AN : New chapter again ! This one almost literaly wrote itself, though the first version was a little short.
As usual, I would like to thank those of you who take the time to review this fic. It's really a great motivator.
There is also an announcement I would like to make : I am planning to do a series of short stories, of the format found in the anthologies of the Black Library. To this end, I invite you to tell me what you would want me to write about, be it in your reviews or by PMs. If you want to make a suggestion, keep it reduced to two elements (hey, I have to keep some space for my imagination to work) : the format of the story (2K,5K or 10K words) and the subject (exemple shamelessly drawn from existing works : Inquisitor interrogating an Alpha Legionary, small group of Night Lords in the Eye of Terror ...) Don't limit yourself to Chaos Marines, either : I want to widen my knowledge of WH40000 lore.
When I have written enough stories, I will of course publish them on this website. To those who worry that this may delay my other works, do not fear, it will not. I will still give priority to my current fics.
Concerning the next part of the Roboutian Heresy, I am working on it, but it demands a lot of work and research, so it's probable the next chapter of the Forsaken Sons will be up before the Iron Warriors get their turn.
If you like this fic, or see anything that may be improved in the future, please review !
I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
They called themselves the Sons of Calth, and wore armor of cobalt and jade.
In the years that had followed the death of Horus, the foolish Legions that had remained loyal to the False Emperor had been broken apart, their overall structure annihilated by Guilliman's cowardice and paranoia. Instead of nine Legions capable of crushing any foe arrayed against them, the Imperium was now defended by hundreds of lesser Chapters, who answered to the Lords of Terra. Each of them could only gather a thousand warriors, and was forever under the watch of suspicious mortals, looking for the first sign of treachery.
When Serixithar had first shown this to him, Arken had refused to believe it. The very idea of willingly shattering a Legion was just unthinkable to the former Son of Horus. But the data they had extracted from the cogitators of the Mulor System had confirmed it. The Imperium, it appeared, had repaid the Legiones Astartes that had saved its worthless existence by destroying them, and Roboute himself was to blame. To think that the pristine and precious lord of the Ultramarines would do this to his own Legion …
The Awakened One could understand the motives of the Thirteenth Primarch : he wanted to avoid another Legion realizing the lies of the False Emperor at once and turning against Him. Yet he was also certain that the Dark Gods had laughed when Guilliman had proposed the idea. When the news had spread across the Hand of Ruin, the Forsaken Sons certainly hadn't tried to hide their hilarity – nor had they suceeded at hiding the anger behind the laughter. Their own Legions were breaking down in the Eye of Terror even now, they knew it, and the loyalists were doing the same to themselves – the irony was bitter indeed.
But even a splinter of a Legion still carried impressive power, and the Sons of Calth were warriors who shouldn't be underestimated. They hadn't fought at Terra, but the Ultramarines had endured the Ruinstorm unleashed by Lorgar's sons at the betrayal of Calth, and fought against the combined forces of the Twelfth and Seventeenth Legions. They were no stranger to the killing of other Astartes or the horrors of the Warp, and the Sons of Calth were all born of the burned world. They had seen their home die at the hands of traitors, and the hate in their heart was a fire that would never go out.
The Lord of the Forsaken Sons could not have hoped for a better foe against which test his reforged warband.
On the command deck of the Shield of Honor, Chapter Master Patricus Veros looked at the image of a system at war against madmen and traitors. Reports from a hundred auspex scans and pict-feeds were being processed by the battle-barge's cogitators and rendered into the hololithic projection he was now studying. The Sons of Calth had hoped to reach the Parecxis system and repair and refuel in its space docks … but it was not to be. Even after enduring the grueling journey through the Warp that had taxed even their expert Navigators – souls who had survived the Ruinstorm itself – the Space Marines were still ready to fight the traitors. The third planet of the system was burning in space, defying all laws of physic in a perfect display of the madness of the Empyrean. The second one appeared to have already fallen to the hands of the heretics. The hive-world, however …
'Shipmaster, bring us in the orbit of Parecxis Alpha,' ordered Patricus. 'There are loyal servants of the Golden Throne in dire need of our help on its ground.'
'Aye, sir. Helmsman, set course to the first planet of the system. All hands, prepare yourself for imminent engagement … wait.'
Patricus saw it only a fraction of second after the shipmaster. The traitor ship, which registered as the Hand of Ruin of the thrice-cursed Sons of Horus, was retreating. Her massive form was leaving the orbit of the planet, leaving one last salvo of drop-pods towards the hive-world. Her commanding officer was daring the Shield to approach.
'What game are you playing, heretic ?' murmured Patricus under his breath.
'Lord, we are being hailed by the enemy ship,' signaled the Master of the Vox.
'Open the link,' ordered the Chapter Master. 'Let see what the traitors have to say.'
The speakers of the bridge all started to transmit the words of the enemy commander. The voice made Patricus' skin crawl, and he felt the fear of the mortal crew – though they had been trained by the Navy of Ultramar, and would never allow this to impede their performance. This was the voice of an Astartes, low and deep, but there was something more to it, something beyond the scorn and barely concealed raging hatred within the corrupted soul aboard the enemy ship. An edge of the Warp, infused into the very words the traitor was speaking.
