Third Warhammer fic I've conceived- first one I've published. Sequel to Flesh of Cretacia, prequel to Chosen of Khorne. Rights reserved to Games Workshop et al. Enjoy!
Sins of the Flesh
The conflict did justice to the names of those who participated, as the terrible war band forged of flesh held as stubbornly as tempered steel against the bloody talons of the tearers of flesh. Nassir Amit grimly reflected on this dehumanising overview of him and his warriors, though Amit and his men had long since been elevated to something far more than human.
'Or perhaps less,' Amit caught himself thinking. He admonished himself- a chapter master had no right to allow himself such weak minded musings, even if they were the symptoms of a sickness in the heart- a wound that had never healed.
"Fifty metres! Contact imminent!"
The crackle over the vox brought a slight smile to his lips. The one saving grace of that ancient wound was that the balm that could soothe the pain was simple to acquire and administer.
"Flesh Tearers!" Nassir Amit, former fifth captain of the Blood Angels, now commander of the chapter bearing his own honorific as a title "Attack at will! For the Blood, and the Emperor!"
At the command, two ranks of adeptus astartes clad in battle tarnished red and black war gear broke into a near maniac charge towards the enemy. War cries and bloodthirsty roars alike tangled in the air and the ground shook beneath the impact of power armoured feet. A few half-hearted sprays of bolter fire added to the din, but the Flesh Tearers favoured close combat above all else, and the hiss of power weapon ignitions and the screams of chainblade motors drowned out all else in the final moment before the two forces met.
Confronting the Flesh Tearers were the sullied ranks of the Flesh Forged- a barely unified rabble of mutated horrors that had once been the population of Hippocampus. Leading the charge was the Hippocampus Equinaar Rough Riders. Amit had seen many terrible enemies in his violent lifetime, but the former allies from the ranks of the Imperial Guard he now faced were so depraved as to almost have him recoiling. The riders and their war chargers had been corrupted by vile sorceries to become single creatures; a blending of man and mount that violated the proud heritage of the soldiers of Hippocampus and the nobility of the equinaars. The things now sported human bodies from the waist up spouting from behind the equinaar heads in a berserk parody of mythological centaurs. Many were missing the lower halves of their arms, riding lances stabbing out from elbows in their place. The flesh of these hideous things was mottled and scabbed, showing coloured patterns that indicated where uniforms and saddles had been subsumed to become part of the twisted bodies. The horde brayed and barked in a crazed frenzy that sounded neither human nor animalistic. The long faces of the beasts of burden sported eyes that wept blood and maws with whipping tongues, disjointed fangs or spiked muzzles that had been welded into place. Some of the human faces had their eyes scratched out, the guardsmen unable to bare the sight of what they'd become. They were the forces of disorder, driven insane by their ordeal and lost to primal rage. Whether they had been willing in their mutation or not, there was no hope for them now other than the Emperor's mercy, and the Flesh Tearers were there to grant it.
The Flesh Forged hit the astartes, knocking a handful of them back with a few lucky impacts. A fellow two strides away from Nassir Amit reeled for a moment as a riding lance pieced his neck. The space marine rallied quickly, snapping the weapon off where it connected to the freak's body and counterattacking with a back hand slash of his flaying knife. The chapter master had no time to make sure his warrior was not too badly injured, for another rough rider hybrid was baring down on him.
The monster thundered towards Amit, strips of meat swinging from its body where stretched ribs stabbed out like clawed fingers. A snub-nosed cap of metal over the beast's mouth with a spiked tip thrust forward to stab the chapter master to death. Amit sidestepped and punched the creature's chest with one of his massive gauntleted hands, robbing it of momentum in an instant. The remains of a guardsman loomed over him next from the equinaar's body, waving an axe that would normally have been used by domestic emergency services. Amit drew his own weapons in response- a pair of rust red chaintonfas, chipped and scared by centuries of hard use. Gripping the handles so that the blades ran down the length of his forearms, Chapter Master Amit swiped at the falling axe. It disappeared in a flash of whirring teeth, along with most of his assailant's arm. Before the mutant could react again, Amit leapt up onto it, grabbing the equinaar potion by what was left of its oily mane and allowing the teeth of his left tonfa to bite into the human segment. The monster tottered for a moment but couldn't hold the weight of the fully armoured form. It collapsed, and Amit used the jolt of the impact to force his weapon down. The chain blade ripped the human thorax to pieces, and the mount shuddered and died with its intrinsically attached rider.
Leaping to his feet, Amit turned to face the next mutant who was charging him at speed. With practiced ease he spun the tonfas so they were pointing outward and lurched aside, falling to one knee so that he could swing his hungry blade into the front fetlocks of the malformed stallion. The front of the beast collapsed and it tumbled past Amit and into the second rank of Flesh Tearers. All around him his warriors were engaging the enemy, suffering minor injuries but not falling to the mutants. Amit pressed on, too carried away with the bloodshed to stop and oversee the progress of the three squads under his direct command. If he felt any guilt or shame at his refusal to act like a commander at the expense of combat, it was drowned out by the thrill that came with the boundless violence. He revelled in it, fighting on with even more vigour as the blood began to flow in earnest. His fellow Flesh Tearers followed suit, barely maintaining a disciplined fighting line as they were carried away with bloodlust. The Flesh Forged outnumbered them four to one, but even their insanity driven frenzy was no match for the astartes' capacity for violence. In less than two minutes the skirmish was over.
Bodies and body parts lay strewn in a long stripe where the horrors had confronted the space marines. The combatants had been butchered so fiercely that it looked as if they'd descended to a new level of depravity, mutating into even more appalling shapes. The smell of fouled blood was repugnant. Nevertheless, Nassir Amit couldn't keep himself from inhaling the scent. The stench kept that thrill running through his body. He knew it was wrong, but that part of him inside- his wound- was always sated by blood. He felt that it would be so much better if he'd just take a moment to dip his hands in the red filth, raise it to his lips, and-
A wet thud broke the chapter master from his combat haze. A fellow astartes had found a human half of a Flesh Forged just balancing on the precipice of death, and had pounced on the opportunity to speed him on his way with his massive two handed chainsword. There was a quick reverberating buzz of the blade, and the warrior openly relished the spray of blood across his face, tainted as it was.
"I trust you don't intend to taste that blood, captain," Amit asked disapprovingly, his voice the steady rumble of an approaching storm as he ignored his own hypocrisy.
"This filth would barely whet my appetite, lord," first Captain Gabriel Seth spoke in a jovial tone that bordered on disrespectful in the face of the chapter master. "I'll wager there's finer fare ahead. What's say we go find it?"
"Hold, captain. We need time to regroup and assess the tactical situation."
"Ha!" Seth laughed absently. "Time not spent flesh tearing is time wasted."
"Remember we are here with a greater purpose in mind."
"What greater purpose is there for us beyond killing the enemy?"
Amit turned away, both angry and ashamed of the implication of such a question, though the captain had clearly meant nothing by it.
"Honour…" Amit answered, more to himself than to Seth.
"… and redemption."