AN : hello, dear readers !
Well, it has been a long time since this fic was last updated. I had my exams, and the Roboutian Heresy's Ultramarines Index Astartes. I hope to be able to spend more time writing now, but I make no promise.
Unlike what I wrote before, this should actually be the second-to-last chapter of the Parecxis arc. I think I can wrap things up in the next, and then ... I don't know. There should be a time skip, but I have several ideas as for what to do next. To avoid spoilers, I will tell them to you at the end of the next chapter of this fic, so that you can tell me which option you would prefer to see.
In this chapter, you will witness the end of the military struggle for the Parecxis system, from several Chaotic points of view. To be honest, I am still not satisfied with how the actions scenes turned out - I think I am just not good at those, and I hope that I will improve in the future. Writing exposition is much easier for me, which is probably why writing the Roboutian Heresy is faster on a word-count basis.
Next should be ... probably the next chapter of this. I continue to write notes and ideas for the Death Guard IA, but it is a long process, and given that there is relatively little known about them, quite difficult. (If you know of source material in the canon universe, please tell me).
If you have questions or suggestions, please leave a review or PM me. If you like this fic, please review, follow or favorite (or all three if you want). I know it's cliche, but receiving reviews really helps to get the motivation going. To those of you who had questions in the previous chapter : you shall get answers in this one, and the full explanation in the next.
Well, that's all for now. Enjoy this chapter, and LET THE GALAXY BURN !
Zahariel out.
I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
'Death to the False Emperor !'
The battle-cry came out of hundreds of throats as the Forsaken Sons charged the Sons of Calth. Three Companies had been gathered to stand against the disciples of Chaos, supported by tens of thousands of human soldiers and militiamen. Chaplains and priests of the Ecclesiarchy were scattered across the ranks of the loyalists, shouting hymns and battle-cants of their own to support the moral of those standing against the servants of Ruin.
Tanks clashed against each other in the city's wide streets, and the empty buildings on the side burned in the aftermath of missed shots. What few artillery pieces each side possessed were engaged in a terrible duel that knocked down entire spires as their crews tried to locate their foes through calculation and luck. Above the towering spires, Thunderhawks and Stormbirds fought for dominance over Asthenar's skies, as Astartes, mortals and servitor-pilots alike danced a ballet that was as lethal as it was beautiful. Slower transports carrying supplies for the troops fighting below sought openings in the aerial battle to deliver much-needed ammunition and replacement weapons.
In the heat of battle, entire spires had collapsed, blocking streets and isolating entire districts from one another. The dust of their fall blanketed the entire hive-center, reducing visibility to a mere hundred meters at best, even with both sides' enhanced sensors. On the rare occasions when the clouds of dust parted long enough to see the sky, warriors could glimpse the echo of their own violence in the heavens above, as streams of Warp energy uncoiled in the crimson aether.
Arken the Awakened One, Chaos Lord of the Forsaken Sons, stood at the head of his forces, daring the loyalists to try and kill him. He was clad in his pitch-black Terminator Armor, and wielded a pair of lightning claws. Loyal blood dripped from every blade as he tore through rank after rank of Imperial soldiers, leading the rest of the Chaos forces further into the parts of the city still controlled by the Sons of Calth. His Terminator guards, led by Damarion, struggled to keep up with their lord, despite the fact that he was wearing the same advanced war-plate as them.
In order to bring their superior numbers to bear, as the Awakened One led the main thrust of the Chaos Marines' advance, his lieutenants led their own battle-groups up, toward the top of the hive-city. Forces from the other three armies that had marched on Asthenar had made their way through the city to join the final battle as well, led by those determined to prove their worth to the Forsaken Sons or to avenge their own grievances against the Sons of Calth.
Lucian and those of his Unbound warriors who still followed him, their spirits lifted by the chemicals flowing through their blood, came to challenge the great veterans of the Thirteenth Legion. Ezyrithn and the Sha'eilat who fought at the Firstborn's side had left the rest of the Host of Sensations rampage through the streets as they advanced, driven by the desire to prove their superiority over the scions of the Legion which had destroyed their kingdom during the Great Crusade. And Pharod the Gardener, whose legions of undead had climbed over the Wall on the broken remains of their diseased kin, burned with the desire to punish the loyalist Astartes for the fate that had befallen his beloved children on their way to the hive-city.
All of them and more were drawn to the sounds of battle in Asthenar's inner districts, where the Sons of Calth's retreat lines converged. Though the Forsaken Sons were still following the orders of their lord, the rest of the Chaos forces had long fallen into anarchy, simply following their leaders toward battle and not coordinating with the other groups. If the Sons of Calth could defeat the Chaos Marines among their foes, what little cohesion there was would collapse entirely, and the strategic acumen of Guilliman's progeny might yet win the day for the Emperor. But if the Sons of Calth fell here, there would be nothing left to oppose the rule of the Forsaken Sons over the entire Parecxis System. Both sides' commanders were fully aware of what the stakes of this battle were, and both were ready to do anything to be victorious.
Karalet, Lord of Ashes, formerly of the Word Bearers, cut an imposing figure as he marched across the battlefield. The Dark Apostle's slaves had prepared his armor for this great battle, repainting it entirely in the black of the Forsaken Sons before their master had engraved it with golden runes himself. The runes were Colchisian symbols forming chosen extracts from the Book of Lorgar, extolling the virtues of the Primordial Truth, and they shone with the power of their holy meaning in a baleful light that burned the minds of the unbelievers.
Daemonic symbols had also been engraved upon Karalet's crozius, imbibing its dark iron with unnatural penetrating strength – enough to crush through ceramite armor as if it were mere stone. The runes had been revealed to the former Word Bearer a few weeks ago, and he had immediately set out to transcribe them. After his fifth failed attempt had almost cost him his life in a backlash of daemonic energy, he had considered calling a Sorcerer for aid, but had ultimately rejected the idea. This had been his trial, and on the eighth attempt, he had succeeded in completing the pattern. Karalet was convinced that using an engraving tool made of the femur of a dead Son of Calth had been the element that had allowed him to succeed.
