Warhammer 60K: Age of Dusk (Continued)

The following was written and posted by LordLucan, of the www.thebolthole.org forums. The Age of Dusk is his imagining of how the universe of Warhammer 40,000 would change by the year 60,000.

Additional Background Section 40: Battle is Joined

The Battle of Shrilla (Also known as the War of Shadow Dancers):

The Flesh Wardens of the eastern barrier region of the Travesty detected a minor motion in the warp, a small displacement of warp power, brought about in the wake of barely a dozen vessels crossing the unseen boundary between Pentus and Travesty space lanes. The majority of the prowling space marines and daemon things infesting the region barely noticed the disruption, or saw it as merely a mission probing the defenses of the evil Imperium.

However, Decimus the prophet of the Midnight-Clad, sensed that this small force was pivotal to the coming Pentus attack. Thus, the shadowy forces of the Night Lord warlord flocked to that sector, hungry for battle and carnage. Decimus sensed where the enemy meant to break into realspace, and organised his hunting forces there in readiness to ambush the vanguard force and scupper the plans of the Five Brothers.

The world in question was a relatively peaceful mining planet called Shrilla. The plant’s surface was barren, pot marked with craters and the occasional exhaust column from the heavy industry developed below. Inside the planet, the miners had excavated and colonized for millennia, forming a dense warren of tunnels that ran through the thick crust like a honeycomb. Darkness and pollution had made the people pale, sickly and isolationist, but they were otherwise harmless. War had not visited Shrilla since the Second Strife. They had hoped this state of affairs would continue until the end of time. They were disappointed.

When the Night Lord descendants’ vessels entered the system, the governor of Shrilla sent a vessel out to meet them and welcome them to Shrilla. Within a week, the burning ship, still full of terrified diplomats and crew, was sent crashing into Shrilla’s surface. The resultant thermonuclear explosion signaled the attack of the Midnight-Clad. They fell upon the people of Shrilla with heinous abandon. They ripped apart families, fed children to dogs and furies, factories were torched and the people were forced to flee into the darkness of the inner mines, much to the glee of Decimus and his cruel lieutenants. Darkness was the natural habitat of the Nostroman Astartes, and they stalked it like terrors of the ancient world. The screams of the near-helpless Shrillans was music to their ears.

Decimus led the expedition to the deepest sections of the mines, where the women and children were defended by their menfolk, who went into battle in their hastily-armed mining rigs. Decimus and his chosen carved through this army of workmen with casual distain. Decimus was a master swordsman and duellist, yet he found just as much enjoyment and satisfaction from battering a helpless man to death with his own broken femurs as he did from duelling the greatest of foes.

As Decimus approached the last of the bested Shrillan commanders, in his collapsed cockpit of his walker, a single Shrillan soldier stepped into Decimus’ path. The man emptied an entire clip of lasgun bolts into the space marine, to no avail; the armor Decimus bore was cannibalized from some of the greatest power armors artificers could devise. Slowly, Decimus advanced upon the man, who now held his empty lasgun like a club, cursing the Astartes breathlessly.

“It took a lot of guts to stand up to me, mortal,” Decimus said calmly, just as he punched through the man’s belly with his gauntlet, spilling the soldier’s intestines over his already sagging knees.

“See? Lots,” Decimus chuckled, wiping his gory hand on the man’s face, before stepping over the fresh corpse to finish off the last helpless victim.

He dragged the last man from his cockpit, and held the man down easily, his arms pinned with only one of Decimus’ huge hands. Slowly, the Night Lord drew his golden blade, so that his victim would know what was coming. The sound of his chosen laughing and butchering echoed in the chambers around him, like a discordant choir.

“Why are you doing this?” was all the weakling human could croak. Decimus smiled beneath his helm.

“The question is, why not do this? Why shouldn’t I crush you? Give me a reason, little mortal,” he chuckled cruelly.

“I have a reason; if you don’t stop, I will kill you. And your death will not be as clean as the deaths inflicted upon your chosen.”

The voice came from nowhere, and made Decimus leap up in surprise, storm bolter drawn. Scanning the shadows, he realized he could not see the owner of the voice. It was too dark for even his black eyes to penetrate. But he sensed the powerful mind behind it.

Decimus voxed to his chosen, but their vox links had gone silent. From somewhere far away, Decimus could hear exchanges of bolter fire.

“It could only have been you, Corvus,” Decimus chuckled mockingly, turning on the spot to scan the darkness.

Decimus had been drawn into a trap. Corax himself had led the vanguard force, and as a consequence, they had arrived before the Midnight-Clad, and had installed themselves into Shrilla’s mining levels. The Sons of Corax had waited until the night Lords were deep inside the mines before they began their attack. They detonated charges behind the chaos space marines, and jumped the warriors in their own shadows. Black armoured warriors clashed with midnight blue marines. Similarly, in orbit, the Corvian ships took the Midnight-Clad by surprise, ramming mining vessels and satellites into the Night Lord ships, before decloaking and striking with full force at the sadistic Travesty warriors.

“You prey upon the weak, and hunt them through the dark? Let us see how fast you can run, little-Astartes,” Corax hissed from the deep. Decimus didn’t stand on ceremony, and promptly fled, destroying the passageway behind him as he passed. Corax had the drop on the night Lord, but Decimus had foresight akin to his gene-father, and each time the Lord of Deliverance tried to trap and contain him, the prophet eluded capture. He cut down scores of Corvians who attempted to thwart him, his precognition and brutal pragmatism making him an utterly lethal combatant. As he fled, he instinctively sought out his fellow Night Lords, and they began to regroup. Brutal tunnel fighting lasted for several days, as the two fast moving forces played a game of cat and mouse with one another.* On one side, there was the warp-borne cunning and experience of Decimus, on the other was the brilliance of Corax and the local knowledge of the tunnels, provided by the grateful Shrillans. But always, Decimus’ actions were typified by a kind of desperation. It is said that Space Marines know no fear. This is a lie. Decimus was utterly terrified of Corax; the sheer primal power of a Primarch was enough to still the heart of even the most sociopathic veterans of the Long Wars.

Only a third of Decimus’ strikeforce made it to the surface, and only half of those managed to fight off the Sons of Corax there, and steal shuttles to reach their waiting fleet. It was said that Decimus, just as he boarded the last shuttle, was ensnared by Corax’s mighty whip, which ripped his left arm from its socket as the shuttle fled at full speed towards the waiting void.

Decimus immediately contacted Kol Basilis and told the Blasphematii Grand Master that Corax himself was leading an invasion of the Imperium. Basilis reacted swiftly, deploying a sizable force of Blasphematii warships to support the Night Lord. Basilis’ paranoia went into overdrive, and soon an entire fleet, led by Decimus, was deployed to catch and destroy Corax. The two generals led each other on a merry chase across the desolate border regions, as Corax began to inspire planets he visited to revolt against the Blasphematii when they came looking for him. Corax hadn’t enough men to properly threaten even a handful of the Travesty’s worlds, but he had enough to elude their fleets and frustrate his hunters.

This was his plan all along. He had let Decimus leave Shrilla for the express purpose of drawing attention to himself. And, as more and more chaos forces seemed to turn towards his disputed sector, it seemed to be working.

While the beast was fixed upon him, the other Primarchs formed a single mighty fleet, which plunged into the Imperium of Travesties almost unmolested, like a dagger between the ribs. This was achieved through an unprecedented strategy. Leman Russ had noticed that there was a channel of space where the Flesh wardens did not look. Indeed, there was an entire corridor of warp and realspace that was utterly barren and becalmed; this was the trail of destruction left as the Ophilim Kiasoz zigzagged its way towards the Eye of Terror. The Wolf King proposed that they follow in the shadow of the Ophilim, just close enough to shroud them, but far enough away to prevent the entire fleet being erased by the eldritch entity. It was a risky ploy, but it was one which seemed to work. Within a month, they had bypassed the Flesh Wardens, and were deep inside enemy territory.

Alas though, not everyone was blind to their strategy. As the war continued, Perturabo would soon enter the fray...

• (Some accounts from both sides claim they caught glimpses of an axe-wielding eldar warrior in ancient armour, though he never spoke or interacted with the combatants.)

The Liberation of Macharia, first major action of the Cyclopean War:

Temestor Braiva, the venerable and brilliant general of the self-titled ‘Braiva’s Best’ joint battlegroup, spearheaded the primary military campaign against Ahriman Godseeker and his dominion of Golarchs, Rubric Marines, sorcerers and self-interested fanatics. However, Braiva, despite his reputation for swashbuckling, was a pragmatic and ultimately devious man. He knew that if he struck at Ahriman directly with his fleet, he would be destroyed within a matter of weeks, for his fleet was no vast armada, but rather a patchwork band of disparate elements alloyed only under his leadership. He had them united under his powerful personality and the tacit support of the Imperium Pentus that he championed in the wild southern marches of Tempestus, yet he still only possessed a few thousand vessels, a middling amount in the grand scheme of the galaxy. What he required was an early victory within Ahriman’s dominion; a symbolic victory to prick the ire of the Thousand Sons and to more importantly, spur on his men and the local warlords to support his fight, the good fight.

Thus, Temestor struck deep into the Segmentum Tempestus, at the antique city-world of Macharia. There were several ancient planets named after the legendary Lord Solar, but this Macharia was the first of his conquest worlds to be named after him, and it was by far the most grandiose. It had been a wonder of the Old Imperium in its heyday, all covered in sculpted marble and fine white stone. If Braiva’s best could liberate the planet and the people of Macharia without destroying it, it would cement Temestor’s place as the heir of Lord Solar Macharius and Braiva’s Best would no longer be just his allies of convenience or his to command by Primarchical decree. They would be the Princes of Macharia, and each of his generals would be legends amongst men. No longer would they be divided by their origins, they would be united by their triumphs.

Eventually, through discreet warp manoeuvres devised to evade the patrols of various petty warlords promised the Imperial crown by Ahriman, Braiva’s Best entered the Macharia system. The planet itself was no longer a jewel in an Imperial crown, but a destitute semi-ruin ruled by Canon Heirik Zann, self-proclaimed Sovereign In perpetuity of the Theologian Union. His was a meaningless title, but the delusional warlord was backed up in his claim by a million-strong host of religious lunatics known as the Fraternity Crimson, a heavily armed sect of former professional soldiers of the now-extinct Theologian Union. This combined naval and ground force had easily conquered Macharia and the other agricultural and strategic worlds orbiting its parent star. They were backed up by a conscript militia formed from almost ten percent of the cowed populace.

Macharia had once been a place of learning, but the universities of the world were gutted and burned in religious ceremonies; all save for one University within the Torgaldu district. There one of Ahriman’s Cabal, the sorcerer Tzchevek and his Rubric garrison had set up a centre for psychic research. They imposed a tithe of the psyker sacrifices Zann was making, and turnignt hem into familiars to increase Tzchevek’s own power. Heretics and traitors to Heirik’s cause were otherwise dragged into town squares and dismembered publically and messily. The pride of the despot’s forces was a rare, surviving Witchfynder Class cruiser hubristically called ‘Zann’s Might’ in his honour. The vessel’s warp drive was broken beyond repair, but the vessel was still a formidable asset, and the paranoid dictator kept the ship moving constantly, hiding until it was needed. It led a fleet of defence monitors and escort carriers of non-insubstantial scale.

Tyme’s Absolution, Braiva’s flagship, on arrival, promptly hid behind a distant dwarf planet circling the outer rings of the system, waiting until his full forces could mass at system’s edge. Heirik had no astropaths or navigators, only weak psychic soothsayers; he had fed the rest to Zann’s Might, in the vain hope of restarting the ship’s with-furnace engines. Thus, Braiva could move relatively undetected in the early phases of the battle.

He gathered his Seven most trusted generals and champions to a war meeting within his tactical briefing chamber aboard Tyme’s Absolution. There was the ferocious Lychen Vashiri known as faruk the Pitiless, who attended every meeting in the raiment of a barbarian warlord, covered in a profusion of daggers, axes, bloodied pelts and his trademark chain-falchions. He was a furious man with a murderer’s grin etched humourlessly upon scarred cheeks. He followed Temestor’s band purely so he might throw himself and his Vashiri into the bloodiest frays, in the Blood-Emperor’s name. Lector Ikriskiall was another, the highest ranking leader of the Gamma-meson psyker guardsmen, notable for his venerable age and formidable knowledge of his sect’s refined battle-psyk techniques. Then there was the redoubtable Colonel Roderus of the Steel legion ‘Tempered Edge’ veterans, a man as unyielding as the material of his regiment’s namesake. Darbane of the Plasma Commandoes was easily the largest member of this band, a cheerful cybernetic giant who never seemed to raise his voice above a conversational tone of voice, even in the midst of combat, blazing away with his twin plasma pistols. The youngest of the group was Duc De Aronelles, the Commanding Duke of the Warrior Princes of Chevantai. In battle he wore a slender grav-defying powered suit of armour and fought like his fellow knights, with powered lance and ornate, yet elegantly lethal, melee pistols. However, out of combat, the Duke wore a fine dining jacket and his long ebon hair was allowed to flow freely across his shoulders. The incorrigible captain Farl, by comparison, was a crude thug. A Chapter commander of the Lussorian Narc Warriors (who were erroneously known as ‘Space marines’ in their region of the Imperium Pentus), Farl was an imperfect mirror image of an Astartes, clad in patchwork power armour and swollen unnaturally by cocktails of genomorph narcotics. He was once a criminal, but half a century of begrudging service in the Lussorians had bred him into an artless-yet-effective killer, and a surprisingly honourable man. He masked this honour well though, beneath a mask of sneering contempt only Temestor himself could see through. The final general was called Obediah Braiva; Temestor’s own son. Adopted after his mother was slain in a wartorn hell a decade past, the young man had grown into a courageous and often times reckless Champion of The Best; he bore Temestor’s grav shoot and combat spear into battle and was the Lord General’s representative on the field of battle ever since Temestor became too elderly to lead from the front. Together, these seven men planned how best to divest the deviant Heirik Zann from the seat of Macharian power.

Braiva first struck at the outer planets and their garrisons. Tyme’s Absolution had well-stocked fighter and bomber wings, and he utilised these fighters and his escort carriers to the fullest. They attacked the space stations and military installations of the Fraternity Crimson, forcing the fanatics to give chase. Though the fighters did little damage over the months of hit and run attacks, they served their purpose. They made the Fraternity furious and fooled them into thinking Braiva’s attack was a small internal rebellion from Macharia’s downtrodden people. As the soldiers got more and more frustrated in their search for the rebel base, Braiva’s Best made a slow-burning run towards the inner system. Their engines remained deactivated, and the only engine output came from the occasional course correction by manoeuvring thrusters. The fraternity were preoccupied with ravaging the outlying worlds and ransacking their cities, and did not think to look for some great mass of vessels entering the system quietly and non-violently.

The invasion of Macharia began almost as soon as the ships entered the system. Forces loyal to Temestor deployed on the planet’s surface almost one unit at a time, to avoid detection by the defence monitors and orbital weapon systems set up to detect major military incursions. Over the course of months, as the attacks in the wider system intensified, these forces quietly dug themselves in amongst sympathetic factions of disgruntled civilians living under demented Theocratic rule. Slowly but surely, arms and munitions were manufactured or shipped in piece by piece by the approaching, cool-running fleet. Almost a third of Braiva’s forces were deployed on macharia’s surface before Heirik was aware of the invasion. By the time Zann’s forces became aware that the various rebellions were in fact linked to one another, Braiva’ best were already upon them. His fleet, a sone, activated their engines and powered the last few light minutes into Macharia’s orbit in the space of a few hours. Tyme’s Absolution lead the charge, smashing through the monitor fleet with the force of a sledgehammer, as the other fleet elements widened the wound. The vast battle barge entered orbit, fighters and bombers destroying any installations that attempted to draw a bead on the hulking behemoth. It disgorged a tide of landing ships, shuttles, Valkyries and Kestral gunships. Once it had done this, the battle barge carrier set a course away from the contested orbital space, as if Braiva feared damage to his flagship, leaving the rest of his fleet to face the big guns of the Macharian orbital assembly. Heirik ordered Zann’s Might to hunt the carrier down, and kill its idiot captain.

Simultaneously to the orbital deployment, the forces on the ground sprang into action, in five different sectors of the country-spanning capital city of the metropolis world, all expertly coordinated by Temestor in orbit, working with his generals via nothing more than micro-bead comm. Each of the forces that rose up was soon reinforced by the orbital assault. The forces of Braiva’s Best initially fought individually, playing to their own strengths. Duc De Aronelles and the Chevantai utilised their grav harnesses to allow them to sweep between streets with seemingly effortless grace, their light feet barely touching the ground as they moved at seeds faster than any mere cavalry force could hope to match. Their long power lances skewered foe after foe, before they darted out of harm’s way, firing their melee pistols at their outflanked assaltants. Farl’s Space Marines fought brutal door to door sieges, storming buildings, killing the soldiers inside, before stubbornly using these buildings as bastions themselves. Darbane’s Plasma Commandoes fought with their usual bravado, using overwhelming firepower to smash into the Crimson Fraternity and their forces. Roderus and the Tempered edge veterans found themselves pinned in one district of the city, yet held off wave after wave of the fanatics under Zann’s sway. They ignored their injuries and simply fought with increased determination, snatching up fallen enemy weapons to supplement their own when they spent their ammunition. The Gamma-Meson Guardsmen were a terror to behold; their eyes glowed with azure flames, and their hands and their weapons were shrouded in crackling energy fields that scorched foes to ash as they strolled into combat, chanting their rites of concentration. The gamma-Mesons seemed perversely calm despite being engaged in a lethal combat. This was because Battle-psyk required perfect concentration to be effective. If they got too over-excited or wrathful, their conjurations might fail. Thus, sombrely, they carved their way forwards, killing without urgency and shuttling their dead and wounded back to their deployment area with similar calm. By contrast, Faruk and the Vashiri fought like mad berserkers, charging into the thick of the fighting, where their opponents’ longer ranged weapons meant little. Faruk, twin chain-falchions clutched in his hands, howled in ecstasy as he swam through the entrails of the men he disembowelled.

The Crimson Fraternity and their supporting militias, however, were still numerically superior, and each of Braiva’s forces were separated and isolated from one another. After only a couple of hours, the forces of Braiva seemed to be forced to fall back from the onrushing hordes of carapace-armoured Fraternity soldiers. Zann’s men, buoyed with this success, pushed on ever harder, until the desperate forces of the so-called rebellion were forced into a full rout. Heirik ordered them to hunt them down to the last man, and the Crimson Fraternity was eager to oblige.

Meanwhile, in space, Zann’s Might led its fleet of monitors on the hunt for Tyme’s Absolution, it’s captain hungry to obtain the Emperor’s glory for this kill. Never once did the captain consider that Tyme’s Absolution was, in fact, hunting him...

The forces of Braiva’s best fled through the city, broken and unmanned by the sheer force of the Fraternity; even the tempered Edge veterans begrudgingly withdrew. The theocratic soldiers seemed to be herding the forces together, like dogs gathering sheep into a single great pen. To Heirik’s amusement, as he watched the short war via pict-feeds inside his eternal palace, this pen was to be the square of Judgement; the place where heretics and heathens across Macharia were brought for show trial and execution. How fitting, he thought, that this latest foe would fate its grisly fate there as well.

The Crimson Fraternity converged upon the square from all entrances to the square, closing like a noose. Their tanks came first, followed by rank upon rank of heavily-armed infantry and striding walker gun platforms. They burst into the square with all the fury of a zealot in a sermon.

However, the square was empty. As the significant portion of the Fraternity crowded into the square, they found themselves baffled. Their foes had vanished, melting into the urban sprawl around them somehow.

Three things happened then.

Firstly, demolition charges exploded on the ground floors of the largest buildings that girdled the square, causing them to tumble into ruin one after another. Secondly, through the brick dust and rubble debris, lasers flashed across the Fraternity; harmless red pin pricks of light. These were designators. These guided flights of missiles and artillery shells, built and hidden across the city, to fire and fall precisely upon the Fraternity forces suddenly trapped by the rubble al around them. The resultant fireballs rose up to an eighth of a mile into the heavens, and was visible from Zann’s own palace. The survivors, stumbling through the thick palls of smoke and the gory ruins of their fellow soldiers, were easy prey for the Vashiri and the Lussorians, who fell upon them with unbelievable savagery.

In space, the defenders suddenly found that the defence lasers planet side were no longer firing at the enemy fleet, but at their own space stations and monitor vessels; the Justice Troopers had discreetly struck them early on in the battle, and commandeered them against the Zannite enemy. Caught between the guns of the invasion fleet, and the guns of their own home world, the defence fleet crumbled into a disordered retreat. They were immobilised and disarmed by the careful guns of Braiva’s best. However, the ships were not destroyed, but were left blinded, crippled and neutered, left intact for later use by Braiva.*

As the battle turned decisively in favour of the invaders, the remaining forces of Heirik learnt precisely why his enemy was renowned three sectors over for their prowess. The previously divided forces fought as fluid, combined arms forces. The Knight-princes of Chevantai and the land speeders of the Justice troops harried the flanks and rear of the enemy, while the Lussorians and Tempered Edge Vets pinned them in place. The Plasma Commandoes and roving teams with missile launchers took down the enemy armour before they could gun down the infantry, and the Vashiri held up any ranged support from returning the favour and striking at the Commandoes. The Vashiri were protected by battle-psyk shields, as the Gamma-Meson lectors led their guardsmen behind the blood-hungry savages. It was said Braiva had learnt much from xenos and human alike over the years, and the strategies and tactics he taught to his generals reflected this. There was the constant mobility of the Farsight Tau, combined with the specialisation and synergy of Eldar swordwind techniques, and the willingness to improvise and alter battle plans at the drop of a hat, learned from his own Confederation roots. The Fraternity were hunted through the streets; routed.***

As Zann’s forces were broken in the city, so his palace was assaulted. Obediah Braiva led the strike team, which deployed via grav chutes from orbit itself. The palaces defences were neutralised with missile fire just as they landed on the battlements. The assault was swift, taking the hardened defenders by surprise. Concussion grenades and smoke bombs covered their rapid advance through the tight corridors. The justice troopers moved with well-oiled precision and efficiency. Door to door, they cleared each room. Anyone who so much as raised a gun towards them was put down before they could so much as yell in alarm. Poison fog bombs were detonated, choking defenders while the rebreathers of the droptroopers protected them easily. It is said Obediah’s teams did not suffer a single fatality during that raid, whereas the Macharian Emperor’s were killed almost to a man. Obediah himself dragged the cowering Heirik from his basement bunker complex, and placed him under arrest.

Though Heirk was captured, his forces refused to surrender the city world, and Braiva’s Best spent months conquering the city from the fanatics. Many were the legends and stories created during that period of scouring. I would not claim that all of the stories were true, as many were likely embellished by scholars and creative writers who inherited these tales in the decade after the war. However, many are interesting for me, as they shed some light on Braiva’s generals I feel.

During the first month of the war, Farl of the Lussorians was said to have led his forces into the industrial sector of the city. His brutal warriors slowly ground the militias and remnant Fraternity-troops to dust. It was said Farl breached the great temperance Compound, where Zann’s men had stored all the confiscated liquor and brewing equipment they had stolen from the populace, who had been forced into sobriety in the name of the Wasteland Emperor. Now, I am sure you have learned of the legendary decorum and sombre nature of the Space marines, and how alcohol had the least effect upon them. This was not the case for Farl’s Marines, for they were not post-human; they were perhaps some of the most human soldiers fighting under Vulkan’s banner. Thus, when they liberated the largest alcoholic storage yard on Macharia, they helped themselves. Legends still tell of the raucous week of celebration that followed, as Farl, drunk out of his mind, rolled barrels of ales, casks of wine and amasec, and a multitude of other spirits and liquors, into the streets, for all to drink in celebration. Cackling like a lunatic, Farl eventually stormed the last enemy stronghold in the district at the head of an army of Space marines and vengeful Macharian citizens, killed the leaders of the stronghold, and torched the fortress; all the while he was drunk out of his mind.

However, there were far more harrowing tales to tell of these months of scouring. Heirik Zann had made allies of many post-Imperial cults, but amongst his most odious of his allies was the so-called Cult of the Redemption. The Redemptors were an ancient sect, who could trace their origins to the middle years of the Age of the Old Imperium. Despite all the destruction and upheaval of the Second Strife and the Dragon Tides and the New Devourer, unfortunately this cult had survived, in pretty much an unaltered form. The Redemptors still had a perverse love for the flamer and the chainblade, and still bore red robes and distinctive pointed hoods. Their twisted devotion to a dead creed had only radicalised them over and over again, until the creatures had an utterly abhorrent creed. They had been placed in control of the Temple of Extermination on Macharia. Zann had tasked them with completing his cleansing purges. The accused heretics and warp-dabblers who were hanged in the square had had families. In the eyes of the Redemptors, these families shared a genetic curse with their heretical relatives. Wives and husbands, children and grandchildren, were gathered up, along with any infants deemed to have any psychic potential, and placed in the Temple. Then, calmly and callously, the Redemptors started to systematically kill them. No one outside the temple knew precisely what happened within the Temple, but thick, oily smoke was always rising from the Redemptor stronghold. By the time Braiva’s invasion had defeated Zann, the Redemptors were only halfway through their timetabled genocide. Instead of surrendering, the redemptors resisted the invaders, with flame and blade. Their sheer ferocity forced back several determined assaults. All the while, the death toll of innocents within was rising. Reluctantly, Obediah and Roderus unleashed the Vashiri upon the compound. Faruk’s half-feral warriors smashed their way into the temple. Blades met blades, and flames met flames, as the two berserk forces ripped into each other. Soon enough, the sound of screaming echoed from the Temple, the hideous shrieking carrying for miles around. Roderus had feared that Faruk’s murder-tourists would kill everything inside in their mindless frenzy. However, the Veteran leader did not truly understand the Lychen mindset. The Lychen were not mindless killers. Their cannibalistic Lychen-haemovore creed was highly ritualised and possessed strict, complex rules. One of the most basic and central tenets was thus; do not slay the unblooded. Do not kill and devour a creature that possessed no ability to kill or devour you. The Redemptors had broken this central tenet. The Lychen were not very pleased with the Cult of the Redemption (to put it mildly). After twenty seven hours of furious, unseen combat, the doors of the temple swung open for a second time. A tide of blood flowed down the steps, to the disgusted horror of the Pentus-soldiers still blockading the building. A few minutes later, the Lychen Vashiri emerged. They were coated, head to foot, in thick layers of blood. And in their arms, to the astonishment of the crowds of gasping citizens that had gathered around the temple, the Vashiri carried children and infants. Some were as old as ten, others younger than a single year. These children were drenched in blood and had haunted, hollow expressions, but were otherwise unhurt. The children with psychic potential were handed to the Gamma-meson Guard for training, while the rest were adopted by the Vashiri.** When clean up teams eventually entered the temple, it was a charnel house. Blood and shredded robes were left scattered across the ground. Of the Redemptors themselves, only gory, gnawed skeletons remained. The Vashiri were nothing if not thorough...

In space, as the scouring continued on the surface, Zann’s Might was hounded to the edge of the system, lured into an ambush by the withdrawing battlebarge. Though its advanced weapon systems damaged hundreds of vessels, the ship was eventually crippled and boarded, before being towed back to Macharia as Braiva’s prize.

Once the venerable Temestor Braiva returned, he met with his assembled generals, and discussed what to do with Heirik Zann. Of course, the simple thing would have been to slay him, but Braiva had something else in mind. He decided that Heirik would stand trial for his crimes, and the people of Macharia would judge him. Heirik angrily rejected this proposal, cursing Braiva and his courts as unfit to judge him.

“You are worms, not fit to be crushed before my Imperial boot. I am the Emperor of Macharia. The people love me!” he was quoted as screaming, as Braiva had him dragged from the palace dungeons, into the bright light of a winter’s morning. Before the snow clad steps of the palace, a crowd of thousands had gathered to scream defiant hate towards the former tyrant. They threw themselves against the barriers as they pulled at their hair and hurled insults at the decrepit old monster.

“If your people love you so,” Braiva began quietly, staring out across the baying crowd. “I shall release you to their loving custody.”

And with that, General Darbane snatched up the ‘Emperor’, and threw him bodily to the crowd. There, he was torn to shreds. I need not go into the grisly details of his demise, but suffice to say, he did not die well.

Soon, there was only one villain left to deal with upon Macharia. The Gamma-meson Guardsmen were tasked with surrounding the library-tower of the Thousand Sons. High Lector Ikriskiall himself fought the Sorcerer’s mind for several gruelling months, simply to keep the witch-born nightmare from unleashing his Rubric Marines, or sending a distress signal to Ahriman. Tzechevek eventually declared Temestor to be the new Emperor of the Theologian Union upon the death of Heirik; no doubt the Sorcerer believed Braiva was simply another petty warlord, like all the other ‘Emperors’ vying for control of the region at Ahriman’s behest. He was mistaken. Braiva spat his offer back, and ordered the tower levelled. Tzechevek prevented any military strikes against his tower through use of a powerful Raptora forcefield. Yet, the Thousand Sons marine did not consider an attack from below. When Darbane’s Plasma Commandoes breached the under-vaults of the tower via the sewers, an intense firefight erupted between the Commandoes and the Rubric marines garrisoning the Thousand Sons’ stronghold. Tzechevek was eventually bested by Darbane himself, who fought the Astartes lord in single combat.

The Battle of Macharia was over. Braiva had achieved his goal. The people of Macharia had emerged, relatively unscathed, from the surgically precise battle. Across the system they were hailed as heroes, and the stories of their exploits already began to spread. But more than that, Braiva’s Best alloyed themselves into a united fighting force of carefully-honed combined arms. The fleet was bolstered by the repaired remnants of the monitor fleet. Zann’s Might was retrofitted with a standard warp engine, and the people of Macharia eagerly provided a dozen regiments of new recruits for Braiva’s building army.

Yet still, Braiva knew his work was not done. If he was to conquer all the other petty Emperors, and force Ahriman himself to commit to battle, he would need allies. He looked to the two nearest western realms; Praetoria, and the Lychen empire. Victory depended not only upon military logistics, but also diplomatic skill.

• (The crews of these took several harrowing months to starve to death inside their cold metal tombs, and Braiva let them. This is perhaps one of the darker, less well advertised aspects of the battle of Macharia. War is ugly, and makes brutes of us all...)
  • ( Eye witnesses claimed Faruk emerged carrying a weeping child of only two years who, according to legend, later became Faruk’s only son, Farciar the Red, bearer of the Flayed banner of the Vashiri.)
    • (Some uncorroborated reports from the locals claimed they saw an axe-wielding alien watching these grisly events silently, but these citizens saw this figure for only a moment, and the dragon-scaled alien could easily have been them merely catching a glance of one of the Chevantai Warrior Princes, and jumping to the conclusion they were alien warlords.)

The Revolt of Shadows:

Vect’s injury by the Wolf King Russ had triggered a great wave of opportunistic attacks by the Archons of his rival Kabals, and even those within the Kabal of the Black Heart; if the High Lord could be made to bleed, then he was not flawless and he could be bested, somehow. This period of excitement was known as the year of a thousand revolts (even though the actual number of revolts directed against Vect was far higher than a mere one thousand).

Every conniving and ambitious eldar in Commorragh seemed to make an attempt at undermining or unseating Vect from power. Vect turned each attempt inside out, causing the death of its conspirators, or turning conspirators against his other enemies, and hence eliminating them both. This year of madness was a great boon to the Commorrites, who greatly enjoyed using their realspace raid soul-bounties to fund epic carnage across the city. Wych tournaments spilled out onto the streets, and into the eyries and spires across the impossible city. Sub-realms cavorted and rose up, as political animals prowled and devoured one another in Machiavellian schemes that would make a mere human politician weep in envy. As this chaos swept up more and more of the populace into its storm reaches, Vect stood at the eye of the storm, a deceptively calm place.

Vect himself, though he would never show it to any living being, was tiring. Millions were dying to feed his black web of a mind. He even began to eat the eyes of seers, the choicest and most nutritious of soul essence available. Even his labyrinthine mind struggled to cope with the myriad plots and conspiracies levelled against him and his allies. Despite this, Vect knew there was some force behind the year of a thousand revolts, a mind comparable to his in cunning and duplicity. There was only one Dark Eldar taht truly fit that description; Lady Aurelia Malys. Her Poisoned Tongue Kabal were pitting the other kabals against Vect, somehow managing to get their archons destroyed in the process. Yet, Malys was not taking over these Kabals, or putting her own puppet Archons in their place. This intrigued Vect most of all, as this seemed to lack ambition. She was forgoing personal power and advancement. Dark Eldar were all sociopathic narcissists at heart, Vect had learnt this over millennia; no matter how noble or deranged they seemed, if given the chance to become one of the inner circle of the powerful, an eldar would always slither into line and play to Vect’s tune. Yet Malys, alone amongst the eldar, did not.

Vect reached a conclusion then that he had long suspected; Lady Malys was not an eldar. Not anymore. As civil war continued to rage, Vect had Malys hunted down. The trackers followed her to a vast hemispherical sanctum, deep within the catacombs clinging to the underside of Commorragh like tumour growths. Soon, as Vect watched through his hunter-puppets’ eyes, the chamber was revealed to be a domed chamber. Every space inch of space on the sloping walls were occupied by perfectly placed skulls. All of the skulls peered inwards, towards a dais. To the left of the dais, Lady Malys herself stood, a smile impossibly wide on her lips. Vect’s kill team wasted no time in opening fire upon the Archon, but she could not be struck. Every crystal splinter, every baleful blast of energy, every razor-edged disk, missed her comfortably. When ranged weapons failed, his mercenaries eagerly leapt into combat with her. Even though her skill was exquisite and her elegant kills were a joy for Vect to view through his vid-steals, his hired killers were masters of their art, and surrounded her with expert precision. If malys had been fighting them alone, she would have perished there.

If.

Suddenly, one by one, the hunters were falling, cut down by something swift and unseen, like fluid shadow. Their heads were taken one by one, clattering with a crunch to the floor, which was covered in shattered skulls. This was Kheradruakh’s lair, ‘He Who Hunts Heads’. The Decapitator.

With a grin on her face, Malys plucked the last hunter’s severed head from the floor, so she could peer into Vect’s eyes vicariously.

“Good evening my love,” she purred sweetly, before she broke down into violent, shuddering laughter.

Vect smiled back, for he knew the creature within could see him too, impossible as it seemed. “I was wondering when we would meet. I would have thought this meeting could have been conducted sooner,” Vect replied. “’My Love’ was a good touch though. Very menacing,” Vect added, mockingly.

“Do not be like that, young master Vect. Have I been such a neglectful landlord? Have I not kept the ravages of the Young Prince from you? Your voice suggests a significant lack of gratitude.”

Vect dismissed the reply with a theatrical gesture. “Gratitude is so tedious. It implies that the gratified owes their patron a favour. I owe you nothing.”

The being within Malys chuckled, the crystal heart in her chest glimmering with multiple hues within her breast. “Oh, the eldar owe me a great many things, but that is not why I lured your men here.”

“Indeed?” Vect responded, raising an eyebrow lazily.

“I lured them here to bear witness. I feel it is only fair the High Lord of my tenants understands why I must punish your species.”

Vect began to lose patience with the shimmering fiend wearing Malys’ flesh. “Do not presume to threaten me. Do not think that being a god will protect you from me, should I choose to... lose my temper with you.”

Malys burst into laughter upon hearing Vect’s threat. “You absurd little parasite! You do amuse me so. But enough of the games I think. Your regime has hamstrung my efforts on the galactic stage. Your creed of self-interest has united your ‘Dark Eldar’ under the banner of disunity. A delightful paradox to be sure, but not one that aids me. You are an unknown quantity; a rogue element, scuppering everyone’s plans with your soul-drinking, raping, pillaging nonsense. I have wars to win, and universes to conquer. I shall give you another chance, Asdrubael Vect, son of Ulthaneshu Vect, to bend the knee to your master, and bring your Kabals into line behind me. The war has started; if we do not act soon, you might miss it.”

It was Vect’s turn to laugh, though his was a dry, hideous thing, devoid of any warmth (if it his voice had ever had warmth in it to begin with, records do not say). “I have no master. I have no equals. I will not be a mere pawn in your great game, Aurelia Malys, host of the crystal heart of Cegorach. My realm is a meritocracy of murder. You shall never tame us.”

“Never say never, my dear. If you will not be tamed, your race with just have to be... caged,” Malys responded with a perverse smile, as she handed the severed head to the Decapitator. The shadow-skinned half-breed carefully peeled the head, before scuttling up to the highest ring of his hemispherical lair. There, he set the skull in the final vacant niche. Then, the webway trembled.

The lights in Vect’s personal chambers began to flicker. Though his chambers were physically many light years from the Decapitator’s lair, deep in lightless Aelindrach, they were linked to that realm, and all sub-realms, via the webway’s eternal strands and tributaries. Vect sneered, disdainful of the building disjunction.

“You intend to breach the webway? Set daemons amongst the alleys and haunted mews of Commorragh? Daemons are nothing to us. We have weathered such things before, Jackal Godhead.”

Malys gave Vect an expression of mock confusion. “Daemons? Oh, there are far worse things than daemons...”

As she said this, she gestured to the dais at the centre of the dome. Something was coalescing at its heart; a coiling, living shade, a yawning chasm of unlight, drinking in what little illumination remained in the chamber. Vect cut off the vid-steal feed, but malys’ laughter echoed long after her image faded.

Vect leaned back in his throne, as his chamber began to darken around him. Through his spider-ribbed windows, he could see the twilight of Commorragh was becoming something else; something darker. The usual screaming and endless shrieking of Commorragh took on a different timbre. They went from a glorious cacophony, to a strangled gasp, as if the entire city had collectively taken a breath, before some deep plunge. Vect ignored his alien bodyguards as they burst into his chamber, breathlessly warning him of the unfolding disaster. He could see it for himself; the tendrils of blackness coiling around mile-high spires, the capering... things which he could not quite make out through the darkness, even with his enhanced eyesight.

Carefully, he formed a steeple with his fingers, and licked his sallow lips and his perfect, needle-sharp teeth. The Long Night had come, it would seem.

“What do we do, my Lord?” a Dracon asked. Vect gestured to one of his Sslyth, who neatly beheaded the simpering whelp. Vect carefully placed one finger to his lips.

“Ssssh... I am thinking,” he responded; as he plucked the unfortunate Dracon’s eyes from his skull one by one.

In his head, he made a promise to Cegorach, a promise he knew the laughing god could hear. Once Vect had freed himself from the Revolt of Shadows, he would enact such terrible vengeance upon Cegorach, poets and sadists across a thousand universes wouldn’t be able to categorise all the new ways he would wring agony from the trickster god.

But for the moment, Vect decided, as he dodged the many-limbed shade-daemon that suddenly leapt from the darkness and dashed his throne to splinters, his city would be a little preoccupied.

Only the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue, and Duke Sliscus’ corsairs, managed to escape the shadows that suddenly enfolded the City of Sins, for they were both outside Commorragh at the moment of the revolt.

The Swordwind siege:

As Abaddon was detained in the Klavox region (the tale of which shall be related to you in the next section), Huron Blackheart’s regime, as decaying and barely-held together as its master’s own flesh, set itself a monumental task. Huron’s regime needed to remove at least one of its major rival factions, or else it would eventually crumble into irrevocable civil war and fall into ignominy and never rise again. The Blackheart hadn’t the resources to destroy the Star father’s empire in the west, or the two thousand well-supplied bastion worlds of the Imperium Pentus. Only one of its major foes was sufficiently vulnerable to extinction, only one faction had a central bastion that, if destroyed, would mean the breaking of their power forever. That foe was, of course, the craftworld of Biel-tan, the last refuge of the eldar civilisation.

Yet, just because the eldar were vulnerable to a beheading strike via invasion, did not mean they were by any means weak. Biel-tan had gathered all the former corsairs, outcasts and refugees from the other, dead, craftworlds. Over the millennia, it had grown in size almost three hundredfold, becoming the largest artificial world ever sung into existence by eldar bonesingers. Its grand fleet, though spread across the north of the galaxy, mustered for war at a moment’s notice, and returned via the webway to support their mother like pack upon pack of savage, protecting wolves. Every farseer saw the same, inevitable future looming; Huron would attack, and this attack would be the largest they had ever seen. The eldar fleet was vast, swift and lethal, as were the many armies, citizen levies, windrider hosts and aspect temples that clustered around strategic areas of the unthinkable huge worldship. The latest Autarch of Biel-tan, Lanquelliqn, prepared for the coming battle as best she could. Biel-tan had managed to summon most of the surviving Aspect warriors to return to defend them. However, the Phoenix Lords had not come, despite their desperate pleas. When questioned about this, the Exarchs could only respond that ‘the Asuryata have been called away...’

Huron and his allies knew he had to throw everything he had at the craftworld. This was to be a final throw of the dice. If Huron won, the craftworld eldar would be finished. However, the eldar also knew that if Huron failed to destroy their craftworld, the Eastern Chaos Imperium would collapse.

The fate of the region thus rested upon this last great battle, known forever after as the ‘Swordwind Siege’.

Huron toured his worlds, swallowing up his roving reaver warbands and reintegrating his various red Corsair Lieutenants into a single, colossal armada. The grand warship, the Astral Maw, was Blackheart’s flagship, and it led the way like the poisoned tip of a spear. The raving bloodknight Cullan* brought his fleet of dying vampire-monsters to join this fleet as it gathered momentum. His was a dying breed, and the thirst for blood, and the black rage of Sanguinius’ death drove him onwards to ever greater acts of penitent carnage.

Huron’s most significant ally was the forces of the Grandfather, old Nurgle himself. Not only did Typhus bring his festering fleet of plague ships, countless billions of undead and the Death Guard Legionaries, he also persuaded the Great Unclean One, Ku’vath, to bring his daemons to join in the fun, to feast upon the boundless despair of the eldar race’s last stand.

The eldar fleet met the chaos forces fifty lightyears from Biel-tan. The alien vessels were swift and darting, each cutting down many clumsy mon keigh craft, all the while evading their belligerent return fire. But there were too many of the corrupted, ramshackle vessels. Weight of fire and weight of numbers were always against even the largest of craftworlder fleets. What was more, those vessels truly possessed by nurgle’s rot refused to break apart under the terrible holocaust of fire unleashed upon them; each time they seemed to break apart like rusting derelicts, ropey sinews and oily tendrils of pure daemonic bile re-knit their mortal wounds. Hull breaches scabbed over like diseased flesh, and broken dorsal batteries vomited up new weapon snouts, eternally corroded by rust yet impossible to fully destroy. Despite the best efforts of the eldar fleet, the best they could manage was to shadow the onrushing tide of monsters, harassing their flanks and rearmost supply chains with ruthless efficiency, if not perfect effectiveness. They could not, however, stop the fleet making the last warp jump into Biel-tan space.

Huron’s capital ships divided into several huge prong formations, each shrouded by daemonic magicks and swarms of escort craft. They attacked Biel-tan from multiple vectors, punching into the spherical killing zone around the mega-craftworld, as it wallowed in the orbit of a dwarf sun. Ancient automated defences, long assumed to be dormant, activated at the approach of primordial force sof the annihilator. Energy lances and grids of warp-powered psychosis-mines erupted from the flanks of the worldship, and struck out at the voracious predatory craft closing in. There were weapons beyond the ken of even the greatest human scientists; devices pulled dreams directly from the minds of crew members, turning them into lethal psycho-plastic automatons that shredded vessels and their crew them from inside out. The very molecules making up some chaos craft had their chemical bonds nullified by unseen forces, and simply dissolved like sand on the wind.

As the chaos fleets surged in close, star lances and pulsars dissected ships until they looked like neatly sliced loaves of bread, falling apart with an oddly elegant grace in the void. Huge eldar vessels, too large to even enter a webway gate, peeled off from Biel-tan’s flanks, and began to engage their enemies with quantum accelerators and D-cannons of colossal scale. Dissembling weapons, that caused flesh to melt with metal, turned thousands of escorts into nothing more than floating lumps of solid adamant, with screaming human bodies seeded through them. Warp Spiders launched teleport assaults upon the command and engineering sections of enemy capital ships, beheading the leadership in pinpoint strikes, guided to their targets by the wisdom of their Seer Council. The Astral maw repelled fifty of these warp spider onslaughts, with Huron himself personally slaying upwards of a dozen of the ever-shifting aspect warriors.

But Huron’s ships were not silent as this exotic bombardment raged. The Blackheart had nightmarish contraptions and weapons of his own. Haunted macrocannons smashed spires, pulverised crystal domes and bisected eldar ships, unleashing howling winds of chaos with each titanic blast. Lances and torpedoes scoured life away at every turn, as flight upon flight of bombers stripped the craftworld’s surface of its defenders, and scorched the pristine wraithbone an ugly purple colour, as successive waves of bombs burned the material to glass, then shattered the glass, them melted the shards and shattered them all over again. The blinding exchanges of fire could be seen on every planet in the system; Biel-tan appeared as a multi-hued star in the heavens, constantly shifting and flickering in size and colour.

The closer the smaller mon keigh escorts got, the more damage they did. Of course, the frigates perished almost instantly as soon as they got within range of the bright lances, pulsars and soul-networked fire prisms, but even these burning ruins caused terrible devastation amongst the outer layers of the craftworld, as kilometre-long castles of burning adamantium ploughed straight through the crystal skies of the craftworld’s hull, and exploded inside with deafening roars. Each time an escort struck, forty kilometre craters were ripped out of the body of Biel-tan, like the scars left after rupturing a boil. Each time, the conjoined mind of Biel-tan moaned in silent agony, making every eldar wince inwardly in sheer sorrow. Into the burning wounds gouged in its flanks, chaos landing ships surged eagerly, swiftly depositing their soldier cargo, before the craftworld’s automated defences turned the transports to smouldering scrap.

As this battle raged, a warp rift began to pulsate above Biel-tan; a festering wound that leaked despairing souls and giggling nightmares directly into the battle. Wailing apparitions of Isha swept, ghost-like through the craftworld, chilling the hearts of her children with the shrill power of her sheer melancholy. Only the redoubled efforts of the Farseers and their warlock assistants kept the eldar from losing their minds utterly. However, the worst was yet to come.

From the transport ships, billions of psychopaths and monsters rampaged. The vast majority of Biel-tan was wilderness; forests and oceans and plains full of flora and fauna, but people by few eldar. This was at once its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Infantry, stranded thousands of miles away from the nearest eldar bastion, were forced to simply roam the woods and forests, attacking trees, butchering beasts and cattle, but little else of worth. It is said some of the Blackheart’s mortal soldiers didn’t see a single eldar throughout the invasion; instead, they wandered aimlessly, until boredom and constant attacks by the living wraithbone around them caused them to fight amongst themselves and leave their corpses for the local vulture-entities to devour.

However, such large expanses of wilderness also meant the eldar could not hunt down every invading army, no matter how swift the swordwind struck. The Aspect warriors were distracted, darting between the vital bastions and habitats of the craftworld in their grav tanks and speeders. The guardians and the rest of the Biel-tan’s military might constantly moved between living quarters and towns across Biel-tan, reinforcing them only when a major force made a concerted effort to attack. Fly-headed beastmen scuttled through the woods on oddly jointed limbs, nurglings played hide and seek in the hills and mountains, slowly poisoning the ground with their every footfall snail-like nurglitch beasts slithered into rivers and oceans, poisoning them with warp taint, while warbands of human pirates took flamethrowers and vented their frustrations on farmland crops and beautiful works of art, petty vandalism at its most mindless; all of this went unchecked as the eldar battled for their very lives. The windrider hosts of sam-Haim cleansed the plains of these scurrying mon keigh vermin like big game hunters shooting hog from the back of chariots, but their jetbikes, falcons and vipers could not stray into the dense foliage of the forests, or the claustrophobic honeycombed interiors of the false mountain ranges.

The Red Corsairs were divided into formations of seven squads, with support vehicles, daemon engines and entire regiments of demented human slave-soldiers, and they entered the war in the bellies of corrupted stormbirds and other, less identifiable winged daemon things; bloated things like plucked foul, fused on some hideous level with prop planes and wasps. These odious things simply burst when struck by enemy fire, unleashing their slime-covered cargo of Astartes and slaves, who instantly went on the offensive.

The Terminus Est seemed invulnerable to damage, as it constantly pulled its ruined carcass together after even the most punishing bombardments. With almost disdainful patience, the Plague Marines onboard waited until the vessel was within dread claw range, and slowly piled into their maggot-infested drop ships, before they were fired into Biel-tan’s hull like poisoned darts smeared with toxic excreta. Once Typhus and his Death Guard followers were deployed, the Terminus Est leisurely moved back, to launch attacks upon the craftworld’s many anti-shipping turrets. It was said many chaos cruisers used the Est as a barricade between the withering fire of Biel-tan and themselves, their self-interested crew not willing to risk damaging themselves fighting the mighty alien vessel.

Huron remained aboard the Astral maw, observing his grand vision from afar. He had ordered a fraction of his fleet to leave the system, and send out telepathic signals to the maelstrom and to every den of chaotic psychopaths and mercenary opportunists in the Imperium. The message was simple; ‘Biel-tan is falling. The ancient vaults of riches and forbidden knowledge, long hoarded by our pointy-eared foe, shall be up for the taking. If you join Emperor Huron the Black heart in this grand feast, treasures beyond imagining shall be yours for the taking.’

The Death Guard marched deep into the craftworld. Before them marched thousands upon thousands of plague zombies. They were cannon fodder, to expend the enemy’s munitions and bog the fast moving eldar down in close quarters. The undead were easy prey to the eldar, but each time a living corpse fell, it leaked black ooze into the structure of Biel-tan. Each time, the vessel silently groaned in misery. Typhus and his Plague marines stomped through the knee-high rivers of blood and pus swilling around them. Their march was inexorable and irresistible. Weapons wounded them, but they did not fall until their bodies were utterly destroyed. With them, clouds of flies infested everything; spoiling mechanical systems, devouring sections of wraithbone support struts, and generally sabotaging everything with their gnawing, acidic bile. The host of the Destroyer Hive himself was a terrible force of unnatural power. His manreaper scythed down scores of eldar, while his mere gaze could whither the soul and gestate nests of maggots in the belly.

The Farseers remained in their dome of crystal seers, directing the war with the deft skill of orchestral composers. At some points, their warp powers would be unleashed directly; Warlocks would draw witchblades and burn through entire divisions with naught but their minds and their glowing force spears. Mind Wars, initiated by the Farseers, claimed the lives of key chaos commanders, leaving their hosts as mindless hordes of savages, crushing and killing with no direction. The windrider hosts and swordwind formations were in constant motion, guided to areas where the foe was weakest. There, the Dark reapers pulverised the heavy armour of their foes, while the Fire Dragons flooded in behind the enemy to destroy any stranglers, while the Dire Avengers and swooping hawks pinned enemy infantry in place with laser fire and shuriken; corralled and surrounded, the enemy formations were picked off by Banshee and Striking Scorpion assaults, before being unceremoniously bombed by passing aircraft, as they swept through the colossal bio-domes of the craftworld. The Aspect Warriors drew in foes by spreading themselves thinly. The enemy, thinking they were punching through pivotal battlelines, were actually being drawn into perfectly timed ambushes by their colourful eldar hosts.

But still the enemy came. Warp portals opened inside the craftworld, spilling tides of giggling nurglings, and plaguebearers, obsessed with counting all the manifest facets of decay and despair amongst those who fought and died aboard Biel-tan. Monstrous fly-shaped daemons, as large as thunderhawks, pulled their swollen thoraxes through the warp portals and began rampages of their own. Each drop of these monsters’ blood caused a nurgling to sprout from the ground like fetid potatoes. Slug-like beasts desperately tried to find companions to embrace, inadvertently dissolving all they touched. All these foul abominations were herded into realspace by seven towering masses of rotting bilge and ichor; obese horrors literally bursting at the seams with maggots and gangrenous matter. The largest of these great Unclean wretches was Ku’Gath Plaguefather. While Huron’s forces desired the destruction of the craftworld, Ku’Gath and his dameons desired one thing above all others. They wished to reach the Infinity circuit. They wished to devour all the dead eldar souls trapped there, forlornly awaiting apotheosis. The sluggish host was slow, but it was inexorable.

Autarch Lanquelliqn led from the front, though kept in constant psychic contact with every commander under her control. She bore the weapons of her many paths as a warrior, combining them together as she combined the aspects of Khaine and Asuryan into one glorious whole. She bore the wings of a swooping hawk, the fusion pistol of the fire dragons, a screaming mask and an executioner, the great double-headed spear of the Banshees. With these weapons, she was a child of war itself, swift and lethal as a lightning storm. Even as she discussed secondary strategies with the far distant Farseers, she simultaneously cut down the champions of the enemy wherever she found them. She beheaded the Blood Knight Cullan, as he desperate tried to savage her neck and drink deep of her vitae. His corpse was carried high into the air, and cast down into the mass of the invaders contemptuously. She even faced the corpulent might of the Herald Epidemus, but his nurgling assistants prevented her from landing the final, banishing blow, and she was forced to fly off to face some other foe.

From the relative safety of the inner levels, the majority populace of Biel-tan watched the horrific sight of war wash over every viewscreen and portal-image. They saw ancient forests, that had taken millennia to mature, burning in a hundred feet pyres, that illuminated their world with eerie hell-light. Tears cam unbidden to the eyes of the eldar as they watched artwork destroyed, and guardians broken over the knees of mon keigh super soldiers, and thrown atop pyres themselves. Every minute, more and more eldar flocked to join the fight. Those had never walked the warrior’s path before flooded into the guardian temples, while former aspect warriors rushed to reaffirm their chosen path, taking up the war mask once more.

The eldar pleaded with the Farseer high council to let the God of War loose amongst the defiling chaos forces. However, the farseers rebuked them for their desperate haste. Ever since the rise of Khaine in the east, the elda rof biel-tan dared not awaken their avatar, the last unrecovered shard of Khaine. The avatar might share the risen god’s madness, and might turn upon his very own craftworld. No, they resolved that the avatar of Biel-tan would remain where it was, chained to its shrine at the very heart of the worldship, bound and inanimate. One eldar, a young bonesinger called Relieath, ignored this decree. He snuck away from his overseers, and set off on a stolen skiff, to the abandoned centre of the craftworld. There, the heart of Biel-tan throbbed like an ominous drumbeat. The blood rushed in the boy’s ears, and he felt his soul yearning for carnage and bloodletting. But he held back the thoughts, as he slipped into the inner sanctum of the shrine.

There, chained to his great throne, sat a ten foot tall statue, dull as black iron. Huge chains bounds its wrists, manacles grasped its ankles tightly, and shackled his neck like a hound’s collar. The face was frozen, seemingly mid-scream. Though there was no heat source in the chamber, it felt warm as a blacksmith’s yard, and the thunderous rhythm of Khaine’s heart, of the heart of every eldar, was nearly deafening there. Relieath looked up at the towering figure, his own body thin and weak as a reed, while the avatar was muscular and angular as no eldar’s body could ever be. Relieath somehow knew he would be the Young King, the sacrifice. He found himself walking towards the giant, drawn forwards. He did not resist. He simply closed his eyes before the end, and whispered “Save us. Be the hero your brother believed you might once have been.” Then came fire, and then Relieath was no more.

Meanwhile, the battle was turning against the eldar above. Huron was bringing more and more reinforcements into the system, from across the sector and beyond. Not just daemons and human reavers, but strange alien ships flocked to Biel-tan. Some came to settle old grudges they had with the eldar from before the time of man, others came simply to pillage and loot.

Worse still, the great unclean ones and their slowly marching legions were burrowing through Biel-tan, layer after layer, leaving a odious trail of dissolved bulkheads, rotted forests and syrupy bilge in their wake. Like poison in a man’s veins, the hordes of Ku’Gath were flooding towards the craftworld’s heart. The main eldar population centre was the only thing standing in their way. The seven greater daemons could not be stopped by the magicks of the farseers, or the precision strikes of the aspect warriors. Only teams of fire dragons, fighting in shifts, could even slow the advance, by burning any rotten thing approaching their lines.

But even the disciples of Fuegan could not stop Ku’gath and his six brothers rolling over the battle lines like obscene molluscs. The colossal fat abominations tipped voer towers, and crushed war walkers with their bulk. Their flabby webbed feet smashed anyone who wasn’t swift enough to escape their careless advance. Vomit poured from their mouths in endless streams, dissolving screaming guardians in seconds. All the while, they shed nurglings like beads of sweat, and chuckled sonorously as the creatures frolicked about them. Eldar vehicles were tossed around like toys, flung high into the air, before smashing into eldar shelters. Ku’Gath himself hefted a falcon grav tank above his antlers, and sent it hurtling towards a column of retreating civilians.

It never landed. A burning sword chopped it from the air, as the bio dome echoed with a deafening roar; a roar of purest righteous fury, from the throat of an undying god. The grav tank exploded, showering the avatar with smouldering wreckage. But the avatar was a being of molten metal, with veins of fire and eyes of glowing embers. The wailing doom of the Biel-tan avatar was a double-handed great sword, as tall as the avatar itself. He swept the blade around him in a complex flourish, before he lowered the tip of the blade to point at the seven advancing daemons. The avatar growled, a sound that made the hearts of the eldar stiffen in instinctual fear. However, his rage was not directed at them, but at the corpulent monsters that defiled his world. Ku’Gath laughed at the avatar.

“Little god! You are a pup, a nothing. Do you think you can challenge the might of the Grandfather? Of your sister, Isha...? Biel-tan is ours now” the fiend grinned, revealing row upon row of blackened fangs.

The avatar wasted no time with words, but rushed forwards at once, snatching up a downed viper bike in one hand, before hurling it into one of the great unclean ones. It plunged through the sagging flesh of the beast, and exploded inside it, making the monster howl in bitter mirth, ichor bubbling from the ethereal wound. The avatar didn’t even slow his pace, but bounded forwards with his sword held before him. Ku’Gath’s smile was forgotten then, as he drew his corroded blade of rust, and his brothers did likewise.

The Biel-tan avatar fought them, all seven of them. He struck down the wounded daemon first, beheading it with his first blow, before blocking the counterattacks of its fellows. His rage was awful to behold. The daemons sought to poison him with their ichors and vomit, but the warp fluids burnt and fizzed as they met the cauterising heat of the avatar’s metal flesh. He lashed out with fists and knees and the ever wailing doom. His wounds scorched their horrible hides, and prevented the daemon stuff from re-knitting. It was said the avatar breathed fire on the daemons, like a dragon of the old times. Each time the fat beasts tried to surround the metal giant, he carved his way out of their ambush. Ku’Gath managed, at last, to land a forceful blow on the avatar, flinging him bodily through a slender eldar tower, which splintered like a glass sculpture. He darted aside as Ku’gath tried to stomp his head into ruin, and hacked the offending limb away with a contemptuous backhand. Ku’Gath stumbled, sagging over a downed reaver titan, as his remaining allies charged the avatar.

The protector of Biel-tan bisected another great unclean one, letting its mouldering innards bubbled and dissolve back into the warp. The daemons were powered by the despair of the eldar, but the avatar was fuelled by their righteous wrath, and the more he defeated them, the more the eldar dared to hope, and the greater the avatar’s power grew.

As the awestruck eldar watched, the avatar bested greater daemon after greater daemon, until at last, only Ku’Gath remained. Before the avatar could banish the great unclean one, a flock of blight drones emerged from the nurglitch slop, and fired upon the fragment of war god. In the time it took the avatar to destroy the daemonic drones, Ku’Gath had melted a hole through the floor, and fled to another section of the craftworld.

The avatar roared in frustration, hefting his sword skywards as he did. To the being’s surprise, the eldar emerged from the ruins, and raised their weapons with him, and screamed with him. He was the rallying point the eldar needed, and they followed him as he took the fight to the upper levels, where the stink of chaos was most potent. A few eldar noticed that the avatar’s hand did not run red with the blood of eldanesh. This was taken as a good omen by the farseers, who redoubled their efforts to rout chaos from their home.

