AN : Hello, everyone, and welcome to another chapter of Warband of the Forsaken Sons. Well, that's one more chapter complete. Before I realized it, it had become the longest one I ever wrote for that fic. There is only one chapter left in this arc, where we will return to the splinter of the warband led directly by Arken. After that, the story is going to skip ahead to a time when the Forsaken Sons have conquered the Wailing Storm. Of course, there will still be plenty of planets whose tale will be left untold, but these might be mentioned in the next arc. I have grown tired of writing "evil vs evil" stories, and I think it's time we have another war against the Imperium, what do you think ?

This story is actually planned to the end by now. Once I have finished the Roboutian Heresy Alpha Legion chapter (on which I am also currently working), then I will focus on Warband of the Forsaken Sons until it is complete. After that, I plan to do only the Times of Ending for the Roboutian Heresy universe, with maybe short stories in between parts. And after that ... well, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Tobi14 : no, I don't plan to have the Fallen play a role in that story. They will, however, feature heavily in the Roboutian Heresy ...

Darkerpaths : I don't want to spoil anything, but just wait for the next chapter. I have great plans for the ending of that one ...

As usual, if you liked this chapter, please leave a review, follow and favorite. If you have a question, PM me and I will answer as soon as I can.

Zahariel out.

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

+++ IMPERIAL RECORD 97W26-A576R +++

+++ SYSTEM ANDROKAS +++

+++ WORLDS : ANDROKAS-PRIME – GARRISON WORLD, ANDROKAS-SECUNDUS – DEAD WORLD +++

+++ POPULATION : APPROXIMATELY 10,000,000,000 +++

+++ NOTABLE ASSETS : CONTAINMENT FACILITY ON ANDROKAS SECUNDUS (SEE RECORD 38N2U-136K825E) – ORBITAL DEFENSE PLATFORMS ORBITING ANDROKAS-PRIME – VARYING NUMBERS OF IMPERIAL GUARD REGIMENTS DEPENDING ON RECENT EVENTS (OVER 2,000 REGIMENTS AT TIME OF LATEST CENSUS) +++

+++ ACCESS TO THIS REPORT IS RESERVED TO THOSE WITH AN OMECHRON-LEVEL CLEARANCE AND ABOVE +++

+++ WE ARE THE EMPEROR'S FIST – WE ARE THE EMPEROR'S WRATH +++

On the bridge of the Blade of Terror, seven souls in various states of corruption stood around the main holographic projector, looking at the floating image of Androkas-Prime. Around them, the bridge crew performed their duties in eerie silence, all but subsumed into the ravenous overmind of the daemonship. Most of them had been brought in by the Forsaken Sons when they had come aboard the ship, but others were the lifeless bodies of the former Imperial crew, who had died at their post and whose flesh had been reanimated by the power of the great Warp-creature bound within the hull. One of them was the captain, who had gone down with his ship, only for his corpse to be fused with his command throne, becoming the center of the daemon's psychic network and the mouthpiece through which it occasionally communicated with its masters.

'That,' said Ygdal after several seconds of silence, 'isn't what I was expecting.'

The holographic image described the defenses in place around and upon the garrison planet. Despite having been trapped in the Wailing Storm for the Gods only knew how long, it appeared that the orbital platforms had endured – indeed, they had been expanded. And the planet itself was covered in fortresses, mines and Manufactoriums all teeming with activity. Other structures that could not be identified from space dotted the urban landscape, which spread across the entire singular landmass of the planet.

'How did this planet maintain such a level of militarization after being trapped in the Warp for so long ?' Mahlone asked aloud, standing at the side of his childhood friend and comrade Unbound.

'I thought we were going to plunder the ruins left by the Neverborn while fighting the stragglers – perhaps find a few descendants of the survivors, at best,' he continued. 'But this ...'

'It is strange,' admitted Lucian, his voice cold, emotionless and utterly artificial.

The leader of the Unbound, appointed by Arken himself, had sustained grievous injuries in the Parecxis Campaign. During the capture of Hive Anaster, his chest had been torn open by a sniping rifle, his entrails spread across the broken stones of the Imperial city. The Fleshmasters had restored him to full health, only for him to fall again during the final battle, in Asthenar. A shell of the Sons of Calth' artillery that had failed to detonate on impact had exploded just as he and his pack had passed by it, hours after it had been fired.

Despite the persistent rumors that this string of misfortune was a clear indicator of the Dark Gods' displeasure, Lucian had survived, clinging to life with all the sheer determination of a true son of Horus – but not without cost. The body of the veteran Astartes was more machine than flesh now, to the point that it was difficult to say where his flesh ended and the armor he wore began. While he hadn't lost any limbs, most of his bones had been lined up with metallic reinforcements, and several of his organs had been replaced by augmetic replacements. This included his vocal chords, too damaged by shrapnel, and his mouth and throat were now covered in a complex vox-speaker. That last augmentation was one of the few that could be seen when he wore his black power armor – along with his augmetic left eye, which burned with an inner red light that the rest of the circle weren't sure was purely mechanical in nature.

'It could be that to them, the Storm just arrived,' suggested Jikaerus, though his tone indicated he did not hold much faith that was the case.