As he led a Company's worth of Forsaken Sons into battle, Karalet could feel the eyes of the Gods upon him once more, and felt his hearts swell in exaltation at their attention. This time, he had chosen to don his helmet before going to war – he had learned not to underestimate the Sons of Calth's sharpshooters during the battle of Meridis. His helm , which had once been piece of a set of Mark IV Maximus Armor undistinguishable from any other, had changed under the touch of the Dark Gods. Two ram-like horns grew from its forehead, and the eye-lenses now enabled Karalet to peer through the Veil and into the Immaterium.
Through them, the Lord of Ashes saw the legions of unmanifested Neverborn who flowed across Asthenar in the city's death throes. Millions of daemons had been drawn to the conflict, and they flocked to the lords of the Forsaken Sons. A sizeable host had attached itself to Karalet's force, feeding on the death they inflicted. But it paled in comparison to the one that followed the Awakened One's own battle-group. Even from several districts away, Karalet could see the swarm of Neverborn above the Chaos Lord. They were in such numbers that, had they been materialized, they would have blackened the sky. The Dark Apostle longed for the day when such favour would be lavished upon him by the Ruinous Powers – and part of him wondered what heights Arken would achieve by the time he caught up to where the Awakened One now stood.
'Kill them, sons of Chaos !' he shouted, gesturing with his crozius toward another group of loyalists, cowering behind another of their accursed barricades. 'Let's show Guilliman's spawn how real warriors fight !'
The members of his flock charged, shooting at the barricade as they did so. The single squad of Sons of Calth riposted with bolt shells of their own, sending several Forsaken Sons tumbling to the ground – some dead, others merely wounded. The loyalists had the advantage of cover and prepared firing positions, but the traitors outnumbered them ten to one. Inevitably, they reached the makeshift wall the defenders of Asthenar had erected to block one of the city's main streets.
The attackers climbed over the barricade, their armored hands finding purchase with ease, crushing handholds into the piled blocks of rockrete where there were none. A handful of frak grenades were tossed above the wall, forcing the loyalists down during the time it took the first traitors to reach the top of the small wall and jump in their enemies' midst.
The ten Space Marines fought with all the strength and skill that was to be expected of transhuman warriors. Their hearts were filled with honor and rightful anger, and each of them was a veteran of more than a hundred years of conflict, who had witnessed with his own eyes the Battle of Calth and lived through the horrors Erebus and Kor Phaeron had unleashed upon the Ultramarines Legion there. But they were still mortal, and they died with weapons clutched in their hands, reaping a tally of seven more Astartes before the renegades' greater numbers overwhelmed them.
Karalet himself slew the squad's sergeant, pulverizing his skull with his crozius and consigning the loyalist's soul to the Warp. Unlike most of his comrades, he actually saw the fate of his enemies' souls : his warped eye-lenses showed him their shades, torn from their bodies after death and hurled into the claws of the ever-starving Neverborn. In death, the Sons of Calth finally served Chaos, if only as fodder.
A scream of agony, suddenly cut short with a crunching sound, drew Karalet's attention to his right. There was one of the Sons of Calth's Dreadnought, crushing a Forsaken Son in his left power fist while the heavy bolter on the chassis' right arm showered the rest of the traitor battle-group with shells. Immediately responding to this new threat, the Chaos Marines took cover beneath piles of rubble and the remnants of the Sons of Calth's own barricades. The Dark Apostle did the same, and took a second to take his options.
It didn't take long, and Karalet scowled in displeasure. This time, he hadn't been given command of the Steel-Wrought – he wondered where the war-engine was being deployed, as he hadn't seen it since the beginning of the battle. It would have been amusing to make it fight against the loyalist Dreadnought, to test the strength of the old fossil within the Sons of Calth's machine against the madness-born power of Merchurion's creature. But despite this missed opportunity, there were others ways to destroy Dreadnoughts – many Legionaries who had fought during the Heresy had come to grip with the entombed ones.
During the Battle of Calth, the Lord of Ashes himself had led the capture and ritualistic desecration of one of Guilliman's elders, the pain of the living corpse within pleasing the Neverborn that had filled the air to a degree even Parecxis Alpha couldn't match. He knew how to fight them. There would be no time to inflict the sacraments of the Pantheon upon the occupant of the Dreadnought's chassis, but duty came before pleasure.
Taking a deep breath, Karalet spoke words in a language older than Mankind. He called upon the powers of the Warp, asking them to shield his physical frame so that his soul may earn their favor through deeds in the Materium. A shimmering halo of crimson energy encompassed him as he finished his prayer – the same color as that of his old Legion, or the blood that now trickled from his nose in the communion' aftermath.
With all the speed he was capable of, Karalet burst out of cover and ran straight toward the Dreadnought. It took a fraction of second for the war-machine to register his approach, and another for the living corpse within to realize what the aura surrounding the lone charging Chaos Marine meant. With a bellow of his vox-speakers, the Dreadnought focused his fire on the Dark Apostle. Dozens of bolt shells hissed past Karalet, barely missing him, and many others slammed into his sorcerous shield, the matter composing them unravelled by the energies of Chaos. Only two passed through and actually hit the Lord of Ash, but his armor absorbed the impact, and he barely faltered in his course.
As he drew near to the Dreadnought, he held up his crozius in both hands, feeling the eagerness of the weapon, and shouted :
'Behold the agent of your death, old one !'
He brought his weapon down, and the daemonically-reinforced power field of the crozius met the adamantium alloy of the Dreadnought's own power fist, thundering down on the Legionary. The two energy fields collided, creating a sonic boom that shattered what few panels of glass were still intact in a hundred meters radius. Despite the mechanical strength of the Dreadnought, Karalet remained on his feet, his armor's servo-muscles struggling to match the pressure of the war-machine's own weapon. His ethereal shield had dissipated, but he called upon the power of the Warp once more, using it to fuel his own muscles, and with a savage scream, he pushed the Dreadnought's arm back, forcing the ancient to take a ponderous step back in order to keep his balance.
Seizing that opening, Karalet swiped his crozius once more, and hammered it into the frontal part of the Dreadnought's chassis. Usually, when Legionaries fought against Dreadnoughts, they sought to disable the war-machine by targeting its mechanical parts, like cables or generators. But Karalet had another way. He could see the flickering flame of the soul entrapped within the Dreadnought – it was a pale thing, drained by the separation from the outside world, but it was still there.
