He'd not seen her in years.
No, not years, he had to remind himself. Millenia. It had been ten damned millenia. These moments of clarity were so few and far between, that he had to remind himself every time they came to him how long it had been. Ten thousand years since the Warmaster failed in his crusade against that bastard calling himself the Emperor of Mankind. Ten thousand years since he'd kast seen her.
He stumbled his way through the red sands of this forsaken daemon world. He could barely think. His mind was clouded with pain and the short-circuiting of his superhuman brain. What a pity, he wondered. Once, he had been a great warrior. Something worth his honor and his prowess. Not some malevolent god's plaything. Not a puppet on a string to be thrown around, butchering whoever for the most petty of reasons.
Even now, the calling of the Blood God tugged at his mind. The Nails dug deeper. He could barely pull together a coherent image of her. But she was so close. He could see the ship. Battered, bloody, and twisted as it was from long millenia in the Warp. But it was still their ship. Still the ship of the Twelfth Legion. Still the flagship of the World Eaters. Still the Conqueror.
How such a huge ship had come to settle here, he would never know. He didn't care. As long as he kept this mental clarity, he had to keep going towards it. It was slow. He cursed his axe in the bastard tongue Nagrakali. He wished he could throw it away, but the chains that had long bound it to his arms were dug deep and twisted by warp energy into his skin. He snarled and lifted it up onto his shoulder to rest there. His pistol could hang off his belt in its case, thank the Ruinous Powers. Put it from mind, he whispered to himself. Put it from the shattered, broken, savage thing you call a mind these days. He put one armored foot in front of the other, striving to go forward, ever forward.
He cried out as the pain struck him. He'd not felt the pangs of the Butcher's Nails in so long, so much of his time these days was spent being lost to them. The spasms of hateful sensation savaged his skull, forcing him to his knees in a gesture of contempt from the pain machine gifted to him and his brothers by their genefather. He pushed himself up. He had to keep going. So long as he could keep his mind intact, he needed to keep going. To reach the ship. To recapture whatever honor was left to him and his men. Or rather, those that had been his men before the disaster that had been Skalathrax.
Re-shouldering his monstrous axe, he marched on, his eyes and mouth twitching in rage as the Nails sent knives through his head. Stumbling, shambling, even crawling at times, he made it close enough to the gargantuan ship. The Gloriana-class battleship was more massive than any other ship in the ancient Astartes' arsenal, excluding Lorgar's abominable chasms of sacrifice and destruction. Countless weapons batteries lined it. Spiked armor-plating coated the exterior. A savage reminder of the World Eaters' terrifying purpose in days gone by.
Not days, he reminded himself once again. Millenia. Millenia of bloody, hateful nothingness. He could not account for much of the time. He'd heard he was revered among the forces of the Ruinous Powers. Perhaps he was. Perhaps it was just the ramblings of awestruck cultists. Cultists whose skulls now littered the sand of some ruined city on this daemonic world. His breathing grew heavy as he recalled the rush of battle killing. Another pang of the Butcher's Nails. He grunted this time, and waved his gloved hand shakily as if to wipe away the thoughts threatening to turn him back into a raving madman.
He was under the ship now. Oddly enough, the massive ramp in the docking bay was lowered down to the sand. Summoning his last bit of strength, he pushed further up the ramp, the cold metal ringing as his heavy boots tramped across it. His arms hung, dragging his axe. The screech of metal on metal annoyed him. Pushing him towards his inevitable warmongering self. No, damn you, he thought to himself, you were once worth something. Control it!
Flashes of combat, death, and suffering started to collect in the forefront of his brain. The movement was involuntary now. He was simply trudging forward. As if his feet knew where he needed to go. Exhaustion and pain he had not felt since his injury on Istvaan...was it three or five? One of the two. His axe continued to drag along the ground. He lost track of time. He lost track of all things.
