Dramatis Personae
The XII Legion, "World Eaters"
Khârn the Betrayer - Former 8th Captain of the World Eaters Traitor Legion and Champion of Khorne
Lotara Sarrin - Captain of the flagship Conqueror and second-in-command to Khârn
Gunnar Razvan - Former 16th Captain of the World Eaters Traitor Legion and Chaos Lord of the warband "Razvan's Raiders"
Crucius - Aspiring Champion of Razvan's Raiders
Dol Turmek - Former Word Bearers legionnaire and assistant to Razvan's Raiders
Daghmar - Deredeo Dreadnought of Razvan's Raiders
Barrakul - Khorne Berzerker of Razvan's Raiders
Matewa Henderok - Commander of the Murder-class cruiser Bloodmonger
Kargos the Bloodspitter - Former Apothecary of the World Eaters Traitor Legion, and Chaos Lord of the warband The Goremaw
Skane - Former Destroyer sergeant of the World Eaters Traitor Legion, and Skull Champion of The Goremaw
Xiucatali Foemauler - Commander of The Goremaw's auxiliary traitor Imperial Guard regiment, the Warrior Women of Tlanxla Prime.
Renegade Chapter, "Blood Revenants", formerly "Angels of Spite"
Typhaon Constantine, the Hundred-Handed King - Former chapter master of the Angels of Spite, and Daemon Prince of the Blood Revenants
Ezekial Aretstikaphas - Chaos Lord of the Blood Revenants, master of the Hekatoncheires
Valefor Scornclaw - Chaos Lord of the Blood Revenants, master of the Ravenhorde
Drakh Multok - Chaos Lord of the Blood Revenants warband "Multok's Murderers", master of the Dreadwing
Larsakh the Mad - member of Multok's Murderers
Ashkorh - member of Multok's Murderers
Gharrax - member of Multok's Murderers
Azmodial - member of Multok's Murderers
Jaego Aximand - Former Sons of Horus legionnaire, and member of Multok's Murderers
Rakatash the Impaler - commander of the Desert Scorpions
Khadagon - Chosen of the Desert Scorpions
Prologue: Reunion
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 last 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 Khârn?! Khârn the Bloody?! Khârn 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 Khârn woke 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 took Khârn 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 Khârn 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.
Khârn 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. Khârn 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."
Khârn 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." Khârn 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 Khârn 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, Khârn." 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. Khârn followed her, standing before the throne. Again, the hint of a smile flitted across her face for a second. "So, Khârn. What is it you wish to know?"
"I want to remember." Khârn stepped towards her. "It has been...a problem of late."
Lotara seemed to almost giggle. She leaned forward to pull Khârn'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 Khârn'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, Khârn."
"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.
Khârn 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 Khârn, until he towered over her again. "Come, Khârn. 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!"
Khârn 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." Khârn 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." Khârn 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, Khârn." 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 Khârn 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 Khârn had returned to her. She chuckled to herself with a primal knowledge granted to her by the Axefather. 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."
Chapter 1
Chendutis III
Unknown point in the Eye of Terror
Dol Turmek had been wrong again.
Gunnar Razvan cursed the day he'd allowed that preachy, Seventeenth Legion whoreson to join his company. His massive poweraxe, Warbringer, split another green-clad Astartes screeching in the name of Alpharius from shoulder to pelvis. An upstroke tore the head of his comrade from it's housing. The ancient Cataphractii-pattern Terminator armor whined as he hefted his weapon onto his pauldron and drew the storm bolter from his right thigh. Bolter shells began pulping the horde of cultists rushing his position. Slugs from autoguns and shots from lasweapons scored paint from his warplate. He grunted as several thrown grenades detonated around him.
Razvan had been the commander of the World Eaters' 16th Assault Company ten millenia hence. From the end of the Great Crusade and through the Horus Heresy, he was respected among his men and other captains. He lead them into battle at Armatura, Nuceria, and Terra. His hulking stature once dwarfed even Ezekyle Abaddon of the Sons of Horus, and was twice as inspiring. Or so it was said. Now, in the wake of the Long War and his legion's shattering at Skalathrax, he and the remainder of his 16th Company struggled for survival, scrounging and battling for every bit of supplies they could muster, though Razvan knew they had been one of the luckier warbands. Eighty-eight Astartes warriors had joined his side, all of them World Eaters, they had a ship of their own, a Land Raider, nearly two thousand mortal servants, and the armoured hulk of Daghmar, once one of Razvan's more trusted veteran squad leaders, now entombed in a Deredeo-class Dreadnought shell.
