The Shield

[Carrack]

 

Vensominair's Affliction

 

 

 

Not now, I can't have signs of my affliction observed by those not tied to me by blood, or dependent upon me for income. In truth, those I trust with my secret failing are one and the same, relatives clinging to my name and fortune like being related to me was a profession. Yet I can at least trust relatives, I can't expose my weakness to the gossips and sycophants at this table. I must have drunk too much this stuffy evening at the dining table of Lord Marshall Mallet. For in the middle of an opulent diplomatic dining, I find myself drifting off as the conversation dies down, and lately, when I drift off, I drift far, far, off.

 

At first it only troubled me when I slept, vivid and disturbing dreams that I attributed to the rich and spicy food that had increasingly become my fare as my paintings have become fashionable. Not all the dreams were nightmares, but they all were so realistic that it was hard to distinguish them from actual experience, and unlike dreams, they did not fade into vague impressions moments after I awoke, but remained as concrete as any memory in my mind. My herbalists gave me teas to drink and powders to snuff. The dreams persisted, and worse, days later I would read and hear of the events from my dreams coming to be. I was dreaming the future.

 

By then I had acquired the means to employ a personal confessor and a team of discreet doctors, nieces, nephews, and bastards I had sponsored through seminary and scholam. I prayed. I took whole regimes of imported medicines, yet my dreams grew worse, not better. The futures I saw were frightening and bleak, and also certain. I prayed harder. I fasted. I scourged the flesh from my shoulders and back in righteous penance. Yet I could not escape my dreams. I suffered through shock ordeals, neurosurgeries, and even had a auto-hymnal chip implanted in my brain to drown out my dreams with praiseful worship, to no effect. Nor did I leave my fate to others, but I ceased all commissions, at the height of my fame, to work on the battle barge of His most holy Angels of Immolation, without remuneration. I spent what could have been my most profitable years painting the ceiling of Ember's Great Spinal Corridor, not for the fame, for few would ever see what is undoubtedly my best work, but as an offering to the Golden Throne, in hope for deliverance from my curse. The ceiling of Ember's central hall is by far my best work, my magnum opus. It is grand in scale as it is fine in detail. It is inspired by the depths of my faith, and I will never equal its quality again. My offering was to no avail.

 

My dreams not only continued, but in moments when I relax, when I allow my mind to rest and drift, my dreams come to me when I am awake. I now drink recaf by the gallon. I exercise like a man not on his third rejuvenat treatment. My workshop is alive with music and stimulating conversations. I bounce from one passionate affair with a young admirer to the next. Yet I can not avoid these tedious dinners hosted by potential buyers and worthies whose invitations simply can not be declined. My belly full, my head swimming, my mind starts to drift...

 

................

 

.... I am cast adrift in the Sea of Souls, like a drowning man clinging to a loose spar in the turbulent ocean of emotion. The spar is my faith. It is all that keeps me from sinking, but a terrible storm is pulling me into its violent embrace, promising me my destruction. The storm is the Eye of Terror, and intuitively I know that if my untethered soul enters it, I will never return. Yet it draws me nearer and nearer, and I and my faith are insignificant against its mighty currents.

 

As I futilely struggle against looming oblivion, a ship comes to my rescue. It is Ember, the battle barge of the Angels of Immolation. Perhaps my offering of my best work was noticed by His Saints, and they have sent His Angels to my salvation.

 

It is worse than I could have ever imagined it. The Arch-Enemy has seized Ember from its rightful owners. They have profaned its hallowed halls with their blasphemous presence and unholy iconography. I had poured my very soul into that fiery red and orange ship. Now it is a vessel of the blackest damnation, overflowing with the unholy. I weep at the sight, and real tears fall from my disembodied face to splash the mosaicked deck. It is the first time I have physically effected the environment from my dreams. If only one of my painting's intended audience was here, just one righteous Angel of Immolation, I am sure he would burn away all the heretics that walk beneath my painting. The heretics swarm up and down the corridor with no reverence or acknowledgement of my life's work above them. It's as if they were walking down a brothel lane, on their way to a dice game, or on their way to a murder.

 

If these cretins stopped to deface my work, I would be furious, yet I would also understand. The unrepentant sinner does not wish to be reminded of his sins.

However, the wicked would not, or could not take in my painting of victories of His Angels over heretics like walked the great corridor now. They left it be mostly, and went about their sinful business.

 

I huddled in the lee of a pillar, weeping at the state of my painting and my hopes for its deliverance from my affection. None of the damned seemed to notice me, as was usual during these dreams. Save one, a short, pudgy little daemon with ink stained fingers and greasy robes strutted over to me and accused, "Dream Sayer." I in turn called him, "Page Turner." I knew not why I named him such, but the label seemed to fit, for the beast nodded and sat beside me.