Finally, he collapsed. Somewhere. Where was he? On board the Conqueror. But where? Where on this maze of a ship? His head was pounding. He pushed himself up on his elbows. There was more in him yet. He registered cold, still metal underneath him. He looked up to notice a limp figure further down the...corridor? A corpse? It was a corpse. Millenia dead by now. Pushing himself to his feet, he shuffled forward and looked down at it. The corpse wore an all-too-familiar suit of power armour. Gritty, blood-stained white, with blue pauldrons. He was given a flash of a fight in this corridor. He remembered himself there. Brothers falling in battle. Ah, but he must have been lost to the Nails then. He grunted in acknowledgement. The most sentimentality he could offer a brother whose name he had long forgotten in the warp-stained madness of his past ten millennia.
It must have been several hours. Hours. What was time here, except measured in millenium? His breathing was heavy. He was completely done. There was naught left to push him onwards. His heavy armor clanged as he fell against the doorway, and stopped.
The room he had stumbled on was...familiar. Very familiar. Perhaps once a bridge? The ship's bridge. Maybe he had spent much time here a long while ago. Ten thousand years ago. Maybe longer. It was bathed in light the color of his bloody armor. Torn, twisted, and blackened metal sprung from every corner. From the floor. From the ceiling. Ruined displays and holo-devices were scattered. Rotted brown stains, perhaps once the warm arterial red of fresh blood, were splattered about. But what caught his eye was the throne. A plain looking thing. Utilitarian, rather than ceremonial. He blinked once, and recalled something from the deepest recesses of his memory. Something about the throne.
That was where she used to sit.
She. Who was she? What had she meant to him? A fellow warrior? A servant? A lover? Nonsense, Astartes could not take lovers. Strange, he thought to himself. To refer to himself as an Astartes after ten millennia...it was ten, wasn't it...since betraying the Emperor. He was no longer an Astartes. He was a butcher. A snarling, bestial monster employed by the Dark God of blood and hate.
He stumbled forward, head pounding, Nails singing ever louder. He fell to the floor, his axe dragging behind him, grunting and snarling as he crawled forward, ever forward. His bare hand, caked with the blood of enemies long-dead, gripped the seat of the throne. His armored fist provided leverage as he pushed himself upwards, until his armored chest touched the throne. Every nerve in his body was misfiring viciously. Spasms brutally wracked his body. Need for blood. Need for rage. Need to kill. Thoughts of wrathful, vengeful marauding came to mind. He snarled loudly. He could not let this go. He needed an answer. Before Khorne called him back. Before his morbid duty took hold. Before he lost his mind again.
"Who are you?!" He screamed the question to the ceiling, gripping his helmet in desperation as the Nails hammered his mind to crumbling. "Why do you invade my dreams?! What purpose have you in my life?!" He forced himself to his feet with the aid of his gargantuan axe, and began whirling about, frothing behind the mask. "How do I know you?! How is it you have called me here!" He sank to his knees again, dropping the axe and curling his hands into fists. "What do you want from me?! What would you have from me?! What would you have from Kharn?! Kharn the Bloody?! Kharn the Betrayer!"
With the savage, self-loathing spitting of his name into the air, he sank back against some broken piece of technology upon the bridge. His teeth chattered with incessant rage. He tried to speak again, but it came out garbled and babbling. Spittle flew against his vox-grill's interior. As a pair of hands took his forearm in their grasp, his mind cleared, however temporarily. The hands...they felt small. Small and rough...yet gentle and sympathetic. He hissed animalistically. "Who are you?"
His helmet came off, and clattered against the floor. He found himself looking into the eyes of a creature he would have not thought to exist. It's skin was sallow and scarred. Blood red eyes shone out from a face capable of horrid violence. Tattered white rags hung on a body seemed flesh, but clearly grew out of the metal floor. Matted brown hair hung to it's shoulders. On the white rags was stamped a familiar symbol. A red handprint. A bloody one perhaps? But he could not place it. He could not remember. He could not remember. He...could not remember.