With him on the ground were the entirety of his Astartes contingent, Daghmar, and what had started out as one hundred cultists, now reduced to a mere twenty-five surviving mortals. They had come to this thrice-damned place because of Dol Turmek's knowledge of a Word Bearer's cache, reportedly stocked with ammunition and fuel much-needed amongst Razvan's warband. Turmek swore on his life and all the gods he could muster that he was one of the select few that knew of the place. Putting faith in the Dark Apostle, Razvan had sailed here in his ship Bloodmonger. For all his shortcomings, Dol Turmek was rarely wrong in his premonitions and expanse of knowledge.
Yet now, as his men died around him to the guns of the Alpha Legion, Razvan was reminded that though Turmek did not fail often, when he did, it was always spectacular and costly. His apothecary was telling him five Astartes needed medical attention, and seven would never fight again. Razvan told the apothecary to harvest their geneseed. The few legionaries they could scrounge out of the children of their many slaves on board Bloodmonger would be greatly appreciated.
An Alpha Legion Astartes came flying towards him, blade drawn. Razvan fired a bolt point-blank into his chest, sending his opponent sprawling. As the wounded Alpha legionnaire tried to stand, Razvan could see glistening organs heaving behind his broken ribs. He severed them from the Astartes with a single stroke of his axe. Several others opened fire on him, the double-barreled bolters of the Alpha Legion's Headhunters pouring their fury into his battle armor. Snarling with annoyance, he shifted his weight towards them and rushed headlong at them. A bolter shell detonated near the crown of his head. Temporarily blinded, he nearly stumbled before righting his course. The sound of a chain-axe chewing through ceramite rang in his ears and he looked up to meet the drooling, grunting visage of Barrakul. Once a reliable tactical support sergeant, Barrakul was one of the warriors so lost to the Nails and Khorne's whispers that he never had any moments of clarity. Long-lost to Angron's gift before Razvan was even a World Eater. The closest thing to sensible he had left was when he turned loose the battered flamer strapped to his back. And even then, the promethium tank was rarely full enough to matter. Razvan nodded his thanks, which his former friend simply met with a blank, yellow-eyed stare; bloody spittle dripping down his chin, flecks of it flying off whenever he exhaled.
Rising to his full height, Razvan watched as his warriors slew the last of the dwindling enemy assault. This was the third one they'd endured, and time was running out. As was ammunition. He stuck his axe in the ground, and loaded another magazine into his storm bolter as Dol Turmek walked up. The Colchisian was dusky of skin, something odd after prolonged time in the warp. Compared to Razvan, he looked as though he were an angel, barely a scar touched his tattooed visage. Gorestained scrolls proclaiming blasphemous hymns flowed around his dull red power armour. His crozius dripped with blood and brain matter. He offered a smile to Razvan. "Quite the day, brother."
Razvan's gauntlet came crashing across the smug Word Bearer's jaw. The apostle fell as the World Eater stood over him. "You son of a whore!" Worse curses followed in the World Eaters' mongrel language of Nagrakali that made the others around them grin and chuckle. Most of the berserkers in the warband however, did not. Lack of battle left them speechless, exhausted, and slavering for more bloodshed.
Dol Turmek spat blood onto the ground and lifted his hands in a sign of submission. "Peace, brother."
"You are not my brother." Razvan snarled and plucked his axe from its resting spot.
"Brothers in Khorne, then."
"No." The former captain gestured to the field of carnage before them. Astartes and cultists wearing the blue and green of Alpharius lay among those bearing the red and brass of the Blood God. "Rogarr, Basthmel, Herthod, these were my brothers." He pointed to the remaining Astartes around him. "These are my brothers. In blood, and in the Blood God! You are my servant, Bearer of the Word. My counsel. Nothing more!"
Dol Turmek nodded and stood. "Understood, captain."
"It is your fault that this has transpired, apostle." Razvan said, with more calm now, though his feverish eyes betrayed a still burning bitter hatred.
"I understand." Dol Turmek was wiping flesh from the barrel of his bolt pistol.
"Lord?" A cultist wearing a pot-like helmet and carrying a drum-fed shotgun looked up nervously at Razvan. "Here they come again."
Razvan turned to look and growled in his throat. The sons of Alpharius were rarely this forward with their attacks. Rather out of character, though it pleased him to see the cowards finally showing some backbone after ten millennia. He turned to the massive shadow on his left. "Daghmar?"
"Captain." The dreadnought did not turn his blood red chassis towards Razvan. His targeting reticles locked onto various targets in the oncoming horde, ready to fire when his lord gave the order.
