would be on the craftworld itself. Here he would find himself tested to the full. A moment’s thought passed over his mind: he would be tested, as his predecessor Diarthet had been by the Cypriusian Magi. Diarthet had burned out and fallen becoming a twisted devourer of souls, a plaything of a rival god to spite the witch.

Holusiax breathed deeply of the warp-taint miasma which flowed about the Psychopomps, fed by the reaping of Eldar souls. No, he would not fall as Diarthet had. Their work here was blessed from upon high.

 

 

What had once been a Stormhawk exploded in a ball of fire, twisted flesh-sheathed wings folding as the fighter was torn apart by its detonating engines. Riagan pulled hard on the controls and his nightshade interceptor left its pursuit of the renegade fighter as the burning remains smashed into a wraithbone hab-tower before plummeting to the streets below. The Crimson Hunter spared no thought for any of his kin who might have been within that tower, for all those of Carth-Lar who were able of body were by this point engaged in its defence, and though those fighting-fit like he had been able to recover from the psychic scream which had accompanied the Enemy’s arrival, a sadness deep in his soul told him that many of his less hardy kin had not. That the crash might have inadvertently slain a child or the infirm he could not contemplate for while their soul would be consumed by the ever-hungry She Who Must Not Be Named if indeed it had not already, would they fate not be the same had he hesitated in taking his shot and thus put their life, his own and perhaps more in peril? Such was the aspect of the Crimson Hunter: the embodiment of Khaine the supreme hunter. There was him and his target, and those who could not aid in the hunt were as nothing. And this had turned into a lone hunt for the enemy were numerous and the fighters of Carth-Lar pitifully few. Those who had once flown as his wingmen now fought for their lives in their own duels.

Instinctively he dove, his fighter responding to his every touch, at the earsplitting howl of some new airborne monstrosity inbound. The nightshade wove effortlessly through valleys formed by the cityscape of the craftworld and Riagan’s helm projected apparition-like images into the air before him, indicating the larger enemy attack vessels - the dropships - coming down in the plains and parks toward the center of Carth-Lar, the swarms of bastard fighters and bombers scouring its surface, the latter targeting ground defence batteries...and hot on his rear came some new threat. He had little time to study its form, noting only that if it had once been a plane akin to that he had destroyed scant seconds earlier. The powers of the warp had played cruelly with it, for his fighter’s sensors could make no distinction betwixt craft and crew. As he wove, slaloming through towers, cutting each turn tighter and tighter in an attempt to throw his pursuer into one of the structures while at the same time denying them a clear shot at him, he realized that the vessel hadn’t taken a single shot at him. The once-Stormhawk he had out-flown had sprayed cannon shells wildly, the pilot as happy to let his fire impact the city as much as chancing hits on the crimson hunter itself. But this abomination risked no shots, rather it steadily gained on him, unleashing fearsome bestial roars as it did so.

Riagan, a seasoned pilot in both the void as much as atmosphere, decided to test his stalker and took their chase vertical: throwing his interceptor into a tight turn and nosing over to drop into a deep chasm which ran across the craftworld. Here gantries and transitways spanned the gulf, the dark depths of which glowed red with the forges and generators deep within the craftworld’s innards. Down they dove, Riagan still pushing his fighter and his skill as he threw the nightshade into near-misses with the bridges. Gone were the days when he might have led a foe upon a merry dance whilst his wingmen picked off the pursuer.

He could now hear the baleful roar of the warped creation chasing him and a second later it was beside him. He could not help but glance and look in horror at the madness now flying upon his wing.

From the sides of an armoured carapace which might once have been the fuselage of some form of air or spacecraft came numerous blade-like wings tipped with spikes and horns like saw blades. Where once there might have been a cockpit there was a great bestial head, eyeless or blinded he could not discern but its maw, the jaws opened impossibly wide, glowed with green potency. It lacked any visible undercarriage even clawed limbs as one might have expected, their mind unravelling, such a fiend to possess.

He was unwilling to sell his life in ramming the beast but rather pointed them both at a slender bridge spanning the depths below and accelerated. He held the controls tight as both flyers were buffeted violently by thermals from the depths and he watched as his kin raced back and forth across that bridge. Jetbikes, vipers and guardians sprinting aft to the thickest fighting.

There came a howl from the beast at his side as the bridge drew closer and closer and Riagan smiled, confident that he would have the beast trapped. It would be forced to break off its pursuit and he would be able to come about onto its tail. He glanced at it to see its maw glowing brighter and his brow creased. If it meant to brake and fire upon him with whatever armament it possessed, he would have to be ready.

The bridge grew large before them and some upon it spotted the descending flyers, unable to stop themselves from ceasing their crossing of the span and looking up to watch the chase.

It was not the nightshade that the helldrake fired upon, but rather it spat forth a tremendous blaze of fire as it rolled away to one side of the bridge, Riagan taking his fighter the other and into the rain of burning bodies as his kinsmen panicked and fell, their bodies wreathed in unholy fire. The impact of bodies at such speed tore chunks from the nightshade’s wings and fuselage, sending it spinning uncontrollably to its doom.

 

 

Angra watched through the lenses of his skull-faced helmet with satisfaction as the invasion continued. In space overhead - and indeed to the sides and `beneath` the craftworld - the Psychopomps fleet continued to engage the Eldar defence fleet in a strange clash of styles: the Astartes vessels brawlers, hitting hard and taking hard hits in turn upon their shields and thick armour, versus the agile, darting fencers the Xenos vessels were akin to. But there were not enough of the latter, either starships or aerospace fighters, to prevent the Chaos forces’ landing. While the battleships of the Psychopomps alone were no match for an Eldar craftworld, even a relatively minor one such as this, the fallen chapter had called upon the Exalted Fecund: their puppet cult, and the faithful from dozens of Imperial worlds had cast off the guise of loyalty to the Corpse God and had answered the call of excess. And the daemon half of him could feel her sisters and other kin being drawn through the veil by Holusiax’s sorcerers even now.

While his own coterie of bodyguards made their way off his personal thunderhawk Violator he observed the warpsmith Thenaros directing the deployment of carriage-mounted conversion beamers and the unleashing of his former superior Zenelaius: now entombed within a twisted dreadnought’s sarcophagus. The towering, slab-armoured construct lumbered off into the thickest of the fighting, wailing morosely. The former master of the forge had been denied fulfillment, denied entry to the gates of their lord’s palace, and his daemonic consort had been destroyed before him. Angra could only jealously imagine such agonizing distress and wonder at how it might drive one to greater feats.

Rockets streaked out from high towers and balconies overlooking the gardens the two thunderhawks had come down in, detonating against the ground and a couple impacting Zenelaius’ thick armour hard enough to stagger him. The ambushers revealed - a squad of Dark Reapers - Thenaros directed the Havocs accompanying him and they fired one of the beamers. A most curious and ancient weapon, it shot forth an energy beam of extreme intensity, transforming matter into purest energy. The greater the density of the matter, the more explosive the blast. And the further from the weapon, the greater the intensity.

The beam caused a massive explosion in the building overlooking the gardens, a blinding flash of light followed by tons of debris sent out on a blast wave. Those caught within the blast were simply erased from existence, their very beings converted into energy, and those nearby were thrown by the explosive release of that power.

A roar went up from the charging renegade Astartes and Thenaros clapped approvingly, nodding to the Havocs.

 

A greater roar came then: that of retros, signaling the arrival of the huge troop transports. Not as fast or as maneuverable as an Astartes craft, the great shuttles had once been Imperial Guard vessels.

The first was intercepted by a flight of Eldar planes - a hemlock leading nightshades, the hunters having formed a pack to take down this larger game - and their precise fire raked its engines while the shuttle was still high in the air. There was a scream of tortured metal and the roar of retros died, replaced by a growing whistle as the huge vessel plummeted earthward, its killers immediately splitting as Enemy fire chased them. The great shuttle punched through the ground of the Craftworld and through three sub-levels, its nose compacting and lower decks compressing together with the impact, crushing the hundreds within - cultists and more who had been packed tight, hungry to attack and ready to charge from the assault ramps - crushing them into a thin paste.

But even as smoke rose from this wreckage, a sister shuttle settled to the turf, shots impacting its thick armour impotently from panicked defenders further off, its hatches opened and from within poured forth a maddened horde of braying Slaangor. With skin ranging from the palest pinks one might find in the petals of priceless roses through to shocking shades of fuchsia, the mutants were barely clothed, their skin adorned with black tattoos in myriad patterns, and a great number of piercings and chains. Weapons were secured thus to bodies, mouths were pulled wide open by chains and spikes, some even hobbled themselves deliberately with hooked chains which pulled at their legs agonizingly as they raced from their shuttles, flailing about with their weapons. Some particularly blessed members of the flock sported swaying mammaries upon the right side of their bodies and carried standards aloft, declaring themselves slaves to pleasure, excess and damnation.

The dark apostle removed his helm, stroking the left side of his face, the daemonic half, with his human right hand as he watched the Slaangor. He had, before his death, been so envious of the Children of Chaos. Their purity of form and devotion, for they were born of Chaos and lived for Chaos. But since his rebirth he now looked upon them as kin to a degree, though in truth he had surpassed them by merging with one of the neverborn.

The revving of Rhino engines behind him signaled his personal forces were ready. Mounting up he motioned with his blasted crozius and they charged forth into the fray.

 

All across Craftworld Carth-Lar the forces of Chaos began their assault, the majority landing in the gardens and open plains toward the center once air defences had been sufficiently battered, and forcing their way bloodily to unite with one another, while terminators teleported directly into the fray and obliterator teams stepped forth from hellgates behind the Eldar defences to unleash their fearsome arsenals.

 

Parks, gardens, streets and artillery-pummeled buildings became choked with smoke and dust and splattered with gore as hundreds of Psychopomps pushed outward, some riding dozens of rhinos, others advancing alongside tanks, behind their bike and speeder scouts. More numerous were the thousands of Slaangor and cultist mobs and turncoat guardsmen, driven to berserk madness and elation as the warband’s sorcerers summoned forth neverborn from the empyrean to further bolster their numbers. Grass rotted and wraithbone aged unnaturally at the tread of such abominations upon the surface of the craftworld. And opposing them was the entire populace of Carth-Lar. All those who could wield arms took them up, even those too old or too young for guardian service, for if they did not fight now then their souls would be naught but delectable viands for the Great Corruptor. Hundreds of aspect warriors, the veterans of the battle of Viarphia - all too few in number - were at the forefront of the battle once more. Even those who had taken the very youngest, the treasures of Carth-Lar, to sanctuaries deep within the craftworld quickly took up arms and hurried to the front once their duty was done.

 

The three remaining warp talons, Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera looked down from their high roost. Below them lay the huge structures which housed the craftworld’s engines, both realspace and otherwise. Their objective.

All three had fought harder than ever to come this far. Temptation had forced them behind schedule and in turn this had forced rashness upon them. Ichor dripped sluggishly from wounds dealt them by monofilament webs, hails of shuriken and various blades, but they had the trophies to show that they had not only overcome their foes but had destroyed them completely. Weapons, helmets, heads, severed ears, flayed faces, hands, jewelry and more adorned their armour, hanging from chains or skewered upon spikes.

Alecto stood, his hook-clawed boots perfectly balanced upon the thin spar the three were perched upon. He raised a clawed fist, brandishing a dozen spirit stones upon his palm and called out to the Dark Prince to witness him! To witness his offering, and his mouth yawned wide - unnaturally so, like that of a serpent - as he poured the sweetmeats into his throat.

 

It was he with his eyes cast to the heavens who first saw the change that came over the dueling starships overhead. As one almost all the closest of the Eldar vessels swooped close to the craftworld and the warships of his own fleet, daubed with the mark of Slaanesh and other foul sigils, struggled to follow suit. Those Xenos ships further off, as if overcome with a madness, threw themselves into the nearest Psychopomp vessels and Alecto stood speechless as a dozen ships erupted in gigantic fireballs as they were rammed.

The Nimiety and Priapus’ Blade, the Aeogoncerus and even the great Dionysus, Enorches and Supreme Excess were engulfed in blinding explosions and he staggered to behold such wondrous destruction. Thousands of lives wiped out in seconds. Immolated and torn asunder by sudden suicide attacks. The willful giving up of lives by the Eldar, offering up their souls to Slaanesh and taking countless of the Dark Prince’s pawns with them. For a moment he was overcome. The sheer unadulterated madness of it.

It was bliss.

It was glory.

It was rapture.

Then the gate swept over them.

The stars went out, as if a veil had been pulled over them, and only the knowledge they had garnered from the Eldar brains they had consumed allowed them to recognize what had happened.

They were now with the webway.

That Eldar nexus within the warp itself.

The Eldar, in a last resort, had plunged the craftworld into the webway!

He looked back as more destruction was wrought upon the Psychopomp fleet as the gateway began to close behind Carth-Lar. In confusion, some ships tried to veer off and escape the closing portal whilst other went full-burn into order to continue the chase and inevitably ships smashed into one another. Dropships, bombers, gunships and fighters throttled up to make it through, to stick with the craftworld, unwilling to let their quarry escape. But what of the flagship!? What of Charon?

Alecto swore he saw, though the inferno of destruction, the great battleship pull clear before the portal winked shut.

The Erinyes had been too late, for this is what they had been tasked with preventing, and now the Psychopomp forces upon Carth-Lar were stranded.

 

 

 

Deep within Carth-Lar bonesinger Aedh nodded to his kinsmen.

“Awaken the dead.”

[Carrack]

Awesome Kierdale. It looks like you are breaking out the full cast of characters for this. It was a great, and epic, read.

[Kierdale]

Thank you!

There are still a few names and units I hope to put into the next chapter of the campaign.

 

And I realise I have been remiss!

I did not yet tell the name of the next chapter in the campaign series (not that it'll be for a month or two)...

The next (and penultimate) chapter of the 'Campaign' series will be a choice of 'The Tables Turn' or 'The Crucible', to be decided individually as best fits the flow of your piece.

[Scourged]

Thank you!

