Kharn
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Khârn the Betrayer is a famous/infamous Khorne Berzerker who revels in bloodshed, he's the third most powerful champion of Khorne second only to the World Eaters Primarch Angron, who is second only to Doombreed. As is likely evident, Kharn truly enjoys beautiful bloodshed. And it is almost always he who is doing the shedding, caring little for those caught in the hilarious and fulfilling crossfire, he does not care at all. And so he has cultivated a wholly deserved reputation as a teamkilling fucktard (in the Warhammer 40K rules, this is represented by assigning any close combat attacks he makes that miss the enemy to friendly units instead). Despite him being a blood crazed fiend who might decapitate and mutilate the guy next to him, he is quite frankly a delightful fellow to be around. Despite his horrid reputation, Kharn is quite actually a deep minded and fun loving sort of bloke in or outside of glorious, exalted combat. A truly rare breed of Superhuman, daemonically enhanced abomination to nature who just wants to have wild and heretical times with his friends. He does not care whether you are a Traitor Guardsman or fellow Chaos Space Marine , unless of course you are an effete pansy who worships Slaanesh or you are the enemy where he'll kill you the first chance he gets.
Before Horus Heresy Kharn served as Primarch Angron's Equerry where during that time he was able to keep himself under control from his primarch's raging bouts and Tourrete-sydrome like outbursts, he was also less bloodthirsty and less prone to rage back then, of course, by the standards of regular Space Marines, he, like the rest of his legion was still an unstable, murderous Barbarian, second only to Clancy Brown's character in the first Highlander film. Although, in comparison to what he has become, he was rather tame. During his time as a loyalist, he served as a marine from the World Eaters legion but after Horus Heresy he, like the rest of his legion, become a freelancer of sorts and so he serves Noone and Khorne. In fact, Noone is the only human in existence that Kharn wont kill, because like Kharn, Peter is just a swell guy.
Anecdotes About Khârn
As I always say, Khârn the Betrayer was pretty fun to be around, and contrary to popular belief he actually had a sense of humor as well. Probably the best example was in the middle of the campaign during a sweeping of an Imperial Guard command post, with Khorne Berserkers and our Red Rivers company marching directly into the defensive fire. The closer we got, the more apparent it became that the only thing holding the Guardsmen together was a grizzled looking Commissar in full uniform, one gun turned on us and another firing on any of his men who looked like running.
Khârn was at the tip of the assault, and so he got to the Commissar first, plucking the screaming officer up by the neck and holding him over his head.
Then, out of nowhere one of the other berserkers grabs the Commissar's legs and roars "MAKE A WISH!". Well, as you can imagine everyone on both sides forgets about the fight, and watches Khârn and this other Khorne-worshiping marine just start pulling on this Commissar at both ends, the old man screaming out oaths and curses like you wouldn't believe! You could almost hear the sound of flesh tearing and bone snapping over the cheering.
Then, Khârn just let go. Totally not expecting it and pulling with all his might, the Khorne Berserker just falls backwards and starts tumbling with the near dead Commissar into a damaged hellhound, his armor grating off it and sparking!
Well, after the explosion we all turned back to Khârn, who had managed to keep a hold of the Commissar's fancy hat. Ol' Khârn put it on, and damned if it wasn't the funniest thing any of us had ever seen... till he turned to us and bellowed "I'M THE NEW COMMISSAR" at us.
They tell me five thousand traitor guardsmen died that day before someone could take that hat off him.
What a kidder!
Contrary to popular belief, Khârn the Betrayer was a pretty fun guy to be around during a blood-letting campaign. Sure, he'd get so wrapped up in the blood-lust that he'd butcher friend and foe alike but it's not like you didn't get a fair warning from his name or anything.
I served in the traitor guardsman legions known as the Red Rivers, because we got sent in first to soften up the positions and you could see our progress by the red river of our blood. I kept running into Khârn during one of the bigger scourging campaigns, and he wasn't dickish about the whole him being a space marine and me being killed by flashlights or angry glances at all.
The first time I saw him, I was on perimeter patrol at one of our forward outposts, we'd just overrun a Sororitas non-militant chapel, and I was watching from afar when Khârn strides up, cool as you like holding the largest stone pillar I've ever seen. I turned back and the whole chapel was falling down. He'd just ripped the thing right out and was carrying it on his shoulders!
Then, if that wasn't insane enough he went and hefted this whole pillar through the air, and crushed the entire congregation of Slaaneshii, all in one go.
I was just standing there dumbfounded when Khârn looked at me, as though noticing me for the first time and yet not surprised by my presence at all. He held his palm out, and I obliged him a high five. He'd earned it.
Shattered every bone in my arm doing it though.
Nice guy, that Khârn.
The second time I crossed paths with Khârn was in a later stage in the campaign. We were besieging one of the major hives of the planet, and I tell you what that place was locked up tighter than a Dark Eldar's pants. My commander, Oxlor the Vilest, was stuck in an argument with some idiot leader of some group of Death Guard. You could see the smell it was so bad. I could tell Oxlor wasn't happy, since everyone knows the Death Guard's answer to everything is to just walk at it and watch your bits fly off. Not so good for us soft and squishy guys.
Out of nowhere, this big hand grabs our commander by the shoulder and just hefts him aside, three whole trenches back where he rebounds off a basilisk. The crew was so shocked they fired off a round on a horrible trajectory, and the shell streaked high into the sky.
Khârn the Betrayer just dusts himself down, and then picks back up what he had been holding. Now, I'm no techpriest and I never will be, but I know a nuclear warhead when I see it. I don't know where he got it.
No one says anything, so The Betrayer just punches the Plague marine in the face, and stuffs the warhead into the leaking mess of his stomach while he was still reeling.
No run up, no preparation. He just fucking throws the other marine into the air at the hive. For a moment it actually looks like he's thrown the warp-damned fool OVER the hive, but as he flies over the top the basilisk shell comes down and spears him through the whole hive! There's a low boom noise, the ground shakes, and then the whole hive IMPLODES!
Everything clears, and Khârn looks at me, and I feel about one foot tall. I don't know if he recognized me, but he leans down and whispers. Khârn WHISPERS to me.
"I was trying to hit the Emperor's Children on the other side" he confides in me, and then nudges me as though it's supposed to be our little secret.
I was in traction for a MONTH.