Razvan lifted his axe above his head. "Blood for the Blood God."
"Skulls for the Skull Throne." The dreadnought answered back, though some among the remaining contingent whispered the response. The order given, the dreadnought opened fire.
What swept through the Alpha Legion's ranks, was a sun-bright approximation of hell itself. Daghmar's primary armament was a massive four-barreled plasma cannonade. Energy the color of magma spat at a tremendous rate from the into the front lines of cultists. Armor and all, they were reduced to calcified bone in less than the blink of an eye.
Backing up the ancient cannonade weapon, was gigantic back-mounted missile launcher. It could fire up to thirty massive missiles at a time. As the warheads detonated, shrapnel tore through the enemy, gutting mortal and Astartes alike. Messes of intestine, bone, and brain matter flopped undignified to the blood-soaked ground.
Another familiar face took his place next to Razvan. Crucius had been a young heavy support legionary at the time of the Siege of Terra. Now he had a veteran's stance and gaze. The heavy plasma cannon he carried was slung at his waist now. Caedere remissum stretched up from the sides of his head into the air. The snarling grille of a Sarum-pattern helm and emerald-green lenses glared out towards their oncoming foe. "Do we charge, Captain?"
The other World Eaters Astartes stirred as the Butcher's Nails bit once more. The gifts from their primarch Angron in the days before the Heresy still roused their hosts to purpose. The sound of chainaxes being gunned came from those warriors more lost to their gift. Razvan could feel it too. The buzzing, biting pain in the meat of one's skull. No doubt Crucius felt it too, but he had always been disciplined with it. A warrior involved in fire support had to be.
Razvan nodded a single, solemn nod. Turning to face his men, he raised his axe in both hands and beckoned them forward, shouting the uniting battle cry of their patron. "Blood for the Blood God!"
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
"Blood for the Blood God!" Razvan stepped onto and over the mound of corpses in front of him, crushing skulls and bursting spilt organs with the heavy tread of his Terminator armor.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
"Blood for the Blood God!" He broke into the shambling run of an Astartes in Cataphractii plate, followed by the roaring, spitting, bloodthirsty mob of his warband. The Nails bit hard, and Gunnar Razvan gave into the seething madness that threatened to overtake his mind every waking moment.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
The Murder-class cruiser Bloodmonger
In orbit around Chendutis III
Commander Matewa Henderok frowned at the display on his screen. "They should have taken the damn Land Raider."
His first officer murmured a word of agreement without breaking his "at-ease" stance. Henderok was troubled by the developments on the ground. Lord Turmek had been wrong about the circle of knowledge surrounding his precious cache, it would seem. But what baffled him was that his masters were not trapped on Chendutis. Their Thunderhawk gunships were not far from the site of battle. Hidden from the Alpha Legion, and from all reports, untouched by combat.
So why then, did they not simply pack up and leave? Why put themselves unnecessarily in harm's way? Did they need the supplies that badly? That was possible, many warbands suffered similar issues. Perhaps it was pure lust of battle? Lord Razvan did not like cowards, and Henderok suspected he did not want his men to have the stain on their honor of having run from a battle. From a chance at slaying the enemy. Khorne would not like that either, Henderok concluded, and put away any criticisms he had for his masters.
There was an incessant beeping that rose over the usual bridge chatter. A raggedly uniformed man began barking out a report. "Sir, scanners are showing a large presence moving towards us, trajectory would indicate a possible intercept course!"
Henderok stood up and strode over to the beeping console. The word "large" was a misnomer. It was massive. He'd seen Astartes battle barges up close, and even they weren't as large as what was sailing into their vicinity. Could it be a ship? Something like Abaddon's Planetkiller, he considered. If not that, some vast warp entity? No, the scanners were showing it was metallic. Though here in the warp, that didn't indicate much about it at all. But the marker it was giving off was clearly that of a ship, power signatures and all. His mind made up, the captain blinked his aging eyes and stood up. "Hail it. See if you can get a vox reply, or even a signal. See if you can get an identifying "
The deck officer went about his orders. With a disciplined quickness, he hailed the approaching vessel. "Unidentified vessel approaching, this is the Twelfth Legion cruiser Bloodmonger. Please identify yourself."
The reply back was just as fast and strong. A female voice answered them. "This is the Twelfth Legion flagship Conqueror, permission to come alongside, Bloodmonger?"