 

************^**

 

The sacrifices are marched to the bridge, naked save for gold jewelry and a coat of pitch dabbed over their entire bodies. They step as one, slowly, methodically at a half time count, a funeral procession pace. The sacrifices are flawless, chaste and without blemish they move with grace across the deck of the Great Spinal Corridor. It is as if their slow march is a well choreographed dance performed by a troupe worthy of entertaining commanders of worlds or their betters, yet the sacrifices are limiting their skill for the sake of the decorum of this procession. Their grace speaks of more than just well trained dancers, they are true prodigies of the performing arts.

 

Their are 12 sacrifices, each similar, but different than the others. My unwholesome and unwelcome companion informs me that each represents a Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler. The sacrifices are a reminder of their offerer and receiver that they both serve a lord far greater than themselves. Each sacrifice bears a symbol, a ceremonial item representing the crusade. The first a great sword, Page Turner whispers, "Drach'ynen", but remains silent for the rest, until the last of the twelve comes bearing carvings of warships in ebony. Page Turner peers behind the procession as the twelfth sacrifice passes, lets out a gasp and prostrated himself on the deck. Never lifting his head from the tile, he whispers, "Enasyor, Legate of the Despoiler, comes bearing a thirteenth sacrifice. There is to be another Black Crusade." I look where the daemon's eyes lay, and see a thirteenth sacrifice escorted by a traitor marine in particularly ornate armor. The thirteenth sacrifice bears an ornate figurine of a golden throne. In lamentation, I fall to the deck beside the daemon.

 

[Carrack]

The Hunt for the Shield

 

Garland

 

 

Garaduk followed the green fly, and by so doing, followed his god, the Lord of Flies. Long ago, Garaduk had left his warband, just as he had done recently, to pursue his own goals. Then, he had left the Black Maw to seek the Garden of Nurgle, to find relief from a wasting disease that was attacking his body on a genetic level. In the fetid swamps of Nurgle's "paradise", Garaduk had given himself over to the god in exchange for relief from the disease. The cloud of flies that had followed him through his pilgrimage through the swamps had never left him. He had tried to rid himself of their presence, and by extension, their symbolic presence of his god, countless times. They were ever a nuisance, buzzing in his ears as he tried to rest, distracting his vision, and most painfully, harrowing at the wound where one of his eyes had been. He had tried to swat them, burn them away, freeze them, even expose them to the vacuum of the void, yet they persisted. They were eternal.

 

They weren't really flies, they were the will of a god, and that will was showing Garaduk the god's desires by turning one of the flies green, and that fly was leading Garaduk to a relic desired by Nurgle. The relic too, just like the flies, was a symbol. It was the Shield, it was the symbol of the subsector the Black Maw had invaded, and Nurgle wished for Garaduk to sacrifice that symbol to his putrid hands. Garaduk himself, could care less.

 

Garaduk had followed the green fly since it appeared after the Battle of Garland. The fly in turn had followed a serf of the Angels of Immolation who had looted the Shield off his dead chapter master, and fled his lost battle barge in a salvation pod to the surface of Garland. Garaduk One Eye had taken a retinue of his Vulture Raptors and left Ember, the Angels of Immolation battle barge the Black Maw had seized in the battle, and followed the salvation pod. On the desert surface of Garland, the green fly had led Garaduk to the salvation pod, and from there to the survival tent of the serf. However, a prayer beacon lit by the serf had been answered by a squad of the serf's masters who had survived the battle aboard the thinbloods' remaining strike cruiser.

 

The thinbloods in red and orange armor had reached the tent first, even though Garaduk had made planetfall first and had moved faster with his jump pack equipped retinue. The green fly had not led him directly to the tent. Garaduk figured either the relic was hiding its presence from his god, or his Grandfather had betrayed him. Both possibilities had happened before. The loyalists had blocked out the tent with a by-the-codex perimeter, two marines to a corner, and the sergeant and odd marine out having entered the tent as much as their bulky frames permitted. Garaduk charged.

 

Charging was Garaduk's way since he had won the honor of joining a reaver squad during the Great Crusade. His way was to get close, thin the enemy with fire from his retinue's pistols and meltaguns, along with his own ensorcelled flamer, than slam into the enemy. Once he was stuck in with the enemy, he would take their worst, and dish out his best, and ultimately outlast them. Blowing sand had obscured Garaduk's approach, but the loyalists were alert, they put up a withering hail of boltgun fire as Garaduk closed. Vulture Raptors dropped to the storm of fire, and Garaduk took a shot to his right shoulder that punched through his thick pauldron to shred tendons and muscle. He still charged forward. Garaduk tried to lift his flamer, to burn a pair of lapdogs at the near corner, but his shoulder gave way, having not yet knitted itself together. His retinue did returned fire, cooking a pair of loyalists with their meltaguns, and knocking another pair onto their backs with pistol fire. Garaduk doubted they would stay down, but they would be out of position when his charge hit.