I've been fairly insistent to you readers out there that Khârn the Betrayer was a pretty fun guy to be around. I know he gets a bad rap for the whole 'slaughtering his own allies' thing, but unless you've been there after a battle with him you don't really appreciate how much he strives to please his chaos god.
It was after one of our many conflicts that the Red Rivers Infantry were preparing to march on to our next destination. Never mind that it was half the planet away, we as traitor guard didn't get transport vehicles. So as you can imagine when someone declared they'd found an Imperial Drop-ship in working condition everyone clamored and fought to get a free ride to our next engagement.
Knowing full well I was too far away to get on the ship, I stayed with some of my fellow traitors at the battlefield. I'd seen Khârn after the battle, and as soon as we'd gotten our marching orders he was picking up corpses and putting them down elsewhere. This took an hour before he was satisfied, and seeing an audience he happily led us up onto a hill as the drop-ship flew a pass over the top of us, probably to gloat. Proudly, Khârn gestured to the battlefield, and then waved up at the drop-ship with his other hand. I peered down the hill, and realized he'd arranged the bodies to make out words, so many killed to form:
On your drop ship hull
I planted a melta bomb
Blood for the Blood God
It was at that point the drop-ship erupted in a violent plume, and crashed down on top of the haiku. Roaring in a cheer, we lifted Khârn up together and made to carry him to the next battlefield as a sign of our appreciation and devotion to his art.
We got about five paces before our spines liquefied, but Khârn didn't hold it against us for trying.
Seriously, what a guy.
I've always said Khârn the Betrayer is a heck of a guy in spite of his reputation. But even I have often wondered just which side of him was more prevalent. The great guy or the butcher?
I got my answer when The Red Rivers sacked an Adeptus Mechanicus primary research facility. Aided by renegade tech priests we opened the bulkhead doors of the Head Magos's research chamber, and ended his life. In this room was a huge throne that the Magos used, a massive collection of wires around a cold metal frame used to interface with the facility.
Grinning, a guardsman jumped onto the throne and yelled "HEY GUYS! I'M THE EMPEROR!". We barely had time to chuckle before hearing a loud clang behind us.
Behind us stood Khârn, his axe having slipped from his grasp as he stared at us. We weren't sure what was happening till frothing blood began to spill out his helmet.
With a roar of anger that drowned out our own cries Khârn rushed the throne, ripping it out of the wall over his head as the guardsman remained sitting in it screaming helplessly. With a cry of "REVENGE!" Khârn drove the entire throne through the floor, utterly destroying it and the guardsman in an explosion of gore. We ran.
I was too slow and the other guys sealed the bulkhead behind them, leaving me alone and cowering as Khârn advanced. He was almost upon me when he stopped and burst out laughing at me.
"APRIL FOOLS!"
Rattled but relieved, I burst into an exhausted laugh at the clever gag. Suitably pleased, Khârn slapped me on the back and praised me for being such a good sport. The Tech Priests tell me they've never seen a bulkhead breached by a human body before, but that's Khârn for you. Heck of a guy.
It was a normal day, just like any other, almost. Commissars were shooting their men, etc. But there I was, with the Red Rivers, sitting on some shithole of a bunker, when we just heard this loud crash. Of course, we thought it was an attack, it being in the middle of the damn night and all. A few of the guardsmen jumped next to the bunker wall, while I hit the ground. Suddenly, another crash was heard, this time closer. It sounded like it came from the inside of the bunker.
“IT’S MY DAY OFF!” Khârn spoke as he broke the reinforced concrete wall, smashed a few guardsman directly in his path, and ran off. I didn’t know what had happened until a bit later.
Across the land, several hundred kilometers out, lived a farmer, who took care of his heard of bronto-cattle. When he awoke this day, he grabbed his boots, put on his hat, got his tools, and stepped out the door, where several hundred dinosaur sized cattle were flipped on their backs with their insides scatter around the field. Carved in each one with what looked like a rusty fence post was the words “IT’S MY DAY OFF”.
Blood of the people, skin of the innocent, bones of the pure, all laid out in a complex pattern. The cultists performed the exact ritual, syllable to movements, all in accordance with whatever Tzeentch had wished. Skies were darkening, wildlife fleeing, storms that shouldn’t happen this time of year started appearing. Then, out from the bushes, Khârn leapt, slamming a cultist into the arrangement, and instantly turning him into liquefied pulp. Across the land, a sound of a giant record stopping was heard.
A single cultist watched as Khârn continued on his way, oblivious to the ritual. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that”. He was then instantly destroyed.
The commissar watched the mountains surrounding him. Fortified in his city, waiting for the forces of Chaos to come, all he needed was to wait until- “ENEMY SPOTTED. FIRE ON COORDINATES” A voice screamed through his earpiece. The basilisks quickly responded, firing at all the coordinates shouted through the comm. units. Eventually, they exhausted their ammo. The Commissar looked on the mountains, expecting to see the ruined army of Chaos. Instead, he saw nothing but splintered trees and rocks, and the craters from the barrage, which seemed to spell out “IT’S MY DAY OFF!”
You know, being a part of a Chaos Campaign isn't just one great big conga line of decadence and killing like they probably tell you in the cults. There's lots of long moments where you're sitting in some shattered ruin waiting for the sorcerers to finish divining the next place to move. During these times I try to find whatever books I can and just read a bit. Sometimes you just get propaganda, but occasionally you find something someone has hidden away from all eyes. Heretical stuff.
I found this one book in the city of Majoris Prime, bound in black leather with a big funny looking cross on it. It was full of verses and stories about a single God who did a lot of crazy shit to his followers, then had a son and killed him. It was like reading about Tzeentch without the tentacles.
That was about the time Khârn found me, apparently bored with beating the Slaanesh worshippers. He asked me what I was reading, and unable to quite explain it I passed the book to him. The berserker flicked through the first few pages idly, then as though captivated kept flicking through rapidly, head turning as he ran down the pages at lightning speeds as though possessed... I waited for him to say something, but for the longest time he just seemed entranced.
At last he looked up, staring not at me but into the distance as if struck by a revelation. I was scared, more than usual.
"I..." he started, "I have completely forgotten how to read."
Then he dared me to eat the book. A great time was had by all.
Down time between raids can be pretty boring, especially in the case of the Convent Complex of Decapitus IV, where the victims kill themselves before you get to them, and the crazies have nothing to torture. The Slaanesh guys are the worst. Without something to toy with they get all antsy and bother everyone.