But memory be damned. The creature cradled his superhuman head and spoke in a feminine tone. "Hush now. All will be answered. Rest, Champion. Rest, and in time, you will receive your answers."
He resisted, wanting to interrogate the creature further. But his battered body and ravaged mind wished for alleviation so intensely. And so he faded out of consciousness, unanswered and unconcerned.
It was hours...or perhaps days...before Kharn awoke again. His mind was clear. For now. Even as he swung his legs off the bed, the Nails started sending pangs of violence to assault his fractured nerves. His hulking body ached. It Kharn several minutes before he realized the odd sensation of air against his skin was because his armor had been removed. He looked down at his body. It was pale. Crisscrossed by silvery scars and twisted tissue. Feeling his face, he discovered a thick, scraggly beard, and long, tangled hair. He stepped over to his armor, which was lying in a pile next to the...whatever it was he used to sleep on during his younger days. If he ever slept. He didn't remember. That was a recurring problem. He didn't remember. It kept coming up.
But what Kharn did remember was the entity that had...rescued...him. His eye twitched. The Nails again. The madness seemed to ever loom over his existence. He began to reassemble his panoply of war. The breastplate. Greaves. The plating that covered his right arm. His helmet. The gruesome war trophies that hung from his belt. He stepped out of the chamber and began down the corridor.
Kharn entered the bridge, his axe hanging by his side. The massive room was still bathed in the blood-red light. Several of the once-dull displays and holo-devices now blinked and shifted with angry orange life. Kharn turned to look at the throne elevated in the center of the bridge. Nothing was there. More pangs from the Nails. His eye twitched. It had been too long for Khorne's liking. The madness would return. It would return in its most visceral and punishing form. But not yet. No, not yet. He needed answers before going on another rampage.
"You look like shit."
Kharn turned to watch the entity seemingly rise from the floor. It did not phase him. The nature of the Warp had shown him much more horrid sights than that. He nodded in agreement. "I felt as much."
The creature came forward, close to him, looking up at his towering visage. "You remember me?"
"I know your name." Kharn looked down at its frail, female form. "Lotara."
"That was my name once. You may call me that, if you wish." Lotara's face flashed the brief hint of a smile. Her human body seemed very much intact, but metal wires and tubing flowed from her back, fluctuating and growing even. The metal grew from the floor into her. She looked much more crisp and clean. Her once-matted long hair was now cut to a uniform bob. She now wore a fresh, white uniform. A color Kharn had not seen clean in millenia. Yes, millenia.
"You are a woman?"
"Woman...yes, I suppose so." Lotara spread her arms wide. "I was a human woman once. Now, I am one with the ship. I am the Conqueror, and the Conqueror is me. My spirit inhabits her glorious metal body, and my flesh has merged with it, allowing me to take form anywhere in the ship. A well-deserved blessing granted by Khorne, for kills long past tallied."
"We were comrades?"
"Comrades." Lotara nodded. "Friends, even. And perhaps, at a time, a bit more than that." She turned away from him. "But that is no matter now. I can reveal all you wish to know, Kharn." She glided on her wires above the ground to the throne, where she sat. The wires just seeming grew out of every surface she touched to connect her. Kharn followed her, standing before the throne. Again, the hint of a smile flitted across her face for a second. "So, Kharn. What is it you wish to know?"
"I want to remember." Kharn stepped towards her. "It has been...a problem of late."
Lotara seemed to almost giggle. She leaned forward to pull Kharn's helmet off and set it down at the foot of the throne. He felt another twinge from the Nails, increasingly violent. Wires grew from the floor again, up to Kharn's temples, and connect with his head, flooding his shattered mind with memory.
He could remember. He remembered Golgotha, Angron, the Great Crusade. Istvaan, Loken, Armatura, Nuceria! Argel Tal, the Blessed Lady, Kargos, Skane! Horus! Terra, the Emperor! Lorgar, and the Warpstorm around Ultramar! He remembered the bloody, vicious combat he was plunged into! He remembered his legion! He remembered his betrayal at Skalathrax! He let out a violent shout of frustration, and fell to his hands and knees as the Nails tried to reject the information overload. Forcing himself to his feet, he grabbed his helmet, and replaced it on his head. "Lotara."