 

With jets firing from their packs, Garaduk and the Vultures leapt into the fray. Almost. The Angels of Immolation's flamer bearer had sprung to his feet from his shoulders, armor, backpack, weapon and all, just in time to catch Garaduk's retinue in a wicked crossfire. The crossfire was enough to break the raptors momentum in their final push to get to grips with the enemy. Garaduk and his surviving retinue fell short and checked their advance momentarily to consolidate and see how many they had lost in the blanket of fire. Garaduk spun off from his bodyguard to leap into the flamer bearer, shredding the marine into ribbons with his lightning claw, then dispatching his brother and taking a crushing blow from the brother's boltgun to his wounded shoulder.

 

The rest of the loyalist were withdrawing away from Garaduk further east, firing over their shoulders as they went. The serf and the Shield were thrown over the sergeant's shoulder. The Shield was slipping away from Garaduk's grasp. Garaduk turned his eye back to his retinue to command them to commit to the charge, but to his dismay, his retinue was cut down from behind. Another squad of loyalists had appeared out of the blowing sand from the west, these loyalist clad in the green of the First Legion. The Dark Angels advanced relentlessly out of the sandstorm, thundering out a more ferocious storm of bolts and plasma into the backs of Garaduk's Vultures.

 

Garaduk knew he could not handle either squad of loyalist alone, and certainly not both, so he fired his jump pack to head north into the desert. When he finally came to a rest to cool his jets, and to make certain he hadn't been followed, he looked about for the green fly. It was no where to be seen. The Shield would remain with the slaves of the Corpse God. Garaduk felt nauseous and weak.

 

[Carrack]

The Voice of Anna Lorin

 

Tancrea, The Pillars of Fortitude

 

 

I throw the headset down against the side of the hole. The cord from the backpack vox unit snapped the headset back to me in spite of my efforts to distance myself from the voice. I couldn't take it anymore, it was too much. That voice was like chocolate for the soul. At first it was sweet, seductive even with its strange accent and husky timbre. It is the voice of every adolescent boy's dreams, exciting and alluring. Yet like chocolate, it was unwholesome, and too much of it left me feeling sick and guilty.

 

The colonel looked at me sternly and ordered, "Trooper, keep monitoring the vox. We need artillery fire as soon as the enemy's jamming falters." He called me trooper, not by my given, nor even my family name. It was a sign of displeasure that I had picked up over the course of the campaign. The colonel has high expectations of me. It's why I'm his voxman. I know the honor I'm being afforded, staying in his shadow, not only so he has a means of communication, but so that I can observe his decisions, poise, and command of the regiment. I am constantly by his side, and he has come to drop the formality of rank during routine operations, but when I slip up, it's back to being called "trooper".

 

I pick up the headset and put it back on, checking the setting of the vox to make sure it is still scanning all channels. The voice is still there, on all of them, the voice of one woman drowning out all communication. She promises pleasures I cannot imagine in return for merely seeking my freedom. The pleasures described both excite and frighten me. The freedom the voice wants me to seek is a call to my primal instincts, but an anathema to everything good and righteous. Before I can listen further to the blasphemy, a new barrage of mortar fire comes down from the mountain. I'm gladdened. Even as I duck deeper into the hole to avoid the fragments, and my bones shake from the explosions, a grin splits my face ear to ear. I can't hear the voice in the thunder of the barrage.

 

The barrage is a bad one, and although it has provided me reprieve from the voice, it might provide me reprieve from my mortal coil. My grin dissipates in a fit of coughing as my lungs fill with smoke and dust. A sharp pain followed by spreading warmth and wetness emanates from the back of my thigh. I check and there is a little piece of rock stuck in a small wound. I feel, but don't hear the barrage ending. I can't hear anything for the moment from the deafening barrage, but the vibrations in the ground and my bones have stopped. Bewildered I get up and look around. The colonel is already up surveying our position. He mouths something to me and I shake my head in confusion, still unable to hear. He simply points to my vox and my ears, indicating that I need to monitor the vox for an open channel as soon as I can hear again. As my deafened ears start to recover I begin to dread listening to the voice again. What will the voice promise? What will it demand in return? What blasphemy?

 

When the worst of the ringing fades in my eardrums and I think that I can hear the vox again, I find myself eagerly straining to hear the voice.

 

 

Edit. Too, many, commas, ,,,

[Carrack]

Black Riders of the Third Seal

 

Garland Desert

 

 

It was the third time this fateful day a seal had been broken from the war-torn heavens above Garland. The first two times had been from drop pods crashing onto the morning sand, from which Angels had stepped forth to wage righteous war on the enemies of Man. Those Angels had driven back the Arch-Enemy, and recovered the Aspis Eternal, and hopefully the fate of the subsector the relic represented. However, the opening of the third seal, was not done by the righteous, but by the profane. An ancient storm eagle had touched down and opened its sealed hold to unleash suffering on the land. Three riders in black were the manifestation of that suffering.