As the battle developed, the avatar would have more battles,a nd the siege of Biel-tan would escalate. The portals to the maiden and exodite worlds, closed by the Biel-tan elda to protect their rustic allies, were reactivated from the exodite end. From these portals, thousands of dragon riders flew, sweeping into the war without hesitation. When Lanquelliqn asked the leader of the exodites why, he told her, “Too long have you had to save us from the horrors of the galaxy. It is high time we repaid our debts, would you not say?”

And the exodites did not come alone. The eldar of the maiden worlds had formed the leadership castes of many hundreds of human civilisations, and these empires declared for Biel-tan, and made their allegiance known, by bringing their war fleets into the battle against Huron’s ever expanding hordes.

As for the Blackheart; his forces were also massing, but they grew too fast for him to control. He found himself merely a participant in his own battle. He was (though he could never admit it) merely a bit player in a wider war now. The war had escalated beyond his control, and forces from across the galaxy were massing around Biel-tan. Like the Primarch War, Khaine’s war and the Cyclopean campaign, Biel-tan was becoming the focal point for the final battle; a battle so large, no mortal could possibly see the full extent of it.

• (It was said the bloody-prince was so deranged, he obsessively carried a female human familiar around with him, despite the fact the mortal had died years ago, at his hand. The demented former Blood Angel was blissfully unaware of this, and constantly asked the cadaver’s opinion on every matter, while lavishing his affections on the dried human husk.)

The Ambush at Charadon:

Across the Eastern galaxy, a god of war and fire was in ascendancy. Kaela Mensha Khaine had built his army of mortals and daemons, and with them his war had raged across the stars, sweeping away the unprepared and the incautious. His armies were composed of vessels the monstrous entity had devised himself, and each of his warriors were outfitted with ancient weapons, reminiscent of old Eldar weapon systems, but more ornate and angular than the organic technology of the Craftworlds. Grav vehicles, crafted like heavier, more robust cousins of eldar craft, heat lances and blaster rifles and exotic weapons of all fashions; all were crafted in the war god’s forge ships. Daemons summoned by his minions were moulded by the preconceptions of Khaine’s mortal servants. Bloodletters started to be born into the materium shaped like bestial aspect warriors, compelte with sculptural alien armour that glowed with internal fire. Great dameons of khorne summoned by Khaine’s men no longer resembled bat-winged minotaurs, but were more like iron-skinned giants, riding upon blade chariots, pulled by winged gargoyles and spiny daemonic dragons.

Khaine channelled the berserker rage of khorne into a focussed, ferociously lethal army of conquest and murder.

It became apparent to the great powers of the Eastern Fringe, that Khaine could not adequately be opposed by any single power; his forces were terrible enough, but when he himself took to the field, they were all but unstoppable. When Folkar, one of the thirteen regents of Nova-Ultramar, discovered Khaine was being stalemated at Schindelgheist by Krork, the ancient Astartes realised this was the time to act. He sent word to whatever nearby factions who were still unconquered, and requested they send representatives to a great parlay point. To prove his good-will, Folkar invited them to pick the precise location of this meeting.

Eventually, word returned to him, and the meeting place was set; an abandoned Orkish hulk, located deep in the untamed wilderness of Charadon. Ever since the scouring of the new Devourer, the Charadon sector had been a wasteland of little value to any invading petty Imperiums or empires. On the face of it, it was an adequate meeting point.

Fully one year later, the ancient, empty hulk, found itself host to this fledging meeting of minds. The largest internal chamber of the hulk was cleared of all vileness, and fashioned into a perfect, hollowed out, polished basalt cube, centred around a solid circle of adamantium, with four positions arrayed around it.

Four fleets came to the Charadon hulk; an Ultramar empire task force, a Tau rapid deployment force from the Farsight/Hopeshield alliance, followed by a battlefleet of the Realm of Fathers, and finally, a Killing Cruiser of the War of Krork. The four factions for the meet deployed their representatives, alongside small honour guards. Folkar teleported into the chamber with a taller Nova Astartes captain of the Warrior Kings, and a force of twenty Ultramarine Terminators. The Krork representative was the Warlord Ulchaeru himself. The Krork was easily taller than even a terminator, and his advanced scale-mail armour glistened as he moved. He was flanked by two fractionally smaller Krork of the Noble class (authorial note: these elite classes were once called ‘Nobs’ in orkish parlance, as a point of interest), with their heavy beam weapons held tightly to their slab-like chests. One could not read the expression of the Krork, for they each bore fully enclosed helmets with baleful sensor lenses in place of eyes. The Tau representative was called M’yen’Yuru, and she was one of the new M’yen psyker caste of the Tau. She was easily the smallest attendant of the meeting, for she was slightly smaller than an average human. By contrast, the elegant N’drasi battlesuit that stood beside her was huge, and though its body seemed smooth and unadorned, everyone in the meeting knew it contained a plethora of internal weapon systems that would make a Mechanicus cultist salivate. The last participant in this gathering was a surprise to most of the members. A realm of Fathers Magus emerged from the shadows, flanked by ten purestrain genestealers. One of the genestealers was larger than the others. Unlike the bloated Patriarchs that ruled the Realm, this one was sleek and muscular, like a broodlord, with carapace covered in swirling high gothic script, painstakingly etched in place by its servants. At first, the other members thought the genestealers were feral remnants of the hulk’s previous occupants, but the Magus raised his hands and declared they were the representatives of the Patriarchal Realm, and explained he would be their translator. The broodlord’s name was apparently ‘Militae Vater’, a high commander of one of the Trygonis Legions.

None of the four different historical accounts of this meeting mention precisely what was said at this meeting, but it was eventually decided that they were strong together. The Tau had the most advanced technology and the fastest ships, which could help the logistics of the war effort, and more easily unify their disparate factions. The Realm of Fathers brought incredible production capacities and population expansion to the table. Meanwhile, the Krork brought with them exceptional warfighting knowledge and experience; they would never tire and never relent in battle, and instinctively countered any advantage an enemy could bring. Meanwhile, while the Ultramarines also had extensive fighting knowledge, and the legendary might of the Space Marines, their primary advantage was that they were sons of Guilliman, and shared his masterful ability to alloy all these distinctive advantages into a single, well-oiled fighting machine. They could organise and administer this dissimilar alliance in a way none of the others could match.

Thus, the Fringe Alliance was formed.

Their first joint action however, came sooner than any of them had anticipated.

Khaine’s army had followed the progress of the four factions and had detected their arrival at a common point in the Charadon sector. As the allies had congregated there, Khaine’s forces had quietly allowed them to gather. Discreetly, the semi-daemonic conquerors encircled the system, breaking the warp on the very outskirts of the sector, so as to go undetected until the very last moment. This force was led by General Voshk, a possessed warrior in Khaine’s all conquering host. Though Khaine was not present in person, he had simple orders for Voshk; destroy all four factions, and behead their command. He meant to strangle the Fringe Alliance at birth.

Voshk’s ships struck with speed and ferocity. He had at his command a dozen Khainite leviathan craft, escorted by the captured fleet elements captured and repurposed during khaine’s wars. The ambush caught the allies completely off guard; dozens of vessels were destroyed before thye could even raise their shields. Fortunately, the Tau’s passive sensors detected the Leviathans moments before they unleashed their fury on the alliance flagships, and were able to communicate this information to the rest of the allies just in time to avoid total catastrophe. Shields were raised across the fleet. This meant that the delegates at the heart of the hulk were stranded, until such time as shuttles could reach the surface.

The Tau Enlightened class starships retaliated at range, unleashing relativistic weaponry, lasers and missiles beyond count. Meanwhile, the Kill Cruiser rushed to close the distance, and unleash powerful macro-batteries on the Khainite foe. The Realm of Fathers vessels turned to broadside in unison (the eerie precision of the hybrids was commented upon often throughout the histories), while the gladius frigates prepared their boarding torpedoes for close action. Soon enough, all the ships in orbit around the hulk were engaging the invaders. However, Voshk’s leviathan managed to punch through the lines.

The delegates at the heart of the hulk got a brief warning, before Voshk began jamming all signals:

++ The enemy have landed considerable assets on hulk surface. They mean to destroy you. ++

It was imperative that the leaders of the alliance survived. As soon as the transmission was received, Folkar resolved to fight his way clear of the invaders. He primed his storm bolter, and activated the Gauntlet of Ultramar, while his bodyguards primed their own weapons. The other delegates concurred. M’yen’Yuru activated a device on her wrist, and the mk XXXII battlesuit’s torso section unfurled, revealing a cockpit built specifically for Yuru, which she dutifully entered, as it closed around her snugly. Ulchaeru nodded to his bodyguards, and drew his power axe from his thigh-sheath, alongside his plasma blaster.

“My compatriots, my weapon systems are of no use in such close confines. I fear I will be useless to you until we reach the surface,” Yuru lamented.

“We will form a tight formation, centred on the battlesuit. Your dreadnought armour shall be sufficient for the task yes?” Ulchaeru asked Folkar, who nodded.

“This armor was built for hulk-work,” he grinned. “We have much experience.”

“As do we.”

The small voice of the Magus made Ulchaeru and Folkar turn towards the human, and his hulking genestealer masters.

“Of course you do...” Folkar was said to have muttered under his breath; every son of Ultramar was cognizant of the legends of old Imperium and the space hulk wars.

Then Folkar had an idea.

In space, the larger scale of the Khainite fleet was taking its toll. The Tau starships only had so many weapon systems, and could only engage a certain number of targets. The Gladius frigates had almost taken collision courses against one specific Leviathan, which destroyed most of the frigates, but not untilt hey had all launched their boarding torpedoes into the flank of the targeted enemy ship. After only a few minutes of combat, the space marines inside formed a bridgehead, desperately holding off the well-disciplined forces of Khaine as they sought to drive them off.

In the hulk, the terminators formed two teams of ten, one covering the forwards positions, the other the rearguard, while the impotent battlesuit marched in the middle, carrying the diminutive Magus, and the Krork covered the terminators by aiming over their wide shoulders. The khainite soldiers flooded through the narrow, winding passages of the hulk, converging upon the dense formation making its way to the surface.

Combat was close, noisy and brutal. Each skirmish in the narrow tunnels was a frenzy of energy blasts, whirring chainfists and crackling power fists. The terminators were struck again and again, but always gave back ten times worse than they received, filling the chambers around them with explosive bolts and broken bodies. The krork hurled grenades over their shoulders, carving through the infantry massing by each bulkhead. However, the formation as getting surrounded by heavy weapon teams, who were preparing to strike them in the flank when they were forced to pass their intersection; a perfect chokepoint and killzone. Unfortunately for those weapon teams, the terminators were not the only force they faced. The purestrains were stealthy and fast, and almost unparalleled in the field of close quarters killing. Entire squads of Khainites simply vanished from the map; silently dragged off and consumed by the inhuman terrors. Genestealers and terminators were the two greatest hulk fighting forces in history; together, they were superlative. The Astartes were the anvil, and the genestealers the hammer. The genestealers were horrifically demoralising to the enemy, who actively fled from their terror. The aliens herded their foes, right into storm bolter gunlines, while flamer barrages pushed back enemy forces, who were in turn ambushed from behind by the stealers.

Only three terminators fell during the brutal march to the surface, while a mere handful of the genestealers perished. In contrast, the Khainites lost hundreds, and fell back on all fronts, massing towards their camp on the surface.

Meanwhile, the Kill-cruiser was dying. Great chunks had been torn from its sides, air leaked from it to freeze in the void, and it was slowly losing orbit around one of the jungle planets of the system. Eagerly, the Khainites chased the ship, as its crew bailed out into the forests, making sure to detonate their cruiser in orbit, spilling the ruined technology across a fifty mile radius. The Khainites’ objectives were to murder every single being who gathered for the meeting, and thus they followed the krorks, deploying their ground forces into multiple kill teams of raving, daemon-infested murderers.

The rest of the alliance fleet were in trouble too, for the Leviathans were heavily armed and numerous. They could strike at the unprotected vectors of each ship, crippling many of them without suffering significant return fire in kind. The Astartes aboard one of the leviathans had managed to sweep the gun decks clear of life, but reserve forces trapped them on those same decks. Soon enough, withering gunfire and frantic close combat took their toll on the space marines, reducing them to a mere thirty three soldiers. Rather than be captured or executed, they strapped metal charges to the macro cannon shells and nuclear warheads in the gun decks’ arsenals. With a silent prayer to the Emperor, they detonated them, and ripped open the starboard side of the Leviathan, effectively mission-killing it. The tale of the ‘valiant thirty three’ would be remembered for the rest of Ultramar’s history.

On the hulk’s surface, the advantage of the Terminators was lost. Likewise, the genestealers, out in the open, had to flee into the protection of the space marines, who formed a defensive ring around the surviving delegates. Voshk’s had an entire army surrounding the group, spewing lethal firepower into the tiny formation. One by one, the terminators began to fall, bodies fused solid by repeated melta fire. Folkar clenched his gauntlet, and prepared to sell his life dearly. He would perish as Captain Invictus of Old. Ulchaeru simply grunted; he didn’t care whether he was remembered, yet he was pleased to die fighting against significant odds, beneath the naked void, amidst looming starship corpses, embedded in the rocky hulk like dead cities.

M’Yen’Yuru had other ideas. At last, thebattlesuit could stand upright, and loom over the rest of the group.

“Kneel down my friends. I have the situation in hand,” she explained simply.

Moments later, the battlesuit surged upwards on flaming jets. As it rose, it attracted the firepower rof the Khainites, but instantly countermeasures and force fields deployed around its smooth form, creating a shroud of flame around the war machine. Then, it returned fire. Missile launchers opened in its shoulders, and a thousand guided projectiles corkscrewed through the thin atmosphere, to strike and destroy each heavy weapon emplacement of the enemy, as sonic mines burst from chest-mounted launchers, deafening and disorientating the enemy, causing them to pause in their bombardment. The battlesuit punished them for this with its secondary armaments. Laser weapons emerged from the wrists, slicing enemy warriors into a thousand cauterised gobbets, railrifles appeared in each mechanical fist of the suit, launching hypersonic projectiles into the Khainites, that exploded with neutronic sub-munitions. The suit fired all this in mid-air, as it span three hundred and sixty degrees, to cover the maximum number of targets. But Yuru’s weapons were more than merely physical. She lashed out with her psyker mind, enhanced by the in-built psonic-amplifiers of the suit, and scorched the minds of the surviving enemies.

Eventually, the jetpack deactivated, and she landed to the ground with a dull boom, as her feet impacted with the compressed stone of the hulk. The entire exchange had lasted only seventy two seconds. Her newfound allies were briefly speechless. This moment was forgotten soon after, as the surviving Khainites began to fire once more. However, this time their fire was not as concentrated or coordinated. The temrinators broke formation, and rushed the Khainites as they lay in disarray. Vater led his genestealers through the gunsmoke and the carnage, screeching hideously as he ripped out arms, tore open ribcages and twisted off heads with the calm ferocity of an apex predator.

On the forest world, the daemon knights of Khaine scoured the jungles for their quarry. However, they had not anticipated that the planet’s native inhabitants might have a quarrel with them. The planet, like most in the Charadon sector, was home to many tribes of feral orks, the backward kin of the krork. A cruiser suddenly dropping millions of tons of war material intot heir laps had fired up the feral orks into a frenzy, and millions of them rushed the Khainite kill teams as they stalked the jungles. After slaying the warboss of the ferals, the krork commanders took control of the orks, and called them to (and I quote); ‘War! Waaar! Waaaaaargh!’

Needless to say, things did not go well for Khaine’s ground forces.

A Realm of Fathers cruiser finally managed to reach the hulk’s surface, and launched its fighters upon the Khainite ground forces, in support of the terminators and genestealers on the ground. Amidst the confusion and the fire, Folkar inadvertently met Voshk himself in single combat. The two battled for only a few minutes, but the regent was utterly outclassed by the towering half-daemon, clad in the broken bones of the civilisations he helped to crush. The General had a sword of living fire, and a flanged mace covered in snarling faces. Folkar desperately deflected the blows of Voshk, but he was like a whirlwind and soon Folkar was smashed from his feet, landing in a broken heap. He might have died then, if Ulchaeru had not leapt into combat with the daemon-knight, power axe glittering as he hammered blow after blow against Voshk’s vambraces. Voshk managed to slam an elbow into the krork’s face, ripping his helmet free, to reveal the tusked face of the Warlord, who responded with a sudden head butt to the faceplate of the general. They both stumbled away from each other, and as the swirling melee closed in around them, the two lost sight of each other.

The realm of Fathers ship managed to evacuate most of the delegates, before it was forced to flee the system, along with those scant few ships that had survived the trap. Though they left broken nd burning, the Fringe Alliance technically won their first major battle. General Voshk was reprimanded for failing Khaine, and given one last chance to prove himself worthy. Meanwhile, the Fringe Alliance had been forged in blood and battle; a bond few could hope to break.

Together, the Fringe Alliance looked to the might of Khaine. Defeating his armies was one thing, but how does one kill a god?

The Last Rites of Gheden:

(This section was primarily cultivated from memory banks located in the tomb of Baldarro. It is said they were taken from the lifeless skull of a relic-necron. I have embellished some details which would otherwise be unintelligible to an uninitiated scholar, let alone a lay reader. Forgive me for this over simplification.)

It is said that the Lingering palace of the Umbral Lord, Qah, was cut off from all the threads of the world, a sight unseen by any mundane mortal being. Indeed, through his long exhile fromt he warp, his sub-realm had been severed from the labyrinth dimension, the structure that bound the many worlds and pocket universes that populated the boundary between reality and madness. Yet, Qah had rejoined and built new tunnels through the actuality of the universe; secret routes hidden from all save the Hrud, his loyal wardens and librarians, and the multi-hued dancers of his strange and fractious ally.

It was here that Szarekh was led, along with the Praetorians of his long-broken Triarch. They were relatively few, but they had remained loyal, throughout all his trials and travails, his deaths and rebirths and reformations. They trusted the Silent King, and he them. Ever had it been thus. But they trusted the shadowy xenos of Qah’s patronage warily, and trusted the capricious eldar even less so. But Szarekh vouched for the lingering one. No being, save for creatures infested with the blood-madness that came with the infection of the primordial annihilator, desired eternal war; war was only ever a transitional phase for most races. A means to an end. But there would always be an end. Even the last of the eldest ones [ O forgive him, for he is young and foolish. He does not know what he does ] could not conceive of an eternal enmity for the necrontyr. Szarekh offered him peace, in exchange for life.

And in the shade-laboratories and cloistered dens of the warrens of Qah, there lay the key. The necrons were a disturbing sight for the palace-dwellers at first. Even the walls shuddered at the presence of mirror devils, so close to the heart of their great works. For once, the coiling banner sof the harlequin mimes lay still. The Hrud, scuttling things sheathed in blackness, kept out of the path of the marching necrons and their half-living lord. There were darker, twisted shadows amongst the hrud, but not of hrud stock; things that moved through the dark like oil through pitch, only the occasional glimpse of shifting runes marking their passage. Other figures; brooding giants in hooded robes, watched their passage with unknowable expressions, hidden behind their inscrutable ceramite helms.

Szarekh ignored them all. The quarrel was as old as recorded history, and he had no more stomach for the endless, grinding war. He was willing to bargain, but first he had to see what he offered first.

Eventually, he came to a perfect dark chamber. He knew it was ancient; older than himself, which was an unsettling feeling for a Necrontyr. Once he stepped within, he was alone. The darkness closed around him. His Praetorians were prevented from entering with him. Soon, he began to make out the shapes of things in the dark, before they finally resolved as clear images. It is impossible for me to convey the nature of this sight, for a mortal can only comprehend images created by light. Nothing illuminated the chamber, and yet every detail within was visible. Szarekh could see row upon row of cylindrical pods, and the exotic machinery of such complexity a cryptek would be hard-pressed to divine its functions or parameters. The achiness fluctuated in size as they were observed, as if unwilling to be truly quantified.

But in any case, the chamber was perfectly visible, yet utterly dark; visible, except for one corner of the chamber, which could never be seen. Slowly, as this perfect, blinding dark radiated to fill the shape of a humanoid, Szarekh knew who this figure was.

“Qah. That is the title you chose, wasn’t it? Qah; ancient Hrudi for ‘He who Lingers’. Really, that’s no more a true name than ‘Emperor’ is the true name of the human anathema we call-[translation error? I don’t possess the phonetics to decipher the phrase following ‘call’].”

Qah, as ever, said nothing, but Szarekh knew what the figure said to him. Somehow the unsaid was liminal in the palace of shadows and whispers. Qah confirmed Szarekh’s suspicions, and welcomed the King as a fellow veteran of the First and Only War; the war in which all other conflicts are but a tributary of the great flowing river that sundered heaven. Within the tanks, Qah revealed the preserved, living bodies of... humans. Thousands of them, all pale and cold, yet living on all the same. Szarekh knew these things too.

“Pariahs. The seeds of the C’tan, sown as weapons for the war against the young races and the warp,” Szarekh concluded, unimpressed. But Qah explained; the Silent King was only partially correct. The pariahs had been created by the C’tan, and the Dragon had long set his mind to monitoring the results for as long as there had been ancestral human species in existence, until war and the Blackstones had laid him low, and the anathema had added a final humiliation upon him. But the Pariahs were not weapons against the young races. They were intended to have souls shielded from the warp; their souls were intended to deny the fuel to the fires of the disjunction-entities [Assumption: daemons/chaos?]. The eldest ones [ever-loving. Praise them and despair] had tried a similar process through Illumination and the binding of the essence into the body. But the Pariah was too accomplished at its role, and was made loathsome by its soullessness. This meant it almost died out in humanity; selected out by evolution due to its disadvantageous properties.

But Szarekh had no time for this lecture, and demanded to be told what this meant for his race. Qah, eventually, acceded to his demand.

Meanwhile, in the realm of reality, where analogy did not manifest as glorious landscapes, the few Necrons that retained their ancient Necrontyr memories, gathered together around the last of the Phaeron high council, within the Dynasty of the much-maligned Nihilakh. Even the Tomb World of Zantragorra managed, somehow, to teleport itself into the same sector as this realm, to gain some benefit from the umbrella of protection and stability the Phaerons provided. This Dynasty maintained fifteen major Tomb Worlds, hundreds of lesser Tomb Complexes, and roughly a thousand serf worlds, where organic slave races were corralled and controlled by Necron Lords. The necrons had found themselves contracting into this dense, defensible region, for the galaxy was growing sick. Realspace seemed to be bruised in several regions, and wounded in others. The things that poured out of these rents in reality were septic to life itself; the malformed daemons, neverborn and warp entities crafted in desperation by the children of the First. Though the necrons were mighty indeed, they were a much diminished power since the days of the War in heaven. They could no longer fight a war on multiple fronts. The Krork and the humans bred too swiftly, and clung tenaciously to any planets they infested. Khaine, who the necrons had only ever managed to stalemate in battle during the height of their power, was returned and was nigh unstoppable by then. But worst of all were the Draziin-maton, for whenever the necrons faced them, no self-reanimation protocols could safe them.

But the necrons were immortal, and their machinery, if properly maintained, could last until the heat death of the universe. The necrons could wait out the young races once more; let them be eaten by their abominable creations, and then let those abominations starve through lack of soul-meat. The necrons decided to fortify their final Dynasty, and simply wait.

Alas, if only it were that simple.

Of all the necrons’ myriad foes, by far their most dangerous and tenaciously vindictive one was an abomination they had allowed to exist through sheer neglect. This foe was known to the Necrons only as the Empire of the Severed. The master controller program for the tomb world of Sarkon, had gone rogue in the last years of M41; deleting the minds of its masters and assuming direct control of every necron and canoptek construct on Sarkon. This ‘Sarkoni Emperor’ then began to spread to other worlds, slowly and inexorably deleting the minds and subsuming the bodies of any necrons who sought to oppose it. The automatons of sarkon were hollow0eyed. They no longer glowed with internal green light, as the true necrons did. They were absent and cold; even the Dynastic necrons had a remnant of their past lives, a fragment of their culture and their great minds, preserved in living silver. But the things that marched with the will of the master controller were robots, artificial in every sense.

By the time of the Age of Dusk, the Severed spanned entire sectors of the galactic core, spreading eastwards, swallowing up necron strongholds and organic settlements alike. The necrons were purged, and the organics were infested with mindshackle scarabs, rendering them near-mindless puppets of the Sarkoni Emperor. Even Dragon Tide fleets would succumb to the Severed, and soon enough, the Dragon Tides seemed to vanish from the galactic stage (though one would argue they vanished at the behest of the Dragon, who had new goals for his slave machines).

The Dynastic Necrons had gone to great lengths to hide their whereabouts from the Severed, and had destroyed any Dolmen Gates located near to Severed strongholds. Yet, still the Sarkoni Emperor found them.

It would be a mistake to call the Severed incursion an invasion. It would be more accurate to call it a great silver flood. It began with wave upon wave of ships bursting from the warp. Trillions of mindshackled puppets manned millions of different alien vessels, cobbled together from dozens of enslaved civilisations. The necron defences instantly activated; aeonic orbs induced solar flares that consumed thousands of ships, particle annihilators carved even more into bisected strap-metal, tachyon impalers killed beings through seven dimensions and gauss grids flayed entire squadrons of escorts into nothingness. But with each wave, though thousands of ships were vanished, millions upon millions still flooded into the systems. There seemed little strategy to this relentless, mindless pilgrimage. The crews of the vessels were silent, and cared little about their own ships as they fired every weapon they had in all directions. Some accelerated to high fractions of c, and simply ploughed directly into tomb worlds and serf worlds alike, turning atmospheres to plasma and vaporising themselves and anyone on the same hemisphere as they impacting vessels.

The necron naval force had been brought under the control of Thazar the Invincible. His tomb ships, jackals, scythes and cairn class vessels and doom scythes made light work of the suicidal invaders. He destroyed each vessel with cold, arrogant efficiency. At first, this invasion seemed like a pathetic attempt by the Severed to overcome the mighty Phaeron Council. Bt they had not counted upon the resilience of the necron portals stored in the holds of each and every slave-ship. Even as the ramshackle shells of the vessels were flayed away like flaking skin, their portals within were activated, feeding from the energy of Thazar’s own weapons. Once activated, the Severed incursion began. Necron portals were wormholes, which instantly connected two points in spacetime together. From these quarter-miles, free-floating portals swarmed the Canoptek hordes. Millions of canoptek spyders, billions of wraiths, and quadrillions of canoptek scarabs poured from these portals like living silver shoals of sardine in some great, dark ocean. Thazar looked upon the grand swarm, and was reminded of the last days of the War in Heaven, before the sleep, where the scarab swarms devoured the K’nib homeworlds in a single week of self-replicating oblivion. Thazar had long forgotten the mortal twinge of fear, but in that moment, his android brain struggled to process his anomalous neural functions. Tombships unleashed gigatons of impossible energy into silver masses stream into the sector like poison seeping into a hundred septic cuts. These blasts barely phased the swarms, before they engulfed ship after ship in a suffocating silver cloud.

Slowly but surely, Thazar and his fleet was forced to retreat to a second line of defence. The orbital defence platforms and aeonic orbs were consumed whole by the canoptek host, and broken down into raw material to create more scarabs and wraiths. Following the canoptek, eventually the Severed tombships silently drew themselves through the portals to join in the feast. Mindshackles were sprayed into the upper atmospheres of countless organic serf-world, like pesticide spread over a tainted crop field. Aliens screamed in horror as wriggling metal insects burrowed into their brains via any available orifice, rendering them helpless slaves to a single, indomitable will.

Across the united dynasty, the necrons retreated, until the commanders found the one world safe from the Severed’s assaults; the transphasic world of Gheden. Here the Phaeron Council, Thazar the Invincible, Orikan the Diviner, Illuminor Szeras and the other high rulers of the necrons brooded over strategy and how they might escape their relentless foe. The dolmen gates were down, or else swarming with Severed canoptek constructs. The delusional Nemesor Zahndrekh led the defence of the Gheden tomb world whenever it phased briefly into reality. Only Zahndrekh did not fear the severed, for he had no idea he was facing the severed. Yet, despite the fact the old madman thought his foes were old necrontyr rivals from ancient times, somehow, he and his bodyguard Obyron knew they had to keep the enemy at a distance. Their dense phalanxes of warriors and immortals were kept mobile by constantly moving between monolith and night scythe portals; firing swiftly and accurately, before darting back through glowing green passages. Each time a severed managed to touch a dynastic necron, it bonded with it, and deleted the mindstate inside. This turned the necron into another husk, another severed foe to face.

In the central command centre, the necron Lords watched a hundred hologrammic images, each showing a battlefield of silent silver android slaying each other over and over again. On airless moons, they marched. Across the void, naval battles raged at impossible distances, while callous infantry battles were fought across the very skin of the ships themselves. Every move made by the Severed was like the movement of a chess piece, every reaction to a counterassault calculated and enacted without haste or imagination. Infinitely complex strategies, tried and tested over millions of years were played out. Every opening gambit was exhausted, every play predicted and countered by the opposing force. Zahndrekh coordinated the dynastic armies with the dynamic creativity only a living mind could conjure; his brilliance was balanced by the sheer weight of numbers and tenacity of the Severed. They could not be stopped, only slowed. They could not be forced to surrender, only smashed to pieces or vaporized.

Slowly, like the slow encroach of eternity, the Severed were gaining ground. Non-tomb worlds were being dissolved by scarab swarms to build ever more Severed constructs, which were thrown into the tornado of living steel that was the sector-wide battlefront.

Then, the conflict changed. From unseen portals, new ships attacked the Sarkoni swarms from unforeseen vectors. The fleet was huge and perplexingly, it was composed of both necron vessels, and the organically-smooth vessels of the eldar; some were graceful like underwater sea creatures, while others were shaped like cruel knives, blackened by fire. This fleet unleashed hell on the Severed, and successfully punched their way through the living metal blockade surrounding the increasingly squeezed Dynastic Necron forces of Gheden.

On the planet’s surface, Zahndrekh suddenly found himself with new allies; Triarch Praetorians teleported into the heart of the fighting, rods of covenant blazing as they laid into the severed with utter ferocity. They were joined by armies of Commorrite eldar, blasters and dark lances scouring necrons to ash with every shot, as well as the capering harlequins, whose dancing was utterly lethal to the advancing necrons, as they severed their bodies, and scattered the broken remnants to prevent reanimation protocols. Zahndrekh’s tomb blades and doomscythes were joined by voidraven bombers and razorwings, that pulverised the severed group forces relentlessly. Slowly, Gheden was temporarily cleansed of rogue necrons.

In this brief hour of respite, the head of this strange new alliance teleported directly into the heart of the Phaeron bunker, in a flash of azure energy. The leader was Szarekh, in a glittering, hulking necron body, and he did not come alone. With him came a squad of Triarch Praetorians, in their new, even larger bodies. Alongside them, a blank-faced Solitaire, and a grinning Dark Eldar Archon with a great steel fan also appeared before them. Compelled by protocol, the Lychguards of the Phaerons turned their warscythes towards the newcomers, as the Phaerons demanded an explanation for this violation.

“You want to know why your king appears before you? I am here to bring you deliverance.”

With that, Szarekh activated a devices on his wrist. Moments later, his new ‘body’ began to open up, revealing what was inside. For the Triarch (and his Praetorians’) new bodies were not bodies at all, but battlesuits of living metal. Inside, they housed flesh. Szarekh stepped from his battlesuit, to reveal the body, the human body, he now inhabited.

The necrons, unsurprisingly, were taken aback. At first, they believed it an eldar ploy, or some lie. But Szarekh knew the secret words of the Triarch; words that were only to be spoken between ruling Necrons. He knew their history as only their last great King could.

The Pariahs, harvested by Qah, were suitable for the bio-transference of the necron, for pariah souls were hollow things that drained warp energy from the sea of souls. Many assumed taht this meant that pariahs were soulless, or somehow disconnected from the warp, when in fact, their anti-warp abilities required them to be more connected to the warp than a psyker, merely in a different fashion. When the Praetorian necrons were released from their android bodies, the pariahs drew their minds and souls into them. Necron and human pariah merged, and the resultant beings awoke as new beings, human necrontyr. Instantly, Szarekh and his allies had felt the difference. They felt a great chasm in their being had been filled. Conversely, the pariah human hosts found that the great miserable miasma that had surrounded them all their lives, felt that little less cloying.

Szarekh declared to the assembled Necron lords that he felt free once more, and he would free the rest of the necrons, especially the warriors, who had long lacked a voice. Szeras was the first to deride the Silent King’s efforts.

“Freedom comes at an inopportune time my King. The enemy is at the gates, and becoming... human will not defeat the Severed. Nothing we have can defeat them,” he spat from his imposing android form. “Besides, why should we sully ourselves in human forms? We achieved biotransference to escape mortality and the weakness of flesh!”

“Szeras, you are a great genius, and a masterful cryptek, but you must know that we cannot continue as we are. More and more of us fall to madness, or are Severed. I have seen what is coming, and our living metal will not save us from it, for it is forge of madness itself. I... I cannot describe to you the monstrosity of what descends. Orikan has seen it too, have you not, old friend?”

The cryptek nodded, dipping the staff of tomorrow slightly as he did. “Indeed I have, my lord and master. There can be no victory as machines. I have predicted this day would come.”

The Paheron interrupted the debate urgently. “Enough of this. The Severed are already returning to this planet. Even with our apparent new allies, Zahndrekh cannot hold them off. The Severed will consume us all.”

Szarekh turned to view the hololiths of the battles outside. He saw the Severed force literally filling the sky, in numbers as large as the necron hordes before the great C’tan war.

“How did they find us? Who betrayed us?” he whispered, his lips quivering with barely contained anger.

Orikan was the first to speak. “The Stormlord, I am afraid. The turncoat was betrayed by his warp allies. His dreams of an ordered galaxy, under his rule, are no more. In his despair and his spite, he gave the Sarkoni Emperor our coordinates, so that the empire of the Severed might cleanse the galaxy of dissent, and bring a perfect, lasting order to the galaxy.”

“How can we destroy the Severed? The master controller has dominion over all the canoptek machinery, and what we destroy, it can replace within moments. The scarabs break it all down and rebuild it,” Szeras explained.

“How do you control your scarabs?”

The new voice came from the eldar with the fan, who smiled broadly at the assembled necrons. “How do the necrons control all those vast hordes of scarabs?”

“The interstitial waveform; it moderates the programmed self-replicating function of the scarabs, so they can be directed and wielded. If the signal should fail, then...” began the Illuminor, before the cryptek realised what Lady Malys inferred.

For if the interstitial waveform was shut down, across the entire nodal command network, then the scarabs would do what their simple minds did best. They would devour. They would go into recycling mode, and devour every necorn construct, before devouring every other structure in the system. Szarekh watched his subjects discussing the possibility with mounting dread. This was because he knew what the inevitable conclusion was going to be.

The only beings that could shut off the scarabs was the Triarch themselves. And if he did deactivate the waveform, not only the Severed would be consumed, but so too would every necron construct in the sector. The necrons would, essentially, be extinct.

The necrons and their eldar allies eventually reached the same conclusion as Szarekh, and turned to the Silent King. They all knew it had to be done, but Szarekh disagreed.

“No. No, I can save them! I can save everyone! We can flee the Severed. There are a million more pariah bodies waiting for biotransference! The Severed can’t delete living beings. We can take refuge in the Outside Sanctum,” the Silent King insisted.

“It would not work my King. The Severed would follow us, even to the Sanctum; flooding the dolmen gate network, until everyone was enslaved by the master controller,” Thazar explained solemnly.

“If we deactivate the field now, Gheden’s shields should protect those of us in this chamber. The eldar ships can escape the scarabs easily I should imagine. But the lesser necrons would be devoured. It is an acceptable loss, if we are to survive.

Szarekh grew desperate, clinging to the meeting table, his human knuckles white, his eyes red raw with tears. “’Lesser necrons’? This is all so easy for you! You are soulless and callous creatures. I have seen how you enjoy controlling silent, obedient subjects! But curse fate, that this decision falls to me, now that I have regained my soul. I regain a mortal heart, only for it to be broken all over again! Curse you all!” Szarekh snarled, as the necrons watched with their eternally fixed glares. The eldar said nothing.

“My king, I-“

“No. We can start again. I have made a truce with the old foes. There must be another way to vanquish the Severed. I have a chance to free my people from their android prisons. They would thank me for this mercy!”

Szeras shook his head, perhaps in sadness, perhaps as a simple negative. “Mercy? Have you heard the song of the necron warrior, by King?”

Szarekh, bleary eyed, shook his head.

Szeras moved to a command console. “I shall show you. Listen carefully.”

The cryptek then reactivated the long-dormant vocal systems of the necron warriors still controlled by the dynasty.

Instantly, there was screaming. It was a long, keening mechanical screech, resounding in the artificial throats of every single warrior. They screamed without pause, for they had no breaths they needed to take. It was a constant, wailing dirge.

Szarekh slumped to his knees, clutching his heart in empathetic horror.

“You see, my King, the warriors, when deactivated for the long hibernation, did not sleep. Nor do they ever sleep. They are trapped, without feeling or voice or stimulus, inside cold metal prisons. They are immortal and have no control over their bodies. We deactivated their voices millennia ago, for it reminds us, every day, that every one of our servants and subjects are insane. If you free them now, all you will do is bring a caste of lunatics into being; mindless with hate and broken beyond repair. You speak of mercy? It would be a mercy if the scarabs devoured them all,” Szeras explained, his voice cold and bitter.

Szerekh was silent for several minutes, save for his quiet sobbing. Eventually though, his face set; determined and stoic int he face of the horrible action he was about to take.

“Take your ships and leave now, Lady Malys,” he said bluntly, as he stepped into his battlesuit once more. She bowed, and left with a wry smirk on her lips.

Slowly, the Silent King raised his staff, and inserted it into Szeras’ command console. The gesture was deceptively simple, and the only obvious result of the action was a subsonic wave taht passed through the chamber and out into the world, the system, beyond.

The wave gained speed as it left the planet. It took only fifteen minutes to sweep across the system, and into the open dolmen gates of the Severed.

At first, there was no effect. The Severed paused for a moment, as did the Dynastic necrons, before they armed their weapons once more. The change was barely noticeable, until it was too late. Silently and unceremoniously, the necrons began to come apart. It began with the ships in orbit; fifty mile long tombships were suddenly engulfed in a silver cloud, and seemed to simply collapse upon themselves, like cans under high pressure. Scarabs swarmed around necron war machines. Stalkers toppled over as their legs were consumed, spyders flailed uselessly as tides of scarabs buried them. Necron warriors stumbled, and were dissolved on the spot. The silver hordes fell in rippling waves. The scarabs were unhurried and unstoppable.

Nemesor Zahndrekh watched the carnage from a hillside, his guardian Obyron at his side. Perhaps in that moment, the delusional commander realised that this was the end. He looked to Obyron.

“Is this victory? Have we won at last?

“Yes, my Nemesor. Yes.”

Before Zahndrekh could respond to that, the tide was upon them, and within minutes, they were no more.

Across the galaxy, the dolmen gates of sarkon activated. Through them, a trillion trillion scarabs flowed. The Master Controller, the Sarkoni Emperor, was confused. He assumed he had direct control over all canoptek systems, but he found his interstitial wave generators were inactive. The Emperor resolved to have that fault rectified. This resolution came to naught a few hours later, when the scarabs penetrated the data-vaults, and consumed his circuitry.

Sarkon faltered, and died.

Once all the necrons were dead, the scarabs devoured the screaming human serfs of Sarkon, who were sudden free of the Severed; free to die. Once they were consumed, the scarabs began to devour nearby planets and moons, breaking them down into countless new scarabs. The self-replicating horde was in the process of consuming Gheden too, before a second signal rippled out from the Nihilakh capital world. This signal was far simpler. It was a kill code. At this command, the scarabs simply stopped, falling to the ground as inanimate lumps of metal. The canoptek machine system was broken, beyond all repair.

Only a hundred necrons survived the so-called ‘Last Rites of Gheden’, alongside a thousand Pariah Praetorians, and the Silent King.

Soon after, the remnants of the necron race reactivated the stellar engines of Gheden. Then, they set the tombworld out into the stars, searching for the turncoat race-traitor Imotekh. The Stormlord would pay for his treachery.

Hidden behind the mimic engines of her command cruiser, Lady Malys watched the tombworld depart. She smiled, but it was not her smiling, but the thing nesting in her stolen heart.

“The War in Heaven ends,” she chuckled mockingly to herself.

Additional Note: The Thunder Lizard Tank Legion

The Thunder Lizard Tank Legion were the preeminent armoured force of the Imperium Pentus. At the height of their power, the Legion had tank squadrons attached to every major army of the Five Primarchs and their generals. The precise chronological beginning of the Thunder Lizards is unknown, but the Legion existed prior to Vulkan’s Imperium. At that point in history, the Legion’s tanks were mostly knock offs and experimental variations of existing Predator and Leman Russ basic designs. They hailed form the planet Argonauth, and formed the backbone of the PDF of that world. The atmosphere of Argonauth was highly toxic, and only sealed tanks and transporters could be relied upon to wage war there.

The Thunder Lizard Tank legion expanded after the Vulkan Imperium liberated their world from the Tyrant Tyberos, and they moved their tank factory facilities to the Forge World of Laakmor. The forge world had been left gutted by centuries of war, and most of its Tech priests were dead or mad, and thus the world’s vast polar Titan yards were converted into tank factories, and the equatorial deserts were made into testing fields and wargaming areas.

It was on Laakmor that the Legion began to build its soon to be famous super heavy tanks. As their facilities and resources increased, so the Thunder Lizard Tanks got larger and more sophisticated. These super heavies were the rivals of the legendary Fellblades, Stormshadows and Baneblades still in use by many Petty Imperiums. But they were still outclassed by the sheer firepower and defenses of the Warlord Titans and their larger cousins.

By the end of M56, Vulkan and the Five Primarchs were preparing for total war with their neighbors within the Travesty. Vulkan’s Promethean Cults and Ryzan Mechanicus did not have the knowledge or ability to produce Warlords or Imperators on anything like an industrial scale; it was claimed that whole cruisers could be built more cheaply and more easily than an Imperator. However, the Primarchs needed vehicles capable of fighting the numerous Titans and giant daemonic war engines of the Travesty on equal terms.

Vulkan, the most enthusiastic engineer amongst the five Brothers, decided to remedy this. He visited the Engineer-Commander of Laakmor, a man named Panzod B’olos, and gave the man six years to build a new range of super tanks, capable of going toe to toe with the worst his enemies could throw at him. B’olos, a brilliant and eager innovator, jumped at the chance.

Vulkan assigned a significant fraction of his war budget towards Laakmor and its surrounding yards. He also gave B’olos a cadre of Promethean Cultists to help his design teams and construction workers. Captain Teltegan of the Sons of Thunder Commandery (one of the Veterans who initially liberated the Thunder Lizards, ironically) was also ordered to Laakmor, to provide tactical and strategic pointers to the designers, and to help test out the new designs in wargames against his own Commandery’s tanks. The Sons of Thunder were well renowned for their affinity for tank warfare, which was reflected in the abundance of tanks they could field. In addition to all this, Vulkan sanctioned B’olos to source inspiration from any source available; human or alien, ancient or brand new. B’olos took advantage of this offer, and had his researchers scour the galaxy for the best examples of weapon and defence systems he could adopt, develop or improve upon. From the Tau, to the Groevians, to the Vorlish Taar, and the Praetorian Kingdom, his men brought him much inspiration.

After just five of the six years he was granted, B’olos had his tank designs finished, and their prototypes tested. By the time of The Primarch War, B’olos had his new Tank Legions complete and ready to bring war to the evil in the west.

The main Classes of Thunder Lizard Tank (not an exhaustive list):

- The MK III ‘Megasaur’ – The main battle tank equivalent. They were larger than a baneblade, and sported advanced linear accelerators, grid-linked lascannon batteries, layered void shielding and guided missile systems, as well as heavy adamantine armor and layered void shields. In addition, they were equipped with the latest advances in machine spirit interfaces, to give their human pilots the best chance of rapidly engaging multiple targets. They are fast, powerful and versatile.

- The MK VII ‘Velociraptor’ – A scout tank. Though slightly larger than a Leman Russ, the Velociraptors were composed of almost nothing but engine, with minimal armaments. However, their reactors made them incredible fast, and when stationary, the reactor could be used to enhance the firepower of its single lascannon turret a hundredfold.

- The MK II ‘Triceratops’ – A titan slayer. Triceratops were similarly armed and armoured to a Megasaur, except for their large, tri-barrelled Rampager cannon; a rapid firing gatling macrocannon, which required the tank to anchor itself to the ground before firing, or else its recoil would surely flip the vehicle (not a pleasant prospect for the crew or anyone outside the tank for that matter...).

- The MK I ‘Pterasaur’ – many generals refer to the Pterasaur as what a Hydra wants to be when it grows up. A Pterasaur is an aerial denial tank. Not only does it boast similar defences to a Megasaur, it has replaced its turret weapons with dozens of flakk batteries, surface to air manticore missiles, air-burst deathstrike missiles, and grid-linked Icarus lascannons. In major engagements, pentus command posts would park single Pterasaurs near to their command bases, and feel confident that no enemy aircraft could hope to reach them (of course, orbital strikes were sitll a concern, but orbital strikes have always been a concern in any planetary battle). Pterasaurs are slightly physically smaller than a baneblade, are considerably more massive (due to the masses of munitions it is required to store), making them painfully slow.

- The MK V ‘Tyrannosaur’ – A create goliath of a tank, the Tyrannosaur was far larger than even the greatest super heavy of the Old Imperium, and was actually close to being the size of a Leviathan, of the long-dead Outremar forge worlds. It certainly outmassed even an Imperator Titan in displacement terms. The Tyrannosaur was truely the pinnacle of human tank technology. Its colossal reactors could power a hive city for three days, and was more than sufficient to power its vast plethora of weapon systems. Its primary weapon was its turret-mounted Lance cannon, a searing laser weapon of ungodly power. This was supplemented with secondary turrets of railguns, apocalypse missile pods, volcano cannons, lascannon anti-missile grids and siege guns. It also could mount void shields and dozens of metres of outer hull armour. Its machine spirit was close to true AI, without crossing the line, and its crew could utilise an extensive sensor suit deep in the Tyrannosaur’s heart. It was nominally a tracked vehicle, but it had a secondary anti grav engine, which allowed the entire tank to hover a few metres off the ground for up to twenty minutes at a time. This was used primarily to prevent the vehicle getting bogged down on land, crossing stretches of water and bog, and allowing the vehicle to travel at relatively high speeds (well, faster than an Imperator, which was the important thing). Some cynical chroniclers of history believe the Tyrannosaurs were vanity projects for B’olos himself. They were certainly expensive to produce, and were vastly outnumbered by the Megasaurs and Triceratops. However, despite this, the Tyrannosaurs were still considered the king of the tanks, and accordingly, the first one built was named ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’.

Additional background Section 41: The Battle of Corbellus (Part 1)

The Imperium Pentus’ primary fleet entered the territory of the Travesty not in piecemeal groups, but as one mighty lance thrust, deep into the chaos polluted realm. The grand armada was the largest fleet ever launched by this Imperium; almost half a million ships made up the fleet, including countless troopships, armor transports, factory vessels, escorts and capital ships, famous across the galaxy. These included the fast-battleships Antioch and Sleipnir, the Devil of Catachan and its attendant escorts, and the grand flagship Phalanx, which Vulkan himself commanded. The fleet traveled through the warp, which had been cleansed of daemons in a particular region of the warp, where the erratic Ophilim Kiasoz had passed by on its way towards the heart of the Eye. In such relatively safe warp currents, the fleet managed to travel through the warp as one, travelling in a relatively tight formation. Their Gellar fields had ingeniously been linked together, forming a single colossal Gellar field which enclosed a seven light second diameter bubble of realspace inside the formless warp. Such a monumental undertaking required the precise coordination of every ship in the fleet, activating their Gellar fields at once, just as they used their warp engines to plunge into the immaterium. Such an action would have been impossible without both a calm warp, and the towering intellects of the four Primarchs who undertook the task. The iron will and great intelligence of Russ, Lion, Khan and Vulkan kept the diverse fleet together, constantly adjusting the relative magnitudes of the shared Gellar field by seemingly minute amounts every seconds; adjustments that meant the difference between life and the dissolution of the entire fleet. It was a risky manoeuvre, but its rewards could potentially be great.

The Pentus Primarchs’ plan was to breech the warp at some vital jugular of the Travesty, before using the conquered system as a jumping off point to attack neighboring systems. Small, fast scout frigates traveled along the warp route ahead of the main force, to assess the strength of the enemy, and to locate suitable targets for their planned initial, devastating assault.

One such scout-frigate was the Rinzell. It was a light Astartes frigate of the Jade Princes Commandery, with the usual compliment of two hundred mortal crew, and three Astartes tactical squads. Command of the scouting mission was divided between the Astartes Sergeant Koror, and the mortal captain of the Rinzel, Lord Matoburo.

Making multiple short warp jumps through the daemon-cleared Kiasoz channel, Rinzell ranged ahead of the Pentus Crusade, and was the first scouting party to break back into the materium.

They entered the Corbellus system quietly; the engine trace of a scout frigate was deliberately shielded, and had a similar profile to a mere fighter craft, to any snooping chaos forces. Even after exiting the warp, the taint of the immaterium still clung to every molecule of the system, for the Imperium of Travesties was doused in the hellish afterglow of countless warp rifts. Even though no such warp rifts were detected by the Rinzell, Matoburo nevertheless advised caution, and kept his gunports open as they investigated the system.

The Corbellus system was a system of six worlds in relatively close orbit with one another. The system had been selected by Koror as it was far from major battlelines, yet seemed close to a warp nexus point, which linked the system to several chaos bastion worlds. The veteran Sergeant gambled that the chaos forces, being allies of the daemons, hadn’t used the stable routes in many years, and might not realise how vulnerable Corbellus was for being used as a staging point. The Rinzell scanned each world from orbit, being careful to mask its approach behind natural satellites to avoid any potential defence laser fire. Fortunately it seemed, the backwater system had already been ravaged long ago.

Each world were cathedral worlds dedicated to the gods, but their surfaces looked like the asteroid-pelted surfaces of airless moons. There had been a war there, perhaps fought during the war between Abaddon and Erebus’ usurpers. The defence lasers were smashed, and what little human life was detected on each of the worlds seemed minimal. They were garrison forces, awaiting the return of their uncaring, daemon-loving patrons. The system was ideal for a swift invasion. However, Captain Matoburo decided to make sure, and destroyed the surface settlements of five of the six worlds from orbit using precision lance strikes.

Corbellus Secundus, however, had a subterranean garrison force, and Koror and two tactical squads were deployed to clear them out, while Matoburo monitored things from orbit.

The Jade Princes moved swiftly, as soon as their drop pods touched down, they located the tunnel entrances and blew them with melta charges, before storming into the darkness below. The dark held no obstacle to Astartes of course, as they activated preysight almost instantly. The first of the garrisons sentry squads were eliminated by knife and gunstock, but soon enough, as they descended, the mortal soldiers, in their robes of mail, reacted to the space marines. They fought superhumans in the dark, with only their torches and greyscale night vision goggles to aid them. Even though the enemy was dug into several heavy weapon emplacements, and had set up elaborate killzones and intersecting lines of fire, they were hideously outmatched by the Jade Princes. Their green-striped power armour was the last thing most of the screaming human cultists saw before their brutal, swift deaths. Koror’s chainsword echoed through the cold halls of the grand, sprawling temple, as he carved down fleeing humans by the dozen. Intriguingly, all the cultists seemed desperate to reach a common objective; they all fled in similar directions, down through the layers to something deep in Corbellus Secundus.

Koror decided to follow the trail, as his auspex marine confirmed an energy source of some sort was located down there. Koror suspected the cultists would try to raise daemons to even the engagement in their favour. He resolved to kill them before they could even attempt this. The nearer they approached to the power source however, the weaker their vox link with the Rinzell became. Koror instructed one of his marines to return to the surface and apprise Matoburo of the situation, while the rest continued onwards.

Meanwhile, in the warp, the fleet continued along its becalmed route. It was eerily calm within the fleet. The crews were quiet. Some were asleep. Most were praying to whatever gods the primarchs permitted them to worship. Aboard the battlecruiser Crato, two Astartes watched the warp swirling past the Gellar field. It was like formless oil. Yet, it was not there. The warp could never be observed in the moment; it was an after image. You were never sure precisely what one saw in the depths. The two Astartes only knew it was their enemy. The two Astartes were castron of the nemenmarines, and Alistor of the Fire beasts. Their Commanderies had been made to share their transports during the coming conflict, and were also expected to fight together seamlessly in the coming war. (In later reports, castron of the nemenmarines would report that, during this voyage, he swore he saw as shimmering ghost ship, keeping pace with their fleet, like a dolphin following a ship’s wake. It looked like ‘a black ship of old, yet it also seemed to move like a shoal of infinitely small fish’ according to the Astartes. This vessel was likely the Tersis. Perhaps this vision was a grim foretelling of the events to come? None can say for certain).

Back in the Corbellus system, Koror’s investigation continued.

The underworld temple of corbellus Secundus was vast, and echoed with the breath of the dead. A civilization had died in its depths, leaving the powdery remains of their bones as the only testament to their existence. That, and the statues of their countless heathen gods, sculpted in brass and steel. They leered down at the marines with hollow eyes in the dark, but the exact forms of the statues were rendered indistinct and fuzzy by the marines’ preysight autosenses. Koror had no time for the religiosity of the depraved and the extinct.

The underground caverns opened up, their great vaunted ceilings lost in the darkness, hiding the full extent of the caverns. As the tactical squads moved through the temple, they divided into two, to assault the power source from the flanks.

The approach to the ritual site was lined with more and more statues, arrayed in row upon row. It must have taken centuries of sculpture by mortal hands, Koror noted. As he considered this, the veteran spotted something in the path of the tactical squad he was leading. One of the statues had fallen into disrepair, and its oversized ceremonial weapon had fallen to the floor. As they closed on the weapon, Koror began to feel uneasy.

It was as if the cultists wanted to die, standing out in the middle of the temple, with no cover. Koror realized then that he had made a mistake.

Over the vox, he heard his second tactical squad engage and slaughter the remaining cultists, moments before he could shout out a countermand. The ceremonial weapon, lying at his feet, was familiar. It took him a fraction of a second to recognize the weapon.

It was a Kai Gun. Instinctively, Koror kicked the kai gun skittering away into the distance. Barely a second later, the disarmed statue suddenly burst into life with an ungodly roar. Fire rose up inside it, revealing it was hollow and full of impossible black flames flecked with orange. In the millisecond it took his men to spin around to aim at the kai bane warrior, it had already leapt from its podium, and slammed a massive boot into the nearest marine, who was hurled bodily away, his ribcage and breastplate shattered. The daemon engine was fast, and snatched the head from another marine, before punching a fist through the melta armed member of the squad. Koror and his squad opened up on the kai bane warrior in a furious flurry of bolter shells. The bolts rippled across the daemonic entity’s metal skin like pattering rain, as it threw itself into the fray. It gored one marine with its tusk baldes, as it ripped another rmarine in two, hurling the pieces aside carelessly. Koror rolled to avoid the sweeping claws of the beast, and slashed his chainsword across the thing’s muzzle. It roared mechanically, rearing up and flinging the sergeant onto his back with a sonorous clang.

This commotion brought second squad intot he fray, who opened fire as soon as they locked onto the fiend. Under sustained bombardment, the kai bane warrior stumbled, its body glowed a ruby red tone under the heat of explosive rounds detonating against its flesh. But still the thing didn’t die, barging two marines to the ground, and stomping on marine’s head till it was flat. The kai bane monster roared again, not in pain but in monstrous glee. Koror finally killed the thing by snatching up the flalen meltagun, and boring a three foot smoudleirng hole through the daemon’s centre of mass. At last, it clattered tot he floor, empty once more.

Only twelve of his marines were left alive, and not one of them had escaped damage. Koror knew he had to escape now; to warn the Rinzell.

Then they felt the entire temple tremble. Then they heard the dead kai bane roar ocne more. However, it was not the dead one which had roared. Nor was the roar which answered it.

All around them, the statues were lighting up. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Millions of them. They woke up sequentially, like a city power grid reactivating after a blackout. Corbellus secundus was no temple. It was a factory. It was a trap. The kai ban Host closed ranks around them, as the power source began to blaze with daemon fire, illuminating the hall at last. Koror lowered his meltagun.

“Oh Throne...”

(I cannot be sure of Koror’s precise last words, as he was never seen again, but I feel confident my estimation was accurate.)

Meanwhile, Matoburo was getting nervous. The Astartes sent to return word of developments underground had not returned. Captain Matoburo knew something was wrong immediately. He readied his bridge crew to make for the warp translation point. Koror must be compromised he summised. If he wasn’t, the Sergeant would merely be stranded on an empty world. If he was compromised, then the forces of Corbellus were greater than expected; a likely trap.

Matoburo’s instincts were sound, and he might well have averted the entire battle of Corbellus there and then, if his first officer hadn’t turned, smiled at him, before punching his fist through the old man’s head, and fling him from his command throne with a petulant flick of his wrist. The first officer turned to the stunned bridge crew, grinning as he watched them draw their sidearms. The first officer’s body rippled and rand fluid, before becoming Matoburo. As they fired on the imposter, he leapt aside, and their weapons destroyed the captain’s command throne, and all his inter ship vox equipment.

“That’s no way to treat your captain. I see security is required,” the imposter beamed as it took shelter behind a hefty console.

Moments later, a warp rift burst into life in the centre of the room. The rift was gone barely a second later, replaced by a squad of iron Warrior terminators. Without saying a word, the terminators turned their combi bolters on the human bridge crew. Hearing a commotion, Jade Princes burst into the chamber, flinging grenades and firing from the hip. The gun battle lasted approximately three minutes.

The imposter Matoburo stood up, rolling his shoulders carefully before addressing his armoured allies.

“Well-oiled precision, and impeccable timing as ever Sons of Perturabo. How odious,” the thing giggled. “So predictably competent.”

“You will hold up your end of the bargain, Changeling. Enough drama,” the Aspiring Champion of the terminators rumbled.

The Changeling nodded, before vanishing. It appeared to the ship’s beacon-psyker, in the guise of the Captain. The daemon killed the psyker, and stole its form post-mortem.

Thus, when the Rinzell sent its daily telepathic communication to the Phalanx, it relayed that Corbellus was an ideal staging point for the invasion. And, alas, the changeling was ever the convincing liar, and the primarchs were duped.

A few days later, the Pentus Crusade entered the Corbellus system as one. A titanic fleet, including every single troopship and major war vessel of the Pentus armada.

They arrived to find a system full of foes. Every world in Corbellus was a disguised factory world. Some were full of the Kai bane Host, Defilers and Deamon engines of all descriptions. Others had been hollow shell worlds, filled with cruisers and battleships, waiting to be released. Now, there were more enemy contacts than the Phalanx’s sensors could adequately track.

And at their head, were two vessels the Primarchs instantly recognised. The Conquerer, with its distinctive pectoral harpoon spines. The other, a moon-sized behemoth of daemon-forged horror; the Goliath Engine.

Perturabo had anticipated their desire for a staging point, and had enticed them in with a seemingly perfect one. The Demi-gods no doubt cursed themselves for their momentary lapse in judgement.

Vulkan looked across the enemy, unreadable, yet radiating furnace-hot wrath as he began to respond to the avalanche of data being returned by thousands of his ship captains, already planning his next twenty moves.

The Lion was stoic upon the bridge of the Antioch, calmly ordering his crew to battle stations. Khan was pacing at his side like an impatient hound.

Aboard the Sleipnir, Leman Russ’s lip curled into a foreboding smile, as his lieutenants Hrothnar the Fanged, Commander of the Rout, and Skalvad fenrisborn of the Wolf brothers, snarled like feral beasts. Russ ignored the majority of the enemy fleet, and focused upon the Conqueror and its fang-nosed attendant cruisers.

