Rapid Fire Challenge: Elevation - May 2021

[Race Bannon]

Prompt: Elevation

Maximum length: 500 words

Deadline: 31 May 2021

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.

 

Note Note - there's more to this than height ;)

[N1SB]

Inspired by Brother Krieg's thread at http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/370137-artificial-depth-in-lore-affecting-immersion/ commenting on Warhammer Fest 2021 Day 2:
 

++ The Raising of a Spear ++

 

Morvenn Vahl tilted her head quizzically as the Custodes held the mighty weapon before her.  Behind her, a voice as smooth as oil on a blade yet as deep as rolling thunder echoed through the halls of the High Lords of Terra, "The legendary Spear of Illumination."
 
She turned to see Roboute Guilliman, cast in the beams of light from the arches in the cyclopean architecture.  Vahl was as shocked at his sudden presence as she was at her inability to hear the approach of a Primarch, but she realised the beating of her heart masked the sound of his heavy footsteps.  The newly-elevated High Lord bowed, half out of respect, but also half out of shame, "I had studied the histories of the Great Crusade, from Keeler to Voss, and...I have never heard of the Spear of Illumination, Lord Commander."
 
Guilliman gave a courteous nod towards the Custodes with an outstretched palm, who understood the gesticulation and handed him the weapon.  "Well, I must confess, I myself only know how its fable begins.  The rest of its story, " he said, lifting it in both hands to bequeath it to Vahl, "is up to you."

Edited May 19, 2021 by N1SB

[Brother Lunkhead]

Nicely done N1SB Simple, but affective.

[Urauloth]

It's so easy to use all 500 words just describing a piece of scenery and then find you have to cut that down to 7 or 8, but I suppose that's why this is a challenge. 500 exactly here, but as usual, I might write a long-form version at some point because I mostly use these to spur myself into getting bits of my warband fluff "on paper" so to speak. Anyway:

 

***

 

The high spire of Zholbor Hive soared so far above the clouds that they rolled below its pinnacle like a distant grey ocean. As distant from the continent-city of toil and squalor it sat atop as the stars were from the soil, the districts of the Lord Governor's palace were a golden paradise that echoed half-remembered myths from the dawn of human civilization.

 

Here, in the final heights before the sky gave way to the void, lush gardens bloomed with delicate flowers and fruit trees imported from a dozen worlds. On the surface, little grew save the hardiest thorns and scrubland grasses - survivors of millennia of industrial spoil. The divisions common to Imperial worlds were stark on Joeri, and growing starker. When the Astronomicon had gone dark and the ships stopped coming, hunger and panic sank their poisoned fangs into the planet. Plague had followed, and worse, a star-borne madness that bled from a toxic scar in the night sky. Unrest. Rebellion.

 

Lord Governor Asmus had done the only thing he could, of course. He was Imperial Commander by the divine appointment of the Emperor of Mankind, and it was his duty to preserve his ancient bloodline; a dynasty favoured by Him On Earth with the rule of entire worlds. He had ordered the palace districts sealed, the vast bulkheads closed in the garrison sector below. The gardens could sustain his court indefinitely. They were trapped until a ship made its way to their world again, but they were trapped in paradise.

 

Asmus had arranged a grand ball on the day the ships arrived. The masked courtiers' revelry was forced and brittle. Nightmares dogged their sleep. Much as they tried to ignore the darkness of the galaxy outside their palace, it gnawed at their thoughts. They drank and danced all the more, feverish, determined to purge their growing terror through luxury.

 

When the palace guard detected the approaching ships they were overjoyed. Augury showed vessels of Imperial construction, cruisers, perhaps, with a frigate picket. No astropaths had survived the great darkness to make contact with the fleet, and so the entire palace waited, acutely aware of every passing second, for the ships to enter vox range.

 

Asmus and his lifewards were marching in full finery to the reception hall when the first alarms sounded. More precise augurs saw the ships as they drew closer to the world. Saw their twisted hulls and gifts of living growths. Saw the ancient, terrible vessels that followed them. Some of the nobles were still dancing when the defence batteries began to howl.

 

Asmus was neither the first nor last to die. When an assault ram from the Dirge Unending breached the hive skin and tore into the golden sanctum like a burning javelin, he was crushed to death by debris before the emerging Death Guard legionaries even saw he was there.

 

Today the gardens of Zholbor still flourish in the heights, although they thrive with an altogether different kind of life.

[Dumah]

Good one Urauloth. Poetic justice at its finest!

[Urauloth]

Thanks! The Masque of the Red Death is my favourite Nurgle inspiration (nurgspiration), so it's always a fun well to draw from.

[Mazer Rackham]

Just an unworthy blotting whilst I was inspired by the good stuff above.

 

I have prepared for this day for an age, a sacrifice of self to a greater thing.

 

The Farseers stand behind the vault entrance, but I can see their blank helms, the rune-script across their armour - coaxed into shape, not fabricated like the crude metals and savage hides adorning the dullard inferior races.  I can hear their chants through metres of gilded door, can feel the road of every decision, every judgement leading my bare feet here.

