Warhammer 40K

Soloman the Blood God

By typicalteenager.

Disclaimer: I do not, and never will, own 40K, the characters etc.

Important: 1) This is only my second ever fanfic, so it may not be that good.

2) Thoughts are in Italic.

3) Book entries, letters etc. are in Bold Italic.

Well, here we go!

Chapter 34: More memories, and a plan (of sorts)

That evening - time-wise, as opposed to any change in light - the Keep was equal parts noise and silence, chaos and order. Much as it had been a few days earlier.

This time, the noise and chaos was not coming from impromptu surgery being performed by an Ork Chef on an effeminate Daemon in the dining room, but going on in the mind of one Blood God, as he sat in what he had dubbed the living room, on an armchair, staring out of the massive window into the evening sky.

The silence and order came from the rest of the living room, which was unoccupied save for Mortraz, who sat in another armchair, staring at his Beef-cake with concern. He was also trying not to fidget, but it was difficult: though Blud an' Gutz had eventually succeeded in his surgery, it had left a constant ache, as though he had slept with his head at an odd angle.

His thoughts about the Ork were unpleasant to say the least, and murderous to say the most.

The silence remained for a while, until Mortraz eventually spoke out softly.

"With all due respect Beef-cake, I can't help but question your sanity in this situation."

Soloman snorted with amusement and shook his head. "With all due respect Mortraz," he responded, almost in a half-amused, half-mocking tone, "I'm a human, stuck in a realm designed for the beings of Chaos, having only gotten here by winning almost by accident against the previous Blood God, and with two Daemonettes clinging to me, one of whom who is pregnant with my children, the first of which has already been born. Add in everything else that has happened to me physically, and any questioning of my sanity is long overdue."

"Besides," he added, "The answer is obvious. At this point, either my sanity is strong enough to endure all this and whatever is to come, or somewhere along the way I've gone insane and don't realise it."

Mortraz raised a finely-manicured eyebrow. "Beef-cake, you know that's not what I meant."

"Then you mean letting Slaanesh and Zeena take Arita out for clothes shopping? Don't worry, I took that into account when I gave them spending money. There's enough for all three of them to buy several outfits."

Mortraz sighed. "Beef-cake…"

Now it was Soloman's turn to sigh. "Mortraz, I know what you meant. You'll forgive me for trying to alleviate the situation, especially giving what we're heading into."

Mortraz gave a scoffing noise. "What we're heading into he says, like it's no big deal…" he muttered aloud, more to himself than anyone else.

Silence hung in the air again, until Mortraz continued.

"I'm sorry Beef-cake. I get that this is stressful, but it just-"

"Do you?" Soloman interrupted. "Do you really get it?"

Mortraz looked a little confused. "Of course I-"

Soloman interrupted again. "I don't think you do. Let me try and give you an idea of how stressed I am." Taking a moment's pause, he continued, "My father was an absolute b*stard."

Mortraz's look of confusion continued. "Um… okay?"

Soloman rolled his eyes. "I know that seems an odd thing to say, because I never talk about him, but that's because he was, as I just said, an absolute b*stard. The sort of guy who expected you to be perfect at whatever he wanted, and if he wasn't perfect at it then all the more reason for you to be."

Soloman let out a sad sigh, placing his head in his hands. "I've never done this, because I keep hanging to the delusional hope that some part of him genuinely loved me, but I'm pretty sure that if I looked up his behaviour towards me it would qualify as abuse."

If any of what he had said was supposed to make Mortraz look anything other than confused, it failed.

Sighing again, Soloman continued. "So one day, when I was five, he drags me out of bed at some early hour, takes me out of the house and into the rain, to a hill in the middle of a field, puts an auto-rifle in my hands, and tells me to shoot at a scarecrow a few fields over, and put one through its head."

Now Mortraz's expression had changed. It had gone from confused to a look that said 'You've got to be making this up'. After all, Daemons were supposed to be horrid to each other, even when they were related, but from he knew of Humans (which was admittedly very little), they were supposed to get along, especially when related.