 

The riders roared their smoke belching, mechanical steeds across the Garland Desert. Sand and dust stirred in their wake, which mingled with the sandstorm that blew over the desert for seasons after seasons. Somehow, in spite of the relatively small clouds kicked up by the riders, the storm grew darker, and more ominous. Something terrible was riding across the desert, and making its way to oasis-town of Water Gardens.

 

At the far edge of Water Gardens, young men and women were out grazing their camules on the sparse grass. Their thick goggles and protective robes and masks cut their visibility down to a few dozen meters, but their camules were bred for these conditions, with long cilia lined snouts and thick membranes over their eyes. The camules started to bray, stomp, and spit. All of them did, not just the more difficult of the beasts. The superstitious handlers guided their panicking beasts towards the Water Gardens' gates. The Camules followed, with unprecedented cooperation. This remarkable cooperation made the handlers themselves nervous, rather than pleased.

 

As the gates were shut, one young handler looked back over the uneaten grass. It was turning black and withering. The young girl made the sign of the Aquila and turned to bring her herd to her family's pen, when the gate guard stopped her a moment with a hand on her shoulder. She cringed, for such contact was improper, but the guard handed her his field glasses and pointed outside the rampart. She took the glasses and looked where the guard pointed, the crest of a dune just past the grassland. Three riders sat upon the crest, armored and mounted on steeds of black metal. Guns and spikes protruded from both armor and mounts. The two outriders had fearsome and twisted horns cresting their helms. The center rider's head was bare, yet somehow more terrible to behold. It looked like the face of a man who had died in the desert, and desiccated instead of rotted. In his arm he held aloft a scale, and the look in his horrible visage was as if he was weighing the fate of all of Water Gardens. The scale was far from balanced. The guard lowered the gate, and the handler returned the field glasses with shaking hands. Trumpets blared. They sounded the Doom of Water Gardens.

 

By most standards, the tribe of Water Gardens were capable warriors. They had to be, to maintain control of their precious, permanent, oasis. With long barreled flintlocks and cruelly curved sabers, they had fought off thieves and raiders for generations. Their earthen walls and scavenged metal gates had kept less fortunate tribes at bay. Although they maintained herds, and even small gardens in their oasis home, hunting was still a tradition, and everyone old enough to ride, could shoot a flintlock or bow from camule-back. There fire was insufficient to unseat the riders. Their sabers scraped off the slabs of armor. The rampart was tall, but not steep enough, the black riders rode up it and launched into town, not even slowing at their jarring landing that would have broken the legs of the strongest camule. All the resistance the tribe could muster, failed to slow the riders.

 

There was slaughter of the tribe, but it was not as great as it could have been. For the most part, only the warriors who rode into the path of the Black Riders were killed. They did not hunt down those who retreated or shot from concealed positions. Instead, they weathered the fire off their impenetrable armor and drove to the center of Water Gardens. There, the two outriders struck down the antenna dishes and beacons of the tribe, and blew them apart with thunderous fire. The Black Rider with the scale dismounted and went to the main well. He dropped the scale into the well and remounted, leaving with his outriders the way he came.

 

The loss of life from the Black Riders' raid was survivable, seven dead and nineteen wounded. The antennas and beacons hadn't been used in living memory. However, the main well went deep into the water table, and it now bubbled with a black and foul liquid. The grasses, not just the areas profaned by the Black Riders' hoof less steeds, were turning dark and sickly. The Doom of Water Gardens was inevitable.

 

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

 

"Captain Garaduk. Champion Enshagag. I have cut all communications out of the desert, and removed the oasis as a potential refuge for the loyalists. Any survivors there will be in the Grandfather's embrace within days. Your Champion out."

 

-Vox transmission intercepted by Brother Sergeant Laviel of 3rd Company, Dark Angels. Translated from Cithonian Battle Cant.

 

 

Edited

[deathspectersgt7]

Waiting .

[Carrack]

Soon, I got a few stories cooking.

[Carrack]

Truth of the War

 

 

Key Events of the War of the Shield

 

I. Lord Aspis leaks unverified reports of enemies attacking an isolated fortress on the distant fringe of the subsector. Who these enemies are remains a mystery, supposedly for our protection.

 

II. Lord Aspis calls for an unprecedented founding of Imperial Guard, and ships the majority of possible dissenters off-world.

 

III. Lord Aspis publicly shows the nobility and remaining population that he has employed the Angels of Immolation, with a costly ceremony in which he bestows the fate of the subsector to their chapter master. Thus securing a military force that none would question, ostensibly to fight the mysterious enemies attacking our far flung holdings.

 

IV. Lord Aspis lays crippling taxes and tithes on his impoverished subjects, concentrating the wealth of our world in the hands of his government, again to fight some unseen menace that he can not tell us about. Unrest begins to grow.

