[NOTE]

Merry Christmas. I've decided to pick up this thread nearly a year and a half later and see where it goes. This is the rounded-out, hopefully final version of the first chapter. Enjoy.

[/NOTE]

341.773.M41

Littoral Bastion, Southmarch Quarter, Morlond

17:14

A damp and dark root cellar by the edge of the wave-battered cliffs, just meters from the frothing sea not so far below

He pushed forward with his body and mind, feeling the heat and presence of the lasbolts streaking towards him and directing them into the dismally grey mass of clouds above. He bared his soul and allowed a bolt of Empyrean lightning to bolt from his form and into one of the many targets ahead. The whispers of some distant hell grew to a murmur in his mind, and he swiftly returned to the defensive, willing his psyche back within human limits.

Torrents of freezing rain pelting from the midnight sky outside, nearly drowning out the harsh thuds of studded boots upon the cellar door

A moment of weakness as he concentrated on the offensive, and a beam of energy struck his shoulder. He willed the pain away as he forced the undeflected bolt to dissipate against his skin, allowing its energy a release as a spurt of flames that died out as quickly as it ignited. Undeterred, he pushed onwards, reaching the closest attacker and driving his palm into its nose, turning the combat servitor's mind into a half-melted mess through the physical connection. The nose did not survive the impact.

Wishing they would just leave him alone even as they smashed the hatchway to pieces and surged ahead to drag him from his place of refuge, screaming and crying to let him be

A snap kick, propelled by both sinew and warp-stuff, sent the now twice-lobotomized servitor careening into another. Lasbolts soared upward as it toppled over. He ripped the rifle from its gauntleted hands and let off a few shots at point-blank range. The first ripped through the servitor's heart, the second pulverized what remained of the organ. The reminder was overkill.

Legs jerking and hands grasping at nothing, offering naught but futile resistance to the men escorting him to a black-as-night-itself shuttle, finally limbs immobilized and voice silenced by a heavy blow, closed eyes depriving him a final view of his homeland

Longshore.

Tanith.

He blinked and it was gone.

"Vayn."

Sanctioned Psyker Arwen Mkvayn slowly turned around to see a tall, silver-haired soldier leaning over the fence surrounding his makeshift training area, oddly eschewing the lower half of his combat fatigues in favour of a pair of stormcloud-grey trousers.

"Evening, Selb. Are those slacks?"

Ingel Selber tugged at the pants' waistline. "Don't you start. The habbers here like soldiers. I've been invited to a dinner in honour of the liberation, and I'm expected to dress...appropriately."

"Ah, I see, a camo-tie affair," Mkvayn deduced, grinning.

"Going to ignore that, because believe it or not, there was actually a purpose for my coming over here aside from you mocking my fashion choices."

"Shoot."

"We've got our marching orders."

The psyker let out a low whistle. "Never a dull moment. Where to?"

"Some pile of rock called Khan Asticis," Selber eloquently informed him. "It's a hive-world in the Khan system." The trooper delivered the planet's description like the words left a foul taste in his mouth. "One more week here for the Munitorum to get its ass in gear, then we're off to fight another day."

"You seem pretty bitter about it."

Selber rolled his eyes. "The Warmaster's splitting us off from his army group. They're heading to Khan Nobilis, where the real action is supposed to be."

"Macaroth can't have the Hyrkans stealing all the glory, I guess."

Selber sniggered. "Fair read. I think I'll take it." The trooper started to slide his back down the fence to sit on the ground, then remembered his slacks and thought better of it. "Oh – by the way, have you heard the news about Herodor?"

Mkvayn thought about it. He and just about every Guardsman in the Segmentum had heard about the reincarnation of Saint Sabbat, but otherwise, Herodor was just some minor world. A backwater. "I heard about the Saint, yeah. What else is there to know?"

"Fech, only everything!"

"Give me the short version, then."

"Well, it seems the beati's reappearance made the Archon shit enough bricks to rebuild the Tower of the Plutocrat. The way I've heard it told, every Archenemy ship in the sector landed on Herodor to kill her."

"And the Emperor, as we know, protects?"

"You bet your warp-blessed ass," Selber shot back eagerly. "And apparently he wasn't the only one doing some protecting. Word's been going around that Gaunt himself was leading the regiment keeping the saint safe from Chaos assassins."