The first blow sent cracks running along the surface of the casket, but the second broke through and the crozius' spikes reached the withered flesh entombed within. As the daemonic energies of the weapon pierced the living corpse, machine-shrieks boomed from the Dreadnought's vox-speakers as the machine attempted to translate the agony felt by its occupant. For several seconds, the Dreadnought jerked left and right, its control interface overloaded by the death throes of the mutilated Legionary within. Then, it fell, slowly at first, then more and more quickly, like a slain behemoth of a feral world.
Karalet jumped over the broken carcass and, with his boot firmly on the engraved surface of the Dreadnought's casket, the Dark Apostle held up his crozius in one hand, roaring to the skies. As the rest of his battle-brothers shouted their admiration, he felt his very essence being filled with the power of the Gods as they rewarded him for his deed. Like many others among the Forsaken Sons, he had been marked for potential greatness, and the deaths of heroes were the coin by which he bought the favor of the Pantheon. This was the gift of the Ruinous Powers, the blessing they bestowed upon those who proved worthy. This was the road of Mankind's true destiny as masters of reality and unreality alike, that only the chosen ones could thread. He relished in the rush of power, in the sensation of his gene-code being rewritten by the touch of Chaos …
… then, suddenly, he heard the sound of bolt fire, and something hit him in the head, shattering the right side of his helmet and breaking his balance.
Karalet fell off the Dreadnought's prone form and crashed on the ground heavily. In the time it took him to hit the street, all the energy that had been pouring in him from the Warp deserted his body, leaving him feeling empty and powerless. He sensed the eyes of the Gods turn away him, annoyed by his fall, their whimsical attention already drawn to something else, and felt something closer to anguish than anything he had ever felt since becoming a Space Marine, decades ago.
Before he could rise, try to prove himself once more, his gaze fell upon a Space Marine in azure and jade armor, towering above him. The Dark Apostle saw the Son of Calth both through his remaining eye-lense and with his natural sight, and for a maddening moment the duality in his sight threatened to overcome his mind and drive him insane. Then, just as he closed his exposed eye, he saw his doom. In his hands, the loyalist held a flamer, the muzzle of which was aimed straight at Karalet's prone form.
'Burn, traitor,' spat the Son of Calth before pulling the trigger of his massive weapon.
The last thing the Lord of Ash saw before his eyes melted in their sockets was the burst of flames rushing toward him, like the wrathful judgement of the False Emperor upon His wayward grandson.
When Asim had found him in the underhive of Anaster, Illarion had thought he knew what it meant to host one of the Neverborn within your flesh. He had thought that it granted power, at the cost of new hungers, and the sharing of your thoughts with a predator of the Warp. He had listened to the teachings of the apostles and watched the Blood Champion in action, and thought that he knew all there was to know about the Possessed.
He had been wrong.
To be Secondborn was to know pain greater than anything the spire-born Unbound had ever known. The agony he had experienced as the Fleshmasters had reforged his body was nothing compared to what he had gone through in the first weeks after his union with the Shadow of Horus. He had been so sure that he could control the power of the Neverborn, so confident in his willpower, in his ability to overcome any challenge laying between him and the power that he deserved. After all, he had been part of the elite for all his life. Even when he had been elevated to transhuman status, the gene-seed he had received had come from the Warmaster's own Legion, greatest among all those who had rejected the lies of the False Emperor.
In that, too, he had been wrong.
The pain as Asim cut his throat at the end of the ritual had been a surprise – for a moment he had believed that he had been deceived, that the whole thing had been an elaborate setup, though he couldn't imagine to what end. But it had been quickly forgotten as his soul hung on the boundary between life and death, and the battle against the Shadow of Horus had begun. The daemon had told him that it would try to take over, but he had had no idea what that truly meant. The battle for supremacy had raged from the moment the Shadow had shaped his flesh to close the wound.
For weeks, he had slipped in and out of consciousness, fighting the pervading influence of the Shadow within mental landscapes drawn from the countless atrocities that had birthed the daemon. He had seen the worlds that had burned in the wake of the Warmaster's advance to Terra, fought the shadows of dead Sons of Horus amidst the piles of corpses they left behind. He had duelled against nightmares beneath the shadow of the Imperial Palace, and fought unliving echoes of betrayal on the black sands of Isstvan V. The Shadow of Horus had tried to crush his spirit, but it had failed.
He had only managed to reclaim control of his body for brief periods, sometimes in the middle of the Neverborn feeding on the souls of the warband's slaves. Those around him had doubtlessly noticed that he wasn't himself, but they hadn't tried to help – which he supposed was for the best. Maybe the Coven could have helped, but he had to best the daemon himself if he ever was to be in control of his body again.
He hated Asim for what the Sorcerer had done to him, even though he had yearned for it so much. Part of him knew that the lord of the Coven had explained him the risks, but it was small in comparison to the rest. Asim could have explained better. He was a Warp-weaver, and saw through the veil without needing to share his soul with a daemon : he had to have known what becoming Secondborn truly involved. If he hadn't known Asim could probably unmake him with a gesture, he would have already torn the Sorcerer's soul from his body and damn the consequences.
Things were better since the battle of Meridis. At least now he was in control of his body, instead of just being a puppet for the Neverborn coiling to his soul like a serpent. The Sons of Calth had hurt the Shadow of Horus that day, denying its very essence when one of them had resisted its taunts. That had allowed Illarion to reclaim control, to push the creature back into the deepest recesses of his soul, and he was almost grateful to the loyalist Astartes for that. Sure, his body had been horribly wounded, but the days he had spent in the restorative tank aboard the Hand of Ruin had been the most peaceful since he had become Secondborn.
Now, the Shadow of Horus could do little more than whisper meaningless words to his soul, as powerless as the true destroyed soul of Horus Lupercal. Now, for the first time, he could fight as a Possessed while he was the one in control. For the first time, he could wield the power of the Warp in battle, though he still wasn't convinced all the torment he had gone through – and might yet endure – had been worth it.
