Thirteen Times shall the Traitor King go forth... (fiction)

[Antarius]

A bit of introduction:
So, I'm doing a WiP/log thing of me and a friend's shared Chaos project. It's a combination of working on a "Black Crusade" army and doing some fluff for the army as we muddle along.
I originally posted everything here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/321890-thirteen-times-shall-the-traitor-king-go-forth/

But I ended up thinking it was probably better to put the fluff here and the model stuff there, so things are a bit neater.

The concept so far, is that the characters from my previous Chaos projects (Word Bearers, Night Lords and Iron Warriors) are caught in a system where they have no business being (our previous gaming campaign stalled, which I've taken to mean that the military campaign has been fought to a stalemate too, with imperial reinforcements on the way, leaving our "heroes" in a perilous situation). So this is going to be the story of how (or perhaps if) they manage to get out of that particular bind and team up with a huuuge bunch of renegades, Daemons etc.
So, if you're into that sort of thing, please have a look - comments, c&c etc are very welcome :)

 

The first piece is rather long, without a lot of introduction. That's on purpose, as I want to make a fresh start, so to speak. But a sense of the character's personalities and history will hopefully start to shine through pretty quickly.

It's a bit too long for an introductory piece but I couldn't really find an earlier place to fit in a cliffhanger, so you have all my gratitude and admration if you make it through :)

 

 

And now, the first (rather long) piece of fluff:

 

The impaler's garden was every bit as meaningless as it was horrific. These were the chief impressions that formed in Lykaeos' mind, as he walked through the winding corridors of terror that led to the Night Lords' Captain's lair. A lesser man's mind might have reeled uncontrollably or perhaps down broken completely at the sights arrayed before it, but Lykaeos' soul was a fortress not so easily assailed. As much as he abhorred what he saw, he would not -and did not- give the Night Lord Captain the satisfaction of flinching.

All the same, what he saw horrified him. In fact it made him doubt the sense of his mission and even what value might lie in it, should it succeed. Be that as it may, the course was set and he would not turn back now, come what may.

 

It was not a single definite thing above all others that made the garden of the impaler a place of soul-shattering terror, nor could its full impact be adequately communicated by simply describing the individual atrocities arrayed here. Rather, it was the cumulative horror of the place that made it into the almost unimaginable masterpiece of ghoulish art that it was. Here, the sadistic depravity of the Night Lords was on full display. The living and the dead alike were paraded here, subjected to such extents of abuse of body and soul that even true princes among madmen might concoct only in the blackest of fever dreams.

 

Impaled corpses stood in rows along the path; sentinels of nightmare keeping mute vigil over a realm of amorphous terror. Human innards woven together in intricate patterns, like tapestries of madness, lined the bloody walls of bone and gristle and the sepulchral silence was broken only by a slow, viscous dripping of infinite hatefulness. 

 

As he made his way through the labyrinthine garden of torment, Lykaeos noticed hexagrammatic wards carved into walls, floors as well as the skin and skulls of both the living and the dead. This would explain why the air was not thick with the servants of the Dark Prince, Lykaeos reflected. But while the Night Lords would certainly not welcome the presence of Daemons in their midst, apart perhaps from the ones they carried within themselves - and those were demons of a much more prosaic kind - these wards had not been enacted to protect against the Neverborn; they were both too fresh and too direct for that. A curious surge of emotion went through Lykaeos as he realised they were meant as protection against psychic disturbance. The Night Lords were not quite as disdainful of him as they made out, then.

 

At lenght, he arrived at a chamber at the very centre of the maze. Two hulking terminator armoured Atramentar barred Lykaeos path into the room beyond and after a short tense moment of appraisal, one of them greeted him with a parody of a courteous  bow that would have seemed comical under better circumstances. 

The Night Lord was surprisingly nimble for a terminator armoured astartes, Lykaeos thought, but did not miss the contempt in the gesture. He did his best to ignore their mockery and made his voice as steady and emotionless as possible when he spoke in reply to their silent greeting.

 

“I have come to speak with your lord, honoured warriors of the Atramentar. He is aware of my coming, as I believe you know. Will you not let me pass?”

 

No audible conversation passed between the two Night Lords nor did they deign to honour Lykaeos’ request with a spoken answer, but after a period of grating silence, the leftmost of the warriors signalled for Lykaeos to leave any weapons on the floor. When he held out his hands to show that he was unarmed, he was certain that he sensed a faint chuckle from the two sentinels as they stepped aside to let him enter their master’s sanctum.

 

Lykaeos quickly walked between them and stepped into a long, shadowy hall lit only by candles that, if the smell was anything to go by, were made of tallow - he did not truly doubt their origin but did not pause to reflect on this as he walked to the end of the chamber.

