Rise of the Sky Child
Chapter 1
The Void is a spectacular view. Millions upon millions of stars all winking in the inky blackness. Around those stars are planets, planets where life can grow, adapt, and evolve.
On a temperate planet, orbiting a yellow star, a man stands on the balcony of a castle looking at the stars. This man is Achill. He is a Warrior-Lord that rules his kingdom fairly yet is powerful when angered. Achill is thinking about his only son that is now dead due to a bandit ambush. His son was his heir and with him dead Achill's kingdom now faces an uncertain future. Achill realizes that he can do nothing, but makes a prayer to the Gods and hopes they answer. As he takes a knee, he prays, 'Gods on high, I take a knee now to pray that I may find an heir so that my kingdom can survive and continue to be great.' As he raises to his feet to return to his bed and his beloved wife, he once again hopes that the Gods will answer his prayers.
What he doesn't know is that his prayer has been heard, but not by the Gods, but by the Warp and it will be answered. For above the planet, a tear has appeared and a small object exits before the tear closes. The object is an egg shaped pod with the Roman numeral 'II' on it. The auspex scanners and auger arrays aboard the pod key onto the planet and small thrusters maneuver the pod toward the planet. The pod reaches the atmosphere and begins its descent. Back at the castle, a wall guard sees a light descend from the heavens. He makes note of the direction and goes to tell the captain of the guard, so that a search party can be sent out at first light.
The next day, a search party rides out of the front gate before heading in the direction that the light was seen. At the front of this party is Achill himself. The other riders are his personal guard. His lieutenant, Arkantos, rides at his left while his sergeant at arms, Ajax rides at his right. The rest of his guard ride just behind. Ajax looks over at his lord and asks, "My Lord, why are we out here exactly? We see shooting stars all the time so and while they are pretty there is no reason to go looking for one."
Achill turns to reply but Arkantos interrupts, "My Lord, allow me to answer." Arkantos than turns to look at Ajax and replies, "You are correct but most shooting stars simply fly through the sky. This one came down and supposedly landed in this area. At least that was what the wall guard reported last night."
Ajax looks around before replying, "Well, we may just get to see what it really is, because I can see tree branches with burns and it smells like a lightning strike just happened." The group looks around and realizes that Ajax is correct and decide to dismount in order to avoid spooking the horses.
As they continue to move down the trail, they start to see more and more burned trees and notice that the ground has been dug up by something. They also eventually begin to hear what sounds like clanging and grunting. Achill decides that he, Ajax and Arkantos will move ahead without their horses and the other guard in order to see what is ahead. As they move through the brush, the sounds get louder. They eventually come upon a clearing and find a group of men working on loading an egg shaped object on to a flatbed wagon. As they begin to plan how to approach the group, Achill sees something that causes his blood to run hot. A man just recently arrived bears a distinctive scar of three parallel lines on his right cheek. This man is Agama and he is responsible for the death of Achill's son.
Achill turns toward Ajax and Arkantos and says, "There can be no talking with this group for they are under the command of Agama. Ajax, I want you to go and bring up the guard, but leave two to handle the horses. Arkantos, you are going to help me cut their horse lines so they cannot flee." As the group splits to do as ordered, Arkantos has some reservations about his lord's reasoning for going into this fight.
As they move toward the enemy horse line, he brings this up, "My lord, are you sure that this is a good idea? I know that Agama is a dangerous man, but is worth avenging your son if you lose yourself in the fight?" Achill spins around like lightning, "Yes, I know what I am doing. Agama cannot be allowed to escape not just for what he has done to the kingdom, but also not while that object is in his possession for if he does than our kingdom would crumble under our enemies if they got ahold of that object. Now help me, free these horses."
With that, they went and begin to untie the bandit's horses before moving to a nearby thicket so they could be seen from where Ajax would come from but the bandits could not see them. Achill saw Ajax return and move the guard into position for a charge centered on the almost loaded wagon. Achill nodded to Arkantos who moved his blade in such a way that so Ajax could see the light but no one else could. Ajax realized what the signal meant and lead his men into the clearing heading for the wagon. Achill and Arkantos rushed to the horses before yelling which scared the horses into fleeing. The two men then moved toward the fight taking place in the middle of the clearing. The fight begin to wind down as the bandits were slowly killed since they were only lightly armed and armored while the guardsmen were armed with superior weapons and armor. The fight culminated in a head to head fight between Agama and Achill, while the guardsmen watched.
Achill was armed with a double edged sword with a strong armored bracer (1), while Agama was armed with a pair of short swords. Agama started the fight with slash from his right while guarding himself with the other sword. Achill caught the sword with his armored bracer while swinging over head with his sword. Agama leapt backward to escape the swing while also disengaging his sword from his opponent's bracer. Achill however did not give Agama a break and instantly reengaged him, he came in with an under thrust to Agama's lower abdomen, which was caught by his opponent's short swords but he was expecting that and punched Agama in the face with this armored bracer, which broke Agama's nose and a cheek bone. This rattled Agama and he staggered back in order to regain his balance but with blood running down his face he barely blocked the next three strikes from Achill's sword, but he took another two punches to his ribs which doubled him over in pain. Achill realizing his opponent was wide open rammed his sword into Agama's exposed upper back. This cut Agama's spine which paralyzed him and collapsed his lungs as he slowly drowned in his own blood, Achill came close and whispered, "This is for my son you son of a bitch. I hope you enjoy Tartarus." Achill then rammed his sword under Agama's jaw and into his brain.
Afterwards, he turned to his men, "Alright, secure the area and give any still alive the mercy kill. Arkantos, I want you to examine the object that they were loading. Ajax, send one of the men back to bring up the horses and then help the men secure the area." With the orders given, Achill moved to Agama's body and cut off the head in order to show that the bandit was dead and prove that crime would not go unpunished in his lands.
Once the head was in a sack, he moved over to help Arkantos examine the object, "So what have you found, my friend?"
Arkantos turned around to reply, "Well it's highly advanced, beyond anything we could think of so I see very little use in the object, but more interesting is that it has a number which is based on our language and it says 2."
"So we have no idea what it could be other than it as a twin somewhere," Achill replied. "Yes, but it could….," Arkantos began to reply but trailed off because when he looked back at the object a small door was open and a cry could be heard.
The pod had realized that a skirmish was happening around it and maintained its lockdown. Once the fight was over, it used what sensor power it still had after the crash to examine the people around the clearing and its cogitators found that the people were militant which would have a good society to raise its cargo to adulthood. Thus the lockdown was ended and power rerouted to opening the hatch that led to its precious cargo.
Achill turned to see why Arkantos had stopped talking and heard the cry, he rushed over and looked into the object to see a young child about the age of 16 months. His paternal instincts took over and he reached in to remove the youngling before yelling, "Arkantos, get me a saddle blanket quickly and have the men finish loading the object. Then join me and Ajax, we need to get back to the castle to have this child looked at."
As Arkantos relayed orders and got a blanket, Achill had a thought and it was that his prayer the previous night had been answered in the form of this child.
AN: (1) he wields a long sword in his right hand while a plate mail bracer covers his left with a plate mail glove providing extra punching power