Reaper Lord - a tale of Isstvan III

[bluntblade]

They hunkered down in the trenches, firing bolter rounds and missiles taken from the dead. They fought with a grim resolve that had damned them in the eyes of others as artless, yet they had held this area against for months against an enemy that outnumbered and outgunned them many times over, showing the grim resolve which had made their name over decades of noise. They set traps in a hundred corners, forcing their foes back and ransacking corpses for arms, sustenance packs, what little armour they could retrieve. They fought not only with the usual space marine arsenal of bolter, chainsword and combat blade, but weapons that other Legions were loath to wield. Their flamers burned noisome, corrosive green as often as prometheum orange, their grenades burst in iron-eating gouts of phosphex. Many were born of Terra, but most were sons of Barbarus, bonded by gene-lineage and solemn oath to their master, warlord, Primarch, father.

 

The same being who came to destroy them. The sky was thick with fumes from dropships and bulk landers, but already phalanxes of their erstwhile brothers were advancing towards the trenches. They moved without swagger or undue haste, inexorable. At their head was a giant among giants, hooded and masked, a massive scythe held high above his head. His guardians bore lesser reflections of that weapon, and as their master lowered his scythe and thrusted his free hand forward, acrid flames leapt from their wrists. Elsewhere on this world fratricide was being committed elsewhere with howls and roars of mutual loathing. Mortarion’s army said nothing as they lumbered into range, advancing to the grind of armour-servos, the rumble of tanks and the ugly symphony of guns and chainblades.

 

-----

 

Mortarion had never been one for brazen charges at the head of his men. Horus, Sanguinius and Russ indulged their vanity thusly, and told themselves it was for the sake of morale or to stun the foe. The Death Lord, however, fought battles of grinding attrition, and let the enemy’s weakness show before he intervened personally.

 

Once he did, however, he was as unstoppable as any of his kindred. He waded through sheets of chem-flame, caring not that his cloak caught light, shrugged off grenade-blasts as a mortal would a gust of wind. Silence took lives with every swing, breaking lesser blades rather than parrying them. The loyalist Death Guard never got close in sufficient numbers to press him properly. The Deathshroud wreathed them in noisome fire and hacked them down with their own scythes. Still more were held at bay by the companies Mortarion had brought to fight at his side.

 

Even other Primarchs might have donned helms against the onslaught of toxins and ash, and Mortarion’s less wise brothers would have been hindered if they failed to do so. The Death Lord simply endured it, yellowed eyes unblinking, ever watchful.

 

Here and there he recognised officers directing his errant sons. That was to be expected; he had spent long hours determining which of his commanders would be culled on Isstvan III. After the failure to eradicate all the recaltricants and Angron’s impulsive rush to the surface, he had returned to the records, pondering who might have assumed command of the remainder, how they would try to resist. He sought them wherever he spotted them, blasting them with his sidearm, hacking them down with Silence or simply leaving his retainers to do the honours.

 

The one loyalist he yearned to find and slay above all the others was not here. He knew that. Power swords rose against him, but they were not that one. There was no warrior here whose armour was crowned by an eagle, for he was fled, and had killed the Second Grand Company’s command into the bargain. He was unreachable now. Perhaps slain, perhaps lost in the hateful turbulence of the aether, perhaps even now declaiming his erstwhile master’s treason to the Emperor.

 

Betrayal by one who should have been loyal to him became a mark of shame in Mortarion’s heart. He had trusted enough to almost bring the rebellion crashing down around the Warmaster’s armies. He was spared overt accusations only by the failures of others. Lord Commander Eidolon had failed to note that one of the men he had marked for death had slipped the trap - that had facilitated the treachery among the XIV’s ranks. Then worse, it emerged that Fulgrim, perfect Fulgrim, had not turned Ferrus Manus but enraged him, guaranteeing a premature intervention from forces loyal to the Emperor.

 

Privately, Mortarion gloried in his brother’s humiliation, denied a place in the battle here, banished to the margins where Mortarion had skulked for so long, toiling to erect defences against the retribution he had set in motion. The Death Lord would drown his shame with the blood of his disloyal sons, and see that of those loyal to him, only the strong endured. Perhaps Angron, amidst his frothing bloodlust, had understood something of the latter.