'So you have finally arrived, sons of Guilliman … just in time.'
'I am Patricus Veros, Chapter Master of the Sons of Calth. In the name of the Emperor, name yourself, heretic !'
There was a sound that could have been a chuckle but was too distorted by vox corruption to identify with certainty, then the traitor answered :
'So proud … so confident … Just as your father. Tell me, Ultramarine, does Guilliman live still ? Or has he already met his destiny at Fulgrim's blade ?'
'Do you really believe your lies will shake our resolve, heretic ?'
'Oh, I wish there were lies, so that I may slay your father with my own hands … But the Dark Gods have plans for each of the False Emperor's sons, and they would not take kindly on me trying to steal one of their champions' prey …'
'The so-called gods you follow are nothing but the lies of the Warp, traitor, poisoning your soul just as they did your father's. You will die here, in vain, and be damned for all eternity, like the rest of your treacherous ilk !'
'We are all damned already, brother. The Gods of Chaos have owned the soul of Mankind ever since its birth, and the False Emperor's attempt to deny them would only destroy the entire species. But I will waste no more time speaking with one of Guilliman's blinded, self-righteous fool. Come down on this world and face my men, if you dare. But know this …'
The voice of the traitor deepened, and his next words were heavy with the promise of death and ruin :
'There is no glory here for you, son of Guilliman. It is you who will die in vain, trying to save some insignificant worms who will perish anyway. Your blood will be spilled as one more blow against the False Emperor, your souls will feed the hunger of the true Gods, and from your defeat I shall forge a curse upon the Imperium that will last for all eternity.'
As the link died, Patricus tuned his vox to the frequency of his Chapter :
'Brothers. Begin planetfall.'
Arken watched the drop-pods and Thunderhawks deliver the hundreds of loyalist Space Marines to the surface with the ghost of a smile on his pale lips. A war – a true war – would be fought on Parecxis Alpha. The blood of the deluded heirs of Guilliman's genes would make a fine offering to the Octed. Of course, the Awakened One had not allowed the Sons of Calth to descend upon the world unhindered just to see how the Forsaken Sons would fare against them. As always, he had plans within plans, and every conceivable outcome would ultimately benefit his warband. If things went well, the deaths of the loyalists would serve a greater purpose than anything they had ever fought for in their empty lives.
Now, it was time for the next step. The loyalist battle-barge had served her purpose in bringing the Sons of Calth to Parecxis, and was now no more than a potential threat to Arken's plans.
'Koldak,' he whispered. 'Send the signal to the Warpsmiths.'
'Kill this ship.'
To most of the Imperium's denizens, a machine-spirit was a mysterious entity dwelling within the gears of any piece of technology, the literal soul of the item. It had its own character, and must be appeased and cared for so that the object it inhabited would keep working. To the tech-priests of Mars and the more educated people of Mankind's newest and greatest empire, the term refered to something else entirely. A machine-spirit was the vat-grown biological components used to bypass the need for artificial intelligences. After the disasters those had caused during the Dark Age of Technology, the Cult of the Machine had deemed it necessary to place a human component at the heart of all its most elaborate machines. From the cogitators of a hive-world's administration, centered around a node of cloned grey matter, to the most holy union of transhuman flesh and machinery that was the Dreadnought, the Mechanicum's greatest works were all born of the union of humanity and metal. The irony wasn't lost on many of the unaugmented population of the Imperium, but rarely spoken aloud in the presence of the Machine-God's worshippers.
Such had been the teachings Zosimus had received during his apprenticeship on the Red Planet. He had learnt how to commune with the simple spirits that inhabited most machines … and been warned of the risks of attempting such a thing with a greater intellect. A powerful machine-spirit could destroy him utterly, frying his brain through his implants and reducing him to little better than a lobotomized servitor.
The machine-spirit of a starship was exactly the kind of entity one should never attempt to bond without extensive preparations – only the most devoted shipmasters and the Navigators did it, and the latter only used a limited form of union that allowed them to guide the vessel through the Sea of Souls. The machine-spirits of such creations were behemoths, born of a hundred thousand lesser machines fused together in order to carry Mankind across the stars. Those who had been created for war were even more dangerous, their soul tainted by war and forever thirsty for blood. Of course, that was when they were alive.
After the events of C2746-DSS885, Zosimus' standing amongst the other Techmarines of the Forsaken Sons had increased. He had learned much from the scions of other Legions, and together, they had designed the ritual that would now be performed at the Awakened One's command. They had worked ceaselessly ever since the capture of the three Imperial ships to make sure everything was in readiness, and Zosimus believed there was nothing more they could do. At least if they failed, they would all die horrible but quick deaths, and wouldn't have to face Arken's wrath.
The three captured ships – the Oblivion's Keeper, the Liberation's Price and the Blade of Terra – were drifting in the void around Parecxis Alpha, unpowered and frozen cold. After their capture, their machine-spirits had been ritually executed, their biologic components poisoned with debilitating warp-substances that had wiped out the former personas of the vessels. Dead to all sensors, the ships would only appear as wreckage on the loyalists' scanners – the corpses of the defence fleet, slain from within by the traitors' boarding forces and abandoned. And that was the truth – for now.