There are still a few names and units I hope to put into the next chapter of the campaign.

 

And I realise I have been remiss!

I did not yet tell the name of the next chapter in the campaign series (not that it'll be for a month or two)...

The next (and penultimate) chapter of the 'Campaign' series will be a choice of 'The Tables Turn' or 'The Crucible', to be decided individually as best fits the flow of your piece.

Oh, oh that's superb. I was so very much hoping that's where this campaign would head, as I've already got my full plan outlined. Good to know everything I already have written out fits the direction you were heading with little to no revision. I guess you could say everything is going... Just as Planned.

[Carrack]

I'm working on my submission for this contest, and I think I've found my story after a few false starts. In the meantime, I'll post a few background stories that lead up to the assault. They are not necessary for my story, but I like them, and they do add to the story I'm writing. Consider them out of competition. The first takes place sometime before the assault, the next three immediately before the assault.

 

The Shield

Aspis, Sub-Sector Seat

 

 

 

Lorella looked over the audience of the Bestowment Parade, most were children and old men and women. Was the war going to be this bad? She hoped not, but the signs pointed to upcoming hardships. Lorella was getting her fair share of stares, and not the kind she use to get when she was younger, before she had given birth to 11 children. They were questioning stares, stares that asked, "Why are you not in a manufactorum, or at a founding of the Imperial Guard?" Lorella tried to answer the questioning stares by fiddling with her Matron Medal, a gold plated icon of a nursing mother, but too few knew what it meant, yet. The medal was awarded to Lorella for having raised more than five men and women who were serving in the Guard. She had eight, the youngest, her daughter Janne, was just 16 years of age, and even now, was drilling on the founding fields of her Triple R. The Rapid Response Regiments. Lorella considered herself fortunate that only two of her children were in the Triple Rs. The rest were getting the full course of Guard training. The Triple Rs were getting two weeks on the fields, and whatever they could manage on the troop ships. The Matron's Medal got Lorella draft exemption, even though she was still of age, as well as preferential treatment at the manufactorum, like the ability to take time off to watch the Bestowment Parade.

 

The crowd began to cheer. The parade was passing through. Lorella had a good view of the procession, the old ladies in front of her were seated, and short enough to see over when they stood. First came an armored regiment, proud tanks slowly riding down the thoroughfare with pendents hanging from their elevated barrels. The tanks and Infantry vehicles were pristine, with barely dried paint unmarred by weather or battle. Lorella barely glanced at the regiment, craning her neck to see what followed.

 

What followed was a sight Lorella would never forget. Dozens of red and orange clad Angels. Angels of Death. They were huge, their armor was thick and bright, and their guns were so large, that Lorella thought they might be cannons if they were not so easily carried by the Angels of Immolation. In spite of the hulking size of the angels, they marched gracefully as one, each angel in perfect step with the others, and swinging their arms the precise distance as every other. Lorella began to ponder how a group could ever be so uniform in their movements. It spoke of a level of precision that was beyond human ability.

 

Following the precession of Angels was the largest tank Lorella had ever seen. Like the Angels before it, it too was bright and defiant in orange and red armor. Cannons were mounted on either side, and the front hull, above a drop ramp large enough for the giant Angels of Immolation to walk down with heads held high. Standing atop the tank as it idled along the thoroughfare, were the two participants of the Bestowment Ceremony. The receiver was another Angel, in armor like his brothers, but embellished to the point of being a work of art. A martial art, for despite the gold filigree, the armor was obviously functional, even showing signs of repair. It wasn't a suit strictly regulated to the parade ground, it was a armor that protected its sacred bearer from humanity's enemies while the Angel of Death who wore it delivered His wrath. Beside the fearsome Angel, was a mortal man, the bestower. Under normal circumstances, the bestower was the center of attention wherever he went. The bestower was Lord Aspis the Pious, Sub-Sector Commander, ruler of worlds in the name of the Emperor. He was resplendent in his flowing robes of state, but Lorella's eyes were drawn away from her world's and the vassal worlds of the sub-sector's ruler. Lorella's eyes were drawn to the object that would be bestowed in the Sacred Cathedral of His Holy Shield, at the culmination of the parade. Her eyes were drawn to the Aspis Eternal, the shield from which the sub-sector and its commander took their names. The shield shined with the light of the sun off its polished boss, but with a brilliance more than what the bright day would allow. Memories of lessons in sermons about the relic stirred in Lorella's mind. The Aspis Eternal, the unyielding bulwark of humanity, lived up to everyone of them. Lorella caught herself after the shield passed, she had forgotten to breath in sight of the relic, and her knees had weakened. She was dazed in awe, as were all around her. Absentmindedly, she stumbled off back to the manufactorum as if drunk. The Shield would be bestowed. Her children would be protected.

 

 

Slipping Away

Garland System, Aspis Subsector

 

 

 

Gisco made the short leap from the Stormraven to the hull of the Black Legion Strike Cruiser. The distance was short, eight meters, but any leap in the void was perilous, a strong enough force could send him floating out to the empty void, stranded and alone, most likely to die as his armor and genetically engineered physiology eventually succumbed to the absence of the principal necessity of life, breathable air. That gruesome fate was not a concern as he made his leap, his only concern was letting his battle brothers down by not contributing to the mission. Gisco himself, knew no fear. His boots touched down on the dorsal hull of the heretic's ship, and magnetically secured him to the surface. He immediately felt the presence of the ship, it was a predatory beast, the creaking of the hull, and the vibration of the engines and firing cannons, felt like muscles rippling across the back of some ferocious carnivore. Gisco blocked out the intrusive presence by reciting the Litanies of Purity, as suggested by Brother-Chaplain Hamilax, at their pre-battle rites.

 

Gisco followed the same skull-helmed chaplain once the last of his squad, Brother-Sergeant Mago, fresh from the apothecaries with augmetic eyes protruding from his equally new helm, landed on the heretics' ship. Following the guidance of the Codex, they were moving to their objective atop the ship rather than through its corridors. This wasn't the ship of some ragtag pirates, it was a Strike Cruiser. It was the dreaded Blood Eye, and it's Astartes, like Gisco and his brothers, were masters of boarding actions. Traveling the interior of the ship would at best, be time consuming. It wasn't free from danger however, a hellish red glare split out of an opening service hatch near the first checkpoint. Traitors climbed out to defend their ship.

 

The first, and subsequent checkpoints, were point defense turrets identified by Gisco's own strike cruiser, Pyromania. Squad Mago, and the company chaplain, were tasked with disabling these turrets as they progressed across the hull towards their designated breech point. Pyromania would register the turrets destruction, and be able to more easily track squad Mago's movements. Disabling the point defenses would also allow for a more reliable extraction, should the squad complete its mission to cripple the Blood Eye's engines, and allow Pyromania, along with the pursuing battle barge, Ember, to prevent the heretics from fleeing, and destroy them at range. It was the most economical option for the Angels of Immolation. They outgunned the Blood Eye, but she could inflict significant damage in a straight fight before she was put down, and a more careful, prolonged engagement, might allow her to escape the Angels of Immolation's trap, and flee to the warp at a safe translation point at the edge of the system.

 

The traitors were just as bestial as the ship that bore them. Blood, in various stages of freshness, was spattered across their ancient, black armor. Gobbets of meat hung on wicked hooks, and clung to protruding spikes. The twin crests of the vile caedere remissum topped their helms, proclaiming their damnation for all to see. In their hands were bolt pistols, as spiked and barbed as their armor, and huge chain axes, churning their blades in a thirst for blood. As soon as each traitor emerged from the ship below, he immediately started rushing headlong towards Gisco and his squad. The last figure to come out the service hatch, did not join the first traitors in their charge. The last figure was a bizarre sight. Crimson robes fluttered about in the absence of any breeze. What emerged from the cowled robes was what was truly bizarre. Tentacles, some of flesh, some of metal, snaked about, each ending in a tool, weapon, or instrument of torture. The creatures did not walk on two legs, but eight, each ending in a claw that found purchase by punching into the ship's armored hull. Whether the creature's grotesque deviance from the sacred human form was deliberate, or a result of mutation, mattered not. It must burn.

 

Gisco took a position behind his squad with his sergeant, and Brother-Chaplain Hamilax, as the rest fanned out into a line. The charging berserkers were still out of range of his own weapons, but not the bolters and multimelta of his brothers. They fired into the heretics, each brother keeping his own lanes of fire as determined by previous battles, countless training practices, and ultimately, the Codex. The multimelta silently cooked one of the first berserkers, slagging a great chunk of his chest armor, which added to the burns caused by the powerful weapon. The seven bolters of the squad brought down another before the heretics reached pistol range. Gisco and the rest of the back line added their side arms to the bolter fire. Another berserker was melted, and a fourth was blown off the hull, away and upward, wildly firing his pistol and swinging his chain axe. If he got control of himself, he might be able to change his course with the careful venting of gasses from his backpack power plant, and the directed firing of his pistol. Gisco wouldn't have bet on the odds of the madman exerting that level of calm control.

 

As the berserkers drew near, they returned fire with their bolt pistols and a thrown grenade. Brother Agbal had his head separated by a bolt that skipped off his left pauldron into his neck, and Brother Mintho was launched off of the ship by a grenade exploding at his feet. Both were Gisco's brothers of years, Gisco held out hope for Mintho, but would have to settle for vengeance for Agbal's death at the hands of the repugnant traitors. The berserkers charged, Gisco holstered his side arm and stepped to the fore, readying his flamer.

 

The charge of the berserkers was a surreal affair. They were firing their pistols, brandishing their violent chain axes, and moving their heads as if they were yelling out a battlecry, yet in the vacuum of the void, all was silent. The silence was incongruent with the violence of their charge. Part of Gisco's mind registered this anomaly, but most of his mind was taken up with his action. Firing a flamer in zero gravity, with no oxygen to burn, was a tricky shot. He was using a specially prepared canister and propellant charge, they would ensure the flames burned hot, and help focus his spray outward, respectively. Gisco squeezed hard on his trigger, and made a quick back and forth sweep directly across the charging berserkers, rather than more carefully playing out the flames, and arcing them to extend their range, as he would fire the weapon normally. Even so, his flames balled around one of the berserkers, engulfing the heretic in righteous fire, but not straying from the victim to the rest of the traitors. Gisco wished he could have burnt more of the heretics, both from personal desire, and tactical necessity. Five of the maddened butchers hit Squad Mago's lines.

 

Gisco had seen Brother-Chaplain Hamilax fight in the sparring chambers. He had witnessed the chaplain smite the enemies of the chapter from across the battlefield. This was the first time he saw his chaplain fight up close. It was an awe inspiring, emotional, as well as physical carnage. While Brother-Sergeant Mago dueled with his opposite, Brother-Chaplain Hamilax layed about with his Crozius Arcanum, all the while screaming through the vox his hatred for these betrayers. Not every strike dropped a traitor, but most did. Gisco only caught glances of his chaplain's wrath, he was too busy trying to get the angle on a berserker for a shot with his bolt pistol, or at least create an opening for one of his brothers to exploit. Before he could get a shot off, a chain axe came in from behind and slammed into the back of Gisco's helm. He lost his footing and started to tumble head over heels. Fortunately, one of his brothers pulled him back onto the ship before he careened away.

 

Gisco's helm had not been damaged to the point of compromising his environmental seals, but his head had been violently jerked forward, bouncing his brain against his skull. He felt uncharacteristically weak in the limbs. He still managed to sneak in a pistol shot into the back of a berserker's knee, but the bolt skipped off the flexible armor and exploded in the air nearby. Gisco's vision began to tunnle, he knew he was going to loose conscious in spite of the stimulants flooding his brain. He dropped to one knee, further securing himself to the hull with a locking grip of his non-firing hand on an exposed rivet. Gisco shot one more time before he blacked out, it too failed to penetrate the heretic's armor, but it sent him off balance and right into the swing of Brother-Chaplain Hamilax's Crozius. His vision completely tunneled out, Gisco slipped away into unconsciousness.

 

Blood in the Water

Garland System, Aspis Subsector

 

 

The swirling lights started to coalesce into discernible images, simultaneously with the return of Gisco's equilibrium. He was regaining consciousness amidst the aftermath of a melee on the hull of a Black Legion Strike Cruiser. It was a grotesque abattoir of gently floating blood crystals and severed limbs, gradually drifting out into the void like buckets of chum dispersing into a sea. The Zone Mortalis of boarding actions was shark infested waters, the melee was sure to attract unwanted attention. Still testing his faculties, he slowly rose from a three point stance to his feet, his head was swimming slightly, not so much from the trauma of the Berserker's chain axe, as from the flood of hormones and stimulants his super-human physiology had released to compensate for the rattling of his brain, but they were receding fast, he was far from out of the fight. It was just in time to, a burst of cannon fire was walking down the hull towards his squad.

 

Gisco twisted to the left and sprinted behind a crease in the heretic's ship's armor. A meter thick slab plate had been bolted over an old wound on the back of the Blood Eye, which Gisco ducked behind along with his chaplain, and the rest of his squad, now down to himself, Brother-Sergeant Mago, and four of his brothers following the melee with the berserkers. Shrapnel ricocheted off the slab patch out into the void over Gisco's head. The cannon was a point defense turret that had been adjusted to fire onto the Angels of Immolation by the machine-beast that had followed the berserkers out onto the hull. It was firing proximity fused munitions, more suited to interdict assault craft, and shred their engines, than to shoot down Astartes. The fragments were unlikely to penetrate Gisco's Mark VII power armor, yet they were still dangerous in that they had the force to potentially overcome his mag locked boots, and blow him off the ship into the void. The blasphemous creature who had turned the cannon onto Gisco's and his brothers, had retreated back to the next turret, the next checkpoint on his squad's route across the back of the Blood Eye, likely to adjust that turret's fire as well. Gisco prepped a krak grenade, sure that his squad would soon charge the turrets.

