I claim no ownership to any Games-Workshop copyrighted material here. This is a new area for me, so be merciful in your reviews. This will be darker than my other works.
N. Kage
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" screamed Kores Hevankell, thrusting his shrieking chain-axe in the air; two score other servants of the Blood God joined his call; their deep voices making his armor vibrate and the skulls chained to his waist sway.
"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" he screamed again, this time lobbing a skull towards the Imperial lines. Raising his chain-axe again, he charged towards the Imperial trenches, his followers at his heels. Kores could feel their blood-lust; it was heavy and rich, dark and beautiful, intoxicating and overwheling. Even in his ancient and baroque power-armor, Kores was swift, his long strides eating up the distance to the enemy. As he neared, his Mark began to burn, and his thirst for blood was uncontrollable. The foolish Imperials were frantically firing, their pitiful las-guns sparking off the Berserkers armor. One next to Kores fell, his legs vaporized by a multi-laser. Without pausing in his charge, Kores took his head with a single stroke, the chain-axe effortlessly passing through the Chaos Marines armor. Dark blood spurted out like a fountain, splattering over the Berserkers. Kores laughed. Khorne did not care from where blood flowed, as long as it flowed.
Kores jumped into the trenches, his booted feet crushing two guardsmen, his axe slicing left and right, gutting one and splitting one in half at the waist. Blood flowed like water and gore splattered in sinister rainbows. One Imperial in the uniform of a Commissar slashed down at Kores with a power sword but Kores sidestepped and pumped two bolt pistol shots into the Commissars stomach. As the Imperial fell, Kores stepped forward and took off the mans head, kicking it down the trench. The air was filling with screams and bellows of terror and the mocking laughter of the Berserkers as they bathed in the blood of their foes. The sky itself had began to redden, as if in tribute to the carnage that unfolding. Oh yes, Blood for the Blood God. Kores jumped over the trench wall and sprinted towards a knot of the guardsmen. They saw him and the terror in their eyes made Kores glad to kill them. They tried to shoot him down, but his armor stood firm. Kores slashed down and bisected the first, his guts sloughing into a pile that steamed in the cold air. One stabbed at him with a bayonet, but he grabbed the guardsmen and held him high, breaking his neck and then tossing the body over his shoulder. The last was shaking, the front of his trousers wet, his las-gun held in limp hands. Laughing, Kores took off his head, the blood spraying over him, dripping from the spikes on his knees and forearms. With so much blood, the Mark of Khorne burned in his chest, and Kores was glad he had chosen this path.
Bolting down the trench line, Kores dived into the thick of the fighting, crushing four guardsmen under his armored bulk. Screaming incoherently, he swung his axe in great figure eights, not caring if he hit his own followers or the foe, all that mattered was that blood flowed. Clots of blood blinded him, but he could smell the blood in the guardsmen's veins, and that was what mattered. He was a whirlwind, and no could stand before him, knives, las-bolts, and swords all struck at him, but he paid no heed. He was in blood-lust now. Pausing, he wiped his eyes clean and surveyed the carnage. Bodies lay in drifts behind him, broken by occasion hulks of power armor. Ah, the blood, so much split, it was a tribute to their Lord and Master, who had set them free and spoke the Words of Blood to them.
The Imperials were in full retreat now, broken and horrified by the worshippers of Khorne. The trench system was half-filled with blood and the Berserkers were bathing in it as they collected the bodies of the slain on to a pile. After every battle they did this, the bigger the pile, the more glory to Khorne. Their biggest pile was eighty feet tall, after the massacre on Entis Minor when they had gotten amongst the refuges and retreating guardsmen.
Kores had to stop a few from chasing the scattered remnants; it was good to spread terror amongst their foes. Behind him, the rest of the Chaos war band had followed up in Berserkers wake and secured the position. Lord Forklovia, commander of the fifth host, swooped down towards him on his massive black wings, followed by his bodyguard of Raptors.
Forklovia laughed as he saw the blood coating the Marine. "Kores, once again, you have proven your worth. Move on the Capital, keep the blood flowing. If the weak followers of the False Emperor show themselves, let them be immersed in the dead." His picket ships had reported Space Marines approaching, and Kores was more than likely to be the first to engage the bastard sons of the false Emperor.
The berserker lieutenant ginned, his steel fangs dripping his own blood, "Of course, Lord. Khorne would not want it any other way." With that, Kores whooped, his augmented voice echoing across the shattered landscape. The fifth host had fallen upon this world in a fury. This planet, Jengo Major, was close the Maelstrom and the foolish Imperials were building cathedrals and monuments to their false Emperor, and Forklovia was furious. Not one Imperial will leave this planet, he proclaimed, his horned head shaking in anger. Kores had killed almost two hundred of the pitiful guardsmen since landing, his chain-axe clogging with bone and blood. Piles of dead littered the Chaos march towards the capital, Heras. Almost a billion souls dwelled there, ripe for the picking.
Kores hurried over to the waiting Rhinos. Like the other vehicles of the Blood God, these were heavily augmented, with spikes and industrial saws jutting from every available surface. The tanks were coated in skulls, and blood spurted from the exhaust from time to time. They were good tanks. His berserkers usually didn't use the Rhinos, but they needn't to get to Heras as soon as possible so the blood would flow longer. Ha, thought Kores, if they killed even a tenth of the population, rivers of blood would flow, oh yes. It was a nice thought.