In the belly of each ship, deep into the most sacred and secured systems, was a group of Warpsmiths – the flowery name Arken had bestowed upon their group when he had learned of their gatherings. Four souls on each ship, accompanied with a dozen of specially modified servitors able to withstand the lack of atmosphere and the freezing bite of the void. Four souls which had studied the daemonic secret arts, ready to perform what was ultimately little more than a summoning ritual – on a far greater scale.
Zosimus wasn't certain if anything like this had ever been attempted before. The portions of the Mechanicum that had sided with the Warmaster during the war had experienced with the Warp, of course, but only on the scale of cybernetic warriors or war engines. The former Techmarine had never heard of the same thing being attempted on a starship, let alone three at once. Had they been anywhere but in a Warp Storm and with the pyre of an entire world burning nearby, it should have required thousands of sacrifices to draw forth a single daemon powerful enough to wear a starship as its skin in the material realm.
fortunately, the Forsaken Sons had several powerful sorcerers able to bargain with the creatures of the Warp. Though Asim's services had been required to lit the fire of this colossal daemonforge, his brethren had been able to bind into service three daemons from the Empyrean's depths. Those were beings of unfathomable age and malice, yet lacking any true intelligence. According to the sorcerers, they were quite similar to the beasts that had once lurked in the abyss of the more mundane oceans of Old Earth. To Zosimus, the description given by the Coven remembered him more of the great monsters of Olympian myths, banished into eternal darkness at the beginning of time, than of prehistoric giant fish.
A fraction of one of those beasts' essence was distilled in a canister that Zosimus was holding in his hands while his suit was connected to the dead systems of the Oblivion's Keeper. He and his three brethren were striving to keep the engines barely alive, at the point between dead cold and forever lost. They had done it for hours, and they were all nearing the limit of their mental strength. Of all of them, Zosimus' situation was the worst. The canister in his hands was covered in confinement runes and hexagramms of warding, but despite all these precautions, the former Iron Warrior felt that he would probably have been safer had he been carrying raw plutonium naked. The whispers were even worse than they had been on the daemon forge-world, though these ones were at least impossible to understand.
A pulse from the Hand of Ruin's command deck drew him out of his dark thoughts. At his command, the servitors lifted the adamantium plate that protected the refrigerated brain of the starship. A cloud of misty fog blocked Zosimus' vision, but he didn't need to see to do what he had to. While the three other Warpsmiths chanted the modified Litanies of Awakening, he opened the canister and pressed it straight into the dead soul of the Oblivion's Keeper.
The leviathan had no name, for it had no true sentience that could have need of one. In a realm where time held little meaning, it was nonetheless ancient. It had come into existence in a calmer epoch, before the Sea of Souls had been churning with the never-ending tides of the Great Game. The emotions of a long dead species had created it, and except for a handful of old stones on a forgotten world, the leviathan was the only remaining trace of their existence in an uncaring galaxy.
For an eternity, the leviathan had been content to remain in the deepest parts of the Empyrean, simply drifting across its infinity. That had come to an end when a searing, burning light had illuminated the Sea of Souls. The fire had driven it away from its home, and the wounds it had sustained in its flight had erased the last memories of thirteen thousand souls from existence. The Beacon of Pain, some of the leviathan's kin called it in the language of gods and daemons – the treacherous light of the Anathema.
Driven out of its calm hideout and into more agitated seas, the leviathan had been forced to fight its own kin. Few of the Neverborn could match its power, but vast legions of teeming creatures had almost obliterated it more than once. It could fight enemies of its own size, matching their attacks with its own claws and teeth the size of buildings. Indeed, the beast had grown to enjoy the savage battles between titans of the Warp. But it could not protect itself against the hordes of lesser beings that hounded it across the Sea of Souls. After centuries of such battles, and with the Beacon of Pain still scouring its former domain, the leviathan was slowly dying. Each part of it that was eaten away by the lesser daemons brought it a little closer to fading into oblivion.
It had been then that they had arrived. Tiny sparks of light floating in the immensity of the Warp, marked by the touch of the Primordial Annihilator. They had offered the leviathan a way out, away from the vermin that sought its destruction. In return for its services, they had promised to return it to battles against foes it could fight. The battles would be very different in nature, they had warned, though their attempts at explaining how had been lost on the leviathan. The beast did not really care. Its instincts, primitive for one of the Neverborn, pushed it to accept the offer in order to survive.
The sparks had taken a part of it into the Materium – or rather, into someplace halfway between the Sea of Souls and the Materium. And now, that part of it was calling for the rest to follow.
