Chapter One: Returning the Gifts
Which brings me to the next step in my journey to cast the False Emperor from his black throne and reclaim this universe in the name of the Four Powers of Chaos. In this universe, no gift is freely given and my gifts from the Chaos powers were no different. I had to repay the powers of the Warp in some way, or I would end up as a spawn, or some gibbering maniac, or more likely, some combination of the two. I stumbled upon an Imperial world and immediately knew how to return the gifts, with souls, countless souls.
"Blood for the Blood God!" screamed the cultists, their voices echoing across the blood-stained and shell-cratered no-mans land, to reach the ears of the Imperial Guardsmen some five-hundred meters away in their rough dug-outs and crude earth-works. Those Guardsmen who were unlucky enough to hear the call cringed from the sheer anger and hate those words were spoken with, enough anger to drown a world in its fury, enough hate to kill a thousand worlds.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!" again the cultists shouted in the sky, those fortunate few with blades were cutting themselves, drawing thin, red lines of devotion across their bare arms and chests, as if to wet Lord Khrones lips in anticipation of the slaughter to come.
Forklovia, known as the Forsaken, was less than joyous to see his cultists cutting themselves before their attack began. The cultists were just attacking so he could find out if the Imperials had effective artillery, after all, but the cultists did not know that, oh no. Even if they did, they would still throw themselves into the teeth of the Imperial defenses, just to shed blood in their foul god's name. Forklovia spit at the thought, just to worship one of the four Chaos powers was stupid, a foolish act by those who could not comprehend the true powers in the warp. Forklovia raised his daemon-sword, Mor'etha, and swung the heavy, black blade down in a savage arc, the signal for the cultists to begin their 'attack on the Imperial trench-works.
With a wordless scream of anger, the mobs of Chaos cultists, some had once been former Imperial citizens and Guardsmen, surged forward, their eyes bulging in their eagerness to shed blood in their perverse god's name and perhaps gain enough favor to rise above the masses around them. Of course, if they failed, by say, dying, an eternity of torment in some daemon-hell would await.
The no-mans land was a hell in itself, of rusting razor-wire, half buries mines, blood-filled craters, and, of course, bodies. Hundreds of cultists had already tried storming this way, for Forklovia wanted to find out where the main Imperial bunkers were. Those who were still alive, running hell-bent towards the trenches ignored the dead, they had been found wanting in Khornes eyes.
The cultists were about two-hundred meters away, their hearts singing at a chance to kill and be killed for Khrone, their poorly maintained las-weapons and auto-pistols were carried like clubs, their blood-encrusted knives, swords and axes were raised high, ready to split heads, carve open stomachs, and slash throats. None would ever get that chance.
At a heavily fortified observation post some distance away, Lieutenant Janes calmly radioed in the pre-determined coordinates, causing Earthshaker artillery pieces to rain fiery death upon the cultists. A one-hundred square meter section of the no-mans land was a hell-storm of dust and metal, causing bodies to be thrown into the air like rag-dolls, to land brokenly. For exactly two minutes, the barrage continued unabated, to stop abruptly at another pre-arranged signal. Raising a battered pair of magnoculars to his tired eyes, the artillery officer smugly surveyed the scene.
Not one of the cultists was standing, or in one piece, for that matter. A thin rain of blood appeared to be falling, but that would stop soon enough. A new mass of craters had formed on the landscape, just a new obstacle to stop the Chaos bastards, he though. The twisted ships of the Chaos fleet had dropped into orbit around the world of Jordan IV about a month ago and the fighting had never stopped. He shook his head, he had seen hundreds of his friends and comrades killed as the battered Imperial regiments fell back around the planetary capital of Jinn. Now that they had their backs to the city, the damn idiot of a Governor had decreed that not one drop of blood would fall upon the ancient and heavily fortified walls, which is why they were stuck wallowing in the mud. Janes gritted his teeth in anger, the Governor just wanted to protect the 'precious and holy' relics in the various Cathedrals scattered about the city from what the moronic bastard called 'that petty little war.' The war had come to his damn doorstep and the inbred fool wanted to protect his city. The Chaos bastards had been shelling the city for a week straight and the governor still refused to let the Guard into the city. Colonel Kor was threatening to shoot the idiot if they were not inside the walls by next week.
Back across the reshaped no-mans land, Lord Forklovia began to think of a plan to eliminate the Imperial artillery and crack their line like a skull. It involved his retinues of Raptors and Kores Hevankells berserkers.