The Stand of The Wild Hunt

by When40kgivesyoulemons

They will never see home again. That's the sentence of anyone who becomes a member of the Imperial Guard. So what could inspire a group of ordinary citizens from a garden world, of all places? What will happen when these would be scouts and guardians are forced to learn what being a Guardsman really means? Witness the birth of a new group of unlikely soldiers. The Wild Hunt.

1. The Dead Waiting

The Stand of the Wild Hunt

( An intimate chronicling of the lives and events of the 21st Perspinian "Rough Rider" Imperial Cavalry Regiment)*

by Garrius Metarious

Editorial Note: THe following events are presented in with little editing as they were presented by Metarious and aids after discussion with (when possible) persons involved and when regretfully not so, through comrades, kin, fellows, and records available.

Location:

Segmentum: Pacificus

Sector: Sabbat

Sub Sector Wraith

Planet : Proserpina

Population: ≈ 2,000,000,000

Imperial Date: 06 735 936 M41

Chapter 1: The Dead Waiting

Recently Carolus had been having aches in his neck, he was spending too much time staring up at the night sky. It was the only place that fit his new wanderlust.

Carolus awoke on Feth day, It was a windy fall morning, the kind of morning that although it wasn't cold yet, gave warning to the coming winter through a frequent breeze. Despite this the scent in air seemed to loudly beckon, demanding that leaves be raked into piles and promptly jumped into, While the haze of smoke in in the distance made promises of grandiose bonfires which should be gathered round that evening, and stayed at long into the night. Above it all were the voices, the voices of jubilation, of the married and the bachelor, and the young and old alike, prepared for a beautiful Feth day. Carolu, was in bed.. Not to be heard setting up stalls, fixing chairs or chatting ladies, it was three and a quarter hours to noon, the festival was begun, and he was still in his night had still been sleeping until only moments before because he had been dreaming of ghosts, the same that had haunted him since the announcement of the tithe.

.

Each night's dream began on the same unfamiliar forest ground, scarred by fire, made almost skeletal by the ravages of war. He was pulled to his feet by a stranger. A tall, powerful man, clothed in the grand uniform of the Imperial Commissariat, but, with the pins of a colonel, and the cloak of a scout.

The two of them, Carolus and his savior, stood at the head of a legion of the damned, of soldiers who seemed as if transparent, and who opened like a maw, as if to admit him into their ranks. It was a place he had no wish to go, for he felt that to walk here was to walk prematurely to his demise. Always it was the same though. No matter had long he waited, the night sky above stretching on into eternity, just like the dream itself. The dream wouldn't end until he took the gifts that ghosts had made for him. Dragging it out he learned, would only lead to a night of restless sleep.

And so, he walked, The officer beside or just ahead, as if, having gone through the troubling of saving him, the officer was determined to see him through until the end. They walked through rows of soldiers, always the same men at first, men with the same complexion , the same eyes that spoke of some great loss. Then came the others, men and women from a different place entirely, different and yet Carolus sensed, ones forged in a similar fire, or perhaps by the same smith, as those who had come before. After a while the faces grew more gentle, more familiar, like something he might see in old picts at the local library.. Indeed as they walked the soldiers became more familiar still, looking like young copies of the elderly he knew, or like older models of childhood friends.

It wasn't just the faces that changed though. The demeanor of the dead changed too. Though they always kept their somber appearance, carolus felt as if a number of them had been caught in the act of something else, as if there was a friend or lover they hadn't seen in years, just within reach, and only Carolus's appearance prevented their warm embrace. Other still, near the very back, appeared to be almost wholly solid, they were the most eager and lively of the bunch. They were the one's who always looked in a hurry, as if they had something urgent to do, somewhere they needed desperately to go. Then after what felt like years and years of walking, came the last of the group. The thousands who were whole and breathing, who looked, on the whole, just a confused as he did about how they came to be in this place in this outfit. The uniform of an Imperial Guardsman.

It was here in a crowd of strangers that Carolus fell into place. Here he stood when the officer, no longer beside him, lead the men in a parade turnabout, to salute Carolus and the other men and women at the back. It was with that salute that the dream always ended, and although he would swear up and down it isn't true , Carolus is said to have confided amongst his friends in later years, the urge to salute back.

The first few nights,Victoria remembered nothing save the feeling of wearing stiff clothing, a feeling which quite perplexed her, each time she looked down and beheld the soft clothes she worn each night to sleep. More confused even then her, was her girlfriend Sophie, from whom she got more than a few strange looks and questions of concern. It wasn't until the second week that she awoke with a solid thought of ghosts, and it had not been until the week prior that she had, after recalling the stories her grandfather had told her as a girl, finally got some answers upon paying the old man a visit.

"Hello Grandpa" she said as she and Sophie stepped inside the room where his grandfather spent his days.

