Standard
By steelphoenix
She was cold. Tired. Hungry. Since the invasion of her hive by the Abominations – Chaos-things, horrible, twisted, monstrous – life had become a living nightmare. Running day and night from the loathsome things that her friends, her family, even the priests of the Imperial Cult had become, hiding in chilly bunkers, too afraid to even find food and water.
She knew she didn't have long to live, but she was damned if she'd die enslaved. Dying of cold, of hunger, of a bolter-round was infinitely cleaner than the horrible, flayed shells, still-living, raised on high as sacrifice and worship to the Great Abomination.
The priests of the Imperium had said never said the name of what the things worshipped. And she was glad not to know, for the name of something so horrible must be fear-inducing in and of itself.
But the name meant nothing when she gazed down from her hiding place on a roof one day – she forgot what day it was, her memory was starting to be fuzzy – and saw the entirety of the Imperial Square covered in a red wash, carpeted with flayed skins and torn bodies. She'd forgotten how long she stared, but she knew it was probably hours. Until the snow, pure white, had covered the carcasses in a purifying blanket that hid and froze.
She tugged the thin blanket that was her only protection against the cutting winter wind closer. She knew she should just leave it open, spread herself wide to the falling snow, let the creeping cold wrap her in a comforting shroud, but something still sparked of survival instinct, and she could not do it.
There is a yell from the other side of the wall, and she crouches closer, huddling, hoping and praying to the God-Emperor that the Chaos-things wouldn't notice her.
Then there is a thumping step off to her left, and she makes the mistake of turning to see what it is. The snow that had settled on her blanket shifts, and suddenly there is a whirr of electronics as a helmeted head turns to see her. She recognises the shaped carapace of a Space Marine, but there is something wrong about its colour. And the smell. It takes her a moment to process: it is the red of old blood, and the smell is the sickly-sweet stink that came from the Chaos-things.
A servant of Chaos! Her mind screams, and she is struggling to her feet to run when a great red gauntlet catches her by the arm and lifts her as easily as if she were a child's toy. Her blanket falls to the snow.
"We pray to the God for a standard, and lo, here is one!" The rumbling voice is rasping and barely-human, but she can make out the words through the screaming terror of her mind. All of her wants to flee, and she twists in the grip of the thing, desperate to escape. Human knowledge and base animal instinct scream at her: Chaos! Run! Predator! RUN! RUNRUNRUNRUN!
The Chaos Marine laughs gratingly at her struggles. "Fear is right, little thing, for you shall be made worship." Worship?! I know their worship! I saw it! Then he turns, carrying her along, dragging her carelessly.
There is a square ahead, and a great eight-pointed icon stands at its middle, twice as tall as a man, surrounded by more Chaos Marines and newly-flayed bodies. The Marines here are more gruesome than the one that had captured her – horns and spikes deck them, one festooned in tubes carrying a thick red substance that can only be blood.
"Lo, brothers, here is our new standard!" The Marine lifts her up, dangling her by her arm, and she twists in its grip. Terror screams through her, and she can hear a thin screaming that she knows is hers. She cannot stop it, could not even if the God-Emperor himself ordered.
One, decked in eight-pointed icons and armour painted with sigils that make her head hurt, says, "The other just died. Your timing is impeccable, for the God must have a new standard." Its voice is still dreadfully human, a gentle bass that makes the horror of its insignia even worse. It gestures towards the icon, and she sees in growing terror that it bears the body of a woman.
Her mind struggles to take in the sigils carved into the woman's skin, the tortures that had been done to the body, the fact that those same tortures were going to be done to her, and everything in her screams for escape. She struggles still harder, screaming growing more desperate, but there is nothing she can do against the iron grip of the Chaos Marine.
One of the other Chaos Marines grabs the woman's emaciated body in huge fingers, a fist too huge even for a Space Marine, and there is a whirr of servos as he rips the body from the icon, flinging it away carelessly, red ropes trailing after it. Then he lifts the icon, lowering it to the ground with a gentleness that seems reverent even through her terror.
It is an altar. A banner. A standard. And my body, my blood, is to be the sacrifice. The horrible truth courses through her, colder than the icy wind that tears at her clothing. Her bowels and bladder let go, but nothing falls, for she had not eaten nor drunk for over three days. All her muscles go limp, and she trembles in uncontrolled, uncontrollable fear that wells up. She can see nothing but the eight-pointed icon that is to be her death.
"I see she understands," Another Chaos Marine growls as it grabs her other hand in giant fingers, its free hand ripping the clothes from her body, and another catches her feet. Slowly, reverently, they carry her over to the icon. Again, she is twisting in their grip, knowing it's hopeless but animal instinct, the desperate fight for suvival, taking over.