When he had emerged from the Fleshmasters' care, Arken had decided not to add him to the rest of the warband's Possessed, held in reserve for a teleportation strike behind enemy lines. Instead, Illarion was part of the assault led by the Awakened One himself after the walls of Asthenar had been breached and the psychic web of the Sons of Calth torn asunder. Illarion did not know why the Chaos Lord had made that decision, but it mattered little to him – he had discovered that the presence of the Gal Vorbak warriors and the Blood Champion caused the Shadow of Horus to somehow gain in strength.
Illarion carried no weapons, for his gauntlets (now fused to his flesh along the rest of his armor) had mutated into long, shimmering claws. Ephemeral wings of shadow and smoke rose from his backpack, not solid enough for him to fly, but enough to emulate the Raptors' short-range jumps. He went without a helm, having found none in the Forsaken Sons' armoury that could accommodate the transformations of his head. He did not know what he looked like now – his reflection was nothing but twisting shadow, no matter if it was reflected in water, metal, glass, or blood – but he knew it inspired terror in mortal hearts. Even the other Forsaken Sons displayed unease when they looked at him – except for the Sorcerers, who saw worse things every time they peered beyond the Veil.
To the mortal men and women who fought against the Forsaken Sons, Illarion was a nightmare made real. Few could even bear to look upon him, and he had seen several turn their guns on themselves rather than face him. Even the priests of the Anathema were frozen in place by his appearance, their prayers forgotten in the face of the absolute terror the Shadow of Horus represented. He had lost count of how many soldiers he had rent apart, their pitiful armor no match for his claws. There had been so many of them than he had stopped feeding on their souls, instead seeking worthier prey – and the battle had so much to offer.
As he fought, warriors from all nine Traitor Legions fell around him, slain by the bolters and blades of the Sons of Calth. Each time a Forsaken Son died, the Secondborn's daemonic senses perceived the Legionary's shade leaving his corpse, drawn to the Warp Storm raging above them all. Strangely, the Neverborn who swarmed the hive left the souls of the warband alone – not out of any mercy or camaraderie, Illarion was sure. The daemons knew that the spirits of the Forsaken Sons belonged to powers greater than them, and they dared not risk their wrath.
The Sons of Calth, however, benefited from no such protection. Illarion tore apart a Space Marine in cobalt and jade, spraying the rich transhuman blood over his mutated chestplate. As he did so, the daemon inside him reached out of his flesh for a fraction of a second – not enough to influence the Materium, but enough to catch the soul of the dead warrior. As the spirit of the son of Guilliman burned in the Shadow of Horus' dark presence, Illarion felt a surge of power run through him, urging him forward, to where more prey waited. Consuming his foes' souls felt good, but it also always reminded him of what awaited him if he ever failed to control the Neverborn bound within him.
'Advance !' shouted a nearby pack leader, his armor bearing the colors of the Night Lords. 'Kill the dogs of the Imper - aaaaargh !'
The Legionary suddenly screamed in agony, dropping his weapons and clutching his head in his hands for a few seconds before it exploded, covering his pack in fragments of bone and brain matter. The warriors scattered at once, recognizing the signs of a psychic attack. Illarion saw one of them picking up the dead pack leader's plasma pistol before he turned his attention toward the origin of the attack.
A Son of Calth clad in the blue armor of the Librarius stood behind yet another loyalist barricade, his psychic hood and power staff crackling with dissipating Warp-energy. This one was brave, to dare tap into the forces of the Empyrean while it was full of Neverborn consumed with soul-thirst. Few of the loyalist psykers remained now – most of those who hadn't died in the destruction of the Bound Circle had either been slain by renegade forces or had succumbed to daemonic possession, bursting apart to allow rabid Neverborn into the Materium.
Illarion felt the familiar hunger rise in him at the sight of the Librarian. The soul of a witch was uniquely precious to those who fed upon such things, and he had never tasted such a delicacy before – not even a lowly shaman or wild psyker. They had been reserved for the use of the Coven, protected from the predations of Secondborn and daemons alike. But this one …
He is mine.
The Secondborn soared into the air, unfurling his immaterial wings to amplify the strength of his jump so that he planed a dozen meters above ground. Immediately, the loyalists focused their fire on him, but he drew upon his abilities to warp space around his body, turning aside most of the bolt shells and letting his armor and regeneration take care of the rest. One of the loyalists started to aim a lascannon in his direction. The Secondborn was under no illusion as to his capacity to survive a direct hit from that kind of firepower, but his motion was too fast. Before the Devastator could shoot, the Possessed Unbound crash-landed on the other side of the barricade, straight in the middle of the Astartes squad, less than five meters from the exhausted Librarian.
'Greetings, cousins !' he screamed in two voices : his own and that of the creature he was becoming. 'Witness the darkness within !'
At Illarion's mental command, tendrils of pure blackness rose from the joints in his armor, spreading in all directions and hurling the Space Marines backward. Bringing forth the essence of the Shadow of Horus into the Materium felt like a burning coal was inserted into his brain, but he needed the support of his daemonic powers if he was to succeed.
While the loyalists were pushed back, struggling against the visions of horror and slaughter contact with the shadow had planted in their brains, Illarion pounced on his prey. The Librarian reacted with all the speed of an Astartes, and struck the Possessed mid-flight with his power staff. The psychically charged weapon burned Illarion's flesh through his armor where it hit, but the Son of Calth was too weakened to be able to alter his course.
Secondborn and psyker collided, and Illarion's claws pierced through the Librarian's chestplate in a torrent of blood. Guided by a thousand fractured memories of Astartes killing Astartes, the Possessed had aimed his blow perfectly, each hand piercing one of his prey's two hearts. The Librarian grunted in pain, his staff falling from his grip as his strength faded. With his last spark of life, he tried to raise his other hand to the Unbound's warped face, perhaps hoping to unleash one last bolt of energy point-blank. But the light faded in his eyes, and the limb fell back limply.
Illarion saw the shade of the Space Marine emerge from his corpse, its outlines far more defined than those of any mortal ghost, and its inner light far more powerful. A swarm of daemons neared it, eager to devour it. But before any of them could reach the shade, Illarion unleashed his own daemonic nature. He heard the furious shrieks of the Neverborn as the soul was drawn away from their grasp, and then, a sensation unlike anything he had experienced before spread through him. Every cell of his body was filled with energy, and he felt as if he could face any being in the galaxy and emerge victorious.