The Red Rivers had deployed to a hillside nearby the complex, mostly just taking stock of our own dead's gear and handing it out to one another. Most of us were Khorne boys, but there were always a few that had to be different.
I was doing a quick search for more gear when I heard a series of almighty squeals, and a pair of bodies hurtled through the trees to my feet. I didn't have time to do anything before a head also came flying out and struck me in the face with an almighty crack. Broke my nose and knocked me dizzy.
When my head cleared I found Khârn standing over me, with a small beret on. In one hand he had a paint brush, the other a little board with paints on it (though they were all just shades of red).
"SORRY ABOUT THAT" Khârn yelled, much to my chagrin with the headache and all. He explained that he was painting, and the two fellows (Slaanesh, typical) had been giving him critique when all he wanted was a bit of peace. Once I'd gotten my bearings, I stood up and he showed me his work.
"Khârn it... it looks like a painting of my eyes?" We shared a deep stare for a moment, then Khârn looked back to his work with a sigh.
"I WAS TRYING TO DRAW A DUCK"
The Annual Red Rivers costume party is more than just a traditional excuse to get drunk and invite some Daemonettes over, at least to me and those few of us who lived through last years: it will forever serve as yet another shining example of how Kharn's just a great guy to party with.
There we were, in the middle of fun. The disco light was going, and we had an entire (formerly) Imperial planet all to ourselves to get dressed up and destroy in a fest of bad techno music. Everyone had shown up, it seemed, and even Abaddon was fairly relaxed; he waited a whole three hours before killing the DJ, and we were all drunk enough at this point to not mind the smell wafting over from the plague marine contingent, who spent most of the evening moping over the fact none of the daemonettes would dance with them.
As I'd said, the party was in full swing when all of a sudden there was a horrible scream of rage, and then in through the window came everyone's favorite party guy, Khârn. He'd painted his armor all pink, and he'd ripped shreds of carapace off something to make a crude tail coming off his back. In the window he came, and landed squarely on the Daemonette I'd spent the last half hour chatting up, crushing her to a pulp and covering me in a spray of bits. He then proceeded to stand there for the next eight hours of the party, ignoring any and all attempts to lure him into conversation, or to get off the daemonette, who was still half alive after being crushed.
I was kind of despondent after that, and spent the rest of the night drinking while Kharn spent the rest of the night standing still. Finally, just before we were about to dim the lights, Khârn took in a deep breath, and in a tone of horror and fear, shouted, "LOOK OUT, SLAANESHI WHORE!"
The entire room burst into laughter. Man, what a kidder.
"WHERE IS MY EQUERRY?!" Angron's roaring voice echoed throughout the ship, buckling two bulkheads and killing an astropath within the 'anger zone'. The World Eater's Primarch stormed through the corridors with his head held high, smashing it through several ornate archways as his feet battered and dented the floor with each step like the beating of a war drum.
Captain Khârn of the Fifth Assault Company, Equerry of the World Eaters had been admiring the ornate workings of a dreadnought sarcophagus, a low sigh issuing forth from his helmet as he heard his lord approaching. With a thunderous crash, Angron threw his weight against the loudly snoring construct, sending it bowling into a nearby row of its fellows, knocking them all about like skittles.
"TREACHERY! BLOOD! TRAITORS!" Angron screamed, flecks of spittle splattering all over the equerry's armor, "I'LL HAVE MY REVENGE! IN BLOOD! I'LL KILL HIS FAMILY! ALL OF THEM!"
"What's wrong, my lord?" Khârn asked, his voice low as to not startle his already over-stimulated commander.
Angron thrust a small plastcrete cube in front of the Captain's face, three little movable rows covered in colored squares. Even if it weren't practically being crammed up his nose, Khârn could clearly make out the shapes of Angron's armored fingers forced into every tile.
"WHO MADE THIS?! I WANT TO EAT THEIR SKULL AND LINE MY BED WITH THEIR BONES! BLOOD!" Angron screamed again, utterly soaking Khârn head to toe in spittle.
"I AM AWAKE?! IS IT TIME TO BATTLE?!" One of the dreadnoughts cried out, the sarcophagus merely wobbling on its side without being connected to its proper frame, as Angron and the Tech-priests continued screaming at everything.
"And that" Khârn the Betrayer spoke to his audience of Red Rivers infantrymen, as he ineffectually plinked a skull full of blood against his mouthpiece and spilled it all down his front, "is why I decided to start killing everyone"
There were victory celebrations, that much I can remember. Then the blood and other body fluids flowed.
I woke up on some busted old bed in the remains of what was the Planetary Governor's palace, my blood-and-filth encrusted shirt half-draped out a nearby window. My head was ringing and as I groaned and rolled to my left, I came eye to eye with what I thought was one of those Sororitas. For a moment my heart skipped a few beats.
It all came back slowly. She was one of those holy ladies once, but she realized she liked burning and cutting things more than actually praying. Now she was just like me, only with more tattoos to Khorne and a rusty nail put through her lip.
"Hey there beast" that fallen lady grinned, before kissing me on the cheek and giving me a big ol' scar in the process with her 'jewelery', "You guys were phenomenal"
"'You guys'?" I groaned out, whilst rubbing my cheek. It was then I became aware of a shuffling behind me, and hurriedly I rolled over.
There was Khârn, still in full armor, reading a newspaper that was a week old, a cigar jammed in his helmet's respirator.
"Great fight." the fallen sister remarked.
Khârn glanced up from his newspaper and stared at me. After a very long moment, he put out his fist. I did the same, and as we brought our fists together, we both shouted "RESPECT KNUCKLES!" as I felt my entire arm shatter.
Despite all the stories and rumors of him slaughtering his own men, Khârn was actually a fun guy to be around.
I remember a game he would play. "Toss the guardsmen" it was called. Simple game really. You basically picked up a guardsmen tied to a pole and tried to throw him as far as you could into a field of big pointy metal spikes. Whoever threw the farthest would win. Khârn encouraged me to give it a shot and despite my misgivings about how weak I was, the big guy talked as if he believed I was the best person for it. So not wanting to disappoint him (and also figuring "Why the hell not?") I gave it a go. Not too surprising, I was too weak for the game and only managed to lift the pole (and the guardsmen tied to it) up just enough to have both fall on top of me. At first the Chaos marines started to laugh, well at least some of them did, the others made loud grunting noises that sounded like they were trying to loosen some phlegm.
