Child of Tasal [Supernovas fiction]

[Wargamer]

The drums summoned the men to war, brave souls one and all to fight and die for the king.

 

The warriors of the Artyn Bastion, homeless and nomadic since the coming of the beasts the star-warriors called "Tyranids", had spent the past four years raiding the countryside and gathering their strength. Now they were tired of raiding and running. Now they want a home, and they had set their eyes on Cymrith.

 

Lata took to the field in yellow and green, the colours of his king. Either side of him were men and boys likewise adorned, though none among them wore precisely the same uniform. Ahead of him was his father, Aryx, a veteran warrior who had survived almost thirty years. Lata himself was still young, too young to be entrusted with a sword, or to know the comforts of a woman. The auto-lock at his shoulder was heavy and made his arm ache, but he would not dishonour his family or home by showing discomfort. This was his first battle, and he would show his worth.

 

The drummer beat halt, and the regimental officer bellowed for them to drop and load. Lata fell to his knees, grateful to let the ground take the musket's weight, and set about prepping for battle. The musket was an advanced auto-lock model with a chain of firing chambers. Into each he poured powder, packed wadding and loaded a ball. Onto the back end he primed a percussion cap. Then he eased the arming lever back, bringing the first chamber ready to fire, and primed the revealed empty chamber as he had the others.

 

The order to rise was given. Lata now had fifteen shots ready to loose, and could do so with terrifying speed. He cast a glance at the rest of the force spread out either side of his own regiment. They were a mix of uniformed soldiers like him and his father, and civilians who had taken up arms to guard the Bastion. Even with these militia the force was at best a thousand strong; the army awaiting them was three times that number.

 

"Remember what you were taught, my boy," his father's words came clearly over the beating drums and marching feet. "Choose the man whose life you will end, speak the words that the Emperor may find him, and let fly that his soul may be released to His embrace."

Opening shots cracked across the field, but they were long range rounds meant to terrify more than kill. Well drilled, Lata and the soldiers marched on undeterred. They closed to within a hundred yards before the drummer beat firing stations. The front rank knelt down and Lata aimed over his father's head. He sighted his foe, a man in his early twenties in a red and silver tunic.
"Emperor, see through my eyes to the man whose fate has brought him here. See the man at the thread's end, and know he seeks your embrace. Let me send him unto you."
The order to fire by ranks was given. A volley thundered out and the red tunic was briefly lost to sight behind the gun smoke. As the order for second fire was given Lata saw him again, marching forward. He moved his aim a fraction and squeezed the firing handle. The gun kicked skyward in a massive bloom of grey smoke, and Lata quickly worked the lever to bring the second barrel to position. He aimed again through his father's smoke, looking for the red tunic. He was gone, dropped to the ground and obscured by the man who had marched over his corpse. Lata's heart pounded with joy. He had killed in the Emperor's name! He was a man at last!

A return volley smashed into the regiment. Tovr, a boy of sixteen was struck in the face and screamed like a newborn as blood and teeth sprayed across Lata's shoulder. In the corner of his right eye he saw a man on the front slump to the ground, clutching his stomach and mewling in pain. He found a new mark and recited the Killing Prayer, firing again. By the time his third shot had flown clear rank fire had been abandoned; every soldier was loosing rounds as swiftly as their weapon would allow. Six rounds down, firing was becoming almost impossible through the smoke, which burned Lata's eyes and shielded the foe.

"Advance!" the order came not from the officer, but from Aryx. Lata pushed forward two dozen paces, clear of the smoke, and saw the charging enemy clearly. His father dropped and fired, killing a man cleanly. Lata opened up a moment later and blew the kneecap off a charging swordsman. The next foe was hit by a thunder-gun and blown clean in half. Fascinated, Lata stopped to watch the enemy soldier as he desperately tried to shove his spilled organs back into his chest.

 

A hard round burst through the arm of the man left of his father. Aryx rose, gun spent, and drew a longblade that shimmered in the smoke-ruined sunlight. "Taekar!" he screamed, and all along the line the cry was echoed by the men. Not the boys though, for they had yet to earn a sword; to carry the cry would insult the Emperor and risk costing them the day. Still, despite the rounds in his musket, he drew his own long knife and charged after his father, a wordless battle cry upon his lips.

Father and son smashed into the men of Artyn in the centre of the field. It reminded Lata of the brawls he'd fought in the commons of the bastion with his peers, scrapping over food, or toys, or wounded pride. It shared the ferocity and the swiftness, but the scale and the stakes were so much more. He saw his father turn aside a two-handed stroke and expertly slide his sword down and into the man's throat, barely piercing the flesh before flicking away and spraying blood skyward. The man fell, choking, but Aryx was already seeking the next foe.

 

A fellow youth lunged a Lata. He was perhaps a year older, quickly bulking into adulthood, but Lata was quicker on his feet and dodged a mace blow that would have crushed his skull. He thrust his knife for the gut, but a sudden down-stroke broke his wrist and made him drop the knife. The sudden pain was gone in a moment, buried by adrenalin and the instinct to survive. He backed away swiftly, ducking and weaving to avoid the wild blows of the mace until, in desperation, he swung his musket up.

