Flames. Screams. Dust. The gruesome tableau of terrible unremitting war stretched out before his sight. Men – Imperial soldiers – were being cut down by an unseen foe that lingered in darkness. All around him, lives were culled like so many stands of wheat, devoured by the violence that permeated the fabric of the vision. Violence brought upon the wings of a falcon bearing bolts of lightning. A great threat from beyond.
The great avian spread it's wings out, the shadow cast by it's span engulfing the galaxy that stretched out before the battlefield. The lights of the stars dimmed and sputtered under the shadow. A shaft of darkness descended upon the dimming haze, piercing it through the center. His surroundings shattered, and an impish cackle resounded through his being.
At last he saw a shriveled cadaver, sitting immobile upon a radiant throne of gold and brass, lights flickered in it's empty sockets as it's mouth opened to emit a soundless scream, as blood streamed from the corner's of it's shrunken lips.
Librarian Gaius Troida's eyes flashed open as he emitted a small exhale, his breath visible in the chilled air. Gone was the rampant imagery of his fevered vision, replaced by the spartan environment of his meditation cell. The floor upon which he sat was covered in a dusting of frost, a byproduct of the use of psychic powers. Taking a moment to recollect himself, Gaius turned his attention upon the centerpiece of his sanctuary.
It was a modest wooden table, unassuming in appearance, but profound in purpose. The piece of furniture was ancient, long predating the Imperium, and had the pitted scars to show it. Gaius used it as an inanimate familiar, a focus upon which he could use his abilities with greater precision. It's surface was occupied by a tarot deck, with six cards drawn during the course of his trance and laid down in a neat row.
The cards laid face up upon the aged wood of the small table. Two Emperors, one inverted. The high priest, inverted. The Great Lens. The Black Sword, inverted. The Bone Key. And the Harlequin.
Librarian Troida's eyes narrowed as he studied the arrangement, the portents it suggested ominous to the extreme. It was the first time he had ever encountered such a drawing, and it's implications chilled his blood.
The two Emperor cards had been drawn first, one after another with the inverted card being second. They signified hopeful discovery in the farthest reaches of space, followed by the arrival of a new menacing enemy from beyond.
The next card was the inverted high priest, indicating a weakening in the faith. A perversion of purpose, the Emperor's subjects straying from the path and into darkness. Such drawings often linked to rebellion against the Imperium, and were always a cause for concern.
The Great Lens followed by the inverted Black Sword, and the Harlequin. It told of humanity turning upon itself across a vast region of space, perhaps across the entire galaxy. It was a combination most associated with the Age of Apostacy. It told of a time of great tribulation waiting on the horizon.
Finally, was the bone key, which symbolized the knowledge of the Ancients. This card was normally drawn alongside the Emperor, promising the discovery of lost archeotech, generally accepted as a good omen. But the fact that it was drawn last, hinted that such knowledge would be the cause of great upheaval.
With a slow wave of the hand, Gaius willed the cards to rejoin smoothly to the tarot deck. He then carefully placed the psi-sensitive deck into a small, engraved metal box with the image of a raven proudly displayed on it's face. The same image was born white upon the sweeping black face of his left pauldron, which contrasted with the rest of his powered Astartes warplate which was hued a dull, hard shade of gray. A dark red chiton was secured diagonally across his broad chest bulwark, filigreed with the golden livery of an Epistolary – now damp thanks to the melting of the ever-annoying psi-frost.
Gaius picked up his antique familiar and carefully placed it into a time-locked stasis unit built into the wall on his left. He muttered the arcane rituals of activation as he primed the chamber for storage, after doing so he turned about and left the cell.
The Raven Guard strike cruiser Unyielding Shadow was small for a ship of it's classification, being roughly an eighth shorter than was normal. The ship was optimized for rapid deployment, it could navigate circles around escorts less than half it's size, and it had a sensor footprint low enough for it to evade fire from larger vessels. It was a ship that perfectly exemplified the circumspect methodologies of Corax's children.
The senior librarian reached out gently with his mind and brushed imperceptibly upon the minds of the serf crew and his brother Astartes. Upon finding the mind he was seeking, Gaius allowed a flicker of levity to appear on his pale features as he received a glimpse of the task it was involved in. The epistolary's long strides quickly carried him through the vaulted corridors and bulkheads to the midship deck.
