AN : New chapter. A bit later than I would have wanted, due to problems with my Internet connection.

As you may have guessed from the title, in this chapter we will see a little more of Mahlone's new abilities. This chapter also contains a bit of foreshadowing, laid down as preparation for the rest of the Parecxis campaign. I don't really know how long it will be before I can post anything more, as my exams are coming. Three, four weeks at best. I will either write another chapter of the Forsaken Sons, or maybe a short story. It will really depend on my inspiration when I get back to it.

I would like to thank those who reviewed the last chapter :

Spider : thanks for your compliments, and the idea for a short story is great. I will need to gather a bit more information about the Abyssal Crusade. As for your question in the Roboutian Heresy review, the Unbound are made to not belong to any Legion in particular. They will be trained according to their talents (which, in the case of those from Mulor Secundus, were bred into them by Jikaerus), of course, but the older Legionaries won't try to bring them into one of the Nine Legions' fold.

Skepsis Forever : thank you very much. As for your question, the 'lords of Parecxis' that Jikaerus is seeking to resurrect aren't really Eldar at all : they were, before being exterminated by the Imperium, half-daemonic monsters. I still haven't really decided what the result will be (by the way, if any reader has an idea for a cool name for them, please tell me).

So, to the story ! If you like it, or see something that needs to be corrected (and I, myself, see many such things with every new chapter, so don't hesitate) please review !

Zahariel out.

I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

Hive Anaster was a small island of relative stability in an ocean of madness.

Before the arrival of the Storm, it had boasted a population of over three hundred million souls, who had fed the sprawling Manufactorums of the hive with their sweat and blood. High-spires dynasties had ruled over their inferiors, living in luxury while the faceless masses struggled to survive. There had been no beauty to the hive even then, and the Storm had scarcely improved the appearance of the monstrous city. Buildings that had reached through the world's clouds had toppled in earthquakes and fires had burned entire hab-sections to ash. The underhive, once the lair of the outcast and outlaws, had begun to fester with unnatural life and monsters of nightmare. Utter chaos had spread across the streets in waves of panic and insanity. But after weeks of bitter fighting against their own people and Warp-spawned abominations, the combined forces of the PDF, Arbites and the armed forces of the local nobility, had been able to restore order. By then, though, the death toll had been staggering. Hundreds of newly appointed priests of the Ecclesiarchy had sung hymns and prayers over the pyres, and the ashes of a hundred million corpses still blackened the sky.

Now, Anaster was once more filled with the sound of violent death and the laughter of insane killers. Asim, most powerful Sorcerer of the Forsaken Sons, had sent hundreds of thousands of blood-crazed psychopaths directly into the hive's walls, and the city's defenders were now purging the streets. They had already slaughtered the bulk of the Khornates, in no small part thanks to the … tactical limitations of most of them. Now, they were hunting the last ones – the clever ones, those not wholly consumed by bloodlust.

It was the perfect moment to attack.

Inside the Rhino, Mahlone was reading the mission's briefing once more. He took in the map of the city they were going to fight in, already over the shock he had felt when realizing – truly realizing – just how huge it was. Other numbers – estimation of the expected resistance – were rolling on his helm's display. He did not know how the Awakened One had obtained this intelligence, but the numbers promised an harsh fight. Hive Anaster lacked any fortification worth the name and its defenders were dispersed, but four hundred thousand men still outnumbered the two hundred Unbound and their heavy support by a rather uncomfortable margin. Even if most of these men were not true soldiers, and equiped with little more than las-rifles. The Forsaken Sons would have to break the enemy's resistance in the first assault, use their crushing individual superiority to cause panic in its ranks. They would accomplish this either by slaughtering enough of the defenders in the first moment, or by taking the enemy fortress, deep within the hive. The rest would be simple clean-up.

'This is not going to be easy, right ?' asked Ygdal over the vox.

Mahlone's friend was with him in the Rhino, along with eight more Unbound. The transport was nearly packed, with two of them arming the vehicle's weapons. But the Forsaken Sons had few enough transports that they should be grateful to not have to walk. Astartes could walk for days on end and still be ready to fight at the march's end. Yet the thirty thousand kilometers between Hive Anaster and Tiradail, where the Forsaken Sons were massing their troops, would have been … a daunting prospect, to say the least. Instead, the tanks had been dropped by the aerial transports one hour ago, far enough from the hive to avoid any potential anti-air artillery that the loyalists may have deployed.

'No, it most probably isn't,' Mahlone answered. 'But if we wanted things to be easy, none of us would be here, now would we ?'

The Unbound shared a chuckle at that. All of them had endured the Fleshmasters' trials and the agony of ascension. They were used to strife. They were also all sons of the Land, on distant, near-forgotten Mulor Secundus, drawn to Mahlone and Ygdal like pack animals were drawn to alpha predators. All of them were impatient, eager to be unleashed against the enemy. They had once been weak, hapless like lambs before the horrors of their homeland. But now, they were strong, and they wanted to prove it, to themselves and their kindred.

When Zoltan Carayhn had pledged to serve the Imperium, it had been to enforce its laws and defend its people from anarchy and lawlessness. He had come from a long line of law officers, going back to his ancestor aboard the colonization ships the Imperium had brought when it had freed Parecxis from its xenos tyrants. As such, when he had become part of the Adeptus Arbites, he had felt very proud. He had felt the same pride when he had been congratulated by Commander Lico himself, for his part in putting down the riots that had followed the immediate arrival of the Warp Storm. Though even back then, most to his own discomfort, he had felt guilty of what his task had become. It was not right for the Arbites to beat people whose only crime was fear into submission. Zoltan had understood the necessity of it, and thankfully Cardinal Tranos' disciples had helped calm down the crowds. But he had still felt disquiet then, and it had only grown since. Anaster – and the rest of Parecxis Alpha – had slowly descended into madness, and Zoltan and his peers had been called upon to honor their oaths in a fashion they would never have thought possible.