Arwen Mkvayn had served with the Hyrkan 8th for almost four years, but up until another four years before he'd been assigned, the regiment's political officer had been one Ibram Gaunt, a figure of almost mythical proportions. Originally a cadet attached to the regiment's former Commissar and General, he'd been promoted after his mentor was felled by Ork poison. He'd led the Hyrkan regiments to glory on a dozen worlds, cumulating in the Famous Victory on Balhaut, where old Slaydo had died and, apparently, screwed up everything by granting Gaunt a field rank. The necessity of the Crusade soon saw him transferred to whip some greenhorn regiment into shape.

In his four years of service with the Hyrkans, he'd heard the tale of Gaunt told about seven times, if his count was accurate. Admittedly the length and amount of detail varied between tellings. The man was definitely well-traveled. "So I guess that Founding-fresh reg the Commissariat saddled him with really took him places."

Selber nodded, a wistful look in his eyes. "Wish it could've been us, though."

"Throne of Terra, man, we won Morlond! I'd say it doesn't get much better than that." He checked his watch. "Shit, I'm supposed to be at Command in ten."

"Best get going. Me, I gotta find out if there's still a tailor's left standing in the bastion." Mkvayn hopped over the fence and they set off. The road into Littoral split off a ways down the path to the Hyrkan command tent.

"So who got the honours, then?" he asked, somehow still interested in hearing more about the many adventures of Gaunt. Maybe that meant he was a true Hyrkan now.

"What?"

"Who's Gaunt's new mob?"

"Oh," Selber thought for a moment. "First-and-Only something-or-other, I think it was."

"'First and Only'? The hell does that mean...their world's tithe status get downgraded or something?"

"In a manner of speaking. Apparently they lost the planet."

"Feth, that's rough."

"Mhm."

"Happened to you, didn't it? ...Vayn?"

"Yeah," he replied, suddenly feeling strange.

Warp-strange. "Yeah, it did."

Selber blinked. "Shit, man, I'm sorry. That came out way too casual."

"'S no big deal," Vayn answered over his shoulder, the path splitting. "It's long gone."

17:29

A further five minutes at brisk pace led Mkvayn through the veritable city of tenting that tended to spring up wherever the Hyrkan 1st Army Group saw fit to encamp. Before refugees had begun to repopulate the urban core of Littoral Bastion, the ten thousand-strong detachment of Guardsmen had temporarily become the largest population centre in the region. The unique grouping used in Hyrkan military structure meant that though the Army Group comprised ten nominally separate regiments, the men of those ten fought together, rested together, and on evenings like these, fresh off one of the Crusade's greatest victories to date, they celebrated together.

This would be the third of such celebrations in a row, and though the night was not just young but hardly halfway out of the womb, he could already hear an according striking up the first stanzas of "O Hills, We Bring You Fury." Yes, the Hyrkans fought hard and – when appropriate – partied hard. There was a joy in the air, sorely missed throughout the hard-fought war for Morlond, and a seasoned psyker like Mkvayn could feel it surrounding him like a warm embrace. Thoughts of Tanith faded as he remembered the new home he had found for himself.

But he could not afford to get distracted. He was very nearly late, and the Eighth's colonel was...intolerant of latecomers. Latecomers, and all warpcraft. Mkvayn had made it a point to make nice with the rank and file – more often than not by saving their lives on the battlefield – but he had it on good authority from the Hyrkan NCOs that it was a miracle their commanding officer hadn't had him strung up on Commissarial edict ten eighty-six. Ismay, the Eighth's political officer since Gaunt took his leave, did take a liking to the young psyker, which might allow for a little more space between his temple and a boltgun if the time did come.

What had he told himself about getting distracted? And dwelling on his rather unique position in the regiment as the only trooper just as likely to get fragged as he was to be killed by enemy action, on top of that. Mkvayn quickened his pace and stepped quickly into Tanhause's command tent, the Circus if one chose to indulge the Hyrkan slang. He remembered the last time they'd shared a billet with the Ketzok, two years ago on –

"MKVAYN!"

Feth. With a nod to the colonel's adjutant, Welhazen, he pushed the canvas serving as a door aside and stood at attention. "Colonel Tanhause, sir."