The training room aboard the Unyielding Shadow was at the heart of the Raven Guard's daily routines. Six full combat squads and a contingent of initiates put it in use for most of 27-hour day cycle aboard the ship. By rule, members of the Adeptus Astartes had little in the way of free time, most of their schedule was filled with drills, tactical indoctrinations, and bouts in the training cages. Troida's enhanced hearing could already detect the clatter of blunt objects smacking together with violent force.
Upon entering the training room, his attention was drawn immediately to the dueling ring in the center. Five inhumanly muscled beings stood arrayed in a circle, like weapons in living form arrayed to strike at the one who stood in the center. All were armed with staffs capped with weighted tips, and held them with the surety of true veterans. The marine in the center held his staff in a cross-wise guard position, held close to the chest with his feet planted evenly in relation to his broad shoulders, his bone-white skin was marred in a few select areas that had obviously felt the sting of his attacker's weapons, but his opponents bore a far greater number of marks.
Kayvaan Shrike, Shadow Captain of the 3rd Company, held firm against the determined expressions of his subordinate squad sergeants, his deep set onyx black eyes daring either one of them to strike out at him. Veteran scout sergeant Doran Lukanis was the first to accept the challenge, swinging an overhead strike from behind, Shrike twisted at the hip, stepped back, and angled his staff to redirect the blow while whirling the polearm counter-clockwise to counter sergeant Arik Toark's jab. Sergeant Rom Barada rushed in to take advantage of the perceived opening while Lukanis lashed out to put his commander off balance.
Barada's head turned sideways on reflex as he felt the touch of cold iron hitting him hard in front of the right ear, leaving him open to a powerful jab to the midriff which succeeded in making him double over. Shrike pivoted and twirled his staff to redirect an opportunistic lung from sergeant Harcen Kyzo, before smacking Barada on the back of the head for good measure.
Sergeant Sarin Duval was launching a flurry of attacks at Shrike, intent on keeping the Shadow Captain's hands full while his fellows closed in from the rear and sides to take him to task. Only Lukanis managed to land a glancing blow on Shrike's shoulder as the wily captain dodged, rolled, and redirected all other attacks.
Epistolarly Troida watched in silence behind Lukanis' batch of initiates. The soon-to-be, fully blooded members of his chronically shorthanded Chapter were watching in unrestrained awe as their remorseless mentor, along with the squad leaders, layed into Shrike with focused aggression. But Kayvaan continued to hold his own, displaying the strategic acumen he had used many times to systematically deconstruct enemy forces, and end wars ahead of schedule.
A soft wet crunch followed by an annoyed grunt heralded sergeant Kyzo as the proud owner of a broken nose, just before Shrike's staff slipped behind one of his knees and knocked the bloodied warrior off his footing. Two eliminated, three left standing.
Kayvaan chose this moment to go on the offensive, he forced open Duval's guard and struck the hardened warrior upside the chin with an underhand swing. Shrike then threw his staff cross-wise into Duval's face, catching the polearm as it rebounded back into his hands, before lifting the stunned marine off the floor with an underhand drive through the fork of his legs. Duval landed unceremoniously on his back with a grunt.
Sergeants Toark and Lukanis were the only ones left to engage Shrike, and they did so cooperatively. Toark attempted to keep Shrike's attention focused on him, while Lukanis tried to attack from the flanks. To the unaugmented eye, their movements would have been likened to blurs, their staffs striking hard in a rapid, sharp staccato.
The fight which had gone on for only a few minutes now seemed to stretch far longer, Shrike had yet to move from the white circle in the center of the ring.
Kayvaan lashed out with a kick, his foot connecting with the center of Lukanis' staff, the force of the blow was enough to send the slighter framed veteran sergeant back several steps. The Shadow Captain then turned his polearm on Toark, launching a brutal series of strikes which forced the young sergeant upon his back foot. Before Lukanis could come to his aid, Shrike was already inside the junior sergeant's guard, and throwing him to the floor.
Lukanis was the last opponent left. Shrike met his subordinate with the loud crack of wood striking wood. Lukanis struck at Shrike left, right, and center, the Shadow Captain's hard won martial skill saw him through the onslaught unharmed, and he was quick to seize the initiative. Long seconds passed as both fighters called upon their broad experience. But the end came blessedly quick.
Shrike opened up Lukanis' guard for a split moment, long enough for the famed captain to shove his shoulder into the old sergeant's abdomen and drive him off balance. Seizing the moment, Shrike lunged forward, hooked the staff around the veteran sergeant's leg, and sent him down hard to the floor.