Still, they had brought back order. The rates of murder and suicide were still several times higher than before the skies had gone mad, and the under-hive was blockaded by Chimeras with heavy flamers and orders to burn everything that tried to get out. But in the hive proper, there had beenpeace of a kind, enabling work to restart in the Manofactorum. And then, this.

It had started with the alarms ringing across the entire planet. News of the arrival of a ship belonging to the Traitor Legions had spread, and a fresh wave of panic had sent Zoltan and his colleagues back into the streets. Admiral Von Libestat's death, and the defeat of his fleet, had caused morale to plummet, and apparently been the signal several cells of traitor cultists had been waiting for. The defenders had been able to put them down, but only with great effort and losses, and the news of Parecxis Beta's fall to the heretics had come just after that. Then the heavens had screamed in hatred and a rain of blood had fallen upon Anaster, and madmen had burst forth from the Warp. At the same time, according to what little passed through the vox, the heretics had begun to descend on the world in person. Traitor Marines, with hordes of debased minions and dozens of nightmarish war machines, according to the reports of what few scouts had been able to return. The capital had already fallen into their hands and the miraculous arrival of the loyal Space Marines had only given Parecxis Alpha a chance to fight back – not the guarantee of victory. So now, Zoltan Carayhn was looking at the wasteland outside of the hive's walls, keeping watch where auspex could no longer be trusted.

He was the first to see them. Twenty or so vehicles, kicking up enough dust that counting them was a challenge in itself. And behind them came a gargantuan monstrosity of grey metal and black, sinuous veins. Despite the hideous transformations inflicted upon the heretics' machines, he recognized them : Rhinos, and a Land Raider. That meant Traitor Marines, and the Sons of Calth had yet to establish an outpost in Anaster.

Zoltan felt his blood run cold. For a moment, he simply stood there, watching death approaching the city he had sworn to defend. Then he reached for his com, already descending the tower he had been stationed on, shouting for help, for reinforcements. Confirmations came back from the chain of command, ordering him and any soldier in the vicinity to hold their ground against the heretics. As he reached the ground, he saw several hundred of men and women gathering at the barricades they had built on the hive's outer edge. Down there, all Zoltan could see of the heretics' column was the cloud of dust they were causing. Then the first vehicles came into view, and the monstrous Land Raider brought its weapon to bring. The sight of the war machine's many guns rising toward his position was the last thing he ever saw.

Zoltan Carayhn died in fire and fury, his body torn to pieces by the wrath of a daemon engine that had been born on a world of madness, fueled by the sacrifice of a betrayer's life. His remnants scattered across the avenue he had been defending, alongside those of dozens of other soldiers who had died before they had the chance to fire a single shot at the monsters who had come to kill their city.

The bay door of the Rhino opened, and Mahlone and the rest of the group rushed out. They were greeted by the deafening sound of the Antipater's Wrath's weapons. The Land Raider was annihilating the enemy line, tearing through human bodies with heavy bolter fire and destroying artillery positions with lascannons. Or, at least, something with effects that looked much like lascannons.

The vehicle wore the emblem of the Iron Warriors Legion on its side, alongside the daemon head of the Forsaken Sons. Mahlone could feel the raw malevolence of its machine-spirit even from this distance. The Antipater's Wrath was a magnificent example of war made manifest, and he was glad it was on their side. It fired for almost an entire minute, then stopped. Ahead of the loose lines of Unbound, Lucian and his pack began to charge, while the former sergeant shouted to his charges.

'Come on, you pups ! Show the Awakened One you weren't a waste of the Legions' Due !'

Two hundred savage and unrestrained souls howled in answer, screaming oaths to the blood-curling skies and shouting their rage and eagerness to kill at their foes. Mahlone found himself adding his voice to the chorus, and before he realized it, he was already running toward the ruined line of defence. His weapons were in his hands and primed, and his targeting array was already identifying and highlighting the few humans who had survived the bombardment. In some corner of his mind, he wondered why he was so impatient. There men had done nothing to him. He had no reason to do them harm.

But his body was flooded with hormones and stimulants, his brain burning in the fire of a battle-rage induced by his own re-engineered body. His thoughts were almost entirely focused on the battle, simulating its possible flow and absorbing information on the battlefield with astonishing speech. He could feel his muscles burning with energy, begging for release. He was no longer human. He was a weapon, an instrument of war, whose purpose could only be fulfilled in battle, against any enemy – it didn't matter why, it didn't matter where, it didn't matter who.

He was Unbound.

Mahlone's awareness of what followed was fractured. Sometimes he would see a single blow in slow motion, his chainsword taking an age to reach a single target. Then he would suddenly find himself several hundred meters away, surrounded by human corpses. This wasn't the loss of control the Berzerkers of the Twelfth Legion experienced when their cranial implants overwhelmed them. He wasn't frothing or consumed by bloodlust, and his comrades would later tell him he had still given them orders in this fugue state. This was a condition of absolute battle-readiness, where even long-term memory was secondary to the present. The evolutionary design of Jikaerus was combined with specific alterations to his brain to produce it.