 

Instead, Brother Chaplain Hamilax commanded squad Mago to follow him, as he raced to the right, past the carnage of the melee. Gisco and his brothers followed. As they ran across the hull, Brother Sergeant Mago informed his squad, via vox, that they would breach the hull at an antenna cluster a 120 meters ahead, and then travel through the top deck of the ship and try to cut off the heretic magos. He named the beast warpsmith, a traitor not only to the Holy Terra, but Mars as well. The bold maneuver was not without its consequences. The turret raked the squad, knocking Brother Sergeant Mago and Brother Mapen off the hull. A light, overhead strike from the chaplain's unpowered Crozius, was able to knock Gisco's sergeant back to the hull, but Brother Mapen was launched beyond reach. He followed his zero gravity recovery training, twisting away and trying to overcome his momentum by rapid firing his boltgun, but the turret's cannon zeroed in on the more exposed marine, and shot after shot sent him further out into the heartless void. The last Gisco saw of Brother Mapen was the marine throwing grenades down to the increasingly distant hull, perhaps their impacts would draw the ship's defenders away from squad Mago, if they were heard at all through the thick armor of Blood Eye's back.

 

They reached the cover of the antenna cluster, and the cannon fire ceased. There might have been some additional protective measure to prevent the cannon from shooting near the antenna, but Gisco did not have time to consider his fortune. Brother Bomlicar had just fired his multimelta into the antenna cluster's service hatch. Gisco waited as a rush of the ship's atmosphere blasted back out the ruined hatch, then stepped to the hatch and sprayed his flamer into the opening. He had to cut his blast short, as a second rush of air was pulled out by the vacuum of the void when a door was opened to the access tunnel leading to the hatch. The gust of air had almost pushed the flames back in his face. Just as quickly, the defenders managed to shut the door to the access tunnel.

 

Without delay, Brother-Chaplain Hamilax pulled himself down the access tunnel head first, followed shortly by squad Mago. Gisco watched the skull faced chaplain lock his feet to the tunnel wall above the door that had opened, and swing down into the door with the symbol of his office, his Crozius Arcanum. The door blew inward with the force of the strike, shattering into fragments, then the fragments of the door blew back out as the remaining air in the compartment beyond rushed back out as the void pulled everything unsecured out of the compartment. This included a collection of portable monitors, hand tools, and eight mortal thralls madly trying to seal void suits. The debris, living and inanimate, bounced through the line of Angels of Immolation, rocking Gisco back on his heels. As the doomed heretics barged by, Gisco reached out with his non-firing hand, and yanked out the oxygen tube on one of the heretic's void suits. He was certain the mortal would die anyway, but would rather that he died by the hand of the Emperor's Angel of Death, than any other fate.

 

The compartment was now empty of everything but a cluster of conduits that was bound to the ceiling with bronze bands, and which exited the room above another door. Gisco moved up to the far door, flamer ready, as his sergeant slid the locking bar open. He held back his gorge as the ship's artificial gravity asserted itself harshly. This time, when the door opened, the pull of the vacuum only drew out a spatter of blood off the walls of a short corridor that ended in a T intersection. The blood was old, and off color, possibly xenos or maybe mutant blood, enemy blood. The Angels of Immolation entered the corridor and sealed the door behind them. For now, they were out of the void and inside the Blood Eye. Gisco was struck by a feeling that somehow, the ship knew he was inside, and was angered by his and his brothers presence. He felt like he had just mounted a terrible beast, that had absolutely no desire to serve as his steed. He followed Brother Chaplain Hamilax in chanting the Litanies of Purity. In spite of his devout repetition of Brother Chaplain Hamilax's passionate recital, the bestial spirit of the Blood Eye could not be ignored.

 

 

Eighth Catacomb

The top deck of the Blood Eye, Garland System, Aspis Subsector

 

 

The mob at Gisco's back was growing larger. It was as if someone was pushing a great broom behind them, collecting dirt in a pile as the broom swept, some drifting off to the sides, but the pile of dirt generally getting larger. The dirt was the heretic thralls that crewed the Blood Eye. They weren't honorable chapter serfs, highly skilled in their assigned duties, and tenacious enough to at one time be considered for the tempering, the process that turned the very best mortals into space marines. The dirt, the thralls, were slaves taken in raids, and forced to survive on the violent decks of the Black Legion Strike Cruiser. Wretches fighting like dogs over the tidbits thrown to them by their uncaring masters. But they were dangerous in sufficient numbers, even to the Angels of Immolation, yet Gisco couldn't afford to stop and thin their ranks down. If he did he would lose momentum. The loss of momentum was a fatal condition during boarding actions. They must keep moving forward, less the defenders be allowed to fix them in place, and destroy them with their superior numbers.

 

Brother Bomlicar was up ahead, with his multimelta aimed at the door to squad Mago's right, waiting to see if the forward door would hold. Two strikes in rapid succession from Brother Chaplain Hamilax blew open the far door, the Angels of Immolation followed their chaplain into the next compartment, with Brother Bomlicar peeling off of the alternate door to take his next position. Gisco rushed to the fore, flamer ready to burn any heretics that might be present.

 

Gisco found no heretics to burn in the compartment, none living anyway. The compartment was another blasphemous catacomb, with racks stacked floor to ceiling with niches. In each niche was a skull. The room was filled with more than mere skulls, it was filled with rage and hatred. It was a vile temple to the daemonic, and it clearly attracted attention from the warp. It was the third such catacomb he had entered since boarding the ship.

 

There was but one exit on the far side of the catacomb, so Brother Bomlicar rushed past Gisco as he turned to guard the ruined door they had entered. Another two strikes from Brother Chaplain Hamilax's crozius sounded against the door, but this time the far door held. The skull-helmed chaplain immediately stepped aside as Brother Bomlicar brought his multimelta up for a breeching shot. The briefest of hisses was followed by a loud clap as the weapon fired into the door. The shot failed to breech. Gisco stole a quick glance over his shoulder before looking back out the squad's entrance for the mobs that had been trailing them. The multimelta had slagged the front of the door, causing a wide circle of metal to liquidate and run to the floor, but beneath the metal was another layer of ceramite, unscarred by the heat of the armor piercing weapon. Two more strikes from the crozius were followed by Brother Sergeant Mago's command for Bomlicar to try to breech the walls. Another hiss of the weapon was met with similar results, as were following blasts to the floor and the ceiling. Then the first of the hordes of thralls came into sight at the end of the corridor.

 

They were not entirely human. Horns of bulls and goats sprouted out of some skulls, while others had feet that had fused into hooves. Some were hunched over with curved spines that extended into barbed tails, and some even had fingers fused together into hardened blades of bone. Brother Chaplain Hamilax moved behind Gisco, resting a reassuring gauntlet on his shoulder. Gisco knew that he would fire into the advancing hordes until they reached the blasted door, then step to the side for the chaplain to hold the entrance until he fell, and Gisco would in turn, step into the narrow doorway. Meanwhile, Brother Sergeant Mago was directing the other surviving members of his squad to place krak grenades at various points in the catacomb, to hopefully find an unshielded section that could be breeched, while he placed melta bombs, and Brother Bomlicar continued to fire his multimelta. They had stayed too long on the top deck of the Blood Eye, they should have tried to return to the surface of the hull, thought Gisco. They had advanced too close to their primary objective on a predictable route. The heretics had ensnared them in a trap. Even over the noise of his squad trying to force a breech, and the hordes of thralls braying out their war cries, Gisco realized he could hear the ship's engines growling out a throaty call, proclaiming their territory to Gisco, and any other rival predators, the engines Gisco had been sent to cripple. Gisco, like all his brothers present in the catacomb, stood defiant in the face of the coming onslaught, not in the least concerned with his own safety. His only concern was that they all might perish, or otherwise be delayed too long to complete their mission.

 

The hordes started down the corridor with cries of blood on their mutant lips. Before they came into range, several of the skulls in the top niches of the catacomb hummed to life and floated out overhead. They were fitted with micro propulsion drives and weird, forked rods that extended out of their mouths. They were some heretical version of servo skulls. Light shined out from the rods, forming the image of the eight-legged Warpsmith that had forced the Angels of Immolation off the surface of the hull. The image spoke in a robotic voice, both mechanical and sinister, "Prey, I am coming for you. While you amuse yourselves with my thralls, take time to remove six of the most decayed skulls from my eighth catacomb. They will soon be replaced with your own."

 

[Carrack]

Bonds

 

 

Lythane the Black, Keeper of the Liber Apocal, and Equerry to the Lord of the Black Maw Warband, advised, “If I were you, Lord Carrack, I would stay at range and strike with our lances, as we delay them with our escorts, and destroy the loyalist flagship. That or simply withdraw to the warp, to strike a less defended system."

 

Lord Carrack stopped stalking the bridge, and replied, "If I were Lythane, that is what I would do, but I am Carrack, and I will close with the enemy. Prepare the assault bays."

 

 

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

 

Chapter Master Barca observed the enemy fleet's disposition from the Bridge of Ember. It was apparent that this would be the battle for the fate of the Aspis Subsector. He strapped his gauntleted hand onto the grip beneath the boss of the symbol of His dominion in this subsector, the Aspis Eternal. It had a heavy weight to it that even he felt as he hefted the shield, both physically and symbolically. He would bear both. He took his honor guard with him off the bridge, no commands were necessary for his Master of the Fleet. The captain would do what he could to thin the boarding craft that were about to launch. He could hear the benedictions from his Master of Sanctity now, being broadcast across the ship-wide vox. The benedictions called for purity of aim and steadiness of hands for the turret gunners, and purity of faith and steadiness of heart from his outnumbered pilots. Both would do their utmost, but ultimately fail to stop Ember from being boarded. He led his honor guard to the central most position on his chapter's flagship, in accordance with the Codex Astartes. The section on counter-boarding operations was one he, and every brother-marine in his chapter had memorized, practiced, and rehearsed, but infrequently used, who would dare board an Astartes Battle Barge?

 

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

 

Macar plunged Hilketa into the effigy and felt her hilt quiver in his hand. One by one, the tallow candles marking the edge of the ritual circle blew out, bereft of wind. As each candle was extinguished, a corresponding gem in the sword’s hilt illuminated with light, and played its color down the length of the blade. The light from the glowing gems was as bright as Macar had ever seen it, for he had spared no expense in completing the ritual. The circle had been etched into the deck of the thunderhawk, Consilia in Melius’s troop compartment with a distillation of his own acidic saliva, and then carefully inlaid with molten silver. It had taken several hours, worked in short increments, guarded in secrecy. The tallow for the candles had been ritually rendered from the fat of murdered men. The effigy had been woven from reeds watered with tears, and covered in wax taken from the hives of the blink wasp, an insect so venomous, that if a man was stung by one, all he would have time for was to blink before his death. But the real expense, the costliest component, was inside the wicker effigy. It was three strands of hair, and a scattering of skin cells taken from the effigy’s inspiration. Macar had beggared himself, both in coin and favors, to procure the scraps of genetic material from Hilketa’s next victim. Finding people close enough to the warrior that were willing to betray him had not been easy. The sword was still a sword, and a masterpiece of the swordsmith’s art at that, she would cut and stab anyone she struck, but the ritual would attune the weapon with the victim made in effigy, and Hilketa would always strike true against her designated foe, her bond-victim. It was the advantage Macar needed, if he was to win against the warrior the wax and reeds represented.

 

The assembled warriors looked on the ritual in damning silence. None objected, all present had tied their own fortunes to Macar's. Some had never seen the ritual before, others had spied their captain conducting the ritual in a meaner, less elaborate fashion before. All present were committed to following Macar, even against the deadliest of enemies.

 

Enemies made themselves known. Proximity alarms blared through the thunderhawk, indicating that they were in range of the enemy battle barge, Ember, the Angels of Immolation flagship that was about to be boarded by Macar, and the other Black Legionaries of the warband. This was the battle that would most likely determine the fate of the Aspis Subsector. It had started with Ember catching the Black Maw strike cruiser Blood Eye raiding on her own in the Garland System. A chase had ensued, that would have ended with Blood Eye reaching the system's edge, and translating to the warp just ahead of her pursuers. Then the loyalists cut her off, their own strike cruiser, Pyromania, coming into the system ahead of the Blood Eye. Lord Carrack, the ironfisted ruler of the Black Maw, heard the Blood Eye’s screams through the warp, and left the world he was raiding to take his fleet to relieve his most important capital ship, other than his own flagship, Bitter Revenge. A void battle ensued. The fleet of the Black Maw faced a tremendous foe in Ember, and could not afford to close with the Angels of Immolation's flagship. They could however, overwhelm her attack craft with attack craft of their own, along with interceptors, bombers, and boarding torpedoes launched from across the fleet of the Black Maw. But boarding an Astartes Battle Barge was a risky endeavor. The Black Maw could succeed in destroying the battle barge, along with the majority of the loyalist chapter, including their master, and thus eliminate the most potent defenders of this subsector. Or, they could be defeated, and any survivors would have to flee back to the Eye of Terror. In bold endeavors, heroes are made.

 

Macar's assigned part in this battle was to board the battle barge, and with his warriors, silence the port canon batteries. His part was not to strike the engines, or the bridge, the two most vital objectives in a boarding action, his part was of much lesser significance, and would win him little glory. That was his current standing in the Black Maw. It hadn't always been.

 

Of the three original Sons of Horus companies that had formed the Black Maw, Macar commanded the company belonging to their last lord, Lord Huma. When Huma disappeared to the warp, Lord Carrack, then a captain, had seized command. His company had grown, given the best support, the most recruits, and the most opportunities for glory. He lured over warriors from Macar's and Garaduk One-Eye’s companies, with his favoring of his own former company. Macar’s especially, some of this was because Macar's company had been the favorite of Lord Huma, but it was also indicative of a religious shift in the warband as well. Lord Carrack had brought the Blood God into ascendency in the Black Maw. While Garaduk's recent patronage of Nurgle represented a new faction in the warband, it was still small, and not gaining many converts among the old guard of the warband, the true Veterans of the Long War that were the backbone of the Black Maw. It had even lost some support from some of his legionaries who did not wish to tred the Grandfather's path. Macar, like Lord Huma, had favored the Changer of Ways, and his faction had steadily waned in power since Lord Huma left, but as their numbers dwindled, Macar's remaining legionaries grew more loyal, almost tribal in their allegiance to each other and Macar over that of the warband at large.

