Liberalia Martiale 2017 - Eternal Foes

[Olis]

Greetings Sons of the Praetorian! Rejoice, for it is Liberalia Martiale! Or Liber Day to put it in laymans terms. A time toexercise your creativity. A time to delve into the 40k universe and see what you can drag up from its depths.

Following our theme this year of "Clash of the Titans", metaphorically at least, we will shine a light on Dorn and hisarch-rival Perturabo. Now, it could be a vignette on a meeting between the two, or maybe not the Primarchs themselves but their sons. How civil would such a meeting be?

How about a Fist musing on the perfidy of his IVth Legion cousins? What would he feel? What would he think? What experiences has he had that might colour his thoughts? He could be a recent inductee to the Legion, fresh from after the atrocities in the Isstvan system. Or he may be a member of the Chapter from after the Legion split a century, a millennia, even ten millennia down the line.

Of course, this is just a little thought exercise, to stretch your grey matter - any contribution is preferred. From two paragraphs to a full blown short story, the point is to engage and create.

As per usual, I will be providing an example:

Brother Gereon laboured to draw breath as his smashed breast-plate ground against his exposed rib-plates. They did this. Those Fourth Legion curs. Perturabo's dogs. Mongrels. Traitors. Heathe-

He shuddered again as air whistled passed his broken teeth and bloodied nose. The spike of pain from his ruined chest tinted his thoughts with anger. They had the temerity to board the Hearthbreaker, flagship of the Marines Revenant, and take it for themselves. They were ill-disciplined and disorderly. Still, they had brought Gereon low, along with three of his brothers.

And yet they had not killed him. They had just moved on. Gereon simmered at the indignity of failing to die in combat, ignored by foes as chaff. His wounds were likely to heal but he was in no fighting condition as of right now. The trail of blood down his chin was still wet... a punctured lung for sure. Probably a persistent wound, too. But he was one of the Revenant. Never to falter. He would stand even if it killed him.

A low groan sharpened his senses - guttural and pained. It came from one of the 'dead' boarders, an arm flopping to the ground from his half-seated, half-prone position. Gereon knew it was merely air escaping but still he raised his efforts an iota to confront the body should it not prove 'dead'. Pain ground out from his ribs again and he cursed the whoresons for even existing at all. Briefly, he considered why his ancestors had allowed any of the sons of Perturabo to live. Far removed from a time when such matters could have been settled, Gereon mentally shrugged. His was the glory to strike them down, even if his forebearers did not. He would not question the way of things.

His boot struck the noisome body in the helm. Gereon was none too gentle, as much as his injuries allowed. The corpse remained a corpse. Dead. He spat on the body, uttering a native's curse. He picked up a discarded bolter, racked the slide and mag-clamped it to his thigh. The marine had a long way to go to catch up with the fighting. Several hundred metres, if the echoes were to be trusted.

[Damo1701]

The dust is thick.  Brother Belmy Hades, 9th squad, 4th Company, Imperial Fists (thank you very much!) was rushing between pieces of scant cover.  The shadows showed astartes bulk, but the movements were different.  Briefly, Hades considered stooping to pick up a rock, but decided against it.  His remaining ceramite-clad fist was harder, and would do more damage.  He was glad the bleeding had stopped.  Checking for close foes, Hades cursed, and broke cover for the next piece, remembering the flash of pain as he lined up the perfect shot against a group of traitors with his trusty plasma cannon.  Two decades he had wielded such a weapon, from his first posting in the 9th Devastator Company, through both his tactical and assault companies.  His sergeants claimed he was blessed by mars.  Never had he had a plasma weapon fail him.  Until today.

 

A bright flash lit up behind his eyes as something hit Hades from the side, and knocked him to the ground, driving his helmeted head into a burnt out wreck of a predator battle tank.  The helmet crumpled, visor going dark.  Regaining his feet, while holding both is injured and healthy arms before him, Hades recognised the twisted, bare-metal coloured armour of the despised, the basest of creatures.  A Heretic.  An Iron Warrior.  Bastard son of curséd Perturabo.

 

Spitting through his helm's breathing port Hades addressed the warrior before him, as he gathered his strength.  "Traitor, let a Son of Dorn show you the meaning of keeping oaths!"  The familiar feeling of combat stimulants entering his system brought everything within arms reach into crystal focus.

 

A gurgling laugh emanated from the twisted form of the traitor astartes, "Foolish lapdog of the False Emperor.  You know not that you have been discarded as we were.  We were never sung about, never lauded, always burdened by duty!  Move, and die."

[Damo1701]

With a wrench, Hades felt his helmet being ripped from his armour.  The bastard sons of Perturabo were not gentle in their ministrations.  The dim light caused Hades little issue.  His astartes eyesight compensating for the change in light in an instant.

 

The first thing to hit him was the smell.  It was sweet, sickly, with an aftertaste of war, death, and cordite, though whether the latter was due to the battlefield, Hades was unsure.  The twisted look of the familiar armour offended the son of Dorn in a way he couldn't express.  He settled for glaring at his captors.  Hatred evident in his grimace and eyes.

 

With a laugh, the traitors cuffed Hades around the head.  "The mongrol sons of Dorn aren't so stoic these days are they?  Ha!  You used to spend a century with one, and never see him crack so much as a smile."

 

Spitting furiously, Hades prepared himself for what would come next...

[Damo1701]

"Speak when you are spoken to Scum!"  The Iron Warrior spat as he cuffed Hades around the head.  "I didn't go to the effort of capturing you to have you kneel in front of me with that look on your face!"

 

Hades watched the other chaos legionnaires out of the corner of his eye.  "What do the bastard sons of an oathbreaker talk about?  Their reasons for treachery?  How small their fortresses are?  Whether they should betray each other now, or later?"  The defiance in Hades was clear to all who watched.  They will kill me soon.  I will provoke them, and this will be over.  Hades' thoughts were clear to him.  He was going to nettle the traitors until they killed him out of rage.  It was the best he could hope for.

 

With a guttural laugh, like the sound of innocents being ground to dust, the Iron Warrior leader replied, his voice full of bitterness and amusement, in equal measure.  "Foolish boy!  You think to goad us into ending you?  Ha!  You will beg for that end, over and over.  No.  We have something far more... interesting in mind for you.  You see, we have driven your weak-hearted brethren from this dusty ball.  They think you dead with the rest of your squad.  No.  You will see what we have in store for you."

With a sound like a planet cracking, the twisted form of a bolter hit Hades in the temple.  He fell, uncomplaining and unconscious to the dusty floor, his bright red Astartes blood mixing into a paste with the dust beneath him.  The Iron Warriors dragged the heavy form to an idling rhino APC.  A wounded marine would make a valuable addition to the geneseed recovered from the fallen.