The human defenders had rallied after the Antipater's onslaught – which denoted either praiseworthy bravery, or utter stupidity. More and more were coming, trying to pin the Unbound in place so that they may drown the enemy in enough las-fire to kill them. If the humans could turn this into a battle of attrition, Mahlone thought, then they would win – though not without an enormous cost. Sheer numbers would tip the balance in their favor.

The whole situation was exhilarating to Mahlone's rewired psyche. They were racing against time, with an objective to fulfill before the metaphorical timer ran out and they were blocked. They had to keep advancing, keep punishing the enemy for every action it dared to take against them. This was the kind of battle Astartes, with their superior endurance and the dread their mere presence inflicted upon those facing them, had been created for.

'Break them !' he shouted to the rest of his pack, before charging another platoon emerging from the ruined streets to face the Unbound's advance.

The dust raised by the preliminary bombardment and the ongoing battle made it hard to see, but he recognized the emblems on the mortals' uniform. They were PDF troopers. They shot at him at once, aiming at the joints of his armor in grouped bursts of las-fire. He took a hit to the right elbow, and his knee joint gave a wail of protest when his left leg was hit, but his power armor weathered most of the storm. Meanwhile, a bark of his bolter killed three of them in the time it took him to close the distance. His chainsword roared, and he cut the first soldier in two with a single strike. At the same time, he hammered the back of his bolter on another's skull, and felt the bone pulverize under the impact.

The others died in seconds when the rest of the pack joined him. Mahlone had lost two of his pack so far in the battle – which, according to his chronometer, had already lasted for forty minutes. Their armor was covered in blood, and what little of the paint remained visible beneath the all-covering dust had been badly scratched. Most of them were equiped with standard chainswords and bolt pistols, but two – Zaric and Tolers – had been issued with heavier bolters and combat blades. That made them more suited for ranged support, and rare were the Unbound with such strong suits. Mahlone suspected the two of them had been deliberately engineered by Jikaerus to possess some advantage with ranged weaponry.

They continued their charge, spearheading the advance of the other Unbound deeper into the hive, aimed toward the enemy command center – the former Arbites' headquarters. Mahlone went in and out of awareness, clinging ferociously to it each time he emerged. For another twenty-seven minutes, they tore through thousand upon thousand of mortals. Packs of feral humans dressed in ravaged fatigues, came out of their hiding to join them. These were the surviving prisoners who had been cast across the Warp, drawn to the carnage like maggots to a carcass. Three times, Mahlone found himself forced to kill one of them who was attacking him, bloodlust deluding their broken mind into believing they could kill the Unbound. He felt no remorse over these kills. The wretches had been sent here to die in order to prepare the way for the Forsaken Sons. If they dared to raise an hand against their masters, then death was all they deserved.

They finally arrived at their destination. The citadel of the Arbites was huge, built to loom threateningly over the rest of this section of the hive. It was a tower of plasteel and rockrete, with few windows and many auspex. Walls several meters high surrounded it, and Mahlone estimated that even once they breached them, the Unbound would still have at least fifty meters of ground to cover under fire from the tower's defensive arrays before they reached the building proper.

By then, their number had dwindled further, though Mahlone knew, from the sounds of gunfire, that some of the missing Unbound were simply lost, either across the streets or to their own bloodlust. Still, by his estimation, about thirty of the Fleshmasters' reforged young men had fallen, dead or too wounded to move. Lucian was there with his command squad, and was ordering the Unbound and human rabble – hundreds of them, armed with anything from looted las-rifles to rocks and fists – to assault the fortress. The humans were breaking now. Even their undeniable courage was fading in the face of the casualties they had suffered. One more push, then. Once the headquarters was destroyed, their chain of command beheaded, no one would be able to …

Mahlone saw the former sergeant of the Sons of Horus fall. Lucian crashed on the ground, blood spilling from his torn chestplate. The sound of the shot reached the other Forsaken Sons a fraction of second later – a sonic boom that Mahlone's hypno-taught mind recognized immediately.

A sniping rifle, designed to kill marked targets from afar and pierce through almost any kind of armor. A Legion weapon.

Time froze around Mahlone. There weren't supposed to be any of the Sons of Calth at Anaster. The loyalists were still gathering their dispersed forces into the hives they firmly held. Yet the evidence was there. Had the Astartes been here since the beginning, hiding their presence until the moment they could strike to do the maximum damage to the already weakened Unbound assault ? It seemed a cold tactic from the foolish sons of Guilliman, to sacrifice so many mortals in order to weaken them, but …

Irrelevant. All that mattered was to kill them. Perhaps the sniper was alone, but even so, his single shot could very well undo what the Unbound had come to accomplish. Without Lucian to keep the most savage of their number under control, they would spread out and become more vulnerable. The loyalists would also be able to restore Imperial leadership. He had to act, now. Mahlone closed his eyes, and focused on the echoes of the shot. He drew in his mind the patterns of sound, forcing himself to impose logic upon the Warp-altered physics of his environment …

Time snapped back, and a terrible headache hit him like a blow as his brain paid the price for that suspended instant of perfect focus. But it had worked. Whatever biomancy Jikaerus had sought to engineer within Mahlone's brain, it had told him the location of the sniper.

'With me !' he shouted to the rest of his pack, transmitting the coordinates of the loyalist to their own armors' systems.