 

V. Ember the flagship of the Angels of Immolation, sworn servants of Lord Aspis, comes into high orbit, apparently having trouble finding these mysterious enemies that Lord Aspis hints at. At Lord Aspis's orders, the ship shells the capital, targeting areas of our city believed to be most dissatisfied with his rule.

 

VI. Lord Aspis personally leads a suppression of his subjects while we are still reeling from his bombardment. He assaults protesters and supporters alike in a well coordinated attack at the head of his personal guard, but also in collusion with the Adeptus Sororitas and hand selected units of Imperial Guard.

 

How much longer must we suffer from Lord Aspis's cruelty and lies?

 

Rise up!

Slow your hands if you can.

Do not give this tyrant your best labor.

Stay your feet if you are willing. Do not report to the Founding Fields.

Lift your voices if you are strong. share the truth of Lord Aspis's wickedness.

Fight if you are courageous.

 

 

What is Truth?

 

 

 

Let me debunk my conspiracy theory on my own fan fic story. Sources cited. ;)

 

I. The Black Maw Warband of the Black Legion launched an invasion of the Aspis Subsector, beginning with an assault on the fortress world of Tancrea, the Pillars of Fortitude.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/317935-inspiration-friday-2016-thousand-sons-until-113/page-5?do=findComment&comment=4320090 (Pilum)

 

II. Lord Aspis mobilized his subsector to fend off the invading heretics.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/. (Severity of the Situation)

 

III. Lord Aspis bestows the Aspis Eternal to Chapter Master Barcar of the Angels of Immolation, in accordance with an ancient pact of protection between the subsector and the chapter.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/page-2 (The Shield)

 

IV. See above.

 

V. The Angels of Immolation are defeated in a naval battle at the Garland System and their flagship Ember is seized by the Black Maw. Lord Carrack takes his newly stolen battle barge on an attack run through the Aspis system, the subsector seat, bombarding the Imperial capital.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/page-4 (Donning the Black and Rain Brings Flowers)

 

VI. While personally visiting the victims of the bombardment, a riot is triggered by a nervous bodyguard and pressing mobs. Atrocities ensue.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/page-4 (A Second Storm)

 

 

[deathspectersgt7]

Carrack does your Black Maw warband have Black Legion Icons or do they have thereown ?

[Carrack]

Carrack does your Black Maw warband have Black Legion Icons or do they have thereown ?

They are Black Legion colors, although the gold is definitely more bronze like, and I tend to do all the trim in gold, without the bottom parts silver. As far as markings, I haven't been doing them. I tried freehanding Eyes of Horus at first and they looked aweful, so I just left one shoulder blank and kind of justified it by saying they were unwilling to use the symbol of their primarch. It was just me being lazy though. I'm slowly working on some terminators and intend to do something more for their shoulders. What would you recommend? Are transfers easy to do, or should I practice more with the freehand?

[deathspectersgt7]

Decals are easier these days they use a thinner paper. The current Chaos one is good. If anything look at Plokoones shop on Shapeways he has some great chaos pads. I have been ordering pads from him and pop goes the monkey bits.

[Carrack]

Eye to the Heavens

 

 

Captain Garaduk One-Eye glanced again at the heavens above the Garland Desert. Another flash of light brightened the night sky. Concerned, he entered the main shaft of the Florentine Claim. The mines were once rich in high-grade industrial diamonds, but the quality was worsening the deeper they dug, along with the quantity. The mines now were barely profitable and close to being played out. This suited Garaduk. Two guards at the entrance to the shaft turned to face Garaduk as he entered, and were promptly cut down by two of his retinue. The guards had to turn to face the entrance, they were directing their attention inward to keep the miners from stealing, rather than intruders from the outside. This too, suited Garaduk. He led his entourage onwards to the last elevator in the main shaft, after signaling for two of his servants to strip the keys from the guards.

 

The last elevator was the only one still in operation, and furthest from the entry of the mine. As he walked to the end of the main shaft, Garaduk looked to his entourage to see how they were acting before he did what he came here to do. The cultists he had gathered from the desert tribes acted fervent in their faith and resolve, muttering hysterical prayers that some of them had inelegantly conceived. Beneath the surface of their open displays of allegiance to Garaduk's patron, was a deep and consuming fear of that same patron, the Grandfather of Plague. The cultists were praying that Nurgle would have mercy on them, and relive the suffering of their own disease ridden bodies. Selfish fools, everyone of them. They were willing to share their "gifts" of Nurgle with potentially everyone on their world, in the misguided belief that they could save themselves. Foolish, for Grandfather Nurgle was a loving god, and he would not want to see these cultists leave his embrace.

 

Beside the cultists, were the survivors of Garaduk's retinue, the Astartes of the Vulture Raptor Cult. They were as happy as can be, even joking on private vox channels. They were but a different breed of selfish fools as far as Garaduk was concerned. They had given themselves over to the Lord of Rot in exchange for power. They were willing to do anything for their god, with the hope that he would reward them for their obedience. It mattered not what Nurgle asked, they would unquestioningly comply. Although they were Garaduk's most powerful minions, like the cultists, they were naught but slaves to their god.

