Imperial Flames

Death licked at the planet, designated Krassus, hungrily. Supping of the juices tectonic that gave it its integrity. The sounds of a dying planet could be heard alongside the industry of a thousand thousand factories grinding to a halt. From the bridge of the Reapers Scythe, the Reaper himself looked down upon the punishment he had wrought. And he saw that it was good. The radioactive blooms dotting the planets surface were deliberately placed. The entire star facing side of the sphere laid to ruin. Only a commander with several life times of experience using such weapons, forbidden to so many, could end a planet with such precision and only the soldiers of the Death Guard could survive such a cataclismic event.

Within an hour the entire planet had begun to lose stability. Great gouts of magma along with the remains of an alien civilisation spilled into the void. Fleeing enemy ships were downed in their scores, spirilling back towards their home to share in its death. By the time the Imperial craft had been recovered Krassus was a smoking misshapen lump rapidly cooling after its atmosphere had been scoured away to nothing. When Grendel awoke he had expected to feel the savage caress of his friend the Apothecary painfully snapping bones back into place or sealing arteries with the smoking barrel of a hot bolter. The realisation of his friends absence was more painful. Though there were no healers present to explain the truth of the matter Grendel knew what had happened. Astartes or not the wall of force generated by a hundred thousand atomic explosions was not insignificant. Bones had been shattered and organs ruptured. He could feel it. His body had retreated into a recuperative coma within seconds. After he had regained his bearings he realised he was not aboard the Entropic. His senses had returned to him as though a powerful venom coursing through his veins. Lighting up his nerves in singular agony but also sharpening his focus. The medical station in which he had regained conciousness was for all intents and purposes identical to that upon the Entropic but a good captain could recognise his own ship even in the pitch darkness of deep Space. The realisation that this was not the Entropic spawned a cold feeling in his battered gut. If this was not his ship then it was possible the Entropic was lost. Had his command lead to the end of the venerable ship, he worried.

All such thoughts were lost however, even the pangs of loss brought on by the Apothecaries absence, when he saw Him enter. Alone save for the echoing footsteps of his honour guard that were always to follow. In he came. Rank with power and the promise of death. But in this Spectre Grendel saw nothing of the deathly appiriton the masses were to soon to lable him. Instead Grendel only saw the benevolent father figure that had plucked him from the darkness of Old Night and given him a place in the Emperors shining light. The tugs of age old Human emotion pulled gently in his limply beating hearts.

"My son..." The Primarchs voice was like the buzzing of insect wings. He never raised his voice and yet it filled every chamber and held within all its lilting syllables and gutteral stops the truest essence of Barbarus. It was a voice filled with all the strength of Humanity and edged with the courage to oppose alien worlds and expunge the horrors thereupon. "At last I have found you." Though Grendel hung on every word that left the Primarchs rough lips he could not help but be distracted by the smell. It was a smell of pain and of home. The Primarch was never seen without his personal armour and the breathing aparatus it contained. A constant supply of the noxious fumes of their homeworld always issuing from within. In Grendels radiation ravaged state it was quite overpowering, merging with his memories of home and giving the encounter a dreamlike quality. It was not unknown for the Human menials working aboard Mortarions flag ship to drop unconscious at his passing from the choking miasma he chose to cloak himself with.

Grendel tried to speak but his gene father interrupted. "Rest son of Barbarus. The monsters in the mist will trouble you no longer this day." Almost as though without moving the Reaper Lord moved to Grendels side. Patches of hair were dropping from his head and great scaberous lesions dotted all skin not covered by the unadorned green robes draped over his healing body. "Your body is burned and your bones are broken. But you live another day." Skin cracked as Grendel turned to look upon Mortarion. Weeping puss like juices formerly contained beneath his skin leaked out onto his robe. "For.. the.. Emperor..." He struggled. "Yes my son." Replied the Primarch. "For the Emperor..."

"I had deemed to share with you the cups this day. To honour your acheivments and to show a parents pride in his child. But given your condition I do not think it would be wise, and I have no wish for such a hallowed warrior to spend the last of his life merely to indulge in his victory with a doting father."

But Grendel would not be seen wanting. Not now and especially not in the presence of endurance personified. Struggling against the weight of his muscles, and the furious pace of his cells trying to rid themselves of the damage inflicted by Mortarions dark arsenal, Captain Grendel, lifted his arm and placed one of his gargant hands on Mortarions forearm. The gesture was all his Primarch needed to know that he would rather die right here and now than miss the chance to celebrate a victory hard won with his lord and master.

Quite at odds with his mortifying appearence the Primarchs chapped and raw lips spread into a smile. Revealing teeth forever stained by the effluvial mists of a homeworld wreathed in death. All it took was a raised hand and from the shadows beyond the medical chamber emerged Sabahn. Unlike the growing majority of Barbarun born Astartes the Primarch always had time for the native folk of his homeworld. Though he could often be aloof he never grew too distant to appreciate the struggles of his people. Especially now, as it was all too easy to forget that the sons of Barbarus had simply traded one set of post human masters for another. Mortarion was determined to ensure that that was a decision that they did not live to regret. Despite himself and the presence of the Primarch Sabahn was grinning. If there were any Barbarun hymns of joy he would have sung one. To be be serving his master and to be in the presence of his masters master was dizzying. So much so that the tray upon which rested those cups crafted on his home planet shook with every trembling step.

Mortarion grasped the larger of the two cups. A great baroque peice forged from the black rusted metal that still filled him with a sense of home. Without speaking Grendel leant forwards and took the other. "To victory!" Spake the Primarch and in unison both great warriors imbibed deeply of the toxic fluids within their cups. An instant rictus spread over Grendels already taut features and after some moments of silent acknowledgement Mortarion bid him return to his rest. The strangled groan that followed brought a second smile to his face for the blood of Barbarus, as the effluvium contained in the cups was oft known, was of such virulent toxicity that if ones death was coming it would come quickly. The struggle was all Mortarion needed to hear to know his fabled son would live to fight by his side once more.