The leviathan's consciousness awoke in absolute blackness. Its senses were cut off, and it couldn't perceive the Sea of Souls all around it as it used to. New senses replaced the ones it had lost, utterly alien to it, yet growing more and more familiar with each passing second – time itself a new concept to the leviathan. Sending tendrils of its consciousness across its new body, the leviathan felt the remnants of an old, dead soul. Seeking to understand more of its new condition, it devoured the lingering memories. At once, its nature altered, reshaping itself to suit the new envelope it was wearing. Notions and images flowed into the leviathan's mind – the caress of the void on its hull-skin, the pulse of its cannons flaring, sending their death to its foes …
As the mastery of the leviathan over its new senses asserted, it detected the presence of its prey and packmates. Two more creatures like him drifted in the emptiness of space, awakening to their new forms like it just had.
The systems of the Oblivion's Keeper flickered to life was warp-fire coursed through them, and the daemon within them roared its hunger at the Shield of Honor. The roar was picked up by its two kindred , the Liberation's Price and the Blade of Terra, and the trio of possessed ships began to approach their prey.
One moment ago, Patricus had been listening to the reports of the squads on the surface and preparing to coordinate a planet-wide campaign. Now, he was watching in mute horror as three ships that by all rights should be dead came to life once more. Unnatural energies coalesced from the Warp Storm and poured over their hull, reshaping it into a vision of nightmare, halfway between mechanical perfection and biological abomination. Even though he was no psyker and still thousands of kilometers away from the closest one, the Chapter Master could feel the malice, the wrongness of these engines with his very soul. He had felt this before, on the killing fields of Calth. He and the broken companies he had gathered had fought against the horrors unleashed by the treacherous Word Bearers. They had faced abominations from the Warp, pulled into reality by blasphemous rituals and bound to the very flesh of Lorgar's fanatics.
But he had never thought, even in his darkest nightmares, that such a thing could be accomplished with an entire spaceship as the daemonhost. He had been aboard traitor ships before, and witnessed the corruption and unholy combinations of flesh and metal that some of them used, but this … this was blasphemy against the Machine-God on an unprecedented scale, save perhaps for the Titans of the Legios that had turned traitor in the Martian Schism. If the Adeptus Mechanicus ever heard of this, they would hunt down these self-proclaimed 'Forsaken Sons' without any mercy.
Of course, for that to happen, the Sons of Calth would first need to warn the Cult of Mars – and thus escape this trap alive. The deck of the Shield of Honor was filled with the sounds of the proximity alarms and incoming warnings. The trio of daemonships – Patricus refused to call these monstrosities spaceships, even if only in his mind, such was the heresy of their mere existence – had opened fire on them. The shots were wild and poorly aimed, but the enemies were too close for none of the torpedoes and lances to hit. The Shield of Honor shook as she was hit, tossing several crew members to the deck's floor and starting new alarms.
'Damage report,' ordered Patricus to no one in particular.
'Our shields rose just in time to protect us, sir,' one of the officers informed him. 'They are holding – strain at twenty-eight percent.'
That was good for now, but it didn't bode well for the next part of the battle. If they took another volley, or if the Sons of Horus' ship acted …
'Tell me what the Hand of Ruin is doing,' he urged.
'She isn't moving, sir – she is staying out of range. Look like the traitors are sitting this one out.'
' … Good. Now get me a firing solution. I want these abominations blown out of the void !'
The leviathan had a name, now. It echoed through its new body, the last whisper of a dying spirit clinging to its identity even as it was being consumed. The name had belonged to that spirit, but the leviathan now claimed it as its own, just as it had claimed the spirit's frame of steel and death. With the name came an identity, and for a Neverborn, identity was power.
Now the leviathan was the Oblivion's Keeper, and it was hungry. The souls hiding behind the hull-skin of its enemy called to it with the unbearable sweetness of courage and duty, strength and honor. The Keeper wanted to rip the ship apart, to expose the fragile soul-sparks within to the cold of the void, and feed upon them when their flesh died. It wanted it like it had never wanted anything else in its eternity of existence.
The four soul-sparks within the leviathan's own body were providing it direction, helping the overworldly intellect understand the capabilities of its new envelope. They were restraining it, channeling its energy toward on objective : destroy the prey-enemy.
The leviathan's packmates were fighting alongside it, all three of them eager to be the one to claim the kill. To fight with others was an entirely novel concept to the Keeper, but all of them were guided by the soul-sparks within, urging them to, if not cooperate, at least not get in each other's way while they hounded their prey. The three of them shared their perceptions in a limited way through the soul-sparks, and felt what the others felt – thus preventing any desire to strike at them instead.
They danced around their prey, testing the limits of their bodies of iron and steel, firing with weapons that were rapidly changing to reflect the nature of the intelligence within. Canons and lances were mutating, flesh and bone replacing metal, forming nightmarish appendages that spat bolts of warp-energy and shells imbued with the power of the Sea of Souls. The prey-enemy fought back, and the first volleys it fired tore through the leviathan's hull-skin with agonizing burns, but the soul-sparks showed it how to activate the envelope's shields, and not a single attack reached it after that. While the original Oblivion's Keeper didn't have shields anywhere resilient enough to endure the fire of a battle-barge of the Legions, the daemonship's engines were empowered by the essence of one of the Warp's great beasts, and shrug off the energy lances as an Astartes would shrug off arrows from a medieval world's savages.