 

The Consilia in Melius rocked wildly for a moment as it was hit with fire from the point defense turrets, then landed abruptly on the port side of Ember, above her gun decks. Macar mounted his custom-made Solomon Carpet. It didn't remotely resemble a carpet. It was a square platform covered with tubing, pipes, and engines, assembled by Solomon, the mad heretek of Xana II. The engines weren't responsible for lifting the carpet off the ground, they merely powered the containment field that trapped the motive force for the carpet in reality. Reality wasn't its natural environment. The carpet responded to no controls other than Macar's will, and shot out of the thunderhawk to range out over the port hull ahead of his legionaries.

 

Macar should have been searching for a breach point ventral to his landing zone, closer towards the gun decks, but instead he raced across the port side of the loyalist ship searching for a breach point more suited to his own, personal designs, designs for far greater glory. Only one small squad peeled off to undertake the mission assigned by Lord Carrack, and they were tasked with creating more smoke than fire. They were to create the illusion of a raid on the gun decks, while Macar went after a more worthy target, the target Hilketa thirsted for.

 

Macar halted his carpet over a passable entry to the ship, a seam where two armor plates had been poorly fitted together, the shipwright’s art was a dying one for the stagnant remnants of the loyalist Mechanicum. He dived down the five meter rift between the plates to place his melta bombs. In spite of the shortcut provided by the rift, it still took two pairs of melta bombs to breach the hull of Ember. Macar waited at the top of the rift for the breach to open, and his warriors to make their way to his position with mag locked steps. He passively watched the contents of the opened compartment rush out the hole into the vacuum of the void. Some of the contents were living, though not for long. He led his warriors into the ship, to make their way towards the center of the battle barge, where Macar was sure to find Hilketa’s bond-victim.

 

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

 

The thunderhawk, Consilia in Melius, lowered its troop ramp as it fired its retro-thrusters just short of Bitter Revenge’s open assault bay, saving time for its next load of legionaries to board for the second wave. The normally bare troop compartment, shed debris into the void just outside of the Black Maw flagship. The debris consisted of nine candles, and a wicker effigy of a warrior in black terminator plate, an effigy of Lord Carrack, with a hole where his primary heart would be found.

 

 

[Kierdale]

Talk about a twist! Carrack that's a nice surprise ending.

I look forward to the 3rd episode.

[Scourged]

Continuing what I started here and here with the first part of the campaign, I present the second installment below. And, uh... just like with the first part, I'm including my prefaced apology for length. Sorry in advance, Fulkes! 

 

I:

 

 

Thirty-seven hours - that’s how long it takes for a planet’s population to crumble. It had taken the might of countless enslaved Astropaths, channeled through a psychic conduit and bombarded onto Ophiuchi. The raw energies were enough to cull great swathes of the populace instantly, but more time was necessary to see the full effects of the Djinn’s Curse rip the planet apart. Those that survived the terrible power of the Scourged soon found themselves subjected to their own madness and turned on one another. In as little as thirty-seven hours, Ophiuchi had become the home of a mass genocide, with not a single shot fired from orbit.

Yet, the short span of time it took for the Curse to reap the lands of the planet below was relative, those hours having felt so much longer to the crew of Deception’s Call. The unleashing of the Scourged’s treasured weapon with such force and intensity - a feat never accomplished or attempted before - all but destroyed the renegade battle barge. The psychic backlash of the attack tore through the vessel and disabled countless systems and back-ups. All power had been lost, life support followed quickly thereafter, and what paltry communications they had with the rest of the traitorous raiding fleet were gone. Many systems were still remarkably intact but could not function without the endless supply of energy from the ship’s many plasmic reactors. Those thirty-seven hours had been a mad scramble to repair all that they could upon their home in the void.

Not a mortal soul was left alive within the vessel. Surprisingly, very few of the humans that died did so because of the Djinn’s Curse. So many of the Scourged’s crew, both human and Astartes, had become psychically inoculated to effects of something like the Curse. The acidic burning of a galaxy’s shortcomings was little more than the buzzing of flies in their ears. Their minds were already constantly bombarded with ever-present voices that a sudden surge goes all but unnoticed.

No amount of psychic shielding, however, can prepare a person when the oxygen depletes and the temperatures fall. All of the mental resolve in the universe is meaningless when the hull of your ship breaches and you’re cast into the vacuum of realspace. And thus, thanks to those and so many more incidents, all that remained of the vengeful warband were the genetically-augmented supersoldiers and a scant few servitors.

And that collection of supersoldiers was ever grateful that those few servitors had survived. Without whatever extra hands they could find aboard the Call the passing thirty-seven hours would have found far less work and repairs completed. Power had been the main priority, for obvious reasons. Though a third of the generators were now forever inert thanks to the blast, the remainder were eventually revived. Electric lifeblood once again rain through the metallic veins of the twisted ship, slowly bringing the floating metropolis back to life. In time, enough atmospheric and thermal systems were restored that the tired Astartes no longer had to rely on the sealed environments of their power armor. By the time Deception’s Call was patched together enough to be considered operational, Ophiuchi was deemed to be ripe for assault.

That news came as little relief to Teshin. Yes, it would mean an end to the nonstop work he and the rest had been performing aboard the battle barge. He would no longer be confined within the endless access panels repairing damaged wiring and optics. It wasn’t that he minded the work, but rather because climbing into the small panels was more akin to being swallowed by a daemonic beast and toying with sinew and veins instead of actual hardware. Such was the corruption of Deception’s Call over centuries of Warp exposure.

His own time spent in service to the Scourged, long as it was becoming, still did not dull Teshin’s revulsion at the vessel’s half-living surfaces. So many of the warband accepted the irrational changes without disgust or contempt. Those newly recruited to the warband by various means always recoiled at the endless eyes and fleshmetal, but most eventually reach a calm acceptance. A small handful even descend into a reverence of the Warp-infused vessel, seeing it as yet another gift from their True Master.

But Teshin was not like any of the others so aggressively recruited into the warband. Despite knowing all he did, and learning so much more since his fall from grace, Teshin could not bring himself to embrace the mission and message of the warband. Though he now served them, if only because of a lack of a choice in the matter, he held contempt for the Scourged and their heretical ways. They were servants of dark gods, betrayers of Imperial Truth, and a blight upon humanity.

But Teshin’s loyalties to the Imperium had long since faded as well. The Gift taught him that his old life was just as tainted as his new one. The voices in his and everyone’s mind were a constant reminder of all the ways humanity is not a species capable of honest actions. An entire empire was founded on constant deceits and treacheries that there was no bastion of actual hope left in the galaxy. And so he simply existed, fighting under the banner of the Scourged but feeling absolutely no loyalty to them. He was not little more than a sellsword, sworn to the warband only by the virtue of being tainted by the Gift.

In the beginning, Teshin could turn to his former sergeant for support. They had fallen together, victims of the insidious recruiting methods used by their new brotherhood. They had adjusted to their new life together, each accepting different pieces in time until they were ready to wear the sapphire and crimson plate of all those around them. In those early days, Teshin would rely on Salazar for moral guidance, turning to the veteran for his knowledge just like the days spent wearing the Aquilla.

But the support Teshin found from squad leader had also faded with time. Salazar, in his silence, found a clarity to accept the voices in his mind as a benediction. Salazar embraced the voices, seeking to find guidance from that which they whispered. In his reverence, the man had taken to paying homage to the fallen chapter master that doomed them all so many centuries ago. Teshin could not understand it. The two former-Praetors drifted apart, with Teshin unable to follow down the path of reverent acceptance. That is what found him alone within the brotherhood.

Currently, though, his loneliness was only figurative. Nine other Astartes surrounded him, including Salazar the Silent, each of the armor-clad warriors strapped into the grav-harness of their drop pod awaiting deployment. Teshin’s and countless other drop pods were all primed and ready, aimed at the southern districts of Aesclepius, capital city of the ruined Ophiuchi. Orders at this point were simple: secure the city. Vague, yes, but it was all they needed to know. The details of this operation, like the rest of the campaign, had remained very tight-lipped to all but the upper-echelon of the warband.

Still, Teshin could not shake his curiosity about the true purpose of their mission here. Yes, Lord Dhelmas undoubtedly had his reasons to keep the crew in the dark. That in itself was nothing new. But why was such a devestating use of the Curse so necessary? What exactly was special about Ophiuchi that demanded such a joint effort with the Scourged and the forces of Sektoth? Perhaps his former sergeant could offer some guidance, just this once, like before.

“Salazar… what are we up to down there? Tell me you know something worth sharing.”

Still ever silent, Salazar slowly answered him but with a customized set of hand gestures and signals evolved over the many years spent mute. The flourished motions of the gestures seemed reminiscent of the ceremonious arm-waving of a conjuror to Teshin, and was far removed from the curt and simple signals used for combat. Rather than try to follow the intricate patterns of the silent Astarte’s hands - a feat doubly impossible with their seated position within the drop pod - Teshin relied on the feed of text within his visor from his autosenses translating the gestures. This feature had become a necessity for all of those sharing a squad with the mute man.

+Strike the city. Purge the weak. Destroy all in the name of the True Master.+

“I know that already, Salazar. I meant why are we doing this? What is the point of this entire campaign? As best I can tell, this rock offers us nothing except target practice. Why burn out all of our fuel for the Curse just for this place?”

+The will of the Sorcerer Lord. He commands, we obey. His commands let us serve the True Master.+

It was pointless effort to ask. Really, Teshin knew that before he spoke to his companion, but he felt the need to try anyway. Salazar had become so accepting of their shared fate that he no longer questioned anything ordered from on-high - he accepted it all as the will of the True Master. Teshin never did care for that title, a monicker of high respect for an entity that damned them all. Why worship that which cursed you?

He thought to rebuttal once again, try and squeeze any kind of possible information out of the fallen sergeant, but the immediate impact of tremendous forces upon him ended the line of questioning. His squad was now hurtling at amplified speeds straight down to the surface of Ophiuchi. Rockets were screaming as they powered and guided the descent, twisted angels coming to reap their vengeance upon the lands of men. The rest of the squad was coming alive with their zeal for battle, each screaming and bellowing their own prayers and promises to dark powers.

 

 

 

II:

 

 

Phascus held the autogun in his weathered hands and habitually checked the safety once again. Still on. There was no reason it shouldn’t be, of course - he had checked it seven times in the last thirty minutes. But he was growing restless behind the hastily constructed walls of the resistance’s defensive perimeter. Checking on his weapon frequently calmed the anxiety flooding his nerves. Though he did not say it to his squad, Phascus feared this engagement would be the death of them all. That feeling of ill will seeped into his bones not long after the mental plague began.

As he sat crouched behind the stalwart aegis, Phascus could not wrap his mind around what had happened to all those around him in such a short time. Yesterday had been a day like all the rest on this quiet world. The morning sun had yet to break over the horizon, though he was already stirring about his small hab’s bedroom while his wife slept - early rising was an old habit from his service to the Longknives. He knew now it was in those quiet moments that the attack or virus or whatever it was struck. To Phascus, it was a strong wind howling through the hab blocks.

If he thought about it, Phascus could remember a little tingling in the back of his head. It was nothing more than a fuzziness, no different from the frequent bouts of dizziness he always seemed to get from standing too suddenly. The little pinpricks in his brain were so irrelevant that he quickly ignored then forgot about them. His wife, however, was not so lucky. The strong breeze that was whipping across the planet affected her as well, though to a far more severe degree.

He’d never seen his wife so… manic before. The terrible wind woke her with a start, her head already throbbing terribly. Phascus wrote it off the same as she did: a sudden headache and nothing more. But the symptoms soon multiplied, and quickly. She started mumbling about the neighbors, claiming to hear what they were saying and thinking.

“Do you hear the voices too?” she asked him. Of course he didn’t. What voices?

Before long her recitations and dictations evolved into gibberish, and then screaming. Phascus tried his damnedest to soothe her, though nothing brought her comfort. When she began to violently thrash and pound on her temples he was forced to restrain her. In a span of minutes she had gone mad, sanity slipping away until nothing was left. On and on she screamed, voice cracking apart as her throat dried from exhaustion. No thoughts were left in her mind but pain and terror.

The rest of the neighborhood, too, was caught in the panicked riots, tearing itself apart with fear and psychosis. He couldn’t understand. Louder and louder she screamed, all while the gunshots and fires started outside their walls migrating further and further throughout the city. What in the name of the Throne was going on? And why was he spared? God-Emperor, take him instead of his wife!  It was only then that the sirens called out into the night, bringing any and all militia to arms. Apparently, the city was under some kind of attack, and Phascus was being called into service once again. Still his wife screamed.

She wasn’t getting better. Her eyes no longer focused on him. She wouldn’t turn when she heard his voice. For Throne’s sake, she wasn’t even blinking! Phascus had to keep hydrating her eyes and throat amidst her terrified shrieking. He knew her mind was gone. Yes, of course he knew that. A brief tour among the Longknives as a medic showed him all sorts of atrocities to the mind and body. This was a case of shock gone into overdrive, and there was no coming back. How many more throughout the city - the planet - were like his wife? How much of Aesclepius suffered like her? Was he alone, the last sane man in Aesclepius?

Phascus did not want to leave his wife, not while she was like this. But duty was calling, and he needed to serve. Slowly, he donned his military vestments for perhaps the last time. Even after all these years, the long greatcoat still hugged his body with regal perfection, gently covering the snug carapace armor beneath. Yes, he no longer ranked as highly as the days of his past - only a sergeant in the planetary defense force, instead of a colonel - but he wore the jacket with pride still.

Oh, how his wife would preen over him when he wore the coat, staring at him like she had for the first time they met nearly forty years ago. They had a beautiful dinner that evening, and proceeded to spend every evening together since. He would often catch her staring at him, no doubt daydreaming about his dapper appearance from their youth. But she wouldn’t be looking at him like that anymore… his wife was gone.