Khârn then walks up to me and says "Here, let me show you how it's done.", and proceeds to grab the pole. He takes a step back and launches it into the air. It keeps getting higher and higher and higher. It continues its accent into the sky until eventually; we lose sight of it and just assume that it landed in some random location. As I’m beginning to stand, up alarms go off. We hear from some random cultist that some random regiment from the Imperial guard is attacking us. I get my gear and run into position. I run into a trench and begin to watch for any movement. It takes only a few minutes before I begin to see guardsmen charging towards us. The Khornite cultists and marines do their thing. Screaming “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!” while they hack and bludgeon the loyalists into bloody chunks.
Now, during this, I become aware that Khârn has been standing next to me the whole time. He does nothing but stand perfectly still, neither looking at me nor saying a word. Now during my little space out, the sound of a Baneblade heavy tank approaching us reminds me that I was in the midst of a battle. As I see it get closer and closer to us, I begin to slightly freak out as to how I’m gonna possibly deal with that. The thing stops to aim and proceeds to blow up a group of Khornite berserkers and cultists. Now absolutely terrified, I attempt to run for better cover but find myself paralyzed with fear (along with a need to find a clean pair of pants). Khârn then gets on one knee; rests his hand on my shoulder, points to the Baneblade and says, “You’re going to love this”. Then a most peculiar sound catches my ear. I hear a slight whistling sound, like a basilisk shell falling back to earth. Khârn then points to the sky and sure enough I see a faint object falling toward us. I take it for a shell at first, but then I realize that there would be more if the loyalists were launching an artillery strike. So ruling that out, I continue to stare at it. It gets closer and closer until I can make out its shape slightly. To my amazement, it’s the very same guardsmen tied to the pole from before. He continues to fall, getting faster and faster. Finally against all odds he actually hits the Baneblade and penetrates the armor! Now I’m not sure what exactly did it, and I do have some ideas, but whatever the case was, the tank explodes. The shrapnel and debris go flying and rip several guardsmen (a quite a few cultists as well) to shreds. Khârn turns his head to me and says in the calmest voice, “And THAT is how it’s done.” He jumps out the trench and charges toward the enemy.
Every single one of them died.
Fun guy, that Khârn.
Khârn the Betrayer is a pretty surprising guy, he pretty well known for it, but most of the time people ignore the humorous side of these outburtss of temporary insanity.
One time, after overrunning a refugee camp that hadn't been evacuated in time we decided to engage in some party games to relieve the monotony of senseless slaughter: spin the prisoner, throw the prisoner, shoot the prisoner, prisioner of fortune etc. Now after we blink when one of them gets nailed by a 100 yard headshot from a lasgun. This is pretty impressive considering the general state of most of my regiment’s lasguns. Lately I've taken to just throwing mine at the enemy and finding a corpse to hide under if required to use it in any kind if defensive fashion.
Anyways the ace yells "Wooo! One shot!"
So, the ace is getting high-fives cheers when Khârn appears behind him. He picks up the lasgun from the ground, and throws into a group of loyalists and he overloaded it and it blows them off the face of the planet
"WOOO!" he yells, fist in the air. "ONE SHOT!"
The guy’s priceless I tell ya. Priceless.
You know what the worst thing about besieging a hive for the Ruinous Gods is? It's not being forced to run at the hive so your bodies pile up high enough so your uncaring Traitor Astartes types can climb up you (and boy, when you're pinned under a pile of your dead comrades don't you ALWAYS get an itch?), no it's the waiting.
We were into the sixth month of the Draxian Persecution. Hive Draxia Primary was this pretty huge hive that had somewhere along the line hopped onto the backside of a mining facility and never gotten off, burying halfway into this huge mountain that tried to race to the top. No biggy for the Red Rivers. They were going to hold us back until a small crack appeared in the defences and then send us in to die in horrible droves.
The Khorne guys in the army didn't take so well to that, and neither did Khârn. Big fella got really antsy after about the second minute of the siege, and the ball of yarn just wasn't working the way it used to when it came to distracting him.
So we're just waiting for something to happen and Khârn grabs a bunch of us, and asks us politely to come with him. After screaming a little due to his polite request (he had charts about what he was going to do to the entire planet if we didn't. I don't know where he got the stationary), about fifty of the Rivers joined his party to ascend the Draxia Spire-Mountain.
After ten days, three dares of "I bet you can't jump that gap", an avalanche caused by Khârn punching a mountain goat and almost all of us dying in horrible ways, we finally reached the summit of the mountain. Flat on top was that summit almost eerily so... like it had been hacked off by someone with a large axe.
Anyway, we get there and what does Khârn do? Breaks out the marbles. I don't know, I don't know where he keeps getting these things. He challenges the last four of us to a game, and since we had nothing better to do we had a run of it.
Three more fatalities later and it was clear I was going to win. Khârn just didn't have the patience for marbles. He could see my smiling and in return nodded his helmeted head as if to say "Just watch THIS shot, Smug McSmuggy" ... shortly before screaming "TRICK SHOT" and hurling his sole marble down the side of the mountain.
We stood there in silence and watched as the marble plinked from sight, and a rather large amount of debris took its place. This debris loosened even more of it, as the entire mountain began to shake and tear away from the hive. Draxia Primary shuddered a moment, and then began to collapse.
Neither of us looked away from the sheer destruction and loss of life that had just been wrought, and the sound of our respect knuckles dapping together and my entire arm dislocating in the aftershock were muffled even from the great height we were at. It took a further two days for things to settle, and through it all neither of us said a word.
It was Khârn who broke the silence, that competitive look somehow burning from what little I could see of his crazed eyes set in his helmet, as he bent forwards simply so he could stare right into my face. I could see up his nose too. It was pretty gross.
"RACE TO THE BOTTOM"
Don't worry, Khârn made sure it was fair by giving me a head-start. Even pushed me hard enough that I cleared about half of the mountain. Medics are telling me that I should probably be dead instead of unable to move or feel my anything, but Khârn himself told me no one ever won a race by not landing head first in the twisted wreckage of humanity's folly.
He's a deep guy.