Brother Kaziel ejected the empty round from his rifle's chamber and reloaded. The heretics' leader was down, but there were still dozens of them, without counting the degenerates who had come to reinforce them. It was time to sow more confusion in their ranks, lest they break the stronghold and destroy all hope of unified resistance to their advance. He may be alone, separated from the rest of his Chapter by the freak accident that had misled his drop-pod and killed the rest of his squad. But he was still a Son of Calth. He would fight the enemies of the Emperor at best he could, no matter the situation, no matter the difficulties.

Kaziel put his eye back to the visor of his sniper rifle, and his helmet's retinal display automatically synchronized with the weapon's machine-spirit. He could see the bulky forms of the traitors in shades of green, the distance between him and them reduced a hundredfold. They were charging the defenders' headquarters, their rage at their leader's fall consuming all thoughts of tactics.

The sight made him sick. To think that these debased monsters had once been servants of the Imperium, and carried the Emperor's gene-seed within them still ! He didn't know to which Legion they had once belonged, for the traitors had cast off even their allegiance to their Primarch and wore armor of pure black. That wasn't really surprising. In the aftermath of the Siege of Terra, where their ignoble rebellion had been broken upon the anvil of retribution, the Traitor Legions had shattered. In the years of the Scouring, before most of the traitor forces had been either destroyed or banished into the Eye of Terror, the Sons of Calth had faced many of their so-called warbands. Defeated and broken, they had fallen to infighting and the corruption of the Dark Gods of Chaos, killing their own kin for the favor of these uncaring, insane divinities. Those traitors he and the Chapter now faced, these «Forsaken Sons», were no different …

His gaze was caught by a group of the traitors. Unlike the rest, they weren't charging the walls of the fortress. In fact, they were coming straight at him. One of them must have seen him shoot despite his precautions,and was leading the others to the ruined building atop of which he was laying. Kaziel aimed at the one in the vanguard of the group and pulled the trigger. The bolt hit the black-armored heretic in the head, and it vaporized in a mist of blood and brain matter. To Kaziel's dismay, the rest kept charging, ignoring their companion's headless corpse. His rifle was incredibly powerful, capable of piercing ceramite from several hundred meters away – a design born during the Heresy, specifically to kill other Astartes – but it was also slow to reload. Considering the speed of the heretics, he would only have one more shot before they reached the building. He aimed carefully, choosing his target with great focus.

Another of the traitors went down, his left leg torn off by the high-velocity bolt round. Kaziel silently chastised himself for missing the heart while dropping his rifle and unsheathing his power sword. It had been his sergeant weapon, but the veteran had died in the crash, and Kaziel had needed a replacement for his own broken chainsword. It would serve him well now, for the traitors were already at the base of his sniping position, and would reach him in a matter of moments. Kaziel had chosen this position for the line of fire it offered, but it was also a deathtrap for a sniper who had been localized by the enemy. This was the only building still standing in the vicinity – the rest had crumbled down in the earthquakes that had ravaged Parecxis since the arrival of the Warp Storm. He had no escape route, and despite the losses he had caused them, the Traitor Marines still outnumbered him six to one.

The Son of Calth smiled under his helmet, though it was a smile as ugly as what had become of his homeworld. He almost felt sorry for the traitors. Almost.

Valek was the first to reach the roof of the loyalist's hideout. He was also the first to fall, shot almost at point-blank by a bolt pistol. The rest of Mahlone's surviving packmates rushed through the gaping hole where the ceiling of the building's last story had partially collapsed. Their blood was running hot at the prospect of facing an Astartes, and prudence and tactics had deserted them.

The enemy had discarded his sidearm, and met their charge with a power sword raised. His time perception still erratic, Mahlone felt time freeze around him once more, and watched the warrior in detail before the melee began. Like Mahlone's own, his armor was covered in dust, but the colors of the Sons of Calth were still visible. Most of it was the same sky-blue that the Thirtheenth Legion and now their Primogenitor Chapter, wore. The arms, however, were of pale green, and a white pearl with a crack running through its surface was displayed on the left shoulder pauldron – the emblem of the Chapter the warrior belonged to. These were the marks the Sons of Calth had put on themselves as eternal memories of the terrible grudge they bore to those who had betrayed the Imperium and slain their planet.

And then, time resumed once more, Mahlone saw, truly, how much the Sons of Calth hated him and all of his kind. The loyalist moved with a savage vitality that was nonetheless kept under strict control. He dodged, parried or turned away every blow, while his own blade danced around with astonishing precision, finding gaps in the Unbounds' guards and piercing through their armor's weak spots. The five Unbound couldn't hit him.

Then they were no longer five, but four. Tolers died, his head cut from his shoulders in a single, devastating blow. Then three, as Zaric was hit in the helm with the pommel of the power blade as he tried to reach for the Son of Calth's throat. The impact was strong enough to cave the ceramite in and break the bone beneath, and Zaric fell limp to the ground. Then there were only two Unbound remaining : Lorwes had been cast over the parapet, his charge countered and his own momentum used against him.

Mahlone roared, and let the power of his enhanced metabolism carry him. He and Ygdal moved to trap the warrior between them, but the loyalist moved faster, piercing Ygdal with his blade before turning to face Mahlone's furious assault. Despite all his skill, the Son of Calth was unable to react fully in time to the Unbound's speed, and he took a blow to the left arm. Mahlone's chainsword bit through the ceramite and into the flesh beneath, spraying rich Astartes blood through the air. But before he could follow on this strike, the former Ultrarine punched him in the face with his free hand, and send him crashing to the ground while his weapon clattered on the ground.