Here, two rows of freshly impaled prisoners flanked what looked like an elaborate banquet table with an empty throne-like chair at the farther end. Blood pooled on the floor, staining both table and steel-reinforced chairs and human remains were piled high along the walls and each of Lykaeos steps resounded with the sickening crunch of crushed, toothless skulls that echoed the slackly moaning mouths of the living decorations. The teeth that had been plucked from them were arranged like glittering white pearls on the command table in strange, seemingly random patterns.

 

This, then, was the lair Tzarekh of the Night Lords had made for himself; it was more like a morbid parody of a king's dining hall than anything else, Lykaeos thought with silent revulsion as he surveyed the chamber, searching the darkness for the Night Lords’ captain.

 

"Have you come to plead with me?” a voice hissed from the shadowed throne in front of him, a place where he would have sworn nothing had been the merest moment ago.

"Would it please you?" Lykaeos responded musingly.

 

“Perhaps it would…” the rasping voice responded after a short pause. “Perhaps it would indeed please me to see you humble yourself before me. Would you care to try it, Lykaeos of the Word Bearers? You are no stranger to prostrating yourself before others, after all…” the Night Lord’s voice was all but overflowing with a demented glee at the thought of his own superiority over his brother.

 

Lykaeos ignored the insult, inclining his head towards the table. “May I sit, Tzarekh? My feet ache from wandering through your “garden” and I have a message for you that I hope we may discuss as equals...” 

“You may sit, O, messenger!” the Night Lord interrupted mockingly  "on the floor, if it please you to rest your tired frame while you relay your precious message. Then we shall consider it as … brothers” Tzarekh chuckled, evidently taken by his own jest.

 

The Word Bearer Heresiarch sighed wearily, but remained on his feet. “If you are quite finished, Captain Tzarekh, I bear tidings that will drastically change the situation we find ourselves in. Will you not at least hear me out without mockery?”

“You zealots are a humourless lot indeed” the Night Lord replied sourly “but alright, let me hear your message and I shall apprise you of my thoughts even though they may not be to your liking”

 

“I thank you brother” the Word Bearer said earnestly before launching into what was evidently a well-rehearsed speech “It cannot have escaped your attention that our position in this system is less than ideal; we are beset by enemies, xenos as well as imperial and despite our succesful raids and the seeds of rebellion we have sowed, we have failed to secure a stable foothold in the sector. Furthermore, the warp storms we have ridden to get here are abating, allowing for the inevitable imperial reinforcements to begin spilling into the system at any moment, cutting us off from any hope of either victory or escape.”

 

There was a brief pause, as the two regarded each other across the shadowy room, the Word Bearer’s bleak assessment hanging ominously in the air between them.

 

“Go on” Tzarekh said simply, shrugging impatiently at his guest.

“Very well. We agree that we are not exactly poised to sweep this system before us as we had planned, then? I submit that discretion may be the better part of valour in this instance…”

“You wish to turn tail and run?” Tzarekh mused “You will never get that fool of an Iron Warrior to agree to that! His fragile ego would not allow it.”

 

“Ignatius is no fool, even if there is no love between you. He will see sense” Lykaeos stated flatly, taking care not to provoke the Night Lord’s anger with his disagreement.

“In any case, we are going to *have* to withdraw from this system sooner or later, with or without our 4th legion brothers, but I have come across new possibilities that will allow us to not only give our foes a parting gift to remember us by, but also open untold new possibilities to us…”

“Is this another of your grand schemes that will have us halfway across the galaxy, throwing our lives away chasing after ghosts and shadows?” Tzarekh interjected venomously “Because it it is, you can count me out and count yourself lucky if I do not flay you alive!”

“The Lexicon is no shadowy legend!” Lykaeos protested hotly, but thought better of it “But no. This is not about that - not directly anyway”

 

“Then speak. But mind your tongue, Word Bearer, or I shall tear it from your mouth myself” Tzarekh hissed dangerously, his temper evidently starting to get the better of him.

“Did you do so to your bodyguards?” Lykaeos asked, hoping to deflect the Night Lord’s attention. Now was not the time to get into a confrontation with a psychotic madman; not alone and unarmed. It seemed to work, for Tzarekh chuckled gleefully

“Oh no, they *can* speak. They just don’t respect you or your gods, “Heresiarch". They think you nothing more than a monkish weakling - much like *I* do, come to think of it.”

“You *do* realise that Grand Heresiarch is more than just a title, yes?” Lykaeos replied. “That I hold powers that could blast your soul from your carcass before you could raise arms against me? If not, let me assure you; it is so. And now, let us return to the matter at hand!”