The absolute worst part about being in the Red Rivers (aside from the food) is interplanetary travel. You would think with the whole falling to ruinous powers thing that you'd be able to get to where you wanted to go easy as pie, but then you take an actual trip and the Chaos Space Marines dragging you along as death fodder burst into fits of laughter when you ask why the Gellar Field hasn't activated. Then a horror crawls out your nose.
Mostly it's the boredom that gets you though, when they stuff you down in the dark holds with nothing to do but play cards and avoid sleeping near the Slaanesh worshippers. It wasn't so bad though. One time we were down there and saw Khârn walking around just knocking on the hold walls. We assumed he'd been asked politely to come down here after once again trying to comandeer the ship and crash it into the other ones so that they could make an explosion to make them go faster. So there he was, just wandering, knocking and listening. Bored as we were we followed, just to see where it would go.
Well, it took most of the trip and a great deal of wandering but as the call to prepare for planetfall began to go out, Khârn finally got the knock he wanted and punched through the entire wall. Just pulled back and walloped a great big tear into the wall. Which exposed us to space. Khârn saw our looks of horror as the void threatened to pull us out, and quickly made over to grab a few of us then jumped out of the hole, cool as you like.
Well, I've made plenty of planetfalls but never before was I instructed on how to enter the atmosphere surfing on a berserker chaos marine. I don't think I'll grow most of my hair or skin back, but I'll one heck of a story to tell my kids. A story about a heck of a ride on a heck of a guy.
High above the world of Peacarius (soon to be renamed SLAUGHTERBLOODDEATH), the World Eaters and Emperor's Children stood waiting aboard Angron's flagship "BLOOD AND MURDER YOU NAME THE BLOODY THING" as their primarchs conferenced for war. The people of Peacarius were a timid lot, not well informed in the ways of war, and had made the fatal error of suing for peace the very second Angron's ships had entered orbit. When Fulgrim arrived it was to find the World Eaters primarch trying to tape a nuclear warhead to his fists, but lacking the ability to do it one handed had meant that instead he'd been kicking drop-ships at the Peacarius capital and screaming into space.
The equerry of the World Eaters regarded the perfect array of troops resplandant in the golden aquila, and then his own men as they stood twitching and idly swinging their deactivated chain-axes at one another so they harmlessly bounced off each other's helmets. It was no secret that neither Legion got along, but the orders of their Emperor and their Warmaster were to be obeyed. Khârn let out a sigh, as he heard his Primarch storming down the hallways towards them.
"DAMNATION AND SKULLS" Angron cried out, kicking a bulkhead door open as he forced two screaming Remembrancers into his mouth and ate them, "WHY HAVE WE NOT LEFT YET EQUERRY?!"
"My lord. You destroyed all our landing craft trying to weld them together into a bigger landing craft" Khârn the Equerry answered. In response Angron began to headbutt the floor. Roused from their non-killing stupour, the other World Eaters began to do so as well. Again Khârn sighed. He wasn't sure he had enough yarn in stock to calm them all down.
"WELL UNTIL WE GET THE THRICE BLOOD DAMNED THINGS I'M GOING TO BE REARRANGING THE SKULL TROPHIES IN MY DAMNED TEN TIMES BLOOD MURDER BEDROOM" Angron screamed, before storming out. Seconds later there was an almighty crash, and the section of the ship that housed Angron could be seen making entry into the planet's atmosphere.
"Do not worry, equerry" Fulgrim spoke softly as he appeared inexplicably behind Khârn your primarch as best we can..."
Khârn was going to respond, but became distinctly aware of Fulgrim's tongue caressing his ear.
The Traitor Guardsman eyed each other nervously. They had asked Khârn to tell them another story about his time before the Horus Heresy, but after agreeing to do so, he had begun to sit there staring at the campfire. After a minute froth began to build up around his helmet's mouthpiece, and he crushed the skull he had been drinking from. Everyone was too terrified to move or say a word, each hoping for someone else to make the first move.
They were trapped there for weeks.
Khârn the Betrayer, as I've often told skeptics from other legions, is a hell of a guy. His mighty axe isn't his greatest weapon; it's his charm.
Take the battle of Camrae III. We hadn't expected the loyalist legions there to last for more than a week, but the thrice-damned Imperium had managed to sneak a massive Warlord Titan onto the planet without our knowledge. (They'd literally buried it under a mountain.) We'd been trying to kill the thing for a solid month, but wherever the war machine tromped, the legions of Chaos died.
That was, until Tuesday.
On Tuesday, we'd been chasing a legion of weakened Astartes down a long, winding canyon to slaughter them in the name of Khorne, when we heard the war-horn of the Titan braying its triumph as it emerged around a bend in the rocky passage. Our blood turned to water and our knees turned to jelly as we realized that we were trapped in the canyon we had sought to turn to our advantage, about to be undone by the gargantuan deathbringer. The loyalist Astartes hooted at us as the house-sized cannons began to glow with the fire of a thousand suns, warming up our demise, and we gritted our teeth in anticipation of the end.
Then, we saw Khârn.
He was running along the edge of the sheer sides of the rocky canyon, full-tilt, his armor-clad boots kicking rocks, dirt, and occasionally small animals over the cliff face as he sprinted. With both loyalist and chaos marine alike looking on in awe, he coiled his legs beneath him, crushing a couple of deep footprints into the solid rock at the cliff edge, and launched himself into the air. For a brief moment, time stood still as he sailed over the heads of the combatants below, his arms gracefully extended like a swan's wings, if that swan had been fathered by a Chaos god and granted an insatiable lust for blood.
With a clang, he landed on the bridge of the Titan, the void shields swirling uselessly around him. He drew back one superhuman fist and punched a giant goddamned hole in the armor of the machine with a sound like two Thunderhawks colliding in midair. His monstrous hands grappled the torn adamantium and as the metal shuddered under the force of his sheer rage he paused as he cast his gaze into the hole he had created.
"TEN POINTS," bellowed Khârn as he continued to peel the titan's armor back like a car door. Raw sunlight was cast into the titan's cockpit for the first time in millenia, and the crew turned to face their aggressor. The princeps had just removed himself from the machine but had barely any time to react and only yelped in terror as Khârn ripped him from his control seat and tossed him out into the open air. The red dot that was Khârn scrambled inside and we, at that point, could only figure that he was giving himself a crash course with learning how to pilot the damned thing.