 

As always, Garaduk was accompanied by a cloud of flies. They served as a living banner to proclaim for all the allegiance of the one they pestered. Garaduk himself was most often the intended audience of that message. After a fashion, he was no different than the other slaves of Nurgle in his retinue, but at times at least, he was disobedient one, and the flies were there to remind him of his master. So was his moniker, "One-Eye". The eye that had been shot out in Callebra Hive had never healed, and rejected every implant, sorcerous or technological, in spite of his super human regenerative capabilities. The wound served as a lasting reminder of his disobedience to his god, but Garaduk intended to use that reminder for another purpose here in the mines.

 

They reached the last elevator and brought it up. An irate foreman, armored in some antique jack of layered bronze scales and wielding a badly sparking shock whip, was cursing at the unscheduled rise of his lift. Cursing until he saw the one-eyed giant of Captain Garaduk towering all the way to the ceiling of the shaft in his black and gold armor. The foreman let his whip fall, and briefly considered drawing his sidearm, but either fear or wisdom stayed his hand. His paralysis was as meaningless as any futile gesture he might make with the pistol, for Garaduk merely picked him up by the collar of his jack and tossed him back to his cultists for interrogation. He then looked over the lift.

 

The lift was old and in a dangerously poor state of repair, but still functional enough for bringing up carts of ore. More importantly, it had all of the mine's lines bundled together in a brass pipe attached to the lift mechanism. There were water lines to cool the drills and quench the thirst of the miners, their were two power lines, one for the strings of lamps hung at the vein, and the other for running the power tools the miners used. There was a gas extraction line, to suction off dangerous gasses exposed during digging, and most importantly, an oxygen intake line to pump fresh oxygen to the bottom of the mine. Captain Garaduk signaled Nezzor, the champion of his retinue, to get to work on the lines. Within moments the gas extract line was spliced into the oxygen intake line, and Garaduk had removed one of the shrunken heads from his belt that served as his plague grenades. With his lighting claw, he ground the grenade down into dust, and fed the dust into the spliced line. This was just the foundation of the plague he was building.

 

Garaduk commanded his cultists to return the foreman to him. The foreman was still alive, but wishing he wasn't. Eager to please, the cultists had tried to extract whatever secrets the foreman might have kept. They were unsubtle in their methods. Garaduk was not interested in information, the foreman would serve another purpose. He appraised the foreman with his single, experienced, eye. The middle aged, slightly paunchy man was roughly thrown to the floor before him, wincing as his battered knees struck the dirt. The foreman's fingers were curled and torn, each one broken in multiple places. He bled from numerous shallow wounds, but not with life threatening severity. The face of the foreman was a bloody pulp, with one of his own eyes completely bruised over. The beaten foreman looked up at Garaduk with hope in his eye, Garaduk chuckled a little at that. One Eye knew that this foreman was more scared than hurt in his presence, but also hopeful, at least for a quick death. Garaduk would have to dissuade this fool of his unfounded hope.

 

Years of learning what people were made of, and what they were capable of in the extreme, had led Garaduk to be a master of the human will. The beating of the foreman might be enough to break him into divulging his deepest darkest secrets, but it was not enough for the foreman to lose sight of what his fate would be, and that there was no way he was going to walk away from Captain Garaduk. The foreman was hopeful that the one eyed captain would kill him and end his torment. To that end, the foreman was presenting his throat and waiting for the death blow to come. Instead, Garaduk picked him up by his exposed throat and brought his face within inches of his black, horned, helm. With his freehand, Garaduk removed his helm and showed the foreman the eternally festering wound where one of his own eyes had once been. Whatever hope the foreman felt dribbled down his leg along with his dignity. Yet Garaduk didn't slay the foreman. He did far worse. He grabbed one of the foreman's broken fingers and stuck it into his own eye socket, the one that Nurgle had never allowed to heal. The foreman screamed and Garaduk read the signs, the dilating pupil, the quivering heart, the mental and physical breakdown of the foreman was complete. He read the same signs in his own body, and in spite of his indomitable will, he couldn't stifle a scream of his own. It felt as if the mortal's finger was touching every pain center of his brain. Finally, Garaduk removed the foreman's finger from his eye socket with a wet sound and a putrid odor, knowing the foreman's life would be measured in minutes from this point. The relief he felt from withdrawing the finger was so great it almost felt as if the wound had been healed. After a moment to recover, Garaduk threw his host into the lift, along with the guards' keys, and sent it down to the mines.

 

Garaduk's cultists, even his retinue, were in awe at what their captain had done. He told them to leave immediately, stealing nothing, and regroup back in the desert.

