Ghost Crusade: a Lightning Bearers story

[bluntblade]

Originally written for the Brotherhood of the Lost project, I realised this can also work as a tale of the Lightning Bearers in their "canon" II Legion form. It's partly a homage to Horus Rising.

 

+++++

 

This world had no name, nothing to distinguish it from any other habitable world in the Galaxy. This was the lie that would be fed to the people of the Imperium. Only a few would ever know the truth- those warriors who waged the Ghost Crusade.

 

Stark, yellow-grey sunlight illuminated the clouds through which the Stormbirds descended. Raiden Athrawes gazed out through a viewing port as the craft dropped out of the clouds, and the landscape was revealed beneath them. A once-great city, its architecture gnarled and twisted. Great towers, shaped to resemble vast bones, rose from the ground. Now he could see the drop-pods of the first wave, and the lights of the battle on the ground. The flashes of volkites and power weapons, turned against beings from the Warp.

 

The ruined capital swarmed with the creatures, a seething tide that broke against the Lightning Bearers’ formations. The first wave under Sentinel Daivyn had engaged the creatures. Now Raiden's company, along with three others, were to secure the rest of the city, herding them into designated kill-zones. Thus the Gyges Cleansing would begin, far from the eyes of all other men.

 

He always felt the weight of such occasions, more than any other kind of offensive, but more so today. He had only two Terran months ago been elected to the rank of Sentinel, after the loss of the Company's previous leader Kurosion. It had been a tightly contested thing, with many backing Captain Jiro for the role instead. They had been friends since Raiden joined the company as a sergeant, but the rivalry that began as half a joke had seriously strained that bond. Now Raiden had to prove himself worthy to his entire company, not least to Jiro, who sat watching him from across the chamber. He worried that Jiro might feel that bond was fractured now by his elevation; the two had been made captains within a month of one another, during a costly war against the reptilian Keylekid.

 

Focus. Find the current, and it will carry you. Sensing that they had thirty seconds left in the air, he stood. “Ninth Company, ready yourselves. For Terra and Madrigal!”

 

-----

 

The Astartes surged from the transports, volkites spitting death at any foes they sighted. Many did not even look at their enemies, simply knowing where to aim. With the immediate area secure, they moved out into the city, scattered bones crunching underfoot. Skeletons littered the city; Gyges had been home to billions.

 

Eleventh Company, led by Manticus, were first to split off as they ran down one of the city's highways. They were mostly Terrans, and their chainblades contrasted oddly against the vibro-katana favoured by the sons of Madrigal. Still, many of them possessed a measure of the “grace”, the quality that made the Lightning Bearers such elegant and deadly fighters, and all were products of the arduous training and campaigns that honed the Ist Legion.

 

None, however, were sons of Cthonia. Even before Madrigal and the reunion, it had been felt that the savage ways of that world were antithetical to what the II Legion symbolised, and what made them so lethal. They were warrior sages, not hungry killers.

 

Kionen's Fifth peeled off, taking a course that ran roughly parallel to the Ninth. Finally Saiga led his company into an industrial zone, leaving the Ninth to their task.

 

-----

 

“Croniz. The name that you will heed. Croniz is no one and all those around you. Croniz will drain the blood and dance among your ashes. Look upon what you abhor, and know it as your future.”

 

The voice had been reported as soon as the drop-pods had breached the atmosphere. Daivyn had deemed it some looping piece of propaganda from the war that had brought Nagasus to its present state. A few subterranean power stations apparently remained functional, fuelling lights that still sputtered in the darkness. Still, the way it got into every vox channel on the surface made the Lightning Bearers uncomfortable, despite their experience. It was troubling to hear the screeds of a religion which might have driven the inhabitants into their all-consuming conflict.

 

Perhaps that violence was what had worn the veil so thin on this world, Raiden wondered. He could feel an overbearing sense of hopelessness and anguish, although he did not allow it to affect him. It was a common theory among the Legion that the feeling of a world and the nature of an infestation was tied directly to its downfall, and the records they found often seemed to support the hypothesis. Worlds which had simply been overrun by unbound psykers were typically jumbles of bizarre fauna, filled with creatures that varied wildly in form. Worlds that died in war were marked either by violent phenomena such as storms or tectonic activity, or the grey mien of nihilism that Gyges was steeped in.

 

The extent of the breach was such that the Warp creatures did not even need to wear the bodies of the inhabitants as was so often the case. Instead, the Lightning Bearers gazed upon empty eye sockets and emaciated limbs that ended in bone claws and whip-like appendages. Dispayres, they called them.