 

His vox-feed brought him brusque reports from his officers, and the Deathshroud were as silent as ever. That was as it should be. Mortarion cared not for making confidants of his lieutenants and retainers. He had seen it often enough in his brothers, and judged it a distraction. While Horus and Fulgrim kept their First Companies close at all times, no formation of the XIV enjoyed the particular favour of their Primarch. His Deathshroud cast off all other concerns - rank, company, opinion, name, voice - to ensure their utter devotion to his safety.

 

They met a howling pack of warriors with the same silent resolve as always, weathering the blows and cleaving their enemies apart, only a single Astartes slipping the net. The attackers’ armour was largely white, but they were not Death Guard. Their pauldrons were blue, and as a T-visored helm glowered up at him, Mortarion wondered how any World Eaters had managed to reach him. Regardless, here they were, a hundred of them charging the Death Guard, each with bloody oaths on his lips.

 

The World Eater champion leapt at him, a combat blade in one hand and a meteor hammer chained to his other wrist. Mortarion leaned away from the sizzling arcs of the weapon, noting the control, hearing his enemy’s breath measured, unobstructed by nosebleeds. No Butcher’s Nails, then. A War Hound in truth, even if he bore the newer colours. “In so many ways,’ he rasped, caustic amusement in his voice, “yours is a dying breed.”

 

“No more than your traitorous breed,” spat the World Eater, lashing out again. Mortarion did not evade the blow this time.

 

Meteor hammers were a difficult weapon to master, prohibitively so even for most space marines, but in the right hands they had a rare potency. They made paste of mortal bodies and were quite adept at shattering power armour and transhuman bone - Angron’s warriors left no doubt of that. When this one struck Mortarion’s breastplate, he didn’t deviate from his lunge, not even staggering. He barged through the impact and bisected the World Eater below the shoulders.

 

The companies on his flanks had enveloped them during this skirmish, pressing ever onward, so the Death Lord indulged himself for a moment, inspecting his armour where the flail had struck. It had been a fearsome blow; the ceramite had cracked and he felt splinters of it against his ribs. There was pain, but that was nothing to what he had withstood before. Ferrus and Vulkan had never understood true endurance, sheathing their sons in ever more or ever finer metal and believing that would suffice. Few indeed comprehended it. To endure, to truly endure, was not about invulnerability, but to take it, bleed, bleed again, feel toxins drag razors over the inside of your lungs and yet never relent.

 

-----

 

The emplacements became thicker, the redoubts sunk deeper into the earth. Mortarion broke them with blunt force, bringing the largest tanks forward and letting them make molten slag of the ferrocrete. This was the last line; he could tell that from the way the Loyalists had ceased to fall back. Now every weapon they had left was turned upon their brethren. Assault marines plunged into Mortarion’s ranks with suicidal determination scattering grenades and emptying their guns as they went. Once on the ground they simply fought until they were hacked down, and yet there was method in this, no berserker madness. Each warrior sought out high-value targets - captains, Moritats, chapter masters - with cold precisiom.

 

Mortarion and his guards were kept too busy to see where else they landed, but he heard enough to know the Loyalists were making them hurt. The rest of the Loyalists charged into melee range, firing as they came. It was their only chance to stave off destruction by the Death Lord’s tanks, and while bleeding the XIV command wouldn’t save them, both sides knew it would matter on other battlefields. Mortarion could still admire that; even set against him, they were his sons, exemplifying the ways of Barbarus.

 

Reports from his Grand Company Captains came in over the vox - Ujioj robbed of a chapter master and four captains, Holgoarg himself embattled until Typhon’s Grave Wardens encircled the defenders and reduced them to ashes. But numbers and a full arsenal, one not exhausted by months of constant fighting, told, and the last stand became two thousand men, then just a thousand. Calling a spearhead of veterans to him, Mortarion pushed on, slaying all who came before him. Then momentary quiet, broken by the crunching, guttural sounds of Terminator armour. This, then, was the enemy commander, the one who had led the defiance of his father.

 

“Hail, lord of death.” The words were a growled challenge, inflected with the dour accent of Barbarus. Through the smoke, Mortarion perceived a figure in Cataphracti plate, a massive battle-axe held in his hands.

 

Vyrruk Tor had featured prominently in Mortarion’s computations after the bombardment failed. A Chapter Master of the Fourth Grand Company, he had been Ullis Temeter’s second in command for decades. He was born of Barbarus, but that mattered little enough. Mortarion knew from the service records where Tor’s loyalties would lie. And so here he found him.