He could taste blood in his mouth. His whole body was in pain, the strain of hyperactivating his muscles making itself known. He couldn't see anything, but didn't know if this was because his helm had taken damage or another result of his brain's overclock. His audio receptors had been damaged, and he was unable to locate his enemy. With shaking hands, he tore the headpiece off, and light and sound flooded back to him, revealing just how dire his situation was.

The warrior who had felled Ygdal and five of his packmates stood towering above Mahlone, his power sword held two-handed in reverse. He was about to deliver the killing blow to his fallen enemy, but froze in place when he saw Mahlone's face.

'This cannot be …'

Before the Son of Calth could finish expressing whatever thought he had been about to voice, Mahlone seized the opportunity. He hurled himself at the loyalist, calling upon every scrap of energy his Unbound metabolism could muster. The two Astartes crashed on the ground with the sound of clashing ceramite, their weapons tossed away by the impact. Mahlone spat at the Marine's eye-lenses, blood mixing with the acid. He tried to reach for the other's throat, but a knee hit him in the side and pushed him away from the loyalist. He rolled on the floor, his muscles temporarily locked, unable to stop himself until he reached the wall. As he struggled to rise to his feet, he heard the voice of the Son of Cath again, thick with hatred and disbelief.

'Is there nothing your kind wouldn't despoil ?! No transgression so vile that you would not embrace it ?!'

Mahlone snarled, feeling his own fury rise at the loyalist's self-righteous condemnation. It filled his limbs with fresh strength, and he rose, facing his enemy. The two were standing less than three meters from each other, eyes locked on their foe. Around them, the battle was continuing, while above, the skies roared their approval of the carnage being wrought.

'There is only war, brother,' said Mahlone, not knowing where the words had come from but certain of their truth. 'All else is illusion.'

'I am not your brother, traitor,' spat the Son of Calth, and Mahlone laughed without knowing why. They charged at each other with their armore fists as their only weapon, and the Unbound's awareness dissolved in the moment of battle.

Illarion was revelling in the battle. Every blow he inflicted, every hit he shrugged off was one more display of his might to the universe. Lucian had fallen and Mahlone was gone – it was Illarion's turn to show his valor to the Gods. He was leading the assault, tearing through the defenders' barricades with contemptuous ease. They had broken the outer walls with the few heavy weapons the Unbound had brought with them, and were now fighting in the space between the fallen gate and the building itself. Illarion beheaded another human with his power sword and laughed as the priceless weapon cut through the mortal's neck as if through air. It had once been the blade of an Ultramarine captain, and still bore the symbol of the ultima on its pommel. Illarion could swear he heard the shade of its previous owner cringe each time he used it to kill another loyalist.

This was glory, he thought. This was what Arken had said awaited him in the stars, and the Awakened One hadn't lied. He was empowered by the blood of gods and clad in the armor of fallen angels. He was invincible …

A sound he knew, though he had never heard it before, made him raise his head. A drop-pod was falling toward them, burning with the fires of atmospheric entry. It crashed on the Arbites citadel like a meteor, tearing through reinforced rockrete walls like paper and stopping only once it had reached the ground. Illarion winced. Whoever the Hand of Ruin had sent to reinforce them, there was little chance any of them had survived so catastrophic a landing.

Then, from the rubble, a winged shadow emerged, and began slaughtering the shocked defenders who had survived the impact. The creature moved almost too fast for Illarion's eyes to follow, and the strength it displayed was beyond belief. He could only watch as the creature ripped apart the heart of Anaster's resistance with chainaxe and claws. The rest of the Unbound joined him, watching the carnage with admiration while Lucian's squad tried to stabilize their leader long enough for medical aid to arrive.

The carnage went one for several minutes. Then the beast roared to the sky, and stretched its wings wide. It flew away, leaving Illarion with a burning envy in his chesy. He wanted that power, that overwhelming might. And he would get it.

Mahlone returned to his senses laying down, holding the severed head of the loyalist in his arms like a child holding a favorite toy. He tossed it away, and looked around for Ygdal. His brother had been wounded. He needed help. But Mahlone was weak – so weak, now that there weren't any enemies left to fight. His armor had been horrendously damaged in the brutal fistfight and winced at every move. He wasn't sure he could even stand.

A shadow fell over him, filling the air with the smell of blood and the sound of a growl that did not echo right. Mahlone turned on his back to face the origin of the shadow, and his breath froze as he beheld a creature straight out of the ancient depictions of Hell.

The creature was tall, far taller than Mahlone would have been had he been standing up. Great, bat-like wings emerged from its back. It wore pieces of armore the color of bronze and arterial red over flesh that appeared to have been flayed. The head of the beast was encased in a helm, with twin horns raising from it and burning pyres where they eye-lenses had once been. In its right hand, the daemon held a great chainaxe about as big as Mahlone himself.

It looked at him, watching him as a hungry wolf would watch a wounded sheep, and the Unbound could feel its desire to kill him right now. Curiously, that did not make his body react as if facing a threat. Even the body of an Unbound knew not to stir when it was so totally outmatched.

Mahlone knew what the creature was, though he would never have expected it to be there. Its name and legend were spoken in fearful whispers across the Hand of Ruin, as if speaking them out loud would draw the being's wrath to the speaker. It was one of the most powerful servants of the Awakened One. Once, it had been a warrior of the Legions, fighting under the banner of the Twelfth Legion, the Eaters of Worlds. Now, it was the host of two souls, one belonging to the Space Marine it had once been, the other drawn from the Warp and into its flesh by the hand of the Blood God himself. From this union, brought into being not by the petty ambitions of mortals or the spells and rituals of sorcerers, the Blood Champion had been born.

