Rapid Fire Challenge: Fulmination - July 2020

[Race Bannon]

Prompt: Fulmination

Maximum length: 500 words

Deadline: 31 July 2020

Where to post submissions: In this thread

Note - please make sure all submissions adhere to the forum rules. Any entry that breaks one or more rules shall be removed.

[Harlan Skorus]

Ulnis watched the data feeds scroll across his vision as the bronzed figure approached. The Lord High Reclusiarch, as Kaonnar styled himself, strode a lonely path across the copper-coloured dirt of the moon. The host of Bronze Scorpions waited hundreds of meters back, weapons in hand. The threat had not gone unnoticed, and Ulnis’ own Auric Drakes stood equally ready behind him.

Kaonnar eased to a halt, holding the Crozius of one office limp in one hand, the ornate silver-bladed axe of his other duty in the other. The Lord High Reclusiarch gave no salute but a non-committal nod. A harsh voice spat forth from the skeletal death mask. “Lord Paramount. I have come, as you requested. Pray, speak your business of such import that we stand here like bickering Lords, not as the Emperor’s warriors on the world below. Phlegethon burns.”

Ulnis took a step forward, his own blade to hand. Drakesong. His own mark of authority. “Lord High Reclusiarch. Your warriors, if we call them that, are here-”

“And what else would you call them?”

He gritted his teeth in anger at the interruption, feeling the hard scales forming over his skin shift and play against each other. “Butchers, Reclusiarch. Butchers and madmen. If you have the wisdom your position deserves, you will hand to me those of your vile get who perpetrated the carnage below, and they will be judged by the grace of the Imperium. Failing that, take your vile get and throw yourselves at the heart of the foe below in hopes of absolving yourself in death. Leave, and once we tear these Xenos apart, the Auric Drakes will come looking for you, and we will not come alone. The Imperium will know, and you will die having dishonoured your progenitors.”

The fury hung in the air of the barren moon as the two soldiers stared at one another, while two chapters faced each other across a barren plain. A flashing signal in his display let Ulnis know that his fleet had successfully maneuvered into position, surrounding the Bronze Scorpion's more modest armada.

“Shed the blood of my brothers, and I swear to you, Lord Paramount, the entirety of the 9th will tear you limb from limb, and lay waste to those shining pretenders behind you.” There was a moment’s silence, but Ulnis saw the shift in the distance as weapons were raised. With a thought he sent an order to his own Captains to make ready. He had hoped to avoid more bloodshed, but hope was a fickle thing and not to be trusted. Drakesong sprang upwards, and Kaonnar raised his own weapons in defence.

“Submit, Kaonnar. There is a flaw in your brotherhood. I will not let you murder more innocents.” Energy fields crackled to life, settling into a steady hum.

“Traitor,” Kaonnar spat. “To raise a blade against your own Imperium.”

“Answering like for like, Kaonnar. Anything less would be a dereliction. Anything less would be cowardice.”

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job, Harlan Skorus.

[Harlan Skorus]

Thanks! I always lack a little bit of faith in my ability to write engaging dialogue so thought I'd give it a crack.

[Graceless]

Great work Harlan. I want to read more of that story and also know more about both Chapters!

[Harlan Skorus]

It's actually based off two custom chapters from a project I started the last time (6 years or so) I was active on this board. If you want to spoil yourself, go ahead.

 

The project was writing what was essentially a campaign book, because I miss them, and to provide background on a Chapter I was writing up at the time.

 

The Phlegethon system, a backwater somewhere in the Segmentum Tempestus, suffered a sudden case of Necrons. Guardsmen died in droves, and then reinforcements arrive in the form of two Chapters - the Auric Drakes, a possible successor of the Salamanders from the cursed founding who carry pimp weapons and who's who's skin crystallizes and becomes 'scales' as they age; and the Bronze Scorpions, a Blood Angels successor who worship the Black Rage rather than suppress it because they think it brings themselves closer to their Primarch.

 

Things are looking up for a time, and the Ordo Xenos turn up with a Deathwatch killteam to take out the Necron Phaeroh. Then during one big battle, the Auric Drakes witness the Bronze Scorpions' death company lose themselves during battle and chew through some guardsmen by mistake, being relatively unshackled compared to most Death Companies. The Auric Drakes know, and the Bronze Scorpions know they know. Both Chapters agree to a very tense parlay on a moon, while on the planet below the Imperial forces struggle to hold out and the Deathwatch kill team hash their mission and get wiped.