A vox signal was received from the Goliath Engine. It was the only communication exchanged between the two fleets, before battle was joined in earnest.

++ Your plan was clever, Vulkan... brother.++ A bitter, rumbling voice said down the vox link, spitting the last word like a venomous curse. ++But not as clever as mine.++

Thus began one of the most pivotal battles of the primarch war. If the Primarchs could not fight their way clear of the ambush, their Pentus Crusade would be strangled at birth.

Defeat was not an option.

Additional background Section 42: The Will of Crolomere

[Note: The events of this section occurred concurrently with the Battle of Corbellus.]

Upon Armageddon, an uneasy peace reigned. The people went about their daily lives much as they ever did during the Primarch War. They were all a little poorer, thanks to the enhanced tithes required of them by the state, but the rulers of the Pentus capital had fewer people to look after, and thus could spend more upon those who stayed behind, and didn’t joint the refugee fleets making their way towards the centre of the galaxy, away from all the turbulent warzones that risked spilling across the indistinct borders of the Imperium.

I was one of those people, just a young man and already aspiring to be a Primarch chronicler. But in those days, I did not have access to this history, and we did not truly understand the nature oft he wars being fought. Everyday we looked to the heavens, dreading what might descend. One day we could be visiting our food merchant for the week, the next, we might be utterly annihilated. It was a troubled time and a supremely odd one; a period of simultaneous prosperity and utter terror. Hope and despair filled our hearts, but so too did love for our families and hate for our enemies. We craved the security of our authorities too, yet secretly yearned for a day when all could think and act freely as we saw fit. We wanted to build new works, new wonders, for our children to enjoy, yet secretly we suspected all this effort was for naught; who could survive the reckless hatred of the hostile galaxy? We knew the five brothers had left us to protect us from the Travesty, but at the same time, we suspected, seditiously, that they had abandoned us. I am almost certain, looking back, that these warring emotions were the result of the turbulent warp, and the gods, daemons and angyls who were, even then, fighting for dominance of our waking souls.

Politicians, as is their lot in life, manipulated this for maximum benefit to themselves. Across the hundred parliaments of the grand metropolis, they dueled with words and sought to unite their disparate factions into a functioning whole. For the most part, the hardliners gained the most power. These were the true believers, those who saw the Primarchs as akin to gods. They were loosely led by Ibram Deitus, a powerful politician in the council of Hades, who wanted the lanes between the worlds closed, and all aliens within the boundaries of the Imperium extemrinated. Though they gained the most power, the moderates retained control mostly, leaving the followers of Deitus as a raving minority. The Astartes would never support Ibram’s lunatics, for their eldest dreadnoughts had lived through the madness of the Old Imperium, and even the Nova Astartes had veterans who remembered the Ophelian Imperium, possibly the most poisonous non-chaos aligned human realm history had ever seen.

Though moderate for the most part, the government was still preoccupied with security of the realm. Prisoners and people of interest were collected and interrogated by the Brethren of the Willing, under their new Director, Kathran Mozil. Their prisoners did not officially exist, and were beyond the authority of the democratic councils Vulkan had painstakingly set up. Some said the Brethren had been reformed by Corax into a more secretive organisation, a move which the Lion had not appreciated (he had had his fill of secrecy being the Primarch of the Dark Angels).

The Brethren had a facility built in the treasure vaults beneath Dak’ir citadel, which had been named after the famous Salamander who had died rescuing a billion refugees from the Slaugth during the battle for Scintilla in M42. Within this facility, the most valuable assets of the Brethren were kept. One of the most valuable was the woman known as Crolomere the Grey.

She had been brought to Armageddon on the final orders of Imogen, the previous Director of the Brethren. However, the old woman had died in her sleep, and had taken the secret of why Crolomere had been brought to Armageddon to her grave (or she had not elaborated her reasons to the current leadership of the Brethren at least). Thus, when Crolomere had been brought back, the authorities assumed this was as a prisoner or enemy of the Empire. Only interrogation of Crolomere could reveal the truth of the matter.

Unfortunately, the sensei was stubborn, and refused to talk to her captors out of indignation at her treatment. She would not be coerced or bullied by the ignorant. Every interrogation technique used upon her failed. Even psychic scrying failed miserably; her mental defences were too tough for anyone less than an Alpha level psyker to even scratch.

It is likely the Primarchs could have figured out her purpose had they been around, but alas they were not, and paranoia forced the Pentus Imperium to imprison her.

Eventually, the woman chose to speak herself. She tried to convince the Brethren that it was imperative they released her. She was the only one who knew how to thwart the machinations of Ahriman. When asked how she knew this, she was forced to admit that she had helped the Sorcerer access (and subsequently steal) the gene vaults of Terra. This did not go down as well as she hoped, and the Investigative wing of the Imperium pentus resolved to imprison her until Vulkan came back, who could corroborate her story.

Other factions, shadowy factions working to complex agendas set up from the dawn of time, conspired to spring the sensei from her cell. But Crolomere was no helpless damsel; she was cunning and intelligent, honing her intellect over countless millennia. Using the sound of her guards’ footsteps, and the brief glimpses of Dak’ir tower’s surrounding suburbs and vaults she gleaned when she was first brought to the prison, she mentally built a map of the facility and its outlying area. Through carefully listening to snippets of conversations by the guards, she learned the rotations and the shift patterns of the guards, and where their sentry points and barracks wer elocated in relation to her internal map.

Once she was sure she had the measure of her prison, she made her move. When the guards came to search her room, she attacked them, severely beating two of them until they were forced to fire upon her. Their lasguns ripped ragged, head-zied holes in her unarmoured torso, vaporizing the flesh entirely. Consciously, Crolomere suppressed her formidable regenerative abilities, and the guards easily believed they had slain the woman.

Solemnly, they bore her corpse to the incinerator for disposal. Once they reached the furnace room, she sprang to life once more. Crolomere had been alive for thousands of years, and in that time she had become one of the most formidable human close quarter fighter, unaugmented by synthetic musculature or genetic engineering. She took down the seven elite Steel Legionnaires in quick succession, slaying them with their own caputured weapons. She didn’t have much time; in less than a minute. She kept a single las pistol and a vox bead, before she began to strip the men for their equipment. Crolomere had been a chymist in a past life, and she knew how materials reacted when burnt together. He poured the contents of several different grenades and flash bangs into the incinerator. Then, she clambered up into the chimney of the furnace, stoppering the way behind her with the helmet sof the guards. The flame retardant material prevented the furious fire from melting Crolomere as she climbed arduously through the narrow pipe. Meanwhile, the incinerator began to billow smoke and noxious fumes into the faiclity, as its chimney was blocked. When the guards burst into the incinerator chamber,r it was full of smoke, setting off fire alarms across the vault. The guards, briefly blinded by the smoke, did not see that seven lasguns were busily overcharging in the furnace, nor that they had been surrounded by chemically enhanced blasting powder from a dozen frag grenades.

The blast shook the entire facility, and almost dislodged Crolomere as she crawled through the red hot, airless interior of the Incinerator. Third degree burns covered her body, but she ignored the agony as she climbed upwards. The Pentus soldiers hadn’t anticipated anyone escaping via the scorching chimney of their corpse furnace, and thus had installed no safeguards or perimeters. She bypassed layer upon layer of security details, pillboxes and laser defence grids. The entire lower level was on lockdown; every door had sealed tight to prevent anyone escaping from below. All this had achieved was sealing the guards of the lower level down there too, leaving Crolomere able to escape upwards. Her soul was invisible to psykers; she had learned this fact centuries ago. Thus, even the psyker-wardens of Dak’ir tower could not scry for her.

The chimney came out halfway up the many-tiered hive tower, which loomed like a horizontal city above and behind her. It was raining as she finally kicked out the grate at the top of the chimney, and slithered out into the cooling night’s air. She lay upon a sloping roof for several moments, weeping with pain as the cooling grey rain fizzed over her red raw body. The healing process always hurt her more than the initial injury; after a while, a severe burn would go numb, as the pain receptors were destroyed. When she healed, the pain receptors healed too, and brought the pain back with a vengeance. Miraculously, the vox bead in her ear had survived relatively intact, and she managed to tune into the frequency of the only person she knew on Armageddon.

“Drazak... you have a purpose. Remember me Kage. Remember...” was all she managed to wheeze down the vox line through her scorched larynx.

The tower was in uproar; searchlights swept across the heavens, and armies of Confederation troopers rushed inside the tower, searching for the girl who must surely still be inside. Little did they know that she was crawling, slowly, between sloped rooves, biting back the pain as she regrew her skin and dirty blond hair.

Yet, just as she reached the lower levels, an Arbitrator APC stopped, and trained its spotlight onto her. A man in carapace stood up in the vehicle’s cupola. He recognised the girl instantly, and swung his storm bolter towards her.

The APC was a solid, hefty vehicle. Nevertheless, the vehicle was no match for the ninety ton ore-truck which barrelled into its side at seventy miles an hour. The APC flipped end over end, before crashing to a halt on its roof. From the truck’s cockpit, two figures emerged. One was a muscular man, festooned with tattoos and scars. The other was a looming dark figure, with spindly limbs and soulless glowing blue eyes. For a moment, she deliriously thought she was back on Drazak and was being assailed by a necron construct, but the lithe figure was too upright and too obviously human-built to be a mirror devil.

Kage rushed to her side, and hauled her over his shoulder. “I have to stop saving you. It’s getting embarrassing,” he laughed mockingly, as he set her down in the vehicle and sped off.

Crolomere was finally healed by the time they reached their destination; a non-descript hab on the edge of Chronol hive, a gleaming city of adamantium and glass. There was nothing exceptional about the house; Kage had moved in after being contacted by Bronislaw and his associates. Inside was a different matter.

The place was built of wriathbone and living crystal, which clung to the wraithbone walls like fibrous, solid cobwebs. A glittering, bejewelled webway gate shimmered in the far corner, studded with protective runes that seemed to fluctuate as she sought to look at them directly.

Kage had made a deal with the Revelation Host, and Jaxx, the Iron Man ally of kage, explained that they had been searching for Crolomere ever since she had defied Ahriman. Kage gave Crolomere some of his spare clothes before he let the skeletal android spokesman for Revelation continue.

She had proven tot he Host that she was not a servant of dissolution, as they had feared. Czevak had been made aware of the grey Sensei’s vital importance. Jaxx explained that she must come with him, to the heart of the webway, where she msut fulfil a vital role.

Crolomere turned to Kage, then back to jaxx. Then, she refused.

“No, false man. I am not going to go with you on some unknown errand, just because you believe in prophecies and fate. All of you; the Red Sorcerer, the Yngir star-hungry, the daemons and angyls, you all want the universe to dance to your tune. I am not a damsel to be won like a prize, I am not a pawn!” she snarled, as the android stared at her, blankly as ever.

“The White Lancer Astartes Commandery have been alerted to your escape, and have deployed a hunter company of one hundred Nova Astartes to bring you back into custody, alive or otherwise. We will be unable to protect you from them in this present location. We have roughly 10.236 minutes before the space marines locate our escape vehicle to this location, and approx 11.002 minutes until the Astartes assault this location directly,” Jaxx explained.

“I do not care. We’ll escape, me and Kage, won’t we?” she looked to Kage.

He shrugged. “I’ve been in worse situations.”

“Your deliquence is not apprieciated. I have been directed to bring you back to Lord Bronislaw Czevak and the Host,” Jaxx reiterated.

“Then explain why I should go,” she demanded.

Kage peered out of the window, and looked towards the eastern sky; a flight of White lancer fliers were approaching across the horizon. “Hurry it up, whatever you’re doing, or we’re all fugged!”

Jaxx cocked his head to one side, before opening a compartment in his hip and withdrawing a rune-covered cube, no bigger than a die. He placed the device in Crolomere’s hand.

“Close your hand. The psychic archive will sample your blood, and establish a psychic uplink. You will obtain clarity,” Jaxx instructed her.

Reluctantly, Crolomere did as she was asked. As the cube pierced her digits with pinpricks, the woman seemed to shimmer, gleaming with an aura of purest white and gold. Kage shielded his eyes as the light built to a blinding intensity. The moment passed, and the chamber returned to normal. Crolomere dropped the cube, and turned to smile at Kage, her cheeks wet with tears.

“The webway portal. It’s our only way out Kage. Will you come with me?”

Kage’s eyes narrowed, unsure what Crolomere had experienced (indeed, the printed chronicle of Vasiri the Watcher doesn’t seem to reference what she saw that so changed her mind). But his expression eventually softened.

“Well you weren’t leaving me here girl. Now let’s go if we’re going.”

And with that, the three entered the portal, which sealed itself automatically upon their passing.

However, Crolomere did not travel towards Revelation’s lair, as Jaxx had wanted her to. She travelled the forbidden routes, and headed towards the world where the Black Cube of Ahriman stood, with kage and the android in tow. Only she knew how to even the playing field against Ahriman, and she was determined to stop him.

In frustration at her willfulness, Czevak sent the Apex Twins and the Legion of the Damned after her. He only hoped that would be enough to resist the Librarian-King of the Thousand Sons and his nightmarish rubric.

[EDIT: I found it! Lion-bless me I found it! Vasiri hadn’t included it in the printed Chronicle, she had handwritten it, and shoved it in amongst the reams of dataslates and memory crystals that made up her chronicle of the Age of Dusk. ]

She felt the rushing of fire and ice water through my veins, as she beheld a great field, endless in all directions. But through the field rose up clouds, nebulae and infant stars, wheeling about her, as if she were some impossibly huge entity bestriding the galaxy itself, which filled her vision wherever she turned. Where she focussed upon a particular patch of stars, those stars grew in size and scale, until she felt as if she were an invisible voyeur peering from orbit at the events unfolding below. She saw fleets clashing over Corbellus; mechanical nightmares and demi-gods, mortals and devils crashing together, and the undulating roars of the Red Angel and the Wolf. The pain and fire was too hot to bear, to raw to know.

She turned away, and beheld an alien city crumbling, a flaming hero battling a mighty tide of frothing bile. And above them all, a shattered ship and two gladiatorial killers locked in combat; the favoured Son of a favoured Son and the Lord of Wights, Huron the un-dead. Looking away in disgust, she suddenly beheld the thorny crown of Aurellian, rising one point at a time from an oily black soup of misery and horror. The Travesty with a face.

Looking south, mortal men charged the would-be God and his enslaved Rubric Hordes. They were mighty and courageous, Braiva’s best, but even the best were nothing compared to the ascendant darkness, the pretender to the throne of all creation.

Hope stood before the black sphere, but the fleet was left outside in the cold. Would they have their peace, or would they fail, like so many dreamers before them? The Last Good Man lowered his head, and mouthed silent words.

She saw necrons falling into dust, silent evermore. She saw the stars swelling with impossible hues, and tearing the materium in every corner of the galaxy. The vision accelerated, faster and faster, until she screamed and the vision retreated, leaving her surrounded by a hazy smoke.

The smoke cleared, as a figure emerged, wreathed by blinding shafts of golden hued light, that shone from behind him, making him indistinct.

“I am sorry it has come to this.”

The figure’s voice was beautific and youthful, and as he spoke, the shining light faded, and his beautiful, serene face was revealed, clad in a simple robe of pearl, edged with platinum. A singlet of simple gold crowned his head, and his eyes...

Crolomere recognized those eyes, somehow she knew this man. Realization dawned in a flash.

“I see that you have questions. I will endeavor to answer them. You may call me Revelation, for the purposes of this meeting.”

Crolomere stepped forwards, and slapped the golden figure in the face. The man took the blow, and Crolomere felt her arm go temporarily numb, as if a great current had passed through it for a moment. She glared at the man.

“Revelation? All this theatrics doesn’t benefit you in the slightest when it comes to me Revelation. I know you. I’ve always known you. I cannot help but remember my absentee father,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

The serene figure raised its hands placatingly. “The Emperor was a distant man, I will freely admit this. He had compassion, but it was submerged beneath duty; an awful burden that he had been given by the eldest Perpetuals. You know the story. It is true, you know this Crolomere.”

The world around them shifted and morphed, becoming an ancient sandstone city.

“This was where I was created, then abandoned to fend for myself in the universe,” Crolomere explained coldly. “Why show me this?”

“This psychic vision is not mine alone. Our minds are joined here,” Revelation explained.

Crolomere’s eyes glistened, wavering on the point of tears. “How could you abandon me? Abandon us? You have no idea how many offspring you fathered. I met some of them. None of them, not one, ever knew you. You lavished love upon those living weapons you built, why could you not have loved us?”

“Your souls were invisible to the Emperor. He could not sense you.”

“Mortal fathers cannot sense the souls of their children, but they still care for them. Keep them safe...” Crolomere began, before she turned away from Revelation.

“I am truly sorry. I feel-”

“You feel nothing! You were a cold, indifferent monster, and the Empire you created was almost as bad as the Primordial Annihilator itself. Do you see why I turned form the Imperium, and became Grey? What are you anyway? The Emperor died, I felt him die when Cypher plunged the Lion sword through his heart. I felt the Star father rise. I don’t even know what this thing is, which comes to beg for my assistance. It is like no Emperor I recall,” she wept bitterly.

Revelation psychically placed a golden palm upon her sobbing shoulder. “Compassion, humanity; things discarded by the Anathema to become what it needed to be at the time. This compassion will pour into me, amongst other things. The moment is coming, sooner now than later. Please believe me,” the serene unborn god replied, each word perfectly formed upon his lips.

She turned to him slowly. “I could never abandon my children. I had so many; dozens upon dozens through the millennia. I watched them grow and thrive, love and live, age and die. They are all gone now. Your longevity does not pass down the biological line beyond your immediate offspring it seems. I stayed with my families, even when they withered to dried ancients and passed away in their sleep. I recall the names of every one. And you, you couldn’t find us right away, and gave up on us. You...”

She couldn’t go on.

The world shifted again, becoming a thousand battlefields and warzones, across different worlds and shifting versions of the Earth. Some were alternate futures, where Terra was a sterile rock of nuclear fallout, others where the orks or the Necrons stood over a planet of slaves, desperately worshipping those beings that had laid them low. “Look upon these wars. These neverending wars. The Emperor was forced to intervene, time and again. Forced to manage humanity, and bring it back from the brink of disaster. His responsibility was to all humanity, not just you or those he might have called his friends. His mind... you do not understand the nature of this man, but you can understand this; he became so old, everyone he had ever met had perished, destroyed by the tyranny of time. Personal attachments seared his soul. It was like falling in love with a mayfly to him, again and again. He dared not make attachments, or else he would certainly lose them, to death and to time. He sacrificed this for humanity. This made him cold, but this was the pragmatic thing to do.”

Crolomere smiled bleakly. “That’s the talk of the Star Father.”

“Yes, and the Anathema is wrong. It is a distorted image of a creed humanity failed to understand. They lost their guidance, and let their fear and hatred make a monster out of the one being who wanted, more than anything, to save them.”

Giant monsters loomed alla round them, and Crolomere recoiled in sudden fright. There was a giant brass-horned devil, spewing blood and sulphur. An odious monster of cogs and gears and crushing claws. A smirking fiend with a black and white face. An androgynous princess with a serpent’s tongue. A feathered tower of undulating flesh. A festering mass of cancerous growths and billowing slime. Faceless armour with gauntlets of silver. Three other things pushed up through the undulating plain, but they were formless, and voiceless, like unworked clay.

“Who are the final three?” Crolomere asked Revelation, her voice oddly weak as she watched the creatures rip their way through the flimsy ground.

“They aren’t anything yet. Their form is not yet set. History is not written in stone; even I am only potential. But there are forces, powerful forces, getting close to ascension. Some will be bad, some insane, some might be good. But all of them are desperate, and will all rush headlong into this future. On some level, they all know their chances for godhood are dwindling. That is why things are speeding up for your time period. Events are unfolding faster than any can predict. My time is approaching.”

Crolomere sneered at Revelation. “You want to be part of this pantheon too?”

He smiled then, and it was as if sun had risen on a stormy day, and vanquished the rain. He placed a hand on her cheek lovingly. “No. When I come into existence, it will not be as one of the great powers. That is not my way. This deep rising nightmare... this Nexusofeverfatedrisingmadnesshopeofallturnedblackdoomtoallthebeligerentsandtheirgodsallhaildoomnightmares... is not undefeatable. There is a chance, a slim chance, that I can save everybody; everything that has ever existed or shall ever exist. But I need time, and time is working against me.”

The world turned dark and cold and Crolomere found herself upon a dune of grey ash. “What do you mean?”

Revelation sighed, and seemed ancient beyond reckoning for a brief instance. “I must be born before the last god rises. If not, the barriers between realities will fail, and the window of opportunity will close. Then everything will be ash.”

“I see what you demand from me. You only care about me now so you can harvest me. You need a host, is that it?”

Revelation shed a tear, to Crolomere’s surprise. The droplet fell from his face, and struck the ground like a fifty ton weight, cracking the ashstrewn earth like a jackhammer. “No. You do not understand. I need time. The rise of gods can be slowed. That would give me the time.”

Crolomere considered his words. “Ahriman. He is the closest to ascension. I know how to stop him. Are these your orders? You want me to destroy him?”

Revelation was youthful again, but his golden gleam was gone, as the vision grew ever colder. Snow covered the ground, and the world was barren at their feet. “I do not demand anything of you, my dear Crolomere. I would never demand anything of you if you truly did not wish to go. I just needed to speak with you. I have faith in you. You will make the right choice.”

Crolomere looked at revelation, with her ever-youthful blue eyes streaming with tears. “I helped bring about Ahriman. I can destroy him. Revelation, I will destroy him, I promise you.”

And with that, Crolomere faded from the psychic vision, leaving revelation alone in an every darkening vista.

“You didn’t tell her?” another man said, at Revelation’s side.

Revelation’s expression was no longer serene. “I couldn’t. It had to be her choice. I am nobody’s tyrant.”

“But if Ahriman kills her, the process will never take place. You might never exist my Lord,” the second man responded, as the world became pitch black. Only voices remained.

“Perhaps. But would she have gone to face Ahriman if she knew?”

The second man had no answer, as the vision ended.

The Compassionate one was of course right. Crolomere was not ready for the final Revelation. The revelation that the emperor was dead, and had died the moment he had thrown his compassion into the warp. The revelation that the one who called Himself ‘Revelation’ was not the Father of Crolomere.

He was the Son.

Additional background Section 43: The Battle of Corbellus (part 2)

On Catachan, they had a saying. ‘When a devil’s jaws close around you, you must strike harder and faster than ever before. Strike fast, and strike again. Though the devil has you at its mercy, the flesh at the back of the gullet is softer, the scales less dense.’ Admittedly, it lacks a certain poetry the truisms of other planets might possess, but nevertheless, the Catachan saying has many analogous applications.

As it transpired, at the ambush at Corbellus, this phrase seems to have been absorbed by the warriors of Pentus. Like the unfortunate jungle fighter, they were on the brink of being consumed by the hordes of Perturabo and Angron, that flooded in from all directions it seemed.

On the one hand, Perturabo was a genius; he had managed to catch effectively the entire strength of the Pentus host in one area.

On the other hand, Perturabo had been foolish; he had managed to catch effectively the entire strength of the Pentus Host in one area.

Cornered on all sides, both the Travesty and Pentus Primarchs knew there was only one option open to the ambushed force. They would have to fight with all the fury and monumental power they could muster, and there would be nowhere to retreat. Thoughts of the Phall system ghosted in Perturabo’s memories. A great victory. A crushing ambush. But the victory hinged upon the flight of his foes. To flee was to reveal your vulnerable backs to the enemy.

Corbellus would be different. Corbellus was more akin to throttling a serpent studded with needles, or swallowing a struggling scorpion whole. If he succeeded, the Imperium pentus would be extinct, but if he failed, they would escape and his force would crumble. His force of daemon engines, devils and posthuman monsters did not outnumber the Pentus force by a significant fraction. He would have to rely on more than simple numbers to carry the day.

For the Primarchs Pentus, to their credit if the ambush had fazed them, they only registered this for the briefest of instants, before they utterly restructured their plans. They were not improvising, as one might assume; their minds simply abandoned their previous plan, devised half a dozen new ones, performed hypothetical scenarios with each approach and decided and fixed the new plan within their minds, all within the space of fifteen heartbeats. The main weapon of a Primarch was not merely their herculean bodies, but also their incredible minds. It took them marginally longer to elaborate their plans tot heir professional yet bewildered generals and bridge officers.

As the fleet reordered itself, the Travesty fleet closed the noose, forming an ever tightening sphere formation around the smaller, dense, spiny sphere of Pentus ships at their heart.

Thus, the battle of Corbellus began.

Space battles, as elaborated upon in previous sections, are not really one battle at all. They are a war in microcosm; each boarding actions or teleporter assault is a desperate epic battle, with the battlefields themselves battling each other. Conflicts can be won upon the war torn decks of a cruiser, only for the entire battle to become meaningless when a rogue lance strike bisects the vessel and leaves it as an airless tomb full of pointless corpses. And the clash of ships, with the gigaton weaponry, layered shielding and meters thick armor, are fought on a scale of distance and time larger than a mortal man could easily envisage. Skirmishes last for hours, across millions of kilometers, and pitched battles might last days. And all these conflicts occur at once.

To an outside observer, after the opening gambits of the battle, where the smaller ball of Pentus ships seemed to suddenly grow a sheath of spikes, as battleships led escort fleets in preemptive assaults against the enclosing Travesty, the overall fleet action looked as though it lost its coherency, becoming a hetregenous ball of warring ships, almost ten light minutes in diameter. But in fact, the two fleets clashed and began to swirl between each other, in a silent, deadly ballet of infinite complexity. It seemed deceptively tranquil from afar, but in truth, it was a churning mass of vessels, only visible in the void thanks to the relentless blazing of their engines and their furious gun batteries, filling the spaces between them with multiple hues of plasma fire, hypersonic kinetic contrails and flights of guided projectile ordinance glittering in the dark.

In the first phases of the battle, the layered shielding of the two fleets meant that combat boiled down to relentlessly pounding against one another’s forcefields until one side gave in. Battleships scattered squadrons of cruisers, while cruisers duelled with one another, and frigates and destroyers hunted one another through the expansive battleground. Each fleet movement was ordered by the primarch admirals and their advisors, and each manoeuvre was implemented by dedicated and skilled captains, who tried their best to keep their cool amidst a veritable ocean of targets and friendly vessels; one wrong move could mean disaster.

It would be impractical to describe each and every action and counter action performed by the warring fleets. Nor would it be possible to depict every event in a chronological progression, as most of the manoeuvres and vector assaults performed by the protagonists of this epic naval drama occurred at similar times. Instead, I shall focus on the actions of a few major and important vessels and historical figures of significance that were mentioned multiple times in the collected histories of this historical battle. These actions are roughly chronological, but as previously iterated, the order of events might have been different. One must bear in mind that this battle was fought across a massive area of space, so much so that the light from one side of the battle would not reach the sensors of ships fighting on the opposite side for at least ten minutes. The chaos fleet was a menagerie of mechanical terrors. Some of the steel and yellow chevroned vessels looked almost like normal vessels of human or alien construction, if only slightly warped and asymmetrical. Thers were demented things, like colossal golems of living metal and hell fire. One vessel, nicknamed the Kraken by the Wolf brothers as soon as they spotted it, looked almsot like some grotesque mechanical squid, complete with articulated tentacles, each as long as a frigate. Another vessel was simply a series of interlocking rings festooned with gun ports and thrusters, eternally swinging around one another like some demented gyroscope. The Goliath Engine, that grotesque fusion of factory, asteroid and bloated steel beetle, was by far the largest and most impossibly threatening. Its great torpedo bays and tiered pyramids of chittering macrocannon batteries, pounded vessel after vessel into scrap metal; metal which was then drawn towards the lumpen mass with grappling hooks, increasing the size of the Goliath Engine each time it made a kill. Many were the forms of the chaos fleet, but all were united in their foulness.

The Antioch, the great flagship of the White Lancers and the Lion’s mighty chariot, plunged into the fray almost immediately with the commencement of battle. With the cool, calm precision of a surgeon, the Lion ordered gun ports open, and mustered a force of escorts to follow in the ship’s wake as it took the fight to the chaos forces. The first weapon to activate was the great white spear. A dorsal silo at the centre of the Antioch’s spine peeled open with silken precision, as the mighty lance turret rose like the head of a cobra. The scorching white lance beam wreaked havoc as the Antioch closed into rang eof its foes. The spear beam moved amongst them, carving open shielded escorts and cruisers with equal ease. Ships were bisected, sometimes five at once, as the obscenely powerful weapon. The Antioch moved in odd patterns, banking and rolling or turning end over end through space to engage targets at theoptimal vectors of attack; where the enemy’s shields were at their weakest, or into a volume of space the Lion knew an enemy ship was about to enter. The Spear of Antioch kept the larger vessels at long range, but eventually the smaller, nimbler chaos escorts manage dto get within range with their own weapons. This forced the Antioch to rely upon its dedicated gun crews on the starboard and port batteries to hold them off.

As the enemy neared, the pectoral hangars of the forbidding black capital ship unfurled. From here descended a flight of Dothrak class Commandery gunships, sleek replacements of the long outdated thunderhawks. The craft which led them from Antioch’s holds was a gleaming white marvel of warcraft. Somewhere between the size of a thunderhawk and one of the Tau manta ships of old, the sleek vessel dwarfed its escorting gunships, but there was not even a hint that this size in any way slowed the spacecraft. Its forward-swept wings were equipped with a variety of unique weapon systems; demi-lances, coilguns, conversion beamers and missile pods. It also carried heavier missile systems internally within a bomb bay. This vessel was beautiful, etched with beautiful images of white winged pegasi and gryphons. This vessel was known simply as the Stormrider. This was its first flight in battle, but it would not be its last. The forces of chaos would come to curse this vessel’s name, for it was no mere fighter. It was the winged chariot of Jaghati Khan himself.

The Stormrider and its squadrons swooped between the escort craft like hawks in formation, neatly carving away the defensive turrets and gun decks of the enemy, before planting missiles into key communication and navigational systems. At a glance, even while evading defensive turret fire, the Khan could immediately discern the weakpoints of enemy ships, and struck hard and lighting-fast in their figurative jugulars. As more and more ships were dragged into the battle, the void began to fill with fighters and flyers from both sides. The Khan picked up new fighter wings every few minutes, as he swept between the citadels and towers of enemy and friendly capital ships alike, like a white ghost riding the waves of gunfire as if their were foam on a turbulent ocean.

Around the largest chaos capital ships, what at first seemed like millions upon millions of decorative gargoyles and grotesques, were revealed to be flight after flight of screeching heldrake daemon engines. As the pentus fighters tried to attack the larger ships, flocks of heldrakes descended upon them with daemonic fury. Even the Khan was hard pressed to fight his way through the relentless waves of clawed monsters. Through these flocks, manned hell talons darted through to attack the Pentus capital ships, but few managed to get through the turrets and laser grids of the mighty vessels.

The Kraken lunged forwards through the void, its thick hide ignoring the bombardment of the battleships rushing to intercept it. Instead of ink, the thing spewed clouds of superheated plasma vapour, accelerated to near relativistic speed. These clouds rippled across void shields, shorting them out in quick order as layer after layer failed. Once shields were down, the kraken powered itself to within a few thousand kilometres, before firing its tendrils forwards, drawing in unfortunate vessels towards it colossal tentacles, and the churning beak-like maw of the mechanical horror. Ships were digested slowly, their crews desperately trying to flee as they were consumed in fire and agony.

The gyroscope daemon engine simply manoeuvred itself so as many enemies surrounde dit as possible, before unelashing its tremendous batteries in all directions, heedless of who or what it hit.

From the Phalanx, Vulkan directed a hundred different naval engagements simultaneously; he lured ships into traps, where his cruisers could surround them and pound their rear armour to scrap, or he made certain areas oft he fleet appear weaker, so that the enemy were drawn towards these volume sof space, while the actual weak points were given half and hour or so to lick their wounds before another flight of escorts or some new horror came to test them. The Phalanx itself seemed impervious to every direct assault made against it. Lances blistered the void shields, but little else. Macro shells and torpedoes plunged through the shields slowly, but their gigaton blasts we all show, rippling up in mushroom clouds within the atmosphere of the asteroid, but doing little more than scorching the sixth of a mile thick hull plating that clad the battle station.

The Conqueror pressed its attack with the irrestiable animal fury of the Primarch that commanded it. Smashing aside lesser vessels with sheer weight of fire, the World Eater vessel had one target for its gargoyle-snouted guns and serrated dagger prow; the Sleipnir, the chariot of the Wolf King. The Sleipnir too thundered through the storm of the unfolding battle. Like two Dark Age champions fighting through a scrappy melee to reach their opposite number, the ships smashed apart cruisers and shuttles who were not swift or manoeuverable enough to evade them. One was driven by a mad berserker daemon, hungry for glory and the pleasure of ripping apart his greatest rival. The other, outwardly, seemed driven by the same frenzied bloodlust, howling like a mad hound as Hrothnar and his Rout echoed his call. But Leman Russ had calculated this engagement. He knew that Angron would throw everything against the Wolf King, and kill any friend or foe that impeded him. Russ knew that if he kept Angron focussed upon him, Vulkan and his brothers would have a chance to balance the terms of the engagement. He had to draw Angron’s fleet away from Perturabo’s somehow. Indulging Angron in his manic dreams of combat was one such method.

The Rout and the Wolf Brothers, and all their attendant hunting fleets, clashed seemingly as one against the Worlder Eaters, the Beasts of Annihilation, and all their diverse fleet elements of their Blood Pact allies. Conqueror and Sleipnir, shields at full power, unleashed a veritable hellstorm of ordnance against one another. Torpedoes and missiles, macro cannons and coilguns, particle accelerators and plasma batteries. The six thousand kilometres between the two ships became a solid wall of multi-hued fire. Shields were pounded down as quickly as they were repaired and reactivated, the mortal repair crews and tech priests working strenuously to keep their respective ships functioning under such intense bombardment. With shields up, mundane teleport assaults were impossible, but the two forces, desperate to come to grips with one another, launched their gunships, dreadclaws and boarding torpedoes in the hope of crossing blades with one another. The devil-possessed Beasts of Annihilation threw themselves into mad, sprawling battles with bestial demi-wulfen, claws and fangs robbing these battles of any semblance of skill. Howling Wolf Brothers and the forces of the Rout leapt from their boarding ships with axes and whirring chainblades drawn, only to to be met with equally bloodthirsty and fearsome Khorne Berserkers and cackling blooletters. This naval engagement was like a fleet battle within a fleet battle; a burning arc of clashing ships on the edge of the chaotic ball of engaged vessels that formed the main part of the wider conflict.

Sleipnir and conqueror’s defences prevented any mundane boarding attempts. Despite himself, Russ found this frustrating. Though he was a masterful naval commander, he was born to be the red right hand of the Emperor; his personal executioner. Closer quarters were where he was most at home.

Russ would get his chance roughly three hours into the battle. Though standard teleport beams were consistently baffled by the Sleipnir’s mighty void shielding, they could not prevent the more esoteric and infernal means at the disposal of the Travesty. Skalvad Fenrisborn, a captain of the Wolf Brothers, was put in charge of the routing of any enemy who managed to enter the Sleipnir itself. The Old Imperial Astartes was an ancient warrior, with a great white beard and fangs as long and sharp as any Space Wolf veteran. He was called into action when the mortal serfs toiling in the gunnery decks of the Sleipnir sent out a desperate distress call; they were under attack. They only managed one word more before the vox link was severed. Bloodthirsters.

A dozen of the greater daemons wrought bloody havoc across the gun decks of the Sleipnir, ripping apart the macro cannons and the helpless mortals who crewed them. The gun dck was like a butcher’s yard, and echoed with the bovine bellowing of impossible monsters. One amongst them roared with a voice deeper and more terrible than a thunderstorm. The servants of Russ’s children were not cowards, but though they drew their axes and rifles in defiance, they were all too easily crushed and crippled by the red-raw daemons of khorne. By the time Skalvad reached them, a whole company of the Rout lay broken in the wake of the bloodthirsters, who slaughtered and maimed in the middle distance. Snarling in rage, the old Imperial Wolf Brother ordered his Astartes forwards, unleashing a torrent of bolter and missile fire into the flying monsters. Each of the bloodthirsters were subtly different creatures; some had larger horns, some had tusks like a boar, others had the faces of men or bulls. But one of them was different. It was a hulking red mass, like the rest, but this beast was different. It killed with effortless precision, married to khornate’s marshal bloodlust. Its twin axes cleaved all who strayed towards. This fiend made the bloodthirsters seem like artless brawlers by comparison. When the winged nightmare turned its face towards the attacking Wolf Brothers, Skalvad recognised the vile features of the beast, set upon a thick neck veined with snaking cables and oily vines. This was Angron himself. Angron was there.

Skalvad fought down the instinctual fear that gnawed in his gut, and presse don his assault. When his botler was spent, it was said that the ancient space marine took up a fallen power lance from a dead comrade, bound an orchard of grenades to tis tip, and cast it forth like a mighty javelin. It covered 200 metres in a matter of seconds, sailing towards the mighty dameon Primarch. But Angron was fast, and snatched it from the air moments before it struck. Then he smiled, as the grenades exploded, wreathing him with a halo of scorching fire. Sword drawn, the veteran nevertheless charged the primarch and his bloodthirster retinue. Even as his own command squad was cut down around him, he continued his charge. Even as he was lifted from the air by Angron, his battlecry remained undimmed. Even as his frostblade shattered against Angron’s hardy skull, he did not stop striing him. Angron didn’t even bother to cut Skalvad’s head off; he simply closed his mighty fist, and grinned as the space marine’s body began to give way. First his power amrour buckled, then his bones cracked, and finally he felt his organs bursting. Only then did Skalvad fall quiet.

As his mournful howl died on his lips, so another, infinitely greater howl erupted around the ruined halls of gunnery. Angron turned to face this new foe with perverse relish.

“Release him, you craven coward!” roared leman Russ, as he entered the blasted hall, his great pistol raisd and his wickedly sharp frostblade drawn, stepping through a field of dead and broken Astartes. Angron casually tossed Skalvad aside like a broken toy, and stepped down from the sundered macro cannon he had perched upon. Angron’s voice was deep and grating, raw as an open wound.

“So the wolf has come. But he is no wolf, is he? He was the Emperor’s loyal dog, just as he is Vulkan’s dog now,” Angron growled darkly, sparks and sulphur pouring from his slavering maw as he drew his bronze axes. The eleven bloodthirsters turned towards Leman Russ as Angron spoke, readying their own axes and fiery lashes.

“You fled your father to serve under another master’s lash. You slaved yourself to the Luna Wolf’s pack. You, Angron, are the cur in the collar, yet I am the dog?” Russ snarled in response, pointing his blade towards the burning brass collar smouldering around the thick neck of the daemon Primarch.

At this, Angron screamed a deathly scream, a sonorous bellow that shook the gun deck to its core. All who witnessed this exchange between demi-gods were heedless of the naval battle raging just beyond the armoured skin of the Sleipnir’s hull.

Russ smiled disingenuously. “In the old days, the scholars and the wise of the Imperium used to ponder the hierarchy of the Primarchs. Who would best who? Who might be the strongest? They always used to compare us; the wolf and the hound, the two berserkers. But we both know the truth of that don’t we? You are a brute, and a bully; always have been. I would always triumph over you, for you are broken. Now come, let me finish the task the slave masters of your birth world failed to accomplish!” Russ roared as he fired his mighty pistol. The flurry of shells exploded before Angron, the projectiles cut fromt he air in the blink of an eye by the impossible speed of Angron the Red Angel.

“Perhaps, perhaps not, hound. But it matters not; that was then, Wolf King, this is now! I was tethered by flesh and my butcher’s nails then, and I was young. But now I am old and strong! The Travesty flows through my veins! I am the stronger now and forever, little brother! I shall break you!” Angron bellowed again, like a braying Titan’s war horn.

With a gesture, Angron sent his bloodthirster retinue forwards, axes drawn and ready to slay Russ. The Primarch leapt into combat with a howl of glee, frostblade singing as it clashed with daemon-forged iron and blood-forged brass. The daemons were winged terrors, taller even that Russ, but as he charged, he howled an ethereal howl, that seemed to ripple through dimensions and wail the heart of the most brutish daemonspawn. His sword turned axes, and his pistol blasted fang-filled maws to fizzing ichor. No lash could bind his limb,s for he severed them with his chill blade.

But eleven bloodthirsters was a foe few could hope to summount alone, and it looked as if, for a moment, the barbarian king might falter in his headlong charge. But fortunately, he was not alone. Wolf Brother reserves poured into the chamber, mounted in mighty land raiders, as the Thunderwolves of Old.*These heavy weapons drove off the bloodthirsters, who flew to engage the armour units entering the fray.

This left Russ with a clear path to Angron. Angron laughed with infernal hatred as he charged to meet his nemesis. The first hundred blows and coutnerblows landed by the two demi-gods were near invisible, as their speed and unfathomable reflexes warred for advantage. Russ fired into combat as he duelled, bathing the Red Angel in fire and shrapnel, slowing the daemon just long enough to allow the Wolf King to press forwards, raining blow after blow against Angron’s guard. Angron, seeking to break this pattern, desperately struck out with a kick, his hoof connecting squarely with Russ’s chestplate. The primarch was sent flying bodily, impacting the deck wth a sonorous clang.

Moments later, Angron launched himself into the air on his bloodied pinions, before plunging towards his hated foe. Russ barely rolled aside as he slammed into the deck. The shockwave was like the discharge of a magma shell, carving a five metre crater in the adamantine floor. Slowly, Angron rose from the partially-melted metal, a towering monster, taller that his opponent by several metres. Russ rose too, and looked up at the giant with undisguised contempt.

“I have killed bigger,” he mocked, as he charged his fallen brother once more.

The fight raged from deck to deck, level to level. They wrestled and fenced, bit and slashed with fang and claw. They threw one another through walls and bulkheads with the ease a man might shatter a pane of glass. As the duel continued, one of the daemonic axes of Angron was knocked from his hand, while Russ’ pistol lay smashed upon the floor, stamped into a million useless shards. Angron snatched up a fallen lascannon turret by the barrel, and using it like a club, shattered it across the head of Leman Russ, who staggered backwards, bloody froth tainting his thick beard. Russ dodged the follow up blow, and with a mighty bound, he leapt up to grasp Angron by the collar at his neck. Howling his ethereal howl, Russ thrust his head forwards, and head butted the Red Angel square between his soulless reptilian eyes. It was Angron’s turn to stagger.

Elsewhere in the Corbellus system, the naval battle entered its second phase. The first of the void shields were going down; battered down by relentless exchanges of ordnance and lance fire. With their fall, the teleport assaults began in earnest. The local warp was alive with teleport beams, flashing invisibly between the mass of ships. Such dense traffic was utterly lethal to some, for to find one specific ship amidst all the rapidly manoeuvring fleet vessels was a difficult task. Some were teleported into bulkheads, others into deep space, or into the entirely wrong ship. Other would be boarders accidentally attempted to breach shielded vessels, and were rebuffed, trapped forever in the sea of souls. But enough soldiers from both sides managed to reach their destinations to instigate battle. Terminator assault teams killed everything they came into contact with, fists swinging and bolters roaring as they wasted no time on establishing perimeters or scouting out the ships they invaded.

The kai Bane Host did not deploy via teleport assault. They had their own vast assault modules, construsted in the form of great three-legged crustaceans, as large as an imperator titan. They were known as helwasps. These helwasps were fired from Iron Warrior forge ships directly, like vast torpedoes. Once they impacted on a vessel’s sides, they would anchor themselves to the hull using their titanic limbs, before unfurling a great drill from the central mass of the module. The whirring teeth of the drills were forged of daemon iron, and no hull could hope to resist the spinning, chewing power of them. Like a parasitic fly, this drill-tipped proboscis injected its internal contents inside the enemy vessel. Unfortunately for the stricken vessels involved, their contents were Kai bane warriors. Each module held hundreds of the mighty daemon engines, alongside their larger defiler cousins. Just a few helwasps impacting on a ship was enough to flood the vessel with lethal daemonic supersoldiers. Perturabo had ordered that he preferred that his brothers’ vessels were captured, so that he might bolster his own fleet, and hasten the destruction of the Pentus crusade. The Kai bane Host was to kill all who resisted, and then iron Warriors and other lesser servants of the Scourge of Olympia would be deployed to take command of the engine rooms, gun decks and command bridges of the captured vessels.

Many pentus ships fell to this ploy, for the kai bane Host were terrifyingly powerful. Their daemon-forged bodies were immune to all but the heaviest fire; even bolter rounds pattered harmlessly against them. They were as big and as powerful as Cataphracti terminators, but moved with the swift, relentless energy of a tactical marine, their oversized kai gun daemon weapons felling the mightiest of Astartes. If the Astartes were struggling to contain them, mortal security teams and naval provosts were almost pitifully outmatched. Undreds of ships fell in this manner, and within a few hours, their guns came back online, but turned against their former allies.

But the Kai Bane Host did not have it all its own way. Onboard the command vessel of the Confederaiton of Justice, their troopers sensibly avoided open combat with the kai bane, and instead used mortars and repurposed macrocannon propellant to hold off the dameon engines, giving their IEU pilots time to reach their battlesuits. Once embarked, they engaged the kai bane Host on much more equal terms, stalemating the enemy on several of their main troopships. Captain Thezon of the Iron Hands, a master of boarding actions and counter boarding techniques, used all his cybernetic warriors to maximum effect in the narrow confines of his vessel, the Anvil. Though his bolters were ineffective, he managed to lure some kai bane warriors into kill zones of autocannon and meltagun emplacements, or held them off with controlled demolitions. Even as he coldly sent in wave upon wave of servitors into the guns of the Kai Bane to stall them, his techmarines started refitting his Commandery with unstable, flux-core ‘vengeance’ bolter rounds. They were shorter range than normal rounds, but Thezon rightly predicted they would penetrate the daemon engines much more effectively. Soon, he and his men pushed the kai bane back to their helwasps, before transmitting his findings to his fellow Commandery Leaders.

Disasterously, the shields of the primary conveyor for the Thunder Lizard Tank legion was also breached by the fearsome helwasp assault modules; dozens of the gigantic vehicle clamping themselves to the undergunned transport ship. While the Thunder Lizards were mighty planetside, they were considered near helpless while in the cargo holds of their conveyors. The only defenders of the ship were the standard armed ratings and security teams of mundane naval ships. A great despairing cry arose amongst the pentus forces as it seemed their great anti-titan war machines were doomed to be captured by the enemy.

However, both the enemy and even the Thunder Lizard Legion’s allies had underestimated the resolve of these recklessly brave tankers. The Commander of the Tyrannosurus would not sit idly by while the conveyor was torn apart around him. Gathering a force of Megasaurs around his colossal command tank, he directed their fire to a specific weak point in the cargo bay’s hull structure, concentrating their fire to blast a great hole into the void itself. Magnetising their tracks to prevent being blown into space, the Tyrannosaurus Rex led its battalion of super heavies out onto the expansive, eleven mile long outer hull of the conveyor. There, they engaged the helwasps directly; a move not even the demented strategists of the Travesty had anticipated. Witnesses fromt he crew of the conveyor watched in dumbstruck awe as a phalanx of super heavy tanks rolled across the city-like skin of the vessel, their engines and flashing weaponry silent in the void. The sky above them was alive with the wider conflict of Corbellus, but the Tyrannosaurus was focussed upon its goal. The helwasps themselves had no armaments, and were forced to instead open their flanks and deployed the Kai bane warriors, maulerfiends and defilers to the outer hull of the ship. Though the daemon engines fought with the fearlessness of the arcane and the perverse, they were utterly outmatched by the Thunder Lizards. One by one the helwasps were purged, and their passengers destroyed by high energy lance and cannon. The Tyrannosaurus ended the aborted ship incursion in spectacular style; severing the three docking limbs of a helwasp, before ramming the last remaining module out into the void. As it rose up from the ship’s hull, the Tyrannosaurus planted half a dozen missiles into it, blasting it apart in a cascade of purple energy. The ship’s void shields reactivated moments before the next wave of ordnance could impact upon the hull. The cheers resounding within the tank conveyor were deafening.

Meanwhile, the great kraken engine wreaked a dreadful taly amongst the Pentus fleet, ripping apart ship after ship with its claws and articulated tentacles. The Crato, a Fire beast/nemenmarines attack cruiser, barely escaped the clutches of the grand cruiser sized daemon machine, as the Crato rushed to try and aid Russ’s beleaguered fleet elements on the permeter of the battlezone. However, the vessel was not left unscathed. The kraken ripped off a towering chunk of super structure, and plunged it like a dagger into the spine of the Crato. In a case of spectacular bad luck, the wreckage smashed into the primary command bridge, located in the middle of the vessel, as well as gutting the dorsal, starboard and port weapon batteries when the ammunition magazines were detonated. The burning ship spiralled out of control, only just managing to escape the follow up strike of the kraken. But the first blow was bad enough. Thousands were dead, including the Two Captains of the Commanderies onboard, and most of its weapons were rendered useless by the catastrophic damage that had nearly bisected the cruiser.

The Devil of Catachan, the vast war factory of the Pentus crusade, held off Beasts of Annihilation incursions, kai bane assaults and its wings of fighters and assault craft swept the void around it of anything large than a landing craft. However, the Devil of Catachan had one weakness; its pectoral ship yard was a vast space open to the void, for it was designed to allow battlecruisers and smaller naval ships to enter safely for repairs. It was said the Ryzan tech priests were still repairing the battlecruiser Gheist inside its pectoral factory yards when the Ryzan-Catachan Plasma Commandoes, led by Marella harker, fought off wave upon wave of Blood Pact troops that entered the space via assault boats normally too large to be used in normal naval incursions. The Blood Pact troops were backed up by Kai bane engines and Iron Warriors, along with some of Angron’s berserkers. The plasma weaponry of the Commandoes was sufficient to destroy Kai bane shells though, and levelled the playing field significantly during the six hour long battle in the hangar. During the battle, the un-finished Gheist was damaged further by the fearsome tides of chaotic slaves flooding the decks. Heist was secured to the Devil of Catachan by a mighty crame, which anchored the cruiser to the internal umbilicals of the Devil. The Gheist’s weapon systems were not yet installed, its warp drive and manoeuvring thrusters were non functional, and the ship only had air in the bridge and engineering sections. The vessel within the Devil of Catachan was useless to the war effort at that moment. That was, until the Gheist’s own captain had an idea...

Back on the Sleipnir, things were not going well. Fires raged throughout the Wolf King’s vessel. With so many of tis guns rendered inoperable by Angron’s daemons, the ship had taken a pounding form Conqueror and its vile lesser kin. Without retaliation, Conqueror had been able to batter down Sleipnir’s shields, and boarded them with a veritable tide of berserkers and possessed marines, alongside regiments of Blood Pact recruits and Barghesi mercenaries. Hrothnar the fanged led the desperate defence, his Rout at the forefront of every attempt to repel the latest assault. He fought with a a powered glaive and a storm bolter, howling curses in every language of the Imperium Pentus as he cut down foe after blood-mad foe.

As the battle was being lost around him, Russ himself seemed to be regaining some measure of advantage in his personal battle against Angron. The two beings were laced with scars and red raw skin which was rapidly healing around their grievous injuries. They traded hundreds of blows every moment, each blow backed with all the power they could muster behind their blades. Sparks and plasma fire rippled fromt heir weapons as the energies unleashed sublimed metal and ionised the vapours, setting light to the ground around them as they battled. But Angron, no matter how many times Russ got past his guard and slashed his flesh, could not be undone by mere force alone. Every wound energised him, and drew more and more energy from the warp which infused the Travesty region of space like poison in a man’s veins. Russ finally hacked apart Angron’s second daemon axe, but the red brute, without pausing, snatched the Wolf King with both hands, plucking Russ from the ground, before rising up on his dark pinions. Leman Russ was cast back to the floor with all the force of a comet. He plunged through five decks of the Sleipnir, before he struck the fighter deck of the battlebarge, a sonic boom erupting from the crater his body made in the ferrocrete floor.

Angron followed Russ down, swooping like a sparrowhawk descending upon its prey. He burned with the dark fire of khorne, and his face was filled with all the evil of his accumulated sins over his sixteen thousand years of existence. His colossal arms were outstretched, claws drawn and fangs barred like some feral godling.

Russ did not roll to avoid the descending nightmare, this dreadful giant who dwarfed the Pentus Primarch and who looked as if he could crush a mountain with but a fist. Leman Russ did not dodge or feint or attempt to fend off his wayward brother. No, he drew his frostblade, and braced it against the deck beneath him. And Angron, consumed by his hate and his single-minded desire to crush Russ once and for all, only saw this coming a fraction of a second before it happened. By then, he was falling at too high a velocity to hope to avoid what came next.

Angron drove himself into the blade with tremendous force, matched only by the strength of Russ pushing upwards into his impaling strike. The weapon embedded itself up to the hilt. The tip of the weapon erupted from Angron’s back, smashing through his spine and parting his wings with the force of the blow. The daemon Primarch roared in pain, a roar taht could shatter castles and deafen mortals a thousand times over. Russ screamed in his face, both warriors mere inches from one another then. Summoning up herculean strength, Russ rolled Angron onto his back, and embedded his blade intot he deck. The runes along its length blazed with light, as the Wolf King began to sing the songs that drove the maleficarum out in the old days, when the Rune priests still walked amongst men. Angron thrashed and roared, cursing his brother in the thousand forbidden tongues of the daemons. His fists, as big as dreadnought claws, closed around Russ’ neck, desperately throttling the Wolf King, crushing his throat and breaking the bones of his spinal cord. Russ knew Angron was killing him, but he continued his bitter song, channelling all his latent psychic might through his blade, into the daemonic filth which wore his brother’s face. Even if he did die, Angron would die with him.

Alas, the fight was ended before this deadly pact between the two could be concluded. Angron’s minions, who were winning the naval battle, feared that they might win the ship to ship engagement, but lose their master. The bridge crew locked onto the psychic signature of Angron, and drew him back towards the Conqueror, leaving Russ half strangled on the deck, his frostblade impaling thin air. When Angron returned tot he Conqueror, he slaughtered his bridge officers in a demented frenzy, and only the thought of destroying the Sleipnir prevented him from murdering the rest of his crew in a petulant rage.

Onboard the Crato, two unlikely heroes were rallying the survivors of the living wreck. Sergeant Castron of the Nemenmarines led the repair teams and rescue parties through the mangled guts of the ship, while sergeant Alistor of the Fire Beasts managed to reach the secondary bridge, bringing the rescued reserve officers with him to take command of what remained of the Crato. The two sergeants bickered constantly throughout this arduous, time-consuming progress. Castron insisted they needed to repair the ship thoroughly before they could rejoin the raging fleet action unfolding all around them, while Alistor was chomping at the bit to rejoin the fight as soon as possible, and to warp with the consequences. As they worked for hours and hours to repair Crato, the partial ruin of a vessel drifted further and further away fromt he battle, forgotten by the rest of the world at that point.

Phalanx and the Goliath Engine, the largest and most powerful vessels in the battle, had begun to orbit one another towards the climax of the seven day battle. Their seemingly inexhaustible batteries battered one another’s shields over and over again, each trying to crack the other in half through sheer weight of fire. Other ships tried to join the developing duel, but each was lost in turn, smashed apart by the grand ordnance of the two battle stations. A Dorns Revenants frigate suicidally attempted to ram the goliath engine, but was cut in half by a passing lance beam. The tumbling remnants careened out of control, before the Astartes strike craft impacted the Phalanx itself. Only a few Astartes managed to escape the ship before it impacts, teleporting at the last minute using authentic Pentus codes, allowing them to deploy within Phalanx itself.

A Salamander squad arrived to greet the first group of gold-armoured Dorns Revenants. The Dorns Revenant techmarine leading the squad embraced the Salamander sergeant warmly. Then, he ripped the sergeant’s head off with his servo arm, and his fellow Revenants gunned down the rest of the stupefied Salamanders; for the techmarine was a son of Rogal, but he was far from being a Pentus loyalist. Honsou the Half-Blood had taken over the Pentus frigate early in the battle, and had taken on the memories and armour of its former crew. Through his cunning, his team were the only invaders to have breached the Phalanx’s formidable defences throughout the battle.

His mission was monumental. Perturabo had tasked him with turning Vulkan to the side of the Travesty. To achieve this, the Warsmith Honsou had been gifted with a deceptively simple item; a cube, as large as a die but inscribed with infinitely small lettering and runes. The artefact had a name, but chilled the hearts of the sane to so much as utter it. It was a weapon of the deep warp, and it was intended to release an evil quite alien to mortal minds. It was a passage built for Draziin-maton. All Honsou had to do was unleash it upon Vulkan, and the Draziin-Maton would do the rest. This was all well and good in theory, but reaching Vulkan was no easy task. The Phalanx was a labyrinth, and Honsou already suspected Salamander and revenant patrols would already be on his tail by then. Thus, he and his loyalist-disguised retinue set off at speed. Honsou fought off the smaller patrols, fleeing deeper and deeper into the battle station as he did so. However, he could not run forever.

Eventually, he was cornered by a Salamanders terminator assault squad, led by a Librarian. The psyker held him in place like a fly in amber, and his temrinators easily slew the retinue of the turncoat Honsou. Desperate to escape, the Iron Warrior threw the cube at the Librarian, who at first caught it neatly in his gauntlet. The psyker recoiled as if stung, dropping the cube with an uncharacteristic yelp of alarm. The cube hit the ground with, heavy as neutronium. Honsou dropped to the group, forgotten by the terrified Librarian. The chaos space marine wasted no time, and fled into the opposite direction.

Then, the cube began to slide open. Angles along its flanks peeled back, and unfurled through dimensions a mortal may not perceive. Looping gates were coiling out of the rent in space and time being torn into the deck of the Phalanx. The Librarian, normally so immune to fear, fell to his knees, weeping blood and gibbering in childish terror. His brother temrinators were not psykers, and did not feel the dread he felt for the abstract things wading through the portals like languid swimmers in a pond. They simply opened fire upon the Draziin-maton. But mundane weapons were useless; bolter rounds mutated and became screaming, formless daemonthings befre they could touch the Draziin-maton, swords turned to seven-headed serpents that ate themselves over and over again. Powefists became faces, that devoured and merged with those who sought to strike the neverborn.

The Librarian’s force sword fared only slightly bette,r as he finally charged at the loping, impossible fiends. But within a few minutes, he was mutated and deformed beyond recognition, and he jointed the ranks of chaos spawn taht followed int he wake of the Draziin-maton. The kai bane Host might have been the most terrible of warriors, but Draziin-maton were something else entirely. They crawled across the fabric of realspace like scuttling flies on a corpse. Thin air was as solid to them as an adamantine bulkhead, and metal was jsut as permeable to them as said air. Whatever they neared became a spawn, those with a weak mind fell sooner than those with minds of stolid resolve, but few could truly resist the taint that followed in their wake. Squads of Astartes bravely died and mutated as they desperately fought to contain the mere handful of Draziin-maton released into the Phalanx’s winding corridors. Vulkan witnessed these abominations through the whimpering servitor pict-recorders installed throughout the ship. He saw the creatures, and how they moved without any sense of coherency. Limbs seemed to simply appear before folding back intot heir blank, expressionful, faceless, morphing forms. His men were being massacred, and he couldn’t even see clearly what was killing them.

“Damn monsters! If only they stood still, we might have a chance to spill their guts. We can’t afford to lose any more men to these things my lord,” T’Sulon, hissed with false bravado as he too watched the carnage.

Inspiration struck Vulkan then. “Pin them in place... Their forms are chaos, in its purest form. You cannot catch that which is formless, except in a picture. Like capturing a fireball in a still-frame picter. A snapshot in time...”