 

“Master of the old Fourth, I presume?” The command within the true Legion had been reallocated before Temeter was confirmed dead, but Tor’s achievement warranted some degree of recognition.

 

“Master of the loyal Fourteenth, in our Battle-Captain’s absence.”

 

Mortarion snorted and advanced. For all Tor’s valour and worth in battle, this would be no epic duel, no hard-fought contest of skill and strength. It might, at the most, last a minute. Their retinues collided around them. The din barely registered to Mortarion as he focused on breaking Tor’s defence. In the first ten second he opened gaping wounds, and even when Tor parried, he brought Silence down with enough force to crack ceramite and bone. Forty seconds, and he took Tor’s arm off at the shoulder, cleaving deep into his torso and almost cutting him in two. Tor’s blood gushed as Mortarion planted a boot on his chest, running from a wound far too large to seal.

 

“Impressive,” Mortarion murmured. “Yet futile.” He raised the scythe -

 

And reeled as fire doused him, seeming to come from nowhere. It reeked, not of chemicals, but something fouler. “Witchery!" he thundered, seeing where the flames had come from.

 

Aberrance, heresy. The fire and lightning that assailed him came from gauntlets of off-white ceramite. Death Guard, forswearing all their master had taught them, using this vilest of weapons against him. There had been treachery after the landings, among his armour crews, but this went against the creed he had worked to instill ever since the first day of his command. Warp-filth, channeled by his sons. And they were hurting him, hurting him worse than the plasma fire from the turncoat tanks. Glass vials at his belt burst in the heat, his cowl ignited, his flesh charred. This was agony, sharper by far than any pain this planet had visited on him before.

 

But not enough, never enough. He was inviolate, pure, breaker of witches. He roared and charged the psykers, splitting their bodies, caving in their skulls, stabbing out their eyes with his fingers, crushing them underfoot. They died, broken by the fury of the Primarch they had defied.

 

Mortarion cast away the ashen remnants of his cloak, feeling the wind on his scalp, biting at cuts and grazes even as they sealed. The burns would take longer. Now he sought out the enemy commander, who had somehow escaped being trampled. He stooped, and grasped Tor’s throat, ripping the helm free. His son still lived, grey with the pallor of imminent death, but lingering even now.

 

“Treachery,” Mortarion seethed. “You delved into all that I taught you to despise and wielded it. You were never worthy to beat the skull and star.”

 

“Worthy?” Tor gave a hacking, rattling laugh. “You had us sentenced without our knowledge, butchered us while never giving a reason. And you speak of treachery, to me.” His remaining hand fastened on Mortarion’s wrist. “I say only this. Treachery for treachery. It’s all that’s left to you… father.” He slumped back, a look of vindication on his face.

 

Mortarion rose to his feet. The Deathshroud had reassembled around him, all the loyalists slain. Further off, burn-squads and apothecaries were combing the last trenches. He looked back down at his opponent. There were callbacks here; the defiant son, body broken, his father of sorts standing over him, in judgement his errant progeny. The parallels were enough for Mortarion to steal a glance around him, indulging in the sights, sounds and odour of victory.

 

There was no golden saviour for the weaker man. The sorcerers had perished, the Death Lord stood tall. Men had called him liberator, once. “Dread liberator”, that was it. Mortarion knew that title to be a half-truth. He was a tyrant. It was in his very marrow, his place in the order of things.

 

Horus’ commands reached him over the vox. The Warmaster’s forces were to withdraw. Eidolon and Angron had tarried enough, and the city was to be eradicated from orbit. That kindled a smirk behind Mortarion’s rebreather, but his amusement was little next to the satisfaction at what he had done here. The Death Guard prevailed, and soon the Galaxy would fall at their feet. Indomitable, unsullied.

[simison]

"...showing th[e] grim..."

 

Plasma blaster is a standard marine weapon?

 

Italicize 'Silence'.

 

"Wa[rp]-filth..."

 

Capitalize all instances of 'Loyalists'.

 

Capitalize 'Fourteenth'.

 

~~~

 

I love the World Eater showing up, and Mortarion able to tell if he's under the influence of the Butcher's Nails. 

 

I feel like you've captured Mortarion's grim, hypocritical bitterness as he goes about the battlefield. 

 

Are all of those names from canon?

[bluntblade]

Thanks, will mplement those changes ASAP.

 

Mortarion's opponent on the field isn't the rest are.