"So: it's still so dark that I can't see the gun in my hand, let alone the scarecrow, I'm still in my pyjamas, steadily getting colder and wetter, and only half-awake, and there's my dad, seriously expecting me to just lay down in a muddy field, set the auto-rifle to single shot, aim down the iron sights, and land a head-shot on a scarecrow that is about a mile and a half away. And that, Mortraz, should give you an idea of how stressed I currently am."

Silence reigned for a third time, as Soloman tried not to get bogged down by bad memories.

At last, Mortaz asked "So what did you do?"

At this, Soloman gave a small smile. "Shot his hand off."

Mortraz gave a slight start. "You what?"

"Shot his hand off. Presented with this situation, I did what any five year old would do and start crying and whining about it, until my dad grabs me by my hair to pull me up and snarl at him, and which point a combination of nerves plus hands shivering from being cold and wet causes my finger to tighten on the trigger, unloading about 30 bullets into his other hand. There was nothing left but a bloody stump. Well, until he got his augmented hand to replace it."

"I… see. It must have been a shock."

"Not really. I spent a good while laughing, thinking the God-Emperor had unleashed divine retribution on my father. Rather sadly it's one of my happiest memories of him."

Silence reigned for a fourth time, and would have been very annoyed at its short reigns and frequent dethroning had it been sentient. This time though, it was Soloman broke it.

"But we're getting off topic with all this. You were questioning my sanity, I believe?"

Mortraz's face cleared up at this and became a fusion of concerned and annoyed. "Yes Beef-cake I was. And I still am."

"Well you needn't worry. Like I told you, I've got a plan."

Mortraz rolled his eyes. "Beef-cake, your 'plan', if it can be called that, consists of, from what little detail you've given me, all of us going off to do various tasks, while you sit out in the open like bait for Tzeentch to turn up, at which point you're going to, assuming I heard you right, talk your way to victory."

Soloman nodded. "Yes you heard right."

Mortraz paused, raising an eyebrow before continuing with a hint of sarcasm. "And you're wondering why I'm questioning your sanity."

Soloman sighed. "Look Mortraz, I will give each person the specific details for their tasks: I'm not sending them in blind. But I can't tell you my part in case any of Tzeentch's spies hear me, and my part's arguably the most important, so I'm keeping it to myself, unless of course any of Tzeentch's spies are psychic."

He paused for a moment, and then asked "Are any of Tzeentch's spies psychic?"

Mortraz pondered the question for a few seconds, before answering "I suppose it's possible, but probably not. Tzeentch wouldn't risk the chance of one of his spies being able to read his mind."

"Good. That makes things a little easier. I mean in theory it won't make any difference, but I'd rather not take any chances."

Mortraz looked bewildered. "Why won't it make any difference?"

Soloman rubbed his eyes. "Because it may be the one thing in the world where knowing anything or everything about it doesn't help you, and thus Tzeentch's intellect won't save him."

If there was any chance that Mortraz had stopped questioning his Beef-cake's sanity, it had just been taken away (and made into a meal by Blud an' Gutz) by that latest sentence from said Beef-cake. "So, not only are you going to try and talk your way to victory, but you're going to try and challenge Tzeentch's intelligence"

"Yes."

"With your own piece of intelligence."

"Yeah."

"Against the Chaos God of Intelligence."

"Yep."

"…."

"…."

"Should I make an appointment at the nearest mental asylum, or just knock you out and look for a straightjacket?"

Typicalteenager:

*Looks and sees that his last update was in July 2014*

You know, it occurs to me that if I'd managed to stay to my weekly update schedule, this chapter would have been posted back in 2009/2010.

That's a little embarrassing.

At the same time, I thank all of you who have chosen to tolerate my poor time-management and cases of bad grammar/spelling/punctuation, and kept an eye out for the next update (there's probably a betting pool somewhere on the latest stretch between chapters).

It means a lot that you continue to follow a story that a young teenager started 6 years ago where 10% of it was Warhammer, and the remaining 90% of it was (and still is) random ideas put into text on the spur of the moment.

Now, let's give this weekly update schedule another try.