Phascus hefted his autogun into his hands from the footlocker inside his closet. He inspected it meticulously, as he always had and always will. Everything was in order, safety was on. It was time to leave, to see what remained of the PDF. Grabbing his cap, he walked over to his screaming wife one last time, gently kissing her forehead as she bellowed into his face. He would miss her like nothing else. Though, something in his gut told him he would not have long to grieve. Shaking away his thoughts once more, Phascus thumbed off the safety and gave his beautiful wife a merciful end to her terrors.

Though the memories of yesterday were still so fresh and raw to Phascus, he couldn’t dwell on those thoughts. Right now, he was crouching in the center of twenty soldiers: all equally armed and haphazardly dressed for war, and and all on the verge of collapse themselves. Half were old veterans like himself, men and women of wars and regiments well beyond the reaches of Ophiuchi. Experienced as they were, however, nothing had prepared them for the madness sweeping the city - now confirmed to be planet-wide - and their unsettled nerves showed. The other half were ragtag crops of newly enlisted pups, little more than boys and girls fresh from scholas. Phascus could see the fear radiating from their unsteady hands, and he could not blame them.

He should be reassuring them. He should be impassioning them with vigor and confidence. He should be reciting so many of the scripted lines that so many nameless commissars shouted in his direction. He should be doing something. But the ever-present gut feeling that tonight was the last of his nights was growing stronger, and it kept him silent. Never before had dread weighed so heavily on his shoulders.

Phascus fiddled with his gun once more, and yes all was still in order, the safety still on. It was the only thing to do to keep his mind calm while enduring the eerie silence blanketing the city. The screams, once so widespread and prevalent, had faded quite some time ago. Perhaps it meant whatever malady had struck the planet was now over, and Aesclepius could recover. Silly old man; of course it didn’t mean that. The screams had finally calmed because there was no one left to shout. All that remained of Ophiuchi’s vast population was the pocketed handfuls of miraculous survivors, banding together to defend what little was left.

Then the silence ended, and quite abruptly. Phascus and his mottled crew of defenders flinched when a host of sapphire pods rained down from the sky, their speed creating massive booms as they overcame the sound barrier. They all flinched again at the cracking thunder of splitting concrete once the pods reached their level. No more time to reflect on the misery of the last day and a half.

Rising from his crouched position Phascus peered over the edge of the barricade, waiting for the cloud of vaporised asphalt and cement to settle. Indeed, they were Astartes drop pods. Phascus couldn’t believe it. How had the Space Marines learned of their plight so quickly? Were they passing through the sector and heard the calls of distress? Thone, it didn’t matter, as this was a blessing to be sure! Quickly, the huddled soldiers saw what he did and began to murmur, and then cheer. The Adeptus Astartes had come, and this world would be saved. God-Emperor be praised!

But… which chapter was it? As more of the dust clouds settled away in the damaged streets Phascus could finally see more of the colors and markings of the pods. It was not a chapter he recognized. The sapphire plating was accented with a night-dark crimson all over. Strangely the craft was devoid of any Imperial insignia or chapter designations. Stranger still was the symbols decoratively painted all along the still-closed hatches. Chief among the symbols was a hauntingly large eye, appointed with decorative prongs in eight directions.

The stylized eye unsettled Phascus greatly. No, no… this wasn’t right. The Adeptus Astartes would not make ground fall without notifying the planet first. Yes, all radio communication had fallen hours ago, thanks to the networks crumbling from the riots and psychic malady, but that wouldn’t stop the Astartes from overriding the signal. And why use drop pods to reinforce defensive lines? Any time he had seen Space Marines use drop pods, it was when…

Oh no.

“Get down! It’s the Arch-Enemy! Get down and open fire, all ranks!”

The warning came too late to many of the assembled fighters. Most of the veterans moved quickly at seeing their sergeant dive for cover. But not all of them. The few that lingered, as well as a host of many of the greenhorns, were the first to bear witness to the disembarkment of the Chaos warriors. The explosive bolter rounds that promptly followed their departure made short work of the few heads still foolish enough to be peering over the top edge of their defensive structures.

Blood and shrapnel rained hotly on Phascus and the remaining members of his ramshackle squad. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to be among the rank and file of disciplined guardsmen once again. If he were, no lives would have ended from such curious folly. No, stop that - there was no time to linger on wishes or regrets. As he had done so many times before, for so many years, Phascus steeled his trembling nerves and aimed the barrel of his weapon straight at the heart of the enemy. Finally, with the battle’s heat now working into his core, Phascus found the will to shake loose his dread and act.

“Stay behind cover and use the fire points! Keep it short, rapid bursts! No, Jestok - aim for the soft armor joints, not the plates! Filleas and Desma, lay suppressing fire with that heavy bolter; force them away from our flank! Corea, for the love of the Emperor, get on that radio and see if anyone is listening! Warn them, and in the name of the holy Throne get us some support!”

In a small part of his mind, a little distant corner that remained detached from the flurry of battle, Phascus made note of how revitalized he suddenly felt. Being buried beneath enemy fire and huddled behind cover, shouting out orders and divining tactics on the fly… it all made him feel years younger. It was a lift he sorely needed, as did his squad. His growing zeal for the fight was spreading to all the men and women around him, slowly shedding away the fear and terror that had only just moments ago crippled them.

Oddly enough he had yet to fire his weapon. In all the turmoil of the initial assault Phascus had become too swept up in issuing commands to return a fusilade to the enemy. Damnable heretic scum! What did they want with Ophiuchi? No doubt they were the ones to bring the mind-plague that killed millions or more. These were the bastards who killed his wife!

Why would they taint and scour the land like this? Ophiuchi did not posses a wealth of resources, nor a vast sprawl of Mechanicum industry, nor even a bustling population for enslavement. The twisted heathens probably only sought to bring terror and destruction to this planet for their twisted amusement and wicked agendas. That was the way of the Chaotic, the renegade, the heretic. The Imperial Zeal was burning brightly inside Phascus now.

Filleas and Desma had managed to do as he asked, suppressing the northern flank and forcing them to consolidate in a more central column of advance. This was good. A more narrow approach would increase their impossible chances of victory. In response to the suppression of the mounted bolters the Chaos Marines had all found cover all their own and were making small moves to advance their lines. Phascus would not allow this. Aesclepius would not fall this day!

Ducking his head and running, Phascus quickly made his way toward another set of barricades, another squad of militia, and one of the few artillery cannons possessed by the assembled defense. A few bolter rounds streamed by him and exploded into the pitted streets, but all thankfully missed.

“Sergeant Parken, report!”

“He’s dead, sir. Lost in the initial volley.”

Damnit! Parken had been a retired officer like himself, though with the Rough Riders. Now was not the time to be losing such a skilled veteran. That hard-as-nails bastard would have slaughtered these heretics with his bare hands if given the chance. A headless corpse and a sanguine smear on a concrete pylon were no way for the man to die, much less lead squads to victory.

“No time for mourning, unless you wish to join him. I want this Basilisk manned at all times! What’s your name?”

“Cheemal Morren, sir.”

“Alright then, Morren. You’re acting sergeant of this squad, and I’m taking over as platoon commander, got it? Aim that Basilisk to keep the wretched heretics pinned in place. I don’t want them moving and getting one meter closer, you got it? Kill them if you can, but just keep them pinned.”

“Understood, sir.”

“You two, there, the bald one and the blonde: find every single grenade that you can. If one of those blue-armored bastards manages to slip outside of the Basilisk’s shelling, you pull the pins and send them back to the Eye that spawned them. Keep them in that position!”

“Sir!”

Phascus could feel them all rallying under his command. It felt good. Another decade of aging was shed from his aching body, his vigor fueled by the righteous energy of those around him. Sure, nothing they did here would actually matter; with their meager forces there is no way the city stood a chance against the siege of Warp-tainted Astartes. Having seen the real Space Marines in full force twice in his tenure, Phascus knew what fresh hell they could bring to all those in opposition to the Imperium. That alone would be enough to annihilate them all, but what marched toward him now was fueled by raw hatred and bitter contempt made manifest by the evils of the Warp. No, there was no hope for any of them, save for a fast death.

His soldiers did not know that, though. The surplus of newly recruited and initiated composed the majority of the resistance, and they were quick to fall inline with Phascus’s orders and zeal. The young men and women truly believed they would be the ones to slay the Arch-Enemy this day. And until such a moment that he felt the shrill anguish of a bolter round tearing him asunder, Phascus would continue to replenish their beliefs ten times over.

Bah, to hell with such thoughts! He didn’t live all of these years to die upon his home like a weakling. His was not a life that was doomed to be fodder within a heretical crusade. But that was going to be his fate unless he could manifest some reinforcements. After another short prayer to the God-Emperor, Phascus grabbed his vox-comm and called to his original squad.

“Corea, tell me that somebody - anybody - is answering us over the vox!”

She had responded to him, but Phasca could not hear it. The barking of at least four bolters deafened any chance of deciphering her message. After dropping to the ground and narrowly missing the second wave of shots, he saw that the heretics were aiming for the Basilisk, futilely raining shots into the heavy front armor. Hah, they could try! He raised his autogun to return a volley all his own, thumb reaching for the safety he toyed with so many times earlier. About to flip it off, Phascus tried his vox-comm once again.

“Say again, Corea, say again!”

“Help is coming, Phascus! Soluman and his platoon have cleared the southern blocks. He’s-”

Once again overwhelming noise drowned out Corea’s message to him. But this time, Phascus did not care. He was elated. This time, it wasn’t the rapid fire of bolters or the deep throb of artillery fire filling his ears and silencing his small radio. No, the overwhelming noise this time was from the three sets of mechanized treads pounding their way over the city streets and approaching from his rear. The men and women cheered to themselves, praising the God-Emperor for his intervention, and Phascus for once did the same.

Soluman had arrived, and brought with him gifts. Two Chimeras full of troops quickly flew to the front lines and unleashed a torrent of las-fire upon the enemy ranks. The battered and beaten APCs plugged the holes between their fortifications, strengthening the line and repelling the slowly advancing enemy. It was a good show of might, but it would not be enough to scare off Astartes. That’s why Phascus was damned glad to see Soluman rising out of the top hatch of his Leman Russ as the Punisher cannon whirled into motion and started spewing a furious torrent of ammunition upon the filthy heretics. His spirits newly lifted, Phascus’s thumb finally disabled his autogun’s safety and opened fire at the first Chaos marine he saw.

Perhaps they would not die this day after all.

 

 

 

III:

 

 

Hundreds upon hundreds of rounds of shells were exploding en masse on the makeshift barricades of fallen walls and vehicles. The constant impacts and detonations were chipping away at all edges of the defensive cover, leaving slightly less room to hide as each second passed. Shrapnel was flying in all directions, though it harmlessly bounced and ricocheted off of all of their ceramite armor plates. Zankar’s Hunters were pinned down, and their champion was growing very frustrated.

His squad of nearly twenty had been reduced to himself and five others since the initial march through the capital. The resistance had been expected, but it was supposed to be nothing more than weaklings with small arms fire and some grenades. These were to be the pitiful filth that he and his Hunters had slaughtered on countless worlds, reaping the seeds of their sins. There was supposed to be no real threat in their meager defenses.

Weakened by his frustrations at the situation, Zankar’s mind suddenly flared with the chittering voices of the vermin. Even now, as they gathered in a scrambled defense of their home did they still persist in embracing falsehoods and deceptions. Always with the lies, never any peace. He could hear them all, scratching at his consciousness and attempting to burrow inside. No, they weren’t getting inside, not again!

“Damned rats, always scratching!”

He dropped his weapons to his side, freeing his hands to let him unclasp his horned helm and rip it off. Holding it flat between both palms he bashed the backside against his forehead, again and again. Zankar bellowed his frustrated rage as the ceramite beat against his skull, both eventually developing hairline fractures from many repeated impacts. None of the five other Hunters behind the barricade paid the manic action any attention - the outbursts of Zankar were quite mundane compared to others. When you’re touched by the Gift, you do anything you can to keep the voices at bay.

There, finally: his mind was quiet again. The scratching was gone, and he could think. The lines of falling blood and fractured brow were easy prices to pay to have such blessed silence again. Re-equipping himself with helmet and weapons, Zankar checked the chronometer in his visor’s display. Not yet. No reinforcements yet. Too early. He and the Hunters would need to keep holding. Now if only that damned gatling cannon would stop pummeling their barricade.

The attack would have been so simple to endure if it was only the ineffective shower of bullets from autoguns and stubbers. That had been how the assault started, and it was so foolishly easy then. But soon the heavy bolters came to life and started routing the Hunters. Then the acrid stench of lasgun fire began to fill the air. The the detonation of artillery shells. And now a Leman Russ. What was supposed to have been a barren wasteland thanks to the Djinn’s Curse was instead a pitched battle with a heavily armed resistance.

Thankfully the barrage of the Basilisk was aimed elsewhere. While that was unfortunate for some other poor squad, it was the only saving grace Zankar had in this failing assault. Should the vermin turn the aim of the artillery upon his squad while the Punisher kept them entrenched in the falling ruins it would be the death of the Hunters. Not Zankar, though - he would live. He always lived. So many Hunters had been lost in his lifetime through death and attrition, but Zankar always survived, and today would be no different.

If only he or another could reach Heshael’s meltagun; that would change things in their favor. It wasn’t that far: only twelve strides to Zankar’s right flank, and two paces forward. Heshael’s corpse was still holding the ancient weapon, his torso slumped on top as if to guard the prized firearm even in death. But it was well out of the range of their protective cover, and in a direct firing arc for the Punisher cannon. And attempting to retrieve the meltagun was how Mellinius became an explosion of scarlet upon the pavement.

Abruptly, the Russ ceased its suppressing fire. Peering through one of the many, many holes in the fallen slabs of wall, Zankar watched the still-smoking barrel of the tank, waiting for it to start spinning and exploding once again. It wasn’t. It continued to remain motionless. Instead the entire tank was in motion, rolling slowly forward, crushing debris beneath its large treads. A cadre of armed vermin no doubt following it closely, ready to swarm their position.