But the former World Eater wasn't supposed to be here. According to rumors, Lord Arken had bound it into one of the Hand of Ruin's decks, to punish it for some failure or to protect the rest of the warband from its never sated bloodthirst. There had been word that the agent of Khorne would be unleashed in the Parecxis campaign, but the Unbound hadn't received any indication that it would be on this battlefield.

The Possessed turned its blazing gaze away from Mahlone, and picked up something on the ground. It was the head of the loyalist Mahlone had killed, still encased in its broken helmet.

'A fine prize,' it said, in dual voices that burned in the Unbound's ears like acid, 'for one as young as you, little brother.'

'Give it back,' replied Mahlone, without realizing what he was saying before the worlds had left his lips. 'It is mine !'

The daemon nodded, and put the head back where it had been with surprising care.

'It is,' the Blood Champion agreed, looking at Mahlone once more. 'You are wounded, little brother,' it added, as if just noticing that fact now. 'So are those of your packmates Khorne hasn't claimed yet. Were you brought low by this one single enemy ?'

Despite his wounds and the sheer stupidity of it, Mahlone rose to the creature's baiting.

'We were wounded before we arrived here. And that bastard was tougher than he looked.'

The Blood Champion nodded again, this time with a low, grumbling sound Mahlone took several seconds to recognize as being the equivalent of a chuckle.

'As are all the sons of Guilliman', it concluded, before jumping down from the building's roof and returning to the melee below. Mahlone was still looking at the empty space where it had stood when a familiar voice drew his attention.

'You are still a bloody idiot, Mahlone. What in the Gods' name did you think you were doing, speaking to it like that ? Are you trying to get killed ?'

Ygdal was a mess. His wounds had stopped bleeding, but his armor showed the damage that had been inflicted upon him clearly. Mahlone was fairly certain that several of his friend's organs had been pierced by the Son of Calth's blade.

'I was the one who killed him,' he said in answer, reaching for the manual command of his vox in his gorget. 'His skull is mine. That's the rule for those walking the Eightfold Path, right ? The daemon had to let it to me.'

His hand found the button he had been seeking, and he pressed it. At once, his armor began to emit the distress signal that would indicate their position to any medical unit in the vicinity. Not that any where here right now, of course. But with the Blood Champion here, the issue of the battle was without doubt, and the Fleshmasters would come soon, if only to see how their creations had fared.

'It is a daemon-possessed Legionary taller than both of us put together,' continued Ygdal, his voice weakened but still clear. 'If it wanted the frakking skull, you should have let it take the frakking skull !'

'It is mine,' Mahlone insisted, and Ygdal sighed in despair.

'If you talk like that,' he warned,' you are going to end like one of the Berzerkers. I would rather have you avoid that fate, brother.'

Mahlone grimaced. All of the Unbound had been taught of the four Gods of Chaos before their transformation. A former member of the Seventeenth Legion, who still bore the colors of the Word Bearers, had come to the aspirants' hall to that end. After him, a member of the Coven had done the same. While the zealot had preached the glory of the Pantheon and encouraged the young men to embrace its teachings, the sorcerer had warned them. There were many risks, dangers and prices to the paths the Ruinous Powers demanded their followers to walk. Arken didn't forbid any of the Forsaken Sons to follow the God of his choosing, so long as they kept obeying his orders, but he himself wasn't aligned with any of the Four.

If possible, Mahlone intended to follow the example of the Lord of the Forsaken Sons, and he knew Ygdal thought the same. But they had also been warned that sometimes, the Dark Gods claimed mortals as their own whether they wanted it or not. In such instances, resisting their will was ill-advised and ultimately futile, as Magnus the Cyclops and Mortarion the Death Lord had learned to their cost. He hoped that wasn't what was happening to him. The Eightfold Path, for all the strength and martial prowess it offered, was often far too short for his taste.

'What do you think he meant ?' asked Ygdal, changing the subject.

'Who?'

'The loyalist. When he saw your face. What do you think made him react like that ? You are an ugly bastard, alright, but that's still too much of a reaction.'

Mahlone shrugged.

'No idea,' he answered, and the skies above the broken pack of Unbound boomed with thunder that, to Mahlone's ears, sounded like the laughter of Fate.

Pareneffer was reading the scrolling text of a data-slate, alone in one of the Coven's gathering chambers. He had left his Fleshmaster's laboratory a few hours ago, when the last of the Unbound had risen from his slumber. Reports from the rest of the coffins indicated that it was unlikely any of them would awake soon, and even if one of them did, there were other Fleshmasters who could take care of the newborn Astartes. He had more pressing concern. The first result from his own batch of experiments had finally arrived. The first generation of Unbound seemed, so far, to have been a success. Of course, whether or not that would remain true depended on how well they would fare during the Parecxis campaign, but Pareneffer was confident. They would do well. It was time for him and the other Fleshmasters to start working on the second generation, and how it could be made even more powerful – and Pareneffer's work was, he knew, the key to this.

His work had begun when he had realized the full truth of what Arken had said at the end of the Exodus : the time of the Primarchs was over. They had shaped the destiny of the galaxy, and they had failed to bring it to their vision. Pareneffer's own father, Magnus, had failed most greatly of all. Instead of being master of his own destiny, he had let himself be manipulated from the beginning, and he had dragged his Legion with him. If what Asim had said of the Thousand Sons' fate in the Eye was true, then he had been played even after Horus had failed. Hopefully, this time, he would learn.