This time, Lotara did smile. "Welcome back, Kharn."
"Why have you called me here?"
"Khorne summons his strength." Lotara steepled her fingers. "He has seen the machinations of Tzeentch, and the return of the Plaguefather. He knows it is only a matter of time until the Prince readies herself for war against the Aeldari and her fellow Powers. Khorne has put plans in motion to begin a new wave of butchery in the galaxy. You are part of this plan."
"So we go forth. To finish what Abaddon has started?"
"To succeed where Abaddon has failed." Lotara nodded.
Kharn shouldered his axe. Gorechild. It had been so long since he had remembered that name. The Nails sent another jolt through his mind. "And perhaps this time we will win. And depose the Corpse-Emperor."
"Perhaps." Lotara stood and walked - glided - down to Kharn, until he towered over her again. "Come, Kharn. Follow your destiny. This is what the Legion was made for. We will gather all your remaining brothers and bleed the galaxy. We will make the throne of skulls reach the infinite heavens!"
Kharn nodded. "You've changed, Lotara."
"I have."
He put a hand to his helmet as another brutal shot went through him. "The compartment where we kept the Red Butchers...is it still here?"
"It is."
"Good." Kharn put his gloved hand against Lotara's face, with a gentleness simply never exhibited by a Berserker. "It is good to see you again, Lotara. If this is our calling, then so be it. We will build Khorne's throne higher than it has ever been before."
"And so, forward again to battle go the World Eaters." Lotara smiled, her shining blood-red eyes pierced his eyeshields.
"Yes." Kharn nodded. "I feel the madness coming once again. I will be in the hold for the Red Butchers. When it has passed, come visit me. I would like to speak with you, like old times."
"I would too, Kharn." Lotara turned again, and took here seat upon the throne.
He took his leave of the bridge, starting at a full run down the corridor. The Nails were pounding his mind into submission again. His boots pounded the flooring as he started to froth at the mouth. The entrance. There was an entrance somewhere. Somewhere, right? If he could remember. He had to remember. Could he remember? Blood. Skulls. It had been too long since he last took a gruesome trophy. The blessing of Khorne's rage clouded his mind again. Within seconds, he was teetering on the edge of the madness.
He was not ten feet from the entrance of old Red Butchers' containment chamber. The gigantic doors slid open slowly. The work of the ship, no doubt. Whatever that whore's name was. He did not care. Could not care. He only wished to kill. To spill blood for his god. He let out a savage growling snarl. His jaw worked to gnash his teeth together, his arms flailing as he flung himself with the last of his sane willpower into the open air, completely letting go of his mind as he fell bellowing into the chasm of the containment chamber.
Lotara/Conqueror watched from her throne as the monitors displayed footage of Kharn thrashing about in the dark as the chains that once held the infamous Red Butcher Terminators in place, tangled around his arms and chest, suspending his body in mid-air. She watched her once-beloved Eight Assault Captain, now reduced to a slavering madman, for a few more seconds, before shutting off the monitor, and firing her engines up. The ship's armoured bulk breached atmosphere not long after. Reclining in her throne, Lotara/Conqueror swung her legs up onto the arm of the huge seat, a familiar position from ten thousand years ago. It felt right. Very right. Even more so, now that Kharn had returned to her. She chuckled to herself with a primal knowledge granted to her by the Blood God. The galaxy would burn, and she was to be the instrument that began the process. The time of the Black Crusades was over. The First Red Crusade was about to begin.
Lotara's grin grew wider as they drifted through the twisted violence of the Warp. With a harsh laugh of gore-thirsty joy, she spoke but one phrase to the cosmic endlessness set before her and her companion: "Blood for the Blood God!"
To be continued...