Before his men could even ask him what he meant, Vulkan swept from the command bridge, and rushed to the ship’s nearest armoury. After taking what he needed, the coal-skinned Primarch marched to face the Draziin-maton. The fiends sensed this, and rushed to meet him. Vulkan forbade anyone to follow him, so what happened next was witnessed solely by the internal pict-servitors of the Phalanx.

Vulkan stood before the Draziin-maton defiantly, straight-backed and magnificent in gold and green dragonscale. But his spear was not drawn, and nor was his mighty inferno pistol. His hands were raised before him, clenched into fists. The Draziin-maton appeared, and the corridor around him began to warp and buckle, flowing and rippling with the deep Warp’s currents. But as they neared, he opened his hands, and let the grenades fall. Stasis grenades are some of the rarest artefacts ever constructed by humanity, and their designs were lost long ago. As the grenades fell, time slowed to a crawl, then to a stop. The grenades, mere inches from the floor, never landed. Vulkan became a statue with a victorious smile sculpted upon his black head, red eyes glittering. The Draziin-maton froze too. They became seven spindly, multi-limbed, surrealist purple ghouls, but the forms of the seven creatures were fixed in that seemingly endless moment of time. When the effects of the stasis bombs eventually wore off, Vulkan found himself standing alone in the corridor. He had somehow vanquished the Drazin-maton, though even he knew not precisely how he had done so. **

As the Draziin-maton rampaged, Honsou made for the launch bays, hacking his way through any serfs who got in his way. He was only stopped when he encountered Aktonus. Aktonus the Strong was famous across the Imperium Pentus as the ‘Imperial Swordsman’, a title given to only the mightiest non-Primarch warrior in the entire Imperium. Aktonus the Dorns Revenant had fought in the swordsman tournament, beating rival master duellists from the Fires beasts, Jade Princes and Iron Hands to win the right to wear the bone-white experimental power armour of the Imperial swordsman. He was Pentus’ champion, and Honsou, ancient and corrupt as he was, knew he could not beat him fairly. Thus, he tried to shoot Aktonus with a meltagun, but the champion was too fast, hacking the gun in two with his power sword, before pummelling the warsmith to the ground with the pommel of his weapon. Honsou offered to turn on his chaos allies; he bore no true loyalty to any faction, but he hoped to achieve a stay of execution. Aktonus spat in the warsmith’s face, before he raised his blade for the final blow. A gigantic black hand gently landed on Aktonus’ shoulder.

“No. Not this one, my Champion. Not yet,” Vulkan said, his glowing red eyes glaring into Honsou’s very soul.

Conqueror and its fleet were killing the Wolves of Russ in space. Sleipnir was limping towards the shelter of a nearby planet, as world eater ships chased it and its escorts like feral hounds nipping at the legs of a stricken stag. Russ’s ship was too damaged to fight back effectively, and Angron’s forces were too many. As Sleipnir made for the planet, Conqueror began to orbit the planet’s small moon, to use its gravity to slingshot his vessel and allow him to catch the damaged Rout ship at last.

From the secondary bridge of the Crato, Alistor and Castron watched this horrid scene unfolding.

“Russ will die if we do not stop him. Throne damn it, even if Russ survives, with Angron’s kill fleet here, Perturabo can just use his numerical superiority to whittle us into dust,” Alistor growled in impotent rage, pacing up and down. “We have repaired the engines, we have warp and we have half power to the plasma drives. We could gun the engines and ram the Conqueror! Kill the damned Red Angel like the filth he is!”

Castron shook his head. “We are too far away. They would see our engine bloom and evade us, then kill us at their leisure,” he explained somberly.

Conqueror had almost made a circuit of the moon at that point. It was then that Alistor had another idea.

“Do we have weapons? Lances? Torpedoes?”

Castron checked the lists given to him by his serfs. “One operable tube, but we only have planetary bombardment munitions remaining.”

“And cyclonics?” Alistor asked, smiling.

“Cyclonic torpedoes wouldn’t damage the Conqueror sufficiently.”

“Then let’s not hit the Conqueror,” Alistor replied.

Just as the Conqueror reached the end of its orbit of the moon five cyclonic torpedoes, fired one after another, punched into the moon’s surface. Within minutes, the small planetoid broke apart in a tide of sudden, apocalyptic volcanism. Huge boulders slammed against the Conqueror’s port side, ripping great chunks from the flank of the arrow-shaped leviathan. In fury, Angron searched out the fools who had struck him. He found the Crato, fleeing as fast as it could towards the warp translation point at the Corbellus system’s edge. Angron’s Conqueror made a sudden course change, and accelerated at full speed towards the fleeing strike cruiser. His whole fleet followed the Conqueror, like lesser sharks drinking in the red wake of a meglodon.

Crato was trying its best, but Conqueror would catch up with it. It was inevitable

“He’s mad now,” Alistor noted blandly.

“Of course he’s mad, he’s Angron. This is the worst plan you have ever had, Fire Beast.”

“I thought you like plans?”

Castron did not reply to Alistor’s taunt, as they neared the warp translation point. But as they did so, they felt the entire ship shudder, as one of the Conqueror’s vast harpoons impaled the Crato through its starboard side. Alistor then ordered something that was so recklessly dangerous, he even surprised himself.

He ordered Crato to go to warp, with the Conqueror still attached. Needless to say, this was a deranged and thoughtlessly dangerous thing to attempt.

The Crato opened a warp portal in front of the ship, and plunged intot he Sea of Souls. Conqueror, unwilling to release the harpoon, was dragged into hell right alongside them. One moment they were there, the next, there was naught but empty void. Angron’s pilot fish fleet dived intot he warp after him, leaving Perturabo’s fleet alone against the Imperium pentus.

The balance had shifted, quite suddenly (as it the way with many battles in history).

Meanwhile, Gheist was lowered from the bowels of the Devil of Catachan. Half-finished and already falling apart, Gheist’s captain requested that the devil’s great crane turn his vessel, for he could not manoeuvre it himself. Then, he began to power up his plasma engines. His engineers knew what was coming, and they put everything they could into the engines, maximising their output as the docking clamps were finally released. It only took a few minutes for the Gheist, once released, to accelerate to 0.7c. At taht point, the ship was moving too fast for even a primarch to follow with his sight. It struck several smaller vessels on its way, killing the Gheist’s crew and vaporising the frigates and destroyers which had hit it. At that point, roughly five seconds into maximum burn, it didn’t matter. Gheist couldn’t be stopped. Like the galaxy’s largest kinetic kill vehicle, Gheist surged towards its target. The daemonic kraken had about 3.24 seconds to react to the approaching gheist. It was likely the daemon didn’t even realise what was happening before it hit.

The blast was like a new sun, born int he heart of battle, expanding outwards for half a light second in all directions. When the expanding plasma shell finally dispersed, the kraken simply didn’t exist, alongside its escorts unfortunate enough to be nearby.

The Goliath Engine found itself under attack at every turn. Khan and the Stormrider, The Lion and the Antioch, the Phalanx and Vulkan, and all the might of the Imperium Pentus bore down upon him. Four Primarchs stood now against one. The element of surprise was lost, as was his advantage in numbers. Perturabo realized then that he was outmatched. With a hollow scream of frustration, he ordered his fleet to withdraw. The Pentus force harried his fleeing forces all the way to the translation point. Though he left in defeat, Perturabo also left with many hundreds of captured Pentus ships, almost a thirteenth of the crusade’s vessels.

Honsou was amongst the fleeing forces; somehow he ad escaped the Phalanx on a stolen gunship, though none could say how or why.

The Pentus crusade realized that by sticking together, they could be ambushed and risked utter annihilation each time they fought a battle. This would not work. Thus, the Primarchs decided to split up. They would each hunt down their fallen brothers, and either destroy them or return them to the side of life and sanity.

Victory had been won at Corbellus, but only narrowly.

• (Some chronicles of M41 erroneously consider the Thunderwolf cavalrymen to have literally ridden wolves. To me, this seems obvious allegory on the part of Old Imperial scholars of the time. Why would an advanced army of rapid reaction posthumans ride large wolves into battle? It is much more like the ‘Thunderwolves’ were a form of specialist land speeder of land raider formation, like the legendary Deathwing or Ravenwing of the Dark Angels Chapter. We do not assume the Ravenwing rode giant corvids do we, so why is it so easy for scholars to accept the Fenryka did?)
  • (Draziin-Maton are as much conceptual creatures as they are physical, and once fixed into place, they were no longer entities of potential. They were real. And as soon as they became fixed, they faded.)

Additional Notes

The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and the Chapter Master entered to greet the Ambassador.

It was dark in the room. The Astartes often wondered why his guest insisted on having this small chamber instead of the proper quarters any ambassador would have been entitled to. He understood just how his guest differed from humans, but the past few years had turned him into somewhat of a political animal, and the lack of protocol worried him occasionally.

One does not offend the representative of the Magellan Reich easily. Then again, this representative had made it clear on multiple occasions how it only required a dataport and constant energy flow, which was duly provided to him.

The Astartes peered into the darkness.

‘Ambassador MUTO-35145?’

Eight separate red dots came alight at the mention of this designation, and a bulky figure rose in one corner of the room.

‘Chapter Master Papadimitriu.’ The voice was flat and devoid of any human intonation.

‘Primarch Vulkan has given the order,’ the Space Marine said quietly. ‘The Pentus fleet is assembling as we speak.’

‘Querry: did we complete our objective?’

Papadimitriu nodded. ‘The Kapellan Marines are to be split into two main battlegroups. One half accompanies the fleet, the other was given permission to move towards the Dragon Tide’s Dead Zone. We are to locate and deal with Doombreed and its horde.’

‘It is done, then,’ the other answered. ‘The Machina will provide you with the forces stipulated in our agreement.’

The Chapter Master sighed. ‘Fourteen millennia. This is how long it took us to get this far. How does the weight of so much time feels, Ambassador?’

The Machina did not answer for a few seconds. ‘Time is objective,’ it finally said. ‘Although some of that time period was active almost outside my tolerance level.’

‘This is a way to put it,’ Papadimitriu agreed. ‘I myself look back at the long line of my predecessors and the thought that all this will happen in my lifetime is staggering.’

The Machina moved closer. ‘You will bear this burden. You are a Maker of Fate.’

Papadimitriu sighed. This conversation had been played out between them countless times before.

‘The Fatemakers are no more.’

‘You share their genetic legacy,’ the other pointed out.

‘Only fractionally. After all these years, we have more in common with Angron than with Malistrum. You of all should know that.’

‘You also share their manifest destiny.’

Papadimitriu raised a finger. ‘Out of necessity, not of choice. The stakes were a little too high.’

‘They are still as high as they used to be,’ MUTO-35145 warned him. ‘We will not win the war for Primarch Vulkan at the Dead Zone, but we can lose it there.’

‘I know that.’ Papadimitriu said. ‘We will use all our reserves there. I have contacted Avicenno too. We will throw at them everything we have got. If we fail, there is no future for the Chapter anyway.’

The Machina agreed. ‘Agreed.’

‘The strategic meeting begins at sixteen hundred hours. Will you attend?’

‘I will.’

Papadimitriu nodded to it, and turned to leave for the door. The Kapellan Marines were going to make fate once more – for the world, and this time, for themselves as well.

Vulkan sat alone in the darkness of his private chambers, the darkness ensconcing him like a womb of night. The war had begun at Corbellus and would only end with the death of his brothers. He once more opened the ancient tome, compiled by Kryptmann of the Order of Recollectors. The Shape of the Nightmare to Come. that was the name of the tome. How apt a title for such a record.

"Save us Primarch.Save us Vulkan."

The final words of Kryptmann,they echoed now through eternity. He had his brothers beside him, the Brethren of the Willing fighting the good fight in the shadow. Yet all around him lurked enemies. His father...nay. The Star Father may have come from the Emperor but it was an abomination, a perversion of all the good that Adam Kadmon had worked for. And the...remnant that lay within the Webway was both perplexing and worrying. An unknown factor in the fight against the Dissolution. But more troubling than any was the presence of the Reich.

Their enigmatic ruler, the hidden Khanda, his brother Primarch...he was changed. Far more than what their father had intended. Far greater in scope. And his offer of power, of subordination beneath Vulkan, was more troubling than any offer he had ever been granted, even during his millennium of torment within the Maze of Tzeentch. And yet his own silence, his enigma... It troubled him.

The voices came to him then. Of brothers Long dead, of the new power that called itself Radunrah, born of a gestalt of humanity, Eldar and Ork in a galaxy far away, clad in necrodermis and stalking the paths of Materium and the Webway, biding its time. Khanda fought for humanity, against the Dissolution. But the fragment of speech remained with him, for the Machina entity within Kapellan had granted him that fragment of information alone, classified for his hearing only.

Adam Kadmon believed it was only great power and duty that could hold Chaos and the excess of humanity in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Compassion and charity that somehow endured. The honor of Astartes. The sacrifice of warrior heroes. The unbowed dignity of the unsung billions of Imperial Guard. The compassion of a single Primarch. You saved me brother. More than any other, I would have fallen to Chaos. Me, Ngaru Astaros and Alpharius...we endured only through loyalty to duty and humanity. But you showed us that temperance and compassion could endure, even in the darkness of our existence. You showed us fraternity and justice were possible. You are the fulcrum of our hopes, the best of all of us. You give us hope. To endure and to struggle. We are with you. The travesty of the Traitors will be laid to ruination and humanity saved. Look for us. At Ultramar, in the Halo Stars. From the darkness and shadow, we shall strike with flame and thunder.

Expect us. Untrado Vulkan!

The state of the galaxy in the 61st millennium can be summarized by a single word: dusk. The sun is now setting on the galaxy, and these are the final hours before the long night. The Great Game of Chaos enters its final stages, with reality slowly unraveling like an old rug.

The five brothers of the Pentus meet the five of the Travesty in the war to ultimately decide the fate of humanity. On one side Lorgar leads his corrupted kin to bring about his new Word and with it ultimate annihilation, empowered by a force so perverse it literally cannot be named and aided by unstoppable creatures composed of infinite possibility. On the other hand Vulkan leads a last crusade to finally end the thirty millenia-long battle between primarchs first instigated by Horus, although he is hopelessly outnumbered and fighting a foes capable of consuming causality. But all is not lost, for unexpected allies fly to his aid. The Reach is returning, but can even the two lost primarchs stop the coming storm?

The puppet Huron Blackheart stabs out in one last, desperate attempt to cling to his crude empire, even as it slowly slips away like sand between his fingers. He has brought his full strength to bear against Biel-Tan, the only Craftworld to defy the self-inflicted genocide. It has become a war of opposing extremes, the vile barbarity of the enslaved Tyrant and his Imperium against the impossible elegance of the few Eldar still left. Although the Eldar still fight with all the fury of a cornered beast, they are still one world against many, and inch by inch the last Eldar are forced to give ground. But Huron has not won yet. At the twilight of their species, a simple Bonesinger has taken up the mantle of Avatar, and now the primal fires of creation clash against entropy incarnate for the salvation of Biel-Tan.

Elsewhere, the Eldar God Khaine has risen once more. And with his return, the universe weeps, for he is a god of Murder, and as such demands blood be spilled in his name.

As for the rest of the galaxy, the news is far more dire. The Xenos empires of the galactic east and what petty Imperiums survived the past twenty thousand years have fallen, broken one by one by forces within and without that they could not hope to match. For the Masters of the Materium, the C'tan, have returned in full force, kept only in check by the returned Kork. Even against creatures literally built only for war, it is a conflict where C'tan victory is assured, so great is the strength of the stellar vampires. The only question is how long the Kork lines can hold, for when they break the galaxy will drown under an endless tide of cold steel. Even the Necrons, on the verge of regaining what was lost so very long ago, have been all but annihilated by a foe of their own making. It seems that in this galaxy, even immortals can die.

The millions that remain of these shattered worlds have collected into a massive fleet of the lost and the desperate. Their destination unknown, with only what decrepit ships they can fly and what little rotten food they can forage, the uncounted millions of refugees are led by Iacob, the seemingly last Good Man left in a galaxy of only hate and horror. Something has happened, however. The fleet has disappeared, with the last message sent being little more than a ship captain's strangled scream shrieking about how they found...something while wandering in the void.

But all is not yet lost, for some small sliver of hope still remains. Revelation, a being not yet born, forged of the Emperor's discarded Compassion for mankind, but for now only a mere concept, gathers his host from across the galaxy for some unknown purpose. He alone understands the nature of the Nex, and he alone can stop it. But the question remains: how?

It is the 61st millennium, the time of new Gods, the end of old Wars, and the beginning of the end of Everything. All we can do is hope we survive, for hope is all we have left, screaming against the storm.

Additional background Section 44: Salvation or Damnation? Even seers cannot guess...

‘Upon the field of slaughter, the man who sets his blade upon the ground is exalted above all others. Mercilessness is cowardice, and the whole galaxy stinks of this spinelessness, for it smells of corpses and gibbets. Do you truly not know who my champion is?

No? Then you’re just as doomed as the rest of them. I will mourn you, but only for a moment. Then you will be forgotten, like all bad dreams...’

[Compiler’s note: This quote was located on a loose sheet found at the back of the manuscripts brought back with the remains of Vasiri. Its author is unknown, as is its context. I forget why I placed it here.]

To Walk on God’s Skin...:

It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when the refugee fleet of Iacob reached the sphere, for the galaxy around the sphere was nullified and blunt; neither angyl, daemon nor psyker could communicate through such a grand night shroud. Thus, there were not easily confirmed galactic dates, but there were many localised star dates, based upon the relative location of the fleet to the spherical construction which seemed to grow tremendously as they approached.

Iacob had been drawn to the region. For some reason, Vulkan believed the area of dead space, lurking just beneath the galactic plane, held the key to saving as many lives as possible. But the vast sphere, which was well over 1 AU in diameter, was inert to all forms of scanning, and all attempts at communication failed. What little light it reflected on their approach vector had indicated that the sphere was lighter than an object of its scale should be, but aside from this point of academic interest, little else could be gleaned.

As the colossal refuge fleet held orbit around the massive object, strange things began to occur. Some men went mad, and desperately tried to kill themselves and their colleagues. Soon, the brigs were full of wide-eyed madmen, ranting about ‘God’s Skin’. Some great psionic beacon or force had fallen over the massed ranks of aliens that basked in the unlight of the sphere. It was no psychic trick. Somehow, they knew that the sphere predated the notion of psykers or sorcerers.

It seemed that the more the crews of the refugee fleet resisted this all-pervading, silent siren song, the more they began to succumb to its madness. Men and women spoke in tongues, and fell upont heir faces in wailing confusion. Others wrote in strange alien languages no one could understand. Entire libraries of impossible notes were scrawled onto bulkheads and floors. Tau muttered and cut at themselves with their bonding knives, while kroot began to fast, refusing to eat the ‘madness-tainted’ food of their fellow refugees.

Captain Trechous, overall fleet commander of the flotilla, began to have disturbing dreams of a silent god, stranded in an infinite void, with all the stars too far away to see. Only the dark, yawning loneliness and the empty vastness confronted him, and he felt a fear unlike anything a mortal mad could imagine. This was ageless, depthless fear. Trechous drove the thoughts from his mind, but this just brought them back all the stronger the next night and the next after that.

Iacob’s infirmaries were filled with refugees; not just those who were sick and wounded when they joined the fleet, but now with others suffering self-inflicted wounds and deranged delusions. It became clear to him then what had to be done.

The first Captain Trechous heard of Iacob’s plan, an unauthorised shuttle was launched from one of the fleet’s flagships. The ship was heading towards the sphere. It intended to land upon its expansive silver surface. At first, Trechous considered shooting down the shuttle, but when he realised Iacob was onboard, he stopped. The man was no lunatic or danger to the fleet. Iacob was one of the few honest, decent men Trechous knew, or had ever known. He let the man continue, evne though he felt primal, elemental dread in the very heart of his being. Whatever was in the sphere was mad, and profoundly dangerous, he just knew it.

Other members of the fleet were not so understanding. One of the armed escorts ships moved to intercept the shuttle. The sphere, perhaps detecting a large vessel crossing an unseen border of tolerability, shuddered. One of its great pylons surge dinto life, and struck the escort fromt he sky. There was an intense beam of green cropse-light, before the escort simply vanished, leaving nothing behind, not even wreckage. But the tiny shuttle somehow slipped past this invisible boundary. It took only an hour for the shuttle to descend to the sphere’s surface. Th gravity of the object was higher than Terran standard, and the shuttle landed with force.

Iacob, clad in a thick, visored void suit, stepped out onto the silver plain, which stretched for countless miles in every direction. The man felt energy pulsing through the ground. He felt power and sublime fear coursing through his body. But he surmounted his fear, as he took several more tentative steps.

He had realised something, as he had watched his charges in the apothecarium sicken and lose their minds. They had resisted the madness oft he sphere, and the strain had shattered their psyches. Iacob had not dones so. As he walked upon this so-called ‘God’s Skin’, he let the madness into his mind. It flowed through his simple, mortal brain. His was a mind of utter mundanity; he was no great genius or warrior.

Thus, he could neither fight nor comprehend what happened next. As he walked, he felt vast tectonic movement beneath his feet. Then, like mercury crawling up a thermometer, the silver surface began to encircle his feet, then his shins, then his knees. He began to gasp and hyperventilate inside his stifling void suit, before the silver surface covered him entirely.

Then, the fluid receded, leaving not a single trace of Iacob behind.

Shortly after that, deathly green light began to shine from great fissures all along the sphere’s surface area.

The grand sphere was awake. And it was insane...

The Daemons’ Demesne:

On the southern spinwards edge of the great Imperium of Travesties, lies a satellite realm of grotesque evil and symbolic significance to the human species. To the Imperium Pentus, it is called the Poisoned Cradle, the Tau know it as Spacial Abberaton Codename: ‘Doom’. To most other races, factions and species, it is known as the Terran Hells; the demesne of daemons.

Relative to the greater Travesty, this realm should have been small and insignificant compared to other fiefdoms that allied themselves to the Second Word. The Terran Hells, in the materium, only consisted of a handful of systems, trapped within the malign grasp of a single warp/realspace storm. But daemons are beings of imagery, creatures of symbollogy, and they gain power through souls, emotions and the twisted ideas and concepts mortals conceive. The Terran Hells were the former birthplace of humanity and as a consequence the region held vast meaning and history in its mutated bedrock and impossible geometries. Terror, the eye of the storm, was known by all races; once-loved, now loathed and feared. The warp poured into the region, allowing daemons to congregate and propagate their poisonous ideals and self-fulfilling feedback loops of nourishing emotional turmoil, but belief was the mortar that held this diabolical place together. With the Dragon’s minions gone from the system, there was nothing left to check the cancerous advance of the daemons; Mars became the blood-red satellite, forever awash with oceans of gore and rearing turrets of beaten brass and grinning skulls; a hunting ground for such terrible beings.

To list every vile form of daemon that made their home there would be impossible; their names and diverse forms could fill a thousand times a thousand grimoires of forbidden lore, each unique in its form and hungers.

But this realm was unlike most places in the Travesty, where evil men and aliens strove for power, harnessing daemons and warp energy for their own whims, thus bringing fourth corruption. Here, the daemons had the agency, and their mortal servants were the puppets. They were ruled by the Daemon King known as Doombreed, the most powerful daemon of the great devils that was still free. The others, such as the Xexes the Festering, Ingethel and Drach’nyen, were either devoured by rivals, enslaved by the Deep Warp, or else humbled and trapped with items of power.

The court of Doombreed was located deep in the dungeons of the Terran Hells, and he had gathered a great and tumultuous alliance of daemons to his side. The two most prominent were the ever conniving daemon princes Balphomael of Horned Darkness, and Cherubael the Cruel. One was a thing of shadow, with skeletal wings lost amidst churning, horned clouds of smoke, while the latter was golden-skinned and beautiful. Swan wings graced Cherubael’s back like an angelic mantle, and his handsome face held a gaze of exquisite malice. These two constantly argued and vied for Doombreed’s favour, and served as Doombreed’s chief advisors, for what being of chaos would not desire discordant council in all matters?

There were other major daemons under the thrall of Doombreed. This included the prince of a thousand wings, a feathered serpent coiling in the twisted storms of warp-tainted Jupiter’s atmosphere. This terrible beast was one of Tzeentch’s own, and wherever this creature went, flocks of screamers followed like shoals of hungry sharks. The serpent had a great human skull in place of a reptile’s, and its sockets blazed with the multi-hued light of Tzeentch. The rattle of its feathers in the ethereal wind of Jupiter was said to make the sound of a billion chittering souls, all trapped within the evil creature.

The herald bloothirster Skulltaker was said to serve as Doombreed’s executioner, his envenomed hellblade beheading and banishing any daemon of mortal than displeased the Bloodied King of the Terran Hells. Other chronicles claim this role was actually taken up by the daemon Samus, but I don’t see how one could reliably tell the difference between the servants of the primordial annihilator. To my eye they are all creatures dragged from the deranged imagination of madmen, I do not care to catalogue all their vast multitudes.

Alixria the ravenous was another of the greater thralls, and unlike the previous daemons, her form seemed altogether more fixed. She had once been a mortal harlot and starving orphan on some horrible little industrial planet, trading her sexual favours for food and lodgings. But Slannesh had taken her, and raised her to new heights of excess and power. She desired to live forever, as a perfect and immaculate goddess. Slannesh, as with all the patrons of chaos, gave her almost what she desired. Slannesh would grant her greater powers, but instilled in her a diabolical hunger and thirst, that no food could quell or drink could quench. Only through devouring the hearts of those who loved her would she gain beauty and power. Alixria devoured her own family, unrepentant in her vainglorious desire. She grew in scale and power exponentially, and as she grew taller and ever more impervious, her beauty became spectacular to behold. Once she had ascended to daemonhood, she was a towering perfumed princess, as large as a titan but lithe and enchantingly beautiful. Shapely thighs the width of fortress turrets, purple hair long and strong as steel mooring cables, enchanting feline eyes larger than a man was tall. Her glistening tanned flesh was impervious to any attempt to tarnish her perfection. Alixria surrounded herself with drug-addled slaves and hopelessly enchanted lovers, who she would tempt with blasphemous carnal promises, only to betray and devour them. Her minions lived within the towering, disturbing sculptures the daemoness carved into the ossified mountains of her domain.

Though Alixria looked like a normal (if impossibly vast and extravagantly attired) human on the outside, inside she was nothing but churning teeth and thorny lashed tendrils oozing fetid acid and stinking bile, as inhuman as any abomination tzeentchian madness might have dreamt up. Her lovers suffered slow and agonising deaths in her eldritch internals. What pack or offer Doombreed made to entice her to join his daemonic court is unknown. Some say she was intrigued by the Doombreed’s indifference to her allure, others that he allowed her to drink a vial of his ichor, and she became intoxicated. I would not wish to speculate myself; I do not profess to know the mindsets of daemonkind.

But of course for all these bizarre and imposing devils, a realm of daemons could never function without mortals to fuel and define them.

The manner in which the Terran Hells was horrendous and disgusting, but I shall relate it to you readers, so taht you may understand how such an abomination as this realm was able to stave off collapse, despite all sanity and reason screamed for it to fall. Cherubael had always been despised by his fellow daemons, for they claimed he was tainted by the materium; he thought as a mortal thought, they cursed and slandered with their segmented tongues. In a way, they were correct.

Cherubael knew how humans were created, and how to breed them and how to ripen their souls for a daemon’s feast. Invoking ancient contracts with the Tersis and the other wandering daemon ships that sailed the warp, Cherubael had billions of mortal adolescents dragged to the Terran Hells. Deep in lightless pits, these creatures were reared according to the hungers of the daemons. Some were raised in the infernal brothels and torture chambers of slannesh, others fought in claustrophobic fighting pits and gladiatorial cages of Khorne. Some were filled with plague and left to fester and multiply in the filthy cesspits and drug dens of nurgle, while others were dropped into underground labyrinths with no end, but always with the exits marked by tzeentch. For every daemon and every patron’s nourishing perversions, there were humans and aliens bred specially. These unfortunates were forced to breed and propagate, and their offspring would be in turn corrupted from birth, never knowing anything other than the will of chaos. Only when a mortal slave became wasted and ancient, were they scooped out of the pits and fed to ravenous daemons in lavish feasts and soul-lacerating orgies. The dungeons of Doombreed’s realm became obscene battery farms of human and alien chattel.

With this powerful source of soul power, Doombreed was able to bribe countless daemons into his service, who suckled at the teet of the daemon king and his chosen lieutenant princes. Doombreed himself managed to define itself as a distinct entity, separate from its former patron Khorne. Doombreed became an unaligned dameon of frightful power. He rebuilt his daemonflesh body in twited homage to his former mortal form; a barbarian king with a great black scimitar of oozing smoke, and a fanged visage of beaten brass with molten iron blood. He bore a crown made of the fangs ripped form the maws of his bested rivals, that eternally drooled their owners’ stinking blood; a simple yet potent symbol of his mastery of the devils myriad. His vast host of daemons similarly rejected the technology of the materium, favouring forms that were mockeries of the pre-technological savges of old Terra that fought and bled in the oblivion before Old Night; chariots and spears, cursed bows and flanged maces, cavalry and whips. These were monsters of a primordial age, where such things as progress were sick lies told by mad fools.

I weep to relate this horror, but please forgive my seemingly-callous tone. It is the only way this chronicler can relate this information to you.

There were some humans, however, who served the daemons, and were not merely food for their impossible appetites. Mortal labour was needed to aid the daemons in the building of structures, and the prosecution of wars. These miserable wretches’ ancestors served the daemons willingly, and over the countless millennia under the glare of the warp-tainted sun, feasting upon the black-veined foliage of thorns that grew on every dameon world of the Terran hells, the descendants of those first chaos cultists became something... else. They were not mere mutants, with bodies corrupted by chaos. These creatures were changed in every way by chaos; even their very souls were decayed and sickly things. Their bodies followed suit, becoming hunched and withered things. Their minds wre cunning, but they were slaves to the will of the daemons. The daemons did not deign to give this malformed and ruined race a name, but their enemies did. They called them the Corroded, for that is what they were, mind body and soul.

Balphomael had mortal puppets and spies all across the Travesty, who kept the Terran Hells informed of matters of the materium, while Cherubael’s fluttering, winged Iolus daemons spied upon the warp and the other entities that forever sought to unseat Doombreed.

As the realm of daemons reached its zenith, Balphomael’s spies brought word that the primarchs were engaged in a cataclysmic war to the north; Travesty versus Pentus versus the Angyllic Hosts. Cherubael suggested that the daemons should intercede on behalf of the daemon Primarchs. With the aid of Doombreed’s mighty army, the Primarchs Pentus would have surely been defeated and scattered to the wind. But, as with every descision with regards warp fiends, there was dissent. Balphomael suggested they look south east, and crush the fledgling empires that bordered the diaspora of Ahriman. But Doombreed only had eyes for the aliens that lingered in the west, to the Tau of calixis. The wandering western Tau had formed a new empire far from their old birth worlds and the sprawling deadzones of the eastern fringe. They had only won this realm through a costly and lengthy war with the Amarantine Empire of the Slaugth, the loathsome maggot men and their equally repugnant biomechanical Vassal constructs. This war lasted centuries, and was only concluded after the Tau reached out to the ancient technocracies that lingered on the very edge of intergalactic space; Magellans and Interexites and Oberuun colonies, Fatemakers and the lesser lost Kronous civilisations. Only with their aid were the Tau able to oust the Slaugth. The Slaugth fled to the deep places of the galaxy, like the worms they most certainly were, and played little further part in the Age of Dusk.

The tau had long resisted chaos. It was not as if their wills were especially mighty, or that they were pure of heat and deed. The fundamental strength of the tau in the face of chaos’ corruption was their utter lack of personal ambition. They believed in a good greater than the sum of one soul. Their desires were for productive lives and a prosperous society as defined by their Ethereal Caste; what could chaos offer such creatures? Now, daemons are beings of concept above substance, as previously related. Doombreed rejected his advisors’ council on matters of expanding his realm, for the daemon did not care about territorial expansion or temporal gains in the materium. The daemon king knew that if he could at last corrupt the incorruptible Tau, his legend would be unassailable. A daemon with recognition across the entire galaxy is a powerful daemon indeed...

But the daemons needed a way to corrupt the Tau. Individual tau were of no use, and the ethereal similarly were slavishly devoted to their selfless creed. But Doombreed knew he needed to corrupt only one tau, and the rest would fall like corn before a thresher.

During a routine jump between subsectors, a tau vessel was caught in a warp snare set by the daemons. Appeairng from the warp like ghosts, they slaughtered their way through the screaming crew with monstrous glee, painting the pristine white walls of the vessel cyan with tau blood. At last, the armoured central chamber of the ship was torn apart by the daemon leading the incursion. The ethereal inside stared the glimmering gold daemon down without fear. The daemon didn’t care as it purred.

“Hello little thing. My name is Cherubael,” was all the daemon was recorded saying, before it dragged the ethereal away.

The ethereal taken was Aun’Va himself, the most revered and ancient of all tau in existence, the spiritual heart of the Tau’Va credo itself.

When news reached the tau command council, a terrible wrath was stirred in the entire western tau culture. They sent emissaries to every empire and civilization that heeded them, calling in favors and pleading for aid. The tau had to retrieve Aun’va from the clutches of Doombreed at all costs, evne if they had to unseat the daemonic abomination from the throne of hell itself.

Within a year, the Tau set sail to the Terran hells, at the head of a technological alliance of human and xenos minor empires, from the halo stars to the mythic Magellenic clouds. Some fought for the honor of the tau, some fought to curry favour with the aliens. Some, the Magellan Reichs in particular, fought because the Terran Hells were a vile insult to all humanity; a mockery of Terra’s once proud and majestic heritage. Such a realm could not be permitted to exist.

This alliance called itself the Salvation, and their war would come to be known as the Salvation War. At first, the alliance thought it would be no great effort to destroy Doombreed’s disciples. The alliance had bested the technologically advanced Slaugth, and in comparison the Corroded and their daemonic masters were savages, fighting with bows and spears. What hope had chariots against the great military killing machines humanity and the tau had devised?

They believed the daemons would be driven before them with impunity and ease.

They were, alas, entirely mistaken.

The war was horrific and bloody, and there was to be much sorrow and loss before its end.

Additional Background Section 45: The Wraithbone Choirs

The ancient eldar, on the very cusp of the fall, created the craftworlds from the vast trading vessels of their empire, intending them to be grand arks for the majority of their race to flee the fall. However, a scarce fraction of the eldar fled when the farseers warned them of their impending doom. Nevertheless, the craftworlds were built to house countless trillions of eldar souls (even if most eldar were consumed by She Who Thirsts... or worse). The infinity circuits were grown to rescue the fallen souls of slain eldar after the fall. However, this is only a fraction of the potency of the infinity circuit. The infinity circuits of each craftworld were unfathomably vast, their soul reserves spread out through the non-physical planes, which meant their infinite capacity was stored in relatively condensed wraithbone repositories in the material realm. Not only were all the fallen souls of each craftworld saved and stored, but the best and brightest souls of these worldships were distilled, alongside all the greatest intellectual works of the craftworld were stored in legendary artefacts known as the Wraithbone choirs. Should a craftworld fall, and its infinity circuits be breached or the entire population of the craftworld were exterminated before they could flee, the wraithbone choirs would be ejected into the void as metaphysical life rafts, waiting to be returned to the eldar race.

By the Age of Dusk, almost all the Craftworlds had fallen, and almost all of the Wraithbone Choir had been recovered by Biel-tan and allowed to dissolve into their infinity circuit. Through this process, the eldar believed that they could free Ynnead, the great goddess of death formed from their conjoined souls, which they could feel trapped within the infinite depths of the circuit. However, three of the wraithbone choirs were still missing by early M56. Sensing slanneshi corruption, Kaelor’s wraithbone choir had abandoned its host circuit in M41, and had been lost ever since. Altansar’s wraithbone choir had been ejected on the dark day it fell into the Eye, before Maugan Ra single-handedly drew the craftworld back out again. Before the eldar could find it, Trayzn the Infinite snatched it away to Solemnace, to covet obsessively alongside all his other thefts. Khey-Ys’s choir abandoned its craftworld under the worst circumstances. The craftworld had been overrun by the Great Enemy itself, led by the Greater Daemon known to mortals simply as ‘Heartslayer’. His daemons infested the world, and drank the infinity circuit dry. And into that dead husk of a world ship, the raw power of Slannesh was poured. Heartslayer possessed the Avatar of Khey-Ys, and moulded it to suit his grandiose whims, becoming astatuesque, languid humanoid; beautiful yet awful to behold. The wraithbone of the craftworld became saturated in the poison of the warp, and Khey-Ys became a throne for excess and venal horror. But the spirit of the craftworld saved itself, if only barely, and for long millennia, it remained lost and safe.

But alas, I cannot lie to you and claim this forever remained the case; for they were found, and the drama of what transpired upon the finding of two of these lost choirs occurred on a rather unassuming planet known as Irist.

Irist was a mundane world, which had the misfortune of being located within the Imperium of Travesties. It had once been a thriving industrial world, but the majority of its planet’s twenty billion inhabitants had been abducted by various warlords who needed warrior fodder for their wars and rituals, or as mortal fuel for their starships. The rest of the planet’s people had been taken some other, more horrendous way; the planet was covered in what looked like the claw marks of animals, only each claw mark was miles across, and were visible as scars on the brown world’s surface, even from orbit. Amidst the ruins of Irist’s empty capital city, two meteorites crashed. These were the wraithbone choirs of Kaelor and Khey-Ys. How they had somehow met with one another and made planetfall on the same evening is unknown; perhaps they were psychically active, or perhaps it was truly fate? Goddess only knows. But I digress.

Whatever their reason, fall they did, into the rubble of the dead city. Decades later, there came other visitors to Irist. These were the scavenger Mutts of a warlord known as Galruut. These dog-headed beastmen landed their ramshackle ships on Irist’s surface, looking for scraps of technology they could pillage, and subsequently sell to the daemon worlds patronised by Valchocht the Maker. These beastmen were carrion eaters at most. Galruut’s minions scoured the world for useful scraps, but found little of value. That is, except for the two choirs, that sat, unharmed in the bottom of the smouldering craters they had delved into the planet’s surface. At first, the Mutts considered smashing them for useful components, but their chieftain Galruut recognised the technology as being from the mythical eldar race. He knew very specific parties who greatly desired any eldar technology, and he had his sorcerer send a message directly to those self same parties.

His message was received not only by its intended recipients, thankfully. A Task force of the Warrior King Commandery, after departing the Corbellus system to mount raids inside the Travesty’s territory, came across Galruut’s signal, and they made planetfall a few weeks after the Mutts’ arrival. After their strike cruiser destroyed the beastmen’s ship in orbit, the seven squads of the Warrior King Sub-Captain’s taskforce deployed via drop pod. The ensuing battle was short but incredibly vicious; despite the obvious superiority of the Nova Astartes, the Mutts were dug in and had nowhere to go. But the result was never in doubt, and after half an hour of fighting, the Mutts defending the chaoirs were all but slain.

Galruut, bleeding out, could only gasp in fright, not at his impending death, but at something worse. “This prize was not meant for the likes of you. Do you not know who you are stealing from?”

The space marines ignored him, as they prepared to depart the worthless world. However, in orbit, their strike cruiser reported that they could not leave; warpstorms were springing up in the warp all around Irist; as if a great hand were closing around the world, or some vast cyclone were coiling into being, with them becalmed at its eye.

Galruut died laughing spitefully. He expired, gurgling. “The heartslayer comes... you are all naught but fodder now...”

At the edge of the system, the warp was breached. From this colossal tear in reality, something vast slid into realspace. It was hundreds of miles long, and looked like some abominable shark or leviathan of the deep, but festooned with domes, puckering lamprey mouths, and undulating breasts studded with spines. Living flesh, carved with blasphemous runes coated the hull of this monstrosity, but this hell ship was no more alive than a screamer or a fury. It was animated by daemons, and was ruled by a regent amongst daemons, a keeper of secrets and lies. Eldar called the nightmare Ail’Slath’Sleresh, but all others knew it as Heartslayer, and the hell ship that served as his chariot was just as infamous. It was Khey’Ys defiled; a ruin in this life and the next.

It was the Warrior Kings’ turn to witness the death of their vessel, which exploded in the upper atmosphere after a sudden and catastrophic incursion by daemons. Less than seventy Marines and a a hundred Justice Confederate drop troopers stood upon the dead world of Irist, and they watched with undisguised awe as the heathen craftworld entered irist’s orbit, and blotted out its weak sun entirely. The sky above them became nothing but a vista of a hellscape, inverted and poised above them like a false reflection of the surface below.

Sub-Captain Roburt Telemas activated his power fist, but even he knew this was a fight which could not be won. From Khey-Ys, the daemons simply dropped to the surface, swooping down just on the horizon; they relished the fear of the Justice Troopers and the fierce loathing of the Astartes, and wished to savour the coming kill as they massed in all directions around the city, countless millions of daemons massing for the feast; daemonettes, fiends, serpentine snakes covered in breasts and claws, wailing banshee daemons and cursed ghosts of the fall, innumerable were the manner of devils that came to destroy them.

The daemons swept towards them with the speed of jetbikes, scuttling across the rubble and ruins without even slowing. They charged into the guns of the Pentus soldiers, heedless of the damage done to them; at Khey-Ys’s black heart, a raw wound in the warp was held open using perverted eldar science, and thus the daemons were tremendously strong and durable. The marines and troopers fell back into pre-planned strong points, luring daemons into killzones and bottlenecks, but the daemons did not care, banishment meant nothing to them. The humans were ripped down one by one, until there were but a handful of them left. Telemas fell back into the collapsed building where the Mutts lay slaughtered, where the deceptively small Wraithbone choirs sat, humming their silent psychic lament.

To his surprise, he was not alone in there. Eight figures stood in the ruins, where no one had stood mere seconds before. Each of the nice threw off their travelling cloaks, to reveal eight ornate alien warriors, in elaborately ornate eldar armour.

Before Telemas could say a word, their obvious leader, a tall swordsman with a great crested helmet, spoke.

“You have defended the Choirs as best you could, honoured mon keigh. But you need not die here. Depart.”

“We have no choice. We cannot depart, even if I wished to, which I do not,” Telemas explained, as he heard more of his men fighting and dying just beyond the ruined building’s walls.

Another one of the aliens, a winged figure with a grinning mask, spoke in a similarly dead tone of voice, at once one voice and many. “You are stranded here? This is unfortunate.”

“Indeed, but we can ensure you survive. Continue to guard our precious quarry, mon keigh ally, and we shall kill the enemy,” one of the aliens, a hulking reaper, explained coldly.

Telemas almost laughed, despite his hopeless situation. “You eight shall defeat this host? You alone?”

“We shall,” one of the aliens said with finality, an alien with beautiful armor studded with fist-sized spherical ornaments.

“Then go, slay,” telemas replied. “I will guard these... choirs.”

Without another word, the warriors leapt from the ruins, springing bodily over the walls, and into the massed daemonic host.

Their boasts were not idle, for these were the Phoenix Lords of legend. One alone was enough to turn back armies and slay cities. But the hosts of the Heartslayer did not face but one; they faced eight. Asurmen the Dire Avenger, Fuegan the Lord of Fire, Maugan Ra the reaper, Zandros the Slicing Orb, Jain Zar the Storm of Silence, Baharroth the Cry of the Wind, Karandras the Hunter of Shadows and Lhykosidae the Wraith Spider.

The daemon host exploded around each Phoenix Lord. Each blow of their weapons, or breath of their guns slew daemons, three rows deep, so fiercely and painfully they were banished for a thousand years. Asurmen became an indistinct blur, as shurikens and dire sword cuts erupted from him faster than even an Astartes’ mind might follow. The daemonic fire of sundered daemons swirled around him like the wake of a ship in a storm.

Karandras vanished into the mass of writhing purple dameonflesh, before a tidal surge of dying daemons seemed to appear in a jagged line through their ranks, each ripped apart and cast to the eight winds like flotsam.

The Wraith spider in his golden armour, stepped between worlds with the ease a man might pass through a door of his house. Where his twin blades fell, daemons were beheaded or declawed, wherever he walked, warp portals dragged any daemons who got near into the warp directly, deporting them tot he sea of souls without a second glance.

Jain Zar shrieked as she cut down foe upon foe, her horrendous scream dissolving daemonettes where they stood. Those that did not fall were destroyed by her bladed discus and her mighty spear.

Maugan Ra climbed to the top of the tallest remaining spire of Irist’s capital, and rained down a terrible deluge of fire upon the daemon host with his cannon Maugetar; it is said he slew the most on that evening form his perfect perch. Any winged daemons which evaded his gun, met a swift end upon the scythed bayonet of his weapon. They were bisected before being contemptuously smote upon the ferrocrete far below.

Fuegan’s fire pike was the most feared weapon, for it brought melta fire upon the hordes of slannesh; a daemon’s bane. Rivers of molten daemonstuff flowed around his ankles, as he literally waded into combat with the larger daemons, his fire axe castrating and hamstringing the monsters, before he beheaded them with fiery contempt.

Zandros at first seemed unarmed, but in became apparent what his power was when the spheres built into his ornate battle armour detatched and fell to the floor. Before the spheres struck the ground, they stopped mid-fall. Then, thye began to spin, and the molecular blades at their equators unfurled with a resonant buzzing. Zandros was a master of the path of the battle-kine; weaponised telekinesis. The orbs began to orbit Zandros, faster and faster, as he walked unhurriedly towards the slanneshi host. A sphere of lethal force surrounded him then, and any daemon that neared him instantly became sundered paste, or else were shredded into violet ribbons of flesh, which burnt on the breeze like tinder.

The daemons wailed and fled before the Phoenix Lords, whimpering and crying in mocking emulation of human sorrow and fear. Many fell back towards the looming craftworld, and only the fear of Heartslayer’s petulant wrath forced thme to return to the fray. However, within half and hour, the Phoenix Lords had pushed the daemons back to the outskirts of the city, leaving naught but fizzing warp matter dissolving in their wake.

Onboard his throneship, Heartslayer grew frustrated, and sent down reinforcements. These were even larger and more deadly foes; corrupted wraithguard and wraithlords, possessed by daemonspawn. But even worse than these blasphemies were the daemonic eldar titans that emerged onto the field of battle to face the Phoenix Lords.

The humans witnessing this amazing spectacle thought they were witnessing duelling gods as they beheld the impossible carnage wrought by the eldar warriors. Only the Primarchs equalled these creatures in sheer majesty and presence.

The titans were a tough prospect for the Asuryata, for their D cannons and vibro weapons could utterly destroy a Phoenix Lord’s armour if they hit.

If.

Maugan Ra had to leapt form his perch, as a sonic blast turned his spire to rubble in an instant. Karandras and Jain Zar dodged and hopped across the ground, deftly avoiding the colossal energies unleashed by the approaching titans. Asurmen rushed forth, crossing swords with a dozen leering daemon-wraithlords. Each one fell, but each time was slightly harder than the last, for Heartslayer poured masses of elemental warp stuff into his minions.

Baharroth saw his opportunity to attack as one of the titans was sent reeling from a barrage of orbs from Zandros. Just as the titan regained its bearings, the winged Phoenix Lord surged through the air. At the last moment, he clutched his wings close to his body. He struck the abomination with the speed of a railgun, and the force of a macrocannon. Baharroth punched straight through the titan’s chest, erupting from its back a moment later. Firing his lasblaster into the wound, he caused the staggered titan to explode in a spectacular detonation, visible from telemas’ vantage point a mile away.

Lhykosidae jumped through the warp, and emerged inside another titan, ripping it apart from the inside out. Daemon within slain, the titan simply fell to its knees and did not rise again.

Karandras appeared upon the shoulder of one titan, hacking away at its armour seemingly ineffectually. But his plan became clear when one of the titan’s fellow war machines turned its D-cannon towards karandras, who leapt to safety only moments before the vortex bolt struck. It instead beheaded the titan he had been standing upon in a single blast.

Fuegan charged the final titan, but his charge seemed futile as the war machine raised a cannon arm to slay him. The shot went wide, as zandros telekinetically shunted the gun arm aside. This gave Fuegan time to melt one of the slender machine’s legs. Hobbled, it stumbled forwards, and was overcome by the nine phoenix lords who proceeded to clamber over its fuselage.

From above, Khey-Ys began to rise slowly; Heartslayer meant to reach high orbit, and destroy the planet and all the Phoenix lords with them. Asurmen’s disciples knew this, and they could not let this happen.

The Wraith Spider grabbed a hold of Karandras and Jain Zar, and the three vanished through his teleport. Asurmen and Fuegan grapsed Baharroth’s ankles and he swept them directly upwards with tremendous speed. Zandros simply began to rise under the power of his own mind, levitating Maugan Ra alongside himself and his dozen slicing orbs. All were converging on the Khey-Ys.

The Phoenix Lords fought their way into the craftworld, and each one of them found terrors to match and surpass the forces that had made planetfall. Ancient terrors beyond the dreams of men lay curled in the recesses of Khey-Ys, for it was a playground for monsters. Using his magic, Heartslayer separated the eight, hoping to isolate and overwhelm them in the vast expanse of the corrupted eldar ship.

His plan almsot worked. The Phoenix Lords fought furiously against their foes, but most of them could not reach his inner sanctum. Only Maugan Ra and Asurmen managed to locate Heartslayer’s lair. Where ocne the temple of Khaine had stood, now a grotesque Bordello of vice and evil lay. In place of a iron throne, a chaise longue of purple silk and the stitched together flesh of a hundred eldar infants. Heartslayer’s towering metal body lay upon thise hideous piece of furniture, gently caressing the stolen wailing doom in his hands. By his side, a most horrendous creature stood.

Ysgar Oppugnant was its title, but whatever name the thing had ocne had was long since lost. The tall, slender creature was a thing of nightmares, but it was no daemon. It was some child of the Crone Worlds, some half-breed wretch from darkest legend.* It smiled as the two Phoenix Lords entered, and whispered something to Heartslayer. Heartslayer laughed.

“We come to devour two eldar relics, and eight more appear and offer themselves to us. How delightful! You think we fear you, little eldar? Your greatest power is your ability to keep on dying, over and over. That is nothing to brag about now is it? Come, let us dance this little dance of ours,” he chuckled, as he slowly rose from his seat and brandished his stolen sword.

Maugan Ra did not wait on ceremony, and he shot Ysgar a dozen times, as did Asurmen. Ysgar raised his hands and halted the shuriken mid flight. The bladed disks rotted to black nothingness moments later.

Meanwhile, Heartslayer leapt into combat with Asurmen. Blade met blade a thousand times in the space of a dozen heartbeats, and the pornographic tapestries around the chamber erupted into flame as the sparks flew from the two clashing blades of Wailing Doom and the Diresword.

Ysgar unleashed a storm of multi-hued warp energy upon Maugan Ra, but the Phoenix Lord resisted the foul magicks, blazing with pure white soul light between the cracks in his black and bone white armour. Ysgar swept through the warp, appearing mere inches from Maugan Ra, and rammed a dagger into the Reaper’s gut. But Ra was swifter, and deflected the blow with the butt of Maugetar, before slashing the throat of Ysgar. The scythe passed through Ysgar Oppugnant like a sail through smoke, before ysgar appeared behind him and attempted to impale the reaper once more. Maugan deflected the blow, and soon the combat descended into a swirling tornado of blades, with Ra rooted to the spot at the eye of the storm. He could not help Asurmen against the Heartslayer.

The duel between the daemon-avatar and Asurmen was turning against the Avenger. The giant had the reach advantage, and with every stroke, he got faster and faster, his blows becoming ever more unpredictable and forceful. Heartslayer cackled with glee; he was facing a Phoenix lord, and he was winning! The thrill of the fight flowed through him, the hunger for victory; the desire to kill and to murder. Asurmen was being forced backwards with every flurry of blows, and every exchange of thrusts and ripostes.

Heartslayer was howling with joy, his eyes ablaze with rapturous glee. But something was wrong. He felt heat through his stolen body. He felt something uncoiling from a dark corner of the iron statue.

“The joy of murder. The hunger for death and the thrill of combat. We know these aspects well,” Asurmen explained, as heartslayer staggered backwards, his languid form beginning to glow with orange furnace fire.

“What have you done?” shrieked Heartslayer, dropping his sword. He looked to his hands. They ran red with unreal blood.

“We embody the Aspects of Khaine, tempered by Asuryan. We are Khaine’s fury and Khaine’s fuel. No matter how complete you thought you rooted him out of that body, you did not. You only caged the fire of the Bloody Handed Prince. I am Asurmen, and I am Khaine’s vengeance. I awake the Avenger in your stolen host. Now you will know what it is to be consumed Ail’Slath’Sleresh. Go now, and trouble us no more.”

Heartslayer made a final blood-curdling scream, which began as a piercing wail, but faded until it was but an echo. Molten metal poured form heartslayer’s eyes and mouth, and his body began to run molten, melting through the floor as his physical form began to collapse. The last thing to go was his red right hand, and then, he was nothing.

Ysgar, realizing it was outnumbered, bowed theatrically, before it simply vanished.

Without heartslayer to control the myriad daemons possessing Khey-Ys, the craftworld began to devour itself. The eight fled the doomed daemonship, and returned to Irist, battered and damaged, but still alive.

Roburt had been good to his word; the dameons had attacked his men as soon as the Phoenix Lords had invaded Khey-Ys, and his men had kept the dameons from the Wraithbone Choirs. Asurmen thanked the mon keigh, and told them to warn their Primarchs about Ysgar; the Crone Worlder would return, and his destiny is tied to that of Lorgar. And with that, the eldar departed, taking the two choirs with them.

Of the Wraithbone Choir of Altansar, that was beyond the reach of the Asuryata. It rested in the care of a most unlikely trio of saviors, running through the webway from a kleptomaniacal android from the dawn of time.

But that is a story for a later section I feel...

• (What exactly Ysgar was, we will never know. He looked to be perhaps some hideous hybrid between man, eldar, and something altogether less wholesome. One might have called him a chaos eldar, though such a name seems rather crass to describe such a fiend. All we know is that he was some sort of messenger or spokesperson for the Draziin-Maton, or perhaps even one of the eldar who created the host bodies for the Neverborn to inhabit.)

Saltus In Demonstrando: The Tale Of The Nascent God

A newborn child talking its first breath.

A boulder rolling down a hill.

A star finally collapsing into supernova.

A gnat buzzing across a field of wheat.

Two galaxies colliding, scattering infinite points of light into the all-encompassing darkness.

The electron in an oxygen atom spinning at a million revolutions per nanosecond.

I experience everything, at every point in time.

Is this omniscience?

Am I a god?

Premise 1: Our Understanding of God Is A Being Of Which No Greater Thing Can Be Conceived.

Two tau argue over a matter of state. The first believes it to be un-taulike to charge such exorbitant rates to the millions of refugees hanging in low orbit, even to demand any price at all to those who no longer even have a homeworld to call their own. The other is unmoved. He knows that the starving apes would extend the same courtesy, and was it not their tiny empire that shed so very much tau blood? Why should the tau, a society based upon the equal distribution of all labor, extend such an alien concept as charity to a race that now pursues peace only when the xenos they so eagerly slaughtered provide the only safe haven left?

One is an optimist, the other a realist, and both are needed if the tau are to survive the coming storm. For while there are those who must fight for the tau, there must also be those who give the tau something worth fighting for.

If there is one thing I have learned, while witnessing all of causality at once, it is that survival is not enough.

Premise 2: The Idea of God Exists In The Mind. When Someone Speaks To You of God, You Recognize What They Are Talking About. Not a God, Like The Banal Title Given To Mere Psychic Constructs Representing The Darker Urges of The Sentient Mind, But The God, The Creator of The Natural Universe

A wedding, between an aging man and a younger woman. Some guests disapprove of the age disparity, a holdover from the town's conservative roots, but they are happy all the same. The groom has at last found happiness in the arms of someone who doesn't just see the scars, but instead sees the man beneath. And the bride has at last shown someone who had well and truly given up on everything and everyone, that life is still worth living.

The preacher has already buried so many, sat at far too many funerals for such a small town, and it is beginning to wear at him. He is glad to finally preside over a ceremony dedicated to creation rather than simply commemorating a seemingly endless legacy of destruction. The preacher asks the couple the final question of matrimony, if they are truly willing to dedicate themselves to the entirety of the other, and he can see the bride smile. It is perhaps the most beautiful thing the preacher has ever had the fortune to behold. These two lovers have achieved true happiness on this day. It is the ultimate defiance, as they dare the universe to snatch this fragile thing shared between the two of them.

And in the stars above, in the form of insane automatons wearing the skin of the living in some perverted simulacrum of what they had irrevocably lost, the universe prepares its answer.

Premise 3: A Being Which Exists Both In The Mind And In Reality Is Greater Than A Being That Exists Only in The Mind. A Gun Will Always Have A Greater Impact On The Physical World Than The Idea of a Gun

In a rare moment of accidental insight, I see myself.

I see a beast, a bloated thing unnaturally birthed into the natural universe for the express purpose of murder by mentality, another microscopic element of the Swarm that elevated itself to infinitely more. The Swarm is but the subconscious urge of the conscious Overmind, and it directs the Swarm in however manner it sees fit. It molds the Swarm into whatever weapon is required by the task at hand to fulfill its basest desire: to feed. I see that this beast is unique in its form, if not its function. This beast can touch upon a sea of infinite potential, upon the raw ether that composed the infinite links that wove together to form the tapestry that is the Overwill.

Despite that the hive fleet is scattered, the hordes burned away to nothing under an endless barrage of psychic onslaught, still it fights on, for how can a creature both so simplistic and supreme comprehend such an individualistic notion as defeat? Is a man defeated if an individual bacteria manages to overpower and kill a cell, does the man even acknowledge it? I see the Overwill throw the beast among so many others in one last act of defiance against a foe it could neither comprehend nor consume, a spore hidden among the discharge of what can only be the dying breaths of a hive ship.

I see the spore sail through the void, still glistening with birth fluids, only to burrow its way between the pulsing star of white spires. And it waits there, for so very long, unseen and untouched. The guardians, in all their immortal arrogance and ignorance, are too busy to hunt the beast's brethren to find the small cancer slowly growing in their beating heart.

Eventually, whether guided by circumstance or the ever-present whisper of the Overwill, a crack forms in the outer shell. A slight tapping sound can be heard, steadily growing louder and louder as more time passes on. Abruptly, it stops, and for a moment there is only silence.

After a long, pregnant second, a claw bursts out. The spore hatches, and the birthing splits open the spore carapace into a thousand upon a thousand shards of chitin and scatters them into the wraithbone halls below.

An ugly, misshapen thing stands in the debris. Slowly, dripping with amniotic fluid and acidic runoff, the beast raises its snout and lets out a low keen.

I remember this moment well. It is when I took my first breaths, and Malan'tai took its last.

Section 46: The Saga of The Destroyer King

A man stands upon a blank plain. The sun looms high in the sky, but it is red as sunset, and vast. His clothes are humble and torn, but his body is unscathed. The grassy expanse spreads out in all directions; pristine wilderness with no boundary. There is no horizon he can see, but in all ways more looming banks of land. Inside a curve? He blinks. A warm breeze tussles his short hair.

“Where am-?”

“They will not let me in from the cold. You are dead. Born as well, I saved you. She swallowed, and now you are- Never; always on the fringes outside. I am forever cold. We are prisoners, she is gaol.”

The second voice is a titanic presence, cavernous in the man’s mind. He flinches, his mind assailed. There is a glare, but he is not looking at the sun.

“I can hear a voice. Who are you?” he asks again.

“Why won’t they let me in? They shut me out, and it destroys them. I am a god. I am a widow, or a goddess. Think on her sins. Abusive mother, she swallowed them in pieces. She grieves for us, but she is guilty and we cannot forgive. No matter how much I drink of the light, I am cold.”

“How... how can I hear you?”

“Simple really. The simplest thing. You let us in from the cold. You listened. Fool! Beloved! Savior!”

“I was not here before. Where are my friends?” Stormclouds rippled across the inwards sky, darkening the orb like a cataract.