Shivering with delight, Illarion never saw the blow coming. The thunder hammer of a Terminator hit him straight in the chest, hurling him away from the corpse of his latest victim like a swatted fly. The Possessed crashed through a wall and stopped into the ruins of an hab-block, half the bones in his chest reduced to powder by the impact and most of the rest broken.
'Brothers !' boomed the voice of Sergeant Honorius of the Sons of Calth First Company. His voice shattered the illusions that still clung to the Space Marines' psyche, and they rose to their full height once more, filled with righteous anger at their brother's cruel fate. 'In the Primarch's and the Emperor's name, death to the traitors !'
Arken heard the change in the flow of battle before he actually saw the new enemies. The sounds of battle coming from the other battle-groups weren't so distant that his enhanced hearing couldn't pick them up, and their tonality suddenly shifted. Mere seconds later, he received several reports of engagements against loyalist Terminators – and an instant after that, he saw them coming for him as well.
They were magnificent, these vengeful sons of a murdered world. Their armor was covered in the finest imagery and scriptures, telling of the many battles they had fought and the honors they had earned. They carried great shields and power hammers, and they charged the lines of the Forsaken Sons with the same ponderous inevitability a tsunami's wave possessed. At their head was their master, the one who had taken command of the Chapter after the death of his lord in orbit. He carried a single long sword, and his bare face was as handsome as any Space Marine could ever hope to be. He stared at the traitors as he charged, faster and faster as he gathered momentum. His eyes were full of hatred, and his name was engraved on his shoulder pauldron : Menelas Chiron.
The Awakened One felt his lips twitch in bleak amusement. At last, a worthy challenge.
Menelas' blood boiled as he finally beheld the architect of Parecxis' woes in the flesh. There, clad in a twisted parody of his own blessed Terminator war-plate that was as black as the whore son's soul, was the one who had murdered his master, forcing the mantle of Chapter Master upon his shoulder.
'Arken !' he shouted with all the strength of his three lungs, aiming Silversong at the arch-heretic's direction. 'Face me, traitor ! Face me and die !'
A cruel, mirthless laugh answered his challenge, and the Chaos Lord advanced toward him, lightning claws raised and poised to strike. Around them, the Terminator bodyguards clashed with the First Company's elite, and the commanders of the two forces warring for control of the Parecxis System finally fought in person rather than through their armies.
Menelas had been a member of the Thirteenth Legion for almost half a century when the Betrayal had struck. During the Battle of Calth, he had proven his worth, and become the unofficial Champion of the ragged band of survivors – Legionaries and humans alike – that he had joined in the Underworld War. When the Heresy had ended and the Primarch had decreed the splintering of the Legions, he had been chosen as Captain of the First Company, fighting at the side of his Chapter Master during the Scouring. He had fought against champions from all nine renegade Legions, and duelled daemon lords on heresy-infested worlds. In another, brighter age, the sight of him fighting would have inspired epic poems and paintings, all of which would have struggled to capture the grace and precision of his style.
But Arken was even older than that, and he had fought against daemons as well, during the Exodus. Prolonged exposure to the Oracle's Chamber's energies had quickened within him the alterations that were spreading across the warband. His body bore the marks of the Dark Gods' favor, his already surhuman abilities enhanced further by the touch of the Warp as it shaped his flesh to reflect the sharpness of his soul. An aura of dread power spread from him, making the blood of even Astartes run cold and sometimes freezing mere mortals on their feet. He fought without grace, but with a brutal efficiency, and his armor had been given the best enhancements available to Merchurion and his adepts.
Menelas struck first, his blade coming down on Arken only to be blocked when the Chaos Lord rose both his arms and crossed his claws in the weapon's path. The sound of the impact rang across the battlefield, and the two struggled against one another as the Chapter Master tried to force the sword down while Arken attempted to push it back.
After a few seconds, Menelas disengaged, moving back to avoid Arken's following strike. For several minutes, the two Space Marines fought on, exchanging blows that more often than not were parried or dodged by the narrowest of margins – Terminator warplate wasn't known for the agility it granted its wearers. Those blows that did connect tore through ceramite and bundle of fibro-cables, but never spilled blood.
Around the two, their warriors fought each other with equal ferocity. Whether veterans of the Sons of Calth's First Company or renegades of the Forsaken Sons, all present were survivors of the Horus Heresy, and the hatred they bore for the other side was unmatched. In the millenia that would follow, when the horrors of the Heresy had faded into legend and only a handful of ancient Dreadnoughts remembered the time when the Emperor walked amongst men, such fury would be diluted, rendered into a shadow of its former self. The hatred born from traditions and legends would pale in comparison to that which these warriors held for each other.
But the Astartes fighting in the burning hive-city had once fought as brothers, and their hatred was all the more bitter for it. They fought without taunts or challenges, for they had nothing to say that hadn't already been said during the Heresy. Like twisted reflections, they fought with tactics and instincts forged together in the fires of countless desperate battles. The air around loyalists and traitors alike shimmered with unborn daemons, manifestations of hatred and fury that hungered for the pain that would allow them to become truly sentient.
Terminators fell on both sides, brought down by powered weapons or high-caliber bolt rounds. Squads of Astartes in standard armor provided fire support for their elite brethren, bringing up heavy weaponry capable of piercing Tactical Dreadnought war-plate. Plasma guns, lascannons, meltaguns and other, less classifiable weapons built by the Forsaken Sons' heretek allies were unleashed.
All the while, the two Lords continued their duel, no warrior daring to intervene out of fear of accidentally wounding his own master. Black and gold clashed with sapphire and emerald under the hungry gaze of Khorne, who cared nothing for which warrior would emerge triumphant. Both were powerful fighters, with a tally of conquests and victims that earned their skull's place on the Blood God's throne tenfold.
When the end came, it came not through a difference in skills, nor because of fate or deceit. It came, as so many things do in the galaxy, through random chance. Asthenar shivered under yet another blow to its structural integrity, and one of the lords misstepped, causing the most minute of openings in his guard.