 

A couple of kilometres away, Katarius’ assault squads were swarming over the rooftops, ensuring that Daivyn and his elite Volta units would not be impeded as they ploughed into the mournful horrors. Raiden could hear the noise of the volkite culverins wielded by the Terminators as they reduced the dispayres to ash. Occasionally the ground shook beneath them - Fourth Company, at work in the sewers. They would be abetted by the Oni, using their precognition and teleportation units to manoeuvre in the confines of the tunnels.

 

-----

 

For the best part of seven hours they combed the district, battalions and then squads peeling off to scour individual buildings as they flushed the creatures out and channelled them into the waiting guns of the Volta. Twice they came into contact with another company, trapping the enemy between them.

 

Occasionally foresight wasn't enough. Every now and again a brother fell to the serrated claws or lashing whips. They were bitter losses; the Warp-taint meant that the gene-seed of a brother who fell on such a world could not be retrieved for implantation. These warriors would have a shadow of a legacy, the battles that ended them kept secret.

 

A dispayre would appear over a ridge to his left in three seconds. Raiden pulled the trigger before it had even fully stuck its head up, before moving to engage a pack of the creatures which spilled from an alley. His vibro-katana made short work of those within reach, and Mizuchi tactical squad dealt with the rest. Sergeant Tatsuya landed a particularly fine blow with his power axe, splitting a dispayre open almost to the hip. Instead of blood, dust and fragments of bone spilled from the wound.

 

Still, no shouts of triumph came from the warriors. The reserved attitude of the Legion was one factor - they struggled to muster the jovial spirits that came so easily to the Wolves and the White Scars - but so was the pall of misery that hung over the planet. Croniz wasn't helping either. At least, he reasoned, the aura of misery would lift as the infestation was driven out. Unlike a normal compliance, the opening phase of a Ghost Crusade battle was invariably the worst.

 

Through a gap in the buildings, he saw the Volta mowing down great swathes of dispayres and paused to take in the spectacle. Then huge figures moved into sight, dwarfing even the Terminators. The mighty Black Dragons, the subject of awe and not a little dread from the Lightning Bearers. With such a taboo within the Legion against the use of dreadnoughts, the practice had arisen in which a Volta brother would volunteer to be encased within one of these great war machines. While it did not match the horror of a dreadnought’s existence, it was still an immense act of sacrifice.

 

He called his squads together as they followed the avenue into a courtyard and found themselves gazing at what must have been places of governance. It took a couple of minutes for them all to respond - “Croniz” fouled the vox again and blotted out other transmissions. By now it was becoming merely irksome, to the point that the Astartes were destroying power cables wherever they found them intact in hopes of silencing it.

 

The bones were piled deeper here, in what must have been the final refuge for the population. Whether it had been shelter from the dispayres or other humans, there was no clue. Again they split up, first into battalions and then into squads. Jiro reported a series of catacombs that began beneath one palace. Raiden was tempted to go himself, but decided to allow Jiro to lead the exploration with his battalion. It was vital to emphasise the trust he placed in Jiro. To go himself would be to risk Jiro’s respect.

 

There were still dispayres here, with winged forms that swept down from gloomy alcoves to attack. The Lightning Bearers dispatched them in a matter-of-fact way; they felt no need or desire for finesse in this battle.

 

Raiden’s vox receiver crackled. “Jiro? What is it?”

 

“Raiden, you have to see this. Track my beacon. I've found… I see…”

 

“Jiro?”

 

“Raiden… it's Croniz, Raiden. It means the doom and what must come.”

 

Raiden frowned. Leaving his battalion under the command of lieutenant Tetsuo, he set off with Mizuchi behind him. Most of Jiro's squads had moved deeper into the catacombs, but Jiro's beacon showed him above ground, in a small, domed building whose contours bore uncomfortable resemblance to a human cranium. He was at the very edge of the district now, scree slopes trailing away behind the last few structures. He could see Byakko squad down there, performing a reconnaissance whilst their brothers finished their sweep of the area.

 

-----

 

Stepping into the dome, he found a circular chasm, with a platform at the centre, five metres across and joined to the outside by eight bridges. Jiro stood alone at the centre, gusts of wind from below snatching at his cloak. There was no sign of his squad. He turned as they entered, elation easy to read in his posture as they stepped onto the nearest walkways.