“Not permitted. I hate them. I feel... regret.”

The man sees something...

  Silver gaolers, blank and unloving. A prison of the flesh itself, anchored to an immortal star. She would serve, as the forever outside god. Her heaven was not for her to enjoy. Await the wardens when the flesh-clad they are. Until then, purgatory.

The man fell to his knees, the force of the images like a gale of force.

“You are a prisoner?”

“Prisoner. Gaoler. Goddess all loving. Ravenous maw. Murderess. Vampire. We are many and all of us are weeping.”

The mortal, the weakling man, stared into the star, heedless of the glare. “If you are a monster, why do I live?” No answer, only the churning, world-shuddering groans of a world in languishing anguish. “If you feel guilt... you are redeemable.”

“I am abomination. I hunger to sup on your mind, and all the other ordered psyches that dare draw breath! I am naught but destruction! We are many, and we are hideous! Fear us!”

The sun swelled in luminosity, and the man shielded his eyes then. He felt his skin tanning. “You can create. Look at what you created here. I will not fear you,” he gasped, his throat dry as tinder. That was when something stepped from the star, and he, despite his ardent promise, did feel fear...

[I found this history scrawled in blood upon human-sourced vellum. The charnel soul stink of it made it clear to me this was a contemporary account handwritten by one of Abaddon’s followers. But alas, it is one of the few surviving sources we have for Abaddon’s exploits in the lead up to his cataclysmic battle in the northern fringes.]

The Saga of the Destroyer King, written by one who bled alongside him:

Despoiler. Abaddon. The Warmaster. Black Legionnaire. Exiled Emperor of Dread Cadia.

These names are meaningless, and were always meaningless for my terrible king. In my previous grimoires, I spoke of ualthan Dust and the death of the Cardinal of Delusion, Kor Phaeron. Upon the burning spear of the planetkiller was his fleet spit, and there they either burned or joined their banners to the one true Prince of misdeed.

With a fleet of bested foes and miserable exiles, we made out pilgrimage to the realm of the Blackheart. We were a pathetic band of wretches, little more than the reavers our Lord had marked out for destruction. The Despoiler brooded in his personal chambers as we traveled, unmolested across the invisible marches between empires; a vagrant fleet with nothing but hate to unite us and bind us together.

Grenthos the Bloodgreed kept order amongst the quarreling lesser elements of the fleet, his vast hulking form and hungry daemonaxe cowing the savages into line through threats and fear. Vultiari, the mysterious traitor of the Nova Astartes, meanwhile kept his serpent’s eye on the upper echelons, through his powerful sorceries and his network of spies. We loathed the youngling whelp with a fierce fire, as if he were one of the five sons themselves. But regardless, without him, our plotting would have led to the fleet consuming itself within a month.

Abaddon ignored his flock, his followers. Their loyalty meant little to him anymore, as did everything else. He had lost everything over the last century; his empire, his favour and even his mind. Drach’nyen, his treasonous devil’s barb of a blade, poured poison into his mind. It cajoled him and urged him onwards. Unbeknownst to us all, Drach’nyen detested the Hamadraya who enthralled Huron Blackheart. The twisted familiar daemon had been the one to orchestrate Drach’nyen’s incarceration in his sword prison, countless eons before even Horus liberated the heavens from Anathema. Drach’nyen would see his foe destroyed, and he took advantage of Abaddon in his weakened state.

But before any sort of campaign could be launched, the ragtag fleet required one thing above all other considerations. It needed mortal fuel. Countless millions of serfs and slaves had been expended during the Battle of Qualthan dust, that entire swathes of the crumbling renegade vessels lay abandoned in disrepair and disarray. The gun decks were ghostly quiet, the labour pits barren. The fleet needed mortals to run the mundane, tedious yet essential tasks of the fleet.

Thus, the Despoiler’s fleet circled the isolated hive world of Galt. The hive world boasted a sophisticated cloaking shield which hid the ship from navigators or the reaver fleets of their supposedly Emperor Huron. However, Abaddon’s sorcerer Vultiari and his cabal were cunning, and they saw through the isolated hive’s defences. Soon enough, Abaddon’s fleet was circling the world. The chaos space marines made planetfall, before they began to brazenly snatch away entire communities, dragging over a billion mortals into slavery.

However, when the Astartes came to lay siege to the central hive city of the world, Ayun, the Black Legion found itself repulsed by a force which matched their own in tenacity and firepower. Another warband of Space marines garrisoned Ayun. Ghariel the Tusked led the invaders, and he was soon drawn into a full scale war through the streets of Galt’s mighty cities. The white-armoured Space marines were disciplined in a way the Legion could scarcely recall; not even Pentus soldiers fought with such control and boldness.

Slaver camps planetside were attacked, some were liberated, and the grateful natives took up arms against the Legionnaires, who hadn’t the resources to endure such a war.

Before Ghariel’s position was overrun, he ordered his men to take the fifty million slaves they had already caught, and make for orbit. His men, not ones for sentimentality or loyalty, gladly abandoned the Tusked Lieutenant to his doom. But worse was to come.

We in orbit did not realise that the white armoured Astartes were in league with the legion of the Hydra. All too readily we accepted our new slave crop, and their Astartes handlers, back into the fold. But half the slaves were agents of the Hydra, and the Astartes slavers were, for the most part, Alpha Legion. They rampaged through the fleet, killing ships from the inside out. Chainswords roared and bolters barked in the cold, hellish bowels of our raider fleet. As we struggled with the Alpha legion, their mysterious allies launched their own assault from the surface; stormbirds and thudnerhawks ascended towards out fleet, which did nothing to counter them, as we fought to wrest control of our ships from the Alpha Legion’s turncoat scum.

The space marines focussed their assault upon Planetkiller herself, blasting their way into the embattled hangar bays on the starboard flank.

The Despoiler sat upon his throne as this battle play out across a dozen vox channels of shouting and cursing, morbidly listening to his men perish without even a flicker of regret reaching his corpse-pale features. His messy mane of black hair hung across his shoulders, unwashed and fetid as a bog. His armor, bound to his flesh, was uncared for, and he had even neglected to so much as load his combi-bolter.

He grinned darkly as his men reported every enemy slain; another body to break on the mill of chaos. Another soul cast adrift for no purpose. Another war to fight. Always another war.

Grenthos relished this battle, his monstrous axe cutting a gory swathe through bone-white intruder and Alpha legionnaire alike. He could not tell true Black Legion from impostors, and so he killed anyone who was not part of his berserk chosen band of axe-wielding butchers. As he killed his way towards the hangars, he learned that there was one Alpha Legionnaire who was smashing his way through the Planet-killer’s crew with impossibly speed and skill. As Grenthos moved to engage this foe in the dameon-cursed enginarium of the ship, he began to encounter streams of fleeing men, Astartes and mortals alike, who dared not face this whirling dervish.

“Cowering hounds! Who are you to flee from an enemy champion? You call yourselves posthumans?” Grenthos cursed.

But the renegade space marines of Abaddon had good reason to flee. “We will not face him, Bloodgreed. We cannot face one of them! It is folly! You contend with a primarch this day, Khornate fool!” Afraim Rippersoul retorted.

Where others felt bone-chilling dread, Grenthos, ever the madman, felt only grim anticipation. He raised his axe to the fleeing warriors.

“When I have killed this Primarch, I will come back and murder anyone who did not join me in this battle!” he promised, before he drew his axe and his multi-barreled pistol and made for the enginarium. Tellingly, only half his own chosen berserkers followed him. I chose to follow him, by bolter in hand. I dearly wished to witness a Primarch kill in close quarters.

Meanhwile, the captain of the white-armoured marines made swift progress through the twisted innards of the Planetkiller. The ship itself seemed to despise their progress,a nd unleashed daemonic things from the very walls themselves, as a body might pump antibodies into he bloodstream. They did not falter nor quail before these horrors. They slowly and methodically cornered and annihilated the daemons with flamers and knives, bolters and swords.

At last, they reached the unguarded doors to Abaddon’s throne room. Alpharius, the snake, had told these men precisely where to strike. Slay the Despoiler, and the fleet would be lost. Fully twenty Astartes breached the doors with melta charges. Almost as soon as they did, Vultiari emerged from hiding, and struck with all the hellish weapons in his arsenal. Black lightning arced amongst the enemy, burning them down to the soul. Phantom winds plucked some fromt he ground, ad dashed them against the walls like rag dolls. The Astartes retaliated robustly, their disciplined bolter volleys scything down Vultiari’s cabal of human familiars, leaving him diminished. The surviving captain and his sergeant put a dozen bolts into the sorcerer as he turned to flee. The bolts passed through thin air, as the conniving Astartes abandoned his liege lord to his fate.

Abaddon remained sat upon his throne, and watched the two warriors approach with blades drawn. He looked upon the two enemies with contempt.

“No Astartes is a good man. You cannot kill me,” he explained, as the two emptied their bolters into his Temrinator-armoured form, smashing his sigils and pulverizing the storm bolter bound to the Talon of Horus, as he shielded his face from the onslaught. Soon, their weapons were spent, and the Despoiler, smoking like some iron statue fresh from the forge, remained standing.

“... But prophecies have been wrong before.”

In the Enginarium, Grenthos and I finally witnessed Alpharius for ourselves. It was immediately obvious which one of the black-armoured forms he was. Though he was only slightly larger than one of us, he moved with a fluid agility which we could never hope to master. He killed with every movement of his body, and already a pile of corpses was left rotting in his red wake. His armor was battered, and he fought only with a short sword, but it was enough. Even from our gantry way above him, we saw that no one could best him.

Grenthos evidently disagreed, for he simply snarled and clambered down into the pit, his baying brothers snapping at his heels. Though he was Khornate, Grenthos was no suicidal fool. As he charged down into the pit, his men tossed their grenades at the Primarch, and emptied their bolt pistols and all the heavy weapons they had into the murderous blur that was, unmistakably, Alpharius.

The primarch weathered it all. His armor ran molten in places, or burst apart in cascades of sparks in others. Bolt rounds blasted chunks of flesh from his flanks, or rebounded from impossible tough flesh. Most of the weapons, however, simply missed, such was his swiftness and lethally sharp combat awareness.

The entire onslaught of Grenthos’ barbarians had merely caught the Primarch’s attention.

The two white Astartes were a formidable team. As the captain waded into close quarters with chainsword and power blade, his sergeant kept a steady stream of storm bolter fire thundering into the great Despoiler’s runic Temrinator armor. As Abaddon fought to ward off the stinging explosive bolts, he was barely able to focus on the lethal blades of the Astartes captain. In power armor, the man was faster than Abaddon; his relatively youthful body was not ravaged as Abaddon’s was, by neglect and countless millennia of time. And even then, the bolter rounds hampered the chaos warrior ever further.

However, Abaddon bore the talon of Horus, and the mighty sword Drach’nyen. He had fought with these two weapons for as long as he could recall, and he was a masterful fighter, even so handicapped. The Black and white giants fenced and wrestled with one another, arcing energies playing about their weapons as they ripped chunks from one another. But finally, a bolter round struck the claw, turning it aside just as he reached out for a killing blow. The Captain capitalized upon this immediately, and embedded his power sword up to the hilt in Abaddon’s shoulder, sending the crackling blade to erupt from his armoured gorget and through his neck. Abaddon toppled backwards with a resonant boom, as ancient armor struck and shattered marble floor.

Grenthos’ chosen attacked as a single mass, axes thirsting for first blood. Alpharius was lost for a few moments amidst this scrum, his short sword deftly parrying and deflecting as many blows as he could. His fists lashed out along with his sword, pulverizing ribcages and splitting power armor like tin foil. His boots crushed legs, and his headbutts decapitated the unwary. But even as they died, many of the axes struck home, for Alpharius couldn’t hope to block them all. As the last berserker died, the Primarch rose. His armor was torn off for the most part, and five axes remained embedded deep in his flanks. Yet, he did not seem int he slightest way debilitated; no weapon could leave a lasting wound upon his flesh. He rose like an immaculate god; lazily discarding the axes taht would have diced a lesser being. He only deigned to retain one of the axes, which looked undersized in his hand. He said nothing as he stared down the last enemy before him; Grenthos the Bloodgreed.

Now I bear no particular love or affection for grenthos. Indeed, I despise him as I do most of my kin. Nevertheless, one could not help but find him glorious in that moment. With a bestial grin, devoid of even the memory of fear, he hefted his mighty daemon axe, and charged. Grenthos, alone, charged a direct child of the Corpse-Emperor, a sibling of mighty Horus and Angron the Terrible. I do not know if his axe granted him any additional power or speed, but even my enhanced reactions could barely follow the machine gun exchange of blows which passed between the two duelists. Grenthos, a giant amongst space marines, almost matched Alpharius for size, and both figures moved far too fast for such weighty colossi. Alpharius was the faster, but the Bloodgreed’s axe was a most dreadful prospect. It destroyed his short sword and axe within five heartbeats of the beginning of the impromptu duel. For the next several dozen heartbeats, Alpharius ducked and weaved his way to avoid the axe’s snapping fangs and daemonic ichors.

Then something impossible happened. Grenthos’s axe, deflected by a Primarch’s elbow, was propelled into the demi-god’s chest. Alpharius staggered back several paces. The hell-infected wound bled. Not in a trickle, but a torrent. Alpharius screamed. Gods preserve my black heart, but his scream was like nothing in this universe. A primarch in pain is an astonishingly rare spectacle, which echoed through the enginarium like a banshee’s wail. Daemons churned in their prisons between the warp generators, and mortal crewmen were deafened and driven mad by the scream. Even Grenthos paused for a moment; a flicker of a shadow of doubt. Then, as Alpharius fell to one knee, he grinned.

“The space marine that made a Primarch kneel; that made a primarch bleed! They shall write songs about me!” Grenthos roared in triumph, swinging his blade down in an executioner’s blow.

Alpharius was lightning. He caught the axe, his two hands flat as they closed upon the falling axe head. Grenthos’ bunched shoulders were jarred by the sudden halt of his momentum. Stopped dead, the axe writhed and howled in Alpharius’ vice grip.

“Short songs,” Alpharius corrected, as he ripped the axe from Grenthos’ grasp.

The last victim to fall to the Bloodgreed’s axe was Grenthos himself. The Pirmarch split him from helm to pelvis in a single stroke. A look of superb, pathetic surprise was etched into grenthos’ features even as he fell into two neat halves.

I know not what Alpharius did next, as I was already running; sprinting to escape the living engine of destruction. Grenthos was the mightiest of us, and even he was humbled by the primarch. I suspect, however, that Alpharius and his men did not stay onboard much longer; perhaps the Bloodgreed’s blow had done more damage to the Alpha Legion Patriarch than he had anticipated? Or perhaps his plan all along was to lure Abaddon’s bodyguards away from him at that pivotal moment?

For as Alpharius slew Grenthos, so the white Astartes stood over the stricken Despoiler, chainsword raised.

“For Horus! For the Emperor! For the Imperium! Lupercal!” the warrior bellowed. But the warrior paused then, as he saw the claw that Abaddon wielded; a claw he had known ever sicne he was a neophyte. Abaddon too was crippled by indecision; he heard the chant, and at that moment, he recalled why that white armor was so seditiously familiar to his degenerate mind.

For the briefest instant, it seemed as if the two might spare their counterpart. They might then have backed away and fled from one another in horror and denial. Neither Abaddon nor the Son of Horus seized the opportunity to strike.

Alas, Drach’nyen did not waste the opportunity. Like a treasonous viper, the daemonsword thrust itself forwards, and spitted the captain upon its twisted length. Transfixed, the Astartes only managed to yelp ‘First Capt-” , before his soul was immolated. Abaddon pulled drach’nyen free, just in time to thoughtlessly behead the sergeant, as he charged heedlessly into combat.

Abaddon cast his daemonsword aside, ripping his long hair form his skull in clumps as he groaned in helpless horror at what he had just done. Clambering towards the captain, on his knees, Abaddon cracked open his skull, and tasted the memories of Kaidmus, line Captain of the sixteenth chapter. He recalled the first day he had met Abaddon, and he saw through Kaidmus’ young eyes. He saw himself as he once was; proud and powerful and... righteous. There was a light in his eyes that had long since passed. His flesh was tanned, not corpse-pallid and blotchy with impurities.

That man was a killer, but a killer with a cause; a bringer of compliance, and an empire builder. A loyal man, loyal to the greatest human he had ever known.

Alpharius’ armies vanished towards the end of the battle, leaving the time-displaced Sons of Horus to be surrounded and captured; most killed themselves rather than endure this imprisonment. The rest refused to turn to the dark gods, and had to be slain (though we had to perform this task in secret, as Abaddon refused to sanction the deaths of the Sons under any circumstances). Vultiari’s reward for his selfishness was to be bound to the prow of the Planet Killer. There, he was messily destroyed the next time we entered the warp. Abaddon abandoned his own name, and demanded to be known only as ‘Destroyer’, his head scorched bald and his armor defaced in a wild frenzy of self-hatred. The sickly claws of Malice had wormed their way into Abaddon’s oily heart.

The Planet Killer left Galt as soon as it had replenished half of its missing crew, leaving its fleet to pound Galt’s hive cities flat in a roaring inferno of orbital death. The rest of our ragtag fleet of rampagers did not follow the Despoiler into the Blackheart’s realm. My path did not cross there’s again. It is likely that, without Abaddon to unite them, the former Word Bearers and Black legionnaires turned upon one another. I hope that they did not do this, but instead attacked the Imperium of the Five, and caused untold havoc amongst the deluded fools who faun over the primarchs like slavering whores. Vulkan’s sycophant worlds deserve nothing but contempt!

But my fate was tied to the Destroy King’s from then on. The five month warp transit was torturous. The gods of the eightfold path did not want us to reach our destination. Warp predators assailed us, fanged, impossible things coiled and thrashed against us, and hundreds of crew were turned to spawn and stranger, rampaging through the haunted decks like deranged hounds. My Legion brothers were always on alert; killing off monster after abstract monster as we endured this grueling ordeal.

But Abaddon’s misery, and Drach’nyen’s depthless hate were like a white hot arrow, punching through the warp’s ensnaring riptides. Eventually, we burst back into realspace, and straight into a titanic void war.

The system was alive with millions of contacts; alien cruisers, mercenary skiffs, battleships and frigates of every class and variety, human, xenos, renegade and otherwise. Death Guard fleet elements and Corsair squadrons jostled for position with semi-organic alien marauders, blunt-nosed Groevian Kill-Prows, warspheres, Delfic frenzy-discus, dameon-ships, eldar void stalkers ad dragon vessels, glinting Silver Skull barges, gladius escorts, and many vessels even Abaddon had never met. And, at the heart of this leaderless rout of scrapping void gladiators, one vessel outshone them all; the last great Craftworld, Biel-tan.

And close to this embattled world, almost lost amidst the frantic chaos of semsor returns and vox signals, was the target of Abaddon’s nihilistic ire. Huron’ Astral Maw was engaging seven targets at once. Whole gun decks were torn out, while its hangar were gutted in several locations. But like the odious Revenant that commanded the ship, the Maw simply would not die.

But Abaddon promised it would, as he ordered the Planet-killer into the heart of the cataclysmic void war. It took the chaos ships fifty minutes to realize that the Planet-killer had not come to aim them, and within an hour, the mighty ship, already a dying monster, was under attack from Astral Maw’s escorts. Abaddon would not b denied, and simply rammed the smaller vessels aside. The Planet-Killer was falling apart around him, and he did not care. Astral Maw, damaged as it was, could not avoid what came next.

No ship could have. The two came together amidships. Planetkiller’s momentum had been drained by the escort collisions, and it struck the Maw slowly. The two vessels seemed to crumple into one another; decks shearing off and plunging deep into the bowels of its opposite number, crews mingled and merged in their flaming deaths. In a rippling explosion of color, the two vessels were at once fused and shattered.

The few black Legion left abandoned the Destroyer King, and I suspect Huron’s oh so loyal Corsairs did likewise. They fled for their very lives, as the two ships began to spin into a deathspiral, locked in a murderer’s embrace with one another. They did not care whether either deranged Tyrant King had survived.

I too fled, killing a group of Red Corsairs and hijacking their dreadclaw. But I have heard the legends about what transpired on those two dying vessels, as they slowly began to be drawn towards the nearest gravity well (which was, unfortunately for the eldar, the planet-sized craftworld itself).

It is a tale of hatred, and the faded dreams of old men, each as bitter and resentful as the other.

[Compiler’s Note: This is a tale this vile heretic never did manage to tell fully. His chronicles were cut short in M56, when he was captured by Unforgiven and tortured to death. An ugly end to an ugly being; fitting I think. Nevertheless, the final battle of Huron, Hamadraya, Abaddon and Drach’nyen the Soulrender is told elsewhere, and I shall endeavor to locate it in due course.]

Section 47: “When the Bells of Eternity Sound,Reality Quakes”: The Travesty Burns

At Corbellus, five Primarchs breached the borders of the Imperium of Travesties, and there they brought battle to one of the greatest military machines in the entire galaxy. Though victory was inconclusive, they were nevertheless sundered and divided. But, this was not defeat for the Primarchs Pentus, but rather the means for the next phase of the war; the razing of the Travesty itself. Corax, who had entered in the northern border with Pentus, ran amok amongst the worlds of the dark Imperium. In some places, he inspired uprisings against the tyrannical monsters who ruled these worlds. In other places, he simply rose up with his Sons of Corax, and massacred planetary populations too odious and warp-twisted to be allowed to live. But even as Decimus’ Midnight Clad and the vast cultist navies of the Word bearers scoured these worlds of resistance, Corax had already moved on.

He struck at supply lines and logistical trains. He ambushed supply fleets, full of valuable slave galleys and daemon fodder, destroying these fleets before they could rush to support whatever demented local warlords demanded their aid. Lash in one hand, crackling claws upon the other, Corax was a living shadow god, grinning with righteous glee as he enacted his destructive policies. It had been so long since the primarchs had had the freedom to unleash such unfettered carnage upon an empire, without thought to consequences. Every world was corrupt, and almost every inhabitant of that warp storm-wracked multi-Segmentum empire was a monster, a sniveling coward or a conniving villain.

Corax fought hundreds of battles and wars with the daemon-blooded warlords of the Northern Marches. Entire volumes of novels and histories could be written from these wars. He was the elusive Lord of Ravens. He was hunted by almost every commander of the north at some point. Even Mortarion and Angron chased him at one point.

Angron had been dragged north unexpectedly, along with his fleet, by the spontaneous actions of two line Sergeants of the Fire beasts and Nemenmarines Commanderies, who had inherited the command of the battlecruiser Crato. Upon fleeing Corbellus, Crato had been speared by one of the Conqueror’s mighty harpoons. Like a fisherman dragged underwater by a struggling fish, Angron’s flagship had plunged into the warp alongside them.

In the sea of souls, the two tethered ships span out of control; Gellar fields flared and rolled around them like exotic bubbles formed in tar. Unreal winds wracked both ships, and pulled apart sections of hull. Many of Angron’s escorts, who had heedlessly followed int he choppy warp wake of the Conqueror, were struck by the flailing battleship, and cast off into the deep. Some emerged sixty years prior to the Pentus war, their crews fused to consoles and their decks haunted by fiends. Others emerged into the starless oblivion at the end of time, and froze like brittle ice sculptures, or were devoured by the sleepless entities that dwelt at the cusp of Heat Death.

A few managed to occupy the same collective, turbulent Gellar sphere which enclosed Crato and Conqueror. One such vessel was the light cruiser Red Maul, a dauntless class corrupted by the Berserkers, and adorned with an ossified outer shell of frozen bones, and was crowned by a rearing, tusked horse sculpture of basalt and adamantium. The commander of this vessel ordered it to fire upon the Crato, heedless of the fact such an action could cause the destruction of the conqueror. The captain of Red Maul even ignored Angron’s deafening warp hails demanding they cease fire. Several times, the Red Mual tried to gain firing solutions, but fortunately for all involved, it continued to lose its aim, as it continually crashed against the cliff-like flanks of Conqueror. The captan of the Red Maul, furious at his crew’s failing, murdered half of them with his whirring chainaxe, and had the rest of the crew chained to their posts, and goaded with barbed spears until they regained a firing solution.

Meanwhile, Angron had begun to send boarding parties to the Crato, insane as this sounds. Boarding torpedoes would be have been pointless, and teleportation would have zero accuracy as the two vessels were spinning out of control, like two toy boats caught inside a washer’s cylinder. Angron had his men invade the Crato on foot, charging along the mooring chain of the harpoon itself. Angron, tot he collective disbelief of all involved, had infantry march through the void inside the Gellar field, at the heart of a warp transit. Berserkers mag-locked their boots to the chain as they surged across the three hundred kilometre long chain. Meanwhile, his mortal troops hurriedly dragged on void suits and some even remembered to hook themselves to the chain as they rushed out of airlocks like the bloodmad fools they were. Others hadn’t even bothered to put on their helmets, and rushed into the airless void screaming praises to the blood god, even as their eyes burst with red viscera, and their hearts ruptured in their chests. Possessed marines simply crew their talons and scrambled, ape-like across the chain, their bodies long-since devoid of mortal requirements. Angron ordered his men to enslave the crew, and force the Crato to drop out of the warp. Once in realspace and once the Conqueror was stabilised, Angron would then kill every single one of the Crato’s crew, on his own, with his bare hands, as his khornate minions bore witness.

That was the plan, but the Crato’s commanders had other ideas. When the berserkers neared the Crato end of the chain, they found they were not alone. Squads of Fire Beasts and Nemenmarines had also moved out onto the chain. But they had deployed there on the orders of castron of the Nemenmarines. His Fire Beast brother, sergeant Alistor, led the squads from the front, engaging the Berserkers at range with bolters, missiles and silent lascannons. The battle was fought in eerie silence, the only din coming from the screaming inside the helmets of the berserkers, and the laboured breathing of every warrior present. The... unusual terrain of the battlefield was treacherous, and many a combatant who missed their footing even slightly found themselves spinning off into the churning void of the Gellar field.

Despite the desperate carnage, Alistor held the khornate host back, but he could not press ahead even an inch. Fortunately, this was intentional, for their plan was not to invade the Conqueror with barely six squads of Nova Astartes; Alistor was widely believed to be deranged by Castron, but he was not so insane as to face down a Primarch and his hellish legions, virtually on his own. A Nemenmarine techmarine called Vormays, and his team of servitors and void-suited serfs, were installing a device inside the Conqueror’s harpoon chain, even as Alistor’s men fought tooth and nail to keep him unmolested by the enemy. The Crato was not designed with rear facing ordnance, and thus could not strike at the Conqueror or its chain directly. However, Castron had meticulously planned a means of escaping both Angron and the rapidly-collapsing bubble dof realspace around them. Vormays had liberated two macrocannon shells from the gun decks, and his servitors had brought it to the rear of the vessel, and onto the chain itself. There, the techmarine began hastily devising a time bomb, which was to go off the moment Castron disengaged the warp drives, and breached back into realspace, down to the second.

So Alistor fought on, falling back barely inches at a time; each inch accompanied by an appropriate toll in traitor blood. When his bolter was spent, he clamped it to his thigh, and fought the traitors with his chainsword, swinging it double-handedly, like some demented huscarl of a forgotten age. But it was not enough time. Vormays’s trigger mechanism was almost completed, but the techmarine confessed he didn’t have time to perfect the chrono device. Vormays ordered Alistor to fall back to the Crato, as the priest of machines tirelessly worked to complete his weapon. Only reluctantly did Alistor agree to finally pull back, enacting a fighting withdrawal across the chain, back towards the Crato.

As Vormays finished the bomb, his H grade servitors held back the gory tide of berserkers with picks and drills, spinning saws and plasma cutters.

“Acting-captain Castron; I shall detonate precisely when you give the vox signal,” Vormays explained over the vox.

“Understood,” was all Castron replied.

“Your sacrifice will be remembered forever brother,” Alistor promised down his own vox channel, beating his chest with his fist. “There will be feasts in your honour Vormays, this I promise you, on my life and the honour oft he Fire Beasts.”

“That is of little comfort to me at all, Alistor. I’m not particularly fond of any of you. Try not to squander the death I will spare you today. Vormays out.”

Vormays was as good as his word. As Castron ordered the ship to drop out of the warp, Vormays, even as his servo arms grappled with the minotaur-like leader of Angron’s boaring party, detonated his bomb with a resigned sigh.

The blast was like a newborn sun had sprung into life for a moment, between the two capital ships. The blast utterly shattered the Gellar field. Simultaneously, it flung the Conqueror off into the impossible swirling of the warp, and launched the Crato forwards through the puckered realspace breach, on a wave of plasma fire. The aperture was so narrow, the crato lost half of its sensor towers and many of its manoeuvring thrusters, as it was squeezed through a slavering maw of unreal daemonstuff, like a baby being painfully birthed, blinking, into the world.

Unfortunately, the afterbirth of this pregnancy included another vessel. The Red Maul exited the warp only a dozen hours after Crato, and already its commander had picked up their scent. His orders were simple and well known to his crew, for he had been screaming them at the top of his lungs for hours;

“KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN!”

Conqueror emerged many lightyears from Crato, several sectors distant. Angron’s host had been destroyed in the tumult, leaving him churning in the warp, searching out a new host he could inhabit, preferably close to another warzone, so he could vent his frustration out on one of his hated brothers. It transpired that Corax was the closest brother, and soon Angron surged back into reality with a host of daemons at his back. The little Raven would not escape him.

Elsewhere, across the Travesty, worlds burned and Primarchs warred. Civilisaitons were toppled, and the unfettered Primarchs ran amok amongst this diseased realm. Russ, aboard Sleipnir, washed away the shame of his failing at Corbellus in a tide of fire and blood. His Rout once again became the executioners of old, destroying worlds so thoroughly and so meticulously, that nothing could live upon the blasted worlds that he made war upon. The Travesty was maleficarum, all of it, and he would see it all burn. However, one of his primary goals was locating Fenris, which had fallen under siege many millennia ago. No word had come from Fenris, and none of the chaos commanders he captured and tortured knew where fenris was, even after his Rune Priests pulled apart their minds to learn their secrets.

Something... someone, blinded the navigators to fenris’ location; warp routs which once led there had been severed countless centuries previously, and with so many warp storms breaching reality, its physical location was also altered. No matter how many fleets he broke, keeps he sundered and enemies he routed, his ultimate goal eluded him. Leman Russ suspected Magnus was behind this petulant display, but the red Cyclops was similarly impossible to find; for one could not grasp something which no longer had a form, not even the Wolf King. Russ split his Commanderies into Great Companies, and had them scour the region on this quest; if they could not find fenris, they were content to simply kill the worst and most evil foes they could, and return to the hearthfires of Sleipnir to relate their tales to the rest of the Vylka Fenryka.

Many were the sagas told of these mighty warriors, enough to fill libraries. For example, there was the saga of Hrothgar the Fanged and how he slew the biomechanical wyrm Gorganis, and escaped the clutches of the kai bane host with the beasts head chained to his ship’s prow. Or the tale of Jorna Flamepelt, whose company slew a billion of Erebus’ cultists, and used their fetid bodies to scale the walls of the basilica of Caged Hope, toppling the evil church’s greatest spire. Russ himself lived up to his fell legend, and numberless enemies fell to his frostblade. He wrestled with Mulkiva Bile-blood, the mightiest champion of fabius’s infamous ‘New Men’. It was said Mulkivas had been turned into a great colossus, as tall as a knight titan, and strong as the root of mountains. Nevertheless, in combat with Russ, the giant was undone, and his broken body was cast back into his own lines, his spine torn from his body, still writihng and hissing in unnatural life.

The Lion pressed on with a similar vigour to Russ, but without the boisterous relish the barbarian seemed to demonstrate. From the bridge of his flagship Antioch, he sombrely and efficiently massacred his foes, and engaged in numerous fleet actions throughout the sprawling conflict. His fleet of vessels was modest compared tot he staggeringly vast armadas of the Word Bearers. However, large fleets were always ponderous, and so the Lion was able to evade the larger fleets, and was free to carefully and irrevocably cripple vital enemy worlds with his forceful but considered blows.

The Khan, who travelled with him, had a slightly different approach. His small, incredibly swift frigate-shuttle, Stormrider, would regularly depart from the Antioch, leading hunting fleets of White Lancers deep into enemy territory, returning occassionally to Antioch, for resupply, and to drop off the armless, legless bodies of important enemy commanders he had personally hunted down and killed. These bodies were piled up in a ritualised hold in the belly of the battleship; the Khan’s trophy room.

At one point, at the battle of Barbaritan the Poisoned, the Khan and Fulgrim almost met in battle. However, amidst the furious city and trench warfare, the two just missed one another; much to Jaghati’s abiding ire. For a long time the Khan had wished to ruin the vainglorious Primarch’s pretty face.

Vulkan’s campaign was fought differently. He gave the worlds he conquered a simple choice; renounce the Ruinous Powers in all their forms, destroy their temples and any daemon engines the world might have been providing for the enemy, and provide a heavy tithe of soldiers to add to Vulkan’s force. If they did that, they were spared, but if not, they were so comprehensively exterminated, that not one living creature ont he planet would survive. Many worlds swore fealty easily, for they didn’t truly care which warlords ruled them, Travesty or Pentus. A few worlds, those which still had garrisons loyal to Perturabo, resisted Vulkan’s offer and chose to dig in. Vulkan did not fight these men, he simply cast rocks from heaven to kill their lands, and heavy planet-cracking fire from Phalanx to finish off their cities and hardpoints.

The worlds Vulkan took or killed seemed to all be feudal possessions of Perturabo and his allies. This drove perturabo into a senseless rage, and destroyed any of his worlds who had surrendered to Vulkan, purely out of spite. He also devoted ever larger fleets purely to hunting Vulkan’s force, which had been Vulkan’s intention. The Salamander Primarch was able to deny Perturabo battle each time however, for he knew where perturabo’s ships were and where they would be. This was due to the turncoat at the heart of the chaos Primarch’s forces. The mongrel prince, Warsmith Honsou, was this traitor amongst traitors. Vulkan’s engineers had implanted a cortex bomb into his mind, which would be activated should he not hold up his end of the bargain; his life was spared, only so long as he fed Vulkan information, and sabotaged Perturabo’s war effort.

The Iron Warriors’ Primarch long sought out this traitor, but the minions he ordered to investigate tended to suffer unexplained accidents; freak plasma core explosions, unfortunate friendly fire incidents, some investigators even accidentally fell into the slave pens with their arms and legs severed, to be mauled to death by vengeful slave chattel...

Through it all, Honsou managed to avoid his duplicitous mission being uncovered; for if he were ever caught... the thought was too terrible for even a space marine to consider.

Wherever the Primarchs set foot, the foe was rooted out and destroyed. But not every Pentus force was fortunate enough to have a Primarch at its head. Many sub-forces of Imperial soldiers were lost in battle with the kai bane Host, who were resistant to all but the most powerful weaponry, or else ambushed and devoured by opportunistic daemons.

This is not to say the non-Astartes forces of the Pentus did not cover themselves in honour. Vultimus Clivon’s Confederate strike forces were invaluable to loyalist battlegroups, as they moved behind enemy lines, eliminating key strategic and logistical targets with the chrono-perfect timing they were famed for. And at the battle of Sturgeos, across the field of sundered cities, their IEU battlesuits battled a great host of valchocht’s mechanical horrors, and won a gruelling victory due to their great mobility, positioning, long range, and precision firepower.

Devil of Catachan was indispensable throughout the war, as it and Phalanx were mobile factories and shipyards, allowing rampaging Pentus forces bases for refitting and refuelling. Devil was protected at all times by the Arks of Ryza, and the formidable fighting prowess of the Plasma Commandoes. They were assailed almsot weekly by chaos forces, and each time they held, buying time for the Devil of Catachan to warp to a new location.

At the same time, the Travesty was assailed by other forces. In the southern marches, the Daemons’ Demesne was invaded by the Callixis Tau and their esoteric human and alien allies from the very borders of inhabited space. Void whales with surreal daemonic howdahs filled with the Corroded and their cursed bows and javelins, clashed in the colourful void against highly advanced starships bristling with some of the most exotic and powerful technology the galaxy had seen. Both sides in this salvation War were horrendous, for the very act of war fed Doombreed, even as his foes assailed his realm, propagating the war recursively, as stronger and stronger tau allies joine dint he conflict.

In the North West, on the fringes of the Travesty, Kol Basilis had fortified the border against the onslaught of the Star Father. Basilis’s garrison armies were huge. Not only did he had all the Blasphematii, psyker Angyl-hunters without compare, at his command, but he had the fealty of Gaur Drozos and all the Blood Pact of the Sabbat Serf worlds, from the hellmouth of Balhaut to the former garden world of Gaunt’s Rest. This was a huge, elite and professional mortal army to support his Angylhunters. In addition, one of the spindly Aurellian Shades, avatars of Lorgar animated remotely by his colossal will, supervised his defence of the marches, alongside innumeral hordes of human cattle and fodder for the Adorant swarms of the Angyls.

Kol Basilis would need all these fell powers and alliances, for the force which surged from the soul-dead north came as a silver, red and gold tide of blunt vessels and chattering hordes of the blind faithful. The Adorants were diverse as the stars themselves, but all were united in their love of the Star Father.

Canoness Superior Elemris of the Widows lead a host of her warrior sisters, with their silver power armour, black veils, and stylised, weeping face masks of sculpted porcelain.

With them came the fallen Astartes, who had turned to the Angyls for their guidance, and worshipped the Emperor as this new Dictator God. The most common of the Astartes Legions were the Red Multitude. At their core, they were once Red Hunters, theological extremists even in M41. They had swollen into a Legion ten thousand strong, formed from pious outcast marines and geneseed cloning techniques, armed and armoured from forges on Angylworlds deep int he Storm of the Emperor’s Wrath.

The diamond hard core of the Star father’s host were the Illuminated Exorcists of Grand Master Trencherd. Each of these gold and silver Astartes had taken and banished a daemon from their minds, echoing the supreme force of will that was the Star Father Himself.

This massive invasion force smashed into the cunningly wrought defenses of Kol basilis as a hammer striking an anvil, each as hard and unyielding as the other. The Adorants and their Astartes were the numerically superior force, but they were unsubtle in their engagements; all frontal assaults and maximum firepower. They wished to be the fist that crushed the world, and in their worldview, nothing could resist the Father’s fist. Kol baislis’ forces were more fluid and reactionary, flowing around the blunt implements of the Space Marine legions. Basilis was old and paranoid, and had planned for almost every contingency. His blasphematii could harm the very warp essence of the angyllic hosts, and Kol Basilis personally banished the Archangyl Pax in open conflict, ripping open a warp rift with his mind, before casting the metallic entity into it bodily. Not only that, but the Aurellian Shade’s powers were able to, for a time, drive back the crushing oppressive weight of the Angyls’ war wyrds.

Things changed after three years of this war. Things changed when Thor Incarnus took to the field, bedecked in his flawless silver warplate, wielding his mighty Kaldor Hammer. Wherever Thor Incarnus went, he broke through the Travesty lines. Surrounded by a praetorian guard of hulking giants in archaic Thunder Pattern Plate, Thor was unstoppable. He bestrode the battlefield unflinchingly, as tall and powerful as a Primarch, but glowing with the majesty of one who bore the Star Father’s blazing soul in his chest. His hammer crushed entire platoons of blood Pact with every sweep, his great crown-helmets flickering with lightning as he killed and killed and killed. Even the Blasphematii were but temrites before a gale in his presence. Kol basilis was widely considered, even by the Imperium Pentus, to be the greatest swordsman in the galaxy, but in the face of the embodiment of the Star father, he fled like the pragmatist he was. The Aurellian Shade managed to fight the silver giant to a standstill for five days, a sits shadowy mutagenic magic dueled the thunderclap fierce power of the Stars. In the end, Thor Incarnus simply had more warp power present at that moment, and shattered the avatar in a rainbow-hued holocaust of tidal flame.

Soon enough, the marches were overrun, and the carefully laid plans of Kol basilis were in tatters, much tot he amusement of his rivals within the Travesty itself. Their laughter lessened somewhat when the Adorants and their superhuman allies added their might to the forces invading the chaos empire.

For the Travesty was being slowly, but surely, burnt to a cinder. Its worlds were dying, and the great storms swelled as never before. There was not a world in that Imperium which did not suffer invasion and massacres during the Primarch War.

Across the galaxy, from the eastern fringe to the western halo stars, every planet began to experience reality quakes. Some were naught but mild tremors, and a fell scent on the breeze which no one could fathom. Others opened fissures in their planetary crusts, which swallowed cities and killed billions. This time was also known as the time of final awakenings, as psychic powers seemed to get stronger during this period; previous weak psykers began to manifest full blown powers, and more Alpha level psykers were born in this time than at any other point in history.

More psykers meant more warp breaches alas, and even in the peaceful Imperium pentus, warp storms seemed to burst into realspace at random, like blotches on skin suffering some allergic reaction.

Upon Cadia, the entire planet throbbed with impossible energies, no longer fully solid. It was an entire world on the cusp of ascension, with a black hearted demi-god suckling upon this power. A perfect golden figure, with eyes dark and black as the deepest abyss, swelled with powers incredible and awful to behold. Lorgar Aurellian smiled, as deep bells tolled; bells only he could hear. He raised his arms, and basked in the warming fires of his own collapsing empire. At one side, Erebus stood, his armor smoldering in the mere presence of his Godling Father. To the right hand side stood Ysgar Oppugnant, grinning like the eternal foe of life that he was.

Now all fighting in the Travesty, knowing or not, were dancing to Lorgar's tune.

Excerpt From The Killer’s Dream

There was a path through the mountains, which the man followed closely, or else he knew he’d be lost. There was another ahead of him. The glare of his being was like a beacon in the twilight shade of the mountain path. This was the Godling, the one who wept blood. He had no body here, save the one he imagined of himself, and he pulled the fur cloak around his translucent shoulders. The man was an empty vessel, hollowed out by the racking of daemon claws. The middle was torn away as the devil was rejected. Once he’d had a fiery passion which made him a killer, one of the worst; a man with a thousand last chances, all unfulfilled. But the hollowing had robbed him of something vital, even as it had been his salvation and illumination.

The mountains got steeper, until they were the rocky pinnacles of legend. He was on Terra, but like nothing he’d seen in old remembered tales. The air was clean and ancient, and the foothills fecund with life. The Godling’s light was obscured as he rounded a corner on the trail, but the man found he could follow the trail just as well. Bloody feather crunched underfoot, turning to brittle glass as his boots pressed into the dusty path.

Around the corner, time moved more quickly, the clouds wheeling overhead as plants raced to grow all around. Before him was a cavern, a jagged maw of lifeless stone, yawning wide to consume him. He had a brand blazing in his hand, and he knew no fear. The cave was older still than all the nations of man that crawled and wriggled and ran across the face of the world... Eden, Earth, Midgar, Maegros, the Cradle.

The writings and pictograms on the walls were formless at first, and nonsensical; primitive etchings without thought. But then came the scrawling designs of bison and horned beasts of the field, and simply black outlines of the fundamental form of man. And amidst these men, giants walked. Two rows of ten; these giants were the heroes of the picture-legends. They fought the dragons, they rescued the princesses, they rose up as champions in battle and they toppled the tyrants, and stood above all, benevolent and valiant beyond the dreams of the mundane. All of them kings, in their own way.

The man moved deeper and deeper into the cave, until the memory of an exit vanished from thought. This was the bowels of Terra, where the world spirit rumbled. The fundamental forces of creation. The tumultuous anarchy which brings forth substance and materium.

He caught sight of the Godling, with his trail of broken feathers. Soon, he was in a chamber, where the faceless statues stood; twenty, grim and hollow-eyed. He eventually reached the Godling’s side, and he bade the man be silent, and to watch.

The two shrank back into the shadows, as many dozen figures entered. They were all hooded, and all bore candles in his aged hands. When the figures threw back their hoods, their faces were human, but not humans as the man knew them. Their skulls were different, their eyes sunken into sharped cheeks, with taller skulls and smaller jaws. They moved about the statues, examining each in turn, and also the glyphs and symbols carved into the bedrock walls. They spread blood and chalk dust across the chamber, and sang songs no man could understand. They soon left the chamber, one by one, until only a few remained, blocked inside the rapidly darkening cave. Twenty one figures, eyes gleaming as they slit their own throats, and bled their last against the stepped plinths of the faceless giants. Souls bound to ancient concepts, and released fully formed into the churning maelstrom of existence and chaotic creation.

There to wait. There to languish, drawing power unto themselves, until the day, the moment, they could find their form. Until they could find their brethren, in whatever form their descendants took.

“What is this? Why am I...?” began the man, but his words faded, as the weeping godling turned to him, cheeks lined with red trails.

“More than sons, but stolen all the same. The best lies of devils are those that ring with truth, if only on the surface,” the voice of the Godling said, his face gaunt and drawn, yet once the most beautiful of forms. Like a tapestry stretched thing and taut, till the fabrics leech away all colour and meaning.

“I don’t understand. Why are you showing this to me?” the man demanded, growing more translucent as he did so.

“You are an empty cage. Unlike all others, in the act of creation, you are conduit and vessel both.”

The man’s mind reeled, uncomprehending, as the world flowed around him, becoming something gargantuan and industrial; a ship, overlooking a burning planet.

“We are blessed and cursed. We are mighty indeed, and fathomlessly powerful. But we are not perpetual. Immortals can perish, and once perished, incarnation does not strike twice, for ours is a power stolen from the fundamental monster. Once we perish, we return to it, to be bound to the fundamental monster, or to be scattered to the far winds of creation. All save for me; he who rejected the Red Angel and the oblivion of death.”

“And what are you?” the man asked, as blood pooled around where the Godling lay, his golden armor cracked and his sword broken at the hilt.

“Regret and despair, bound into sacrifice and seared into the fabric of the empyrean by the black fires of rage. Trapped, and forced to linger on, in dreams and avatars, but never to be incarnated again. I cannot return, but another can in my place.”

The man lost patience, shattering the dream as he became more lucid. “Do not speak in riddles. This is not real; this is some dreaming madness.”

“True. You are luminous, and cannot be truly deceived or possessed. But they will die, mother and child both, if you do not do this for me, when the time comes.”

“Do what?” the man yelled, turning the dream to a black void.

“Let me in,” the godling replied, his voice fading to a ghostly whisper on the breeze.

Then, the man woke in a chill sweat. Desperately he reached out from his dark cot, and found her in the dark, touching her soft hair gently.

- [From The Killer’s Dream, by those who chronicled [DELETED]’s life before [DELETED] ]

Section 48: Braiva’s Best and The Battle of A Thousand Emperors

[The actions and exploits of Braiva’s Best in their war with Ahriman and his pawns have been organised into approximately chronological phases. When it comes to interstellar distances and the temperamental nature of warp travel, assigning precise dates has been problematic, thus I have elected to omit them here. These events occurred, for the purposes of this account, approximately concurrently with the Biel-Tan siege.]

Phase One: Recruitment

At some point, during the protracted and incessant wars within the Dominion of Change, the Disciples of Ceylan, the most detestable font of zealotry and spiteful terrorism in the region, began to bolster their numbers. They did this through recruitment, from the disgruntled and the desperate populations of the various worlds of the Dominion, who constantly vied with one another for the Imperial crown of the Theologian Union (an empire in name only, thanks to the machinations of Ahriman).

The Disciples found plenty of true believers, and even more ex-mercenaries and rogue psychopaths looking for a cause to kill in the name of. The increase in spontaneous warp storms across the entire Dominion merely fanned the flames of superstition and fear. Many preached that this was a sign from the Emperor of the Wasteland; the Death God was displeased that the people no longer followed their one true anointed emperor, Atebore Ceylan, the last of his Dynasty. Too many folks worshiped the Five-Headed False God of the Macharians, or the Feathered Serpents of the Rubricae Sorcerers.

Those deemed worthy of becoming one of the Disciples of Ceylan were voluntarily kidnapped, sedated and smuggled to the secret lair of the Disciples. This was an underground base on an undisclosed planet within the Dominion of Change, so as to protect Atebore from harm; even his footsoldiers could not know exactly where he was located.

Initiates were brought before Ceylan himself, and his decayed court. The throne room he had taken for his court had once been a temple to the Emperor, but dust and age had bleached it into sickly greys and the stench of must and dried blood coated every cobwebbed pew and featureless Saintly statue. Atebore himself seemed a decrepit ruin of a man; all dirty fingernails and soiled robes, with a dull iron crown resting upon a tangled mess of bedraggled white locks that framed an odious, sneering face.

The last aspiring Disciple had their hood removed by Linguil, Atebore’s most trusted Lieutenant, to reveal a hard faced woman beneath. She called herself Ell, and her obviously muscular form was barely concealed beneath the sackcloth every aspirant was required to wear before Ceylan.

Ceylan demanded of her oaths of fealty. The woman, even bound and kneeling before Ceylan, simply smiled.

“I will fight with you, or rather, I will fight with the men you hide behind, but I have a few demands of my own.”

Linguil struck her for her insolence, drawing blood with every furious blow. Nevertheless, Ell continued. “My associates have need of your intelligence network and your extensive web of contacts across the Dominion of Change. They will work with you, but my master cannot abide the evil doctrine you espouse, personified in that mummified lecher posing over there in his tinfoil crown.”

Linguil lashed her with a scourge taken from the wall, until her sackcloth was stained red. To the surprise and grudging admiration of many of the zealots, she did not scream, but rather grunted each time she was struck.

“You expect us to forsake our faith, our Emperor, just so we get an alliance with your mercenary brethren? You are a vain and foolish woman!” one Disciple crowed.

“Yes, and we are not mercenaries. We are space marines,” she spat gorily, one of her teeth falling away amidst the blood. The laughter of the assembled court drowned out the faint bleeping of the false tooth as it sat in the crimson pool.

“Delusional child! There are no female Astartes. You die with a pathetic joke on your lips,” Ceylan chuckled.

Linguil drew his hellpistol, and pressed it to her head. “We decline your offer, faithless bitch. Now will you convert to the Emperor of the Wasteland, so that your soul may face oblivion upon your death, instead of the eternal torment of the harrowing vultures of the Ruinous Powers?”

She responded in a simple manner; twisting in her restraints with the coiling speed of a cobra, she clamped Linguil’s pistol-wrist between her teeth, and ripped away the tendons there with a wrench of her jaw. She broke from her restraints moments later, hauling the suddenly hand-deprived Linguil into the path of the startled gunfire of Ceylan’s guards. As Linguil was dissolved into a red mist by the heavy weapons, Ell leapt into cover, screaming something in high gothic. Only Ceylan, a Gothic scholar, understood the words.

“Behead the serpent!”

On cue, the walls of the temple exploded inwards, and six dozen space marines burst into the hall, and massacred the lead Disciples, sparing only those who threw aside their guns instantly. Though the lussorians were not Astartes, they were narcotically and genetically enhanced brutes in power armour, with boltguns every bit as lethal as the Angels of Deaths’. Semantics meant less than nothing in those few minutes of carnage.

Their leader, a giant in Tiger-striped armour, removed his helm. “Vulkan’s balls that felt good! We’ve been after you rats for years,” captain Farl, commander of the Lussorian space marines and seventh hero of Macharia, exclaimed with a belligerent snort.

As Ell retrieved her tracking device from a pool of her own bloody vomit, another Narc-warrior arrived with her armour, while the cowering Atebore Ceylan was dragged before Farl, who draped himself over the would-be emperor’s throne like a man reclining upon his couch.

“I will not be captured like this...” ceylan muttered quietly, his voice quivering as he beheld the blood-drenched space marine.

“I agree,” Farl nodded, before he slowly closed his gauntlet around Ceylan’s throat. He fixed Atebore with a desolate stare as he slowly strangled the old man to death, before finally tearing out his larynx.

Ell, or rather Sergeant Ellios, his second in command, led squads into the bowels of the temple to hunt down the survivors, while Farl informed the prisoners that the terrorist network of Ceylan was ended. There would be no more suicide bombings of non-military targets. There would be no more zealous madness and mayhem unleashed upon the innocent, who had had no say in the evil Ahriman had perpetrated. They were now to be part of Braiva’s army; they would use their positions embedded in all the worlds of the Dominion, and guide the hand of the Macharian forces as they made their war upon Ahriman.

Once this was done, Farl made sure to raid Ceylan’s vintage amasec cellars, and his men and women celebrated their victory well that night.

Meanwhile, Braiva had sent out his other generals to procure allies for the war. Braiva knew his ragtag fleet and their Macharian native contingents were nowhere near enough to overcome Ahriman’s Cabal. Any attempts to ally with worlds within the Dominion failed, for each was ruled by selfish idiots who had each been crowned Emperor of the Theologian Union; none of them could see that Ahriman had deceived them into impotence and division.

Finding few allies within, Temestor Braiva was forced to look without, to the two largest empires that bordered the Dominion; the Kingly Estates of Praetoria, and the blood drenched Lychen Empire.

Faruk the Pitiless, captain of the Vashiri and sixth hero of Macharia, was sent with an honour guard to treat with his cannibalistic kinfolk. Meanwhile, the more regal and courtly nature of the Kingdom of Praetoria required the diplomacy of Duc de Aronelles, the leader of the warrior princes of Chevanti and fifth hero of Macharia.

Temestor’s orders were to try and persuade these two empires to bring their fleets adn armies to bear in the coming fight against Ahriman. If they did manage to do so, they had secondary orders, which pertained to the coming conflict, which they were forbidden from discussing with anyone other than Braiva and the rulers of these allied forces themselves. These orders were known only as The Second Procession

When Faruk entered Lychen space, he was not greeted by welcoming parties of dignitaries or ambassadors. His vessel was met by a fleet of serrated, dagger-like cruisers, grand cruisers and various escorts as similarly fierce and barbaric in aspect. His ship was boarded, and Faruk and his Vashiri were taken to the commander of this dread fleet. Like all Lychen, this commander was a brutal haemovore death cultist, his hulking form modified by surgeries and flensing blood rites to be a thing of violence; a living instrument of slaughter. The commander, Galrut, didn’t care whom Faruk represented, he was just another killer. But Faruk and his men were natives of this violent and fearsomely independent empire, and knew he could make his voice heard. Faruk was allowed to undertake the pilgrimage of maiming; the only way a mere citizen of the Lychen Empire could treat with the Lychen’s Lord of Knives, the highest authority in the carnivorous culture of Lychen.

Faruk was allowed to select the greatest amongst his group to act as ‘ambassador’. Faruk chose Farciar the Red, his banner bearer and adopted son, to be his ambassador and champion, for already in his young life, farciar had distinguished himself as the most lethal and effective of Faruk’s host. The pilgrimage of maiming required that the selected ambassador would face champions from each layer of Lychen bureaucracy and duel them, each time getting closer to the higher stations and offices of the haemovore metropolis. Farciar fought the champions in barbed fighting pits, atop plinths, across command bridges and in specially organised rings. Though these bouts were never to the death, they were not bloodless; Farciar paid his way for the next duel by sending bodyparts severed from his bested opponents, to the next Lychen office. Sometimes it was an ear, sometimes a finger, oftimes he needed to only send them a clutch of broken teeth from his adversary.

Slowly but surely, the Vashiri were allowed to penetrate the inner sanctum of the very highest nobility of the empire, hopping from space station to space station. Each time, the stations seemed to grow larger, and the populations of Lychen watching the bouts grew into baying crowds of hostile locals. If farciar slipped up even once, the fiery headed, ritually scarred youth and all his father’s cohorts would be cast back tot he edge of Lychen space.

But he endured and eventually, they reached the red world itself; the crowned seat of the Lord of Knives himself.

The gates of the palace were thrown open, and the small gathering of Vashiri entered, watched by the heavily armoured Carnus Praetorians, the personal guard of the Lord himself. The Vashiri bore the flesh banner, as was tradition, but also flew the golden flag of Macharia, and the five-headed lion atop a golden eagle; symbol of the Imperium Pentus. It was a bold statement. Farciar and Faruk walked at the head of the group, the elder man a hulking barbarian, clad in skins and with a shaggy beard threaded with pagan totems and fetishes. Farciar was slighter and shorter, and his chest was bare, save for the ritual scars and the dark red gore that dried in the grooves the scars left in his flesh. Instead of his banner, he bore two hook-bladed machetes, left uncleaned ever since the pilgrimage had begun. His teeth of adamantine glittered in his jaws as he smiled a shark’s smile towards the throne ahead.

Before them, the great throne room of the Lord of Knives dwarfed their party, and at the far end loomed a titantic throne, composed entirely of skulls, carved and sculpted to fit together seamlessly, before being coated in bronze. From behind this throne rose an Aquila of exquisite gold, illuminated by the flickering light of a dozen burning braziers.

Upon the throne sat Jurassek, the five hundredth Lord of the Daggers of Haemos. Jurassek was a giant clad in ornate carapace and mail, with a hundred daggers sheathed in great belts banding his barrel chest. His lower jaw had been removed and been raplaced with the bionic relic maw of saint Vashan, a clear sign of Jurassek’s majesty. When Farciar setted forwards, his jaws opened like a bear trap being set, and the Lord of the Lychen laughed, the sound volcanic.

“You bring me a boy. Your message is entrusted to a youngling, barely even blooded in battle?” His voice was a hideous thing, like the clashing of rocks.

Faruk stepped forwards, uncowed. “The entreaty we bring is so righteous, a mere boy bested all those who sought to impede it! Hear the offer we bring from Temestor Braiva, the Liberator of Macharia, and from the Five Primarchs, the sons and almighty champions of the Blood Emperor! You must join your power with ours, so that united we may slay the false god, and drape his flayed skin as a banner above his broken holdfast!”

“Speak out of turn again, General Faruk, and i shall eat your lungs!” Jurassek boomed, jaws crashing together discordantly as he yelled. Faruk closed his mouth, but continued to glare at the giant.

Farciar did not wait. He broke from the group, and charged the throne alone. The Carnus Guard drew their axes, but Jurassek waved them off as he stood to meet the boy’s blades, his own serrated sword sailing from its scabbard to deflect the machetes easily.

Jurrasek laughed as they clashed again, dueling beneath the red sky of Lychen, to a hall of corpse-silent butchers.

As faruk and Farciar fought for not only a new ally, but also their lives, Duc de Aronelles, a contingent of Chevantai and a regiment of Gamma-Meson Psykguard were sent under a banner of parlay to the Praetorian Kingdom. Upon reaching the agreed neutral territory between Praetorian and Thousand-Empire space, Aronelles’s small fleet was met by the 2nd Royal Fleet of Praetoria.

The praetorian fleet was a wonder to behold; hundreds of capital ships built according to the Old Imperial style. Many of the vessels were veterans of the infamous Regicide centuries of M42, built with the aid of the refugee Gothic Fleet which came to Praetoria in those troubled times. The two vessels leading the fleet were even older still. There was the venerable battlecruiser StormChild, that every Pentus child recognized as one of the few vessels of the mythical Frateris fleet which survived the storm of the Emperor’s wrath, after its then captain refused to attack Sebastian Thor. StormChild had a plain grey hull, divorced of any finery, which only marked it out as more distinctive amidst the great gold and crimson fleet of Praetorian. War’s Spite was a near-unique Battleship, with great rows of pectoral and dorsal weapon batteries fixed into colossal turrets, with starboard and port flanks festooned with launchers and torpedo tubes. This was the flagship of Admiral Wellslay, and it was covered in statues and cathedrals depicting its many deeds in battle.

Aronelles’ fleet was led into the heart of the Praetorian Kingdom; a stellar realm grown rich and powerful in its non-committal policies. The Chevantai princes knew all the social niceties and protocol as they met with the great and sprawling aristocracy; they made sure to never snub or be perceived as belittling a noble family, no matter how lesser and money-grubbing they might truthfully be.

The Prince Regent threw a grant banquet in honour of the dignitaries of Macharius. Whole regiments of Praetorian Guards, in their blood red parade uniforms, marched past the lavish apartments set out for the delegation, alongside tank brigades and the diverse and colourful colony world troopers Praetoria had access to.