She is spreadeagled, one Marine to each limb, and she can do nothing but writhe as they lift their voices in a horrendous cacophony, and she hears the name of the Great Abomination. "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! Lord of Blood, Chaos Lord, Khorne the Bloodthirsty! Hear our call and accept this offering, this Standard to You!"
And a Chaos Marine bends over her. One lightning-crackling claw lowers, and her stomach bursts into a fiery cataclysm of pain. There is a sliding of blood, as her abdomen is sliced open, and she can feel a shifting within her. A hand. The Marine stands, and in his fist drips a red rope – her intestines. They steam in the cold air.
She is screaming, yelling, knowing there is no hope, pain coursing through her with every heave of her muscles, but she cannot stop the spasms, the terror, the utter horror.
"Tie her." The slick red rope of her guts encircles her once, twice, trailed down to spiral her legs, up around her arms, and she can feel the dreadful dripping of bodily fluid and blood as it circles her neck, and she can no longer move, tied to the icon of pain and blood.
Then the claw lowers again, and her flesh becomes a burning sea of pain as it inscribes blasphemies and horrible sigils in her skin.
They lift her upright, the eight-pointed icon jolting into a crack in the pavement, and there is nothing but pain, and blood, and she can do nothing but scream.
It is a long time in agony, the cold creeping up her limbs, blessedly numbing the pain, and she gasps out a prayer of thanks – perhaps to the God-Emperor, perhaps to the angels, to any god but the one that had staked her here. Her vision whites and blurs as the snowstorm rises, and the Chaos Marines move about her feet, sometimes leaving, returning with smoking weapons and reports of something out there in the snow.
And then a chittering line of bullets pocks across the square. The Chaos Marines explode into action as a line of blue men, huge men in the armour of Space Marines – real Space Marines – explode into the square. There is a banner with something that looks like a 'U' on it, but whatever knowledge she ever had of Space Marines has been wiped from her mind by the pain. There are men scattered among them, Imperial Guard.
Her eyes fog with tears of visceral joy – the pain no longer matters, for the cold has numbed it nearly completely – as she watches the Chaos Marines fall under the fire of the Space Marines and Guard. She doesn't know how long it takes, just that it happens.
And then the blue Marines are gone, and there are just men in black fatigues and flickering camo-cloaks before her. Looking up. A Guard – no, he's not a Guard, he has a Commissar's cap – pushes through them, asking something.
"It's a woman, sir. God-Emperor, she's still alive!" The Guard closest to her points up. His voice is quiet, and somehow gentle. Pitying.
She tries to say something – anything – a plea for help, but she barely gets past the first syllable before the man in the Commissar's cap says sadly, "Cut her down. Get the Medic."
They lift the icon, lowering it to horizontal, and she screams as the pain is renewed at the jolting. "Shhh. Quiet," says one of the Guardsmen, patting her on the shoulder with a prosthetic hand. She barely feels the chill of the metal over the creeping cold that's starting to encase her torso. The restraint of her intestines about her limbs loosens, then drops away, and she flops limply. Relief courses through her, the fear gone. She was safe. The Imperial Guard were here. The Space Marines were here. They would protect her from the Chaos-things.
"God-Emperor, they used her guts to tie her to that thing." Big blue-tattooed hands scoop her up, gentle, cradling her, and she feels safer than she's ever felt, than she can ever remember. Not that she can remember much except pain. A camo-cloak is wrapped around her, its rough fabric soft against skin made red-raw by blizzard-wind and ripped by Chaos-blade.
A Guardsman with white armbands and a bulging white bag comes over, standing out in the blur of black fatigues. His hands skim over her, and he looks up at the man in the Commissar's cap. "She can't be saved, sir. Too long in the cold, too much blood loss, and God-Emperor, whatever they did to her."
"Then… the Emperor's Mercy?" The Medic nods, reaching for a bolt-pistol that someone is holding out to him. "If she wishes." He looks down at her, asking clearly and slowly, "Do you wish the Emperor's Mercy, civilian?"
She smiles weakly. She knew what the Emperor's Mercy was. But they wouldn't need it, not with how the cold was calling her. It was a gentle shroud, and now she couldn't see anyone but the Medic, the Commissar, and the Guard holding her. She gathers her strength, shaking her head once to the left, once to the right. She gathers her breath, saying what she knows and what she wants. "Dying… cold… hold me…" And then the breath is gone, and she can't say anything more.
The Medic lowers the pistol, and he looks over at the Guard holding her. "Yes, sir," he says, answering the unsaid order.
The black fatigues are warm against her cheek, the arms cradling her strong. She can hear a heartbeat, and a hand is on her head.
"You are free, citizen. Go to the Emperor's Rest." The Medic's voice is quiet, gentle.
She relaxes, safe in the arms of the man holding her – it didn't matter who he was, he was still a man – and the heartbeat is all she can hear as black covers her vision, the Medic and the Guardsman holding her fading.
Then there is a burst of white and gold, and she flies.
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