 

*******

 

Out in the desert, safely away from the Florentine Claim, Garaduk gathered his forces in the lee of a dune, watching the mines from a concealed position. They couldn't help but notice the continuing flashes from the heavens above the desert. Within minutes, miners started to leave the claim in heavily laden, and no doubt stolen eight wheelers. They scattered across every road and trail leading away from the desert back to civilization.

 

When the last of the miners had left, Champion Nezzor asked Garaduk what was the purpose of this raid. He hadn't cared beforehand, and was only idly curious now. Nevertheless, Garaduk One-Eye enlightened him, "Those flashing lights above this world are the assorted scavengers of the void; salvagers, rouge traders, pirates, and opportunists of all stripes are picking over the battlefield of our last victory over the loyalists. Before long, one of them will decide to see what is happening down here, and what they can exploit. When that happens, the loyalists dogs who still have the Shield will try to flee the system aboard one of their ships. I have prevented that from happening. I have just unleashed a plague, blessed by Nurgle, unto this world the likes the Imperium has not felt in ages. I have infected the worse sort of miners, self-serving scum that are used to hiding from society, and will spread the plague far and wide before caught. None of those profiteers will be making planetfall as soon as word of the spreading disease reaches their ears. Make no mistake Nezzor, I will kill every living thing on this planet just to keep the Shield from slipping from my grasp."

 

[Carrack]

Worms in the Heart

Aspis Palace District, Subsector Seat

 

During the Bombardment of the Palace, Lord Carrack had banished the aspiring champions loyal to the traitor Captain Macar. Under the cover of orbital fire, these Tzeentchian champions had been sent to the surface of Aspis with the stated objective of disrupting the Imperial command and control. Not a cursed soul in the Black Maw would place a wager on these champions' success.

 

 

The cultists were begging for forgiveness and pestering him with promises of more discretion in their next endeavors, but Kadesh was distracted by an old memory and ignored their pleas. He tuned out their cries as he stared at what had become of his left hand. It had happened in an explosion of blue light. His fingers had curled into the shape of a cup and fused together. His fingernails had migrated from their original position to the outer rim of the "cup" and solidified into inward curving fangs, while his wrist bulked out as an esophagus like organ stretched its way from his stomach to the opening in the bottom of the "cup". The blue light then imploded back into the mouth-like mutation that was now his left hand, retracing its path of expansion inward to the inside of the new mouth, where it would reside from that day forward, coursing through the limb with sorcerous energy. The whole event had not been exactly painful per se, Kadesh had however, found the experience a little disconcerting. He had been gifted this wondrous new limb back when he had dismounted and slain a Solar Hawk captain centuries ago with a sweeping hook from his powerfist. He no longer needed the powerfist, now he struck with the might given to him by Tzeentch. Still, in spite of the obvious favor bestowed upon him, when his eyes lingered on what had become of his hand he would remember the shifting of his flesh and the first tingles of the blue energy racing across what once were his knuckles. Kadesh preferred not to look at it, to pretend it wasn't there, so he averted his gaze as he slammed it into the cultist's ribcage in front of him, and muted his audio pickups as his hand-mouth fed on the remains. The other cultists' mouths stopped moving, and after the mouth at the end of his arm ceased its own movement, Kadesh reopened the full autosenses of his helm.

 

Having secured the cultists' attention, Kadesh addressed their failings, "You are worse than worms. Worms at least, can keep out of sight. The Master of Fortune has blessed you with my presence, and you have proven unworthy of that blessing by compromising my position. I should kill you all, but perhaps there is a part you can still play in doing the Great Schemer's bidding. I myself am unconvinced of any future for yourselves. You are now to divide in covens of nine faithful and one magos. Each of these small covens shall stride forth from this ruined hall and win back the favor of the Great Schemer. Some of you should find a new fane for our worship, one that will conceal my presence from the unenlightened. Others shall bring the truth of the Changer of Ways to those who might be receptive. While others must wage the secret war on your brothers and sisters. You must sabotage the manufactorums that are still working, assassinate the officers of the Corpse God's armies, and raid for precious war materials at their depots."

 

The cultists took in Kadesh's commandments, eager for a chance at redemption, but immediately fell to quarreling over who would do what, and how they would divide up the covens. He allowed this to happen for a few moments, to let the most ambitious reveal themselves and to relish the confusion, then Kadesh resealed and muted his helm before letting the mutated mouth on his arm scream a feral cry. Glass broke at the sound, as did the cultists' quarreling. With renewed purpose, the cultists filed out of the bombed out hab Kadesh had taken refuge within.

 

With the cultists gone, Kadesh opened a vox channel for his squad. They were positioned throughout the ruined hab, guarding entrances and watching avenues of approach. He informed them that they would soon leave this strongpoint for the next. Moving through the Palace District would involve serious risks. Kadesh and his squad had been marooned on the Aspis Subsector Seat, in the Palace District, which was the central command and control hub for the Imperials' defense against the Black Maw Warband's invasion. Kadesh was woefully outnumbered and behind enemy lines, any exposure could lead to his death. His marooning was punishment for following a disloyal captain of the Black Maw in a failed assassination attempt on Lord Carrack. However, in spite of the great danger, there was great opportunity here within striking distance from the Subsector Governor. Kadesh was going to make the most of his circumstances, and rise in power, either within the Black Maw, or on his own.