The mace caught the firing chain and detonated a live chamber, firing off a wild round that gouged the eye out of an enemy by sheer bad fortune. Lata howled in pain as his broken wrist lost its grip. With his off-hand he kept hold and put all his might into a violent swing. The mace-bearer, thrown off by the unexpected discharge, was unprepared for the musket-butt that caught him on the side of the head and knocked him to the ground. Lata sprang on him, screaming to drown out the agony in his right hand as he brought the butt down over and over until there was nothing left of his enemy's face but a red smear.

There was a sudden sense of vertigo, and all the sounds of battle became dull and muted. Lata smelled burnt wool and looked down at his tunic. At the blood red hole in his tunic. He wasn't sure that had been there before, but it seemed quite important. No, he realised with cold certainty, what mattered was that the enemy died by his hand.

He rose slowly, every movement seemingly requiring an inordinate amount of effort, and clumsily brought the auto-lock to his shoulder. Through the maelstrom he found a warrior attacking one of his allies and loosed a bullet that blew out the victim's spine. He reloaded with a purple, swollen hand, gasping in pain without recalling why it hurt so much. He skipped the next two chambers as they seemed damaged, and brought his last round to bear. Once more he took aim, this time at a giant of a man with a gilded sword. Flashy. Foolish. Gold did nothing to improve the killing edge.

The word "king" forced its way into Lata's addled mind. He gasped at the revelation, though in truth he'd been gasping for some time. He didn't know why, but it was getting very hard to breathe.
"Emperor," he rasped, "see that man? See a king of Tasal. See how he cuts through my people? He is a mighty warrior. Welcome him as such."
The bullet flew clear, straight and true. King Rux, the Last King of Artyn, was struck in the forehead by a musket ball that cored through his time-worn features and burst the back of his skull across his retinue.

Lata let the auto-lock fall from his grip, for he no-longer had the strength to bear it. He tried to breathe, but the air wouldn't come to his lungs. His vision grew dark as the ground rushed up to meet him, and his last conscious thought was a simple prayer that the Emperor and his father had seen him in battle.


Lata opened his eyes to see a giant black bird staring down at him. It had glowing red eyes and smelt of gun-oil. It turned its beak up to an unseen figure and said in a booming voice, "it seems your son will live after all."
The world became less clouded. Lata turned away from the metal bird-thing to the man beside him, who crystallised into his father. Aryx took his son's good hand and kissed the knuckles. "My boy," he whispered, "You've done us so proud!"

The bird-thing, Lata now saw, was no bird at all. It was a giant in strange blue armour with a black helm shaped like a beak. "Nova?" Lata managed, struggling to breathe let alone speak.

The giant nodded, "I am of the Chapter, yes. We came to declare a trial yet found your city all but deserted. Instead, we came to the battlefield. It is as fine a proving ground as any. You, my boy, have proven yourself above all others. I saw you take a wound that should have killed you, and yet you fought on and slew the enemy's leader. That is worthy of song, Lata of the Cymrith. I promise you they will speak your name for generations."
The giant rose to his feet and surveyed the field. There were four others like him, speaking to the well and wounded of both armies. Those members of the Artyn who had not fled were sheepishly waiting to learn their fate, unsure if they were prisoners of the Cymrith or the Star Warriors. The giants themselves seemed interested only in the young, and only those who had shown great skill and courage in battle.
"We have chosen you, Lata," the giant said without looking down. "For your courage and tenacity, I offer you a place within our ranks. If you accept, you can return with us to our fortress and, in time, perhaps become a Star Warrior like myself."
"And if I choose to stay?" Lata asked cautiously.

The giant's laughter was louder than a full rank's volley. "You can refuse if you like, but none have ever had the balls to try! After all, it's bad manners to refuse an invitation into a man's home. Do I look like someone you want to offend, boy?"

"No, lord!" Lata gasped, causing the giant to erupt with laughter again.

"Then it's settled. You will come with us and we will make you a man. More than a man, in fact; we will make you the greatest warrior to ever serve the Emperor. We'll make you a Supernova, lad."

Lata nodded mutely and smiled at his father's proud words, noting the tears of joy in the old man's face. Then he was on his feet and trying not to be sick from the dizziness, which amused his new mentor no end. He saw the strange armoured vehicles parked nearby and hobbled toward them, noting the youths from both sides being gathered there. They were all afraid, yet they stood tall. They knew what an honour it was to be chosen.

Though it caused him great pain, Lata allowed himself to laugh. "Not bad for my first battle," he said wistfully, and hoped the road to the fortress would be free of potholes.

[Beta galactosidase]

At first it seemed like the protagonist was from Artyn, because Artyn are described first and the there isn't anything about cymrith except has the object of a sentence about artyn.

 

I also skipped most of the battle because it didn't seem either important to the plot or interesting to read. I also skipped the dialogue at the end because it didn't seem important to the plot or like the words had any texture to them. Then it was over.

 

So I liked the length, and the structure and you know it was pretty good. It was just that I skipped most of it and it seemed like I didn't miss anything.

[Seukonnen]

The story is essentially a set piece, Curvaceous - the 40k equivalent of a "slice of life" tale, offering a candid look into what life and war (the two are largely synonymous) are like on Tasal, the homeworld of Wargamer's chapter. Tasal is more the main character here than Lata.