Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== Cypher Claws ==

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Private Dalwort was pretty sure he was going to die. He had known that he would for a while now, not the exact particulars but something like this. It was inevitable in a way, there were only so many ways a soldier in the Imperial Guard could die and almost all of them involved in some way the participation of another party. But he wasn't happy about it, no one bit. This was not how he wanted t go, hunted down across the snow like a beast. He could turn and fight, he knew at some level, he could turn and fight and die like a man. They could have outpaced him some time ago and he knew it, a mere man couldn't compete against an astartes, let alone a blood read monster blessed of Khorne. They were toying with them, he could hear their laughter over the wind in the tree tops and the hammering and blood rushing in his ears. Muscles on fire, lungs laboring to drag one more ragged breath after another into his chest he stumbled on. His nightsider eyes turned night into day by the light of the moon through the branches and he could see corporal Cadful not so blessed stumble over a tree root. Dalwort broke stride to catch him before he fell and was immediately slapped aside by a bright read hand.
 
Stars and whorl of purple and yellow blossomed in the pain of his face as he came back to himself. Everything was sore down one side of his face and he knew, by the fact that he was still alive, that he couldn't have been down for more than a moment. One eye was a rose of crimson agony, vision doubled and already he could feel it swelling shut and bruised and bleeding. A figure writ huge against the dark grey and gnarly tree trunks stood over Dalwort as he scrambled and backed away across the floor, Neth, Tiynad and Hormandz were, he saw ahead, backing away from two other giants that loomed ahead of them.

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A hand more like a metal bear paw lifted him by the collar of his sweat drenched flack jacket and hurled him to where the others had backed to. He could hear it. The laughter, a resonant and cruel sound. They were little more than mice to these creatures Tiynad lifted his trembling laser rifle and emptied the last of his powerpack into a scorch-marked line across one giant's chest with as much effect as pissing into a blizzard. The mocking, hideous laughter didn't change one iota.
 
Private Dalwort, Mordian Nightsider, soldier in the army of the most blessed Imperium resolved that he wouldn't at the very least die in the dirt and with what seemed to him super human effort hoisted himself to his feet, rifle held like a club in hands made numb by mindless animal fear. This was the night he would die, he tried to recall once more the cave he was born in, the land of his people in the endless star speckled night. A mordian's last thoughts should be those of home.
 
A flutter in the leaves above them and the giants stopped their tortuously slow advance. Splintering wood for a moment followed by a large thud and a spray of displaced snow as something in a much cleaner red landed in the trees barely a score of feet away. Tall as a Catachan and built large, a robe of heavy crimson hung from those broad shoulders fastened and trimmed with bleached bones and peppered with frost and the red Fallen astartes finally reached for their own weapons.
 
The nearest swung his chain-axe with a strength of a wrecking ball and the speed of the gale only to find his arm stopped as if he had struck a mountain, the man if man he was in the frosted robes wrenched that arm upwards and flipped the creature into one of it's damned and forsaken packmates before twisting the arm past the point of endurance to the snapping of adamantium armour and inhumanly strong bones. The other two had charged, roaring in rage as their chain axes screamed in a promise of bloody retribution. A promise that went fulfilled as the broad shouldered figure spun and ducked and twisted around their clumsy flailing before landing a punch that collapsed one of their helmets and the skull inside it. The broken armed Fallen and it's associate attempted to get to their feet  but weren't quick enough as the broken armed one was silenced by a thunderous boot impacting it's neck, directed movements becoming the graceless flails of a man dying of a crushed windpipe and lungs filing with blood.
 
Two remained now, circling the Mordian's saviour, waiting for the moment to strike. The man spun to keep them both in his vision as much as possible, shoulders squared, fists bunched the dynamic of the situation seeming to dawn on both of the Fallen at the same time that this wasn't the circling of sharks around a stranded swimmer, this was a wolf indecisive of which sheep to pick first. The figure was smiling beneath that grey beard, grey eyes like hard flint gleamed beneath those grey hairs, eyes of a judge without mercy, displeased and declaring and damning. The one with the laser scorch marks was the laser scorch marks was the first to fall, his head torn unceremoniously from his body, the second tackled to the ground and rib-cage crushed under repeated hammer blows as inhumanly dark blood seeped into the spoiled snow.
 
The whole engagement had in truth been over in moments, the Mordians huddled together as the figure stood upright once more, flint hard eyes fixing on them like those of an apex predator. The Fallen had been terrible beyond words but here was something worse. Those eyes reached into their souls like the inferno glare of a god, seeing their sins and knowing them completely. There was no hiding from him, he knew their names, he knew everything about them and they couldn't look away. The figure took a role of parchment or animal skin from his robe and marked it in the blood of the slain several times. Rooted by all encompassing terror Dalwort and his comrades trembled as he moved towards them with long, sure strides. Dalwort couldn't see, his one good eye was full of tears "please" he silently mouthed through quivering lips "please" the figure now seeming impossibly huge was standing right before him now and reached forward once more and Dalwort finally managed to close his eye and screwed them tight as he prepared for death.
 
There was a slight heaviness upon his shoulders. After what seemed an eternity he opened his eye to see the grey haired and blood drenched figure gone, leaving only the dead as testament to him ever having been there. The dead and a forge-world fresh Cameleoline cloak over his flack jacket. Looking around his comrades were similarly gifted and as confused and terrified as he imagined he looked, and above them the sound of laughter booming as thunder and as terrible as an avalanche "HO, HO, HO".

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