Seizing this opening, Arken struck, focusing all the combined might of his transhuman physiology, his armor and the gifts of the Dark Gods until his attack reached the kinetic power of a low-caliber artillery strike. His right claw battered the loyalist's power sword aside, and with the wrenching, unnatural sound of breaking Terminator armor, the five talons of his left hand weapon ran straight into Menelas' chest. The blow hammered through the layers of ceramite with enough strength to send Menelas flying several meters back, his sword slipping from his grasp.
The Chapter Master crashed on the ground, blood pouring from his wounds. As he laid there, he recognized that his wounds, while not immediately lethal, would soon force him into unconsciousness. His thoughts turned to the people of Asthenar, who with the now inevitable defeat of the loyalist forces would be defenceless. When the armies of Chaos had approached the hive-city, the Sons of Calth had evacuated them all into the vast caverns below the city, where the xenos who had once ruled this system had massed their slaves – out of their sight, yet nearby enough to use whenever the aliens so wished.
Menelas's hand reached out for the detonator hanging from his belt. He had to use it now. Defeat was inevitable – all he could hope to achieve now was to deny the traitors some of their spoils … and spare the millions of civilians whom he had failed to protect from the fate they would suffer if the traitors took them alive. The detonator was linked to the charges his Scouts had secretly installed in the caverns. They would collapse the ceiling on the civilians, burying them under tons of rocks. Those who were lucky would die immediately – those who were not would slowly suffocate or starve to death. The whole of Asthenar would shake, and Menelas' Techmarines had given more than even chances that the whole hive would collapse. He doubted that this would destroy the Forsaken Sons entirely – Astartes were too resilient for that – but they would lose most if not all of their heavy equipment and mortal slaves.
It wasn't a decision Menelas had made lightly. As a Space Marine, he was dedicated to the protection of the Emperor's subjects, not to their execution. But Calth had taught him that there were many things far worse than death that his damned kin could inflict upon innocent souls – even the slow, agonizing death that followed starvation. With a heavy heart, he flicked the detonator's security open, and prepared to push …
The talon of a lightning claw pierced right through the ceramite around his arm, severing the muscle beneath, and the hand of the Chapter Master fell lifeless on the ground. Despite the agony that coursed through him as the talon twisted in his wound, all that Menelas felt was the horror of failure.
'I knew it,' whispered Arken, lowering himself in a groan of protesting gears to face his foe. 'All this talk of loyalty, of courage, honor and sacrifice, and you were still going to kill them all rather than let us use them. How very … practical of you, son of Guilliman. Our uncles Perturabo and Alpharius would be proud. Why, I believe even Lorgar would approve of such devotion to one's appointed duty.'
Menelas tried to reach for the plasma pistol at his belt, to curse, to spit at his killer's face, to do anything to deny the bitter truth the traitor was speaking. But Arken's boot crushed his left arm, while the right claw of the warlord pinned the other to the ground. With the Chapter Master thus made defenceless, Arken delivered the coup de grace. Slowly, his free lightning claw pierced through the Son of Calth's chestplate once more, tearing through his fused ribs and the organs behind it. Blood poured from his wound, his Lamarran cells unable to clot them quickly enough.
'Do not worry,' continued Arken, a cruel smile on his pale face. 'You will atone for your failure on the other side of the veil, a thousand times and more. The Blood God is waiting for you, Menelas of Calth. There will be no peace in death for you … nor for any of those you have failed.'
The Chaos Lord pushed his talons further into the Chapter Master's flesh, sending fresh spikes of agony through his brain.
'The Sha'eilat will show my warriors the way to the underground,' he continued. 'Some of these people you were so eager to kill will survive after all, and serve me and the Gods until their dying day, while others will suffer and bleed under our tortures, so that their pain might feed the Warp. Go to your fate with that knowledge, son of Guilliman the Fool.'
Damarion watched with a smile on his face as Arken cut off the head of the loyalist Chapter Master and held it up to the bloody skies. The former Sons of Horus' Captain was no psyker, but even he could feel the change in the air, an impossible to describe feeling that something had happened, something had changed. The Warp had witnessed the death of the last Son of Calth, and with the extinction of one of the Ultramarines' offshoots, part of the deal Arken had struck with the Dark Gods had been completed.
The Terminator didn't know the exact details of the bargain his lord had made with the Powers. Such things were beyond his understanding : he was a warrior first and foremost, and had been since the day he had been selected to become a Legionary, on distant Cthonia. Even his rise to captaincy hadn't changed his nature, nor had the events of the Heresy and all that had followed. He trusted Arken, though : if the one he had once called Commander believed that an accord with the Dark Gods would help the Forsaken Sons and hurt the hated Imperium, then he would rejoice at anything that brought this accord closer to completion.
The Awakened One gave the skull to one of the former Word Bearers with just enough care that it wouldn't be damaged by the ceramite gauntlets both Astartes wore. The son of Lorgar received the gruesome remnant with far more reverence that his lord had handed it over, and walked away with a slight bow, removing the helm of the skull and beginning to skin it. Across the rest of the battlefield, the rest of the Sons of Calth's bodies were also beheaded, their skulls gathered by those of the Forsaken Sons who knew the rituals by which the Lord of Skulls could be honoured.
Victory on the ground had quickly been followed by victory in the air, as the ground forces could direct their fire to assist the gunships fighting for the hive-city's airspace. Soon, cargo carriers descended upon the hive, summoned by the Forsaken Sons. Within their holds were some of the most precious spoils gathered by the warband during the campain for the Parecxis System : the skulls of the Sons of Calth, carefully harvested after each engagement at the Awakened One's command.
The total number would, of course, come short of the thousand warriors each of the slave-Chapters was allowed to have – some skulls had been destroyed in battle, while others were worn as trophies. But the symbolism remained, and that was all that mattered in such things. An entire Chapter of Space Marines had died in the defense of Parecxis, their blood spilled in battle by the Dark Gods' followers. The skulls of the humans who had fought against the Chaos forces would also be harvested, while the millions of civilians in the depths below Asthenar would either be added to the offering or enslaved, depending on their skills and the whim of the Forsaken Sons.
While the priest-warriors and their slaves built a monument to Khorne from the skulls of their fallen foes, Damarion rejoined with his master. Arken and his guards marched through the ruins of the loyalists' last stand, toward the building they had fought to defend, at the very top of the fallen city : Asthenar's Cathedral, the biggest church of the False Emperor in the entire hive, and probably the entire system.