While the prey-enemy failed to wound them, the leviathan and its kindred struck at it with reckless abandon. The sensations of battle were intensified beyond anything they had ever experienced in this new domain, and it made them roar their delight across the void, both in the physical and the ethereal plane.
As last, the first strikes finally pierced the prey-enemy's shimmering bubble of light and tore into its hull-skin. Hundreds of soul-sparks within it burned out, their lives ending in a blaze of hellish fire. Their essence was released in the Sea of Souls, and the three daemonships devoured them with ravenous hunger. The agony and fear of their last moments coalesced in the entrails of the possessed vessels. The leviathan felt the mass of raw suffering into its belly, and a pulse of pleasure surged through the corrupted, rapidly mutating biological matter its essence occupied.
From the Keeper's connection to the guiding soul-sparks rose an image, carrying with it a new tactic to use against the prey-enemy. The leviathan felt that it would weaken it, cost it a good part of what it had just gained. But the soul-sparks promised that this would reap a greater harvest of pain and souls, and the leviathan had no reason to doubt them. With the psychic equivalent of a low, irritated growl, the malevolent sentience at the heart of the Oblivion's Keeper let the power in it diffuse into the Empyrean. At once, its beacon drew forth hosts of lesser warp-born. The creatures entered half-reality behind the leviathan's hull-skin, and their shrieks of rage and desire to kill irked at the great beast's consciousness. Still firing at the prey-enemy, it opened the holes in its hull-skin, and let the daemons out in the void.
The Shield of Honor was a battle-barge of the Legione Astartes. She had first sailed the stars a century ago, after being brought into existence by one of Ultramar's many spaceports. At that time, the Great Crusade was still at its peak, and the Emperor's dream not yet murdered by the hand of His faithless son. The ship had been at the orbit of Calth when the treachery of the Word Bearers had been revealed, and had fought loyally during the Heresy and the Great Scouring that had followed. When the Second Founding had been declared, Chapter Master Veronal had chosen her to be the flagship of the Sons of Calth. When the Warp Storm had hit, she had been the only vessel able to cross it, forcing the Space Marines to abandon the rest of their fleet.
Even without her complement of Space Marines aboard, the battle-barge was still a powerful vessel. Her batteries were death incarnate, powerful enough to raze entire cities from orbit. Her shields could endure enough punishment to reduce a dozen lesser ships to scrap without faltering. Her captain had fought in the most desperate void battle ever fought in Imperial history, and had led her during the hunt for the traitors' armada after the fall of Horus at Terra.
Between the moment the daemonships awoke and the Shield of Honor's death cry, less than thirty minutes had passed. She died as a final few drop-pods and evacuation transports fled from her burning wreckage, seeking a fleeting salvation on the planet below. Her death had come, at last, after decades of faithful service. Her shields had failed seventeen minutes after the engagement's beginning, but not because of the relentless assault they were enduring. They had failed when the engines of the battle-barge had been torn from within.
When the three daemons had incarnated themselves into the dead ships, thousands upon thousands of lesser Neverborn had followed them into reality. They had formed bodies from the stuff of the raging Warp Storm and the very metal of the hulls, tearing themselves free from the daemonships like parasites reaching maturity leaving their host. Drifting across the void on wings of impossible flames and frost, they had crossed the void and crushed on the Shield of Honor.
Hundreds of them had burned to death against the high-powered energy barriers, and more had simply missed and drifted in the void until they self-consumed out of existence. But some of them had taken advantage of an instant of weakness, when the shields had been temporary down, and tore their way into the ship. Dozens of them had pierced through, and the Space Marines remaining on board had been unable to stop the many breaches. The death blow had come when, more than luck than design, the daemons had been able to overrun the shield generator and wreck it beyond repair before being destroyed by the Sons of Calth's kill-teams.
With heavy heart, the Chapter Master had ordered the abandon of the ship, sending his last warriors to fight a war they could win rather than die in the void with him. Out of the tens of thousands of crew, only a few thousands made it to the evacuation crafts before the Shield of Honor died. Those who were still aboard when the life-support went offline died quickly, frozen to death by the cold spreading through a hundred wounds torn into the hull by the daemonships' cannons.
Patricus himself stayed on the bridge until the end, ready to die with his ship, as honor demanded. His designated successor was already on the surface – the Sons of Calth would go on without him. The only regret of the Chapter Master was that he had failed to inflict any real damage at the monstrous ships.
The bridge was in flames, the temperature high even within his void-sealed armor. The last servitors plugged to the controls were long dead, their flesh melted away by the raging inferno. Patricus' armor was directly connected to the Shield of Honor's systems, allowing the Chapter Master to see the death of his ship through her own eyes. Just before the machine-spirit of the battle-barge died, however, he was able to catch something on the auspex that made his blood run cold as he understood its meaning.
Two Imperial ships, registering as the Pride of Sol and the Herald of Vindication, were engaging the Hand of Ruin. Hidden away at the system's edge, they had left their shelter to try to join the Astartes vessel and reclaim the skies of Parecxis Alpha. It wasn't difficult to imagine the two captains thoughts when they had seen the three daemonships awaken. At such a desecration of their former comrades, they had wanted to help the Shield, only to cross the path of the Hand of Ruin. Facing the overwhelming firepower of the traitor ship, they had not been able to get away, let alone reach the Shield of Honor in time.
