This is my first Warhammer story and I've not been interested in it for very long so please forgive me for any continuity errors, or if you can't then PM me. Anyway, this isn't a prologue so five reviews and I'll add a chapter.
Valhalla-North Western Population Centre
Ulek was finishing his rounds of the city. He was of course cold, but that was what you had to put up with when you were a Valhallan. He had been a guardsman for over fifteen years, but nothing could of prepared him for what was about to happen.
He crossed the street and was about to head around the corner and onto the block that had become one of the four main guardhouses that commanded the countless other guardhouses that had been built after the Ork invasion, when he went past an alleyway.
He was about to walk past when one of the bins was tipped over. He stopped in his tracks, and turned to the path. He unslung his M36 Lasgun and cocked it. There was a strict curfew enforced at the moment, after a few deaths had occurred.
Ulek slowly walked down the alleyway. "Hello?" he called out. No answer.
"Is there anybody there?" Again, no answer. Then, a quick scrabbling on the ice. Ulek's heart was racing. He fumbled in his pocket for a Lamp, and then switched it on. It illuminated the whole alleyway…and there in the middle of the path, was an insect-like creature about half the size of a Nurgling. Its pale flesh glistened in the light and its large sharp teeth chattered in the freezing air. On its back were purple armour-like plates. The creature scrabbled in the light to behind another bin and quivered pitifully.
"It's alright, little guy," said Ulek, placing his Lasgun carefully on the ground. He studied the creature a bit more. It looked like a maggot with huge teeth and caterpillar like legs. It looked directly at Ulek, and he shivered. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear the…thing was studying him as well.
"What are you?" he asked out loud. "I mean, you're not human, but you're not like any alien I've read about."
He looked down at his watch.
"Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you back, little guy. Just stay-"
Behind him was some more scrabbling. He turned and saw another of the creatures, but this time it was hissing at him.
"Oh," said Ulek, as he backed up. "That's strange." He looked down at the creatures, then at his Lasgun. He lunged for it, but the first of the creatures gave him a savage bite to the calf. He hissed in pain, fell and kicked the thing off. The other one came up and bit his forearm. Before he could do anything, it tore its teeth out, along with flesh and muscle. He yelled, and hit it with his good arm.
He grabbed his Lasgun, and shot it at the little monsters, but with only one arm his accuracy was horrific.
However it seemed to have a desired effect. The creatures scuttled back into the shadows. Ulek smiled and stood, the pain in his calf flaring.
He was about to hobble away when cold saliva dripped onto his cheek. He wiped it with his good hand, and then looked up in horror.
Three more nightmares, which in the future would come to be known as Hormagaunts, purred with glee at their catch as they clung to the icy walls with their talons, soaked in venom, at the ready.
Ulek barely had to time to scream as the creatures dropped down and tore him apart.
Further down the alleyway, the maggot-creatures, which were in fact Rippers, had returned to their master who had yet to awake; a Trygon Prime, frozen in the cellar of a house the recently awakened Tyranids had taken, was unconsciously commanding all of its brood. And its prison, an icy cage, was starting to break.
It wasn't the only death in that city to occur that night, not the only Tyranid 'commander' to start to awake and definitely not the extent of the force on Valhalla.
All across the city, about seventy people died. Tomorrow that number would double, then after that double again. And after that the Trygon Prime would awake in the East of the city, a Hive Tyrant in the North West and a Carnifex in the South.
Valhalla was encountering a new terror. And it wasn't even fully awoken.
Valhalla-South Western Guard Training Centre
The Centre was asleep as the people died in the city, only a couple of hundred miles to the north. Only guards were awake.
They patrolled the walls and looked out onto the ice fields. The night was silent. All across the ice, the men saw nothing. But in the dark, another nightmare moved. A completely different nightmare.
The Western guards saw them first, but were quickly dispatched. Quickly and quietly. Nobody heard or saw anything. Just as the terrors intended.
Four shadows moved to the wall and climbed over it. They searched the base for the command base, and then silently entered. In about four minutes all of the senior officers were killed, their still wet flesh adorned by their killers, who returned to their commanders.
Three more shadows moved to the Southern Gates, the guards on which had been dispatched. More of this silent army had climbed over the Western wall and were ready in strategic positions.
The three shadows waited for the signal…waited…waited…then fired all of their weapons at the gate, blasting it into smithereens. The shadows' hover boards glided to a further out position and blew the Comms dish's atoms into the freezing winds
The guards all went into Red Alert. As they left, more than a third of them were killed by the internal soldiers. A battle broke out inside and outside the Centre.
The hovering shades retreated, their work done, but the human guards had one weapon left; an Ironclad Dreadnought dropped off by a transport that was refuelling. A group of engineers soon had it working. It trooped through the Centre, blowing apart the metal automatons. Then, the pilots made a mistake. They left the base, and the shades knew what to do.
The ground beneath the metal giant shook…and a massive centipede-like creature burst up, and ripped off an arm of the Dreadnought, and shot off the other before diving straight through the machine, and allowing several sniper shades to finish off its pilots. The centipede retreated underground and left the Centre.
The once proud human outpost had been metaphorically ripped apart by an army about half the size of the forces there. A host of Necrons, who had been buried beneath the icy crust, were also awakening. Soon, not only would its full army awake, but the Tyranids would also meet them. The confrontation was certain to happen. But not today.