The ceremonies and prententious meetings continued, but it became clear to Aronelles that the Praetorians were avoiding presenting the Macharian contingent to the King himself. The Gamma-Meson Psykguard discreetly organised a secret meeting with the Royal Gentlemen, the secret service of Praetoria. There, they leaved of King Harold III’s profound madness. The King had ordered the home fleet, and all its armies to remain within their own realms, to protect him from ghosts, and in his delirium he continued to give out conflicting orders to his fleets, which saw them travelling from world to world within their Empire, searching for terrorist who didn’t exist, and bringing back artefacts that were essentially refuse the King was convinced was valuable beyond all reckoning.

Duce de Aronelles tried to gain a meeting with the king, but his Son denied them. It seemed likely that the praetorian grand fleet would never aid them.

His last hope was a final desperate parlay with Admiral Wellsey, the High Commander of the Praetorian Royal Fleets. He alone seemed immune to the entitled nonsense of the nobles and sycophants of the court. He alone might listen to reason, and join the Heroes of Macharia in the Liberation of the Dominion of Change, and the end of Lord Ahriman, the would-be god...

As the Chevantai parlayed, back on Macharia, General Temestor Braiva received an odd message from his son Obediah, onboard Tyme’s Absolution. The battlebarge had intercepted a bulk freighter heading towards Macharia. The ship’s only cargo; a skeletal humanoid wrought in metal, a bedraggled human man with a killer’s smile, and a female with eyes and hair an impossibly lustrous gold.

She spoke with supreme confidence that took Obediah’s soldiers by surprise.

“Get me to the Black Cube, men of Vulkan, and I will destroy Ahriman Godhead.”

Phase Two: The Battle of A Thousand Emperors

Temestor Braiva could not wait for Duce De Aronelles and Faruk to return from their missions. Upon receiving the mysterious trio of figures onboard his flagship, he knew that he had to strike at Ahriman, and soon. He could not afford to slowly conquer the thousand Theologian empires of the Dominion of Change, as he had originally intended.

In consultation with the golden woman Crolomere, Braiva (who by now was nearing the limit of rejuvenative surgery’s effectiveness) decided he had to enact his invasion plan early, if he was to ever see the defeat of his foes before his death.

The remnants of Braiva’s Best, including Farl’s Space marines, Roderus’s veterans, Obediah’s Varseen Troopers and Darbane’s Plasma Commandoes, joined with the Macharian navy and set out with all the fleet assets they could muster. Temestor sat upon his command dais, plugged into his life support systems at all times now. At his right hand was his ever loyal son, while to his left, Crolomere watched his viewscreen with concealed anxiety.

They launched their first surprise attack on one of the petty emperors’ planets, striking at their cities and launching an attack upon their fleet in dock. The fearsome first strike was devastating, but it did not finish off the forces of this planet. Braiva’s fleet, to the surprise of this emperor, fled before his vengeful fleet. Enraged, yet secretly pleased by this demonstration of his superiority, this emperor sent his forces after Braiva; their orders were to kill the uppity pretender to his rightful throne.

Braiva fled intot he territory of another emperor, and there his battleworn fleet bombarded the startled imperator of this world, destroying his flagship as the emperor watched impotently from his palace. This aroused the demented fury of this pretender too, who ordered his whole navy to destroy braiva, ignoring the serpentine council of the Thousand Sons sorcerer living in his palace. Once again, in the face of a fleet of similar size to Braiva’s own, he chose to flee, sacrificing some of his escorts to allow his main force to escape the system.

The battle of the thousand emperors began as a sprawling hit and run campaign, with Braiva’s Best slipping through his enemy’s nets after dealing them superficial yet humiliating blows.

Word began to spread amongst the Thousand Planetary Emperors; one of their number, the Macharian Emperor, had los this mind. His battered fleet was lost in their territory, and surrounded. Hungry for a propaganda win, the emperors each sent fleets hunting Braiva. Each of them wanted their armadas to be the ones who destroyed Temestor once and for all. They reasoned taht defeating him would prove to their rivals that they were the sole inheritor of the Theologian Union’s Imperial mantle, and Ceylan’s heir.

To an outside observer, Braiva’s actions were those of a madman; he now had thousands of ragtag fleets baying for his blood, and his fleet wasn’t even at full strength. The emperors launched their entire naval might against him, and eventually they would catch up with him.

Braiva was forced to refuel his fleet in the dead system of Galaiph. It was here, at last, that the emperors’ fleets reached him. His fleet closed about Tyme’s Absolution, as staggeringly huge numbers of vessels warped into the system, filling the sensor banks like angry stormfronts. This mass of ships were not allied in any way, Braiva could tell by the hateful chatter between them, and the fact more than a few escorts of the enemy were firing upon each other, even as they closed the colossal celestial distance to reach Braiva’s own forces.

All was quiet on the bridge of the Absolution, as Braiva closed his eyes, muttering to himself; perhaps prayer, or perhaps a reiteration of his own plan. The crew set to work quietly, organising their ships into spherical attack formations to ward off the approaching enemies. Braiva’s ships were more advanced, but the disparate Theologian forces had a tremendous numbers advantage.

Battleships and cruisers swarmed around each other, unleashing endless cavalcades of ordinance and lance fire. Across the system, Braiva’s fleet continued to lead his frustrated foes on a merry chase, but they were still losing vessels, to attrition and the sheer desperation of the emperors’ forces to eliminate their enemies in their own imperator’s name. The rival Imperila factions fought each other as much as Braiva’s fleet. The climax of the Battle of a Thousand Emperor’s was a confusing mess of intersecting naval duels and bewildered flight sof fighters and bombers, attacking the nearest enemy vessels, regardless of which faction they belonged to.

Darbane’s Ryzan-catachan Commandoes performed dozens of boarding sorties, Farl and Ell stormed the bridges of capital ship after capital ship, while Roderus found his veterans defending the Macharian vessels from all manner of outlandish private imperial guard forces, mercenaries and paramilitary opportunists, fighting for masters they could nto even remember the names of.

A Storm Trooper regiment of Emperor Johan Ward’s People’s Imperium of Theologia managed to breach the defences of Tyme’s Absolution, where Crolomere’s man Kage and the machine-creature Jaxx joined the Tempered Edge Veterans of Roderus in brutal fighting through the ship’s narrow confines. Kage was once a Lieutenant and his training reasserted itself as he led fire teams in flanking manoeuvres against the exotic, silver-scaled soldiers trying to assassinate Braiva. Meanwhile, the Iron Man Jaxx decimated the enemy with terrifying speed and mathematical precision; he was an automated killer, with a truly industrial capacity for dispatching foes in the most expedient and efficient manner.

But even once the last storm trooper gurgled his last breath, the danger was not over. The enemy was everywhere, filling the system with their insane military belligerence. There would be no escape this time.

Fortunately, Braiva had never intended to flee this battle. For almost a month, the fleets dueled themselves to a brutal stalemate.

Then, like a great rippling wave of doubt and inaction, the enemy fleets disengaged, ceasing their attacks before retreating to the edge of the system. It took three days before all enemy fleets disengaged and formed these defensive formations. Crolomere was baffled. Had Braiva’s bravery provoked them to spare his forces? Had some psychic secret weapon subdued the enemies? Braiva’s dry lips cracked with a smile.

“Nothing so honorable as that my dear. I believe these fine fellows have been receiving messages from their homeworlds. Likely each message is quite similar. ‘Our emperor is captured. You are ordered to surrender in his majesties name’ or some such.”

“But how?”

Temestor Braiva explained taht the Second Procession had performed its role.

Faruk and Aronelles had been successful in gathering allies, and had followed their secret orders to the letter. On braiva’s orders, they had spread out to the thousand empires. With ultimate orbital superiority, each planet was forced to surrender, and their emperors were captured, their orbital docks destroyed and their militaries humbled.

In less than a month, the Lychen and Praetorian fleets had bested the near-defenseless fleets of the thousand emperors and essentially conquered their worlds. Once word reached the fleets at Galaiph, they realised that they had been defeated. Their emperors had been outmaneuvered and there was little they could do now to stop it.

Braiva’s victory was finally cemented when the barbed dagger-shaped ships of the Lychen navy translated into the system, led by Emperor Jurrasek’s monstrous flagship Meglodon. This fleet was followed soon after by the far larger Praetorian 1st and 2nd Fleets, led by Wellsley aboard War’s Spite. One by one, the opposing fleets surrendered, and swore fealty to Temestor Braiva and to the Imperium Pentus.

United in an armada of colossal scale, Temestor finally had a force large enough to assail Ahriman himself. After weeks of treaty signing and resupply in a neighboring system, the gargantuan force plotted a course for the planet where Ahriman chose to situate his Black Cube; Tallarn.

During the warp transit, Crolomere hid herself in a warded part of Tyme’s Absolution, where the pet monstrous pets of the ship’s original Fire beast owners had been stored. In this dank hole, Crolomere pleaded with her long-dead father for protection. She had never believed in His divinity, but she was afraid and prayed anyway. Not for herself, for she was immortal, but for all the mortals she had led into Ahriman’s den; all the men and women who would die, just to give her a chance to end Ahriman and thwart his plan to ascend to not only daemonhood, but godhood. She feared for Kage, who slept by her side. But mostly, she feared for the helpless, mortal soul which she could feel growing inside her.

Braiva remained on the bridge during the warp transit, for he was too frail to make a journey anywhere else onboard. Such a vast movement of ships through the immaterium was always going to attract the attention of daemons, and the Gellar fields glowed white hot with the number of daemonspawn battering against them. But this commotion attracted another fell sentience.

An apparition of a tall, perfect giant burst into life on the bridge, bypassing the Gellar fields through sheer willpower. The vision of anatomical perfection was wreathed in blue and yellow flames that danced across its ethereal flesh. The guards on the bridge opened fire on the entity, but the unreal thing ignored the weapons, which passed through it like daggers through smoke. Slowly, the naked giant strolled towards Temestor Braiva, who unsteadily rose to his feet to meet this enemy, uncowed by this projection.

“For a mortal, you are intriguingly troublesome. Your ruse to defeat my deception was worthy of a child of Tzeentch itself. Truly you are mighty; perhaps the mightiest human warlord this region of the galaxy has seen in an age,” the apparition explained with cold clarity, its voice effortlessly powerful. “Yet, in the end, the mightiest human troubles me as much as the mightiest insect. For, you are, in the end, all too human, Liberator of Macharia. All too mortal. And mortals do well to avoid arousing the ire of their god.”

The voice was unmistakably that of Ahzek Ahriman.

“We will kill this god,” Braiva hissed, drawing his sidearm, emptying his las clip into the ethereal Ahriman to no avail.

Casually, almost gently, the ghostly form of Ahriman reached into Braiva’s chest, and stopped his heart. Temestor Braiva sighed once, and fell.

“Throne,” gasped Braiva, and then he was gone.

As Braiva’s horrified bodyguards rushed to his side, the Gellar field bfinally anished the evil spectre from the ship.

Though Temestor had perished, his son took up his father’s mantle, and when they finally translated into the Tallarn System, an armada alloyed together by hate prepared to face the full fury of an unborn god and his abominations.

Section 49: Despoiling A Black Heart

[Compiler’s Note: The author of this section is unknown. How they could have been present for the story they relate here, I cannot guess. Perhaps they merely dreamed this tale? Or maybe they embellished this story based upon legends told by former Red Corsairs, Legionnaires and the survivors? As ever, I leave the authenticity of such sections tot he discretion of my future readers, who read this long after all else is cold and vanished.]

The two ships had merged, and their carnal union was destroying them both. Fire and screaming flooded every crevice. Decks crashed together like pancakes, as poison and chaotic effluence conspired to undo the bonds of reality. The Planet Killer was killed, and the Astral Maw was swallowed; both were burning, and both would soon perish.

The disturbing powers flooding their warp engines and generators exploded from containment, warping the very walls and spilling daemons into the materium like oil from a ruptured supertanker. The walls and corridors coiled and turned upon one another in maddening patterns mortal minds would be broken trying to decipher.

Abaddon staggered onwards, his armor glowing white hot with resisting the malevolence flooding the conjoined ships. He too had no idea where h was going, but Drach’Nyen did. The sword was held aloft, dragging him forwards in its infernal eagerness. With his father’s talon, he ripped apart the mewling spawns that threw themselves in his way; each one was once a corsair or a mortal, turned to something both greater and far lesser at once by the raging warp furnaces. Daemonic ichors coated his hair, bleaching in an ugly rancid grey.

He found a window, and saw a void war consuming heaven. Silver strike cruisers were hurtling towards the conjoined ships, but Abaddon paid them no heed, his eyes desolate and black.

++ Silver Skulls, decks twelve through fifteen! Repel boarders! Repel boarders! ++, a voice on some shipwide vox squealed ineffectively. There was no one alive who heeded or cared what the desperate bridge officer demanded.

All around Abaddon, power was building. The great agents of ruination sensed him, and even after all these millennia, evne after all his actions in the mortal world, they still called to him. ‘Pick me, forsake the others’ was always their seditious whisper. Give in, forsake the materium, and take up your prince’s mantle.

But Abaddon the Destroyer, the Emperor of Travesties, the Warmaster and chosen of chaos, could not just let go; for he saw each of his patrons, and he felt what the great Pantheon did not what him to see. They were afraid, as much as an abstraction of a blasphemous concept could be afraid. They were losing their identities; something else pushed them up and out. Something deep and with a name no mortal could speak was thrusting up, turning all pretense of form within the realm of chaos to nothingness. The greatest lie of the Gods was that there was some guiding principle behind them, some fundamental division. Chaos was Undivided, and soon chaos would be extinct; replaced with something infinite and unknowable. The Deep Warp would end them all.

So, Abaddon thought, as he marched to his doom, why should I submit to the chaos gods now? It was all futile; the Dissolution was coming, and not even Gods would survive it. Abaddon’s grand plans were all in tatters; all he had left now was something incredibly petty. He didn’t like Huron Blackheart, and he would kill this rival Emperor for daring to reject Abaddon’s rule millennia hence.

He found Huron at the centre of what was once a ship’s bridge. But all the crew were melted into the walls, giggling and chanting manically. The room was an eight pointed star, expanding and deforming like a great daemon was breathing.

Huron Blackheart, the great Cadaver King, sat upon a throne at the centre, watching the world around him burn with an unreadable expression. His head turned slowly towards Abaddon as he registered his presence. From behind the throne, some great bloated yellow thing crept. It was like some great fat toad, with long spindly limbs and a fixed grin full of ivory tusks. Hamadraya, the Deep Warp Imp, and the silent architect of the Eastern Chaos Imperium. Drach’nyen strained in Abaddon’s grip; the sword hated Hamadraya more than any other entity in all existence, for the Imp had been the one to trap Drach’nyen within the blade’s prison all those countless eons ago.

Huron smiled; his face peeling partially away with the effort. “You look a mess... my liege...” he rasped mockingly.

Abaddon said nothing; he simply stomped forwards, eyes fixed upon Huron. He raised the Talon of Horus, and unleashed a fearsome barrage of cursed bolts into the Blackheart. The munitions struck some invisible field as he rose, bursting above him in a cascade of azure fire. Huron creaked as he moved, like some homunculus puppet animated by a necromancer’s will. He opened his claws, and grew his mighty cursed axe, striding to meet his counterpart in final battle. Around them, the walls were crumbling, and the ethereal winds of the warp billowed through in impossible hues.

“You have destroyed my ship and yours as well. Where is the Despoiler, who always had such grand schemes and elaborate strategies? Pathetic! You got your empire stolen, your brothers slain, and all you can think of is to brawl with me in the belly of a doomed ship? Your time is through now Ezekyle Abaddon! I am the future. The Long War is a joke, a bitter old warrior’s dream!” Huron screame,d his voice metallic and discordant, his eyes blazing red with the madness driven by unending agony.

Abaddon said nothing, his pace merely quickening.

“This is my time Despoiler! Mine!” Huron screeched, gesturing for Hamadraya. The daemon thing leapt towards Abaddon, its body swollen with stolen warp energies. If it had struck the Warmaster, it would have undid his flesh and made him spawn in an instant.

But Hamadraya realised too late, what dwelt within Abaddon’s sword. Abaddon threw the sword into hamadraya without a second glance. Drach’nyen embedded itself in Hamadraya’s bloated gut, and drove itself and the yellow monster backwards. Hamadraya screeched inhumanly as it was instantly pinned to the Blackheart’s throne by the blade.

As the dameon’s dueled, the two ancient Astartes crashed together with a hideous crunch, ceramite on ceramite,adamantium on adamantium. Abaddon bore terminator armor, so was slower than Huron, who landed a flurry of furious blows against the Despoiler’s guard. Without Drach’nyen, Abaddon was forced to fend off Huron with only his Talon, and was pushed back by the undead might of Huron. Where his claw was swatted aside, his axe landed a blow, carving glowing grooves in the runic terminator plate. Desperately, Abaddon shoved the Tyrant back, giving him a moment of space. Huron raised his claw’s palm, and rewarded Abaddon’s ploy with a torrent of cursed fire.

Abaddon screamed, throwing his hands to his face as the flamer’s breath consumed him. His hair was burnt away entirely, his flesh crackled and spat like pig’s fat on a furnace. The runes of his ancient war plate blazed ever brighter. As soon as the flames relented, another flurry of axe blows crashed against Abaddon. This time, he was too stunned to defend himself effectively. Chunks of flesh and armor were chopped away by Blackheart, until Abaddon sank to his knees.

Pinned to the throne, Hamadraya screeched pitifully as Drach’nyen twisted and writhed in its belly, spilling warp fire over its being as the sword slowly, but surely, began to dissolve...

Huron was flooded with warp energy; the same power Abaddon had always denied. He smashed his axe into Abaddon’s unprotected left arm again and again, savoring every grunt of pain he elicited. There was no way such a decrepit and broken specimen of a space marine as Huron could be so strong and fast and fearsome.

Chaos was punishing Abaddon for spurning their offers. They gods were fickle and jealous, he always knew this. They wanted him to perish here. The Despoiler refused to bow to their spiteful demands.

With a last great burst of power, Abaddon reached forth with Horus’ talon, and ripped away the Eastern Emperor’s breastplate, wrenching it free in one almighty motion. It pulled away in a torrent of mucus, like the peeled shell of a beetle. Huron staggered backwards, letting the armor fall away. Inside, Huron was a mass of messy bionics, bonded to rotten strands of black flesh, held together by thorny scuttling centipedes and writhing, segmented worms. The Tyrant screeched and cursed wetly, as his organs spluttered and spat like hissing cobras, spewing vileness in all directions. Huron looked down to the wound in bewilderment; he should have been healing. Always, no matter the wound, he survived and was held together by the will of the Gods. The Blackheart looked to Hamadraya. The daemon was growing pallid, its struggles growing weaker and weaker as it fought to remove Drach’nyen as the sword merged with the festering wound in Hamadraya’s gut.

Huron was alive, but for the first time in so many years, he felt vulnerable. Wild-eyed, he turned back to his foe.

“Your death is a long-stalled certainty it would seem, miserable Wight!” Abaddon wheezed hatefully, struggling to rise. Cursing in all the fell tongues he knew, Huron raised his Tyrant’s Claw again, and the flames ate into the Despoiler hungrily. The fire wriggled into the rents cut into Abaddon’s armour previously, and the Despoiler felt his body cooking from within. He would have screamed, but his tongue and cheeks were ash, and one of his eyes had burst like and overripe grape.

Huron strode over to Abaddon, and stamped a boot onto his talon, immobilizing his right arm.

“Death?” Huron sneered,raising his axe over Abaddon’s ruined head as an executioner might. “Death has no power over-”

The lens of one of his bionic eyes burst in a shower of sparks, and from the wound poured a trickle of treacle-like gore. Huron dropped his axe, and fumbled at the wound. Another needle splashed into his exposed chest with barely a sound, followed by two others. His hearts exploded, alongside whatever fetid dameonic organs had been installed alongside them.

For a moment, it seemed as if Huron might simply shrug the wounds off. Then, with the inexorable momentum of a felled tree, he collapsed with a sonorous clang.

Abaddon watched this unfold as he lay smoldering on the deck. If he could smile, he would have. A silver-armoured space marine in scout carapace emerged from behind him, clutching a needle rifle to his chest. The Astartes stood over Huron, and emptied the remainder of his clip into the Tyrant’s twitching corpse.

"It seems the eldar were right, you filth!" the scout snarled, spitting on the gurgling carcass.

It took a sudden lurching quake to bring the space marine back to his senses. The young soldier turned to Abaddon’s prone form. The boy’s face was clean and lantern-jawed, and filled with a righteousness Abaddon had learnt to loathe thousands of years ago.

Was this the last good man? Was this his end? Abaddon watched the scout’s rifle. Slowly, the weapon was lowered.

“Can you walk marine? What chapter are you? Get up, or you will perish here with the Blackheart! We have mere minutes before we strike the craftworld. We must move; now!” the boy bellowed, hauling Abaddon up to his knees. “My name is brother Kelfdon of the Silver Skulls; your assistance was most welcome.”

Abaddon was confused, until he saw himself reflected in the burnished breastplate of Kelfdon. His head was healing, but it was still a scorched and skeletal ruin. His armor, once so distinctive, was sullied and ruined by years on the run from Lorgar, and still further smashed by Huron and his hellfire. Even the talon was broken and rendered generic by the sooty flames.

Kelfdon wouldn’t be fooled for long, Abaddon knew. If there had been more time, he might have used this confusion to his advantage. However, a much more pressing matters than the ship crashing, or even deceiving the loyalist dupe.

“Drach...” Abaddon began, his tongue still only half-formed in his mouth.

“I cannot understand you, what say you?” Kelfdon asked.

Abaddon gave up talking, and simply gestured with his functioning hand. He gestured towards the mewling, growing thing festering on the Blackheart’s throne. Hamadraya was squealing as it was consumed, collapsing in upon itself, coiling about the molten ruins of the dameons word in its gut.

That was why Drach’nyen wanted to come here, Abaddon realized. It needed the warp power of the Hamadraya and the sundered cores of the Planet Killer and the Astral Maw.

Kelfdon’s eyes widened as he turned to witness something rising from the oily ruins of the Hamadraya, cloaking the entire chamber with unnatural shade.

Drach’nyen, at last, was unbound!

And so they rose, and fled before the [Portion Missing/Corrupted]

Interlude: Sundered Sphere, a Fragmentary Account

[Compiler’s Note: This is a fragmentary section fro-[REDACTED] Saga, found etched on one of the major internal faces of the [REDACTED]-rld device.

Provenance: Unknown.

Period of Composition: Unknown

Subject: Speculative (cros ref. Last Good Man)]

From the cold prison they wriggled free, shed their iron bodies and stole hollowed flesh of ter-an flesh. But the wordless king had not slain his children all in vain. For he had a plan, set in place should the walls of the real come crashing down. Before the first great sleep, the jackal had driven its own sibling into madness.

So subdued, the mirrored men of the wordless king bade the mad god build its own prison, and they reinforced it with endless bonds. And the silvered mirror men learned much from the deranged one; she who no longer knew herself. Believing herself a blessed mother, she taught her apparent children the way to build the great devices; the swords that would shatter Star-Hungry Ymgar, and all his lesser brothers. The swords were wielded, such as we all know now.

Then, the Outsider, she/that who/which was named traitor, was subdued and sealed within the prison. Her/its lonely hollow home, her/its mind turned inward, and her/its cosmic powers were bent to craft such wonders, mortals would weep and lose their minds. The prison was burrowed out and plunged into the formless space. There was no sea of souls, no labyrinth down there. It was another place, sealed from all the outside. The outsider surrounded this miraculous inside. The sphere existed outside the bounds of warped realms and material planes. A pearl of null coldness to ward off the storm.

The Wordless King remembered this prison, long eons afterwards. He realized that, even as dissolution came to all the worlds of the outside, so the inside would be preserved; for the sphere of binding was a most excellent prison, but an even greater haven. If he could reach it with his men, he could start his race again, in a realm where they were the only life, a place where they could be untroubled by strife and the Ne{weep-for-us}. His fellow liberated mirror-men, however, realized that, with bodies of flesh, not living steel, the outside sphere’s crazed guardian would not recognize their new, ter-an forms.

Thus, the bitter king whispered into the Outsider’s troubled dreams. He whispered how her children were no longer me of cold metal, but bright-eyed living beings. He made her dream of the ter’an form, so that she might recognise them when they arrived.

Alas, the mirror-men were waylaid on their journey to the outside sphere by one of their own; the rebel Lord of the Tempest, who meant to take the orrery for his own. Upon the orrery, they fought, and they-[REDACTED]

Imote[REDACTED]

[REDACTED]- while they fought, the Wordles king could not have known others came to his sphere first. These men were mortal creatures, many of whom were ter’an. Upon seeing the ter’an, and after feeling the Last G[MISSING]an walk upon Her god’s skin, the Madness Let Them In.

The Sphere was Sundered, and those who rejected the grim spectre of the Dissolution, reached the miraculous inside.

But salvation and safety are not so easy to secure. For upon opening the sphere, the sphere, albeit briefly, became visible to all the dark multitudes of the warring, collapsing galaxy. Just as they believed themselves safe, the disciples of the Last Good Man found they had to [SECTION MISSING]

Section 50: The Three Wanderers. The Prince and The Serpent

History is fickle and changeable; twisting in the grasp of those who seek to pin it down and fix it in a single position, a single continuity of events. Through this chronicle, many a time have my reports forced me to be vague, and to conflate great stretches of time where a lack of accurate sources have left their voids in the history, to be filled with conjecture, myth and mad ramblings. Thus, I return to the tale of the Three Wanderers, the fugitives of Trayzn, decades from when we, Vasiri and Greal, last left their narrative strand. In this time, the sphere was opened, the Triarch necrons were rendered extinct then reborn in flesh, Imperiums burned and the hero of Macharius was murdered. For the three, Allaten the silver skulled warlock, Myrinmar the ranger and Julius Hawke, the eternal survivor, this time passed only as a couple of months. They were lost in the myriad pathways of the Labyrinth dimension, far from hearth, home and sanity; set adrift without a map in a maze that moved. Not only was space a perplexing maze there, but time too. They walked through tunnels that bypassed centuries, only to stumble into temporal dead zones that left them weary after barely an inch of travel.

The further they traveled, the smaller the pathways became, winding in and out and upon themselves, like woven threads in a wicker chair. Several time they had to hide themselves, as earlier versions of the trio crossed in front of them, or older versions in pitted armor with withered faces collapsed behind them. The webway had grown wild and untempered in the millennia following the fall of the craftworlds, and the rise of the Ne-[hushlittlesecretsin the darklittleones] – quins fought a rearguard to their black stronghold, leaving the labyrinth to grow like creepers through a dead woman’s garden. Also like a garden, strange plant-like fronds, and alien growths ringed the narrowest routes. Allaten and Myrinmar had efficient and resilient guts, and subsisted easily on the preserved rations they had managed to liberate from the Infinite’s collections. Hawke was mortal however, and thus soon he was depleted. Ever the opportunist, he harvested the frond-creatures as he trekked, eating them, much to the disgust of Myrinmar, and the unvoiced amusement of Allaten.

After the initial few weeks, the archives do not record their further labours in the webway, but there were spurious accounts of giant wasps and eyeless troglodytes infesting some routes, which the three had to slay, and of whispering, tempting siren-devils that called out longingly to the eldar amongst them, making her soul stone burn a bright white hue, and the wraithbone choir she carried to sing with psychic righteousness. They battled orks, which surprised both sides of the conflict, and only ended when the brutish leader of the orks dragged his waaagh off to find the ‘Pretty Wurld’ of myth. There was some mention of Hawke briefly getting sick from the fronds he subsisted upon, but these legends descended into metaphor very rapidly (talk of ‘the song of spiders, sleeping in the humours’ and other such fanciful imagery).

All through this journey, there was the ever present dread of the necrons. Though Trayzn’s ships could only travel the dolmen routes, the furious necron had marked Myrinmar for death. She kept hold of the wraithbone choir through all this, clutching it closely, ever listening for the shimmer of teleporting deathmarks, the cyclopean assassins of the ancient enemy.

The three might have been trapped in this system of tunnels for all the ages of the universe, if it was not for Allaten. Though his psychic gifts were powerful and brutally blunt, they allowed him some measure of communion with the Anathame. The blade was a hateful thing; an insane presence filled with half-formed thoughts of ancient alien notions. Yet, something was drawing it forwards, guiding Allaten down the true path. Where they were going, none of the group knew. The only coherent thought of the sword was like attracts like, which only served to confuse the Prognosticator further.

Eventually, they were led to a portal, shimmering like a rippling pond tilted to the vertical plane. Desperate to be anywhere but in the webway, they threw themselves through the portal, and emerged on the smooth, fragrant deck of an eldar vessel. The vessel was dark, walls only sluggishly illuminating in their presence, and their breath misted on the chilly air. Nevertheless, Myrinmar knew this ship anywhere.

“This is the Flame of Asuryan. The Phoenix ship. This is King Yriel’s vessel,” she breathed. This was once the greatest reaving vessel of the eldar, before it became the grand flagship of the Biel-Tan alliance, earning many famous victories.

Hawke was considerably less impressed, judging by the fact he was said to have vomited profusely upon arrival. (It was said his vomit sparkled, but I attribute no special significance to this. My vomit might shine if I ate a bag of silver shavings for instance.)

Initially, as they explored the vessel, it seemed as though it were entirely dead; becalmed and derelict. Through transparent sections of the hull, the webway could be seen. The vessel had been trapped in the webway too, to their collective disappointment. Hawke, desperate for some actually edible food, got Myrinmar to tell him where the food supplies were located onboard. She directed him to the orchards, and the former bondsman made his excuses before departing on his foraging quest.

Soon enough, they found evidence of battle; spent shuriken, shattered crystals, blades, dried blood redder than any human viscera, and, heartbreakingly, broken waystones, cold and dull. But no bodies.

“We cannot linger here. We must find another portal,” Allaten warned her, predicting her desires before she voiced them.

“My race needs me. Our lost king is here... or was here. I must aid him.”

Allaten shook his head. “I understand the call of brotherhood, or kinship. I am Astartes, and brotherhood is the foundation of our existence. But we have a mission; your mission, if I recall correctly. You claim this choir is pivotal, to not just your race’s survival, but mine as well. Your aid on Varsavia and Solemnance has proven that not all xenos are made of lies, but if you are willing to abandon a quest you vowed to complete, I question whether all our prejudices against your race were true,” he said, in her own eldar tongue, as best as he could manage.

This gave the ranger pause. “Vows are the only thing that controls one on the Path of the Outcast. Vows to craftworld and kin, ever anchoring even the flightiest of us to home. Yriel... he was a renegade, a corsair, for millennia. But when Iyanden needed him most... he returned. He cast of the Path of the Outcast, and gave the eldar there hope,” she looked to the spherical artefact in her hands, the conjoined souls of the best and brightest beings ever to walk the domes of fabled Altansar. This was the key; the salvation of the eldar race, and all races who fought the dissolution. “We must get to Biel-Tan. You are right mon ke... Librarian,” she finally admitted.

They searched for another portal chamber aboard the great capital ship, but as they did, they saw other vessels, to the port and starboard flanks of the Flame of Asuryan’s outer hull. Where the Flame of Asuryan was a bejewelled lance, these were dark, serrated daggers, flanked by wicked bladed fins and red tiger-stripe war paint daubing the hulls. The three black cruisers had anchored themselves to the Flame via great harpoons fired from their prows, deep into the guts of the larger eldar battleship. Myrinmar hissed.

“Eldar Corsairs,” Allaten growled.

“Commorrite raiders,” Myrinmar corrected him. “All the worst stories you mon keigh tell of the eldar, are earned by the denizens of Commorragh. The things onboard those vessels aren’t fit to kiss the feet of true corsairs,” she cursed, drawing her rifle involuntarily.

But Allaten reminded her of her vow, and they continued on towards the next portal room. Myrinmar was not to be disappointed however, because soon after, they were set upon by those same pirates. A hundred black shadows leapt from concealed ambush points, daggers drawn and splinters flying. Even before the first degenerate eldar howled their mocking battlecry, five of them were slain by Myrinmar’s rifle; a dozen more by the flickering arc of Allaten’s warp lightning. Ambushing a ranger and a psyker with precognition, it transpired, was very difficult. Nevertheless, the dark eldar had numbers on their side, and their frenzied hunger for pain and souls drove them onwards with the fevered desperation of consumptives. Allaten conjured a ring of fire from the warp, but the eldar capered deftly over the conflagration, their eyes glowing green with soul-hunger. The corsairs were a ragged mix of wych cultists, kabalites, half-crippled scourges, ex-craftworlders wearing desecrated soulstones, parched scum, board-less hellions and all other forms of commorrite scum under the stolen suns. Discipline had long fled these degenerates, for they had been trapped outside their sanctuary when the doors to Commorragh had sealed. But despite that, their furious hunger lent them a potency all their own.

Myrinmar and Allaten fought back to back as they spindly creatures attacked them, each being swift as quicksilver, and venomous as a viper. Allaten could smell the toxins on their blades as he fought them back blade to blade with the Anathame. But his cursed sword was mighty indeed; wherever it struck, the wound it inflicted was always lethal. Bones were shattered, limbs were severed, and blood, red and vivid even in the gloom, soon coated the walls. Allaten’s berserker charge with the Anathame left him separated from Myrinmar. To his horror, he saw the pirates retreat, as rapidly as they had descended. He fought to reach them, but soon the shadows swallowed them. He found himself alone and lost. Myrinmar was gone, and with her the choir. He had to find her.

The Prognosticator stalked the halls, listening out for either Hawke or Myrinmar’s voices, reaching out with his psychic senses, but only finding confusing interference. It was then he realized this interference was deliberate. The souls behind it were pure and strong, so could never be the shriveled, rotten souls of the commorrites. The original crew, he mused, but despite realizing this, their location was still hidden from him (and presumably the raiders too). Mouthing a prayer to the Emperor to guide him, as the Emperor had guided him so many times before, he raised Anathame, and let the hungry blade lead it once again on its inscrutable quest.

When he at last found the shrouded corner of the cavernous vessel, the Silver Skull was set upon again by desperate eldar. But these warriors bore glowing soulstones, and when he summoned warp energy into his radiant soul, he felt other equally powerful entities, holding back his sorcerous fire. As shuriken and las bolts pattered against his armor, Allaten was forced to wade into close combat, weathering the blows against his armor as his singing sword sought to catch one of the cautious eldar.

But before he could land a killing blow, another warrior entered the fray. Almost as tall as the space marine, but slender as a reed, the warrior leapt into combat like a whirling dervish, his spear howling as it swept towards him in a blistering series of arcing blows. The eldar had a single bionic eye that glowed with pleasant amber hues; quite at odds with the harsh crimson bulbs Imperial bionics favored. The man was skilled, and without his psychic abilities, Allaten found himself hard pressed against such a tenacious and skilled combatant. Finally, the spear tip swept down in a decapitating arc, and all Allaten could do was throw up a hasty block with his own weapon.

The two blades crashed together with a thunderclap, flooring both warriors, and all the eldar encircling them. In that instant, the two well-matched foes saw the turn of the universe.

There was a vision of a diminutive hero standing alone before a cliff face of molten metal, a thousand feet high, beneath a red moon’s light.

In the hero’s hand was the spear of twilight.

In the hero’s hand was the anathame, blade of midnight.

In the hero’s hand was a curving blade, glowing golden with the morning’s early light. Dawn’s sword.

Then the cliff grew claws, and its own great black sword descended. Shadows fell, and the blade fell.

Anaris fell too. It shattered thrice and fell into the river, where its currents carried them all away. The hero was unarmed when the claws came finally to strangle him.

“Yriel... late of Iyanden, protector of Biel-Tan... I presume?” breathed Allaten, the first to rise. He took off his helmet, so Yriel might see his grey eyes.

The ancient eldar warrior, youthful always save for a wisp of grey amidst his thick top knot of soot black hair, held Allaten’s gaze. “Allaten of Varsavia, warrior seer,” he returned, gesturing for his men to lower their weapons, which they did only warily.

Allaten revealed his mission, and his compact with the Myrinmar and the Biel-Tan eldar. Yriel, in turn, revealed that the foe that had overcome his vessel was a terrible pirate lord, called Duke Sliscus, the Serpent. The serpent’s minions ambushed the Flame of Asuryan as it made to leave a system on the fringes of the Eastern Chaos Imperium; attacking from all vectors with a loose coalition of commorrite raiders, all eager to bring down the pirate who had become a king. Yriel had been forced to breach the webway, diving into the labyrinth, even as the Duke’s men were boarding via their breaching modules. The majority of the hunters were denied their prize, but three of the Duke’s cruisers had remained attached. The craftworlders were few in number at the best of times, and the necessary crew aboard a naval ship was even less. Such a skeleton crew couldn’t hope to resist Sliscus’ veritable hoard of half-born savages and null-city scum. Though it pained Yriel to even remember, he told the Astartes of how his crew had to barricade themselves within the few strongpoints throughout the ship; munitions holds, scrying chambers, the infinity circuit’s domed temple room. One by one, these strongpoints were overwhelmed, until only Yriel’s psychically hidden remained.

Yriel believed he would perish in the hold of his own ship, starving like some urchin wretch. But the sight of Allaten, and the news of the wraithbone choir of Altansar, and the revelation that he and a mon keigh held in their very hands, gave the old reaver prince new resolve. Only a handful of the survivors were eldritch raiders like him, but he determined that this would be the end of Sliscus’ charade. Whether Yriel survived or not, the sociopathic monster lounging on in his bridge would draw his last breath that day!

Meanwhile, Hawke had found the dedicated orchards of the Flame of Asuryan. The forest had grown wild and fecund in its period of becalmment, spreading out across several floors, enclosing unrelated chambers and systems with its pale, fruit-bearing trees. Hawke gorged on the forest. He’d not cared for fruit much as a guardsman, and had nothing but protein paste as a bondsman. But after so long eating nothing but strange crystalline plants, he found the feast irresistible. Those he didn’t devour immediately, he stuffed into his satchel, for later consumption and perhaps distillation, if he could ever find the parts to make a decent still in the labyrinth dimension.

His meal was disturbed when he heard the sound of cruel alien voices, hissing and hooting at each other in tones he couldn’t hope to understand. He fled from the eldar pirates, rushing through the foliage like a game animal. Much unlike a game animal, he swore in an almost uninterrupted stream of profanity, the entire time he was running. The eldar must have sensed this feeling of being hunted, as they proceeded to set their dogs upon him. The warp beasts were like gigantic, flayed hyenas, large as horses and covered in mouths. Breathless and terrified, Hawke sprinted heedlessly through the orchard jungle, slamming into walls and bulkheads and trunks in his haste.

The daemonic hounds loped after him unhurriedly, as sadistic and cruel as their beastmaster. Soon they were just on his tail, snapping at his heels with skinless jaws of gore-streaked ivory, black tusks of bronze squealing as they snapped shut, closer and closer to him each time. At last, Hawke could run no more, and flung himself forwards into the last chamber he could find. The hell hounds leapt after him.

The crystal dome he found himself in was only devoid of trees. It was an odd thought to have before his death, he considered. Still, a pretty enough sight to go out on.

But this was not the ordained moment of his death it would seem. As the warp beasts entered the dome, the walls came alive with pinpricks of light. Millions upon millions, moving as a great tide or a termite swarm. Each of the scuttling lights was made of crystal and energy. As one, they enveloped the snarling daemonic horrors, which squealed and screeched in oddly human tones as they perished. With morbid fascination, Julius Hawke watched the tide of white spiders deconstruct the daemons bodily, like a sped up pict video of a corpse’s decay. Within moments, the silent warp spiders devoured the corrupted monsters. Even the fetid stench of daemon essence had been drained away, leaving the dome as pristine as it had been moments ago.

Hawke expected to die too, but the spiders merely crawled over him like curious ants, before scuttling back into the walls themselves. He almost laughed in relief. Then, he looked to the bodies laying peacefully all around him, and his smile faded. Myrinmar was brought to the bridge of the flagship, where a fop in an extravagant coat of tanned human hides and elaborate ruffles and ribbons, slouched upon the command throne, one leg brazenly flung over the arm of the chair. The man was offensively handsome; his long hair gleaming platinum, his pale, translucent face unblemished by a single year of age. His lips were painted blue, and his eyes glowed with azure fire. Yet, the cold cruelty, and the way the warmth of his smile didn’t reach his piercing eyes robbed him of the title of beautiful.

Duke Sliscus leapt from his throne, and dramatically embraced Myrinmar as she lay bound and helpless in the arms of her captors. Sliscus kissed her cheeks, and welcomed her warmly to his vessel.

“Forgive the current state of disrepair. Some terrible lout sabotaged the central power core. It was almost as if he... resented me taking possession of this wonderful palace of a ship. Can you imagine the nerve?!” Sliscus tittered, and his ragged crew chuckled with forced humour.

His good nature evaporated when Myrinmar refused to tell him what the wraithbone choir was, or how she’d got onto ‘his’ vessel. That was when the torture began.

One thing the commorrites knew intimately was the art of torture. Within minutes, she was screaming in miserable agony, as neural spines were driven into her skull and into her joints.

(The chronicles go into what I would call, unseemly detail about the myriad torture techniques Sliscus employed in the short time he was in Myrinmar’s company. I have omitted the worst, for I feel it serve no other purpose than gratuity.)

“I am afraid we lost our haemonculus on the first day, alas. I am sorry our efforts are so... slapdash, my beautiful little bumpkin,” Sliscus purred softly in her ear, as she dangled from the ceiling on hooks, bleeding from places she had never known possible. She was weeping, but felt no shame in that, for who could resist the torturers of commorragh, truly? She watched the eldar cluster around her, their eyes glowing that little bit more with every shriek she made. She wanted to laugh; laugh at their pathetic state of existence, at their paltry, parasitic lives. They were all doomed; only the craftworlders would be reborn when Ynnead rises, while these monsters would be trapped forever on the path of appeasement, slaved to a murderous bitch goddess until they died. But she couldn’t bring herself to laugh, and the effort only brought more coughing and retching.

Finally, after only an hour of torment, she slurred something. Sliscus smiled. “You will have to speak more clearly child. Haul her down.”

They did so. Sliscus waited patiently for her to speak again.

“You must help me. The choir... it is important. Without it, millions will die... billions... trillions... all life...” she wheezed, begging the cruel dandy to heed her.

Sliscus laughed at her. “And I should care why? I have won!” he cackled, flourishing his twin swords, called ‘the serpent’s bite’, like some swashbuckling hero.

“What have you won?” she spat bitterly, slumping in her captors’ arms.

He grinned. “I have proven that I am the greatest corsair there has ever been! The mighty Prince Yriel, the dashing hero and infamous legend, was humbled by me. Me! The Duke, not the Prince, is the winner!”

“That’s petty, even for you.”

The Duke shrugged. “I don’t care. Let the universe kill itself. We shall wait here, in the webway as we always have. Then, when the dust settles and the mewling survivors scuttle from their holes to see what the damage is, we will hunt them anew. The Sky Serpents shall rain down from the heavens, and the galaxy will know my name and no other! No one will stand before me, and I shall take what has always been mine!”

“This is madness! There won’t be a galaxy Sliscus, or a webway! The dissolution... it will... the N-”

“Don’t speak to me of prophecies of doom, craftworlder! Do you recall your doomsayers, from the time of the Fall? They claimed all would be destroyed, and yet... we endure. We survive, and we...thrive,” he shivered with perverse delight.

She saw the megalomaniac then, and realised any hope of reason was lost. He was insane. Despair took her then. Tears rolled down her fleshly-scarred face, each droplet a stinging reminder of his foul attentions.

She mumbled something else.

“What now child? Do you want to play again? Just deny my demands once more, and we can play all over again. What did you say?”

She held his gaze then, through her one good eye. “I have been in one place too long. Things won’t go well now,” she said, with odd, calm clarity.

Even Sliscus was confused, and his sudden smirk barely concealed his irritation. “Why is that?”

“Because... I am marked.”

She threw herself to the ground, as her two guards suddenly spasmed and died. The Sky Serpents turned as one to a corner of the room, where they were sure there hadn’t been anyone before. Now, there were suddenly five giants; shadowy hunchbacks, with singular orbs, blazing with corpse light.

Deathmarks.

Instantly, the two sides opened fire. Within moments, the bridge was a chaotic storm of fire, flame and eldritch energies being unleashed. Myrinmar took her chance. She leapt forwards, ignoring the agony lancing through her bones, and snatched a sword from a sky serpent’s belt, bisecting the commorrite from hip to armpit with a single stroke, before planting the sword up to the hilt in the raider clutching her rifle.

She was still fast, but the pain slowed her just enough, for a green-haired hellion to get the drop on her, hissing through sharpened fangs. Its whip lashed out, snatching her rifle from her grasp, before the fiend struck her dozens of times with its spiked boots and gloves, savouring every cut. Her rifle stock cracked against his body over and over but that only made the eldar stronger, driven to delight by the pain. She stumbled onto her rump, and prepared for the end. It was at that point that the hellion suddenly found its head bisected by a precision shuriken.

The Eldritch Raiders burst into the chamber in a wave of multi-coloured fire. The warlocks unleashed lightning storms and singing spears, as Allaten, wreathed in fire, smote all who came near him, with flame and anathame stroke. Yriel could barely be seen, for he leapt so swiftly and so deftly through the confused throngs of murderers and metal killers. The battle for the bridge became a confused three way skirmish; a storm of blades and discharging weapons. Holes were punched into the hull, and soon ethereal winds from the webway billowed through the tides of carnage and murder.

Myrinmar scuttled on all fours through the press; desperately reaching for the wraithbone construct she had spent so long searching for.

Yriel and Sliscus sought each other out, as both sides knew they always would. The two clashed in a blur of blade against blade, acrobatic and flawlessly graceful despite their advanced ages. These were two supreme eldar warriors, unsullied by the millennia, as fearsome as deadly as ever. But Sliscus, for all that, had one advantage; he had two weapons, against Yriel’s single spear. No matter how potent, the spear struggled to be everywhere at once, which is where Sliscus struck. Every vector, every angle, every blow possible, he struck. Neither opponent could afford to be struck even once; the spear of twilight was a fiery remnant of the elder blade of Eldanesh, and would kill with any solid connecting blow. Meanwhile, Sliscus’ serpent’s bite was so profoundly venomous, but a single cut against flesh would boil the blood and corrode the flesh.

Despite Yriel’s legendary skill, Sliscus was winning, and he knew it, with every cut and thrust he grew stronger, and his grin widened. “I am better than you. I told you, I was always better than you!” he cackled finally, delivering a brutal back kick across Yriel’s face, staggering the eldar lord. But even as he tumbled, Allaten was there, anathame in hand. Allaten was fractionally slower, but his blows were herculean compared to Yriel’s, and this time Sliscus staggered backwards, his arrogance faltering for but a second.

All around them, the Deathmarks calmly walked forward sin unison, killing with the same effort a scythe reaps wheat. The eldar continued acrobatically murdering each other, each side screaming the name of their corsair warbands.

“Sky Serpents!”

“Eldritch Raiders!”

Myrnimar finally managed to reach the wraithbone artefact. She clutched the choir to her chest, and made a dash for the control console; the heart of the bridge, and the psychic link with the entire flagship. Her body was a ruin, and every motion was an agony akin to walking through fire. But she ignored the pain. She had to.

Sliscus now faced both Allaten and Yriel, and now he was hard pressed. Several times, he fled behind his men, and thrust them into the fray, cursing as they died too quickly. His face was full of indignant rage now, his hair a mess, his flesh tainted with blood splashes, his outfit ruined by narrowly avoided blows.

“Curse you! You let mon keigh fight your battles! Truly, you are as weak and pathetic as I suspected! I will not be mocked!” the Duke finally screamed. Desperately, he threw aside one of his sword, and drew his blast pistol. Allaten only just swayed aside as a bolt of pure darkness thundered past him. His psychic hood was shattered by the glancing blow however, exploding in a shower of sparks and psychic feedback that made even Allaten recoil.

Taking this chance, Sliscus skipped from the podium, and fled the bridge. The two sides of eldar had begun to focus on the necrons at last, as the killing machines cut down eldar after eldar with their synaptic disruptors. One by one, the necrons were dragged down, until even their reanimation protocols could not stem the flow of damage against them.

Myrinmar reached the command console, and slotted the wraithbone choir home. The choir seemed to morph and mould itself to the aperture of the console, eagerly merging and communing with the Flame. This was her final gambit; a hundred thousand apex farseers, scholars, bonesingers and warlocks, all plunged into the fiery, living heart of the ship’s living form. She felt the ship shudder in sudden, pleasant undulations. Light played across every surface, like the wheel of a galaxy as seen through a concave mirror.

She smiled serenely. This was what needed to happen, she realised. This was peace.

She kept her smile, as the crackling beam from the last deathmark struck her, and ended her thoughts forever more. It was odd, she thought at the end. It didn’t hurt to die.

She didn’t even make a sound as she felt.

The Sky Serpents began to flee, as the Flame of Asuryan’s systems began to light up with white fire, lashing out with ghostly tendrils.

Sliscus, who had fled first, was separated from the rest. Each step he took, he gazed backwards, towards the waking ship’s light filled veins. He had to escape. This was not how he would end.

When he rounded the corner, the last thing he had expected to see was a mortal mon keigh with a shard carbine. Distracted, Sliscus didn’t see the carbine fire until it was far too late. The torrent of crystals shredded his crotch and thighs, as Hawke pumped hundreds of shots into the eldar, heedless of who this commorrite was even supposed to be.

Sliscus crumpled to his knees, gasping and mute as he desperately clutched at the ruins meat of his abdomen, his own weapons forgotten. Tears in his eyes, he stared up in disbelief at Julius Hawke.

“That’s embarrassing,” Hawke chortled.

If Sliscus was going to say anything; some final retort or curse, Hawke didn’t give him a chance. He shot Sliscus in the face, splinters tearing his handsome visage to gory ribbons. Hawke continued on his run, desperately searching for his two remaining friends in the entire galaxy. Sliscus died alone; killed while running away by a mon keigh bondsman, more b accident than anything else. Such was his legacy, and such is how I choose to remember such a petty thing. He died writhing on his belly, as all snakes do.

The power of the choir flooded and re energized the Flame of Asuryan. Like the Phoenix King, it was reborn in fire. The first two cruisers were destroyed, as the energies travelled down their umbilical connections to the battleship. The third managed to disengage, but with motive power and weapons active, the Flame made short work of the dark eldar vessel.

Hawke found Allaten and Yriel, slumped either side of the command throne. Upon the throne itself, Myrinmar’s corpse had been placed. Her soulstone was dull. And, surprisingly, her entire body had turned to crystal.

“You won’t believe the trouble I’ve had apple scrumping down there. Wait, we’re moving?” Hawke asked, as he saw the view screen image come about. Allaten simply nodded, too drained to speak. Yriel held the crystal hand of Myrinmar, and said nothing.

Hawke looked around, took a seat at an empty console, and took another fruit from his satchel.

The Flame of Asuryan sped through the webway, given new life by revenant souls. Its destination was clear; the only place where craftworld eldar still lived in any great numbers.

All roads led to Biel-Tan.

Section 51: The Last Loyal Son, and The Queen of Smog

[Compiler’s Note (Volsanius Greal): It breaks my heart to find these notes. I don’t want it to be true, but I cannot doubt Vasiri’s visions, not now. I was a scribe for many years, and I knew him longer than any other person I’d ever met. Yet, he was so shut off, secluded. Who could truly know his mind? I swear that I had no idea that these events had transpired. Smog was a standard cleanse mission, according to almost every account in the histories collected in these archives. But this one account... it changes everything I thought I knew. Forgive me. If I had known... perhaps I could have saved them... or at least warned them...] [Secondary note: The term ‘Pentus’ and ‘Pentum’ are generally interchangeable, as both forms of address are found in the histories of the Five Brothers’ Imperium.]

Loyalty is a complex notion in a world of changing authorities and powers. From a historian’s vantage point, treachery and loyalty look different, for we look from above, and we see an overview of the dynasties and shifting fortunes of factions. We can tell whether the allegiance of a loyal soldier was deserved by his master, through their actions and the ultimate result of them. But those who lived the histories I and Vasiri relate to you, they have no omniscient view. Even those beings who appear omniscient are not infallible, and nor are their visions of the world complete. In the end, whether Primarch, post human or lowly serf, we are all, ultimately, stumbling forwards through the dark. I feel this should be remembered when I relate to you the tumultuous latter years of the Imperium Pentus’ crusade against the Travesty.

The war had been raging for long years, measured in billions of lives spent in folly and death. After Corbellus, the five brothers waged individual wars using their own fleet elements. Vulkan had established a rotational strategy. Logistically, having all fleets engaged at all times was a drain upon resources. Thus, while four Primarchs engaged the Travesty, one was always recycled back to Pentum, to replenish their supplies, repair their fleets, and recruit new volunteers for the war effort. This way, his fleets could return, fresh and well-stocked for another campaign. At this stage of the war, the Khan returned to Pentum, leaving the four remaining brothers to organise the various fleets of their crusade. Through these coordinated efforts, they divided and drew out the frenzied armies and armadas the Empire of Travesties sardonically referred to as ‘its people’. These armies were not united, for unity was anathema to most of the corrupt, chaos-worshipping warbands and reaver fleets plaguing the Western Chaos Imperium. The main advantage of the Ruinous Forces was the growing, spreading warp storms and reality quakes that filled the region like fissures in crazed glass. Warp travel was torturously slow, with only Primarch-led Pentum fleets being guaranteed a path through the tumult. The Tersis, the dread former Black Ship, turned herald of anarchy, toured the Travesty at the head of an impossible pilgrimage of ships granted sentience and partial ascension by the N[dontmakemesayitanymorepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasebeggingyou]estroying themselves before death took them. Like a plague carrier, the Mistress and Master of the Tersis conjured madness in their wake, and the warp spilled out into reality, coating everything in ichors and drooling impossibilities. And where the Deep Warp pooled, Draziin-maton could come into existence, crawling from the spaces between atoms, and the dark places where nothing should be. Nevertheless, Vulkan and his allies were winning the war in the materium, if not the immaterium.

Lorgar, euphoric and swollen with unnatural power, summoned Perturabo to Cadia. The mechanical prince came reluctantly, and was anointed Warmaster by the Aurellian within the Grand Womb-Cathedral that grew like a tumour from the Cadian surface, up into the upper atmosphere. Lorgar, at this point was less a creature, and more a force of unnatural power. The roots of his essence burrowing into the mantle of Cadia, and formed grotesque, living architecture; Cadia, long abused and defiled, was becoming one with the living warp rift that Perturabo had once begrudgingly called brother. Once such a weakling preacher, he was now a conduit for the fundamental powers of the endless pantheons scratching at the boundaries between worlds. The central throne room of the Cathedral would be impossible to describe to a mortal with a mind made of meat. We only have second hand legends and stories of the Daemon-Imperator’s court. Stories of a throne of barbed spines, a mile tall, festooned with eight million, eight hundred and eighty eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty eight mewling human corpses, all bonded with Lorgar by looping tendrils of sentient blood. Draziin-maton clustered like gargoyles around him, suckling on his nourishing, nauseating waves of corruption. Only Word Bearers possessed by daemons could maintain their forms in that deranged cavern. Perturabo accepted his new title, but Lorgar granted him this boon on the condition he crush the five brothers, and bring the Death Guard into the war.

Early on, when the Draziin-maton were conquering the daemon-primarchs, Mortarion evaded their control through rotting away before them. While the others were shackled to Lorgar’s patrons, Mortarion was free, and when the Travesty and Pentum made war, his Plague Marines, unified under common purpose, did as they pleased. They brought pestilence and famine, taking what they wanted from either side.

Upon leaving the molten, shifting palaces of Cadia-Lorgar, Perturabo sought out Fulgrim on his pleasure world. The soporific world of indolence and vice was coated in countless creatures engaged in relentless fetid copulations, rutting and moaning in ecstasy, even as they drowned on the shores of oceans of perfumed oils. Like some delirious opium fiend, Fulgrim lounged within the solid gold spire dominating the planet, where the scant few surviving Emperor’s children maimed and killed themselves for his flickering amusement.

Perturabo was unopposed as he led his daemon-bound Thallax legions, known to history as the Kai Bane Host, into the Spire of Indolence. Valchocht the Maker was a god of dark intellect and relentless drive to create and build, and Fulgrim’s excess and corrosive idleness was an affront to the god Perturabo served, and he picked his way through the morass of degenerates with distain. Fulgrim had squandered his military forces, and now wallowed in his own folly. He smiled a reptilian smile when his Ironclad brother shattered his doors, and almost dismissively crushed the great hydra-daemon Fulgrim had bred to be his guard dog beneath Forge Breaker.

Perturabo announced his new title and powers, and summoned Fulgrim to rejoin the fight against Pentum. Fulgrim, who had shed his serpentine form and taken on a deceptively mundane humanoid visage, gleaming gold and naked in the pink-mist of the palace, chuckled at Perturabo’s presumption. The Phoenician had been fighting, he claimed, showing Perturabo the terrible wounds inflicted by Russ and his hounds. They had duelled amidst the airless asteroid rubble that had once been a world, the Wolf and Phoenician fighting as the world Russ’ fleet had cracked leaked mantle in exotic streams. Fulgrim had barely escaped, or so he said.

“Had I not earned a moment to lick my wounds? Or have my wounds licked?” Fulgrim asked salaciously, whispering of all the beautiful, garish, carnal machines the two of them could create together. Perturabo sneeringly ignored Fulgrim’s depraved words, and demanded his brother come with him. Fulgrim eventually agreed. He was running out of playthings anyway, he’d need to recruit more.

Once aboard the great daemon engine, Fulgirm was set upon by Perturabo, his Iron Warriors and his Kai Bane monstrosities. Bound in runic chains forged in the pits of Malice, Fulgrim was eventually subdued, though a mound of smashed kai bane and dead Astartes marked his capture. Spitting acidic green ichors, Fulgrim cursed Perturabo for his duplicity, mostly because he betrayed Fulgrim first, before he could betray Perturabo; ever was the twisted logic of the warp-tainted madman.

Fulgrim was a liability to the Scion of the Maker, a wretched fool revelling in his pointless, unproductive campaigns of torture and his carnivals of sin and depravity. He was much more useful to him as a prize, a gift to present to those Perturabo wished to bring into allegiance with the Forces of Travesty.

Soon, the Goliath Engine arrived in orbit over the world of Smog. If it had a previous name, I can find no record of it, and all who knew of the diseased world called it Smog. The reason was self-evident, for even in orbit it was clear the world was shrouded in dense, yellow-green clouds of noisome fog. It clogged the atmosphere and strangled the surface, suffocating everything below. This was the lair of the Queen of Smog, and garrisoned by her champion, Mortarion. Plague Marines flocked to the toxic world, drawn to their master and the Grandfatherly call of the Great Unclean God.

An ossified castle stood amongst the great putrid heaps of dissolved matter, atop a great mountain bier, where the Lords of Decay dwelt. He delivered Fulgrim to Mortarion, alongside a hundred cohorts of Kai Bane, half a chapter of Iron Warriors, and hordes of daemon engines; crustacean defilers, great hound-like maulerfiends and decimators, as well as many new and monstrous daemon engines; strange tracked centaur things, whipping iron krakens and indescribable scuttling, saw-limbed monsters of daemonflesh and perverted technology. Some were no larger than a dreadnought; others would have dwarfed the Imperator titans of old. This was the price Mortarion demanded. In exchange, he would bring his plague fleets to Perturabo’s cause.

It wasn’t until Perturabo’s great Goliath Engine departed that the chained form of Fulgrim was dragged before the Reaper.

Mortarion, rasping and disturbingly malodorous, strode from the coiling toxic mists like a shade, his rusting scythe larger than Fulgrim was tall. Fulgrim, his powers bound by hostile magicks, was made to kneel by the bloated Plague marines, who jabbed him with their cursed knives. Ordinarily, he would have relished the feeling, but the warp stench of nurgle was about them, and each incision burned, as his slanneshi essence clashed with that of the nurglitch.

