Presenting a teaser for an upcoming story: Diu Vale

Somewhere Somewhen

The sharp stones cut her feet as she climbed the bleak mountainside. An icy wind blew straight through her furs and the chill breath of Lord Winter hung in her sinuses. Low in the sky twin suns were tiny pinpricks, never more than dim lights even in the embrace of Lady Summer, this deep into the frosts they barely lit the world. Far behind the Fjords were covered in thick ice, sealskin fishing boats encrusted in frost left as tiny humps in the frozen ground. From this altitude she could have seen her rude fishing village, but she refused to turn and look, she knew she would never return. She was far from home and starving, yet she kept going, drawn by a song in her heart only she could hear.

Maug was a frail and emaciated girl, well into puberty but so malnourished as to look much younger. Untanned animal furs wrapped her frame and unwashed hair hung long over her face. Her features were pinched and filled with sorrow, but there was a determination in her eyes, a will to reach her goal no matter what. It wasn't like there was anything for her to go back to, the tribe had cast her out and left her to die in the frozen wastes of their world, rejecting her visions and warnings as unclean and evil. They didn't even have the decency to kill her, they let Lord Winter do the deed for them.

Maug wheezed from thin lungs as she climbed, chewing on her misery. Maug had nearly laid down to die when she was cast out, but she had fought to stay alive. She had to reach her goal, she had to find the voice on the wind. Someone out there was calling to her, words only she could hear. A friend who understood her plight and offered aid, or so she hoped. If not then only death waited on the mountain, the circling vulturecrows attested to that.

Maug was on her hands and knees by the time she reached the crest of the low mountain. Ice crunched under her gloves but with one last gasp she dragged herself over the top and rolled onto a summit. What awaited her took her breath away. Laid out on the hard ground was a beast unlike any other. Serpentine, as longer than any boat and covered in fronds, like an ocean Narsnake, but larger than any she'd seen. The head was a monstrous visage of multiple black eyes and a slit mouth, longer than she was tall and filled with sharp fangs. It seemed so strange, a predator of the waters to be stranded on a wind-blasted mountaintop. Maug had no idea how it had got here, but she was sure this was the source of the calling voice. This beast had summoned her here.

Maug should have been terrified but she stepped forward and breathed, "What are you?"

Unexpectedly a dozen black eyes swivelled to fix upon her and a deep voice issued from that maw, "What's that? Who goes there?!"

Maug skipped back a step and gasped, "You talk! You are a dragon!"

"Don't hurt me," the dragon pleaded, "I'm so weak."

Maug's jaw hung slack as she breathed, "A dragon, just like in the old tales. My granny told tales of sky serpents, that the bright lights moving in the sky were dragons dancing among the stars."

"Please," the dragon whispered, "Help me."

Maug stepped nearer and asked, "How can I help you?"

"I need to feed," the dragon whispered.

Maug took a strip of jerky from a pouch at her belt, it was her last but that hardly mattered, she didn't have enough to get off the mountain and she'd never been a keen hunter anyway. She had known this was a one-way trip. Tentatively she stepped nearer and then threw the strip of meat into the maw, it disappeared into the dark gullet and then she stepped back hastily.

"You are kind," the dragon breathed in contentment.

"How did you come here?" Maug asked.

The dragon wheezed, "A great battle in the sky. The dragons united to defeat the Corpse-Emperor but I was undone by betrayal from within and cast down to the world."

"Emperororor…" Maug rolled the unfamiliar word around her tongue, "Sounds Imp'ral. They come every ten seasons to take our youngest boys, dragging them away to fight in their wars. We try to hide and fight but they come in iron boats and with thundersticks and take whatever they want."

"Then we have a common enemy," the dragon urged.

"Pah! The tribes' enemies are no problem of mine, not anymore!"

"You sound bitter," the dragon observed.

"I tried so hard to be a good girl, to keep the dreams and visions to myself but I couldn't. They should have listened to me. I warned them of the unexpected flood during the first coming of Lord Winter, I told the hunters there was good game in the valleys, I even knew what berries would break baby Topg's fever. They should have thanked me, instead they chased me away with thrown rocks and curses upon the unclean. My own mother yelled at me not to come back, to take my evil away and never return."

"I feel your pain," the Dragon sighed.

A cunning glint crept into Maug's eye as she hissed, "The tales say if you do a Dragon a favour they must grant you a wish…"

"So they say," the dragon wheezed, "Tell me what you want."

"They cast me out into the wilderness to die, my own family! I want them to pay, I want all of them to pay!"

The Dragon blinked as he replied, "I yearn to grant your wish but in my weakness I can do little, I will need your help one more time."

"What do you need?"

"Merely your companionship, your kind strengthens me," the Dragon whispered, "I need you to take the next step, open your heart to me and let me in."

Without a thought Maug blurted out, "Yes!" and in that moment reality blinked. A shimmer shot from the body of the fallen dragon and struck her heart. In an instant Maug's soul, the tiny flicker of Psyker power within her, opened a way for something older and fouler than she could know to enter her body. Maug's mind was crushed by a consciousness hateful and vile, a Daemon of the Warp taking residence in her flesh. She screamed in terror but her lips did not move, responding only to a new owner's whim.

Harbinger straightened up in his new flesh and worked the muscles one by one. He rolled the arms about as he muttered, "Thin flesh but it will do. The use of my True Name was a surprise; I will have to be wary of that in the future. Still this new host will replenish me… oh, do keep squirming Maug, your flailing only makes your soul more delicious. Take heart though, I shall grant your wish, those who cast you out shall suffer. They made a mistake when they threw you out, they should have killed you straight away. I wasn't lying when I said I needed to feed, but meat will not restore me, only the suffering of the living. They shall howl as I spill their blood and rip the marrow from their bones and their screaming agony will renew me. But first…"

Harbinger stepped up to its old body, the host already starting to decay with its owner departed. The frail arms pushed aside a tentacle and reached underneath, groping around for something hidden in the folds of skin and muscles. Fingers closed on something and pulled hard, yanking three small objects into the light. He held them up before his new eyes and examined them, three crystal philtres, filled with glistening blood.

An evil grin broke out over the wasted face as Harbinger exclaimed, "Bloods of the Thrice-betrayed, the 33rd Psyker Son and the Threefold Traitor. I still hold the keys to changing the galaxy. They thwarted one plan, but there are other ways to kill a Primarch. They think I am banished, but I am not so easily defeated. They will learn to fear Harbinger yet!"