A face mostly obscured by a thick beard of shock-white hair looked up from what appeared to be planetary survey data. Galen Tanhause was a man fast coming up on sixty who still managed to cut an imposing figure, in no small part to his height of six-foot-six and the seemingly unlimited volume to his voice. "Now that you've taken the scenic route here...at ease."

Vayn checked his chrono. Four seconds late. What could you do. "You wanted my enemy psyk-work assessment, sir."

"Indeed." Tanhause leaned aside for a moment to toggle an auto-transcriber. "You know of our next battleground?"

"Yessir."

"Khan Asticis shouldn't have much of a psyker presence – shouldn't being the key word there. Tacticae can advise all they want but I want to cover as much ground as we can." The Hyrkan commander was often cantankerous and pedantic, but Mkvayn continued to hold Tanhause in high regard because he took no senseless chances with the lives of his men. Veterans had told the psyker that he'd inherited the practice from an earlier commander of the entire Army Group, one Delane Oktar, who had broken with standard Commissariat practice by having a heart. But that was ancient history for the regiments, back in the days of B.G. – Before Gaunt.

Mkvayn fished a data-wafer out of his pocket. "Sir, I've got a more detailed account here, but I'd readily defer to Tacticae on Asticis. We only had a handful of incidents in the Southmarch campaign, and almost all of those were backwash from larger bits of warpcraft the Archenemy was working far up north against the Warmaster's push."

"Hm. And what does Macaroth think of that assessment?"

"I consulted his astropaths, sir, and they're on board. Current thinking is that Gaur is keeping his sorcerers close at hand to deal with Astartes specifically and the first Imperial front more broadly. ...Which we are about to separate from."

"To my regret," muttered Tanhause. I'll slaughter a dozen witches to stand at our Warmaster's side. That includes you!" he added, pointing mock-menacingly.

Mkvayn smiled wryly. "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

"Bah." Tanhause turned off the transcriber. "We've another week here. Macaroth is leaving today for muster ahead of Carcaradon, and we've another week here." His brow furrowed. "Carcaradon, where old and new Crusades are about to meet for the first time. You heard about Herodor?"

"Sir. Sergeant Selber got me up to speed. I just hope the Saint makes it out alright."

"Alright?" repeated the colonel incredulously. "Evidently Selb didn't update you thoroughly enough – here." He tossed a recently-read wafer at Mkvayn, who reopened it. A few seconds later, it was his turn to be incredulous.

"She killed Innokenti?!"

Tanhause smiled. "And put the entire cursed host to flight. Saint Sabbat is alive and well and kicking Archenemy ass halfway across the Segmentum. She and Gaunt make quite the pair of warriors."

A wave of nausea suddenly passed over Mkvayn, doubling him over.

"Vayn?" It passed as quickly as it came. "Sorry, sir – indigestion," he lied. "Been having cramps all afternoon." What the feth could that have been?

"No matter – in fact, take a seat here, rest a moment. I'll regale you with tales of Ibram Gaunt."

"That wasn't by any chance a –"

"You bet your feching Sanctioning scars it was an order. Sit."

"Sir."

"Yes, Gaunt fought at the beati's side to the very end. Hardly a few feet away when she slew Innokenti, though naturally he had his hands full dispatching some other of Gaur's champions."

"That new regiment of his has sure dropped him into some awfully glorious messes, hasn't it, sir?" teased Mkvayn. It had been almost eight years since Gaunt left the Hyrkans in the admittedly capable hands of Commissar-General Ismay, but his current outfit would be forever known as the "new" regiment.

Tanhause grunted. "Throne, well, if we can't have him, at least a bunch worth his time does. I've seen the First-and-Only's after-action reports and I'll be the first to admit it's nothing to sneeze at."

The nausea was back again, Mkvayn fighting to maintain his composure, but Tanhause plodded on. "Yes, fine boys, those Tanith."

What?

Time seemed to slow down. His commander's voice seemed somehow muffled as he followed up with a "Yes, fine indeed." There was a dull ringing in his ears that he couldn't shake.

"...yn? Vayn!"

His head had hit the desk. He sat up abruptly, feelings of sickness gone.

"Sir, what did you just say?"