Damnit. Now they really did need that meltagun. No choice left. Unless...

“Chalusol’ul, get the melta, now.”

“Are you out of your mind? You saw what that cannon did to Mellinius!”

“I don’t give one dying grox groan what happened to that welp! I said get me that gun, and you’ll do it now, or so help me I’ll toss you at the Russ’s treads and see if that will slow it down instead.”

Zankar was not out of his mind, though. Chalusol’ul was going to die, but the champion knew that. The marine didn’t stand a single chance of retrieving the meltagun alive. But that was okay. It was a necessary sacrifice to Zankar’s new plan. He never liked Chalusol’ul anyway - the filth was always an insubordinate louse, and no doubt planning to usurp him and take over the Hunters. All the more reason he’d make the perfect distraction.

With a quick blink-click, Zankar muted his vox feed to Chalusol’ul but kept the line open to the rest of the squad:

“Once he takes off running, we all toss every single krak grenade we have at that lumbering beast. Hopefully we’ll do some kind of damage before Chalu becomes a big red smear.”

That got a laugh out of the Hunters. Chalusol’ul knew they were hiding something from him, but readied himself at the edge of the barricade regardless.

“I hope you all die.”

Those were the last words of Chalusol’ul. He did as was ordered and ran toward the meltagun. To his benefit, the Leman Russ did not initially pay him any mind. Zankar watched through his peephole as the vermin turned their guns on the sprinting Astartes and pointlessly shot at him. For a split second, it seemed like he might actually live and get the gun. Until the tank commander apparently saw what he was up to and ordered the Punisher turret to turn and open fire. The red mist of Chalusol’ul’s innards seemed to spread everywhere.

“Now!”

With the tank distracted for even the briefest of moments, the Hunters struck and tossed their krak grenades and hoped for the best. They all immediately dropped down to escape the swiveling wrath of the Punisher cannon that was quickly coming to bear on them, and Zankar found his peephole once again. Four of the grenades were nowhere near the tank, all having bounced away. They might cause a spare casualty or two among the vermin, but that would be all. The champion’s gambit would have been pointless if not for the single krak grenade that managed to wedge itself between the wheels and tread on the tank’s right side.

Zankar savored the sound as five detonations concussed on the other side of the fallen walls. Vermin wailed and screamed as some were maimed by hot shrapnel flying in all directions. Their pain was a pleasant bonus to Zankar, but his ultimate delight was the screeching of metal on metal as the Leman Russ’s right side felt the heat of a direct blast. The treads were immediately tossed in all directions while the wheels and frame of the tank bent and scraped on itself and the ground. The Hunters had immobilized the beast.

“So… now what?”

Why? Why did Numiach insist on ruining every good moment? Zankar just wanted half a second to savor the small victory, to bask in the triumph of his plan. Through his devious cunning all of their lives were spared for just that much longer. But no. That moment was over now. Any modicum of joy the Champion Hunter would have felt evaporated faster than the misted remains of Chalusol’ul. Damned, joyless Numiach.

“We get to stay alive for two more minutes, that’s what. As long as this rubble holds we’re safe from that gatling cannon and just have to worry about the little rats scurrying over to fight.”

Having said that, Zankar already suspected the vermin would be scaling the walls momentarily. He stowed his bolter and opted for his pistol and power sword in preparation. If the mortals thought they stood a chance fighting a demigod, then that was their problem. Let them come. As long as the tank and its cannon stayed on that side of the wall, then Zankar was happy. He would survive this fight, just like all the rest.

The fusilade from the Punisher cannon finally stopped it’s pointless waste of ammunition. It could try all it wanted, but it wasn’t going to break through the fallen mounds of rockcrete. Left with no more superior firepower or options, the little pests began to charge their position, hoping to slay the Hunters. Let them try. Zankar would exterminate them like all the rest.

Plasmic heat began to surge through Zankar’s jagged blade, humming with electric delight. Oh, how he loved that sound. On so many worlds, in so many fights, that sound had been the backdrop to so much slaughter. He acquired the blade so long ago he could not remember its origins, only that he had culled so many scores of vermin it was a wonder the blade was not permanently stained red. Not for lack of trying, however. And on this day, Zankar’s bloody tally was sure to rise much, much higher.

The mortal resistance was finally cresting over the top of the rubble heaps, jumping down with bayonets out and blades in hand. Quaint. Each of the Hunters casually aimed their pistols and fired shot after shot, decorating the massive slabs of fallen hab structure with corpses. Zankar chuckled as he watched the carnage, the heads and torsos all exploding. It reminded him of a childhood long forgotten: a fragmented memory of a holiday celebration with little exploding balls of confetti. The little bursts of red paper had amused him as a child, just as the exploding viscera of the rats amused him now.

With the tide cresting over the initial overwatch, the melee proper had finally begun. The Champion Hunter began immediately cutting through the swathes of amassed rats. Most of the men and women wore little more than basic rags and overcoats that offered zero resistance against the energy-charged blade in his hand. Rending their bodies asunder would have been a simple task with a basic blade, but was next to effortless with a power sword.

Back and forth he cut, separating limbs and eviscerating abdomens left and right. The vermin unlucky enough to continue living after being shorn apart screamed with righteous pain. Zankar loves that sound: the shrieks of penance. Sparing a glance, he saw the other Hunters faring just as well, their gladius blades making short work of the mortals. Yet still the vermin poured in, undeterred by their inevitable slaughter.

Zankar and his Astartes had the advantage of strength, and they no doubt had the advantage of superior armaments, but the mortals were relying on sheer numbers to win this skirmish. More and more of them were joining the fray, working their hardest to force blades of all type at each Hunter. Numiach had unfortunately caught an unlucky slice to the soft armor behind his knee. He had dropped down and was slowly being swarmed. Yup, he’d be dead soon. One of the militia would find a way to sneak an edge through his neck joint and Numiach would bleed out. Oh well. Good riddance. Zankar’s squad was now effectively four.

Somehow the flood of pests had not abated. More and more were flying over the tops of the wreckage, pushing the brawl further and further back. How could so many have survived? Zankar had witnessed the brutality of the Djinn’s Curse so many times before and it never left so many alive. Maybe these vermin were psychically attuned, or had some sort of shielding. Or maybe they had a bad crop of Astropaths. Regardless, the swarm of rats was becoming alarming.

They were probably going to die here. That morose thought crept in the champions head quite suddenly. Reinforcements were still too far away and the torrent of vermin was becoming too strong. The Hunters were going to die. Well, not Zankar - he always survived. But the rest of them would die. There were too many of the rats to survive.

Their little blades scratched at his armor like tiny claws. On and on he cut, burning blood and gore tainting the air with its stench. The beaten and mangled formed heaps on the ground, crying out and moaning as they slowly died. The assault never stopped. They all clawed at him like the rats in his mind, like the voices that gnawed at his consciousness…

No, no, no! The mind-rats were back! Zankar could feel them all again, the little lies nibbling at his mind’s edge. No, not now! He couldn’t go back to that pit of madness, not in the midst of this fight. He desperately looked around for something, anything to help him silence the scratching. Blades cut at his armor while whispers sliced at his mind until he finally saw exactly what he needed. Reaching out with fingers soaked in blood, Zankar gripped the neck of a poor soul foolish enough to be wearing a helmet. The little mouse gagged and squeaked, eager to get free. It didn’t matter; the voices needed to die!

Zankar hefted the man forward while he wrenched his own body down, smacking both of their armored heads together. There, there, yes, it was working, but he needed more. Harder, hit it harder to cast the voices out! Again and again he beat their skulls together, the concussive strikes ringing his mind like a church bell. The little mouse was ragdoll limp, his own head long since smashed and mangled, but Zankar beat his own against it ever still. He finally stopped, facemask soaked in red gore, and tossed the dead man aside. Ah, sweet relief.

The reprieve from the voices had cost him, though. Zankar looked around quickly to see that Ghalo was lying prone and immobile, not far from the slumped Numiach. In the brief moments Zankar’s powered blade had not been cleaving through the massed vermin enough of them had piled in to overwhelm the other Hunters. And in those moments he had also apparently acquired a few grazing cuts to his arms at the joints. The rats had gotten lucky. They would pay. Hopefully.

Returning to the fray of the fight, Zankar ignited his sword once more and charged at the nearest opponent. After bisecting the small woman he turned to engage the next. And the next one after that. On and on he fought, he and the two remaining Hunters, Scalia and Orio. By all accounts, the three Hunters would be able to fend off the now dwindling tide of mortals. But something about the fight did not feel right. What were these massed numbers meant to accomplish? Why had they thrown themselves to slaughter so willingly…?

That’s when he heard the piercing whine of a gatling cannon warming up to fire. Zankar looked up and saw his folly: the tide of vermin had pushed him and the Hunters in retreat far enough from the barricades that the tank had line of sight on them. Zankar was left with a split second to react and chose to drop immediately to the ground. He watched the few pests around him do the same as the Punisher cannon began to unleash its payload once more. Scalia and Orio and the handful of rats around them quickly ceased to exist, leaving in their place a collection of dismembered limbs and pools of blood. So much for his Hunters squad. Perhaps Zankar would not survive this after all. If he stood to flee, the Leman Russ would destroy him as easily as the rest. If he stayed on the ground, the vermin would gnaw at him until he bled to death. This was the end of his legacy.

And then the chronometer in his visor’s display reached zero and chirped quietly. Oh. Good. Perhaps he would not die this day after all.

 

 

 

IV:

 

 

With a creeping slowness, the deep black began to fade.

It could suddenly feel. It could suddenly think. Small pieces of recognition and perception began to come into the dimly-growing light. It existed. It had a body, and that body could feel and perceive the whatever world it was in. It was cold, too cold. Its limbs were frozen from being so cold. It tried to move, but the limbs would not listen. They were locked still, unresponsive.

It could think a little more. It remembered something, maybe. A fleeting moment, a brief impulse, and then it was gone. It tried to focus on that moment but it kept slipping away the more it tried. It had eyes now. It tried to see, tried to look, but everything was still grey, still a mass of indistinguishable shapes. It could hear now, but everything was muffled. There was talking, and harsh mechanical noises. Servitors were finishing the attachment of its weapon arms. How did it know those words? What did they mean?

It continued to awaken further, suddenly hearing without hearing. New voices were speaking not in its ears, but in its head. It tried to listen, but they were too quiet. They were like the fleeting impulse from before. What was it again? No, still gone. The whispers were white noise, background static, and little more. But they triggered something. Something deeper, ingrained in its mind. The fleeting impulse was back, stronger now. It was a word, no… a name.

Gallus.

It was Gallus. It remembered now. It was… it was… an Astartes. Another word it knew that had no meaning. What did it mean to be an Astartes? No, wait, that wasn’t quite true anymore. Something had changed. It used to be Astartes, but wasn’t anymore. Once again the context held no meaning to it. Gallus struggled to understand that which it knew, but everything was still so slow and numb from the cold.

It was still too cold. Gallus couldn’t move anything. Legs were frozen, stuck. But at least it could feel them now. Arms wouldn’t move either, but they felt like phantoms - unreal, detached. Yes, right, servitors were still attaching them. It remembered that from earlier. Eyes and ears were better, but still not clear. More shapes, more sounds, but all still foggy. Gallus was waking. But something still wasn’t right.

The whispering noises were back again, louder than before. The whispers chattered again and again in his thoughts. They were loud enough to hear, but too numerous to understand. It was just a burning static in the brain, a constant churning of conversations. Gallus didn’t like the noise. It  couldn’t enjoy the whispers. They hurt. They caused pain. Why did it hurt it so much? It had only barely woken and was already in pain.

Louder and louder. More and more they came, the whispers that weren’t whispers. They was full voices now. Talking and talking. None of them stopped. They never stopped. More and more voices. What were they saying? Why were they saying it? Why did it hurt Gallus so much to hear them?

There was different voice now. It heard this voice with ears instead of thoughts. It spoke to him plainly. It chanted. It spoke of fighting, and battle, and war. But Gallus could barely hear this voice. Or care. All of the others in its mind were too loud, too strong, too painful. It wanted to listen to the real voice, but the mind-voices wouldn’t let it. Too loud. Too much pain.

It remembered more. The fog was nearly gone, and it remembered so much more now. Gallus had been a Space Marine, and Astartes. It had been human but better. Human, part of humanity. Part of the Imperium… what was that? Gallus remembered more. It did… did something, and that’s when the voices - all of them so loud now - started. It asked for help and voices came in answer. The voices were… were a gift. Yes, they were the Gift! But Gallus didn’t like the Gift. It hurt. It made Gallus’s mind break. So much pain. So many voices. So many… so many lies!

The lies…

Maybe it could tune out the voices. Gallus could focus, concentrate on anything else. It would try the real-voice heard with ears, not thoughts. That other voice promised war. War was loud. War was brutal. War made the mind-voices quiet. War would bring relief. War made the mind-voices go away, made them hurt less. War would bring peace. Gallus wanted to make war. He wanted to make the pain less. He wanted to hurt the voices.

The lies…

What was that new voice? It was not the real-voice chanting about war. This voice was new. Was that Gallus’s voice? But it sounded wrong, not like the other real-voice. Why was it metallic, and monotone? It tried to stretch its jaw, but nothing moved. Still frozen, still trapped in the cold. But it didn’t feel cold. It felt warm, hot even. But nothing would move.

Eyes were clear now, but the sight was wrong. Its vision was a wide field of orange, a HUD of the entire world. Ears were clear now, but rang like vox crackle in its skull. But Gallus wore no helm. Gallus felt nothing on its head. It felt no head at all. It felt arms now, no longer phantom libs. But they were frozen like legs, and felt so wrong. One so big, the other so stubby. Big arm had fingers, stubby arm did not. Stubby arm had… had.. Only a trigger? What was happening?