Every warrior froze as the titan seized up and began jerking about, when from over the sound systems Styx's "Mr. Roboto" began blasting out over the battlefield as the titan itself began rampaging across the canyon floor. The fighting resumed as quickly as it had halted, the loyalists fighting in a last ditch effort to flee from being caught underfoot of the former Imperial controlled titan. The men of the Red Rivers could barely aim their lasguns proper as we all roared with laughter through the whole ordeal. Even still, as the battle drew to a close, we finally lost it and gripped our sides in laughter as the titan finally collapsed onto its back and went critical after Khârn cleared the scene. As he came back up to us I raised my arm for a high five, which he gladly obliged and broke every bone in my hand.
As he looked back over the smoking husk and ruined corpses strewn about the canyon I asked him what caused him to lose his balance, and he looked down at me and said, "I WAS TRYING TO GET IT TO BREAK DANCE BUT IT HAD NO SOUL."
That's Khârn for you. Hell of a guy.
The Wrath of Khârn
By William King, Short Story in "Let the Galaxy Burn"
‘Blood for the Blood God!’ bellowed Khârn the Betrayer, charging forward through the hail of bolter fire, towards the Temple of Superlative Indulgence. The bolter shells ricocheting off his breastplate did not even slow him down. The Chaos Space Marine smiled to himself. The ancient ceramite of his armour had protected him for over ten thousand years. He felt certain it would not let him down today. All around him warriors fell, clutching their wounds, crying in pain and fear. More souls offered up on the altar of battle to the Supreme Lord of Carnage, Khârn thought and grinned maniacally. Surely the Blood God would be pleased today. Ahead of him, Khârn saw one of his fellow berserkers fall, his body riddled with shells, his armour cracked and melted by plasma fire. The berserker howled with rage and frustration, knowing that he was not going to be in at the kill, that he would give Khorne no more offerings on this or any other day. In frustration, the dying warrior set his chainsword on to maximum power and took off his own head with one swift stroke. His blood rose in a red fountain to slake Khorne’s thirst.
As he passed, Khârn kicked the fallen warrior’s head, sending it flying over the defenders’ parapet. At least this way his fallen comrade would witness Khârn slaughter the Slaanesh worshipers in the few delicious moments before he died. Under the circumstances, it was the least reward Khârn could grant such a devout warrior. The Betrayer leapt over a pile of corpses, snapping off a shot with his plasma pistol. One of the Slaanesh cultists fell, clutching the ruins of his melted face. Gorechild, Khârn’s daemonic axe, howled in his hands. Khârn brandished it above his head and bellowed his challenge to the sick, yellow sky of the daemon world. ‘Skulls for the skull throne!’ Khârn howled. On every side, frothing Berzerkers echoed his cry. More shells whined all around him. He ignored them the way he would ignore the buzz of annoying insects. More of his fellows fell but Khârn stood untouched, secure in the blessing of the Blood God, knowing that it would not be his turn today.
All was going according to plan. A tide of Khorne’s warriors flowed across the bomb-cratered plains towards the towering redoubt of the Slaanesh worshippers. Support fire from the Chaos Titan artillery had reduced most of the walls around the ancient temple complex to just so much rubble. The disgusting murals painted in fluorescent colours had been reduced to atoms. The obscene minarets that crowned the toweres had been blasted into well-deserved oblivion. Lewd statues lay like colossal, limbless corpses, gazing at the sky with blank marble eyes. Even as Khârn watched, missiles blazed down from the sky and smashed another section of the defensive wall to blood-covered fragments. Huge clouds of dust billowed. The ground shook. The explosions rumbled like distant thunder. Sick joy bubbled through Khârn’s veins at the prospect of imminent violence. This was what he lived for, these moments of action where he could once again prove his superiority to all other warriors in the service of his exalted lord. In all his ten thousand year existence, Khârn had found no joy to touch the joy of battle, no lust greater than his lust for blood. Here on the field of mortal combat, he was more than in his element, he was at the site of his heart’s desire. It was the thing that had caused him to betray his oath of allegiance to the Emperor of Mankind, his genetic destiny as a Space Marine and even his old comrades in the World Eaters Legion. He had never regretted those decisions even for an instant. The bliss of battle was reward enough to stay any doubts.
He jumped the ditch before the parapet, ignoring the poisoned spikes which lined the pit bottom and promised an ecstatic death to any that fell upon them. He scrambled up the loose scree of the rock face and vaulted over the low wall, planting his boot firmly into the face of a defender as he did so. The man screamed and fell back, trying to stem the flow of blood from his broken nose. Khârn swung Gorechild and ended his whining forever. ‘Death is upon you!’ Khârn roared as he dived into a mass of depraved cultists. Gorechild lashed out. Its teeth bit into hardened ceramite, spraying sparks in all directions. The blow passed through the target’s armour, opening its victim from stomach to sternum. The wretch fell back, clutching at his ropy entrails. Khârn dispatched him with a backhand swipe and fell upon his fellows, slaying left and right, killing with every blow. Frantically, the cultist’ leader bellowed orders, but it was too late. Khârn was in among them, and no man had ever been able to boast of facing Khârn in close combat and living. The numbers 2243, then 2244, blinked before his eyes. The ancient Gothic lettering of the digital death-counter, superimposed on Khârn’s field of vision, incremented quickly. Khârn was proud of this archaic device, presented by Warmaster Horus himself in ancient times. Its like could not be made in this degenerate age. Khârn grinned proudly as his tally of offerings for this campaign continued to rise. He still had a long way to go to match his personal best but that was not going to stop him trying.
Men screamed and howled as they died. Khârn roared with pleasure, killing everything within his reach, reveling in the crunch of bone and the spray of blood. The rest of the Khornate force took advantage of the destruction the Betrayer had caused. They swarmed over the walls in a howling mass and dismembered the Slaanesh worshippers. Already demoralized by the death of their leader, not even these fanatical worshippers of the Lord of Pleasure could stand their ground. Their morale broken, they panicked and fled. Such pathetic oafs were barely worth the killing, Khârn decided, lashing out reflexively and killing those Slaanesh worshippers who passed too close as they fled. 2246, 2247, 2248 went the death counter. It was time to get on with his mission. It was time to find the thing he had come here to destroy – the ancient daemonic artifact known as the Heart of Desire. ‘Attack!’ Khârn bellowed and charged through the gaping mouth of the leering stone head that was the entrance to the main temple building.