 

The Night Lord threw back his head, shaggy black hair flowing around him like a greasy mantle, and laughed aloud. It was a harsh, bitter sound, but it seemed to Lykaeos like actual, genuine laughter.

 

“Oh, Word Bearer, you *are* amusing in you naive trust in your gods and your feeble sorcery. Did you not notice the wards that I had *my* sorcerer erect around my throne room? Did you really think I would let you into my sanctum without guarding myself against your magic tricks? Irichul! Tell this foolish zealot of our precautions!”

At this cue, a black-robed figure stepped from the shadows next to Tzarekh’s throne, where he had stood all along, silently observing the conversation. Lykaeos silently marvelled at the Night Lords’ capacity for stealth, but now did not seem to be a good time for expressing his admiration of the 8th legion’s prowess.

“As you wish, Lord.” The sorcerer said, bowing low before his captain and inclining his robed head towards the Word Bearer in a surprisingly respectful gesture.

“As a fellow initiate into the sorcerous arts, you will no doubt have observed, I have placed hexagrammatical wards inked with the blood of psychically gifted slaves and inscribed with the secret names of the chief followers of the everchanging paths in precise cabalistic patterns all around this chamber, so as to make sure that noone will attempt sorcery within its walls, except for myself of course. To do so would be… Ill-advised, to say the least.”

 

Lykaeos nodded cautiously at this proclamation “I see your point, Irichul Drakh of the 8th legion and I thank you for your advice on the matters of sorcery under such conditions as you describe. With this in mind I shall certainly refrain from any untoward use of such powers...” here he turned back towards the Night Lord captain “…and now, may we get on with out discussion? I understand my position very well, but I entreat you to at least hear me out. I know that you are as eager as I to deal a parting blow to the imperium before getting out of this sector”

 

Tzarekh smiled indulgently at the Word Bearer’s acknowledgement “Of course, my defenceless friend. By all means, do go on with your most fascinating narrative”

 

“Very well. I shall get straight to the point; I have been sought out by an emissary of the Warmaster himself, who has offered us the prospect of not only escaping this sector with our lives, but of destabilising the entire system before we leave. Is this of interest to you, or would you rather slay me and cast your own life away in doing so?”

 

“The “Warmaster”, you say…” Tzarekh’s eyes narrowed into slits of inky darkness in his pale face at the mention of the despoiler’s title “and, pray tell, what does that pompous swine want in return for this *generous* offer? Will he send us to die somewhere else on one of his fool’s errands, or perhaps merely rob us of our slaves and ships?”

 

“He desires nothing of the sort” Lykaeos said evenly, doing his best to hold his own rising temper in check and succeeding - perhaps because of his less than enviable position at the mercy of the Impaler and his chief sorcerer.

 

“Oh come now!” Tzarekh spat “The bastard will want *something* from us in return for our lives.”

 

“You are mistaken in your assessment of the Warmaster’s character, my brother. He desires but the merest token of our gratitude and will indeed aid us further, giving us access to his own navigational resources, going so far as to letting us plunder the choicest of his own selected targets on our way to rendezvous with him”

 

“This is too good to be true!" Tzarekh growled "Out with it, Lykaeos! What does that failure of an overgrown brat want from us?”

 

“He wants us to swear ourselves to the black, in exchange for which he will place us at his right hand in the coming offensive. Alongside him we shall have the power to finally break the back of the imperium!” again, Lykaeos voice took on the rich, melodic quality of an experienced orator delivering a particularly well-composed speech

“It is just such an opportunity as we have waited for, Tzarekh. Together we shall march on the crimson path to Terra and cast down the false corpse-emperor. Will you not at least consider it?"

 

“Never!” The Night Lord captain rose from his throne, anger seething from him in palpable waves “How dare you waste my time with this infantile nonsense? My men and I will never defile ourselves by wearing the black of the failed warmaster’s failed son!” he spat in front of Lykaeos, acid searing through the bones littering the floor, as his lightning claws flared into life

“And you, Word Bearer! You will die screaming for daring to come before me with such drivel. I should have known better than to even listen to one of Lorgar’s pathetic zealots…”

 

As he spoke, he advanced with predatory swiftness on Lykaeos, battering aside the heavy, steel-reinforced chairs in his path, his terminator-armoured form towering over the figure of the heresiarch, who stood unarmed before the command table, clad only in an acolyte’s robe.

 

“Gods, but he is fast!” Lykaeos thought to himself as he backed towards the center of the room, away from his speedily approaching death. He had not truly dared to believe he could sway the Night Lord, but he *had* dare to hope…