But it didn't matter. The Primarchs were gone, their names already fading into myth in the rest of the galaxy. Dead, lost or ascended to the Great Game of the Four Gods. Konrad Curze had been the last of the Nine Legions' forefathers to disappear. Whether his death had already happened, or was an event yet to occur outside of the Warp Storm, Pareneffer did not know, but the Awakened One had warned the former Night Lords aboard the Hand of Ruin. Their father had chosen his own death – showing at last more courage than Magnus had when the Wolves had come – and set his own destiny into stone. It had surprised the Fleshmaster, when the Eighth Legionaries had wept at the news. But they had endured, and moved on. With the Emperor's sons gone, it fell to their descendants to inherit the empire that was rightfully theirs. The Forsaken Sons had cast aside their allegiance to their failed fathers on the night Arken had bound the Oracle to his service. Those of the Nine Legions who could not would only endure pain and misery, until they saw the truth.

Yet for all their flaws and failings, the Primarchs had still been weapons of war of terrifying might. And Lord Arken had commanded the Fleshmasters to provide him with the greater tools of war they could. To let no option unexplored, to let their minds be unshackled from the petty laws and weakling's morality of humans. So Pareneffer had begun to study the flesh and blood of the False Emperor's genetic sons, seeking to unravel their secrets.

He wasn't trying to create new Primarchs, or resurrect the dead and lost ones. Only a madman of incommensurable arrogance would dare to attempt emulating the work of the Master of Mankind. And even so, resurrection was Jikaerus' domain, and the failures of the past had no appeal to him. But Pareneffer had studied for a long time the creations of the False Emperor, using his mystical senses to explore them on the metaphysical as well as genetic level. He couldn't create Primarchs, even if he had wanted to … but he could create monsters.

The False Emperor had gene-forged twenty Primarchs by using His own blood, infused with the power of the Empyrean He had stolen from the Powers. From the blood of the Forsaken Sons and the corpses of the Ultramarines, Pareneffer had obtained the portions of the Anathema's gene-code that had been used in the birth of ten of the Imperium's fallen gods. Trading with the other Fleshmasters had enabled him to acquire genetic samples from the other Loyalist Legions – pieces of flesh from Isstvan V, or drops of blood from Terra herself. Which was probably for the best. Despite their renouncement to their Legions' allegiances, Pareneffer doubted most of the Forsaken Sons would have tolerated his work if it had concerned their own sire. He wouldn't have. That was why he was reading his first results here, away from the other Fleshmasters. He would have gone to his experiment directly, but one of the Coven had to keep watch over ...

Pareneffer heard the sound of a door opening, and lifted his head from the data-slate. Asim, his brother in blood and hierarchical superior, had finally emerged from his private quarters. It had been nine days since the lord of the Coven had gone to rest and meditation inside his chamber. Surely even Savarkan himself would admit that it was enough for his body to recover from the damage it had taken. Yet there was something which surprised the former Apothecary – in fact, it shocked him. When Asim had returned from Parecxis Gamma, he had been a wreck, wounded in flesh and soul by the arcane undertaking he had committed there. But now, the Sorcerer's aura was flaring with psychic power, restored to fullness as if he had never set foot on the penal world. Pareneffer reached out with his sixth sense, carefully probing his brother's mind for signs of possession. He found none, and his unease began to give ground to the boundless curiosity so many of the Thousand Sons had shared.

'I see you have rested well, brother,' he said with his physical voice. He would rather not touch minds with Asim until he knew what had happened to him. The other looked at him, clearly understanding the question Pareneffer hadn't voiced aloud.

'I have indeed, brother … with some help.'

'Help ?'

'I made a pact,' explained Asim. 'The war for Parecxis is still raging, and before it over the Awakened One will have need of all of us. In such a situation, how could I remain … undisposed for any longer than was strictly necessary ?'

'What manner of pact, brother ?' pressed Pareneffer, his hand slowly moving to his bolter while his mind gathered power. It was most likely an unecessary precaution, but just in case …

Asim held up his hand in a pacifying gesture.

'I am not a fool, Pareneffer. I didn't give myself over to the denizens of the Great Ocean just to heal my wounded psyche. It would be a most foolish course of action, I am sure you would agree.'

'When what did you give, Asim ? If there is one thing we have learned since the Wolves came for us, it is that the Neverborn never give anything freely.'

Asim nodded.

'Indeed. I believe I know that even better than you do.'

The lord of the Coven looked up, his gaze piercing the hull of the Hand of Ruin and looking straight at the hive-world beyond. Pareneffer looked in the same direction with his second sight, but saw nothing save the bursts of violence echoing through the Warp from the planet.

'There is a soul on this world,' said Asim, 'that craves for power. Its cries resonate in the Sea of Souls, and the Neverborn are eager to answer. In return for my healing, I have vowed to help them do so.'

The two Sorcerers stayed silent for a moment, as both of them considered the implication of that.

'You are going to create a Possessed,' said Pareneffer softly. 'Not one of these wretches from the penal world you offered to the Warp, but one of the Gal Vorbak's ilk.'

'Yes,' admitted Asim, leaving unsaid what they were both thinking. He was going to damn the soul of one of their brothers, whether the fool was willing or not. Except for the Blood Champion's genesis in the Mulor system, there had been no addition to the ranks of the Secondborn amongst the Forsaken Sons since the Exodus, and for good reason.