The Sons of Calth's flagship had been used as bait to lure loyal servants of the Golden Throne to their deaths. That realization left a foul taste in his mouth, and Patrixus spat a string of curses that would have made his noble mother on Maccrage faint. Then the flames reached him, and all went dark.
Koldak turned from the images of the wreckage of two ships, and faced his master.
'Kills confirmed, my lord.'
Arken nodded absently. Already, the shipmaster could see his attention was directed elsewhere, toward the battles yet to come and the coming war for Parecxis Alpha.
'Good. My congratulations to the crew. Open a channel to the Warpsmiths, please.'
The communication was garbled with parasites and what sounded disturbingly similar to screaming, but the words of Warpsmith Zosimus could still be understood. Even though his vocal cords had been replaced by augmetic mechanisms, the strain in his voice was obvious, expressing itself in further parasites and sudden pitch changes. This was no surprise. Koldak still couldn't believe the group of Techmarines had managed to pull that … thing … off. In mere moments, they had added three ships to the fleet under the Awakened One's command, and destroyed an Astartes battle-barge. The pressure that would have put on the Warpsmiths' inner systems was probably beyond anything any tech-priest would have been able to survive. Only thanks to both their augments and Astartes physiology had the Forsaken Sons survived the ordeal.
'Lord Arken,' said the former Iron Warrior. 'Our mission is accomplished. The ships have been awakened, and the loyalist vessel burns in the void.'
'I can see that, Zosimus,' answered the Awakened One. 'How are you and your brothers feeling ?'
'Exhausted, lord. But the daemonships can do without us now, though it would best if one of us remained bound to them at all time. Their consciousness is … quite unpredictable.'
'Until we can acquire suitable replacements from the slave holds of the Hand of Ruin or the planet, you will have to do that. But do not worry : I don't intend to waste the Warpsmiths' talents by using them as simple pilots, even if for such ships.'
'My lord … guiding the daemonships' minds is not easy task. It would require a tech-priest of considerable skill simply to survive the linking procedure, and he would have to be trained in the dark arts to be able to do his duty. I doubt such an individual exists in this system – except for those we brought with us.'
'Skills and secrets can be taught, Zosimus, whether the student wishes it or not. I promise you, you will not have to wait long. Your skills will be of use to us in the war for Parecxis Alpha.'
'Surely the Ultramarines' bastard progeny will not be able to resist us for long ?'
'Oh, I think they will surprise you, Zosimus. The Thirteenth Legion has always been able to thrive in desperate situations. Kor Phaeron and Erebus forget it at Calth to their cost, and I do not intend to do the same mistake as these treacherous snakes. No, Zosimus … There will be a war for Parecxis. A long war …'
On the ground of Parecxis Alpha, surrounded by his command squad and the few hundred human soldiers they had been able to rally in the confusion, a Son of Calth looked at the sky. In the middle of the Warp Storm's madness, First Captain Menelas Chiron – now Chapter Master – watched the death of the Shield of Honor unfold. He had heard the last transmission of Patricus when he had given the order to abandon the ship. In all the years he had fought alongside the man, never before had he heard such … not fear, no, not that. Never that again, not after the horrors of Calth. But … sorrow ? That wasn't it either. Rage ? Well, of course there had been rage, but …
Relief. That was it, thought Menelas. The previous Chapter Master had been relieved to give that order – to save a few more lives before leaving the mortal coil. But there had been more, and Menelas had known the man well enough to guess what his final thoughts might have been. Patricus had also been relieved that his time was over, that he would no longer have to live and fight in a galaxy where all the ideals he had waged war for had been slain by traitors' blades. Even though the Imperium had endured the Horus Heresy, it had changed so much in the process that almost nothing remained of what they had built. Even the Legions had changed, and while Menelas would never question his Primarch's decision to enforce the Codex Astartes, he still missed the sense of unity, of strength and purpose there was to be found in a Legion. He also felt a strange emotion whenever he thought of the Space Marines who had been induced in the Adeptus Astartes after the Second Founding. These warriors had never known the time of the Legions, and they never would …
Menelas refocused on the present. In an explosion that momenteraly pushed away the raging tides of the Warp, he could see what could very well be the end of the entire Chapter of the Sons of Calth. The gene-seed aboard the Shield of Honor were lost, and their only way out of this world as well.
None of that mattered. They were traitors to fight, and a world to save. That was enough – that was all they would ever need. They would purge this world and hold it until the Storm passed and a call could be sent to the rest of the Imperium, to the world-fortress of the Sons of Calth.
A fine theoretical. Now, he had to find a way to turn it into a practical, to save the people of this world from the depredations of the Chaos Marines already on its soil. He also had another duty, one he hadn't had until a few minutes ago : avenge his fallen master.
'Arken,' he whispered while the mark of Patricus' passing vanished. The name of the heretic was foul in his mouth, his Betcher's gland generating a gobbet of acid he forced himself to swallow. 'I will kill you.'