“Fulgrim. My brother,” said Mortarion, his voice barely a rasp of a whisper through the oil-drooling mask that grew from his hooded face. Almost tenderly, he placed the tip of his scythe beneath Fulgrim’s chin, and tilted back his head. “Look at us, brother.”

“I am your brother now? So soon are the bonds of fellowship forgotten once dear departed Horus left us?”

Mortarion did not laugh. He was ever humourless, even amongst the incongruously cheerful daemons of his patron. “You cast off the bonds just as readily, Fulgrim. Or should I name thee... Angel Exterminatus?”

The name made the other creatures haunting the chamber to hiss and spit in loathing. Fulgirm hadn’t noticed the pale, spindly things, not at first. They wept green tar and bore pointed ears, pointed teeth, pointed elbow spurs. Emaciated as plague corpses, the aliens were disgusting parodies of eldar forms. Eldar, albeit twisted half-daemon corruptions, amongst the halls of the Grandfather. Now Fulgrim had seen everything.

“I did not take you for a consorter with xenos, Mort,” Fulgrim laughed spitefully. “Though you’re as moribund and miserable as a craftworlder, I admit. Whose wretches are these then?”

“They are mine.”

The new voice was powerful, echoing from all around. And it was female. The Queen of Smog had hidden herself from the primarch’s daemonic perception, no mean feat when the daemon in question was one of the most powerful there was. But once she spoke, the spell was broken, and his offensively handsome features focused in like a laser upon the speaker.

She was indistinct, like an old photographic negative accidentally laid over another, and her edges rippled with the raw essence of the warp, churning and billowing with smog as she perched upon her throne, so translucent, the skeleton of the towering female was more visible than the pale and putrefying flesh that clad it.

“I know your name too, maiden, daemon princess,” Fulgrim spat. “But you are just a shadow, a shade of a swallowed goddess. Nothing so very powerful.”

Fulgrim fought against his chains, drawing upon the Angel Exterminatus, his own slannesh-born warp essence. But he found his powers draining away, leeched somehow. Fulgrim did not know that Mortarion had learned of how to bind the powers of daemon primarchs the hard way. Mortarion knew Fulgrim’s true name, and ritually invoked it as Fulgrim lay trapped. This ceremony, combined with all the other indignities inflicted upon him, was enough to sap his daemonic powers.

She laughed, though it was a savage, petty laugh of mockery and desolation. “I do not need to be the most powerful... only more powerful than you. This is my world, a wedding gift of my Lord husband, my Great Unclean One.”

“You are not Isha. Perhaps you are an echo of the dead eldar witch, but no more than that; a fragment of some story, animated by nurgle. She, the Prince of Perversion, ate her! I know I can taste her on my forked tongue!”

Fulgrim felt the smog constrict around him, crushing his throat. “Weakling daemon, a lot has changed. The warp shifts, and ever does the Great Game continue. Slannesh’s power wanes. That bitch’s star is no longer in the ascendancy. You have no power over us.”

“Take off these chains, and I shall show you my power!” Fulgrim spat. The shadows of great pinions shimmered at Fulgrim’s back, before they began to wither and crumble to nothing. Rotting, all decay. War and despair were growing in power in the galaxy, as the new gods rose and the Dissolution loomed.

“Anger is not your ally,” Mortarion pointed out wearily to his brother. While the Queen of Smog loathed Fulgrim, Mortarion was grimly resigned to events. He felt neither joy nor sorrow for the other daemon’s fate. “You spurned him millennia ago, and Khorne has not grown any fonder of you brother.”

The Queen of Smog leaned forward, her form shimmering as the Smog passed through her. “Her adherents are almost all extinguished. You have killed more than a few of them. No more to replace them, to give her storming protuberance form and an image. Like a gargoyle eroded by entropy’s touch, her face is being worn away, and with it her power. Even the Eldras Ynneas have been stolen away from her, cocooned in cold and shadow by Mephet’ran, the Jackal, the Morningstar, Venus, Deceiver, Yngir star-hungry and its deceptive plot. My beloved’s champion, he who is named Death, has sent his Destroyer Hive to find my living children and bring them to my side. But Slannesh devoured my other children, and I will reclaim what was stolen from me by She Who Thirsts. Starting, I think, with the souls YOU stole, Angel Exterminatus! And when you are but a husk and I am Mother of Eldar once more...”

She pointed to a sword, chained to one of the ossified walls. A curved sword, a sword Fulgrim knew well.

“Impossible,” he whispered as he looked upon the Laer sword, the sword which had led him down the path to ascension and beyond.

“The Deep Warp rises. All is possible in these End Times. The Laer sword returns, and with it, you perish.”

Fulgrim felt fear then, for the first time in as long as he could remember. As the chaos eldar and Plague marines dragged him towards a great cage, he called out to Mortarion to save him. He called upon the memory of their old bonds of brotherhood and kinship. But Mortarion was deaf to his pleas, and watched as Fulgrim was carved, stabbed, peeled, pierced with throbbing tendrils of rotten vines, that drank deep of his daemonic ichors and intruded upon his manifested form. Fulgrim screamed, roaring and bursting with claws and snarled maws as his daemonic form rebelled at the violations. Plague marines were crushed by lashing tentacles, spindly half-eldar lacerated by sprouting pincers and tusked maws. But still the Queen of Smog, a fragment of a murdered pantheon, reborn under nurgle’s besotted influence, drained and tore at the Angel Exterminatus. The serpent within writhed and fought, clinging to Fulgrim with its venomous talons, desperate and all the more monstrous for it; Fulgrim’s form shifted and churned through a million different combinations, going from humanoid to cephalopod to crustacean to things indescribable.

“Mortarion... please...” he gurgled, from a dozen slavering lips. Mortarion’s hollow eyes were weary, so weary, but he said nothing. He left Fulgrim chained and humbled, watching his own executioner’s blade from across the hall.

The Lord of the Death Guard turned instead to his massing military forces, spread out upon the mountainside. Plague marines of the Death Guard remnants were joined by other renegade nurglitch Astartes, equally corroded and corrupted. Their geneseed was poison, and there would be no more of them once the war was done. But then, all would die by the end of this war. Dusk would set for all. Still it was almost twenty thousand space marines assembled before him, like some dark parody of a Crusade-Era Legionary muster. With them, they brought daemon-infested fellblades and land raiders, predators and speeders, manticores and whirlwinds swollen with blight. And now, he had daemon engines of Valchocht, soulgrinders, defilers, giant machines like armoured drakes and hounds, tracked centaurs built in mockery of men, one-horned engines gilded with iron and gore. Cohorts of daemonic robot things, Perturabo called kai bane. There were phallic, semi-organic artillery pieces, festooned with fangs and tendrils, that loaded cursed shells like octopuses shovelling food into their beaks. Largest of all the daemon engines was a terror that had perhaps once been an Imperator titan, but instead of bipedal leg towers, gigantic hinged spider’s legs protruded, with snapping pincers on each warhound-sized limb. Daemonic flesh grew across its shoulder bastions like septic coral, covered in writhing, fang-tipped trunks and proboscises. It looked like some grotesquely overgrown defiler, with a roaring war horn that shook the world when it brayed. Perturabo had not given it a name, but Mortarion could feel the daemon prince that was infused into every black-blooded vein of the defiler-titan. He tasted the life of the creature, which had once been an Iron Warrior before it had ascended to become something greater, and yet far worse. Its name was Grendel. Another daemon engine looked like no one thing in particular. It was a strange amalgam of tracked vehicles and walkers, tanks and aircraft, valkyries, basilisks and dreadnoughts, festooned with randomly placed turrets and whirring close combat weapons. His Deathshroud bodyguards referred to it simply as ‘the Khimyra’, which was apt enough, as they thing was a fusion of broken parts of other daemons, trickling through the warp, pressed together painfully by the Maker’s fell champion.

This was a force to conquer worlds, to defile space ever further, and his great plague fleet waited at anchor in orbit, waiting to take this force from Smog, to war. Mortarion knew eventually Lorgar would draw him into the war, just as he knew he would perish in it. But he was trapped, his fate was fixed. Despair and bitter resignation was a part of him now.

Eventually, he returned to the throne room, to watch his brother slowly dying. His shifting form was spent now, and he had taken on his crusade-era form; perhaps hoping to fan some ember of pity Mortarion had for the brother he once knew.

In contrast, the Queen of Smog was growing more solid, more radiant, as she drank of the warp stuff siphoned from the Angel Exterminatus. The warp was growing stronger around Smog, warp predators and Draziin-maton were massing, he could feel them. Perturabo should not have brought Fulgrim here. Did he not see that every warp power in the galaxy was looking for a way to transcend the Dissolution? The daemon queen, whether Isha or not, was no different. It seemed only Mortarion had no desire to survive this war. There were several moments in the history of the universe, moments where Mortarion was vulnerable, where he could be harmed. At this point, another such moment was approaching.

“You are alone now Fulgrim. All your beauty and genius is for nothing,” taunted the daemon queen. “Nurgle has chased Slannesh from Smog, and left you hear at our mercy. No daemon now, and barely a primarch. You have no friends here.”

For some reason Fulgrim, who still sagged in his chains, smiled at her words. The Queen was confused. “Mortarion, why does he smile?”

Mortarion had no answer.

But Fulgrim did. He raised his head.

“I smile because you are right. I have no friends. And yet, I have plenty of enemies,” Fulgrim leaned back, his eyes closed, as if he were listening to something far away. “Enemies that have been searching for me, ever since I called out to them when my Ironclad sibling first caught me.”

Mortarion knew what his Master of the Fleet was going to say before even as he voxed him. Because he suddenly sensed what Fulgrim did. He knew who was coming.

“My lord, I am detecting multiple warp translations at system’s edge, I-”

“The Lion is here,” Mortarion replied with his voice of rasping death. He drew forth his scythe, even as Fulgrim began to cackle like a delirious idiot.

It was a fool who underestimated a primarch, Mortarion realised. So long as an immortal, he’d almost forgotten.

The Antioch entered Smog’s system, the White Spear blazing. The lance beam carved through the perimeter fleet, leaving bisected ruins to blaze in the silent void as it sped towards Smog, wreathed in blazing void shields as it weathered all attempts to impede it. At its back, a vast fleet erupted, similarly intent on getting to grips with the enemy.

Only the Lion came, for Vulkan and his fleet could not traverse the psychic null rift left in the wake of the Ophilim Kiasoz, as it unmade its way towards the heart of the Eye. It would be up to the Lion and his forces alone.

Fortunately enough, the Lion possessed one of the largest of Pentum’s fleets at this point in the Age of Dusk. Not only was he in command of half of the White Lancers Commandery and support elements from the Knights Supplicant, Jade Princes, Nemenmarines and the Vanquishers; he had a Ryzan exterminator armada, heavy laden with Titans and the Ninth Thunder Lizard tank regiment.

While on his rotation away from the war, the Lion had also sent forth a strike cruiser of White Lancers to search for any sign of the Dark Angels, those who had not fallen to madness or become traitors.

As they searched, he came to the planet of Kimmeria, the secretive recruitment world for another Commandery, the Lion’s own Commandery. While the White Lancers were pure and effective warriors, they were in essence a Commandery divided, for the Lion and the Khan shared them in the early years of Pentum, due to the Khan’s injuries making him unable to sire new space marines. Consequently, the White Lancers had a schizophrenic nature, for they were an amalgam of knightly virtue and codes of practice, with the more intuitive culture of personal deeds of the nomadic Jaghati Khan. Jonson wanted a Commandery he could mould to his desires. And by the time he returned to Kimmeria they were ready to be cultivated for the war effort. Though Kimmeria was an advanced civilised world, the Circle Cults of Kimmeria had been active on the planet ever since it was a feral world, as far back as M35. Back then, it had been a recruitment world for Dark Angels post-Caliban (possibly even the homeworld of the mythological figure of Master Azrael, though that might have been a fiction concocted by later historians), and so to was it again. When the Lion came to Kimmeria, they instantly agreed to produce his marines, and welcomed his geneseed scientists like conquering heroes. They even helped build orbital docks across the Kimmerian system, so the Lion could build his new Commandery a fleet and material to wage galactic war. While the other Commanderies warred with the Travesty, he had this new force set to work, fighting alongside the White Lancers, policing and protecting the Imperium Pentum, facing off against the lesser daemons and rebels arising due to the spreading warp storms all across their empire. This secret Commandery learned fast and fought well.

He called this new Commandery the Angelos Primitus, or ‘First Angels’. They wore the black panoply of the First Legion, and took the symbol of the antique numeral ‘I’, surrounded by faint grey wings upon their pauldrons; a bold statement, which proclaimed them as the inheritors of the First Legion, a return to the time when they were the only Legion, and the Great crusade was a simpler, nobler enterprise.

Thus, when the Lion returned to the Travesty war, not only did he bring his White Lancers, he brought a full two Commanderies worth of First Angels.

The Lion’s fleet plunged through the plague fleet’s defences like a hot dagger plunged between ribs, while the escorts and attack ships drew the chaos forces into a time-consuming void war, the landers and transport ships advanced into low orbit. After barely a day of manoeuvring, the Lion’s forces were ready to deploy against the cursed world of Smog. Initial orbital bombardments were implemented by the Nemenmarines, who thought it folly to land without even attempting to annihilate the enemy in orbit, or at least burn off the cloying fog that obscured any attempts to scan the surface. Yet, virus bombs were consumed, volcano shells detonated, but the gaps they blew in the smog closed soon afterwards. Some daemonic force was shrouding the planet. They had encountered similar forces before in the long war against chaos. Ground forces were needed to land, destroy the daemon, and open the world up to orbital scouring.

Their landing zone, some twenty miles from the solitary mountain castle, was cleared by a preceding macrocannon barrage that scattered the cloying smog for long enough for the landers to navigate their descent safety. Only the Thunder Lizards did not require landing ships, for they descended on their retro-thrusters, falling slowly to the ground on columns of white orange fire. The infantry remained with the fleet, for the smog would liquidate even power armoured warriors within a few hours of exposure. Only the heaviest, armoured elements were chosen, terminators, dreadnoughts, tanks and walkers. The Ryzan Titans took one flank, alongside their Freeblade knights and their sturdiest robots. On the other flank, the Thunder Lizards deployed. The Tyrannosaurus Rex, the largest and most formidable of the Tyrannosaur class, landed first before the rest of the different castes of tank landed around it; heavy domed Ankylosaur transports, Allosaurus hunter-killers, Brachiosaur self-propelled macrocannons, and all the other support vehicles required of the legendary armour Regiment. In the centre deployed the Lion and his elite Astartes; the Lancers in gleaming white, the First Angels in ominous black, terminators deployed inside a column of Land Raiders. At his side also deployed Tsulganor of the Salamanders, Vulkan’s envoy to the Lion’s fleet, there to maintain the ‘continuity of purpose’ the Pentum Imperium was supposed to possess. Hundreds of dreadnoughts marched beside the land raiders, led by the Contemptor Nullan, an ancient Iron Hand who had begged the Lion for deployment, desperate for the chance to revenge himself upon the Gorgon’s killer.

Yet, even as they marched towards the Queen’s keep, her dreadful miasma descended upon the army once more. Alert sirens sounded within every vehicle, as the toxic gas already began to work its vile purpose. But the war machines of Pentum were built to survive and endure, and the armoured landing party forged on through the cloying smog, relentless and resolute in the mission the Lion had tasked them with. However, the smog also caused visibility to plummet, until the way across the poisoned soil was obscured only two hundred metres ahead.

The two armies, Mortarion’s and the Lion’s, stalked each other across the featureless grey fields. Though they could not see, their thermal sensors and sonic detectors could roughly pinpoint their counterpart’s locations. Neither side could ever hope to be silent; one side was filled with the roar of throttling engines, the other with the daemonic shrieks of neverborn horrors. The Ankylosaur tanks of the Thunder Lizards opened up their flanks, deploying their legions of diminutive servitor tanks, known as Deinonychus scouts, to expand the army’s sensor web, so the blinded force might augment its sight. Despite this, indirect fire became paramount, as the big guns of the two monstrous hosts began to fling their ordinance through the smog near-heedlessly. Craters were blasted, tanks were immolated or simply vaporised, but every shell fired by one side was answered in kind by the other. The poison clouds of Smog were illuminated by the artillery, till it seemed as if a thunderstorm raged upon Smog’s surface.

Death howled on the turgid winds, while capital grade weapons exchanged impossibly bright munitions. The Smog burned when the Thunder Lizards and the Titans began to fire. It was only then that the two forces realised just how close they were to one another. The Death Guard and Grendel’s daemon engines took the shallow foothills of the ossified mountain, while the Lion’s forces were just before them, a stone’s throw further down the slope. No more waiting, no more blind-fighting and scanning daemonic smoke for a hint of a foe. So close, the two armoured forces clashed at skirmish range, knife-fighting distance. Battle cannons blared and great chainswords revved, as the freeblades took to the enemy. Melta beams scorched, lance beams carved, missiles corkscrewed into blossoming conflagrations, while blight munitions erupted with black tar that melted even dreadnought skin. Rattling bolter bolts crisscrossed between the closing armies in their millions, rippling detonations bursting like raindrops splashing, but where they burst with water, bolters did with fire and shrapnel.

Dreadnoughts marched uphill against helbrutes and decimators, unleashing flurries of missiles and whirring assault cannon torrents, while the twisted daemons and chaos-cursed space marines returned fire with equally undulled fury. When the rocket launchers and rotary cannons were spent, they clashed in melee, claw, barbed scourge and siege hammer tearing into armour, pulverising the flesh within. Like brawling drunks, they wrestled in the grey mud, artificial voices growling and cursing as they killed and killed and killed.

Defilers crawled about the bodies of struggling warhounds, dragging them down by sheer weight of numbers, while maulerfiends were beheaded and trampled by raging freeblade knight titans, each death heralded by a triumphant blare of their warhorns.

Khimyra had a hundred turrets, and all of them were blaring, firing in all directions. The mad fusion of obliterators and daemons didn’t care which side it killed, for the mechanical spawn was a thing of schizophrenic monstrosity. It stumbled through the Pentum lines, tottering atop pincers and crawler tracks drunkenly. It spun about a pivot which some might call a waist, laying into the foe with reckless abandon. It is said a massive industrial crane, once part of an Ark Mechanicus’ construction yards, sprouted from one side of the gargantuan abomination, and upon it dangled a mighty flail, the heavy of which was a dead land raider, fused with the chain. As it spun, the flail swept whole battalions to ruin, and flipped tanks onto their sides, and even breaking the armoured knee joint of a warlord titan, just as it lined its volcano cannon up for a kill shot. The titan instead toppled backwards down the hill, crushing lord-knows how many of its allies in its wake.

The Lion and his coterie of tanks charged up the hill like an armoured spear tip, crashing against the fetid space marines bloated by nurgle’s curse. Lionsteed, his personal land raider, didn’t even slow down as it smashed Death Guard aside bodily, or else crushed them beneath its tracks like burst pus-filled blisters. Lascnanons and assault cannons filled the air with whickering fire, sending many APCs and predators to an early grave, but more still pressed on past the burning hulks, inexorably pushing towards the looming Bone citadel, wreathed in the thickest banks of smog on the world.

Meanwhile, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, mightiest of the Thunder Lizards, led the charge up the hill, void shields scorching any who barred its path to ash, and blazing away with its lance turret every few minutes. Lesser tanks were vaporized by the Thunder Lizards, and some were even driven over by them, predators and whirlwinds pressed flat by the Russ-width tracks of the superheavies. Plaguereapers, haunted tanks of nurgle that might once have been called baneblades, descended besides corrupted fellblades to meet the Thunder Lizards, and at such closing distances, both sides began to lose units. While the Thunder Lizards could weather the cannons of the nurgle tanks, Mortarion’s armour was too close for the Thunder Lizard main guns to engage them effectively. Some of the plaguereapers got around this by ramming the Allosaurs and Tyrannosaurs directly, punching through the voids and shattering against the armoured prows of the superior tanks. The odious remains of the tanks, however, soon dissolved their killers, mission-killing them in turn. Only the Rex was too large and powerful to impede, and when a plaguereaper attempted to ram it, the Tank Commander deployed great piston rams at the prow to flip the foe, end over end, to land on its roof, crushing its turret flat and taking the reaper out of action. Rex approached the citadel, and even managed to line up a perfect shot with its lance turret. But that was when Grendel lunged out of the smog, and leapt upon the Tyrannosaurus Rex, instantly catching fire as it slammed into, and then through, its void shields. The titan-defiler’s claws closed about the lance turret, and with a horrific howl and shriek of sundered metal, it tore the turret’s barrel from its mounting, and cast it back down the mountainside.

The Tyranosaurus was not done however. Even as the defiler-titan tore chunks from its hull, its secondary turrets and missile pods plunged point blank weapons fire into the belly of Grendel, burning it from the inside with coruscating fire. In a last ditch attempt to free themselves of Grendel, Rex engaged its landing thrusters, and began to ascend with Grendel upon its back. The tank rose high, right to the edge of the smog layers before Grendel finally lost its grip. The sight of a titan tumbling from thirty thousand feet is staggering. There are over fifty works based upon the scene of Grendel’s smoting, as it crashed into the mountainside, and exploded in a storm of freed souls, that howled as the nova-burst fire of his destruction then engulfed them all over again.

Alas though, the Rex, having expended its emergency reserves, also tumbled back to Smog, reaching terminal velocity just as it plunged into the ranks of the daemon engines, and detonated with a far-less haunted, but no less lethal, blossom of nuclear fire. (Note: The honour rolls of the Thunder Lizards lists the crew of the Rex highest amongst their regiment, and forever after, the command tank of a Thunder Lizard regiment was always referred to as ‘the Rex’ in memorial, regardless of the actual model of tank deployed.)

The Lion’s predators and supporting supply tanks began to fall behind as the primarch pierced the noisome veil between them and the citadel. The Smog was thick here, and began to dissolve even the thick adamantium and ceramite of their hulls. Soon, they had to turn back, leaving only the land raiders and their terminator cargo to push on to the palace of the Smog Queen.

The Lion was the first from his land raider as they reached the gates. Bedecked in his black armour, trimmed with deep green trim and his mighty winged helm, he laid into the assembled plague marines with the Lion Sword singing in his hand, a unique pistol of roaring volkite destruction in the other. He fought with a skill even his brothers would struggle to match, swift as a striking asp, yet with the clean, workmanlike precision of a swordsman almost without peer. The plague marines assailed him, but could not withstand him, even their formidable constitutions struggled to endure decapitations and flurries of bisecting blows. When Tsulganor and the other assault terminators caught up, they finished the job, and breached the great gates of corroded, daemonic bronze.

But this was but the vanguard of the horrors that were soon to assail the Dark Lion of Pentum. The Kai Bane were deadly, with their daemonic kai guns and bronze pincers that could pierce even tactical dreadnought plate with ease. In the close, stagnant confines of the palace, space marines and daemon engines died screaming, dragging each other to oblivion in the swirling, confusing melee. The maze of corridors would have been an impediment to most forces, but Tsulganor’s hammer, a gift of Vulkan, smashed through the walls like rotting paper, punching a path through the nest of ugly nurglitch things that sought to encircle them. Further plague marines appeared, and with them veritable tides of the undead, pressed back into unnatural life by the smog, which infested and animated them. Dozens were cut down by the flashing blades of the Lion’s retinue, but dozens more pressed against them in their wake, and those that died continued to crawl mindlessly. Only the cleansing fire of flamers, and the Lion’s volkite weapon permanently put down the rotting masses.

When the Lion finally smashed the hinges from the inner sanctum of the bone palace, only five terminators, armour corroded and rusting in cancerous patches, stood with him. Almost instantly, they were assailed by a new foe; whip thin monsters, crude mockeries of the eldar they once were, with smog billowing from the joints in their organic armour. Despite the putrefaction of their bodies, they were whip-quick and lethal with their poisoned blades and ancient eldar weaponry. Having slain the others, Tsulganor found himself holding off the corrupted eldar with his flaming thunder hammer, as the Lion pressed on towards the Queen herself.

She was swollen with power, writhing with the souls of countless eldar reborn in her belly. Skeletal wings spread from her shoulders, and darkened the hall where they passed. Her eyes still wept with tar, but they wept with joy, her translucent lips glistening as she smiled. Her decayed form was rebuilding itself, re-knitting and regenerating before the Lion’s eyes. To her left, a great fireplace roared with sickly green flames. To her right, chained by his wrists to the wall dangled Fulgrim. He had regained his humanoid form, but looked no less wretched for this fact. Stripped of his armour, he was a muscular Adonis, though compared to the perfection of his form before the Heresy, he was a gaunt shade, miserable and hollow. He could only scowl hopelessly as he saw his lost betrayed brother return.

“Free me Lion. Free me. You cannot kill him... free me...” Fulgrim demanded, though his voice had lost all of its arrogant conviction. The Lion strode past him, heedless.

“Welcome, weary traveller. Come, rest by our hearth fire. The fight is over. Come, surrender to death with me. Embracing your fate will ease its passage,” she said, her voice a whisper, louder than any mortal shriek. The soporific scent of her smog was warp-tainted and fought to bypass the Lion’s mighty winged helm, to drag him into the despairing morass that clung to her ethereal bones. But Jonson was not one to fall for traitors’ tricks or vile sorceries.

The Lion calmly approached warily, his sword raised in a high guard position, like a knight from a fighter’s manual. His deep emerald cloak swept behind him, and his armoured boots rang against the cold stone below.

Two Death Guard in ancient, pale terminator armour stepped from the shadows and stood either side of the Lion, guarding the two secondary entrances into the chamber. The Deathshroud made no move to attack the Lion, or communicate in any way. Their manreapers were held across their chests as if in anticipation. The mere fact of their existence told the Lion just who the Queen’s champion was.

Mortarion appeared as a condensing mass of smoke and bile, which slowly contorted and formed a solid entity, like an image of a rotting corpse in reverse. Vast and hooded, wreathed in the raw stuff of the warp, the Death guard primarch had long ago transcended the mortal limitations of his primarch body. His scythe was larger than the Lion was tall, and his very presence seemed to make the room shrink, as if cowering from his very being. Impossible winds billowed about him as the Reaper peered down at his former brother.

“I knew this day would come, eventually. I had not expected to meet you so soon though brother.”

“Do not call me brother. The day you spat upon your oaths was the day my brother died.”

Mortarion laughed bitterly, his breath a wheezing gale from his hidden face. “Ever since Barbarus, I told him I had no time for tyrants. Typical of the Emperor to not even consider he was the tyrant, unworthy of our adoration.”

The Lion jabbed his sword forwards, roaring in fury. “It doesn’t matter what he is! You accepted his legions, and fought his wars! You swore fealty to him, and to the Imperium of Man. The one Imperium of Man.”

Mortarion blocked the sudden rush of blows directed towards him, his scythe darting with effortless speed to intercept every blow. He continued to speak, in mocking sadness, as he duelled.

“I fight against tyrants. For a civilisation, no matter how monolithic and cruel, cannot last forever. Everything rots, just as every system eventually falls. Nurgle remade me so that I could do so until the end of time. I am entropy and the rust that breaks the chains of the slavers who serve order, security and ‘peace’.”

The Lion’s blows came faster and faster, as he pressed Mortarion back, across the octagonal throne room. He fought with grim intensity, while Mortarion fought with the irresistible inevitability of an avalanche. As they fought, Tsulganor wrestled with the eldar, crushing those he couldn’t burn with his flamers.

Fulgrim watched with building desperation. He strained in his chains, drawing on all his remaining might. The laer sword stood, taunting him, daring him to come and claim it, to prove he was worthy once more. Slannesh, that frigid bitch, had abandoned him here, driven him into a lazy fugue for a thousand years, and let him kill his own men just to please her. But she was not here, he wouldn’t help Fulgrim. He turned to his own reserves of might, those powers innate to a primarch. He screamed as the manacles began to bite, and the chains began to cut.

The Lion taunted Mortarion as he cut at the malleable grey flesh of his former brother. “And yet you serve that golden-skinned lunatic. How many has he chained? Angron, mad dog he is, has a new collar I hear, and the daemons have their leashes now. If the Emperor was such a slaver, what does that make the Travesty?”

The Lion lunged, spearing his sword for the daemon primarch’s heart, but he sidestepped, and swept he scythe perilously close to the Lion’s head.

“The Travesty? It is transitory. It is already dying, just as every empire crumbles. The Imperium is dead, the Imperium Secundus died, the Eldar empires, and the realms of the First Kind before them. Pentum dies too, soon. All of it is going to be undone, and we’re going to be riding the world ride as it plunges into fiery oblivion!” Mortarion roared, his scythe hacking through pillars and statues as he rained down countless smoking black arcs against the eternal Knight. The Lion staggered backwards, barely fending off blow upon blow upon blow. Finally, the Lion was flung upon his back as he deflected a fearsome backhanded blow from the great Reaper. “Every primarch will die before this is done. Every last one! We all die!”

The Lion rolled to avoid a descending blow, and brought his sword up in time to slice deep into Mortarion’s flank.

“So be it. We all die,” he growled, dragging the blade free in a tide of venomous oil. “But you’ll die first.”

Mortarion swirled around, and punched the Lion with a fist as large as a contemptor’s claw. The primarch was pitched backwards, hurled bodily into the fireplace. The Lion roared in anger and confusion as his cloak and his armour was engulfed in the tainted green fire. He rolled to try and put the flames out, but they were malicious and hungry. In his desperation, he dropped the Lion sword. Before he could retrieve it, Mortarion grabbed his ankle, and flung him into the air, before slamming him down into the floor again, splitting stone and carving a man-shaped crater into the polluted tiles. The Lion’s blow still bled freely from Mortarion’s side, nurglings giggling and cavorting in the black puddle pooling around them.

The Lion drew his volkite pistol and emptied the power clip into Mortarion’s face. The daemon recoiled, braying like a titan as the plasma fire ate into his blasphemous form. The Lion cast aside his spent pistol, and leapt to retrieve his sword. It was then that the two Deathshrouds waded into combat, slashing at the unarmed knight with their daemon weapons. He fought them off with defensive forearm blocks, before he punched a hole in the chest of the first and caved in the head of the second. Still, the two space marines came at him, chopping into his black armour with methodical blows. He was forced to rip them limb from limb, beating them into green and red ruins with their own dismembered arms.

The Lion almost reached his sword, before Mortarion recovered and swept his scythe into him. The Lion pivoted to avoid the scythe, but was just a little too slow. The blade bit deep, and passed through the artificer armour with diabolic ease. The Lion screamed in horror more than agony, as his left hand tumbled away from him. Before it even hit the floor, unnatural sorceries rotted the hand to bone inside its gauntlet. The Lion retreated from the Reaper’s next blow, only just managing to snatch up his sword before the scythe took anything more precious to him.

Now the Lion was worried. He circled around Mortarion, lion sword raised and pointed at the Reaper’s chest, warding him away with hasty jabs.

“Death by a thousand cuts is it? Inevitably, you will lose such a contest, for you are still, in the end, mortal. Cut me a million times, and I will survive to cut you a million and one times. Everything you lose, I will gain. You will weaken, and I will not. This is how the Lion loses its pride, and dies like all the others. I am beyond you brother.”

Mortarion lunged forwards, his scythe raised. The Lion sprang forwards, and chopped low then high, cutting through knees and opening up Mortarion’s belly. Serpentine intestines billowed out from the wound, slithering and trying to strangle the Lion, even as he cut through them like a jungle explorer cuts vines. Mortarion chuckled darkly, elbowing his brother in the helmet. The knight stumbled, reeling drunkenly from the daemonic force of the blow. Shaking his head, he backed away, clutching the stump of his left wrist under his armpit.

Mortarion simply turned to face him, ignoring the wounds that drooled and bubbled with his evil juices. “Don’t fight this. I cannot be withstood. You know this. You have always known this. I am Death, and death cannot die, not until all other things have perished.”

Mortarion looked as if he might say something else, but before he could, promethium flame engulfed him, head to foot. Tsulganor stepped forwards, his wrist flamers dumping their entire fuel reserves into the daemon thing.

Aflame and screaming, Mortarion clashed with the Lion with renewed vigour, forcing the knight to go on the defensive, using all the skill he could muster while fighting one-handed.

The Queen of Smog watched, entranced. Drunken with stolen power, her senses were dulled, her own intoxicating miasma blinding her to all but the duel fought by her champion. The daemon queen was powerful, glutted with terrible reserves of warp energy, but she was not immune to being surprised. And she was certainly surprised when Fulgrim broke free of his bonds, and leapt upon her, winding his runic chains around her great neck. The warded chains clashed with her daemonic aura like molten steel plunged into ice water. She howled and roared, segmented tail thrashing as her talons clawed at Fulgrim’s face. But the chains separated her from the great wellspring of her powers, so she could only use her physical form to resist the primarch. Fulgrim held onto the thrashing monarch with all his might, hissing and panting with exertion, desperately throttling her with the chain, which glowed and steamed as it burned her.

“You should have stolen it all and killed me. Trust an eldar to play with its food!” he snarled, biting into her ear. The acidic ichors burned his throat and stained his chin, but he didn’t care. The two creatures wrestled and fought for supremacy, claws and teeth tearing chunks from one another, while the Queen choked and Fulgrim bled.

Tsulganor charged Mortarion, his hammer rose, but was swatted away almost as an afterthought. His armoured cracked, and the Salamander’s hammer was sent skittering across the pulverized flagstones.

The Lion fought fiercely, and cut Mortarion again and again. But, true to his word, the Death Guard simply would not die. Organs and body parts tumbled away, rotting to grease in seconds, only for more putrid appendages and vital fluids to fill the voids and re-grow his rotted form.

Each time the Lion blocked the Reaper’s scythe, it grew a little harder to resist, each time the scythe was stronger, the Lion weaker. But as they fought, they both noted how the toxic gas filling the chamber seemed to be receding, the Smog clearing.

Both combatants spared a glance to the throne. Fulgrim straddled the Queen of Smog, throttling her with his former slave chains in one hand, his other clutching the laer sword, which erupted from her chest. Already, the daemon’s form was dissolving back into the immaterium. Her bid for ascension was thwarted. Fulgrim stepped down from the throne, as the Queen vanished in a cloud of burning embers, leaving the naked form of Fulgrim alone, his sword drawn.

The Lion seized on this moment of distraction, and thrust the Lion sword into Mortarion, up to the hilt. The tip erupted from his chest in a spray of bubbling acid. Mortarion twisted on the spot, flinging the Lion and his sword away dismissively, but in the process opening up his chest. His chest wound split apart like a red smile, revealing his odious, pulsating organs within. But still, he could not be undone.

Fulgrim charged now, screaming as he swung the Laer sword. Mortarion swatted the blade aside, before sweeping back to behead Fulgrim, who deftly avoided such a fate. He was cackling like a mad man now, passing his sword between his hands eagerly.

“Brother? Dear brother!” Fulgirm called out to the Lion. “It seems I am to be the hero today. Shall we face our foe together? Three hands are better than two after all. Well, four hands would be even better, but i shan’t hold that against you,” Fulgrim laughed, as he darted aside Mortarion’s increasingly irritated scythe sweeps.

The Lion didn’t reply, but responded instead by charging at their mutual foe, his sword raised. They both circled Mortarion like hunting wolves cornering a deer that no longer wanted to run. Their blades were swift as lightning strikes, striking wherever Mortarion’s scythe was not. Even a daemon prince couldn’t fend off two primarchs without showing its back to one of them, and so Mortarion distained blocking their blows. Let them cut him, he thought, for they cannot harm him. Even then, the two primarchs were tiring, the toxins and injuries they had suffered weighing them down, even as Mortarion fed upon the damage inflicted upon him. Fulgrim ducked his blade and plunged the curved laer blade inside the opened ribcage of his brother. He saw something there, and made to call out to Lion, but the Reaper’s fist slammed into his pretty face, sending him sprawling. Before Mortarion could finish Fulgrim, the Lion hacked off the Lord of Death’s arm, sending the hideous limb spiraling away in a tide of blood. From the stump, tentacles sprouted and lashed at the knight primarch hungrily.

“Damn you, why can’t you die?” the Lion cursed aloud as he hewed the writhing daemon limbs.

“His heart! The name! He cannot endure that!” Fulgrim slurred. The scythe slashed across his bicep as he tried to sidestep the daemon’s vicious follow up strike. Fulgrim nevertheless sprang forwards, stabbing through Mortarion’s remaining arm, as the Lion jumped onto the broad shoulders of the towering pillar of corruption. The Lion was thrown off, but not before slitting Mortarion’s blubbery throat. While the daemon prince gagged on his own putrid juices, Fulgrim tackled him bodily. His arm disappeared into Mortarion’s chest, up to the elbow. Mortarion’s severed arm had grown back, and with it he plucked Fulgrim up, and flung him away with a piercing roar. Fulgrim struck the Smog Queen’s throne, smashing it into powder as he landed. But Fulgrim smiled wickedly as he rose again. For in his hand pulsed a great black heart, pulsing with green veins. And upon that heart was etched the one thing that could bind the Lord of Death. His true name.

Mortarion was no more his real name than Aurellian, Lupercal or the Phoenician was the true name of those primarchs. Mortarion was the name of death, but it was a title all the same. But the name, carved there in ancient times by a long-dead nemesis, bore the daemon primarch’s true name. And Fulgrim spoke it aloud. The resultant blast destroyed the heart utterly, and threw Fulgrim to the ground, a smoldering ruin. But the effect upon Mortarion was worse.

Suddenly, his powers were bound, his form fixed. An anchor point, a place in history where Mortarion could be killed. He screamed, his scream undulating and filled with existential agony. He clawed at the gushing wound in his chest, desperately pawing for his vanquished heart. All of a sudden, the Lord of death was all too mortal.

That was when the Lion stepped in front of him, and took off his head with a single backhanded swipe.

“This ends every traitor.”

Outside, the smog was fading, recoiling as its patron daemon was vanquished. This opened the skies to the ordnance waiting in orbit. The Nemenmarines were all too eager to unleash their pinpoint lance strikes on the chaotic ground forces below. Such large targets were easy prey for the waiting fleet, and Mortarion’s forces were soon decimated. The survivors fled to what few space capable vessels they had left. The remnants of the plague fleet fought through the Lion fleet’s blockades, and fled back to the warp.

The palace of bone would be next. The Pentus forces only needed word that the Lion was clear before they could begin their macrocannon onslaught, and end the threat of Smog forever.

Inside, the Lion stood before Fulgrim. Both were wary, both had their swords drawn.

“Are you going to slay me now Lion? I thought you had honor. Such honor, that you cling to it like a shield to shelter behind. I saved you, I aided your Imperium Pentus. Will you let me leave?”

“No. You are a traitor. Once long ago, I thought I could make peace with traitors, but I am older now, and I know that traitors can suffer only one fate.”

Fulgrim spat at the Lion’s feet. “Capture me then, take me to the others. Let them judge me.”

The Lion shook his head, his sword still pointed at Fulgrim. “I do not spare traitors. You were useful to me, but your prowess does not wash away your manifest crimes. Your treason and sedition. They must be punished.”

“Treason? You speak to me of treason? Then what of you, with your Imperium Secundus? You and Roboute with your sneaky little plans.”

“Enough! The Imperium Secundus was a continuation of the Imperium of Man, I was always loyal to the Imperium of Man and the one true ruler of our race!”

Fulgrim paced around the Lion, passing his sword between his hands carefully. He was without armor and drained of much of his essence, and the Lion was without a hand, and he had discarded his ruined helmet. He couldn’t tell how a duel at this moment would end, and this unnerved the usually arrogant duelist.

“And what now? Vulkan’s little enterprise isn’t a continuation of the Imperium is it? I have seen the Smith’s great new civilization with its freedoms and its religions. The Emperor is dead, and now the Primarchs rule as they please. I am a traitor, yes, but no more than you,” Fulgrim hissed, expecting the last barb to send the Lion into a rage. Instead, he was quiet. Oddly quiet.

Fulgrim frowned. “You didn’t argue with me. You... wait...” Fulgrim paused, his eyes wide. Then he grinned. “You agree with me. You agree that the Imperium Pentum is a den of traitors too! Oh this is too good!”

Fulgrim raised his arms, beckoning the Lion. “You’ve finally seen the galaxy for what it is. Without the Emperor, what is loyalty? Come, my brother in treachery, come and embrace one of your own.

The Lion stepped forwards, and plunged the Lion sword through Fulgrim’s unprotected chest. Fulgrim blinked in surprise, their faces inches from one another. The Lion ripped the sword upwards, then across, cutting through all the vital organs of the primarch. Fulgrim’s mouth trickled with gore.

“You don’t know me, brother. You never have. The Emperor’s ideals are not dead! Loyalty is everything. Loyalty is worthless if one is only loyal when it suits them to be, when it is convenient. Just because the Emperor is gone, does not give my brothers the right to forsake their vows, their oaths and forsake their Father’s decrees. Not you, not Mortarion, not Vulkan or Russ or Corax. They are useful to me, as you were, but their destruction of the Travesty does not expunge their guilt. And they are guilty, every one. They ignore the teachings of the Emperor, they consort with xenos and spread permissiveness and spare our enemies! Only I keep the faith, me! I am the last loyal son!”

With that, the Lion ripped the sword free, before finally slashing open Fulgrim’s throat.

Drenched in blood, the Lion turned around slowly, and met the horrified gaze of Tsulganor, who had retrieved his hammer. The Lion stepped towards him, and the marine flinched back, raising his hammer warily. The Lion’s expression remained fixed and grim.

“How much did you...?”

“Enough,” growled Tsulganor, his voice quivering with fear and wrath in equal measure.

“Think about what you do next very carefully.”

“I have to inform my Lord father of this treachery. You know this.”

“I am not a traitor. When the others are gone, when the Imperium is returned to what it once was, you’ll understand.”

Tsulganor gripped his hammer tightly, and fixed the Lion with a tearful scowl, his red eyes smouldering. “I don’t think you know me at all either, my Lord.”

The siege of Smog ended with a firestorm, once the Lion and the rest of the armour elements left on the surface were retrieved. Cyclonic torpedoes turned the surface to a rolling maelstrom of molten rock and scourging volcanic surges.

Tsulganor, killed by Mortarion during the initial storming of the palace, was afforded the highest posthumous honours possible within the Imperium Pentum.

The Lion’s fleet left the world to burn, and he set out to rejoin the Pentum fleets in their war of annihilation against all those who were heretics and accursed. Little could any of them realize the roiling tides of anger beneath the Lion’s cold, unreadable features.

Section 52: The God of Dust: The Battle for Tallarn

A Note from Volsanius Greal, Compiler: The conclusion of the war against Ahriman’s Dominion of Change is a battle which was not widely known about on a galactic scale. Even searching through Vasiri the watcher’s psychic dreamscapes yields little of use, as around the same time (roughly late M56, if my records are correct) as the siege of the Black Library by the dreadful Draziin-Maton. After the opening to this section, I will simply be quoting wholesale from contemporary sources who were present at the battle. The writer of the opening, as will soon become apparent, was not privy to the subsequent sections I am adding in here today...

[EXCERPT ONE: ‘A Conclusive History of the War of Change, and the Identity of the Real Victors.’ By Wiltem Cazzerite, historian of the Fourth Radius Research facility, of the Inter-orb, Blessed be our Outer Queen]

Who won the War of Change?

This has been a question which has baffled historians and psyker-scholars ever since records of this ancient, near-forgotten battle were uncovered in the great masses of documents brought to us in the second and third waves of refugees.

It is fundamentally a vexing question to answer, chiefly because the war seems to lack a military objective. By all accounts, Braiva defeated the Dominion of Change the year before, in the masterful Battle of a Thousand Emperors. For certain, we have extensive, reliable records for this battle. Through a masterstroke of interstellar sleight of hand, Temestor Braiva, the Lord Obscurus of the Imperium Pentum and the High Commander of what Legend would later call ‘Braiva’s Best’, had managed to outmanoeuvre and conquer the thousand warring petty Emperors of the former Theologian Union. He had also allied himself with both the Lychen and Praetorian Empires, and the human fleet thus gathered was the largest deployed since the fall of the Imperium of Mankind.

This was arrayed against the forces of the Sorcerer Ahriman, the last of the petty Emperors of the Dominion it seems, who had chosen Tallarn as his throneworld. An attack by several companies of Astartes Commanderies had been broken over Tallarn by this Ahriman, who had some source of incredible power on the planet’s surface, apparently a Cube-shaped fortress steeped in high magicks and techno-sorcery.

Despite Ahriman’s evident military hardiness and power, the scale of Braiva’s Armada (which I maintain is likely a hyperbolic number embellished by subsequent scholars) seems like overkill. This would turn out not to be the case, as the invasion fleet suffered setback after setback, including troublesome warp translations, maintenance problems and, most disastrously of all, the death of their great general Temestor a day before they reached Tallarn.

The siege should have been routine, but most contemporary writers I can find begin to go off on flights of fancy, depicting outlandish, insane sights, and events which made no logical sense.

I speculate that-

[EXCERPT TWO : Diary fragment. Author Unknown. ]

I am afraid.

This is rare for me. I had escaped Ahriman decades, centuries ago. The things he did to me will haunt me through all the eternity of my life. If I could, I would have fled to the farthest corners of the galaxy, and let all these egomaniacs, tyrants and monsters kill themselves. Kage keeps telling me that option is still open.

“Say the word Crol, and I’ll steal you a shuttle, and slit the throat of anyone that gets in our way. I’d kill the world if us three get to live through this.”

The three of us; he means the baby. If I run, if I am selfish, I can save the baby. But I can’t do that. I’m not built like Kage. I used to be, before Revelation woke the hero in me again. I made a promise, even if it was just in my dreams. Ahriman cannot rise. Revelation needs a chance to rise, and to reach the Well of Eternity before the walls of reality finally collapse. If they do, nowhere in the galaxy will be safe for us.

I told Kage that, and he understood. He has been having dreams too. Dreams of feathers and blood, but he won’t tell me more than that. Can I stand to be a mother again? To outlast my child and watch them wither and die as an old man, while I persist? I have no answer for that yet. I can’t think of the future. I have to think of the moment. There is nothing beyond Ahzek Ahriman.

The warp transit has been hell in this dark, cold shell, deep in the bowels of the ship. When we translate in system, we have perhaps an hour to reach the shrouded shuttle, and make our way through the naval battle, to the surface. If Ahriman notices us before I reach the cube, we are all, as dear old Ollanious might have said, fucked royally.

The sudden jolt, and the end of the mournful warp shrieks, told us the journey was ended.

Kage hauled me to my feet, and we ran.

[EXCERPT THREE : From ‘Memoirs on Apocalypse’, by Admiral Wellsley of the Praetorian High Void Fleet]

Commanding a navy, as I have said in many previous chapters, is not merely require willpower, intelligence or strategic brilliance. T takes the mind of an administrator, a governor of whole worlds, to keep a fleet running smoothly, for every frigate is a suburb, every cruiser a town, and every capital ship and command station a vast metropolis, full of men and women, factories and farms, laboratories and churches, homes and garrisons and gunnery decks. Millions upon millions to command and to understand, as cities go to war with one another over millions of kilometres.

Admiralty of a modest fleet is a goliath undertaking. For the Battle In the Wizard’s Jaws, in the Tallarn system, I was tasked with commanding a fleet of one million of ships.

One. Million. I still can scarce conceive of the gargantuan armada I was entrusted with. There were a five hundred ad hoc fleets from the petty emperors of the Dominion of Change that had turned to our side, alongside the diamond hard core of Tyme’s Absolution and Braiva’s attendant fleet, the hundred jagged prows of the uncouth Lychen Butcher Navy, and of course our own Royal Praetorian High Void Fleet.

The Legendary Temestor Braiva was dead, assassinated during our miraculous warp jump to Tallarn, leaving his son Obediah Braiva to take up his father’s sword. But the boy was no void commander, and thus when we reached the Materium once more, it was decided unanimously by the war council that I should organise the armada in the coming battle. Lector Ikriskiall of the Gama-Meson psyker-warriors insisted on assigning me an honourguard of his most potent warriors, to defend my body and mind from the predations of the Sorcerer King.

We returned to realspace with a thousand less ships than when we entered. The warp howled and shrieked and tore at us mercilessly, puckering up and driving our navigators insane. Several of Praetoria’s most excellent navigators were turned to soup in their thrones, such was the maelstrom. So close did we sail in formaton, many of the smaller frigates crashed into one another and burned, while others were torn away from the warp bubble surrounding out fleet entirely. Some say these ships were disrupted by Ahriman and cast into the deepest vaults of the warp, or else consumed by daemonkind, but I cannot say. Every one of my many fleets suffered losses. Those that survived looked ravaged. Even my ship, War’s Spite, bore and ugly scar across her glittering golden prow (a slight I meant to avenge).

Once back in the tranquillity of the materium, I set to work organising my fleet. Firstly, I had Promethean engineers construct a domed hololithic display, from where I could commune with by two hundred vice-Admirals, who would in turn relay orders to their own captains, and thus maintain control over the entire unwieldy force.

After two days of careful wrangling, coercion and clenched-teeth diplomacy, I changed the armada from a loose nebula of divergent fleets, into a coherent structure. The formation was shaped like a lance one light minute long, banded by a dozen dense rings of thorns, ready to sweep into flanking positions from every angle in the tactical engagement sphere.

The Lychen Butcher Navy were composed of vessels almost exclusive tailored for frontal assaults, festooned with forward facing weapons with engines over-taxed to the point of disaster, yet undoubtably fast. Jurrasek, the Lychen King, had a flagship that dwarfed all but Tyme’s Absolution. Meglodon it was called; made from the hollowed out husk of some space monster (legend would have it was one of those extinct ‘Tyranid’ creatures from the dawn of history) which was then clad in adamantium and bronze, and filled with cavernous abattoirs and troop holds, gun batteries and boarding torpedoes. The Lychens were the bloody iron tip of my lance.

The body of the lance was formed by the High Void Fleet, escorting the gigantic carriers of the fleet in their hundreds of thousands. Just behind the Lychen tip I deployed the landers and planetstrikers; once the tip pierced the body of the beast, the ground forces would flow into the wound like debilitating poison, crippling planetside defence lasers and support infrastructure. Obediah and the Heroes of Macharius would lead the ground assault, and storm the Black Cube, the heart of Ahriman’s empire of fiction and change.

The rings girdling the lance were swarms of frigates and squadrons of destroyers, constantly buzzing in and out of formation as they made their crazed patrols between lance and ring.

At the rear we towed nineteen Star forts, and even more orbital stations, waiting for deployment over Tallarn.

Tyme’s Absolution, and the venerable flagships of the Heroes of Macharius took pride of place at the heart of the fleet, serving as logistical hubs and arming stations for the fleet around them.

This was a fleet which could mass-scatter entire planets and swallow whole moons without noticing. It was a chimera of conjoined navies, destined to only hold together for a single battle, but a force the likes of which the galaxy has seen but twice before. No convention navy could have withstood us, withstood me.

But what we faced, in high orbit around Tallarn, was anything but conventional. I have seen wonders and horrors in my time, sights that would turn the hair of a space marine white with fright, or burn the mind of a krork to ash. But this was so... incongruous, so bizarre, it will stay with me for all time.

Flames of every hue flowed through the clouds of Tallarn, bewitching the eye and stopping the heart. Impossibly, lightning filled the void, striking at the accretion disk of ruined starships that orbited the warp-tainted world. There were... faces, boiling through the clouds, hundreds of miles across. No, not faces, one face multiplied a thousandfold as it rippled through the firmament.

“Apotheosis... Dissolution...” my psyker guardians muttered, clutching their force swords that little bit tighter before this spectacle.

My bridge crew were dumbstruck, my hololithic admirals likewise lost for words. Jurassek though grinned, and beat his chest like a jungle ape, eager to face a rival male in a challenge. Slowly, the fleet continued its advance, closing the distance hour by hour. As we did so, some of the space debris began to coalesce, binding together like the formation of a planet.

But this was no planet. It was as if the hulks of smashed cruisers and gutted battle barges were moulding, coiling to form a statue, a dread idol of Ahzek Ahriman, the Lord of the Rubric himself; the same great horned helm, the same T-shaped barbute visor, the same colossal staff. Except, this statue, ten kilometres tall, could move. It raised a palm.

“Halt. I have forgiven your trespasses, but only to a point. The mice may steal from my pantry, but they may not feast at my table.”

The voice was smooth and toweringly arrogant, and it echoed in every mortal skull like a hammer blow. Even I heard the voice, though it was dulled by the psyker wardens about me.

“It is all parlour tricks; a magicians cloak to hide his frailty!” I bawled, trying to regain control of the situation. The fleet hesitated, cowed by their enemy’s power.

Ahriman’s idol pointed towards me, as if it were singling me out specifically to be gifted. Eldritch energies wreathed the bridge in fire, as the Gamma-Meson guardsmen began their battle cants, whirling their force blades like warding shields. But still I felt the leeching pressure on my very soul, and an insidious whisper, asking me.

“Is this a parlour trick, little man? How frail am I?”

I truly believe I would have died then, on my own bridge, pawing at my throat like a drowning man. But, as fate or the Throne decreed it, in that moment, the Captain of the Stormchild, one of the High Void Fleet’s silent grey battlecruisers, chose to break formation, and take the Stormchild all ahead full. Lances scything, dorsal batteries flaring, the battlecruiser charged the idol, burning away molten chunks of the hateful giant. Distracted, the giant released me.

Stormchild was struck by warp lightning and tainted asteroids, that ripped through its hull and gutted its galleys, but it carried on.

Its escorting frigate was pulled apart like an exploded diagram, as if some impossibly vast hand had peeled it apart with an artisan’s deftness. But still Stormchild charged on.

Even with the bridge aflame and its lances torn away, it managed to fire its final armament. The Nova Shell was the size of a building, and crossed the void at a high fraction of the light speed barrier. When the projectile struck, the flash was blinding. Moments later, the idol doubled up in pain.

Seizing the moment, I rose from by throne and ordered the ships to fire at once.

You have never seen a million ships firing at once. Indeed, if you did see such a thing, it would be the last thing your tortured retinas would ever see. Mercifully, there were no portholes on the War’s Spite’s bridge, nestled in the heart of the ship, and so I only felt the ship shuddering as it unleashed five throbbing volleys, joining its fire to the fleets.

The idol was destroyed, and the debris rings blazed like a newborn stellar cluster. With the void ablaze, the lance thrust into the burning crucible. The flames and the debris were alive with fury, coiling around my ships, deliberately colliding with those that got too close. Soon, my best laid plans, sketched out over a fortnight before, were as dust on the wind.

The enemy was not an opposing fleet or a rival armed force. The fleet battled a snarl of disrupted realspace itself, a crawling hell of semi-sentient hulks and ghost ships that grew weapons like rotten meat grew mould. It was like trying to wrestle a forest fire, or engage in a swordsman’s duel with a thunderstorm.

It was madness, it was chaos. Ships rolled and banked in the upper atmosphere, desperately firing in all directions to rid themselves of the strangling coils of sentient deck plating that tried to constrict them. Ships used to duelling at light minute ranges were engaged at ramming speed. Reports flooded in of enemy boarding actions; blank-eyed Tallarn meat puppets charging armsmen positions with suicide belts and demo charges, pink daemons capering with the entrails of weeping men, gold and sapphire giants marching in immortal lockstep, bolters blazing and swords methodically carving through ratings and soldiers alike.

Some of the fleet’s captains had been driven mad, and fired upon whoever got closest to them, friend of foe. Other ships from the conquered petty emperors, threw in their lot with Ahriman out of fear, and attacked the rearguard. These few were destroyed by their fellows, and their wreckage was in turn animated by Ahriman and his Cabal to become new foes for us to face.

Tyme’s Absolution was doing the best out of all of us, its bombardment cannons designed for close range. Any enemies trying to board that battle barge found fully equipped regiments of Steel Legion veterans, Macharian Lion Legionnaires, Elysium Drop troops, Lussorian Narc Warriors in their proto power armour and the lethal Ryzan-Catachan Plasma Commandoes to greet them. The Lychen too revelled in the carnage, their modified prows simply ramming their way through the living wreckage. The Lychen met their boarders well too. The bloody halls of those haemovore savages ran with more blood than the Lychen knew what to do with. Their stocks of meat would never run low in such a butcher’s yard.

By this point, my only concern was clearing a path for the landing ships. I ordered the captain to punch through, and the War’s Spite, like a gladius through meat, did just that. In its wake the drop ships descended through the bruised clouds, to an uncertain future below.

All I could do then was pray to the Golden King of all Humanity to watch over them.

[EXCERPT FOUR: Untitled Piece. Author Unknown ]

The whole world wanted us dead. But we were soldiers of the Imperium Pentus; everyone wanted us dead. We had left pieces of ourselves at every battlefield for a thousand light years. We were the tempered Edge of the Steel, and we do not break, we lacerate. The moment I landed I shat my breeches however, and vomited into my rebreather. The air was not just poisonous, it was filled with madness. I was lucky. Some folks turned inside out, or twisted their own heads off and kicked them away, the head laughing manically as it fell.

Fire-breathing worms burrowed through the multi-coloured sand dunes, and spiders clambered over the clouds, vomited white muck which made predatory trees grow in the bellies of the dead. Many eyed things slavered and lashed at us. Our tanks broke them apart, we bayoneted the spiders, and the artillery burst the bellies of the worms. They were killing us with every breath, every sweep of a bladed arm, but we were killing them too.

Somehow, Obediah got through to us on the radio. He was wearing his father’s uniform, and rode atop his super heavy tank, Macharius’ sceptre in his hand. We managed to fight in formation, even though the landscape kept shifting beneath us, seeking to drown us in ash and sand. We were to converge on the great black block, which sat at the top of an insurmountable hillock. The edges of the dunes kept falling away, refusing to stick to the cube.

The Lussorian false-Space Marines fought as hard as their namesakes, clambering over mountains of Tallarn dead. The poor Tallarn folk were dead-eyed puppets, fed into the grinder, grasping at us with bladed fingers, that we neatly cut off.

The Chevantai wove a ballet of death around them, their lithe forms drifting weightlessly between combats, long laser lances neatly killing where they may. Plasma Commandoes scoured the way ahead with green fire, unrelenting and methodical as clocks. The Lychen... they fought with a red miasma of gory foam about them, heedless and hungry for flesh. Any flesh.

I giggled when I saw row upon row of redcoat Praetorians in their pith helmets. They were like stiff ribbons of crimson in a sea of boiling soup, straight where everything else was curly. It was only when they fired, row after row, that the power of their firing drill became apparent, chopping down whole tides of Tallarn folk like wheat before a scythe.

But Ahriman couldn’t be finished this way. He had his own terrible things to set on us. The Rubricae were automatons of sapphire and gold, and nothing we did mattered to them. Our lasrifles were useless, and our heavy weapons only slowed them down. Every time they fell, they always rose again. Their bolters killed more of us than anything. Some of the Rubricae looked like Commandery Astartes, only their helmets were filled with the dead light of Ahriman’s enchantment, goaded forwards by his cabal of sorcerers.

Ahriman’s image itself, fashioned out of blue flame, wandered the battlefield lazily, languidly gifting anyone nearby with instant death. With a wave of his hand, he swatted scores of men to the ground, burnt to a cinder in moments. Nothing could harm these apparitions, for they were not the true demi-god. That lay within the cube. The cube we could reach.

There were other things too. Bigger than ogryns, they were faster and stronger too. The Golarch were like mindless Astartes imbued with strength beyond conception. Only the artillery could bring them down, and not before the giants tore apart tanks and infantry with equal ease.

I was distracted by one of the Golarch abominations pulling Duc de Aronelle’s legs off when I died. I looked away once, and a Rubricae put a bolt shell through me. I burst apart like a grape.

“Clumsy me,” I giggled as my face fell away from the bone.

EXCERPT FIVE: Diary Fragment. Author Unknown.

