Brotherhood of the Lost Challenge Winners

[simison]

Within this thread, you'll find the winning entries to our monthly fluff challenge! I hope you enjoy reading these as we did and perhaps that you'll consider your own entries!

 

Each month we try to have three categories: Forge world, Black Library, and Newcomer. 

 

Last month, we only had entries for one category, Black Library, while the faction being highlighted was the Imperial Army. Meanwhile, next month will be devoted to the Drowned, the XVIth Legion. 

 

Here is our winning entry.

 

Cusp of the Storm by bluntblade

Watching the landers set down and the troops disembarking, Licinius Vastelus could never shake a frisson of fear. He knew the arithmetic well enough, and besides, there was little to match a regiment of the Excertus Imperialis for sheer scale. Six million soldiers were making planetfall by his command, garbed in the deep green and silver of the Kadisian Hounds.

More than two thousand troop carriers, each capable of holding three thousand people. Tanks rolled out and Titans strode free of their own landers. To the untrained eye, trying to process it would be like attempting to ascribe a size to a storm cloud. It was too vast, stretching too far, to take it all in. Unless you were the one trusted to steer this colossal engine, wielding it against the foes of the Emperor. Unless you held such power that men and women became coin to spend; provided you did not waste the Emperor’s coin, that is.

Vastelus had been dealing with that power and responsibility for twenty-one years, long enough to become well aware of the limits to his power. Dizzying as the heights were, he shared them with thousands of others - men and women of his rank, fleetmasters, Mechanicum archmagi - and others stood above him. Ultimately, he was another cog in this mechanism, and it was a mere fragment of that machine arrayed before him. So much power, with which to do only that which was required of him.

Not that he resented it, still less that he wished to forego his duty. His oaths were to the Emperor and the Imperium, and he had commanded armies on a dozen worlds against the traitors. Now he stood here on Revan, preparing to do his duty again, wondering if he could succeed.

“An impressive regiment, Lord Commander.” He turned at that, but not out of alarm. His guards would not have permitted anyone to reach him up here unless their authority matched his. Certainly not without stepping out as well, and in any case, he recognised the face.

Saerla Kantor was a surprisingly short woman, the same age as him if he was any judge. Her hair was a match for the regimental colours she wore, flint streaked with white. She wore armour - functional stuff, the only sort Medusans believed in. 

Vastelus bowed, the sort appropriate for a comrade of about equal rank. “Lady Kantor. I’m surprised by the praise, if you’ll permit me.”

That got him a taut but not unpleasant smile. “Our Medusan pride, eh? We’re practical enough to know where that turns into antagonising your allies.”

“Then I’ll return the compliment. My shuttle brought me over the Steelshod lines this morning.” Tracked by your gunners every second of the way, like as not. So many betrayals already, our trust has worn thin. “As fearsome a sight as I’d heard.”

“I only hope the enemy feel the same.” She joined him at the rail, gazing out at the forest on the horizon. Those trees would likely be in flames before the month was out. Then she looked again at the Kadisians, and then to the west, where the 3rd Medusan Steelshod had entrenched themselves both in the hive and in hastily built redoubts and trenches beyond the walls. “Look at us. In another age, we might have been the masters of our own empires.”

“In another age, we’d be serving the sort of men who command the Legions.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Vastelus gave a small smile. “But you still feel some envy for them, no?”

“Only up to a point. I’m still all human, despite what my moniker might suggest.”

Vastelus quirked an eyebrow. “The one thing begins with ‘steel’ and ends in a broken nose?”

This time it was a broad smile that broke out on her face. “Sacred Unity, I’m that notorious?”

“At least the rank are learning the consequences.”

“True enough. Anyway, have you seen the Scions?”

“At a distance, at the Qarith Triumph. If I recall, you…”

“Yes.” She didn’t hide her satisfaction when Vastelus whistled. “Only as a captain back then, but yes, I was there for the Reckoning.” Her hands tightened on the rail, and she seemed to be looking past the assembled armies. “We were first in behind the Scions, and we fought with them until they left the land war. They were unlike anything else I’ve seen. Such precision, such power. We have legends on my world about how the Age of Strife tore us down. Those are about all I could compare to what I saw on Qarith Prime. And the Scions met the onslaught and overcame it. It never seemed to faze them.” 

“That sounds about right for a Legion,” Vastelus replied.

“You’ve fought with one?” Her hand rested on the pommel of her sword. Medusan steel, famously sharp. Rumour held that the Warmaster’s sword was forged from it.

“Two. The Steel Legion in the Carinae System and the Eagle Warriors on Hynaka. We felt so honoured about that one,” he added, unable to suppress what was a certain wistfulness on a good day, and bitterness the rest of the time.

If Kantor noticed, she didn’t deem it worthy of comment. “Did you notice that control? That absolute focus of purpose? We cleansed entire hives of infected people, and that kind of work wears at the toughest mortals. The Scions? If they felt any of the horror that had my men retching -” Vastelus could just about believe that detail “- it never showed.”

“Sounds like the Steel Legion. I can’t say the same of the Thirteenth.”

“Yes, but my point is, that was then. The Day of Revelation did something to the Scions. Now they thirst for a chance to bring their cousins low.” Unease looked out of place on her features, and all the more unsettling for it. “Icarion’s treason has poison running through all the Legions, on our side and his.”

Vastelus grimaced. “That brings me back to what I was thinking about before you joined me. We’re ammunition, here to be expended if necessary.” He shot her an uneasy glance. “Though I’m hoping I’ll feel rather differently after I meet Lord Santor. In the meantime, however…” She was, after all, really quite attractive in her way. “Would you consider dining with me this evening? I’m sure your troops could survive your absence for just one night.”

Kantor laughed. “Well, that I did not expect. Not when you seemed so intimidated earlier.”

“My lady - Saerla - the Warbringers are coming to this world. In light of that, there’s not much you could do to frighten me. As you’ve said, we’re still human. I’d rather like to remember that for one night.”

“Well, Licinius, I can hardly argue with that. Just be aware,” she came close. “If you turn out to be a bore, I have some very good artillerists.”

Vastelus grinned. “I’d expect nothing else for disappointing you.”