 

The parlay between the two Chapters goes south - they come to blows, and the Auric Drakes Chapter Master (Ulnis) takes the Bronze Scorpions' Chapter Master/High Chaplain (Kaonnar) hostage. Unfortunately for Auric Drakes, a third Chapter enter the system at roughly this time: the Scarlet Templars, an offshoot of everyone's favourite angry monochrome sons of Dorn. The Bronze Scorpions get to them first, and persuade the Templars that the Drakes started the aggression between the two Chapters (technically true, but ignoring the context).

 

While the worlds below are overrun in a valiant/dumb last stand, the Scarlet Templars and Bronze Scorpions come down on the Auric Drakes like a ton of angry, sentient, bolter-weilding bricks. Ulnis is killed, much of the Drakes' prodigious armoury is stripped, and the 400 or so survivors are sent on a penitent crusade by the Crimson Templars. They also sew their mouths up, and only the Chaplains speak for the Chapter for the duration of the crusade.

 

The framing device for the whole story was the collated notes of an Inquisitor of the Ordo Astartes on the significance of the whole conflict, packaged into a report by other Inquisitors now trying to track down the Ordo Astartes Inquisitor who they now accuse of going rogue.

[Graceless]

Nice, and all very bitter, unfair and grimdark. I like it.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

It's actually based off two custom chapters from a project I started the last time (6 years or so) I was active on this board. If you want to spoil yourself, go ahead.

I see you put a LOT of thought into this. As a long-time fan of comic books, sci-fi and fantasy, I find it heartbreaking that a mere hobbyist puts more effort in his or her stories, than someone who's actually being paid to write. (Glares at Matt Ward, Rian Johnson, Alex Kurtzman, everyone working for DC and Marvel Comics...)

[Harlan Skorus]

Hey now, Rian Johnson wrote my favourite film of all time (Brick). Don't be skipping on him.

 

Anyway, back to the short fiction! I'm waiting patiently on part 3 of the adventures of Ms. Teamkill McOgrynfriend.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Harlan Skorus

[Tarvek Val]

Twice-born

 

      Eydros Torbek is dying. If it isn’t made clear enough from the rattling breaths tearing their way from his ribcage, the entrails slopping to the earth are proof enough of his imminent demise.

       Varkh kneels beside his fallen brother, head bowed to the earth. His knees sink into centimeters of thick ash, dampened by the blood of demigods. How easily we kill each other, he muses, how easily we fight this new war. 

       ‘What killed you?’

       The words rumble forcefully through Varkh’s helm-speakers. His throat is dry, parched from screaming his hatred at the sons of Guilliman for days on end. For all their arrogance, the proud warriors of Ultramar make good enemies.

       Torbek barks out a guttural laugh that quickly turns into a gurgling cough.

       ‘Terminator… chainfist… vasdekk was quicker than… I thought…’

       Varkh snorts. He feels little beyond the pull of the Nails these days, but he can almost find amusement in the fact that Torbek has been cut down by such a mundane weapon on such a boring battlefield. Truly, there had never been anything worth fighting over on the surface of Danarch. The Word Bearers claim that every death offered to their pantheon is a note of agony in the song of ruin they are weaving into the warp, yet Varkh still can’t hear the symphony.  

       When he finally looks up, a pair of figures are standing over him. The first is clad in once-white armor now perpetually stained crimson by the gore of battlefields past. Dereskh is a shade of the warrior he had once been, a reaper of souls held captive by the promise of violence and endless murder. 

      Alongside his comrade is a second Astartes who is a stranger. He too wears red armor, but his is the shade of spoiled meat, of betrayal on the volcanic sands of lost brotherhood and treachery. Word Bearer. The faded remnant of a sixteen-pointed sun on the warrior’s pauldron marks him as one of the Reborn, a Gal Vorbak. 

       Dereskh and the Gal Vorbak stand still as statues, gazing down upon writhing Torbek in silence. Varkh bristles at their intrusion, wishing to be left alone with his dying brother. As if sensing his hostility, the Word Bearer crouches beside him. 