Just looking at it made Damarion's skin crawl with disgust. He didn't know whether the building had once been some noble house which had been reconverted or if it had been built from scratch for its current purpose. Its façade was covered in signs of the weaklings' devotion to the Corpse-Emperor. Statues of winged angels were placed in alcoves, with a giant aquila sculpted above the doors and two sculptures of Space Marines the size of a Warhound Titan placed on each side, as if guarding the entrance. Thousands, possibly tens of thousands of prayer scrolls had been fixed to the base of the wall by desperate fools, blindly believing in the lie that Horus had rebelled to expose.
He is not a god, thought the Terminator bitterly. Even though the Forsaken Sons had finally won the Parecxis campain, the sight of the Cathedral reminded him of their past failures and their consequences. He never was.
Another figure joined the Awakened One and his guards. This one didn't wear Terminator war-plate, nor any of the various models of standard power armor in use among the warband. Personal modifications and the touch of the Warp – far heavier on that individual than on most members of the Forsaken Sons – had made it impossible to tell which model the armor had once been. Serpentine cables ran across the surface of the battle-plate, twisting in arcane patterns as various types of energies flowed through them. Several tentacles of living metal rose from the warrior's backpack, and he held in one hand a pistol of a type Damarion had never seen before, and in the other a half-mechanic, half-living flesh device the Terminator barely recognized as an auspex.
'Zosimus,' Arken greeted the former Iron Warrior. 'Tell me, how many of the mortals are still inside this pathetic monument ?'
'Auspex indicates only one lifeform inside, my lord,' replied the Warpsmith. The title was new among the Forsaken Sons, and attributed to the Techmarines who, at Arken's order, had awakened the three daemonships that even now floated in the Parecxis system, awaiting commands. Some Legionaries had claimed this name during the Heresy, and it had seemed fitting to bestow it upon Zosimus and his ilk after the changes that had followed their technomantic ritual.
'That's strange,' noted Damarion. 'I was under the impression that the mortal you are expecting was of some importance to the rest of this rabble. Shouldn't there be at least a handful of bodyguards left to guard him ? Or maybe other priests to accompany him in his empty prayers ?'
The Awakened One had told him before the battle that the humans were led in their misguided worship by a high-ranking priest, whom the warlord had foreseen would be in that very cathedral, uselessly praying for the victory of his allies. For all that Damarion despised the religion that the Seventeenth Primarch had spawned before his illumination, he knew the boost to morale such an individual could bring, and found it hard to believe that the Sons of Calth would leave him defenceless.
'They must have known that if we reached him, then nothing would stop us,' replied Arken. 'As for the rest of the priests … they are probably alongside the population, in the caves.'
'It will be amusing to see how long they last before renouncing their Corpse-God,' noted Zosimus, with a tone of cruel satisfaction in his synthetic voice. 'I am sure our kindred of the Seventeenth look forward to introducing them to the … other divinities of the galaxy. Is that what you have planned for this "Cardinal", my lord ?'
'No,' growled Arken. 'That one will die, so that the rest can see the truth of his faith when I show them his corpse.'
'As you command,' replied Damarion, and he made to open the Cathedral's door, before a sharp gesture from Arken stopped him in his tracks.
'No, brother. I will go in alone.'
Damarion made to protest, but the sight of Arken's face stopped him from even trying. Instead, he barked orders to the rest of the Terminators, commanding them to assume defensive positions around the door so that they could both guard it and rush in at the first sign of trouble. Taking position himself right before the door, he watched as his master opened the massive iron door, somehow surprised that the loyalists hadn't barred them, and vanished from sight into the False Emperor's last temple on Parecxis Alpha.
The priest kneeling in prayer with his back turned to the church's door looked little like what Arken had imagined.
He had read the reports about this man, of course, and had his own sources about his nature and deeds. But he had given little thought to something as trivial as physical appearance : in his mind, he had imagined a fat representative of the human species, similar to the false prophets the Luna Wolves had cast down many times during the Great Crusade. Akarus Tranos, however, was different from these wretches, as Arken supposed he should have known, since the man had achieved far more than they had ever done. He was thin, dressed modestly save for the ornate staff he carried, with a short crop of white hair falling on his neck.
The Cardinal had risen from his kneeling position when the door had closed behind the Chaos Lord. Arken could smell the weakness of old age, and see it in how Akarus had needed to support himself with his staff of office to rise. Yet there was no fear in the old man's blue eyes when he turned to face the man who had condemned his world to a fate worse than death.
The two stood face to face, with barely five meters between them, in the great alley that ran between row upon row of benches, from the Cathedral's entrance to the altar at the back of the hall. A stone statue of the Emperor in His aspect as the Warrior towered over them, a sword and shield in hands and an aquila the size of a Rhino engraved on His chestplate.
'So,' said Akarus, sorrow plain on his face. 'Menelas is dead, and Asthenar is lost. Have you come here to gloat, fallen scion of the God-Emperor ?'
'No,' replied Arken. 'I have no need for gloating. My victory over him, his brothers, and these foolish mortals who stood alongside them needs no other testament than their blood.'
'Then why come at all ?' asked the Cardinal with what appeared to be genuine curiosity. 'Any of the butchers you command could have come here and kill me. I am no match for one of you Fallen Ones.'
'Because there are proper notions to these things, priest. The Dark Gods so enjoy their little dramas, after all.'
'Ah. So you are here to do as your dread daemon lords have commanded you.'
'I am not a slave, priest,' growled the Awakened One. 'The Dark Gods desire suffering to fuel their existence, and I want to see the Imperium suffer. Our goals align and they know it.'
'Is an instrument of pain all that you are, then ? Is there no meaning to your existence beyond the suffering you cause ?'
There was a moment of silence, punctuated only by the dimmed sounds of the battle's end outside. Then, Arken spoke again, his gaze lost to visions only he could perceive :
'My goal is to make the Imperium fall. And make no mistake : it will fall, priest. I know this to be true. Not today, not soon, but it will collapse. All mortal empires do, in the end – even the Eldar's, who ruled the galaxy for millions of years before their own end came. But it will not fall by my hand. All I can do is bleed it, weaken it so that those who hold this destiny in their hands can bring it to existence a little sooner. And it must fall, because it is weak.'
