Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== Once More Unto the Breach ==

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It feels like a warm fire but smells like the first fat drops of rain on deep summer dust. He remembered that smell from childhood, one of the few things he could. There was grass between his toes and the distant sound of surf on shingle, he raised his hands to his brow to block the sun as he looked towards the beach. His hands were not right. He remembered this day, one of the last perfect days of childhood summer before what seemed eternal war called him but these hands were not right. These were not the hands of children, these were hands of a warrior, gnarly, leathery, scared with crooked fingers on the right and the ends missing of the middle and ring fingers on the left. And the raven marks of his kin on their backs. Warrior hands. Soldier hands. Not the hands of a child, his old hands.

There was a hand upon his shoulder firm and strong but not unkind. He knew that hand and had stood in the presence of it's owner many times though he had not yet looked upon her. Death; she stood with him always. As a warrior of the Kraken Bay she was the deity he had to favour above the others of his tribes pantheon and in return she put her gentle hand upon him in silent benediction. She had been with him now as his longest and truest friend. His tribe were long dead and forgotten to history now, the land they once dwelt in made unrecognizable, he had outlived notions of kin reluctantly.

He looked towards the warm sun, the sound of the shingle and the sea. The smell of it on the breeze. The hand squeezed his shoulder slightly, welcoming, inviting him to turn around and come with her. He knew that with her was his children, his wife, his siblings, his parents and legions of people he wanted, desperately and painfully wanted, to see again.

CLANG!

Murmurings from the multitudes above for a moment, the comforting and more recent smalls of old socks, camphor, engine oil and a hint of beer fading into the blackness, the comforting blackness in the safe depths of his sarcophagus.

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The blade missed taking his head off by a worryingly slim margin and instead deflected across the crown of his helm with a deafening clang, a bestial howl of foam flecks and stink and a similar roar from Russ, Primarch and fellow Dog Soldier of the Sixth Legion, brought the axe down on it's head like the storm god Thukko. The Ambush was working perfectly, the orks had them completely surrounded when they sprang from the ground and dropped from the trees, now they could charge in any damn direction they wanted and still get some trophy teeth. For lesser men this would be stupid to the point of suicide but they were far from lesser men and the orks did not know who they were fucking with.

A large red creature hopped over the falling brute and clamped down hard on his left hand, he swiftly brought his right hand up to tear it off, taking finger chunks with it leaving the axe dangling on it's chain and swinging back up to his blood slick hand. Bringing the creature swiftly up to his mouth and dug his own choppers into it's head and biting out it's brain as his axe caught another green creature in a chin splitting upper cut. Plate and chain and flack steaming with the blood of the slain, heart thudding like a war drum on amphetamine, and all about the screams of the dying and the damned. This was living, this was the white hot living of a Dog Soldier in the Imperial Army.

And her hand upon his shoulder, her breath in his ear singing to him softly. Comforting. When the weight gets too much, when the pain is too much to endure, when he stumbled for the last time she would be there to catch him when he fell. She would wait for him, he was one of her flock.

CLANG!

The smell of turpentine, expensive incense and cheap air fresheners. Muffled and muted voices growing clearer and closer and more familiar filtering into his sleepy metal box. He didn't much care what they had to say, it wouldn't matter to him.

The grass was brown and grey now, the shingle blasted out of the beach, even the coastline was a different shape. He couldn't find his village to say nothing of his house. How could he bury his wife if he couldn't find her? How could he bury his children? The tears came freely now, great hacking undignified blobs of salt water mingling into the ash mud of the radiation burned grass. Seemingly of it's own volition his hand moved towards his belt to the simple home forged steel eating knife his father had given him an eternity ago, pride shining in his eyes as a humble blacksmiths son went off to be a noble warrior of the Unification. His father had been buried long ago. Buried properly, an apple pip in one hand and a piece of bone in the other and old mother Varða raising the family, the tribe of Kraken Bay, in song to the gods of a man who lived not just well but good.

Who would sing for his people now? For his wife and children and their friends and neighbors? There was only silence. He would join them in that silence. He felt the metal part his beard hairs. Her hand was on his shoulder, she would catch him and hold him close. He was one of her flock.

He had once charged through a literal garden of despair, in a Hell like no other to raid the halls of a mad god. At the time it had been the most horrific thing he had ever seen. He now had new and terrible perspective.