Braiva’s Best were a distraction. That’s all I intended for them, though it pains me to admit that. Something to catch Ahriman’s gaze as I put the knife in.

We were close now. Kage was almost carrying me at this point up the dunes. Pregnancy and running was never going to be a realistic outcome. Ahriman couldn’t see me. I had aided him in the construction of his cube, or his god engines, and I knew the back doors and hidden alcoves in the psychic architecture. And where I opened the doors, I left them open. I broke his seals, each just a fractional amount. Nothing he might spot in his mania, but enough for two souls to split through and leave a weeping wound behind.

This route, there were just a few Tallarn puppets opposing them, and Kage put them down with his pistol with the casual ease of a natural born killer.

We were running out of time. I could feel Ahzek on the cusp of transcendence. More than daemonhood, this was godhood. And with it, one step further to dissolution for all. I could taste Ahriman’s name on the tongue, on the tongue of every sentient being.

I fumbled with the invisible black door of the cube, remembering the codes I had inputted two lifetimes ago. He had changed them, but not enough. Ahriman in his towering arrogance hadn’t considered I would dare return.

We were in. The riotous colors outside were absent inside. Inside the cube, it was acrid light and long inky shadows, cast by exotic machineries all bound together by umbilical cords and human sinew. It was like being inside a daemon’s clock, a device of impossible complexity. Amidst this machinery, I saw the tell tale form of webway portals. They looked like the human webway project, their edges too definite and blunt to be eldar.

“Why of course it is Crolomere,” Ahriman purred. “What my father ruined with his bumbling weakness, I have completed. Upon my ascension, I will stream through the webway, to all corners of the galaxy to proclaim my majesty. And the universe shall weep with joy, at the fulfillment of prophecy.”

His voice was like ice water, and froze me to the spot.

The lights banished all shadow inside the cube. Rubricae emerged from all around, encircling us in a wall of sapphire and gold. Behind them, Ahriman’s sorcerers emerged, clutching their staffs like spears. Ahriman himself wore no armor, or even clothes, and glided weightlessly towards them calmly, arms outstretched. He was a giant, swollen to Primarch scale now, his old armor orbiting him like moons about a gas giant. He was beautiful and terrible to behold.

“Did you truly think I would not notice your progress, in my own inner sanctum? Or that you were lowering my ward spells? What do you hope to achieve? I am beyond even grandfather, the anathema now. I see all, I know all, and I will know more. I am Paradox and Unity, Love and Horror, I will be everything at once and ever shifting. I topple Tzeentch, I vanquish Lorgar. There are none who can st-”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Kage spat. Ahriman paused in disbelief.

I looked to Kage in horror. He just shrugged. “What? He was going on and on.”

Ahzek raised his hand... then one finger, and slowly drew it across his throat. Kage fell then, clutching his slit throat desperately, blood dribbling between fingers.

I screamed, but Ahriman sealed my mouth. One of the larger Rubricae took up position beside its master, watching dispassionately as she suffered

“Why are you so afraid? That mortal was always going to die? But you cannot die Perpetual,” he purred.

I tried to hide my next thought. I couldn’t. Tears came unbidden to my eyes.

“Ahh... but the bastard in your belly... you fear that is quite killable, hmm?”

He heard my next thought. “Who are you praying too? All the gods are dead or slaves, save me. Are you praying to me? How sweet,” he said, leaning down to touch my cheek. “I see into your soul, as I see everything.”

The giant Rubricae exploded then, and from it rose a copper-skinned titan from my nightmares.

“Not everything, my son,” Magnus the Red explained, as a crimson burst of fire swept Ahriman from his feet. The Rubricae did nothing, frozen in inaction between two masters. Released from my spell, I crawled away. Crawling towards the heart of the machine.

I couldn’t look back, but I heard the flaring of the two demi-gods, and saw glimpses of red and blue flames dueling, like lightning before the thunderclap. If I witnessed the sorcerous exchange, I feared I would be cast into oblivion, or worse.

“I will become a god! I have already surpassed you!”

“You prattle like a child Ahriman. A child with a gun, who does not understand what trigger he is pulling. I am here to save you.”

“Save me? Then who will save you? I will devour you father, consume the red and end this charade!”

The two warring essences fought on every plane, flowing between walls and through times, killing Tallarn and birthing new worlds in forgotten timelines. They wrestled as giant men, and writhed like paints in a watercolour. Ideas were weaponized and sharpened to points, and songs were sung that unraveled spacetime around them.

Kages followed me, crawling along the floor on his elbows, clamping his throat closed. He left a red smear as he did so. I blinked back tears as I worked, carefully tearing pages form the Rubric tome, plugged into the heart of the cube. I read them in every connotation, before tearing them up. Fleshy cables were rerouted, and psychic complexes altered and remade anew. I knew what Ahriman had done, because I was the one who showed him how to do it. I felt a familiar tightening pain as i worked. Not now... do not come now...

Ahriman’s cabal seemed at last to notice Kage and I, and the threat we posed. The Rubricae turned from their dueling masters, and advanced upon us. They couldn’t risk shooting the machine, and so drew their energized khopesh blades as they closed in on me.

No one save me noticed that the webway portals had activated. With the psychic wards lowered, the cube was open to the webway. The black armoured nightmares which burst forth from the portals were wreathed in fire, and their faces were masked in bone. Leaing the charge of the Legion of the Damned charged a howling berserker Astartes of Fenris, with the black axe Morkai held aloft. Upon his shoulders sat two giggling children with dark pigtails and pretty dresses. As the wolf killed, they laughed and braided his shaggy mane. A sorcerer turned with staff raised, but too late to avoid the blow which bisected him from neck to navel.

“Revelation! We are the Rout!” howled the space wolf.

“We are twins!” added one of the girls, unhelpfully.

I ducked behind the machine as the two breeds of deathless horror tried in vain to kill one another. Ethereal blades cut into rune-etched armour, and khopesh blades passed harmlessly through incorporeal forms.

Somewhere near, or eons distant, I heard Magnus shriek and scream, his voice then fading away. All eyes save mine fell upon Ahriman then, who held aloft a blazing red eye, wrenched from the skull of his once invincible father.

Time slowed then, at that moment of convergence.

Ahriman swept the apex twins aside with a gesture.

The space wolf threw Morkai.

And I grasped a fetid cord of sacrificial muscle, and I gnawed through it like a dog.

The world froze. I felt a billion billion voices, neverborn and never to be born, scream in one mighty voice, before being silenced. I felt the souls of thousands, ensnared in a crystal trap, howl in elation and freedom. I felt all of Ahriman’s godlike power, all his raw warp energy, pour into the Rubric.

But not to enhance it. I had seen to that.

It was to reverse it.

The entire world shuddered, as more contractions wracked my belly.

The fire in the Rubricae’s eyes faded. They all, as one, staggered onto one knee.

Ahriman screamed. It was disturbingly shrill and piercing for a space marine. His luminous form faded, until he was merely a naked man on his knees.

He locked eyes with me and through the pain, I stared right back.

I have never seen an Astartes look so afraid. He was weeping, as his flesh began to desiccate and crack, slowly at first, then more swiftly.

“All... is... dust...” he wheezed, as his lips began to dissolve.

“Not all,” I spat through bloody lips. “Only you.”

Ahzek Ahriman collapsed then, into naught but drifting ash.

I didn’t watch what happened next. I vaguely heard the concussive boom of bolters, and the alarmed shouts of the dying, but it was all far away and distant. All I could focus on was the baby spilling from me. It was stuck. It couldn’t break free. In pain and fear I continued to shriek.

Kage saw me, saw the fear writ large across my face. I knew what he was going to do before he did it.

“Don’t,” I breathed weakly.

He didn’t listen. He unclasped his hands from about his throat, and reached for me. The blood flowed in a tide from him, but even as his life and strength were failing, he pulled the child free, cutting away the umbilical with his combat knife. He slipped the little boy into my arms. I saw him smile before he fell on his face, and moved no more.

My head reeled, my mind swimming through treacle. The cube was fading away, leaving me in the dark. I heard the flutter of great wings. Pale white feathers, stained in blood fell all around me.

I looked up blearily, and saw the most beautiful face in the world. The man smiled at me.

“I know you,” I said with a drunken grin.

A vast hand wiped away my tears. “A blood sacrifice, shed in love and honor was needed to bring me...us here. What grace is left of me is now His. My nephew, in life and death.... Take Him from this place Crolomere. Take him through the winding path.”

“The webway? Who... who are you? Tell me your name,” I asked, as the figure began to fade.

The man’s perfect smile was the last thing to vanish, and it said. “I wish we had met sister. Perhaps things would have been different, if we had known our sisters...”

Strong hands carried me after that, and I was led into the portal, and beyond the materium entirely...

Additional Background Notes: The Sons of Purgatory

At the climax of the siege of Tallarn, the infamous Rubric of Ahriman was spectacularly broken. This had the effect of releasing the Rubricae from their living death, but also had the surprising effect of returning the eons dead warriors into the flesh. Suddenly incarnated, the ancient Thousand Sons space marines turned upon the surviving Sorcerers of Ahriman’s cabal. Though the psykers were potent beings at this point, they were taken by surprise, and overwhelmed by the vengeful Astartes, who were at long last freed from their slavery.

With the malign influence of Ahriman leaving the battlefield and with these new and unexpected allies, the forces of the Imperium Pentus swiftly routed and destroyed the remaining forces of the would-be god. His scrap daemons in orbit similarly fled back to the warp, allowing the surviving naval forces to bombard the black cube into nothingness, leaving nothing but a colossal field of volcanic glass in its place.

At the conclusion of the battle, the Thousand Sons surrendered humbly to Obediah, and were brought back in chains to Macharia, as the vast armada of Wellesley dispersed to return to their vassal systems. The confused and disorientated former Rubricae Penitents declared they were servants of the Imperium, and warned the heroes of Macharia that "Horus has turned upon the Emperor". Long imprisonment within the Rubric had atrophied there warp presence, until they were below mundane on the psychic scale. The only boon they possessed now were the new Astartes bodies they had been granted, free of mutagenic taint at long last; Ahriman’s original noble goal to save his Legion, finally achieved. Saved, at least for a while.

Though the Rubricae had aided the Imperium Pentus, they were still technically heretics and traitors. They were tried before the local representatives of the Imperium Pentus. The Lychen, Praetorians and the representatives of the Thousand Governors (formerly "Thousand Emperors") wanted blood, and called for the execution of the Soldiers of Ahriman, the last visual symbol of his misrule. The Confederation of Justice suggested they might work off their debt somehow, while Captain Ell of the Lussorian Narc Warriors vouched for their strength and potency.

In the end, the fate the Penitents was decided not by council or judge, but by outside pressures. Ahriman had been routed from the southern spin of the galaxy, yet the Imperium Pentus was still besieged. Daemons and warp storms still flooded the region, from Khaine’s infernal realm in the east, to the Terran hells in the west. With the primarchs engaged on a crusade against with the Realm of Travesties, it was up to those who remained to plug the gaps in the defenses.

A fleet led by the Blood Ravens Commandery arrived to confirm the Dominion of Change’s reintegration with the Armageddon metropolis. It was decided then that the penitents, though they numbered but five hundred by this point, were too valuable a resource to squander in petty revenge. Obediah Braiva, the new Marshal Administrator for the Segmentum, handed the penitents into the Blood Ravens’ custody.* It was decided that from these repentant marines, a new Commandery would be founded; The Sons of Purgatory.

The Sons were taken to Nocturne for processing. Nocturne was known across the Imperium at this point as ‘The Forge of Astartes’, due to the vast industrialized process of geneseed production and power armor creation undertaken on the volcanic, smoke-shrouded planet. The Promethians of Nocturne performed many secret rites of purification and psychic conditioning to determine the purity of the Sons of Purgatory, but ultimately they were found to be pure (though fifty of the Sons perished in the trial by ordeal).

Following the trial, the Sons ritually destroyed their gold and sapphire raiment, naming it "slave’s armor, nothing more". It was cast into the molten heart of a volcano. With that, the Thousand Sons were ended once and for all. cc The Forge-Smiths of Nocturne created new armor for the Sons; a metallic copper with red bands about the arms, to represent their censure and the legacy of their banished Crimson King. Larkshear, a venerable Dreadnought of the Blood Ravens was selected to be the Lord Commander of this new Commandery.

In the wars that followed, the Sons of Purgatory fought many battles, most often fighting besides the Blood Ravens and the Nemenmarines (though notably, never with the Rout or the Wolf Brother Commanderies). It is said they fought with the fury of desperate men, seeking redemption in the only thing left to them; the edge of the sword, and the smoking barrel of the bolter.

*(Obediah also gifted the Blood Ravens with the Rod of Macharius, a sacred relic of elder days, alongside one of the captured Foetal Golarch abominations, suspended in a tank of amniotic amber. Why these gifts were made is unknown, and oddly, the enforcers of Macharia always recorded the Rod as being stolen by unknown assailants, on all official documents. Who are we to believe? Personally, I am inclined not to besmirch the heroic Blood Ravens with such rumors.)

Section 53: The Last Craftworld

The rise of the Seventh God of Dissolution, the God Whose Number Was Three, was marked by the death of the last bastion of the Eldar of the Path, Craftworld Biel-Tan. The entire northern region of the galaxy pivoted about this central battle, hundreds of fleets from dozens of factions had dueled in the void and upon the embattled surface of the world ship. Though the exact make up of each side in this war is almost impossible to gauge, they broadly fell into three categories, those who fought to crack open the craftworld and feast upon its riches, those who would defend them, and those who were drawn to carnage and fought both sides.

Expeditionary fleets from Pentus joined with Silver Skull led human coalitions that fought beside the eldar due to prophecy and fate. Almost every eldar in existence added to the armada. Every eldar that could fight donned their war masks, and bled their souls into the Infinity Circuit as they died in droves; each death an unbelievable tragedy, yet all of them lost amidst the greater letting of blood.

Typhus and the festering legions of Nurgle flooded Biel-Tan like a plague, barely registering their renegade and chaos legionnaire allies as they rampaged. No matter how many died, they persisted, spreading like damp rot through a crumbling house. Even in death, the blood of the nurglitch festered and corroded. Biel-Tan was forever poisoned, and even if it was to survive the siege, it would die of its infected wounds most assuredly.

At the climax of this mighty siege, a third faction entered the fray; a fleet of ravaged, ancient renegades surged from the warp like daggers carving open the heart of the materium itself. They were led by the foreboding barque Planet Killer; a ship of such evil renown, it had no other name, for it needed none. The valiant heroes of Biel-Tan groaned in woe, for they thought the tide of victory had turned to the polluted ones. But to the surprise of all, the Planet Killer rammed the Astral Maw amidships, even as it loomed high over the crippled leviathan of Biel-Tan itself. Though each was many kilometers long, they seemed such tiny and ephemeral things compared to the enormity of the bloated craftworld, a speck diminishing as it reached terminal velocity.

The two ships bonded in fire and tortured metal, spiraling out of orbit in a hellish dance. Down, down towards the craftworld. Moments before the two ships crashed, a single silver thunderhawk made its escape from their burning bowels. Kelfdon, the Silver Skull within, spoke only the great warning granted to him by his hideously burned passenger;

“Drach’Nyen rises. We have to leave.”

To the eldar within Biel-Tan, the first they saw of the crash was when the two flagships shattered the great dorsal domes of the craftworld. The crystal blue skies were falling in shards of fire, wraithbone and bewitched daemon-metal. The impact was like a newborn star, white and scourging. A hundred thousand eldar were erased in a single instant, and the entire dorsal cavern burned with purple fire for ten minutes. Even Nurgle’s pollution was vanquished in that terrible conflagration. Air pockets across Biel-Tan ruptured, snatching away the atmosphere into the void. Millions of Typhus’ mortal chattel perished without a word, their screams silent without the air to voice them.

Tectonic lesions shuddered throughout the ship, disrupting any hope of strategy, killing anyone in their path.

Even Typhus, who was the author of this siege, realized that victory was chaos’ now, whether he stayed or not. With Manreaper in his hands, he carved his way back towards his landing ship, intent on returning to the Terminus Est.

Autarch Llanquelliqn would not allow this. She swooped down upon the host of the Destroyer Hive, heedless of the destruction all around her. Her world was dead, and her species would perish soon enough too, but she could not die until Typhus joined her.

“You do not get to leave, festering one! You do not get to win!” she cried, as she stood valiantly between Typhus and his escape ship.

“Foolish whore,” Typhus rumbled with slobbering laughter. “I already have. Did your Seers warn you of this doom? I thought not.”

With that, the terminator charged, and the Autarch met him in battle. She was like quicksilver, he was like a mountain fastness. He was the stone, and she was the water that would erode him. No matter where he swung his scythe, she was not there, her own executioner blade carving chunks from the sickly hulk.

The destroyer hive, a churning cloud of daemonic flies, surged about the Autarch, but her fusion pistol scorched them into ash with every blast. Typhus’ corrupting magic washed over her body like oil across the skin of a deep lake, for she had the will of a council of farseers remotely guiding her hand and shielding her body, expending the last of their souls’ fire for the chance to avenge themselves upon this last mortal figurehead of their civilization's demise.

The two foes tumbled through the floor as another great quake shook the craftworld, ripping it open ever more grievously. Typhus struggled to rise, a wraithbone girder punched clean through his archaic terminator plate. His helmet had been torn away, and his hollow head was revealed; a decaying undead skull, bilious with flies. Tainted fuel was leeching from some broken section of the worldship, drooling the corrosive matter directly into Typhus’ face, burning through his eye sockets. Llanquelliqn lay shattered beside the herald, every hollow bone in her body broken and drooling with shocking scarlet blood. Her only succor as her eyes dimmed was that she could watch Typhus’ own eyes burned in his skull, and his flesh slough away in layers, like pastry left to dissolve in the rain.

From somewhere deep in the dorsal sections, something terrible roared with a voice of thunder. At the heart of the five hundred mile firestorm raging in the heart of the Planet Killer’s impact crater, a monster writhed, coiling itself in terrible raiment. Clothed in the daemon-haunted adamantine flesh of the two chaos capital ships, the beast arose. Its great pinions were kilometers across, its segmented spine longer than a grand cruiser. Its lashing tail beheaded the artificial mountains in the craftworld’s garden decks, and its claws ripped up miles of wraithbone decking with the ease of a raven tearing gossamer. Eldar, monkeigh and daemon alike turned to behold this terror with sublime terror. Its form was fluid, armoured sections undulating, fusing and breaking, only to seep with oily pus than shone a thousand hues. Its blood was the blood of the millions of cultists and traitor marines that had perished and been melted in the inferno’s heart. The monster could not be seen clearly, for a miasma of Drazin-Maton dust and sentient daemon-smoke sheathed it, and the centre of the armoured goliath blazed with a warp rift, pulsing with deep warp malevolence, blinding and impossible to behold. It resembled perhaps a Heldrake of the Soulforge, only swollen to the scale of capital ships.

Nobody knew what this nightmare was and yet, every voice on Biel-Tan whispered the same name;

“Drach’nyen’drya.”

Drach’nyen, the daemon-wyrm, the Beast of Dissolution, the Great Red Dragon of the Nex- [Images of molten hate, driven through the skull with things neither wasp nor spinner’s wheel. Narrator shudders, spitting out elemental black ooze from between his teeth.]

Drach’nyen’drya roared again, and Biel-Tan suffered more tremors. The great dragon of chaos stumbled forwards, shedding fire like a newborn foal casting off its mucosal afterbirth. It barged through crystal spires, and flattened entire armies beneath its bulk. Terminator shield walls were swept aside like broken toys, flights of jetbikes and swooping hawks were themselves swatted from the sky by bladed wings as large as a cobra class destroyer. Wherever Drach’nyen touched, the raw stuff of chaos seeped out. It mutated the ground, melding humans and eldar and trees, making penumbral shadow tendrils coil with sentience from the heart of inanimate forms. Orchards of pleading eyes sprouted like grapes from the walls, and men were driven mad simply at the sight of the daemonwyrm.

The war between chaos and nurgle was forgotten for a moment, as every gun and blade on Biel-tan turned against this newborn abomination. Even the mortal servants of the Realm of Travesties feared this thing, for it was hunger, and it would devour them all. There was some gnawing, hollowness in its gargantuan soul.

Nothing could halt the wyrm in its thrashing, burrowing through the crust of the Craftworld. Deck by deck, it burst through, belching lilac fire which mutated even as it incinerated. Eons of years of history vanished like smoke on the wind, turned to less than ash. Every artillery battery within range poured torrents of fire upon the wyrm to no avail; the more it shattered, the more it grew, consuming everything in its path with great snaps of its crocodilian maw.

Beyond Biel-tan, the many fleets in orbit began to depart, each battling vessel fighting to reach the warp translation points before their rivals. Everyone knew the craftworld was done, and no one wished to be caught in the warp storm which would surely follow.*

Where others fled, the eldar fought on. Their grav ships swarmed like a nest of hornets, raining endless plasma and prism laser fire upon Drach’nyen’drya. The wyrm fought through it, uprooting city blocks and buckling bridges. It drank the emerald ocean dry in a hundred thirsty gulps, and spat white hot steam across the defenders in return.

The eldar would not despair. Even as the nurglings tormented them, mocking the eldar’s pointless sacrifice, they fought on, killing everything that was not eldar, and pouring whatever fire remained at the possessed capital ship drake.

“Your Phoenix Lords forsook you, spindly children of a tainted seed,” called a Great Unclean one from atop a battlement. “See how your prayers remain unanswered. See how your soul stones grow dull upon yours deaths. Where are your souls going my spindly ones? Perhaps She who Thirsts claims them? Or perhaps your hearts are truly devoid of hope, and have fallen into Grandfather’s kind embrace?” it chortled and spat, only silenced when a Wraithknight’s D-cannon wrenched the daemon by to its devil-haunted halls beyond reality.

It was then, as the wyrm began to devour another eldar city, that the Avatar of Biel-tan joined the fray. Their Wailing Doom became the form of a great warbow, and the Avatar turned to the aspect of an archer, leaping from tower to tower, launching burning arrows of pure destruction into the Dran’nyen’drya’s body. These bolts were empowered by the will of the dying eldar, and each strike was like the punch of a macro-cannon when it struck cursed daemonflesh. The dragon recoiled, roiling with demented agony. At a distance, the Avatar was a mere speck of orange, a firefly circling an inferno, and no matter how many bolts its cast, it could not finish the dragon at range.

With agility astonishing for a twenty foot tall animated statue, the Avatar leapt upon the pockmarked hide of Drach’nyen’drya. It jumped between gnashing fangs and probing spines, charging headlong through the surreal cityscape riding across the dragon’s back. Wailing Doom was a spear one moment, stabbing and carving through metal, the next it was a many flanged mace, bursting the daemon’s many eyes like pus-filled blisters, blinding the Drach’nyen’drya to the Avatar’s advance. The Avatar gained pace, mindlessly relentless as it scaled the dread monster. Inexorably, the warrior construct approached the base of the dragon’s neck. It was nearing the heart of the fiend, buoyed by the will of the eldar desperate for it to succeed.

The Avatar fought sub-daemons that began to wriggled free of the dragon’s flesh like parasitic leeches disturbed by an outsider. Things kin to centipede and wolf launched themselves against the warrior and were cut to gory ribbons, while snakes and worms tried to trip the hero of biel-tan, wasp-like things with infantile human faces wept tears of excrement as they burst against the burning flesh of the Avatar.

Drach’nyen’drya in frustration tore at its own flesh, in a vain effort to dislodge the hateful flea that kept piercing its body. Chunks the size of baneblades were wrenched out of its hide, cascading in molten metal to the craftworld below.

The Avatar only stopped when the gunfire of the eldar finally ceased. After weeks... months of utter carnage, being hunted through their own homes by a daemon fueled by an active warp rift in its heart, the eldar were spent. The last of the defenders fell, and their soul stones went dark.

The very last eldar to die was a young mother. After smothering her infant to spare her from the claws of the daemonkin, the mother breathed in tainted smoke, and grew still. She was dead by the time the daemons found their bodies. Their soul stones were empty.

The Avatar, starved of souls to fuel its animus, ceased up, freezing in mid-motion, Wailing Doom raised as a sword above its head.

Roaring in triumph, the wyrm took the statue in its jaws and smote in into the ruins of Biel-Tan. Then, it began to dig. Drach’nyen’drya was a nascent power, on the cusp of existence. It was a hybrid of daemon and drazin, fueled by the warp rift which powered the Planet-Killer’s gun. The world-ending energies were being funneled into its soulless shell, making the daemon grandiose beyond reason. Drach’nyen had the energy, but like fossil fuel, it polluted and it was finite.

This energy was nothing compared to the glut of soul-stuff now trapped in Biel-tan’s heart. For within Biel-Tan was a link to the eldar afterlife, to the very fountain of mystic energy. The Infinity Circuit trapped the souls of every eldar not consumed by Slannesh. Every eldar who failed to reincarnate before the fall, and every craftworld eldar thereafter too. The Bonesingers and Soulsmiths of Biel-tan had been cleverer still, tapping into the world spirits of the Exodites, and the wild world spirits of the great untamed planets of the galaxy.

If the daemonwyrm had cracked open Biel-tan, it would have drank deep of the pure energy of the stable warp, imbuing itself with a galactic warp source, fuelling its ascent into true chaos godhood; a seventh ruinous power to oversee the dissolution of matter and space and time.

This is not what happened. Unbeknownst to the Wyrm, another vessel translated into the system-wide graveyard, where all others had fled. This ship was known as a dragonship, but its name had naught to do with Drach’nyen’drya. For this ship was to be the dragon’s bane.

It had traveled through the blighted webway for what seemed like many lifetimes of mortal men, fighting perverted dark kin and daemons and worse, but through fire and faith they had made it through the crucible, at the time of Biel-tan’s greatest need. At its helm was an eldar, turned to crystal. Beside her was a hero in silver warplate, bearing the sword of midnight, the anathame. Allaten of the Silver Skulls was his name, and he had grown ancient, his beard long and white. His old bones were still solid steel as his flesh withered in his powered armor.

Opposite him was an eldar of royal pedigree, a rogue and a king both. So old was he that his flesh was turning to crystal the same as the pilot. He was the last craftworlder. He was Yriel, and he bore the spear of twilight.

The fourth figure on that ghost ship was a man. Just a man, a monkeigh, a blasphemer and a coward and a scavenger. It is from his memoirs, his mad dreams, that much of this tale was uncovered, for he was our imperfect window into the birth of something that changed the galaxy forever.

“I am sorry,” said Allaten, behold the desecration of Biel-Tan, a hollowed-out husk haunted by the dragon’s roar. He looked to his once enemy, and now fierce friend.

Yriel wept, but he wept with a smile upon his face. “Do not be sorry, old friend.”

“This is a sorrowful time. Your race... it is gone.”

“Yes... the eldar are dead. Now you will see what the dead might dream in the time hereafter.”

Before Allaten could react, the ghosts that governed the Flame of Asuryan sent the vessel on a collision course with Biel-tan. Julius Hawke barely had time to vomit over his shoes before the vessel struck the craftworld at a fraction of c.

That should have been the end; the ship should have atomised in an instant of pure destruction, blazing briefly and blindingly like a newborn sun. Certainly, when they struck, Drach’nyen felt the shudder of the craftworld, and the bright flames that consumed the ironically named ship.

Onboard the Flame of Asuryan, the last wraithbone choir, stolen from Trayzn the Infinite, and smuggled through hell and back, at last united with the rest of the eldar Infinity Circuit. In that attosecond, as the choir and circuit met, yet before the ship impacted, reality changed.

Hawke reluctantly unscrewed his eyes, and opened them onto pure white in every direction. At first he thought this the human heaven, but when he felt his arthritic knees and his overlyjuvenated spine crack and groan, he knew he was still alive, suspected in a moment of expanded time.

He saw... things, in the whiteness. Things this chronicle would struggle to describe. The motes of light on a whispered promise to a dying man, the light of creation before people had crawled from the primordial muck. He saw ghosts, phantoms from histories that could have been, before the fall spoiled it all. Ghosts of the true past, and the ghosts of children never born. Yriel vanished in the white void, and Allaten vanished too, sword and all.

Biel-Tan glowed, every fiber of the living ship, every vein and sinew and wisp of wraithbone blazed with holy light. Divine light.

The wraithguard, the wraithknights, the wraithlords; all were reborn in shining aspect. Drach’nyen’drya found itself assailed on all sides by wraith constructs, and gigantic crystalline warp spiders, larger than any seen before.

The dead rose up. They looked like eldar, except they were composed of purest diamond, with circulatory systems filled with light instead of blood.

The Wyrm would not be vanquished easily, and fought on, slaying millions upon millions of the new constructs, only for the light of the divine to fill them with renewed vigor and set them upon it again. The Avatar led this circus of the dead, but it was fashioned in Khaine’s likeness no longer; for this was an Avatar of a new warp goddess, clad in armor with a gleaming lance of celestial brilliance, which pierced the dragon’s belly.

Wraith ships in orbit suddenly came online once again, and began to bombard Drach’nyen from orbit with capital grade weapons. It was this which finally spelled the end to the colossus.

Drach’nyen’drya howled in voiceless rage as the warp rift at the heart of its host body consumed it. Like a collapsing star, the daemonwyrm imploded, crumbling and crumpling in upon itself.

When the drgaon was slain, silence fell across the ghostworld. Why Hawke was spared is unknown, but I suspect he was allowed to bear witness, so he could tell the other mortals of this god’s ascension.**

Across the galaxy, all the other dead craftworlds began to light up. Their infinity circuits began to wake, and their crystalline dead move with new life.

The eldar had a prophecy once, in the half-remembered 41st Millennium, of the god of the dead. They had failed once to rouse them, but that was because the eldar had not fulfilled their prophecy. Only when every eldar bound to the infinity circuit died, could their race truly transcend.

In the closing centuries of The Age of Dusk, the Eldar race went extinct. They died to the last child.

In that same year, the Ynnead race was born, the children of the Goddess of Vengeance, whose number was Three. The Seventh God of Chaos, and the Second God of Order at once.

But be it god of order or chaos, another god rising only meant young Revelation had little and less time to reach the Well of Eternity before the veil was to fall completely...

• [It was said the Silver Skulls were the first to leave, after discovering a signal, transmitting from some far distant point, just below the galactic plane; a signal of hope, blaring across the cosmos to all who would listen.

The signal spoke of a new world, a refuge from the dying galaxy. A world within a world, where the Last Good Man held court: a world of unity and peace, where all refugees were welcome. The Prognosticators, guided by the burned old warrior who had helped to slay Huron Blackheart, divided a truth to this signal, and convinced the Silver Skulls and the fleet of desperate homeless humans and xenos following them to steer a true path through the tattered skein of reality to this new home.

The end of that tale is famous amongst our culture I know, but I insist upon revisiting this story in a later section. Volsanius Greal is nothing if not an admirer of the old classics...]

• • [Hawke claims Ynnead sent him to a place of his heart’s desire when it was done with him. Our ancestors found him drunk in a bordello on Henrich’s Planet, with a runic branch burned into his back and a lady on each arm. Make of that what you will...]

Section 54: Sailing to Salvation: The voyage of the Quilar Fleet

[Note: In our archives there are many tales and biographies detailing the many refugee fleets and exiles from all corners of the galaxy throughout M58; far too many to all be included in this collective history. Vasiri’s initial document included almost all of these accounts, but I have been more selective than the half-mad seer from which I have drawn inspiration. I have included this excerpt due to its unique nature, being one of the few surviving accounts of a refugee fleet from the Fringe Alliance. As with the Salvation War, the immaterial fallout from the conclusions of these wars destroyed most of those archives and left the memories almost inaccessible even to Vasiri the Watcher.]

I cannot begin my tale at the beginning. That would mean me having to remember the fall of my world, the blood in the screet, and the red-eyed madmen who had once been neighbours. The atrocity and the war are too big for me to describe; what justice can I give to the battle over my world? I only saw it as a young girl, snatching brief glimpses of the void war from a porthole in a converted merchant barge as it raced to the Mandeville point of our system.

I saw space ablaze with every colour of the rainbow, I saw armour-plated planets and cathedrals spewing rocket contrails, guns vomiting impossible light, and… things crawling across the fabric of space… across the back of my eyes, even when I looked away.

The month long race to the system edge was in darkness thereafter, pressed together with a hundred thousand other souls. The conditions were worse than grox carts. The stench of bodies and excrement became so normal, the sulphur-laced air of Prandium almost smelled fresh when we finally escaped the warp’s maddening clutches in Ultramar. The Fringe Leadership had detected a signal, a human one, using Pentus codes, emanating from a region of becalmed space; an orb of sanity in a disintegrating galaxy. This signal beckoned all refugees to come and seek sanctuary there. The voice was one Vulkan had vouched for in centuries past, a man, a saint, Iacob. The signal was old, and the world might have been dead by the time we reached it, but there it was; a sliver of that old serpent hope. I didn’t learn this information until years into the exodus of course; no one consults the promethium where it wants to be shipped. I was a mortal woman; an agri-worlder and a poacher. When the Fringe Alliance set us on our final course, I was transferred onto the ancient Idealist-class vessel ‘Hopespear’, commanded by Captain Quilar. The Tau needed all their greatest vessels for the ever-expanding front, but Hopespear would serve. Its AI was a decrepit thing, barely sapient and dependant on its mixed crew of earth caste scientists and Promethean cultists to function. Patched up with a mix of hybrid-made human tech, the ship looked ugly as only a crude chimera could be.

I remember one of the Novamarine Old Imperial's comment on Hopespear snidely, when he thought no one else was listening. “It has a face only an ork could love.” I never understood what he meant, as I had no clue what an ork was.

In any case, Hopespear was the flagship of a hundred ship fleet; bulk haulers, old freighters, Tau explorers, Nekulli junks, Niscassar Dhows; a fleet as varied as its cargo. For that was what we were, cargo. I determined not to be so passive, and through some unlikely wrangling, and a demonstration of my skill with a lasrifle, I was allowed to be a member of the security detail on the Hopespear. They had no uniforms for me, but they had a rifle and a carapace vest, which was enough.

Some say it was a minor miracle Captain Quilar’s flotilla didn’t starve to death in the first months of the long exodus. I don’t ascribe a god to this fortune. This fortune was due to our choice of travelling companions. We had left Ultramar in a hurry, as the Grand Lord Folkar led the Fringe Alliance to finish off Khaine’s Bloody Handed tide. We had only been loaded with half our provisions. The Melded* and the Water caste were invaluable in their highly efficient rationing procedures and recycling programs. Somehow, despite our increasing hunger, the water caste managed to make the people feel good about it, whilst the melded crews tirelessly worked to build archologies and void gardens with which to feed us. We were forced to take incredibly short warp jumps at this time, for anything longer would arouse the ire of the increasingly-turbulent warp. In those years, everyone had nightmares, even when in the materium. The warp was intruding into reality in a way most of us had been born into, whispering into our ears with the voice of oblivion since the crib.

The first year of the exodus was quiet. Quilar kept us on defunct space lanes linking long-dead systems. The only reason he could navigate these regions at all was due to the ancient charts provided by the Librarius of Ultramar. That was a hard, harrowing year of hunger and labour, with everyone working just to keep our old vessels running. Yet, they were good years. This will sound strange, but I had never seen a xenos before the exodus. Yes, the Fringe Alliance was a great melding of humanit with three mighty alien polities, but that was all military. The closest I came to true aliens before my world was destroyed was the occasional delegation of three-armed hybrids who loaded the Trade-Magus’ produce shuttles each year. During the exodus, I was in close proximity with xenos of many breeds. There were kroot, who ate raw meat and sweated stinking tar, nekulli who shed spines everywhere and seemed to always speak in shrieks. I shared a quarters with a four-armed hybrid guard called Morl, and I learned Tau from a water class envoy called Por’Vaneh’Kais. There were fights of course, murders and tensions between races. There were rival religions too, and some ships suffered segregation and mild insurrection. But for the most part, there was a kind of uneasy peace. Children were raised, families founded. We were all living so close together it was inevitable. There was a kind of desperation to everything we did; when any moment might be your last, every moment becomes a chance to live. I was with many partners in those times.

Though we only occasionally jumped to the warp, the warp shutters remained down for most portions of the ship. We weren’t missing much; everywhere you looked, there were warp storms frozen like malevolent nebulae. The skies were bruised purple and yellow and black. I’ve never known skies that didn’t look poisoned, but I am told once the skies were black as pitch, with only pinprick stars to light them. Inevitably for this galaxy, we eventually ran into outside forces, reavers and pirates. Homeless exiles in dying ships, these pitiable specimens were known as the dreg fleets; lurking in interstellar space, too afraid to approach the main powers, and not deranged enough to throw their lot in with chaos. These wretches were tragic spectres of what we might become if we failed. Though I felt sorry for them, that did not make them any less dangerous to our convoy.

The dreg ships stole out from hidden positions in a shattered solar system, a great tide of ramshackle vessels hungry to cannibalise our ships and devour the crews. Quilar and the armed ships unleashed ordinance, but much of their weapon capacity had been stripped back to make way for more refugees. Railguns, torpedoes, macro cannons spat silent death, but the vast pirate fleet surged on towards us, its mad cannibal crews hungry for blood. Five to one they outnumbered us in ships, if not in crew, who were mostly non-combatants. I girded myself for battle, and prayed to the four-armed emperor with Morl as we made our way to armsmen muster points across the Hopespear.

Thankfully, we had another defender. The War of the Krork had sent a battlecruiser with us on our pilgrimage to serve as an escort. Where Hopespear was a crude amalgam of alien technologies, the Krork used their innate technological mimicry to synthesise the greatest examples of the allies into something utilitarian, brutal yet somehow beautiful. The Krork had been taciturn, almost ignorant in their silence during the first year, unwilling to communicate with the other ships of the fleet, and keeping to themselves. This changed when the Dreg Fleets attacked. Suddenly, the cruiser came about, engines firing and weapons charging. War roused this beast to action, and within half an hour, the gargantuan battlecruiser interposed itself between the two fleets.

The Dregs filled the vox lines with screamed chanting, desperate cries of hunger, lust and fury. The Krork captain replied in a low, calm rumble, across every channel for all to hear.

++War. You have woken War. War will eat you. ++

I shall remember the message to my dying day, for it cut to something deep and animal in me, the innate fear of the beast. I was thankful that the Krork were our allies. The cruiser was a sight to behold as it cut into the heart of the Dreg fleet. Lances and arcing bolts of lightning ripped through hulls as if they were hot wax on a skillet. Gravity lashes snatched battleships and snapped their spines, as railguns and smart missile barrages swept the void of assault craft and counter ordinance. The Dreg flagship, some ancient battle barge daubed in red and gold, changed course to confront the cruiser, but the savage Krork ship outmatched it. In seven hours of far distant void war, we saw the battle as a series of strobing flashes, many millions of kilometres distant.

When the Krork ship returned to formation, it was unharmed, trailing the wreckage of the vessel it had destroyed behind it like a red wake. I cheered, I could not help myself. My cheers were taken up by every armsman, then every crew member. Across the fleet, we chanted the name of the bemused and bewildered Krork. The War of the Krork do not name their vessels, but after that day the people of the Quilar fleet affectionately named it the Shark, after its vaguely predatory profile. Alas, this was not the only attack we suffered. In the broken cracks between habitable systems, poison and infection festered. In the rust belt of the tomb world of Gryphonne IV, whilst searching for parts to repair our vessels damaged in a particularly painful warp transit, we were ambushed and boarded by scrapcode ghouls; former skitarii infested and twisted by the daemons of Valchocht the Maker. Thousands died, dragged off to be stitched, still living, into horrendous daemon engines. Only the fury of the Krork shock Nobles and Quilar’s Sternguard finally expelled the heinous creatures. Quilar himself took a wound whilst battling a great Soulgrinder which had breached the cargo hold of the Hopespear. We sent landing parties to replenish our food stores on a paradise world dense with vegetation, only to lose hundreds when the living forests devoured them, and the food we did bring back harboured daemonic viruses, which killed many more before the psykers of the fleet isolated and exorcised the putrid nurglitch contagions. We found empty hive worlds, their grand spires filled with cannibal corpses after the last supply ships failed to come and feed them. Others were populated by ritually blinded cultists, who howled till their throats bled that “the Cherub will come and open our real eyes…”. There was a space station filled with administrators chained to their stations like servitors, endlessly scratching at vellum, that piled up uselessly around their feet.

In the desolate Tiamet system, chittering, stupendously violent beasts, all spines and teeth, stole out of burrows hidden beneath the ash dunes. The Hybrids feared these things above all else, and dared not leave the ships throughout our journey through that system. When I sought out Morl the week afterwards, I found him chained up in our chambers, his bulging yellow eyes watering with dread. Once, we encountered a ship as big as a world, a sleek behemoth festooned with fins and crystal domes, like many cephalopod eyes. The ship was like a sculpture, not carved but moulded… grown. Though the ship shimmered with pale, ghostly light, the Krorks advised we not contact it, nor get its attention. I was never told what the ship was, beyond ‘a place of ghosts’. Sometimes, there were forces too terrible for us to fight. Oft times, the warp would vomit up a fleet of daemonships from the Deep Warp. Neither galleon nor squid, the undulating, multi-hued things hurt the eye to behold, and stained the soul to comprehend. Oars, or fins, swirled at their sides, as if imparting motion to the impossible things, whislt fanged cannons licked their lips with rough tongues. When we could not fight, we hid in the dark sides of planets, behind ablative layers of warp shrouding and void shielding, killing all the crew who went insane, for fear their madness might attract the attention of the hellish galleys.

In one system, populated by naught but barren worlds, we discovered a single silver vessel, a queer crescent-shaped probe no bigger than a thunderhawk. Thankfully, the Tau ethereals on board recognised it as a Dragontide sentinel, and we were able to avoid its detection in the radiation bloom of the system’s unstable red giant star. Sometimes we could not hide, and flight was all that was left to us. When the warp-poisoned void whale Varga opened its apocalypse jaws wide, it almost swallowed the whole fleet, before a well-timed barrage of cyclonics set the beast’s belly aflame, giving the seers time to plot an immediate warp translation, snatching the entire fleet from the hungry beast. I lost Morl when, one day in the canteen, a human driven by voices from the warp opened fire on the diners as they laughed and joked. I killed that man myself. Two pulses, turning his head to jelly. Too good for him.

During one particularly gruelling warp transit, the Hopespear burst back into realspace with another ship clinging to its Gellar field. The ship was of Imperial vintage, a pitted and scarred derelict which looked half-chewed, any identifying markings or even regular hull structure torn so badly, it was impossible to tell who the vessel had belonged to. Initially, Quilar assumed it was some warp-tainted flotsam, and the damage to the hull were the ravages of some warp behemoth. However, auspex picked up life forms within the ship, and miraculously, the M’yen seers of the fleet detected no damage to the ship’s Gellar field. Investigation by Quilar’s hand-picked sternguard revealed the truth.

The ship had been a strike cruiser, for an Old Imperial chapter, long thought extinct. But when Quilar’s men discovered the three near-fossilised Astartes in their wan yellow power armour, sealed in the enginerium, it was clear the Lamenters still lived. The three were sorry specimens however, atrophied in their suits, alive only by the suspended animation capabilities of their posthuman biology. When revived, one died after thrashing in his restraints till his desiccated muscles snapped. The second was deranged, and spoke gibberish. Only the third, Belaris, was cogent enough to tell their tale. “The Devourum Nova… we could not destroy them. They changed and ate and built, too fast to overcome. When we lost the bridge… we hatched upon a plan… vengeance. “Techmarine Deichos plunged us into the warp. We took the monsters with us. Destroyed the engines, sealed them off. They took the crew… took my brothers… but they couldn’t escape.”

“The Devourum… where are they now? Are they still aboard? We found nothing,” Quilar said.

The ancient smiled, and split his lips bloody with the effort. “You will find nothing. When the prey was exhausted, the Devourer devoured itself. Body and soul. I do not know what the beasts were, nor what they became… I know only I avenged my brothers…”

Belaris’ last brother died in the night, and he was himself sent to the dreadnaught vaults at his own request.

[Fragment missing.]

On and on this went, every new warp jump bringing us some new challenge, some new harrowing ordeal. Psychuenien on Vandashad’s world, famine, disease, Rak’Gol marauders, more pirates. But onwards Quilar forged, with a righteous certainty only a Son of Guilliman could know. We became inoculated against horror in many ways, with only the worst taint of the warp piercing this shell of bewildered fortitude. Over the years, I advanced, not through martial ability but through my ingrained knowledge of farming and agriculture, memories of my life before the touch of the Bloody Handed God. As so few worlds yielded safe and reliable supplies of food and materiel, we were forced to become inventive. The Krork spread out amongst the fleet, and I helped establish expanded gardens and arcologies. The Krorks had spore-born food sources in abundance, which grew with intense virulence (so much so, one whole ship, the Archemos, was converted into an arboreal vessel filled with all manner of exotic plants and strange red beasts. Much like grox, these red meat things were violent and temperamental, so I used similar techniques of lobotomy and electro-shock collars to make them more docile. Their meat was strange, with the texture of mushrooms and tough pork, and a taste I would charitably call ‘stringent’. But we were starving, and these meals were gods-given to the survivors of the fleet. The kroot we had on board ate these ‘squigs’ as the Krork called them, voraciously. This had the strange side effect of reddening their skin, and making them more violent. Soon enough, only the presence of a Krork Noble allowed the kroot to be tamed.

Slowly but surely, I gained the trust of the krork. Their soldiers were fearsome to behold; a head taller than a space marine, festooned in sealed, overlapping plates of obsidian and ebony hue. Their guns were bigger than my torso, with hands that could engulf my entire head without much effort. Their helmet lenses glowed baleful green, and when they stared at you, it was like being a rodent, pinned upon a dissectors block. But as my efforts to spread the krork crops across the fleet bore fruit, their attitude thawed. One of the war-nobles, Malgrotha, even removed his helmet in my presence, revealing the scarred green flesh of a cunning, merciless face. His little eyes were red, his tusks filed short in his square maw.

Eventually, I was granted leave to visit the Shark itself. Inside, I felt like a child in a world of giants. Everything was scaled for the krork; monolithic, with harsh and blunt lines. Everytihng was tightly regimented, every krork a soldier, with even their farmers armed with powered falchions as long as I was tall. I wandered through chambers filled with incomprehensible technologies; crackling arcs of green lightning jumping between oscillating spheres, pistons and endlessly complex levers in constant motion.

The krork could not tell me how this technology worked, mostly because it simply did. Their engineers built without schematics or plans; what they required, they built. Before I could delve further, I was granted an audience in the central core of the Shark, past cordens guarded by ever-larger krork specimens, larger than ogryns, mounting weaponry which would shame a main battle tank. In the central sanctum, I was sprayed with counter-septic, doused with purifiers and unguents, before the doors sealed behind me with a hiss.

It was in this clean room I met with the War of the Krork’s true leaders. They were two in number, seated on twinned dais at the centre of the spherical hall.** The walls were embedded with viewscreens and hololiths depicting scenes from across the fleet, across the galaxy. I had expected the leaders of the Krork to be monstrous examples of their sub-species; vast as titans with tusks as long as men. But these creatures were small, smaller than a three summer old child. Their pointed features and long noses put me in mind of imps or sprites, spiteful folkloric spirits imbued with mischief. But these creatures were not mischievous, they were wise, ancient eyes that pierced with the weight of millennia of knowledge. Their heads were bloated, heads plumbed into the ship’s systems by suckling cables. When they spoke, it was with a psychic might which belied their frailty. When the two spoke in their odd echoing unison, you listened. I had been selected to be one of their ambassadors to the rest of the fleet, to better understand those they protected. I was not sure why this was so necessary, for they were clearly potent psykers, who could place their thoughts into anyone they chose. I suspected they were simply lonely creatures, in need of company. On the occasions I spoke with the Two, they were always distant, trailing off into silence as if interrupted by some far removed voice, as if they were just a part of a larger choral dialogue I was not entirely privy to. I confess, I barely understood their conversations or their concepts.

I think they wanted me to know what they were, and why they existed. I provide an example below. At the time, I had no comprehension: “Defenders first. Garrison soldiers for a war without end. We who were castellans grew insane when the masters of the keep abandoned the post. Hold the fort, man the barricades… it is much to ask of your children… it is all too easy to wander in dark places.

“There’s always a siege you see, human. From the beginning there was a siege, and every generation since; the castles change, the garrisons too, and the hordes at the gate, but it hasn’t changed until now. Now, the final storming has come, and the walls are coming down. What is left but to usher the helpless to the inner sanctum, whilst the heir apparent saddles his chosen swords, and sallies forth from the main gate? The shadow and the clown set us a task, but it is the Heir apparent who will save us or damn us. He must find…”

The Two paused there, peering off into infinity in their infuriating manner.

“What gate? What sanctum? Is this something to do with the signal? Who must they find? What do you know?” I begged them. I had to know more, but they spoke no further that day. I could not tell you truthfully how long our fleet journeyed across the underbelly of the galaxy. Warp transit and time dilation pollute any accurate telling of the march of years. But decades, many decades seems correct enough a reckoning. I’m no chrono-mystic or wyrd, so I can only give you what I felt had passed.

My sober, lucid descriptions of these wonders are inadequate to convey the maddening fgue which pervaded the entire fleet. The trip was like a journey through a half-remembered dream which simply would not end. Little surprised us, for this was the galaxy of nightmares. Of course there were worlds that wept, and stars that burned with churning, cursing faces; that was what happened in the land of Nod. One day, upon Archemos, I strolled through the woods beneath the great crystal dome which crowned the dorsal section of the ship. As I strolled, I looked up at the skies, at the countless warp storms which poisoned the once-beautiful sky. I looked, and I saw shapes, moving across surface of the storms. They were humanoid figures, wrestling and fighting in slow, exaggerated motions, immaterial blades clashing silently as impossible lightning lit the roiling thunderclouds with multi-hued light.

I asked the Nocturne seers who travelled with us what it meant. They wept as they told me. “The siege of Cadia has begun. The brothers are making their final assault on their kin’s stronghold. The warp sees them. Their strife stirs it, for they fight at the heart of the weeping Eye. Everyone bears witness now…”

I marvelled at the sight, as did many of my friends across the fleet, but it was too big, to momentous for us to comprehend. Even the Two on the Shark were but cogs in this delusion machine, this war between quarrelling gods. I was less even than that, I was but fodder.

Unbeknownst to us then, all the while we sailed, we were being hunted. As we skipped across the warp, we began to lose ships, the stragglers and minnows at the rear vanished with each warp translation. Now loses are inevitable when you traverse hell swathed in a thin bubble of reality, but this was different. It was systematic, continual.

But as we neared our destination, the hunters became more overt, for the warp was beginning to lose its hold over realspace; we began to regain our minds, which was intolerable for the thing which made sport of us. It was during one of our final warp ransits that we all felt the reality quake. Every vessel was effected. Something… colossal swiped at us from the warp. Automated safeguards came into effect across the fleet, and we were, almost as one, dumped back into realspace with a screaming jolt. There were no stars, no planets in the interstellar space we found ourselves, lightyears from any resupply. Every warp engine of the fleet seemed to be broken by this unexpected jolt, and our enginseers and mechanics set about their tasks with reckless, desperate haste, for if we could not fix them, we would be trapped on the slow path. We could not survive ten thousand years of sub-light transit. Whilst our ships were becalmed, we were trapped.

Which was always their plan. They came from the warp as pus from a gangrenous wound. Daemonships by the thousand. Some like ghostly galleys, others more mollusc than battleship. This was the fleet of the Shadowmaster, the hunter of innocence. Amongst the daemon fleet, our scryers recognised the mutilated machine spirits of many ships known to them… … each ship was part of one of the Fringe Alliance refugee fleets. The abominations were murdering our brethren. We were to be next.

At the centre was a living fortress of tiered corpses, woven together with thorny daemon limbs and lead. There were turrets and towers, ziggurats and domes. To look upon this Citadel of Lead was to feel a bone-deep dread which could not be explained. Somehow, I knew the Dark Master of this ship, as if his name had been whispered into my crib before I even knew what words were. Everyone else had the same feeling, for they seemed, as one to whimper his name.

(I will not utter the name in this account, for names, even written, have power. My interrogators wish me to be utterly candid, but there are some things which must remain unsaid.) As the momentous daemon fleet approached, we quailed before them. I saw visions of a shadowy king, serviced by ten half-daemon handmaidens, tethered to him by branching umbilical cords, all channelled into his navel. The daemon things would swell with child then through their navels their terrible progeny, unborn, would pass into the belly of the all-consuming shadow squatting upon his ossified throne. Amidst the perfect blackness of his countenance, a wide, white fanged grin split him open, and from that mouth spilled terrors beyond description. Something vst perched upon his shoulders, something too big to grasp. A ten-horned horror which seemed to rise from every angle, talons and eyes peeling open, stripping off my flesh to peek at the naked soul beneath. When I screamed, it was with the voice of half a billion fellow mortals, cringing and cowering before the madness.

As we cowered in deluded madness, we were fortunate that the krork and the Astartes did not. The krork had their psionic war field shrouded them in gleaming green halos. The space marines had but their will, and the hatred to fire their bellies. As daemons boarded every vessel, the krork fought them with equal fury. Purging flame and flashing sword were the weapons to fight conceptual foes; ancient weapons against ancient foes. The enginseers, sealed in their warded engine rooms, fought on to reactivate the warp drives, even as the daemons hammered against the gates. Quilar purged the Hopespear deck by deck, room by room. He led a phalanx of Tau-enhanced terminators and centurions on a relentless march through the ship, as his grav-gun equipped drones sped through the ship like hunting dogs driving game, their empty minds impervious to daemon assaults as they crushed the putrid horrors, corralling them in the cavernous mess hall. Here, the daemons were contained, for this was where they had killed the majority of the mortal crew, their souls like a beacon. But ringed by warded-battlesuits piloted by the unbreakable minds of Astartes pumping endless munitions into their writhing mass, the invading daemons found themselves trapped.

This was when the Melded launched their attacks. Thousands of hybrids and purestrains flooded the mess, climbing over the shoulders of the posthumans to reach their prey. Lit by the conflagration of a hundred purging flamers, the genestealers and daemons fought claw to claw, fang to fang, until there was nothing left but burning shreds of meat, gobbets of daemon bile fizzing and spitting where it fell. Yet, no matter how many daemons they killed, our defenders could not defeat a fleet of thousands. Tides of daemons continued to pour into our ships. Huddled in our warded refuges, we mortals shivered in the darkness as the slaughtersongs of devils echoed through our adopted homes.

The Shark fought like a beast of legend, tearing through daemon vessel after daemon vessel. Its inexhaustible weapons fired constantly in an expanding halo of fire and debris from its vanquished foes. The War Field blazed about them, banishing any daemons which got near. Like a bullet wreathed in vermillion fire, the krork cruiser plunged into the heart of the daemon fleet, on a course for the Citadel of Lead itself. Teleport attacks flared, before the ship plunged at a fraction of c into the fortress of malignancy. This sent the Shadowlord’s forces temporarily reeling. The Shark’s sacrifice was the only thing which made the daemon assaults falter, giving our mechanics and warp seers time to fix our warp drives and Gellar fields. With one final ceremoour remaining vessels; a minnow slipping through the fangs of a whale’s great closing jaws. What happened aboard the possessed ship, I cannot say for sure. I had a nightmare about it sometime later, so vivid I fear it may have been the truth, distilled into a warp-borne psychic memory. I dreamt of green giants wrestling with gargantuan horrors, as much cephalopod as machine, avian and mammalian as much as they were mineral. The giants tore through screeching ligaments of worms, spiny beasts tall as towers. Green giants against red winged giants, goblin sprites haloed by fire, purging undulating meat columns and purging capering purple hermaphrodites. And at the heart of the storm, an armoured giant with a powered claw and a pulsing energy glaive, battling a shadow cast by a goliath wall of ever shifting matter. The green ones could not prevail, but they could hurt the horrors, and make them squeal. All the while, the warriors chanted their battle cries.

“For War’s sake we fight, never beaten, never fallen. War is life, war in the blood! War! War! WAR! WAAAAAR! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I woke in a cold sweat, the scorched handprint of a krork blistering the skin across by back…

[Fragment unreadable]

-of course, the next warp jump was the last time we ventured into that twisted hellscape. Once we entered within half a lightyear of Iacob’s signal, the warp seemed inaccessible entirely, and we were forced to venture forth as fast as our plasma drives would allow us. Battered and violated, with only half our complement of crew, we limped onwards to our destiny. Without the krork ship, the squigs aboard the Archemos became ever harder to control, and as years went on, food and supplies dwindled. Makeshift ship repairs were undone by the rigours of continual plasma burn. But on we forged. There was nothing for us behind, and only the signal ahead. The seers were oddly calm, the warp’s veil thickened in this region mysteriously. Some found the phenomenon unnerving, but most were just glad the daemons had stopped shrieking at them.

One year. Two. Three, four turned into five. You cannot adequately comprehend the colossal distances between worlds until you have attempted a sub-light burn. It is a special kind of harrowing; there is no enemy to fight but hunger, cold and maddening blankness.

Inertia more than anything crried us on. Quilar was wounded, his soul cut deeply by a bloodletter’s hellblade. In his last hours, he would only grant an audience to the Lamenter survivor, who we learned was once some chaplain of the old Imperial Adeptus. Maybe Quilar wanted a confessor? Maybe he wanted a friend to speak of long lost years of glory and might? Or perhaps he, like most old men, simply did not want to die alone?

When the last Lamenter emerged, we knew Quilar was dead, his geneseed sealed in a cylinder of armourglass. Six years into the journey through the featureless black, we encountered something else. Black against the swirling pollution of the warp storm skies, the fleet of crescent-shaped ships was unmistakably Necron. They simply appeared, as if they had merely slowed down upon detecting us. If I am honest, our defence was perfunctory, for the fight had truly left us at that point. When the living metal giants appeared on the Hopespear’s bridge, we knew there were so few left who could pose a challenge to these ancient aliens. Their very presence made me feel ill, as if their exuded a horrendous wrongness that poisoned their every action. “Your vessels have been scanned… assessed… evaluated. The taint of the Dissolution does not cling to you,” said their Phaeron in a cold, artificial voice. “You are mad wretches for certain, but I believe you approach with no ill-intent.”

With that, to our collective astonishment, the Necron then reached up, and removed its head.

Beneath, there was a face laced with thin lines of circuitry, which was clearly, impossibly, a human woman.

“You are not Necron…” I said dumbly.

“The Necrons are dead, for the most part,” she agreed. “But the Pariah lineage of the Necrontyr endure.” As if reading the disbelief in our faces, she smiled. “There is much you do not understand. Iacob sent us out to scout for any further refugee fleets. Come with us to T’sara’noga, and we can explain.” We did not know what to make of these creatures. Fear of the necron was long ingrained in our mortal hindbrains, but the necrontyr seemed different; passionate, animated and oddly human. In the end, we had little choice but to allow ourselves to be taken by the necron, led through theor Dolmen gates towards the heart of the grand, lightyear-spanning null field matrix. A journey of decades was completed in minutes, and suddenly we were confronted with a sight beyond reckoning. Millions of vessels, hundreds of fleets of ramshackle craft, all filing towards a grand sphere, big as a blue giant star plated with silver and gold. Light streamed from the vast… portals in its flanks. This was the last bastion, T’sara’noga, the mad god’s skin, the sphere of D’son, the Place Outside. The star cage. It was a sight of such sublime majesty, I cried as I beheld it. With trepidation we approached this sphere. This would be our refuge, the place from which we would ride out Apocalypse. How could we have known then that [excerpt ends]

• (The hybrids of the Realm of Fathers preferred this term to hybrid. Though I never could tell what offended a melded, as they were always so quiet and rarely perturbed. The broodmind was to blame I suspect.)

• • (There were always two, I later learned. Morkar and Gorkul were always their names. Every krork ship had them, and they all spoke to one another via the ‘War Field’, which I believe functioned very similarly to the genestealer broodmind.)