Inside it was quiet, as if the roar of battle could not penetrate the walls. The air stank of strange perfumed. The walls had a porous, fleshy look. The pink-tinged light was odd, it shimmered all around, coming from no discernible source. Khârn switched to the auto-sensor systems within his helm, just in case there was some trickery here. Leather-clad priestesses, their faces domino-masked, emerged from padded doorways. They lashed at Khârn with whips that sent surges of pain and pleasure through his body. Another man, one less hardened than Khârn, might have been overwhelmed by the sensation but Khârn had spent millennia in the service of his god, and what passed through him now was but a pale shadow compared to the battle lust that mastered him. He chopped through the snake-like flesh of the living lash. Poison blood spurted forth. The woman screamed as if he had cut her. Looking closer he saw that she and the whip were one. A leering daemonic head tipped the weapon’s handle and had buried its fangs into her wrist. Khârn’s interest was sated. He killed the priestess with on back-handed swipe of Gorechild. A strange, strangled cry of rage and hate warned him of a new threat. He turned and saw that one of the other Berzerkers, less spiritually pure than himself, had been overcome with the whip’s evil. The man had torn off his helmet and his face was distorted by a sick and dreamy smile that had no place on the features of one chosen by Khorne. Like a sleepwalker he advanced on Khârn and lashed out with his chainsword. Khârn laughed as he parried the blow and killed the man with his return stroke.
A quick glance told him that all the priestesses were dead and that most of his followers had slain their drugged brethren. Good, thought Khârn, but part of him was disappointed. He had hoped that more of his fellows would be overcome by treachery. It was good to measure himself against true warriors, not these decadent worshippers of an effete god. Gorechild howled with frustrated bloodlust, writhing in his hand as if it would turn on him if he did not feed it more blood and sinew soon. Khârn knew how the axe felt. He turned, gestured for his companions to follow him and raced off down the corridor. ‘Follow me,’ he shouted. ‘To the slaughter!’ Passing through a huge arch, the former Space Marines entered the inner sanctum of the temple and Khârn knew they had found what they had come for. Light poured in through the stained glass ceiling. As he watched, Khârn realized that the light was not coming through the glass, but from the glass itself. The illustrations glowed with an eerie internal light and they moved. A riotous assembly of men and women, mutants and daemons enacted every foul deed that the depraved followers of a debauched god could imagine. And, Khârn noted, they could imagine quite a lot.
Khârn raised his pistol and opened fire, but the glass merely absorbed the weapon’s energy. Something like a faint moan of pleasure filled the chamber and mocking laughter drew Khârn’s attention to the throne which dominated the far end of the huge chamber. It was carved from a single gem that pulsed and changed colour, going from amber to lavender to pink to lime and then back through a flickering, random assortment of iridescent colours that made no sense and hurt the eye. Khârn knew without having to be told that this was the Heart of Desire. Senses honed by thousands of years of exposure to the stuff of Chaos told him that the thing fairly radiated power. Inside was the trapped essence of a daemon prince, held forever at the whim of Slaanesh as punishment for some ancient treachery. The man sitting so regally on the throne was merely a puppet and barely worth Khârn’s notice, save as something to be squashed like a bug. The man looked down on Khârn as if the had the temerity to feel the same way about Khorne’s most devoted follower. His right hand held an obscenely shaped runesword, which glowed with a blasphemous light. Khârn strode forward to confront his new foe. The clatter of ceramite-encased feet on marble told him that his fellow berserkers followed. In the matter of a hundred strides, Khârn found himself at the foot of the dais, and some odd mystical force compelled him to stop and stare.
Khârn did not doubt that he was face-to-face with the cult leader. The man had the foul, debauched look of an ancient and immortal devotee of Slaanesh. His face was pale and gaunt; make-up concealed the dark shadows under his eyes. An obscene helmet covered the top of his head. As he stood, his pink and lime cloak billowed out behind him. Tight bands of studded leather girded his naked chest, revealing lurid and disturbing tattoos. ‘Welcome to the Heart of Desire,’ the Slaanesh worshipper said in a soft, insinuating voice which somehow carried clearly across the chamber and compelled instant, respectful attention. Khârn was instantly on his guard, sensing the magic within that voice, the persuasive power which could twist mortals to its owner’s will. He struggled to keep the fury that burned eternally in his breast from subsiding under the influence of those slyly enthralling tones. ‘What do you wish?
‘Your death!’ the Betrayer roared, yet he felt his bloodlust being subsided by that oddly comforting voice. The cult leader sighed. ‘You worshippers of Khorne are so drearily predictable. Always the same tedious, unimaginative retort. I suppose it comes from following that mono-maniacal deity of yours. Still you are hardly to be blamed for your god’s dullness, I suppose.’ ‘When Khorne has devoured your soul, you will pay for such blasphemy!’ Khârn shouted. His followers shouted their approval but with less enthusiasm than Khârn would have expected. For some reason, the man on the throne did not appear to be worried by the presence of so many armed men in his sanctum. ‘Somehow, I doubt it, old chap. You see, my soul has long been pledged to thrice-blessed Slaanesh, so unless Khorne wants to stick his talon down Slaanesh’s throat or some other orifice, he’ll have a hard time getting at it.’ ‘Enough of this prattle!’ Khârn roared. ‘Death is upon you!’ ‘Oh! Be sensible,’ the cultist said, raising his hand. Khârn felt a tide of pleasure flow over him, like that he had felt from the whip earlier but a thousand times stronger. All around him he heard his men moan and gasp.
‘Think! You can spend an eternity of pleasure being caressed by the power of Lord Slaanesh, while your soul slowly rots and sinks into his comforting embrace. Anything you want, anything you have ever desired, can be yours. All you have to do is swear allegiance to Slaanesh. Believe me, it’s no trouble.’ As the cult leader spoke, imaged flickered through Khârn’s mind. He saw visions of his youth and all the joys he had known, before the rebellion of Horus and the Battle for Terra. Somehow it had all looked so clear and fresh and appealing, and it almost brought moisture to his tear ducts. He saw endless banquets of food and wine. For a moment, his palate was stimulated by all manner of strange and wonderful tastes, and his brain tingled with a myriad pleasures and stimulations. Visions of diaphanously clad maidens danced before his eyes, beckoning enticingly. For a moment, despite himself, Khârn felt an almost unthinkable temptation to betray his ancient oath to the Blood God. This was powerful sorcery indeed! He shook his head and bit his lip until the blood flowed. ‘No true warrior of Khorne would fall for this pitiful trick!’ he bellowed.