Like Mahlone, the Fleshmaster was still wearing his helmet. Unlike Mahlone, that wasn't to conceal facial traits belonging to the Thirteenth Legion, but to hide the reptilian mutations that had only grown worse over time. Jikaerus spoke slowly, deliberately, in an attempt to block the snake-like hissing that could otherwise be heard in his voice. And though the Unbound stood across his maker, he could still feel the cold radiating from Jikaerus as heat was drained away from his surroundings to sustain his Warp-touched metabolism. Knowing that the one responsible for Mahlone's own transformation was still subject to the whimsical genetic alterations of the Warp was both humbling and worrying.

'Atmospheric and energy readings are conform with standards for an Imperial garrison world,' offered Vincarius, the Blade of Terror's leading heretek, formerly a tech-priest working on the orbital stations of Parecxis Alpha and who had been "illuminated" by Merchurion after his capture.

'No,' said another member of the gathering, an Unbound called Iames. 'I can sense the touch of Chaos radiating from the planet. Whatever happened here is already over—this world belongs to the Dark Gods.'

The others went silent, considering the implications of that. None of them doubted Iames' word on that subject. Once, Iames had been a human child from the underhives of Parecxis Alpha - an orphan long before the Forsaken Sons had come to the Trebedius Sector, his parents victim of gang warfare. Like thousands of others, he had been taken by the Fleshmasters in the aftermath of the campaign. His face bore the marks of the Fifteenth Legion's gene-seed that had been used in him, something that set him apart from the rest of his kin.

Few Thousand Sons had been aboard the Hand of Ruin when it had fled Terra, and of those who had fallen, only a handful had been in conditions allowing for their progenoid to be recovered. Arken had informed the surviving Thousand Sons of the fate of their Legion, and while they held no loyalty to their Primarch, Asim and his brothers were still unwilling to let their bloodline die out. As a result, these few organs who were recovered were treated with care.

Iames had been tested for psychic potential as part of his trials as an aspirant, and displayed enough promise that the former Thousand Sons had decided to risk one of their precious progenoid glands on him. The process had worked perfectly well – even the Fleshmasters' fears that the flesh-change that had once plagued the sons of Magnus would manifest in him had proven unfounded. Though he wasn't a full-fledged member of the Coven, he still wore the psychic hood that most Sorcerers in the warband needed to shield their minds from the predations of the Wailing Storm. His armor was black and marked with runes painted in gold designed to keep his psychic power contained. A dagger and bolt pistol hung from his belt – but Mahlone had seen first-hand that Iames didn't need those to kill someone.

Mahlone was unsure what Iames had seen when he had undergone Ascension, what visions had come to him from the genetic memory of his implants. The Unbound was as relentless in his hatred of the Imperium as any older Legionary, his eyes burning with an almost zealous desire for vengeance. His psychic powers were still weaker than those of his elder blood-brothers, but he was still a useful asset to the splinter of the warband. More importantly, he was the only psyker aboard the ship Mahlone knew he could reasonably trust – Iames' hatred of the Imperium also meant that he considered anyone not part of it a potential ally. Not the most healthy attitude, perhaps, but one that made the young Sorcerer well-liked for someone wielding the powers of the Warp.

'This doesn't change our mission,' said the last member of the gathering at last. 'Arken expects us to bring this world under the Forsaken Sons' aegis and take whatever it holds that might serve his ambitions. Or are you going to tell him that you turned back because you were scared of a few Imperials ?'

It was difficult for Mahlone (and, he knew, for most of the others around the projector as well) to hold back his disgust and hatred when he looked upon the speaker. The thing was neither standing nor seated; instead, its feet hovered a few centimeters off the ground. It wore the tattered remains of an unidentified uniform – perhaps something from the Hand of Ruin's crew, perhaps from the fallen armies of Parecxis. The scraps of tissue revealed a skeletal body, its bony arms crossed in front of its chest. Green bulging veins crossed its flesh, and a trio of small black horns rose from its forehead. Its face was always wearing a sardonic smile, and all those it regarded with its yellow eyes felt as if it was mocking them.

It called itself Jereb, but that was the name of the man it had once been, not the creature it had become. Mahlone doubted that any part of his mortal soul remained after the transformation it had undergone. A few days before the daemonship had begun its journey through the Wailing Storm, Jereb had volunteered for enhancing by the Fleshmasters who had accompanied the splinter of the warband. Like most of those who offered their body to the former Apothecaries, he had been seeking power in order to survive and thrive in this unfriendly environment.

Unfortunately for him, he had caught the eye of a former Word Bearer Apothecary, a strange figure even among Fleshmasters who was known only as the Unfettered. The Unfettered sought to create the perfect union of Man and Daemon, that which had been promised to Lorgar in the days before the Horus Heresy. Mahlone had no desire to know the details of what had happened to Jereb, but when the gates of the Unfettered's lab had opened, this creature had come out wearing its skin.