'What will Arken say when he hears of it ?' asked Pareneffer at last.

'Our master sees much in the Oracle's chamber. I think … I think he may already know.'

All around him is motion. The currents and tides of the Warp are ever-changing, reflecting every thought and emotion of the trillions of souls that populate the galaxy. There are patterns in the currents, rhythms and laws that govern the seemingly random infinity, but he does not look for them. The future is unwritten, and all that the Warp claims to be prophecy is merely the possibility of what is to come, echoing back from the future across the timeless tides of the Sea of Souls.

What he seeks here are not the ghosts of stillborn futures or the ashes of pasts that never happened. He has come here for what is, rather than what could have been or may yet occur. His will enforces itself upon the chaos that surrounds him, and there is a fragile, fleeting moment of clarity that lets him peer through the madness.

He sees an orb of pain and courage, a fulcrum upon which destiny will turn. Billions of sparks cover its surface, and a few turn around it, not yet added to the war unfurling upon the globe. The shadows of countless Neverborn surround the planet, drawn to it by the smell of bloodshed and the promise of feasting. But those are not his concern, either. He focuses on the sparks, on those shining bright enough to be distinguishable through the Warp, those whose light reveals more of their nature in the Great Ocean.

He wishes to look at them, to know which pieces have joined the board at this stage of the game. There are many of them, all of which will influence the end result. He sees them all, his vision passing from one to the next as he learns their position relative to each other and the ambitions that drive them in the war he had unleashed upon this world.

He sees the bastard son of the proudest blood, whose ears listen to all yet who refuses to face the truth he has already understood.

He sees the scholar whose books are filled with forbidden knowledge, seeking to place bindings upon another's soul without seeing those tightening around his own.

He sees the knight in blue and green, whose bloodline is cursed to stay true to the dead ideals of the past while all they love turn to ruin around them.

He sees the being that was alive, then dead, and is now alive again, brought back to existence by the grace of the Plaguefather, as he works to give life to that which shall become death.

He sees the prideful scion of the last tower, shouting his envy through the Warp for the Neverborn to answer, coveting power no matter the cost.

He sees the traitor who carries the blade of a dead people, gathering servants in the darkness as he dreams of future glories.

He sees the snake who sent his progeny to war, toiling now to unlock the secrets of resurrection and immortality.

He sees the two-souled warrior, who grows more distant from his brothers with every beat of his hearts as he slips further into the Blood God's service.

He sees a soul shining with torment and blinded by deceit, soon to be made to fight against those it desires to protect.

He sees the killer who bears the weapon that lives, hunting amidst ruins to slake their common thirst for blood.

He sees the greatest slave of the False Emperor, spreading his lies across the world and turning others to his false, deceitful faith.

He sees, near the scholar, the one who wants to merge his separate crafts to create the ultimate weapon, and a blasphemy without compare.

And he sees something more, hidden deep in shadow, aware of his gaze and seeking to escape it. An enemy that has opposed him for long, but whose form eludes him still. This one is the most dangerous of all, for it is another player of this game of souls rather than a pawn, able to see the world as he does now. He has felt the presence before, byt its reach and deeds are clouded to him, occluded by power similar to the one he uses to be here. He knows the adversary is watching him, though, so he spits one last curse in the storm before leaving this realm of madness and hidden secrets.

Arken opened his eyes, retiring his mind from the maelstrom of the Oracle's visions. As his two eyes resumed control of what his brain perceived, he found himself facing Serixithar once more. The once proud daemon prince of Tzeentch had changed much since it had first been bound, but Arken doubted the creature enjoyed the changes, no matter how ironic that may be.

Once, the only decorations of the Oracle's Chamber had been the chained body of an Ultramarine Librarian, hanging suspended in the air and surrounded by hundreds of wards and sealing circles. Designed to keep the daemon inhabiting the Legionary's flesh under control, these had taken much work from the sorcerers of the Coven. They were also supposed to prevent the effects of having one of the Warp's princelings in captivity over the ship. But with so many eldritch energy bottled up, mutation was inevitable.

Blinking eyes and silently screaming faces had appeared on the walls, and Arken was fairly certain the containment circles were turning around each other like the gears of some mechanisms when he wasn't looking at them. The thing that had changed most, though, was the Oracle's own appearance. Serixithar's host no longer bore any resemblance to the proud warrior it had been before. The blue ceramite had merged with the flesh beneath, and grown grotesque limbs and mouths until it appeared to be a pillar of writhing flesh contained within the innermost circle. The cerulean monstrosity spoke through dozens of mouths at once and stared at its surroundings with hundreds of eyes. The mark of the Architect of Fate was branded upon its skin in numerous emplacements, and it began to wail as soon as Arken returned his attention to reality.

'You reach for too much at once, Arken. How many plans can you pursue, even without ever sleeping ? No matter how much the Pantheon favors you, you are still only mortal. Sooner or later, you will slip, and I will laugh as all you have labored to build comes crashing down around you.'

The extremity of Arken's lips trembled up slightly.

'These are no plans of mine, daemon. I am merely monitoring what others are plotting, and seeing how to turn it to my advantage.'

'Sophistry,' said the myriad voices. 'Ant it will still come crashing down eventually. There are too many variables beyond your control, too many different desires and wills at work. Do not believe yourself to be the equal of the Architect of Fate ! He alone can control all things into following His great plan. Your observations will only lead to cataclysm and destruction.'

Arken's parody of a smile grew a bit wider.

'Oh, I know that, Serixithar. In fact, I am counting on it.'