 

First he had to get to safety. His cultists, the worms he used to infiltrate throughout the Palace District, had been discovered, as he knew they eventually would. Kadesh had already chosen a contingent strongpoint, and was prepared to move at once, but he would wait until his cultists provided a significant distraction with the fool's errands he had scattered them out into the district with. In the meantime, he would use the pause to study the grimoire.

 

The grimoire was the sign that Tzeentch had not abandoned Kadesh. It was an ancient tome filled with arcane secrets and rituals that had been the prized possession of the warband's equerry, Lythane the Black, now deceased. In the aftermath of the Battle of Garland, the book had been recovered by a crew of the warband's mortal thralls, whom Kadesh had discovered in an unwitnessed corridor and relieved them of their prize. Kadesh knew that such cursed relics had a habit of making themselves found. The grimoire, the dread Liber Apocal, was indeed cursed, fortunately, he had uncovered a primer for the grimoire not long after Lythane had been sent to the Black Maw to reign in Lord Carrack. The primer hinted that the curse of the Liber Apocal would be visited upon any man who touched its pages, either with hand or by device. However, the primer was but a copy of a copy, and its legitimacy was questionable. It was all Kadesh had to work with at the moment though, so he reread the primer, scrutinizing its words, cadence, and even penmanship in an effort to ascertain whether the primer was real, or just another trap for the foolish along the path of sorcery. The primer instructed the bearer of the Liber Apocal to summon forth a minor daemon whose task was to assist mortals read the grimoire without physically touching the pages, and provided rituals to accomplish this summoning, but they could just as easily be the summoning rituals for a possessing spirit, or some other terrible power from the warp.

 

Kadesh had just found a clue in the primer, a turn of phrase that was written in High Gothic, but unique to the Prosperine tongue, when he was alerted of imminent Imperial contact. The cultists hadn't provided a big enough distraction to cover his move. The slaves of the False Emperor were inbound in under two minutes, a platoon of mortals mounted in chimeras following a Leman Russ tank squadron. Kadesh breathed easy, the dogs apparently wanted confirmation, and hadn't just leveled his position with artillery fire. Artillery fire seemed to be a frequent peace keeping tool for the Imperials at the moment. Still, in spite of his good fortune, he would have to implement one of his fallback plans to avoid detection. He checked his squad was ready, and led them down into the underground cistern.

 

The cistern was quite remarkable for the hab building that towered above it. Filled as it was, it was large enough to feed the thirst of the hab for over a year, and crafted out of fine Tancrean marble complete with elaborate flourishes at the corners and an uncommonly beautiful fountainhead. In contrast, the hab above it had packed in janitors, manufactorum menials, and groundskeepers for the lessor manors of the district, and had been a ramshackle firetrap even before the bombardment. It was one of those oddities of old cities where neighborhoods had transitioned so many times that architectural marvels ended up in the meaner of blocks. The cistern was largely intact from the bombardment, a further testament to its craftsmanship, with the exception of a roughly two meter wide hole in its roof in one corner. Kadesh sealed his tomes in a black sharkskin case, and was the first to enter the deep cistern. His squad followed. Completely submerged in the murky water of the cistern, Kadesh waited while the guardsmen searched the burnt out hab that had hid him. His squad amused themselves listening to the searchers discover the various booby traps they and the cultists had laid throughout the ruined building. Most were discovered the hard way. Kadesh considered the Prosperine phrasing of the primer which was consistent with the widely believed origins of the Liber Apocal. He decided to attempt the summoning ritual as soon as he could reach the next strongpoint. If he could gain the power of the Liber Apocal, he might use it to strike a blow against the subsector so severe he could effect the course of the invasion, and gain a reputation as a potent commander, one worthy of support and rescuing from his perilous position.

 

Abruptly, the guardsmen abandoned their pursuit, perhaps the cultists had revealed themselves elsewhere in the district. None of the searchers had even considered looking inside the water filled cistern, and Kadesh and his squad waited until the Imperials had mounted their chimeras and motored out before coming out of their underwater refuge. Dripping wet, they hustled down the darkest alleys they could find to the next strongpoint. He was certain he had been spotted, more than once, just hopefully the reports would be to few and incredulous to be effectively pursued. The strongpoint was a manufactorum recently shut down from damage sustained during the bombardment and a work force depleted by conscription. Without a word, Kadesh's squad went to securing the building. Kadesh found a secluded position next to the central etching bays, and opened the primer.

 

[deathspectersgt7]

I must hunt this dog Down . A Solar Captains Blood demands this.