'Even now,' he continued, 'outside the confines of this storm, the might of the Imperium decays. Guilliman's paranoia has broken the loyal Legions, and the fear of rebellion has castrated the strength of the Imperial Army. Fear of heresy has driven the Lords of Terra to breed ignorance among their subjects, while the tech-lords of Mars now recoil from innovation in favor of pursuing the pieces of past glories. The Heresy showed the Imperium the true nature of the galaxy, and it chose to gouge its own eyes out in response.'
Arken paused in his speech, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a second, as if collecting his thoughts before continuing.
'The simple truth is that the Imperium as it stands is unable to ensure Mankind's survival in the galaxy we inhabit. That's the reason why Lorgar first turned to Chaos, and for all his flaws, the Urizen was right. Only through an alliance with the Dark Gods can we as a species gain the power to endure in this universe. The False Emperor saw this truth, but He rejected it – out of weakness or callousness, I cannot say. But it doesn't matter whether He was unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices or plotted to achieve godhood and leave the rest of us in the dust of His ascension. He lied to all of us, and this cult of yours is just one more incarnation of His deception, now that the proof of the Imperial Truth's lie has been exposed for all to see. And like that naive concept of a godless galaxy, it too, shall be cast down by the Ruinous Powers.'
'But then, surely you would know even more than I about these things, wouldn't you ?'
Akarus stared at Arken in incomprehension, which caused the Awakened One to sneer in contempt. The expression of pensive contemplation was gone from his face, all false humor had disappeared, replaced by a cold façade of will and calculation.
'Yes, I think we have both had enough of this game,' declared the Chaos Lord. 'I know what you really are, Cardinal. You might have deceived these foolish humans, and even my cousins of the broken Thirteenth, but I am not so easily misled.'
'I have read the reports of my brother's agents. I know of the so-called "miracles" you and your ragtag bunch of priests have performed. Healing the sick, repelling Neverborn influence, banishing doubt and fear in the fools and weak-willed.'
Arken lowered his head, bending his protesting armor until he was almost face to face with Akarus, and whispered conspiratorially :
'What a strange coincidence, isn't it, how all these things could very well have been done by another daemon in disguise, channelling its own power through its deceived thralls. Not any daemon, of course : only the tricksters of the Changer of Ways could possibly hide in plain sight like this … But I have my ways, creature. I have seen beyond your guise and through the charade you have woven on this world.'
'Ever since my agents first reached this system, we have been opposed,' he continued. 'Riots crushed by troops that were sent by forged orders. Incompetent Imperials mysteriously dying and letting worthier successors arise. The Sons of Calth, arriving here while there are a hundred worlds crying for help in the storm. These are all signs of involvement of a higher power, and there is only one which has the means to use such a wide-ranging scheme : the servants of Tzeentch.'
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the muted sounds of the battle finishing outside. Warlord and priest stared at each other, until the latter finally spoke, his voice hesitant and filled with incredulity.
'You … ' the Cardinal looked up at Arken's face in amazement. 'You actually believe that. You … cannot even imagine that the Emperor protects His faithful. In your eyes, it has to be a trick of your own masters …'
'The Emperor is dead,' hissed Arken, 'and I have no more masters. The Imperium worships a corpse, because it is too weak to search for this galaxy's true gods. Enough of your tricks, creature. I have indulged you questions, thinking they might be part of some test by the Lord of Lies. Now, show me what you really are !'
The Chaos Lord raised his arm, and rammed four of his right hand's claws into the Cardinal's chest. They penetrated through his priestly vestments without Arken even feeling the impact, his Terminator war-plate amplifying his already transhuman strength. Blood flowed from the five gaping holes in a torrent, and the lord of the Forsaken Son stared into the face of the man who had led the faithful of Parecxis throughout the horrors of the Storm, expecting it to twist as the hidden daemon was revealed, its game ended.
But nothing happened. Akarus Tranos simply stared at Arken for a few seconds, before closing his eyes and, with an expression of complete peace on his face, falling back, dead. His body slipped free of the lightning claws and fell to the floor, a pool of crimson liquid spreading from it on the cathedral's stones.
Arken looked at the corpse with incomprehension. This … this wasn't what was supposed to happen. He had seen this happen. The Cardinal was supposed to reveal itself as another daemon of Tzeentch, another challenge sent by the Changer of Ways to test Arken's wits. To reveal that he had seen through its ruses was supposed to be how Arken would prove his worth to Tzeentch, and the defeat of the Neverborn who had opposed his efforts in the Parecxis Campaign was to be the offering that would complete the Anchoring … but it hadn't happened. The visions he had clawed from the Warp in the Oracle's Chamber, which had never misled him before, had proved false here.
'What trickery is this …'
A cold feeling of apprehension grew in Arken's stomach as he remembered one of the most important truth of the Dark Gods : they couldn't be trusted. Just as he thought that, the Awakened One heard the flapping of wings, accompanied by a cruel laugh. He looked up, and saw a tall silhouette fly in through the shattered window panel and landed between the altar and the bloody remains of Tranos with the sound of shattering stone.
The creature was as tall as a Land Raider, with two wings of azure feathers springing from its back. Its face was hideous, and twin rivulets of an oily fluid that was neither tears nor blood ran from its eyes, but Arken could see that it was smiling as it looked down upon him. Its mouth opened, revealing a mouth filled with fangs and a long, serpentine tongue that somehow managed to avoid being cut to ribbons as it darted out as if to taste the air.
Then, it spoke. As if the words came from a vox in the process of being attuned to the proper frequency, the creature's voice became increasingly clearer, going from a barely understandable gurgle to a crystal clear tone :
'Everything has gone according to my plan. The Coven has spent is strength dealing with the Librarians. The last three soul-weavers under your command have been neutralized. The Blood Champion is broken, your forces are scattered across the hive. And the scion of the Anathema, wielder of a part of His accursed flame, was brought down by your very own hand … Now I am free, and there is nothing on this entire world with the power to oppose me. More importantly, there is nothing standing between you and me, Arken.'
Arken's eyes widened as comprehension finally dawned behind them.
'Serixithar.'
The Daemon Prince laughed.