Why were the voices in the mind so loud? Louder and louder and louder and louder! They were shrill and angry and scared and small and braggard and powerful and so many many lies. They pierced its mind, tore it apart, stitched it together again, burned it and healed it, ruined it again and again. It needed the voices to stop. It needed the lies to stop! Gallus needed to make war, to silence the voices! Gallus would bring war!

The lies!

Fully awake now. All its knowledge came flooding back with the surge of consciousness. It knew it all. It could remember everything. Gallus remember the days as a Seeker of Truth, of serving the Inquisition. It remembered praying to the Emperor for wisdom, and receiving His Gift. Then the Gift turned on him, and all those like him. It remembered the pain of the lies. It remembered the torment. It remembered being on death’s door. It remembered Brother Dhelmas saving him… no, imprisoning him in a tomb. A coffin. A sarcophagus. In a Dreadnought.

“Good. There you are Gallus. Fully restored once again. Are you ready to make war once more?”

That voice, that was the real-voice from before. It was the one speaking to Gallus, chanting at Gallus. He was… he was… It was so hard to think with all of the voices! He was Khan’tu. He was the one born of iron, reborn out of the Gift. Khan’tu was the one who revived Gallus. Khan’tu always revived Gallus. He would unleash Gallus to make war, to silence the voices, to end the lies. Khan’tu would make the pain stop.

Unleash me, Khan’tu! Too many lies here! Let me slaughter!

“Of course, Lord Herodicus.”

It was no longer frozen. Everything could move, but all was sluggish. Pistons and hydraulics did not move like the body Gallus remembered. But that body was gone. It was no longer Astartes. It was machine, a behemoth of ceramite armor. A spirit of vengeance with cannons of pure inferno and a righteous fist. It started to move, but then felt a true cold through its external sensors. New runes in its HUD blinked, and a new pain grew: deep strike teleportation.

Tendrils of energy danced along its limbs while reality opened a temporary hole around him. Soon it would be on a planet, or in another ship. Soon it would fight once again, ending the lives of all those who make Gallus suffer. Soon it would make the voices die.

 

 

 

V:

 

 

The battlefield in the heart of Aesclepius came alive with strikes of lighting amidst a cloudless sky. Eldritch energies of the Immaterium served as the vessel transporting these new combatants. Pockets of insurgents were suddenly dotted throughout the battlefield, their presence entirely unexpected by the defensive forces of Ophiuchi. Each of the small, elite squads to drop into the fray were heavily armed, wielding the strongest weapons and armor of the warband.

Scattered throughout the battlescape of the city square were squads of five to six Astartes. Some such squads hefted missile launchers and  ancient autocannons. Together they launched explosive projectiles into the weak rear armor of the few Chimeras littering the battlefield. Once the transports were pried open and wrecked the targets of the squads shifted to the skittering mortal crews on the inside. The fragmentation rounds maimed more than murdered, inciting a havoc upon the battlefield for which the squads had been named.

While the Havoc squads stood motionless in their destruction, other groups of Astartes moved quickly through the entrenched opposition. They brandished axes and claws that glowed with unnatural orange light and carved their paths through any unfortunate mortals in their way. These chosen elites of the warband preferred their enemies die up close, that they may feel the spark of life drain from the sinful mortals by their own hands. When necessary they would reach for their bolt pistols and contribute to the elaborate firefight ripping through Aesclepius. Before long, however, the axes and claws would come to life once again and strike down the enemy once more.

To the northeast Ghan Xeras and his Revenants settled immediately behind the largest platoon of enemy infantry. The manic sorcerer was weak after the massive drain the Curse  took upon him, supporting himself on his ornamental staff while the Revenants slowly trudged forward. Mindlessly the automatons opened fire upon the mortal men and women, bolter shells erupting their small bodies. With a small incantation from the happy sorcerer at their center, the bolts of the Revenants began to glow with a cool Warp aura, letting them slice through armor all the more easier. Like an implacable wall they marched in a line, drowning the enemy with witchfire rounds.

A collection of predatory warriors in twisted armor of claws and talons burst onto the southern flank, taking flight into the air the instant their bodies became corporeal on the planet. The twisted beings charged headlong into the enemy lines with claws outstretched like birds of prey. The razor teeth of their chainswords tore through the smaller and weaker mortals of their hunt, spreading shredded viscera in every direction. Two amongst the Cult of the Burning Flight aimed their meltaguns at anything in heavy armor and blasted them, tearing superheated holes into every barricade in their path. Surprisingly, their avian calls were louder than the terrified screams of their victims.

Central to all the invading forces was Gallus the Decieved, its multi-melta already distorting the air around it and firing superheated beams at the nearest target. The rear of a Leman Russ was reduced to a gaping hole and slag before its Punisher turret could turn and unleash its wrath upon the walking brute. The double beams of pure heat incinerated the crew inside and triggered a detonation of the promethium tanks. The resulting explosion scattered countless militia soldiers and a single surviving Scourged warrior from a nearby melee. The unstoppable Dreadnought charged on, swinging wide its massive fist and engulfing the battlefield with even more flames.

The final squad to instantly drop onto the pummeled streets of Aesclepius chose not to land in the enemy’s rear lines but at the speartip of the warband’s assault. What remained of the Maalik took positions quickly at the front lines, drawing confused fire away from the surviving Astartes in normal power armor. Thier bulky forms lumbered forward, pouring shot after shot of explosive bolter rounds at all those who dared oppose them. The trophies on their spiked racks clattered with each crashing footfall on the damaged rockcrete. Their very presence was a panacea to the ailing morale of the first wave of insurgents.

Scindus Dhelmas was heading their march forward, already moving with a slow jog toward the first rank of defensive forces. His fist and claws were all too eager to spill blood. Despite wearing such thick and heavy plating he moved with a fluid grace that only the Martial Champion of the Scourged could possess. His fist wasted no time in shattering a mounted heavy bolter from its frame, a backhand swipe of the powered claws on his other hand slicing the two former operators. His fury was now fully unleashed on the battle lines as he moved through them, mowing down the humans nearly as quickly as the supporting bolter fire.

Lastly, Rahaund’ul Dhelmas stayed with the creeping advance of the Maalik, wearing his own Terminator armor. It was rare to see the Sorcerer Lord so equipped for battle, but this was an occasion where he would not sit back as an idle observer. His troops were rallying behind him, pushing the advance with a steady stream of bolter fire. As his retinue cut down man and woman alike, the Sorcerer Lord paused to call upon the eldritch energies of the Warp. He could feel them channeling through his body, reshaping and molding to fit his will. Casting his staff forward and hand out, bolts of aetherial impossibility ripped through the city in a crackling beam.

The beam sliced straight through the hull of an already-weakened Chimera, leaving it a full wreck where it sat. As the collected soldiers within the APC began their emergency debarkation they found themselves swathed in a cascade of ignited promethium as two Astartes bearing flamers turned their direction. The mortals screamed out as they died, their flesh melting away from bones that quickly charred black. The few that survived the fulmination quickly found themselves cut down by the precise shots of a single autocannon.

The scales of battle had turned in favor of the Scourged, and it was now a bloody massacre.  

In truth, Rahaund’ul could have stayed disengaged from the fight and it would not have affected the outcome. With the entirety of the warband now engaged in the tilt upon Ophiuchi the outcome was a certain victory. The full deployment of the Scourged was necessary, however, thanks to the shortcomings of the Djinn’s Curse. Despite the vast reach of the weapon, it appears the quality was sacrificed for the quantity. The psychic onslaught was not as potent on the planet’s surface as it should have been, leaving far more survivors than it should have.

The unsuspected weakness of the Curse had changed Lord Dhelmas’s plans in other ways as well. Normally, it would be the mortal thralls and servants that would serve in the first wave. Those loyal to the cause would be the ones to blindly charge forward, expending the only resource in the galaxy that was nigh unlimited: bodies. But the surges from unleashing the Curse ensured that no mortal survived the blast. The only option available to the Sorcerer Lord was to strike fast and hard with Astartes and hope to have minimum casualties in the process.

Despite everything going nothing like what was planned, the invasion had worked. Many of the resisting militia were still pointlessly fighting, but many more were fleeing. Those that fled did not concern Rahaund’ul - they would make for playful sport for the Burning Flight. Only a few blocks ahead of their position he could see the vast steps leading to the Grand Library of Ophiuchi. It was this lone building that brought the Sorcerer Lord to the surface. Soon enough, he would take his men up those steps and raid the vast stores of knowledge.

That is, he and the Scourged would raid the library if Sektoth and his warband did not already strip of everything worthwhile. That thought was a niggling barb in the back of Rahaund’ul’s mind. Nothing about this alliance was sitting right with him. The Curse had not worked as expected, though that failure probably had little to do with Sektoth’s interference. The resistance of Ophiuchi came prepared with an armored division, despite early reconnaissance reports. And now, with dust finally beginning to settle and survivors meeting their swift execution, the warband of Sektoth was nowhere to be found.

When the first of the drop pods landed in the streets of Aesclepius, it was expected that Sektoth’s men would be there already waiting. The plan was that they would infiltrate the residential districts in secret, springing an ambush as the Scourged struck from the skies. It was not a plan Lord Dhelmas or his men were keen to, but that was the bargain struck. And now, standing amidst the carnage of the assault with none loyal to the False Whisper in sight, the trust Rahaund’ul had for their partners was evaporating fast. He should have listened to his brother.

His sense of unease only deepened upon receiving a transmission from Deception’s Call.

“What is it, Khan’tu?”

“Lord… there is a problem fast approaching.”

“What do you mean? Answer plainly, iron monger.”

“We have incoming.”

 

 

[Warsmith Aznable]

For reference, this campaign is the culmination of several stories throughout the life of this competition:

The Dark Apostle Harnak announces his arching of Warsmith Bolverk in this story from the Chaos Nemesis competition.

The Iron Hounds carry on with their usual activities, including recruitment in "A Gift For A Gift."

Harnak and his Word Bearers strike their second blow, preaching the Primordial Truth to the unknowing victims of Bolverk's blasphemous cult in the Interview With A Dark Apostle challenge.

The Warsmith, frustrated by his inability to locate the Dark Apostle Harnak, strikes at the Word Bearers Legion in general, interfering with the dedication of another Dark Apostle's attempt to construct a Gehemanet in Imperial space as told from the perspective of a loyalist space marine and an Imperial Guardsman caught up in the destruction.

Through the fallout of this action, and from the Warsmith's forging of a critical alliance with a desperate Dark Eldar House, the Iron Hounds gained the means to end their game of cat and mouse and strike directly at Dark Apostle Harnak in his own lair.


 

The 49th Grand Company mobilized an unprecedented percentage of their available assets, nearly emptying out their precious space hulk and calling in an avalanche of pledges of loyalty and favours from allied and client warbands. This apocalyptic force marched through dark and forgotten passages in the Webway and even transiting secret Eldar Maiden Worlds on their route to a surprise attack upon the planet Sicarus, home of the Word Bearers Legion itself.

The Iron Hounds and their allies struck deep underground on Sicarus, aided by a well positioned accomplice within the Word Bearers Legion who acted for his own nefarious reasons, securing a bridgehead with the heavy use of advanced parties of Warp Talons and Raptors in the Upon Cursed Wings/Jump Assault challenge.

And now Chaos Lords and Chaos Ladies, the Warsmith is upon the Dark Apostle's very door:

Hidden Content

The outer vaults leading to the main gate of Dark Apostle Harnak’s cathedral filled with thousands of mortal soldiers and cultist fanatics. They manned hasty barricades of sandbags and concrete and older palisades of stone. Razorwire criss-crossed the dark expanses, and armoured redoubts with their vicious cannons rose high over the heads of the defenders, and defiladed tanks of various descriptions protected key avenues among the maze of defensive positions.

 

They waited in the darkness and silence.

 

There was nothing to say, for all of their devotional promises had been made hours before. All that was left was to live up to them or die trying.

 

A sudden fury of sound and light burst forth as the retro-thrusters of a dozen unidentifiable flyers flared. The war machines came screaming out of the main access tunnels and burned to a fast stop, the air instantaneously thick with the red and green streaks of their tracers and the chasing flame of rockets. The response from the Word Bearers ground forces was nearly as instantaneous, filling the space in between the floor and the vault ceiling with a wall of lead and fire. The strange war machines were torn from the sky in seconds, but not before they had wrought crippling damage on the big guns defending the cathedral.

 

Before any of the shocked defenders could gather their wits, colossal knight-class superheavy walkers had rushed the defensive lines. Ear drums ruptured as warhorns of the Knights blatted out apocalyptic challenges. Thousands tumbled to the ground, swept off their feet by the earth shaking tread of the enormous war machines. Hundreds were crushed underfoot as the Knights lashed to and fro among the tanks and artillery carriages, seeking their true prey.

 

The challenge of the Knights was answered by an eerie wail, thousands of voices joining into an infernal chorus. The darkness itself gathered in a swirling maelstrom toward the rear of the defenders ranks, coalescing into a monstrous form. Its physical makeup was a collection of the impossible and the insane, a mess of tendrils and teeth, grabbing claws and lashing tails. The very stuff of reality caught fire where it met the vile flesh of this daemonic creature, bursting into a hellish green and purple fire. Its war cry was the angry voice of untold numbers of the damned.

 

The party of Knights fell upon the infernal monster like a pack of lions bringing down an great horned oliphant. The thousands who perished beneath their feet as much from the mad panic to avoid being trod upon as fell victim to their iron-shod feet, and a significant number simply went insane from the fear of such an inexplicable brawl of titanic fury.

 

The great daemon was borne to the ground at great cost to the Knights. The few Knights that remained operational began to contend with the many lesser creatures that emerged from the supernatural corpse of their victim, aided by a wave or arriving Dreadnoughts, Defilers, Forgefiends, and a menagerie of other bespoke walkers.

 

Great armoured troop carriers ground their way into the vaults behind the walkers, smashing down barricades and tearing through the razorwire. The hardened bunkers and redoubts of the Word Bearers mortal troops maintained an effective defensive fire for four minutes, cracking dozens of Iron Warriors tanks and troop carriers into jagged, burning hulks. But for every track that was destroyed, two more bulled it aside and crushed forward into the onslaught of fire and steel.