Suddenly the rest of the berserkers were upon him. Khârn found himself fighting for his immortal life. These were no mere Slaanesh cultists. Newly tainted though they might be, they had once been worthy followers of Khorne, fierce, deadly and full of bloodlust. Mighty maces bludgeoned Khârn. Huge chainswords threatened to tear his rune-encrusted armour. Bolter shells tore chunks from his breastplate. Khârn fought on, undismayed, filled with the joy of battle, taking fierce pleasure every time Gorechild took another life. At last, these were worthy foes! The body count swiftly ticked to 2460 and continued to rise. Instinctively Khârn sidestepped a blow that tore off one of the metal skulls which dangled from his belt. The Betrayer swore he would replace it with the attacker’s own skull. His return stroke made good his vow. He whirled Gorechild in a great figure-of-eight and cleared a space all around him, sending two more traitors to make their excuses to the Blood Good. Insane bloodlust surged through him, overcoming even the soporific influence of the Heart of Desire and for a moment Khârn fought with his full unfettered power. He became transformed into an unstoppable engine of destruction and nothing could stand against him. Khârn’s heart pounded. The blood sang through his veins and the desire to kill made him howl uncontrollably. Bones crunched beneath his axe. His pistol blew away the life of its targets. He stamped on the heads of the fallen, crushing them to jelly. Khârn ignored pain, ignored any idea of self-preservation, and fought for the pure love of fighting. He killed and he killed.
All too soon it was over, and Khârn stood alone in a circle of corpses. His breathing rasped from his chest. Blood seeped through a dozen small punctures in his armour. He felt like a rib might have been broken by the last blow of that mace but he was triumphant. His counter read 2485. He sensed the presence of one more victm and turned to confront the figure on the dais. The cultists’ leader stood looking down on him with a faint expression of mingled disbelief and distaste on his face. The throne pulsed enticingly. ‘It’s true what they say,’ the man said with a delicious sigh. ‘If you want anything done properly, you have to do it yourself.’ The insinuating voice drove Khârn’s fury from him and left him feeling tired and spent. The cultist strode down from the dais. Khârn felt almost too weary to parry his blow. He knew he must throw off this enchantment quickly. The runesword bit into his armor and a wave of mingled pain and pleasure passed through Khârn like poison. Summoning his last reserves of rage, he threw himself into the attack. He would show this effete fop who was the true warrior here. Khârn hacked. Gorechild bit into the tattoos of the man’s wrist. Gobbets of flesh and droplets of blood whirled away from the axe’s teeth. The rank smell of hot bone filled the air as the hand separated from the arm – and began to crawl away with a life of its own. Khârn stamped on it and a rictus of pain appeared on its owner’s face, as if the hand was still attached.
Khârn swung. The cultist’s head separated from its shoulders. The body swung its blade, a puppet still controlled by the strings of its master’s will. It bit into Khârn and the wave of sensation almost drove him to his knees. ‘Nice trick!’ roared Khârn, feeling the hand squirm beneath his boot. ‘But I’ve seen it before.’ He brought his chain-axe down on the head and clove it in two. The body fell to the ground, a puppet with its strings cut. 2486, Khârn thought with some satisfaction. The Betrayer advanced upon the throne. It pulsed enticingly before him. Within its multiple facets he thought he saw the face of a beautiful woman, the most beautiful he head ever seen – and the most evil. Her hair was long and golden, and her eyes were blue. Her lips were full and red and the small, white fangs that protruded from her mouth in no way marred her perfection. She looked at Khârn beseechingly, and he knew at once he was face to face with the Daemon trapped within the Heart of Desire. Welcome, Khârn, a seductive voice said within his head. I knew you would triumph. I knew you would be the conqueror. I knew you would be my new master. The voice was thrilling. By comparison, the cult leader’s voice had been but a pale echo. But the voice was also deceptive. Proud as he was, mighty as he knew himself to be, Khârn knew that no man could truly be the master of a daemon, not even a fallen Space Marine like himself. He knew that his soul was once more in peril, that he should do something. But yet again, he found himself enthralled by the persuasiveness of a Slaanesh worshipper’s voice. Be seated! Become the new ruler of this world, then go forth and blast those meddlesome interlopers from the face of your planet.
Khârn fought to hold himself steady while the throne pulsed hypnotically before him, and the smell of heavy musk filled his nostrils. He knew that once he sat he would be trapped, just as the daemon was trapped. He would become a slave to the thing imprisoned within the throne. His will would be drained and he would be a decadent and effete shadow of the Khârn he had once been. Yet his limbs began to move almost of their own accord, his feet slowly but surely carrying him towards the throne. Once more, visions of an eternity of corrupt pleasure danced in Khârn’s mind. Once more he saw himself indulging in every excess. The daemon promised him every ecstasy imaginable and it was well within its power to grant such pleasures. He knew it would be a simple thing for him to triumph on its behalf. All he had to do was step outside and announce that he had destroyed the Heart of Desire. He was Khârn. He would be believed, and after that it would be a simple matter to lure the Khorne worshipers to ecstatic service or joyful destruction. And did they not deserve it? Already he was known as the Betrayer, when all he had done was be more loyal to his god than the spineless weaklings he had slaughtered. And with that the daemon’s voice fell silent and the visions stopped, as if the thing in the throne had realized its mistake, but too late.
For Khârn was loyal to Khorne and there was only room for that one thing within his savage heart. He had betrayed and killed his comrades in the World Eaters because they had not remained true to Khorne’s ideals and would have fled from the field of battle without either conquering or being destroyed. The reminder gave him strength. He turned and looked back at the room. The reek of blood and dismembered bodies filled his nostrils like perfume. He remembered the joy of the combat. The thrill of overcoming his former comrades. He looked out on a room filled with corpses and a floor carpeted with blood. He was the only living thing here and he had made it so. He realized that, compared to this pleasure, this sense of conquest and victory, what the daemon offered was only a pale shadow. Khârn turned and brought Gorechild smashing down upon the foul throne. His axe howled thirstily as it drank deep of the ancient and corrupt soul imprisoned within. Once more he felt the thrill of victory, and knew no regrets for rejecting the daemon’s offer. 2487. Not his personal best, but still a good days work.