"Little Light" A Paladins of Midterra Story

[TheBlindPrimarch]

OK, so here is a little story I came up with showcasing my 2nd Legion project, the Paladins of Midterra. The Paladins are characterized as a humanitarian, honor bound Legion modeled after the races of man in the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy as well as Celtic and other fantasy sources. Those in the know might notice the main character, Arawnis is actually an adaptation of Arawn, a character from Celtic myth.

 

So on to my inspiration for this story...

 

I LOVE reading Warhammer books, and have collected nearly the entire Horus Heresy series. But I've notice there are not many stories depicting the Space Marines are anything more than awesome, death dealing super-humans. Sure we see them doubt, we even see them fail from time to time. But we don't often see outright grief or them dealing with feelings they are accustomed to. That is what I'm trying to accomplish with this short story, and it was surprisingly hard, especially since I have a son that's almost two and I'd be crushed if anything like this happened to him. I actually got emotional while I was writing this, which gave my better half a good laugh.

 

So without further adieu, for the consideration and review of the B&C community I present...

 

"Little Light."

 

Arawnis ran. He ran with a desperation that should have been completely alien to one of the Emperor’s Astartes and the sort the like of which he couldn’t recall having ever felt in his thirty-five years, of which only twenty-three had been spent serving the Second Legion. Desperation born from the rapidly dying hope of finding anyone who could aid the dwindling light he held gently in his massive ceremite encased arms. Compounding the situation was his damaged helm, now left in the dust covered rubble of what had just so recently been a densely populated, if not a little misguided, Sub-hive, which if the force of the blast and the condition of the buildings around him was anything to go off of was now little more than a rubble strewn crater.

 

His helm had been damaged in that blast, or rather as a result of him being thrown from the concourse his squad had been advancing down when the shock wave hit them, tossing him like a child’s doll over the railing and into the abyss of the lower levels. He’d awoken in that darkness only to realize the ocular sensors of his helm had failed, and that its com-bead and internal auspex were similarly beyond his ability to repair. His weapon too had apparently been a casualty of the blast, a fact he was sure to face censor for later. Yet as he ran none of that mattered as his attention was focused entirely on the little light he carried.

 

He’d found it shortly after removing his broken helm, while searching the rubble of the hab-unit he’d crashed into for his weapon, all the while trying to regain his bearings. In truth, had it not been for the “Sight” he’d have completely missed the tiny flicker cradled in the arms of a woman who’d used her body to shield it from the falling debris, the falling slabs of rockcrete and re-bar snuffing out her life instead. His lost weapon forgotten, Arawnis had recovered the light and it began to howl as it was forced to face a world of pain it was far too small to understand. He’d checked the little light for injuries but had found none that would warrant the anguished cries until the bruising on its abdomen betrayed the bleeding inside, and the feeling of desperation that was now so strong had begun to take root in his gut as he watched the light begin to fade.

 

“Apothecary!” he yelled out as he walked quickly from the compromised building, choosing after a moment’s thought to following the avenue to his right in the hopes of finding some of his fellow Steel Knights. “Medic!”

 

The little light had gone silent no more than five minutes into Arawnis’ search, and had it not been for the sound of its tiny yet labored breath and the increasingly fainter glow of its light he’d have thought his ward had passed.

 

“Come now little light,” he whispered to the light, willing even a fraction of his superhuman constitution to pass into the failing light.

 

“Don’t extinguish on me.” He pleaded. “You’re a strong little light…and you’re going to grow even brighter. Might even join the Legions one day.” He sought to encourage the fading light into fighting the darkness threatening to snuff it out, yet even as the words crossed his lips the flickering of the light dimmed even further. “Apothecary!”

 

The little light coughed and then spit up, and Arawnis’ search grew even more desperate as he noticed the light’s lips were now stained crimson. His pace quickened when he discovered an opening leading out into the sun and he emerged from the Sub-hive’s lower levels onto a promenade that overlooked the sprawling ghettos that pushed up against the city’s outer walls and his hope flared up as he saw fellow Legionaries in the livery of the Eighteenth Legion below.

 

"Over here!" He called out, waving his free hand as all discipline or fear of being mistaken as the enemy washed away by the relief of finally finding aid. A smile grew across his face as he saw that he'd been noticed by two of the Legionnaires of the Eighteenth who immediately began to make their way up to him.

 

"See little light, I told you you'd be..." He stopped short as he looked down at the charge held against his breastplate. Its light had gone out and its chest no longer moved. The smile faded from his face to be replaced by an expression of dismay.

 

"No, no no no No!" Arawnis cried out in denial, begging the little light to return. "Don't go out on me little light, don't give up, not now, not when we're so close!" He stammered as he fell to his knees, all his gene-enhanced strength stolen from his legs by grief. "Don't give into the darkness little light, don't go!"

 

He held the little light against his chest and rested his cheek on its little head, and he did something no Astarte had ever done before. He cried. He cried great heaving sobs of grief over the light lost, and over his utter failure at preventing it from happening. After a moment he fell silent, and sat there for what seemed like an eternity, still as stone, until he felt the gentle touch of a hand on his pauldron.

 

"The child is gone brother." Arawnis looked up into the glowing red eyes of an Apothecary of the Eighteenth through the tears in his eyes before looking back down at the toddler in his hands. The boy couldn't have been more than two.

 

"I failed him," he said as he set the boy on the ground and brushed a lock of hair from his face, before standing and looking his cousin in the eyes. "We failed them all."

 

"Not all of them." His cousin replied as he pointed down below. Arawnis looked, and though he still grieved for the loss of the boy, the pain in his heart was lessened by the sight below as hundreds of civilians were escorted out of the ruined city by those Steel Knights that had survived the blast towards the waiting transports of the Eighteenth.

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The Battle to take the Sub-Hive of New Baghdad would prove to be disastrous for the Second Legion. Losing over half their total number when the debased tyrannical lord of the city detonated the core generator of the city, located under his palace, utterly wiping out anything within a five mile radius of the palace and causing inconceivable damage to the rest of the city. The Steel Knights, though gravely wounded by the cowardly attack and suffering  from an inability to communicate with its various elements, turned immediately towards the care of the civilian population still present in the city, in many cases at the cost of their own lives. It is said that their selflessness so moved the Emperor that he halted his campaign of conquest in the north and flew to the outskirts of the ruined city to commend the Second Legion survivors himself.

 

C&C is more than welcome and would be appreciated.