 

I can feel the heat all the way down the Long Aisle, battering at the door that shields us from the inner chamber.  The sweat beads and runs in rivulets down my arms, chest and legs.  I feel no shame for it.

 

The Court is here of course.  I know them all by sight, the shape of helm, of poise and tools of war.  Karadhil, the Scorpion, Arness'ha'la, the Shrieking Death, Belessai, Son of Asuryan.

 

And yet it is my old friend Anrathis, The Winged Dancer, who gives me the Suin Dellae.

 

"You are the best of us," she says, iridescent feathers catching the light of the Aisle.  "Go without fear."

 

The great doors open to the heart of the Craftworld, and the heat and rage almost unbearable, I stride to my new fate.

 

A sacrifice of self, to a greater thing.

 

MR.

[Dumah]

Green Gods

 

Koa crested the rise on shaking limbs, feeling the absence of his axe keenly. He had left it buried in the skull of one of the slinking creatures that called the mountains home, unable to dislodge it in time as more of the beast’s kin threatened to encircle him. Koa had made the tough decision, weighing survival against the shame of losing his blade. That shame would mean nothing in the face of his ascension, should he be chosen. So he had run from them, scaling the steep slopes of the Great Teeth with alacrity, finding handholds and pathways where the ungainly, bipedal predators could not follow.

 

They weren’t really mountains, Koa knew, so much as a cage of brittle stone spears and gnarled spurs that encircled the caldera’s rim. Very few humans ventured beyond the Teeth and those who had were never heard from again. It was left to the Fates weather they were elevated by the grace of the gods or died broken and alone in the attempt.

 

Pausing to catch his breath, Koa stared back the way he had come, marveling at the distance from the green inferno below. Beyond the Teeth awaited something different but he knew not what. All that Koa knew was life in the depths of that febrile jungle, clawing and biting his way to manhood, fighting for food, mates and territory against rival tribes and inhuman predators of bizarre and varied morphology. Only every dozen seasons, when twin moons aligned in a supernal Gaze of Gods, did young warriors venture beyond the caldera to prove their worth to their bellicose gods and, hopefully, join their legions. There could be no greater honor. Koa shook himself from his reverie, conscious of the last rays of the dying sun that cut themselves on the edge of the Teeth.

 

He snarled against the fever bright pain of puncture wounds in his thigh. One of the beasts had sunk its dagger teeth deep and the torn flesh glistened with an alarming sheen of phosphorescence. Koa embraced the fever heat and used it to fuel his efforts.

 

With a final heave of his leaden limbs, he dragged his ragged bulk over the last peak and lay still, gazing outwards. Fear and wonder mingled in his breast as he beheld the arid plains that swallowed the far horizon. The majesty he expected was absent, and the gods he thought he knew where anything but. He could see them now, milling in hordes of leathery green skin and glaring red eyes, swarming over and around iron effigies that wheezed and belched their poison breath into the skies. And in isolated pockets, bent beneath heavy shackles and barbed lashes, were gangs of men and women like him; those who had come before, seeking elevation and finding only chains.

 

Koa looked to the rising moons crowning the Great Teeth above him as they chased the sun into its grave. Framed above those jagged peaks, they made a vast and hungry grin.

 

THE END

[Mazer Rackham]

The alien "cavalry" charged.

 

Tomasz peered over the lip of the trench, peeking above the sandbags that separated him from the hissing bullets crashing into the mud and slurry of the battlefield.  He readied his lasgun and whirled his hand above his head, summoning the new, fresh-faced lieutenant.

 

"Looks like a full-scale attack sir.  Greenskins on bikes," he peered out again through battered magnoculars as the mines tore some of the beasts into scrap metal and gobbets of seared meat.

 

The officer took his cap off, scooped mud from the trench wall and smeared his face with it, so he looked just like Tomasz.  "Glasses," he demanded.

 

Tomasz passed the magnoculars.

 

The officer peered over the parapet.  "Right!  Vox-Op!"

 

The long-suffering corporal lumbered over with the unit's voxcaster, and the lieutenant took the handset.  "Beagle four, Tripwire one-four, Fire Mission," he rattled off the co-ordintes Tomasz recognised as the foxholes abandoned the night before, some 50 metres ahead.  The Officer was allowing for drift.  "Direction 190, range 200 enemy cavalry in the open.  FIre for effect."

 

The instructions were relayed back, calm voices presaged the muted, distant thuds of the Earthshaker batteries manned by Beagle Troop.  As expected the shrieking artillery dropped shallow, tearing up the ground like an angry deity, but nowhere near the Orks.

 

The officer rubbed his hands whilst grinning.  "Beagle four, up 50, right 50.  Fire for effect."

 

The Orks rode into the next barrage, tossing them into the lower heavens under the tremendous power of the properly sighted artillery.

 

"Just got to get the aim right," the lieutenant said, ordering another barrage as though asking for breakfast, before killing the shells.

 

Tomasz poured from his insulated canteen and passed him a mug of recaf.  Just another morning on Icarus VIII

Edited May 19, 2021 by Mazer Rackham