 

Ramps dropped and thousands of mortal soldiers of the Iron Warriors rushed into the fury of the battle. They fell in droves, but there seemed to be no end of them. Soon the last of the fortifications screening the main walls of the cathedral were themselves burst open, spewing forth red fire and black smoke.

 

Pushing the wrecked hulks of the armoured corps’ assault aside, huge armoured carriers crawled forward to lay their guns on the cathedral gate and the defensive bastions protecting it. As soon as the first was came to a halt and quickly sighted in it bleched forth a plume of fire and smoke. One by one the others rushed to follow suit, and inside of two minutes the din of their withering cannonade was so intense that no single gun could be picked out. The walls of the fortress might have tumbled from the noise alone given time, but the explosive shells took less than an ten minutes to batter down the great black iron gets and punch holes deep into the thick granite walls around it.

 

With their furious battlecry lost to the resounding roar of the Iron Warriors cannons, the space marines of the Word Bearers of Dark Apostle Harnak rushed out of the broken defenses of their cathedral. Like a crimson tide they swept around the feet of the lumbering war machines, butchering the mortal infantry of the Iron Warriors and those of their own surviving thralls alike. There was no time for discrimination in the bloodlust as they made a maddened effort to steal the initiative away from the Iron Warriors.

 

A second wave of armoured transports clattered past the heavy artillery, many various modifications of the space marine Land Raider, with Predator tanks and Rhino APCs in their dozens. This well timed and crushing answer to the anticipated counter-attack rolled over the ranks of Word Bearers, breaking their line and forcing them into skirmishing groups. The transports poured forth nearly four thousands Iron Warriors. Less than half were clad in the quartered orange and black scheme of Warsmith Bolverk’s Iron Hounds, but all chanted the litany of Dark Apostle Harnak’s crimes against him.

 

The Word Bearers space marines fought like men possessed, as many of them assuredly were. To their credit they did not immediately break before such superior numbers and firepower, but fought the main force of the Iron Warriors assault to a standstill before the open gates of their Dark Apostle’s cathedral.

 

A third line of armour pushed its way into the battle, super-heavies spearheaded by the Warsmith’s own customised Shadow Sword. These rolling metal fortresses held even more Iron Warriors firing from their troop compartments, from makeshift gunpits on their upper decks, and hanging from railings and running-boards alongside. The tide of the battle turned once more, and the last semblance of order among the Word Bearers counter-attack vanished.

 

The threshold of Dark Apostle Harnak of the Word Bearers was crossed, and the Iron Warriors led by Warsmith Bolverk himself plunged into the darkness of that lair of devotion to the Ruinous Powers.

 

No dialogue or much story, but pure fury. I hope you like it.

[Kierdale]

I thank you for your excellent entries in Campaign II - Assault over the last two weeks.

Warsmith Demetrios gave us A Debt Paid. A tale of Khornate Iron Warriors making a last stand against a greenskin horde! I liked the details in their armour variation showing the squad’s allegiance to Khorne (if you have models, please post some images!).

I gave you The Psychopomps Attack. My warband bringing to bear it’s full strength in an all-out assault upon their long-sought foes: craftworld Carth-Lar. I promise greater carnage in part III...

Carrack set us up with four excellent short pieces (The Shield, Slipping Away, Blood in the Water and Eighth Catacomb) before hitting us with the main course: Bonds and an excellent surprise at the end, which keep us on tenderhooks until part III comes round.

Scourged continued his chronicles of the Scourged with a mammoth 5-piece entry (which I must admit I haven’t finished yet). Which I just finished. It was excellent to see you pulling out your full cast as I had. And a great cliffhanger ending too!

And Warsmith Aznable told us of the massed assault of warsmith Bolverk’s Iron Warriors upon his nemesis: dark apostle Harnak of the Word Bearer’s stronghold, to settle an old score.

In particular these last four entries showed what I really like about IF: the regular contributors building forging a narrative and a wealth of background on their warbands. I hoped the Campaign series would help push this along and I think is succeeding. I look forward to Campaign III – The Crucible/Tables Turn in a month or two’s time...

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).

And here begins our sixteenth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2016:

Knight Fall

Back in November of 2014 we had Inspirational Friday: Chaos Knight House. Since then Forge World has provided us with rules for Chaos Knights and more recently Games Workshop themselves have given us Renegade Knights, thus the 16th topic of Inspiration Friday 2016 is the Fallen Knight. Be they a renegade, a Chaos knight or something else, tell us not of a house but of one single knight. Tell us of what made them fall: did they embrace it, fight it or was it thrust upon them by external forces? Tell us of their victories and their losses, and their goals: what drives the knight within the huge warmachine?

Inspirational Friday: Knight Fall runs until the 3rd of June.

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Fulkes. Take your time, Fulkes, you have a lot of reading to do! And to the victor chosen by Fulkes, step forward and claim your Octed Amulet:

[Soldier of Dorn]

Wow. I haven't done an Inspirational Friday since November 2014? That's... wow. That's a while, isn't it. Longer than I thought, at any rate. Welp, seems as good a time as any to get back into the groove of writing. Let's see if I can't come up with something good for the House Malvora. My servants, they hunger...

[Teetengee]

Tailspin (WIP for the Assault Inspiration, I think it is ok, but it isn't finished, but I wanted to post something to force me to finish it later) Reminder, this is out of competition.

Hidden Content

Captain Hyun stood with his gauntlet on the engine controls and his eyes glued to the vidscreen. The Dread Sky, covered in impossible rust and spraying yellow fluid over the islands closest, was the third ship into the Insanity Janus. A piece of its hull snapped off as it entered the portal, landing on a nearby continent. Hyun watched with no small disgust as screaming cultists swarmed out of their hovels, swarming across the blasted countryside to strip the piece for relics. Boils and weeping sores errupted from their flesh as the came in contact with the black ooze covering the Nurgle cursed metal. Hyun shivered slightly, absentmindedly brushing specks of dust that had disturbed the many coloured diamond print covering his armour.

Hyun whistled impatiently as the Bitter Hope followed into the Janus. His hand clenched tight on the throttle, his blood rising in anticipation. Every moment the flagship took sliding into the void was slow torture, coupling the agony of being denied the vanguard with the shame that had denied his crew the chance for first blood. When last they had come to Fragment, Hyun’s Ambition had been first to break through to reality, but before they could make planetfall, defense lasers had taken out their engines. Hyun smiled as he remembered the source of the sacrificial blood he had used to ensure such an event would not cripple them again, then grimaced again at their failure to claim for the gods.

Finally, the moment came, Bitter Hope finished it’s transition through the wound in space and Hyun threw open the fuel lines. Gouts of green and blue balefire shot out of the accursed engines as they sent Ambition rocketing forward to ride the wake of the Bitter Hope. Hyun did not care that his action had incinerated a herd of mutant cattle that had been on a nearby landmass. Hyun did not even care that he forced Sans Sanity to smash through a separate one as the Ambition knocked it off course. Today his shame would be absolved, his fate reclaimed, and the whispers of the twins of plots and pride return to him. Today he would show lesser races their place in the void, beneath his heel, or beneath the ground!

His jubilant reverie ended abruptly with the cold of the Insanity Janus. A sort of negative existence overtook the ship. All noise, all heat, all that was bright and good washed away in the tide of that emptiness. None dared disturb the silence by moving, few even by thinking, though Hyun remembered once again his doubts as to whether it was truly warp travel at all. Surely pure daemons would not fear such as that. But as soon as the moment came, it was gone, the bright stars shining into the vid screen as Ambition was born anew from the hateful rent in the sky.

 

Sensor data once again flooded the Ambition’s databanks as servitors and dark magi sought to parse the information quickly enough. Ten planets within striking distance, seven inhabited, one an astartes homeworld, orders to strike against the second hive, an asteroid field. Five minutes out of the Janus, when the last of the assembled fleet had translated into the space surrounding the newly identified Balikil system, an unknown vox signal spread throughout the fleet.

 

“‘Ullo there you bunch a pointy ‘ard boyz. My weirdboyz saw you lot comin’ and told me ‘ow you was fixin’ to take wot belongs to da Ork. My name’s Warboss Thresha, and I fink you won’t got the stones when you see my big ole rock here. Too bad I got no plans to let you lot leave. So ‘ear this Boss Scar. I’m gonna pull out your teef and take dat nice shiny choppa. Get zogged, ‘umies.”

As soon as the transmission finished, warning runes lit up the fleet. From behind the warpgate inched out a massive spacehulk, bristling with weaponry of an uncountable number of designs. Crude ships shot out from it like hornets whose nest had been disturbed in wave after wave. Suddenly the vast vessel opened fire, hundreds of defense lasers and thousands of missiles blossomed out. The lasers lanced into the Midnight Star, the last ship to enter the Janus. Explosions rocked it sideways before the volley of missiles landed home.  A cascade of explosions started from the bow and went two thirds down the ship before hitting the ship’s heart. The psychic deathscream from the daemon-core’s detonation reverberated through the Balikil system as the ship was torn asunder, it’s stern riding a shockwave of destruction back through the gate.

 

Hyun braced himself against the control throne as the wave of psychically impregnated force passed through the Ambition. “Well, it looks like we have lost the element of surprise; I do not imagine that the explosive death of most of Balikil’s psykers will go unnoticed. Get the ship turned around, I do not intend to sit in orbit about an uninhabited rock whilst some other lord captures my new ship.”
 

The vox lit up with a message from the Bitter Hope: “A seat on my council for whoever brings me Thresher’s head.” Hyun saw the flashing markers depicting the rest of the armada beginning to split. Those already a part of Escharon’s council continuing toward the center of Balikil’s system, the other’s slowing or changing course. His was first to turn though, first to reach full burn. Suddenly a separate warning rune flashed over his screen.

“Captain Hyun, there are several unknown objects approaching from the dark side of the planet we are nearest. They are coming ---”  Ji-Hye, the old master of the fleet, was interrupted as the Ambition lurched violently. Three impacts rocked through the hull as ork boarding torpedoes slammed straight through the left engine, knocking the Ambition into a spin sending it careening into the gravitational grip of the barren orb below.

“Vastra,” Hyun hailed over an internal vox, “take the slaves and drive off these ork scum. We need not stoop so as to sully our fine blades on such low filth.” Hyun watched with trepidation out the viewing windows until he saw red tendrils snaking out to grab onto the engine pieces that had been blown from his ship. “Nox, Lucan, scan the enemy ship for the highest concentration of ork technology. We need to find their bridge.”

Knowing not to question their captain, the two marines reconnected their cerebral tethers to synchronize with the ship and each other as they begin long distance scans. No one left their post as Hyun restarted the engine and begin wrestling with the controls as the ship spin faster and faster towards the rising rocky crust. One thousand meters from the surface the ship began to slow, but none dared show surprise when Hyun leveled it out bare fractions of a second before impact, rocketing back upwards toward the ork hulk. The fact that instead of repairing the engine the ship now sported one engine and one wing formed of blood and metal was known to none but the few orks trapped in it’s sanguine sinews. Had Hyun known, he would not have cared.

 

The Ambition shot towards the ork hulk even as battle raged on its lower decks. The ork kommandos had abandoned the engine room assault when the engine itself had grown bladed tentacles with which to dissect them. Their numbers slowly fell as wave after wave of tongueless cultists fell upon them with sleek autoguns of a thousand hues. On higher decks, astartes in a riot of colours ordered slaves to bring them weapons and helmets; some engaged in more profane precombat rituals. In the darker corners of the highest decks huge hulking figures adorned robes emblazoned with concentric circles of blues, yellows, and pinks over their misshapen and ever changing metallic flesh. In the captain’s quarters, Hyun had assembled the strongest of his warriors, fell monsters trusted to arm and armour themselves however they saw fit.

 

They picked up speed as the last of the orks were drowned in a tide of human flesh and hail of autogun bullets. Hyun’s three hundred or so astartes and forty times that in human auxiliaries assembled around neither launch bays nor boarding torpedoes, but the main ship entrances. “Nox, Lucan, keep us on target and at full burn. I do not want to waste resources on their defenses. Energize the power ram.”

Both the emerging ork fleet and the chaos vessels that had turned to fight them looked at the Ambition as it sped ever faster towards the space hulk. The daemonically charged engines drove the ship toward the limits of subwarp speeds. The hulk’s defense weapons landed few blows against the Ambition, as it moved faster even than the tracking systems could effectively follow. A lucky lance blow tore through the bridge right before Ambition made contact. Whether or not the blast had been telling was lost in the cataclysmic shockwave of the impact.

The glowing golden ram, crackling with a thousand colours of light, cut through the shields and armour of the hulk with ease, only slowing as the protrusions of the vessel following behind it ground apart and shattered. Points of contact instantly disintegrated into a wave of superheated plasma that travelled through the tunnels and paths of the space hulk, annihilating uncountable hordes of greenskins before they could even comprehend the event unfolding around them. What remained of the Ambition only came to a halt at its engines, stopping as a nail driven by the gods themselves. The wave of plasma and debris shot out a hundred escape hatches, blowing apart dozens of nearby ork fighters that had already taken flight. The force of the impact was so great that the hulk itself was knocked off course, visibly listing as the momentum transfered through it, buckling bulkheads and knocking the entire crew from their feet.

Aboard the Ambition every being that was not in power armour was instantly slain. Their bodies forming a shock absorbing pillow of mangled flesh that allowed the astartes of Hyun’s Sons of Glory to survive such a suicidal charge. There was a short period of respective quiet and swearing, as both astartes and orks clawed their way to their feet. Suddenly a shout went up, three hundred voices in unison, “DEATH TO THE UNWORTHY! YOUR GREATEST HONOR SHALL BE TO DECORATE OUR BLADES!”

[BitsHammer]

Oof you guys definitely buried me in reading and work hasn't been kind to my schedule. I'll try to have everything read by Tuesday just because that'll be the first day I can sit down in front of a computer and cover the novelles posted here.