The knife was slapped from his hand just as it pricked flesh and drew the first drop of blood. Turning he half expected to see her face. In his grief he had not heard the foot falls of his Primarch and friend.

"Not like this, old friend. Not like this. Not by your own hand. Take that hate, take that sorrow, hold it crush it 'till it get hot and hold it 'till it burns. This that we feel; let it keep us warm on cold nights, let it fuel our retribution. I promise you this, for every sorrow they have inflicted on our people we we repay them, we will take a steep bloodprice".

He looked out to the sea, to the setting sun, and knew that no matter how long he lived the price would never be filled. Not even when all the stars burned red.

CLANG!

"Has he died in my absence" The voice was resonant and very familiar. If a chunk of depleted uranium could talk it would sound like that.
"A heart still beats in that chest, though whether he can be awakened now is a matter between himself and his old gods" This voice less so, it was a buzzing thing, half or more machine. Though not cold like stainless steel but warm and welcoming like burnished brass and polished copper. Feminine, if metal and machine could be. Not that he could care, it no longer mattered to him.

The voices grew more distant again, fading away before dreams of other times and old memories once more.

CLANG!

"Oi, you still in there?" It was the first voice, all lead and half-life "Is this a box with my old friend or is it a carrion holding coffin?"

CLANG!
CLANG!

That's what that insufferable noise was, someone was hammering on his shell! OF ALL THE IMPERTINENCE! Weren't the half-dead allowed some sleep? He crash booted his eyes and stood up suddenly, servos and pistons springing to powerful life, his fortress form standing up to it's full and terrifying height. Leithon the Wraithguard, jester of Cegorach, huntsman of Kurnous and fellow veteran of the Long War and the raid on the mansion.

"You can't be sleeping at a time like this. Do you know what time it is?" He asked standing there dressed in animal skins and paint made from marrow and egg white and ash and dust. "it's time for another adventure, are you ready?"

"Ready? Ready?! Bitch please, ready does not even begin to fucking describe it!" Bjorn stepped forth from his workshop berth like the footsteps of doom, adamantium fist raised high above his head as lightning crackled about his clawed fingers. Doubts and horrors of the past melting away for a time and for that time he was young again and full of fire.

"To the Great Hall, somewhere up there is ale worth drinking and a mug big enough for me to drink from and I have slept for far to long"

Some hours and some kegs later Bjorn settled down, the bloodclaws and greyhairs alike eager to know what had roused him from his long slumber. All eyes turned to the wraith guard and his animal skin and woad wearing cohorts.

"We hunt a strange breed of monster, a creature of primordial awfulness, born of ancient sins and vices, it skulks in it's lair of a world made into hell where my kin once dwelt and once called itself kin to my kind" Leithon opened his hand and formed a hologram of a fearsome creature. It might have been an eldar once but blessings of gods too terrible to contemplate had made it so no longer. "It is beyond me and my followers to land the kill but not so the fearsome children of Fenris" A cheer of agreement resounded through the warriors gathered round to see the image of the monster "it is cunning and it is powerful and it is evil beyond words. Who here wishes to visit misery upon it?" Another cheer, another drink.

"Then we leave at first light" declared the ancient Bjorn, Fellhanded warrior of Kraken Bay.

The moment the rays of the mourning sun struck the doors of The Fang the waiting wolves and huntsmen charged out into the snow and the dark pine trees where once a king had walked and vanished. Unlike that old and infamous king of antiquity for the most part they returned several months later, though most had new scars and a troubled expressions, at least the younger men did.

To the greyhairs and the hunters and especially Bjorn and Leithon such sorrows and pain were old acquaintances. More ale was drunk, meat consumed and acts of casual intimacy perpetrated when appropriate. In time the revelry died away. In time Leithon once more said his farewells to old friend Bjorn and he and his huntsmen went to find new game. In time Bjorn felt tired once more, the years settling heavily upon his shoulders and he made his way back to the tunnels beneath The Fang, to a comforting berth in a familiar workshop with the sounds of home murmuring from above and he closed his eyes once more.

He could still feel her hand upon his shoulder, comforting. His gods had not abandoned him, he would turn to her in time. Maybe a time soon and she would catch him when he fell. When the years got too heavy, the sorrows too deep. He was one of her flock. One day soon.

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