       ‘He is not beyond salvation.’

       The Word Bearer’s voice echoes with duality.

       ‘He need simply accept our gift and he will rise on ashen wings.’

       Torbek reaches out, blindly grasping for the source of the voice. Entranced, Varkh cannot move to stop him. The Word Bearer takes Torbek’s bloody gauntlet in his own with surprising gentleness.

       ‘Little brother… by the Powers of the Pantheon, I call Mar’dann’vos’kyaran, the Faceless Angel, into you. Rise, Torbek Twice-born.’

       Torbek screams, as no Astartes should. He flails about, as if in the grasp of some terrible beast. His bones break, blood boils, skin cracks over with hoarfrost. But he rises — on cloven feet he rises, and on his back are wings dusted over with the ashes of the fallen.

[Mazer Rackham]

Great work Harlan. I want to read more of that story and also know more about both Chapters!

 

Agreed!  I could stand to hear more of this bitter struggle. (I know we have a tidy snippet, but let's have some prose of that, brother!)

 

 

I'm waiting patiently on part 3 of the adventures of Ms. Teamkill McOgrynfriend.

 

I can't think of who you mean. ;)

 

@ Tarvek Val, dark and bloody as always.  You have an enviable command of mood!

 

MR.

[Tarvek Val]

Great entry, Harlan. Like the others have already said, I would love to see an expansion of this tragic tale. Very well-done.

 

 

 

@ Tarvek Val, dark and bloody as always.  You have an enviable command of mood!

 

Thanks MR! I'm going to have to connect these threads into a longer entry at some point, there are so many details I want to expand upon that will drastically push the word count beyond 500. 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job overall, Tarvek Val. Is about a Chaos Marine becoming a Daemonhost? When is it set- during the Horus Heresy, during Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, sometime in-between?

[Tarvek Val]

 

 

Good job overall, Tarvek Val. Is about a Chaos Marine becoming a Daemonhost? When is it set- during the Horus Heresy, during Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, sometime in-between?

 

Thanks Bjorn. This short is a continuation of last month's short story, it's set during the Shadow Crusade and told from the POV of a World Eaters centurion. It does describe the creation of a new Daemonhost — I want to further elaborate on the ritual scene in an independent piece, as I couldn't quite get the depth of details I wanted in such a short piece. 

[Mazer Rackham]

 

 I want to further elaborate on the ritual scene in an independent piece, as I couldn't quite get the depth of details I wanted in such a short piece. 

 

I understand that sentiment very well.   I hope we will see such work.

 

And to add my contribution now.  Please forgive how rough it is.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ensign Valea Konstanz gripped her helmet and clenched her teeth as an alien explosive detonated nearby.  The piercing light was an unreal shade of blue and burned her partially closed eyes.  The sheer force from the plasma grenade made her bones rattle.  The thick mud and compact rubble was all that saved her, but even then, she could feel the electric aftershock singing the hairs on her neck and arms, where her gloves and uniform had a gap.

"We's gotta stay."

 

Vratthogg.  How she hated that big oaf.  Only last week she took charge of the Ogryn detail, was forced to parade with them.  Before they marched out, she challenged his wearing of a Captain's cap badge.

"Cap-tin give it me.  C'os I's a Sar-gent and keeps promises."

Stuff his promises!

 

"We're going to get murdered if we stay!" she kept low, slithering across to him and the holes the big abhumans dug into the earth.  'Hold until relieved' she was told.  The crystalline shards of resurgent Dark Eldar attackers were pinging around her, poisoned nails rattling from the stone surfaces both the Imperium and Xenos were bleeding each other for.

Her impatience held the fear of being captured.  Stories abounded of the prisoners taken by alien psychopaths, the horrific torture.  Glands removed, skin flayed off.  The crackle of more plasma grenades tore at her uniform, her skin.  She could feel the stinging lash of it.

"The sky wolves said they's coming.  They keeps promises," the brute of an Ogryn shifted his bulk and let fly with his ripper gun.  A slender shadow exploded into viscera and fell against a broken pillar.  "Blimmin' Pointy 'Eads!"

 

Crack-crack-crack-boom-boom.