 

“Raiden, do you hear it?”

 

“Hear what?” There was something strange about Jiro's tone.

 

“The words, Raiden, and music. It's Croniz, Raiden. It's all around. Don't you hear it?”

 

“Jiro, where are Akitu squad?”

 

Jiro just stared back. “They didn't hear it either.”

 

Raiden and Tatsuya reached the platform. Jiro stepped forward, the light gleaming on his chestplate, and Raiden's breath caught in his throat.

 

A Lightning Bearer's irises marked how many more battles the warrior would be able to fight on Warp-tainted planets. Raiden could hardly believe what he was seeing, knew that they had been almost entirely blue just hours before, but his senses did not lie.

 

Jiro's irises were pure black.

 

He saw what was going to happen next, and he guessed Tatsuya had some inkling of it. “Brother,” Tatsuya said softly, taking Jiro's arm “easy-”

 

The serpenta blew a hole in his chest. Tatsuya clutched at the wound’s glowing edge and stared uncomprehendingly at his killer as he sank to his knees. “Croniz.” Jiro didn't even look at him, punching his blade up under another warrior's chin and into his skull even as his volkite killed two more, blasting their chests open. “The name you will heed.” Jiro's voice was a gurgling chuckle. Raiden had seen it coming, but he still knew that he couldn't kill another Astartes. So he barrelled into Jiro instead, the rest of the squad following his lead.

 

The force of the impact was like running into rockcrete. Jiro didn't budge, his madness seeming to lend him incredible strength. “-no one and all those around you.” Two of the men he swatted away with massive blows with his fist and gun. One, Hunza, landed with a shattered arm, the other with a broken neck. The third he knocked clean off the walkway. “-drain the blood-” Raiden recovered from the impact and swung a fist Jiro's face, but was thrown back by a kick before it could connect. The last thing he saw before he travelled through the temple wall was the final warrior reaching Jiro.

 

He landed gracelessly, and stumbled before regaining his feet. He opened the vox and bellowed to anyone who might hear. Then, not heeding the puzzled replies, he raced back into the temple. Only Hunza remained alive, dragging himself back up. No time to help him. He set off for the broken gate on the other side, glancing down to see the last man to intercept the madman. The warrior's head was barely still attached.

 

Raiden forced himself to speed up, as he realised that Jiro was heading straight for Byakko squad's position. “Kozuta, hostile approach north-northeast. Wearing Ist Legion colours, I repeat, hostile in our colours!” There was no reply.

 

No no no no thudded his hearts, matching his frantic pace as he sped down the slope. Something limp and bulky appeared over the incline - Brother Chiba, flung into the air like a twig. He crashed down a few metres away, one shoulder dislocated and his faceplate cracked and buckled. Raiden sprang up onto the ridge. What he saw brought him to a halt. Byakko squad lay in the dirt, blood still running from torn throats and punctured eye slits. One was unrecognisable, his helmet - and presumably face - stove in by blows of horrific force.

 

But worst of all was the figure sprawled across one of the fallen warriors. The culprit of this unimaginable deed. Thick black fluid spilled through Jiro's helmet grille, and to his horror Raiden saw the metal distending as if corroded by it. The shape of the mask twisted into something bestial, and the grille reforming into spiked mandibles like some monstrous beetle. The shoulder guards peeled back and flexed, flowing into glassy wings that sprouted from Jiro's back.

 

Two appendages sprouted from his side's, ceramite flowing as tissue and bone formed a second pair of arms. Almost casually, Jiro punched the claws of his new hand through the face of a still-living warrior as he pushed himself upright, and leered at Raiden through multi-faceted eyes. “Look upon what you abhor, and know it as your future!” he roared, slavering through the mandibles.

 

Raiden struggled to breathe. Corruption had wormed its way under the skin of an Astartes. Brother had killed brother. It was incomprehensible.

 

It was also a crime that he could not allow to go unpunished. He took a breath, and did what he had always done. He threw himself into the currents, seeking the one that would deliver him victory and justice. He charged, even as the thing that had been Jiro did the same. With a screech, the monster leapt, claws reaching for his throat. Raiden leant back and pivoted to the side, slashing with his katana. Ceramite parted and yellow ichor spilled instead of blood. Jiro moved shockingly fast, as if the wound was nothing, and though Raiden twisted to avoid a clawed hand from ripping into his chest, the talons buried themselves in his shoulder guard.