"Vickey, how good it is to see." cheered the old man, wrapping her in a hug. " And this must be the lovely young Cynthia I've heard so much about. " She moved to correct him but was silenced when the blonde smiled and said " It's so nice to finally meet Victoria grandfather, she's told me so many stories about you from when she was a young girl

The three of them talked awhile, about the weather, the friends her grandfather had made here at the home, about Victoria's schooling, the last bit a struggle as she longed so much to talk of her most recent studies, but was forced instead to truck over events from two or more years ago, a faithful and patient storyteller in the name of her grandfather's memory. After a while Sophia rose claiming that she needed to stretch her legs, and "investigate " the servitor that had been making off with grandfather's socks. Now that they were alone Victoria could get to the reason of her visit, as well as indulge in a guilty pleasure. Those his mind was going, there were still two things that her Grandfather could do better than anyone in town, spin a tale, and play regicide.

She threw the first game, only to lose the second handley, and win the third by a hair. They talked as they played, and though she began by coaxing out stories to work toward her questions, it was with a bittersweet feeling that Vickey grew to enjoy herself and reminisce . So It was that only during a particularly grueling midgame in the fourth round, did Victoria finally work the topic that had brought her here, loose from her throat.

"Grandfather, what can you tell me about ghosts?"

Her grandfather smiled, for the first time that day the conversation had turned to familiar easy ground.

"Well plenty Vickey, i've got ghost stories for days, it runs in the blood you know. After all they say your old gramps- gramps- gramps was a-"

"Ghost himself" Finished Victoria herself now finding a smile creeping to her face at the old family legend. "See?" Said her grandfather "What do you need this old bookworm now, they've gone and taught you precognition, already knowing what i'm gonna say before I say it.". He laughed. Don't those fuddy professors of yours know such things are reserved for the elderly and the mad? A sad smile, and then as if on cue a vacant look in her grandfather's eyes, followed by a look of fresh excitement. "Vickey how wonderful it is to see you, I was just playing a game of regicide- " He stop, his face working itself up and his hands possessed by a sudden tremor, growing more agitated as the past and present failed to bridge properly in his mind, and thus lead him to ever greater confusion and agitation.

Victoria rushes to assuage her Grandpa's concern. " Grandfather please calm down, I only just got here, you had a variation on the Emperor's Guardsman opening line you wished to show me, something about how it completely revitalized the midgame? " Her grandfather's face clears, he looks at the board and thinking for a moment seems to decide on something before suddenly chuckling. " Well it sure seems to have worked on you, now doesn't it? Is it my move then? ' "Yes Grandpa" . She said. Then after a moment,"But i was wondering if you might help me with something. A project I'm working on, for school. I'm attempting to trace my family history and then compare it to genealogical tests, but when I try to go more than six generation back, there's nothing. Almost as if our family appeared without a trace. Why is that? Is that why we say we're descended from ghosts? "

Her grandfather leaned back in his chair, his eyes clear and focused, for the moment. Yes well I'm afraid that there is some speculation about that really. Most people say that the records of the Settlement were lost in the Great Fire of 821, and then most everyone agreed it was beyond worth it to attempt to recover what was loss, we were content instead to let that part of our history fade away into oral history."

Victoria looked down, disappointed. She had been so certain that the phrase had some sort of hidden meaning, some sort of connection with her dreams of that forest.

"But- the oral history, the legends rather, that's where things really get interesting.."

Why is that, Grandpa ? Victoria asked suddenly excited again, and feeling herself to be on the edge of some sort of revelation. Because according to the stories, and most do think them stories mind, the founders were in fact a kind of specter. Some say they were exiles, other's that they were brave soldiers, Imperial Guardsman who fought to retake world's smothered by rot and dark. One thing that all the legends agree on is that however they were, they suffered greatly in getting to their new homes. They say that's where the planet gets her name, from a story about a woman dragged to hell, who manages each year to escape, if only for a while. They even say-

Suddenly her grandfather's face grew clouded "Vicky? How long have you been here my dear? Were we talking about something? "No Grandfather. We had just been playing some regicide when you dozed off, I didn't want to wake you." She had to work to keep her voice from breaking. "I'm sorry to leave so soon after your awake, but I'm afraid i've got some study that I have to get back to." Her grandfather smiled unexpectedly, "My granddaughter, Doctor to be, off to save the stars one soul at a time. Just promise you don't forget your old grandad when you've made it big?"

Of course not grandpa, I love you too much for that she said, disrupting the pieces as she rose from the table to pull him into a sudden embrace.

"And I love you dear" he said warmly after a few moments. "Now run along and leave an old man to his rest, the sun is starting to set after all. " A quick exchange of goodbyes and she was gone, quickly out of the rest home and on her way back to meet Sophie at her hab block. As she walked home, she thought about what Grandpa had told her, what he had said about saving people. So when she walked into the door of her house, having finally gotten round to thinking about what that dream might mean, and saw her wonderful girlfriend had cooked her favorite meal, it was the final straw. Victoria began to weep.

A/N

Hello all! This is my first attempt at a fic. I know it may not seem very grim dark but i wanted to explore the lives of a soldier before they were a soldier. There are indeed heavy refrences to Dan Abbet's Gaunt's Ghost Though it won't have much impact on the plot, i like to imagine that the Ghosts eventually got their world, and that the need to fight and serve still runs in their descendants veins. I know there are plenty of mistakes in grammar but I hope you enjoyed, please review and tell me your thoughts.

.