 

Valea instinctively ducked as something shrieked overhead.  Solid clumps of masonry, angular plates of alien armour, and gobbets of flesh tore from the occupied stronghold in front of her position.  Behind, she could hear guttural laughter distorted by a strange vox echo.  Space Marines in dark blue-grey warplate advanced, taking joy in the slaughter, bantering as they hopped from cover to cover, shooting.  A strange pressure built in her chest and she could taste a bitter tang, smell ozone stink, rank in the broad space. A hundred metres in front, the mighty form of Space Wolf Terminators tore through a gap in reality and lunged into the aliens, claws red to the elbow.

 

In moments, it was over.

 

One of the lighter armoured sky warriors approached, removing his helm.  His red beard and hair were lacquered down, but he broke it loose to tumble in scarlet cascade, mimicking the gore clotted thickly in the wake of their assault.

"Who are you?" it wasn't a demand.

"Ensign Konstanz, my lord."

"Lord?" he grinned, teeth huge, "Maybe one day.  I am Hjelv Hammerhand, Ensign," he leaned close. "We have all kept our oaths, yes?"

She nodded her understanding.

He turned. "Where is Vratthogg?"

A meaty fist lifted, the Ogryn looking sheepish. "I's in trouble?"

"No. Tonight friend, we feast."

 

MR.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Mazer Rackham

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job, Mazer Rackham. The Space Wolves are one of my favorite Chapters, and the execution of Dark Eldar/Drukhari criminals (their crime: Existing in Man's galaxy) is always a welcome sight.

[Mazer Rackham]

Thanks Bjorn :) Of course, it's the least an honest servant of the Imperium can do, to point out that heresy begets retribution. ;)

 

MR.

[Shinros]

Pacified

 

Godfrey’s breathing was heavy, but deliberate. Each breath was a purposeful act in order to deter his own turbulent emotions, for he was strapped down on a chair, awaiting some sort of punishment. The method he was using to calm his nerves did little because the incense within the chamber prickled his nose; the cowled monks who were praying were also a deadly distraction. Yet they weren’t praying for his punishment which was an oddity, they were praying for the Emperor to forgive him. 

     His crime he couldn’t recall, he was a pilgrim and then one dark day the Adeptus Soroitas came for him, each warrior was in lockstep while the Frateris Militia swung incense orbs in their presence. Every so often; the column would reach out, binding an unfortunate soul in chains. He was one of them. The question was why? The only clue was the monk prayers, the prayer for forgiveness.  

     All he had at the moment was his own thoughts, his own putrescent odour to keep himself company. No one was here to aid him. That was the dark truth of his situation. Godfrey had to admit he was frightened, terribly so. In that fear he moved his wrists but the leather straps were incredibly tight. 

     ‘Do not resist.’ A gravelly voice cut through the prayer, the monks fell silent. The group in front of Godfrey stepped aside revealing a priest in plain cream robes. He was holding an enclosed silver helm, the visor was a burnished bronze with two slits going in a line, running across the top of the helm were glass tubes filled with blue liquid. The sight of the arcane device caused Godfrey to fight his bonds, he knew what it was. 

     ‘I didn’t do anything wrong!’ he exclaimed. ‘I am but a humble traveller seek-’ 

     ‘There is no innocence.’ the priest interrupted. ‘Only degrees of guilt.’ The priest stepped forward, Godfrey wailed and gnashed his teeth, his heart raced, his mind warred for an excuse that would either calm or stop the priest. His acts of resistance were futile, his calls for aid didn’t move the monks either. When the helm fell upon his head the needles within the device shot forward. Piercing the back of his head and his neck. 

     Godfrey's struggle ceased in that moment, his mind was cleansed by the power of the ancient scripture appearing before his eyes and the angelic hymns which utterly consumed his ears. Godfrey’s coiled fingers became straight, his breathing became calm. With each heartbeat, Godfrey’s mind bled away, vanishing in the tide of unrelenting scripture. In its place Heretic 5340 was born.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by Shinros

[Tarvek Val]

Great entries, MR and Shinros. Lots of awesome takes on the subject already.

[Graceless]

I think these quick writing threads might be my favourite on the forum; so much talent on display and so many different takes on a theme. Awesome stuff.

[Mazer Rackham]

I think these quick writing threads might be my favourite on the forum; so much talent on display and so many different takes on a theme. Awesome stuff.