Henderok frowned. He'd never heard another vessel identify itself as belonging to the Twelfth Legion. It was a formality enforced on his crew by their Astartes masters, an allegiance to the ancient Astartes establishment. He hadn't even been aware of a Twelfth Legion existing until he was captured by Lord Razvan and his warband and forced to command their ship. It still irked him to realize that he was as much a slave as the lowliest denizen of the most warp-twisted deck of this forsaken ship.
But the Conqueror, that was a name he'd heard spoken in whispers by the Astartes. It was often mentioned in the same sentences as "Armatura", and "Angron", and "Skalathrax". It seemed as if it were a legend. Or a relic of a better time. If this was the ghost of their past, then it was one big throne-damned ghost to have show up right now.
He took the vox-piece from his officer. "This is Commander Matewa Henderok, acting ship-master of Bloodmonger. Whom am I speaking with?"
"This is Captain Lotara Sarrin, commander of the flagship Conqueror. Who is your commanding officer?"
Flagship? Of what fleet? Henderok was annoyed with the woman's curtness and apparent arrogance. "My commanding officer is on the surface currently. If you have anything to say you will have to say it to me, and I will pass it on at my lord's earliest convenience."
The female, Lotara apparently, responded again. "Patch me through to Captain Razvan, Commander."
Henderok gritted his teeth. "Captain Sarrin, I'm afraid -"
"Do not play with me, boy. I know who your master is. He will know who I am. I have more than enough power to shred your ship into scraps for the Neverborn."
Henderok paused. There was no doubt about that in his mind. The massive "flagship" must have thousands upon thousands of weapons systems. He conceded to his counterpart. "Affirmative, Conqueror. Attempting contact with Lord Razvan now."
Crucius' plasma cannon had gone dead, it's hydrogen fuel expended. He'd cut it's strap from his body, leaving it on the ground as he drew his chain-axe for combat. A kick sent mortal cultists sprawling with crushed limbs and ribs. As he gunned his axe, Crucius rushed forward into an Alpha Legion marine, slamming the other Astartes to the ground. Momentarily forgetting his axe as the Nails ran hot, he roared into the face of his enemy, pummeling the faceplate with rapidly fired fists and elbows. He finally ended it by bashing the split ceramite helmet in with the haft of his axe.
Lifting himself to his feet, Crucius looked around for another target of his Khorne-fueled wrath. A small, static-plagued display popped into life on the inside of his helmet. The face of Bloodmonger's mortal captain crackled and hissed in front of his face. Crucius failed to hide his annoyance. Sneering, he spoke to the slave. "What do you want, Henderok?"
The captain was hesitant. Even if they weren't particularly bad for Heretic Astartes, the Raiders were still brutal, unforgiving masters whose temperament matched the Legion most of them had been born into. In his Nails-induced near-madness, Crucius bared his teeth in a grin at Henderok's apprehensiveness. The captain found his voice. "Lord Crucius? Where is Lord Razvan? I cannot raise him on the vox."
"Captain Razvan is lost to the Nails." Crucius said. "I am perhaps the only one left who is not, except for the Word Bearer. You can relay the message to me, and I will see that he gets it, provided that both he and I survive this mess."
Henderok nodded. "Yes, my lord. There is someone here in orbit who would like to see Lord Razvan, and offer his assistance in the fight on the surface."
"Who?"
"She introduced herself as Captain Lotara Sarrin, captain of the Conqueror."
Crucius grunted. "Have you seen the ship?"
"Yes lord. It's, well it's bloody massive, lord."
The plasma gunner grunted again, this time more dismissively. He couldn't believe that it was really Lotara. The Conqueror hadn't been seen in decades. Maybe centuries. Time was different for all who lived in the Eye. His skull ached with the Nails' bite. He decided it didn't matter much. "Tell her to give us what she's got. Now stop bothering me."
"She, ah, she 'figured you might say that', my lord. And as such, took the liberty of sending her forces on ahead."
The impact of a drop pod was something to behold in general. From less than fifty meters away, it was more so. When the dust cleared, Crucius sat up from the ground. Had he still been in the service of the Corpse-Emperor, his armor would be filled with dozens of beeping warnings, damage reports, and injury scans. But his scavenged, ill-repaired, and battered plate left him with only pain to determine where his armor was breached. He tasted blood. When the shockwave shook his skull, he'd bit his tongue. Even worse, it added the rattling around of his brain to the already constant ache of the Butcher's Nails. Crucius charged into the dust, the implants spurring him on. Whatever had been sent, it couldn't very well make the situation worse. They'd all die on this damn planet anyway. All for a damn Word Bearer's mistake.