For a timeless eternity, he had drifted into an ocean of blood. He could taste its copper on his tongue, feel it filling his three lungs and drenching his bare skin. Every scrap of reason he retained told him that he should be drowning on the hot liquid and die, yet still he endured. After all, murmured a part of him that had long abandonned sanity, he was already in Hell. How could one die when in the realm where the souls of the deceased dwelled ?
This is a dream, he thought without knowing where the thought had come from. At once, he knew it to be both true and false, but after it arose, he clung to it with raw desperation. If this is a dream, he thought, then I want to wake up !
Other memories emerged from his slumbering mind as he struggled to open his eyes. A woman, hilding him in her arms and singing without sound to bring him to sleep. A giant in red armor, looking down at him, his mask of gold and ruby like the judging mask of an ancient king. Himself a giant, staring at the distant silhouette of a one-eyed crimson demigod, awe and pride filling his chest …
Then the tone of the visions changed as the claws of an entity born of the hatred of ten million souls pierced into his brain. He and his brothers, killing thousands of poorly equiped soldiers for the crime of obeying lords who had rejected compliance with the Imperium. A city of knowledge and illumination burning while he fought against his own kin, releasing his darker powers in desperate fury. Entire planets consumed by the Warp, their people devoured by the deformed, ever-twisting beasts his brothers were becoming. Always, in every vision, blood and flame followedhim. So much lives had been ended by his might, so much blood had been spilled by his hands …
It was then that he understood. The blood he was drifting into was that of all those he had killed. He was, and had always been, a killer. Not a sage, not a teacher, not a student : a killer. A butcher of innocents and guilty alike, paving his way to Hell with the skulls of his foes. He was …
NO ! He shouted with his mind, focusing every scrap of willpower he could gather into this act of defiance. I AM ASIM OF THE FORSAKEN SONS ! I AM THE MASTER OF THE COVEN ! I AM NO MINDLESS BUTCHER, NO PAWN OF THE BLOOD LORD ! I AM A BROTHER TO ARKEN THE AWAKENED, A DESTROYER OF WORLDS !
I … AM … ASIM !
The ocean of blood receded from him as he raged against the manipulation of his thoughts. The shattered pieces of his identity fell back together, and his power rose to the fore, pushing away the darkness that had claimed him. His ethereal body rose toward the distant light of awareness, burning all obstacles the ocean of blood tried to put in his way.
Asim's eyes snapped open, and he lurched on his patient bed, pushing against the restraints around him. His hearts beat like he had just fought for days, and cold sweat ran on his naked flesh. Astartes could not know fear, but the sorcerer was close to panic. He was awake, back in the real world, yet he couldn't move, couldn't …
'Easy there, brother;' said a soft, grandfatherly voice as hands calmly pushed him down. 'I am glad to see you are back to us, but your body sustained extensive damage when you performed that little stunt on the penal world.'
'Get … get me out of there,' gasped Asim as his thoughts cleared.
'As you wish, but don't move too quickly or by the Gods, I will strap you back myself.'
The restraints came off, and Asim sat on the side of his bed with precautious moves, each one sending jolts of pain through his muscles. As his vision finally refocused, he was able to take stock of his surroundings. He was in one of the Hand of Ruin's secondary medical bay, redundant rooms in case the main one was lost. This room had been spared the transformation into a freak show that had befallen the primary Apothecarion. It had remained a place of healing, though new means of mending flesh and bones had been added to the new ones. Next to Asim, looking at the sorcerer's biological readings on a data-slate, was a frowning Fleshmaster. Asim knew this Marine : he had passed under his scalpel often enough during the Exodus.
Brother Savarkan was a warrior with a face covered in wrinkles – some minor flaw in his gene-seed had denied him the standard agelessness of the Astartes. Combined with his voice, this gave him a relaxing presence that appealed to some of mankind's oldest instincts – trust your elders, they know what they are doing. Even mortals were somehow more at ease in his presence.
Which was deeply ironic when one knew who Savarkan really was. Though he was Terran, in his veins flowed the blood of Konrad Curze, Primarch of the Eighth Legion. Perhaps he had once been as warm and open as his demeanor suggested, but he had wholly embraced the philosophy of the Night Haunter. Behind the fatherly facade was a killer as cold-blooded as any Asim had ever seen. Savarkan had killed dozens of loyalists at Isstvan V, fought daemons alone during the Exodus to protect the lives of his patients, and let tens of children die while he tested them for gene-seed compatibility on Mulor Prime.
As he looked at the man who had treated his injuries, Asim suddenly realized that he was seeing the Fleshmaster with his naked eyes. For the first time since the beginning of the Warp Storm, he wasn't wearing his psychic hood. Before he could slip back into panic, however, his psychic sense indicated him that the Empyrean was remarkably calm around him. Still, he had to ask :
'Who took my armor off ?'
'I did, with some help from the servitors. But don't worry about your defenceless mind,' said Savarkan, gesturing at the floor of the room.