 

He had to get his enemy on the back foot and keep him that way. He saw that clearly even without his gift, and rammed the hilt of his sword into the creature's face before swinging down with the blade. One clustered eye burst and a wail of pain left the inhuman jaws. But whatever Warp entity controlled Jiro had a savage intelligence, and with two of its free hands it grasped the katana. The black talons gripped the metal and squeezed, twisting the blade out of shape. The fourth hand grabbed the back of his head, pushing his face towards the dreadful mouth. “Croniz…” rasped the creature, foul breath forcing its way through his helmet's filters.

 

He didn't hear Hunza until he was on them. Suddenly the warrior was there, hacking into Jiro's lower left shoulder with his wakizashi before seizing the limb and heaving with his one good arm. Ichor sprayed and Raiden fell back, one shoulder guard torn away as Hunza ripped the arm free of the joint. With an anguished howl, the Jiro-thing seized Hunza. Its jaws closed on his helmet and Hunza screamed, until there came a horrible crunch and he went limp. Raiden didn't have time to save his brother. Instead he grabbed a dead man's chainsword without even looking at it and charged. Foresight carried him through the manoeuvre. The blade roared into life and he hacked through a wing and the creature's upper left elbow. His momentum carried him into the beast and they crashed down in the rubble and blood.

 

Jiro had more weight, and forced Raiden onto his back. Again, he looked to the future, and found his salvation in a fallen brother's weapon.

 

“Croniz!” Spittle coated his visor. “The name that you will heed!”

Raiden replied with a snarl and a headbutt, hearing a satisfying crack of teeth. With the few seconds it bought him, he seized the volkite and tried to find the trigger. His foresight told him it had three shots left. Enough. He shoved the barrel against a hip joint.

 

“Croniz will drain the blood-”

 

“Shut up!” His words were lost in the blast. Jiro's leg was blown off in an explosion of gore, and Raiden threw the creature off him. He didn't even look for another weapon. No time. Instead he leapt on it, gripping the volkite’s barrel and bringing the butt down on the monster's face, letting out a ragged scream with every blow.

 

He kept going until the gun was twisted out of shape. Then he wondered, in a detached way, how long it had been since the thing had stopped twitching. He wanted to stand, to look away from the ruined skull, to tear off his helmet and throw up, but his limbs wouldn't obey him.

 

Footsteps and voices surrounded him, sounding distorted as though he was underwater. Then one cut through; a voice brimming with sorrow and concern. “Raiden, can you stand?”

 

He looked up, into the face of his lord. His lungs hurt; it took a few ragged breaths before he could speak. “I do not know, my lord.” Icarion smiled, and gripped his arm. With his lord's help, Raiden found his feet. “Lightning Bearers, attend to your squads,” Icarion instructed. “Sentinel Athrawes, let us leave this place.”

 

-----

 

Icarion set down two wine glasses on the wooden table in his stateroom. The space was filled with ornaments from Madrigal, as well as artefacts collected throughout the Crusade. They had both changed out of their armour; Raiden into a set of plain duty robes, Icarion into the flowing garb of a Madrigal sage. Raiden hesitantly took a sip from his glass, waiting for his Primarch to speak.

 

“Do you know what it was?”

 

“An entity of the Warp.” He sat hunched, clasping both hands around his glass. “But that - what happened to Jiro - it doesn't occur. I've seen it happen to psykers, or ordinary men where the veil is thinnest. Madness can take them and twist them, I know that. But this was an Astartes, and so much more...”

 

“It happens, Raiden.” Icarion's face was etched with grief. “Very rarely, and it's one of the reasons we adhere to the Silence Protocol. But occasionally the corruption finds an opening. Jiro resented that you were elevated instead of him, and it made him vulnerable. But for all that, and for all that I grieve for the warriors he murdered, I am utterly convinced that you were the right choice for the post of Sentinel.”

 

Raiden blinked in confusion. “How, my lord?”

 

“You slew the creature.” Icarion leaned forward, taking him by the shoulders. “When the other captains heard the cries over the vox, they were paralysed by shock and disbelief. You witnessed it, an Astartes being twisted into a daemon and turning on his own, and fought against it with no regard for anything but the safety of your brothers. Poor Hunza did the same, and for that he shall be honoured within our Legion.”

 

With a sad smile, he stood to find the jar and refill their glasses. “Raiden Athrawes,” he said quite solemnly as he turned. “I see great things in your future.” Finally, that full, glorious smile lit his features. “And because I am the one saying it, you know I'm not being facetious.”