"The victory is mine," Kayvaan stated, looking down at Lukanis who merely smiled before pointing down at the Shadow Captain's foot. Kayvaan Shrike looked down and looked to be suppressing a groan of dismay. The front part of his foot was outside the boundary of the circle.
"The day is mine, captain. By disqualification." Lukanis replied as he took Shrike's hand and got to his feet. The other four combatants gave their elder a nod of respect, and Kayvaan a salute of deference before turning to stow away the sparring equipment. Troida decided to make his presence known at that moment.
Stepping from the shadows, the Epistolary made the slightest movement of the eyes, Kayvaan picked up on the silent message immediately. The Shadow Captain walked past Troida, and the librarian followed.
Kayvaan led Gaius to the tactical indoctrination theater. It was empty, and the holoprojector at the far end of the room lay dormant. Kayvaan turned and regarded the Epistolary for a brief moment.
"What is the situation?" Kayvaan inquired.
"I followed up on the dreams that I have been receiving lately, the answers I received were not to my liking," Troida said stiffly, truthfully the Epistolary still could not completely process what he had seen. The divinations of the Emperor's Tarot could be interpretted to mean any number of things, but this reading screamed of grave danger.
"Anything specific to your disliking?"
"War is coming," Gaius said bluntly.
Kayvaan looked at him strangely, his porcelain features tensed slightly. "The Imperium is always at war Epistolary." It was a sobering truth. While Shrike, and indeed the majority of the company had long ceased to care about what particular Emperor forsaken enemy crossed the sights of their bolters, Gaius had never been able to find such dispassion.
"The threat is already on the move," Gaius pressed, "Whoever they are, their power is vast. The chaos they could unleash..." the librarian shuddered as the vision of the galaxy being eclipsed in the Falcon's shadow came to the fore of his thoughts. Mankind split asunder.
"That is not much to go on," Shrike said, "You don't know where they are."
"I couldn't see, the conflict raged far and wide. Either way, I don't think we will have to wait long for them to come after us."
Shrike was silent for a long moment, "As troubling as this vision is, we have matters that we must attend to. If the Centaurus Reach falls to rebellion, hidden enemies will be the least of our problems."
Troida tried and failed to stop the disgusted shudder that escaped his lips. The Administratum, the bureaucratic leviathan of the Imperium was currently in the process of tithing the three sectors, despite the claims that a tithe had already been payed. And many worlds have refused to provide the requested tithe, forcing the Departmento Munitorum to call in Imperial Guard forces to repress the increasingly irate denizens of the Reach.
At this point, it was clear that the Administratum was acting solely out of pretentiousness. Anyone could see they had made a mistake, but only they refused to admit it. The only thing that could stop those incompetent bureaucrats now would be an intervention by the Inquisition, and it may even be too late for that.
"If there is anything else, Epistolary?"
Troida shook his head. Kayvaan gave him one last appraising look before stepping out of the theater, leaving the psyker alone with his troubled thoughts. For the first time in his long service to the Emperor, Troida was feeling something approaching helplessness. Despite Kayvaan's dismissal of his vision, it was becoming all the more real to the Epistolary with every passing moment. A Dark Age of War was coming. In all of it's glory. And all of it's unbound horror. And no matter the outcome, humanity would suffer for it.
High in orbit over Hydra Volantis, a large host of ramshackle ships and converted asteroids flew in disorganized lines over the invaded world. They were lead by an immense construct of cratered space rocks and the battered, broken hulls of uncountable vessels, a Space Hulk. Known as the Profanity of Solace to scholars of the Imperium, this planetoid sized monstrosity has appeared randomly across the Eastern Fringe, from the Ghoul Stars to Ultramar. At over five-thousand kilometers over the long axis, the space hulk was easily visible from the surface of the planet, like a malignant tumor in the heavens.
The Profanity of Solace had brought the orks to this system, it's endless twisting corridors seethed with the barbaric aliens set upon pillaging the world that chance had unleashed them upon. What they did not count on was the force newly awoken on the planet rising up to challenge them.
The Panopticon mountain range was currently being leveled by massive waves of kinetic energy radiating from a tower in the center, revealing scores upon scores of metallic faces, gigantic hangar doors which were even now yawning open to reveal their contents to the waiting galaxy. Neither the aliens nor the Imperials besieged by them were prepared for the storm that would follow.
A/N: And so the protagonists of the Imperial side are revealed. Gaius Troida (My OC!) and Kayvaan Shrike (AKA Captain Beakie) Honor your champions servants of the Emperor.
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