The metal was covered in warding sigils and runes of power. Asim recognised one of the Coven's designs for keeping the Neverborn at bay – he had put a similar one around the Oracle's Chamber. The symbols were potent, and he should have been safe while his body was recovering. Then where had the dreams come from ?
'I had one of your collegues in the Coven install these for me,' explained Savarkan. 'It seemed that it might be useful after what happened to some of our wounded during the Exodus. I never thought you would be the first one to put them to the test, though. So ? Do you feel anything in your head that doesn't belong there ?'
The tone of the question was light, but there an edge of steel behind the humor. Asim had no doubt at all that the Fleshmaster would put a bolt in his skull the moment he thought the sorcerer was possessed, leader of the Coven or not. This, of course, beget the question : was Asim possessed ?
He looked inward with his second sight, scanning his soul for signs of daemonic influence. For a second, he didn't recognise what he was seeing. His soul had been scarred by the magnitude of the power he had wielded on Parecxis Gamma, and badly so. Memories were fragmented, circuits of arcane power were torn apart, and thinking shortcuts had been utterly destroyed. It would take him months, perhaps years before he could repair all the damage he had inflicted upon himself in service of Arken.
But despite the damage, he saw no trace of daemonic presence. That made no sense. After what he had done, he should bear some lingering trace of the scions of the Blood God he had bargained with, at the very least. Had his bond to Arken protected him, or was it because he already belonged to another god as part of Magnus' foolish bargain ?
'I don't think so,' he finally answered. 'Where is my armor ?'
'In there,' said Savarkan, nodding toward one of the room's crates. 'But you really should rest more. The war is ongoing, but you are not fit for combat. If I have to call lord Arken and tell him his chief Sorcerer needs to be forced into a regenerative sarcophagus, I will do it.'
Asim had no doubt on that. Blood of the Gods, the Fleshmaster would probably lead the force sent to make him heed the healer's advice himself. According to Savarkan, too many Apothecaries lost warriors due to the refusal of their patients to listen to those sewing them back together. Thus, the former Night Lord had decided to enforce his medical advice with a damn bolter if he had to. Several warriors who had tried to leave his care earlier than he thought reasonable had been shamed when he had beaten them unconscious with his mere gauntlets. If they weren't fit enough to beat him, he told them, then they were of no use to the Forsaken Sons anyway. To Asim's knowledge, no one had ever won a wrestling match with the old Nostramian bastard.
'You won't need to, I promise,' said Asim. 'I just want to put the hood back on. These seals appear solid, but I don't want to take any more risks with my soul right now.'
'A wise decision,' approved Savarkan. 'You have endured severe tension on … well, let's just say all your muscles, and there was so much internal bleeding when these idiots brought you to me I thought you would drown in your blood. And don't get me started on your cerebral lesions. Your brain has taken so much damage that it's a wonder you aren't reduced to a vegetable. Honestly, if I thought there was any chance you would follow my advice, I would forbid you from ever doing what you did down there again. It almost killed you, Asim.'
'I know. I will be more careful next time, I promise.'
Savarkan's shrug told Asim all he thought of that promise. Turning away from him, he returned to the data-slate. Asim stood up, dressed in a simple grey robe, and walked to the crate, careful not to fall. He opened the crate and picked up his helmet, which laid on its side atop a pile of armor plates. He held it up, and looked into the inert red lenses. For a moment, he stared into the eyes of the helmet, taking in the image he presented to his foes when he wore it to war.
The lighting of the room flickered for a fraction of a second, and Asim saw his reflection in the lenses. He dropped the headpiece in shock, letting it fall back in the crate with a loud clank. His hands jumped to his face, frantically touching his skin, feeling the familiar shape of his Astartes features. Ignoring Savarkan's alarmed questions, Asim looked into his reflection again, orienting the helmet so that it would capture the light the right way.
A daemon stared right back at him. As if the lenses were a portal to some other, alien dimension, an armoured humanoid stood on the other side. Asim could see little beyond the head of the creature, but that was enough. The daemon appeared to wear a full-body armor, with spikes and barbed hooks rising from every joint in the metal. Or perhaps that was its skin, Asim had no way to know. Its face was straight out of the legends of Old Earth, when fearful peasants had told stories of the noble knights who protected them. This was no defender, however : the helmet belonged to the dark kindreds of the knights, the tyrants and destroyers who spread misery and suffering across the ages for their own ambitions.
Spikes rose from the daemon's head like the dark crown of a murderous king, and twin fires the color of blood burned in the sockets of the helm. The black metal of the armor seemed to absorb all light, denying it existence like a hole into reality itself. When the creature spoke, the sound came as if from just in front of him, and Asim recognised the voice : it was the one he had heard laughing before falling unconscious, back on Parecxis Gamma.
'Nice to meet, you, Asim of the Forsaken Sons. I am the Herald of Blood, the Principle of Ruin and the Voice of the Darkness. I was born when you opened your soul to the Pantheon in return for power, risen into existence from the blood lust of millions of souls and your own reckless ambition. The will of the Blood God has bound me to you as both a reward and a punishment for your deeds, and nothing short of a God's power can separate us again. We are going to be together for a long, long time … my dear father.'