 

Excellent, the dark choir is coming to fruition - er, oh!  That silly warp-vox, thinking out loud again! 

 

I meant, will you be favouring us with a contribution @Graceless?

 

MR.

[Graceless]

I will be, but first I need to look up Fulmination in the dictionary!

[Graceless]

Hi all, not quite as last minute as the previous month but still quite late...

 

Hope you like it, not really sure it fills the brief of "fulmination" but it's where the writing took me.

-------------------------------------

 

“No! They can’t! No, no, no…”

 

Jensen’s protests trailed off into mumbling. He was broken; a walking shell, the Guardsman inside fled somewhere else, somewhere he wouldn’t see his friends dying anymore. They all stared at the receiver in Renk’s hand, the comms-operator looked like he was clutching a primed grenade.

 

Bombardment, assault, retreat, counter-bombardment and counterassault. Repeat. They’d all heard the radio message; words about final pushes, flanking, weaknesses. In other words: repeat.

 

Dawlson had no idea how many of the Regiment were still alive, how many of the company or the platoon for that matter. Only three of his squad were with him and, he suspected, that was all of them. Two men from A Company and a third from another regiment entirely were with them, crouched in a crater, which on some staff officer’s map was probably still marked as a trench.

 

“He’s right,” Anders said, jutting his chin towards Jenson. “If they send us forward again we’re dead. We’re just dead. It’s like that’s the plan.”

 

“It is.” The man from the unknown regiment interrupted. His red uniform looked worse for the mud and filth on it than their own olive-brown gear did. “That’s exactly what the brass want us to do.”

 

“What?” Dawlson exclaimed, shouting to be heard over a sudden increase in shellfire. “Command are uncaring sure but they…”

 

“Think about it!” the stranger shouted back. “Could we ever have actually won here? Infantry, walking across a killing ground, some piss-poor artillery support, no armour, no air cover, no reserves worth a damn! We were supposed to advance and die slowly. We’re a distraction, some clever feth-wit’s idea to keep the scar-heads looking this way. We're supposed to die!”

 

The man was standing now, gesticulating while he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

 

“All so Lord-Marshal Spineless can add another fething name to his list of oh-so-glorious victories!”

 

The other Guardsmen just stared at him, this madman shouting all the things they also thought but would never, ever say. Dawlson knew Commissar Necre was dead, he’d caught a mortar shell with his teeth the second they’d left the trenches, and the nearest officer was probably miles away, but old habits die hard; they all wished the fool would shut up. Before he got them all shot.

 

“I say we fall back, go back and find the feth-head who planned this and drag him right here! Show him his fething final push.”

 

Shells continued to fall all around, smoke drifted from shell-crater to trench to pillbox far more easily than men ever could, the ground they crouched on was strewn with old kit, body parts, mines, razor wire, some from today’s attack, some from 10 years ago. The men were being swayed by the stranger’s words. Dawlson was too.
 

Log: Corvel Sub-Sector 3rd Army: 110.M41: Local
Three regiments committed to diversionary action sector-gamma-3877
>80% casualties expected; 89% actual
Staff notes: Men reported in good spirits and ready for the attack.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Log: Corvel Sub-Sector 3rd Army: 110.M41: Local

Three regiments committed to diversionary action sector-gamma-3877

>80% casualties expected; 89% actual

Staff notes: Men reported in good spirits and ready for the attack.

This is well-written. It reminds me of stories set in the Great War- Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film Paths of Glory in particular- and sadly, of sergeants I served under. (I served in the US Army from 2001-2005.)

 

I presume the mutinying guardsmen killed "Lord-Marshal Spineless"? Is the "man from the unknown regiment" who incited the mutiny, a Chaos infiltrator?

[Graceless]

Hi Bjorn

 

Yeah the line "men in good spirits" was definitely meant to make you think of WWI.

 

Not sure whether they would make it back to deal with Lord Spineless, seems unlikely that they'd make it but I reckon they would try.

 

Originally the unknown regiment was just supposed to be another guardsmen and the fact he was there at all was due to the total cluster-f*ck the offense had turned into. However as I was writing him I did wonder whether he was actually an infiltrator instead. Probably be more "fun" if he was.