The Unfettered called it an Ascended, but the rest of the warband called it a False Daemon – the product of ritual, sorcery and genetic surgery, aimed at turning a mere mortal into one of the Neverborn. Mahlone knew such a thing was technically possible – he had heard the stories whispered by the veterans of Legionaries who had shed their mortality to become Princes of the Warp. But he sincerely doubted that the Unfettered had managed to replicate that process in any manner. Far more likely the Fleshmaster had simply summoned a daemon that had devoured the man's soul and gained his memories before being bound into the still-living body.

Yet for all that Jereb was a cheap knock-off of the real thing, it was still useful. Its sorcerous abilities were enough that it had been able to guide the Blade of Terror through the Wailing Storm, hastening the journey to their destination. While the daemonship required no Navigator to ply the Sea of Souls, it took a powerful will to bend it to one's own designs and direct its course. With no member of the Coven among them and the three Navigators of the Forsaken Sons already spread across the rest of the flotilla, the Unbound warband had been forced to rely upon Jereb instead.

Mahlone supposed that his first journey through the Warp not spent inside a transformation sarcophagus could have gone worse – indeed, according to Lucian and the other Legionaries aboard the Blade, it had been a walk in the park compared to the trials of the Exodus. Still, he and the other Unbound had been kept busy and sharp by the near-constant manifestations of Neverborn in the depths of the ship. While the Blade of Terror's nature kept at bay the outside predators of the Warp, the nightmares of the crew had birthed many strange and terrible things. Most of those had to be put down, though a few had been judged harmless enough to be allowed to continue their existence in the darkness, away from the mortals. That, too, had been a first for Mahlone – the fact that not all creatures of the Warp were innately malevolent, merely reflections of the emotions that created them. Cut off from the greater tides of the Empyrean, the influence of the Ruinous Powers was weaker on these daemons, and the sentient malice of Chaos less present – though never entirely removed.

Which, of course, only made him more wary of Jereb. Whatever deed or thought had birthed the Neverborn inhabiting its human body, it was anything but benevolent. Dozens of mortals had already died to feed its monstrous hungers, and it had even killed an Unbound after the Astartes had challenged it over the death of one of his own slaves. Mahlone had vowed that, one day, he would avenge this fallen brother and destroy the abomination the Unfettered had created.

That day, however, was not today. Today, the gathered sub-commanders of the warband had to decide their next course of action. Jereb was right : their mission remained the same, even if Androkas-Prime had turned out to be much better defended than expected.

'Assaulting a garrison world directly with our resources would be foolish,' declared Lucian after a few moments of consideration. 'We need more intelligence about the situation on the planet. It will be several hours before the light from our ship reach them, but if they have sorcerous abilities, then it is likely they are already aware of our presence in this system. They don't appear to have any ships, though, so we are safe. Let's keep the Blade of Terror here, at the system's edge, until we have gathered enough information. There is no need to rush, after all.'

Mahlone nodded, as did the others. Lucian was right, but the Unbound couldn't help but question whether this particular splinter of the warband would be capable of diplomacy – which, considering the might his memories told him a garrison world possessed, would probably be the only way to obtain this planet's resources for the Forsaken Sons.

'Today marks the beginning of the Week of Celebration, marking the anniversary of the ascension of our benevolent master, Lord Governor Malerios. For a century now, His Excellency the Supreme Protector has led the people of Androkas, bringing us safety and prosperity through his tireless work, and shielding us from the darkness. May he continue to guide us for a thousand more years. Show your thanks and devotion by ensuring that your part in the great work of Androkas is performed well …'

General Edony Nirai concealed her scowl at the words blaring out of the announcement system as she made her way up the stairs to the Central Administration Building. She knew that she was being filmed from at least six different angles, and it would not do at all for someone of her station to show discontent. With practiced ease, she projected exactly the image she wanted the cameras and any other onlookers to see : that of a commander of the Great Androkasian Army, dressed in a uniform decorated with dozens of medals, going for another day of productive work in devoted service to the Supreme Protector.

'Glory to Malerios,' saluted the two soldiers guarding the entrance as she approached, before the one to the right added : 'Hello, General.'

'Glory to Malerios,' she replied, nodding to the one who had greeted her and passing between them and into the building.

According to the archives that gathered dust in some of its halls, the CAB had once been of a purely functional design, a blank fortress of permacrete in which thousands of scribes and administrators had managed the logistics of the planet. Now, however, it was a monument to the "Glorious Leader". Statues of marble, silver and gold were displayed around every corner, so that there was no spot within the building where one could not see one of them – except for the broom closets. These statues were images of the truly massive one that crowned the building, showing Malerios in full military garb, looking in the distance with a serene expression. Edony knew for a fact that the enormous weight of the thing was a danger to the building's structural integrity, and that its smaller siblings had forced many data trains to change their paths through the CAB as the old ones were obstructed.

There was a metaphor there, thought the General, for the state of Androkas-Prime itself. Crushed under Malerios' ego, surrounded by images of his supposed greatness, and obstructed in their work by propaganda. Though Edony had been born after the Lord Governor had declared himself sole ruler of the planet, her parents had taught her of what Androkas had been before, when the sky was not crimson and not everyone needed to take Protectorate-approved pills to avoid nightmares.

They were gone now, of course. Both her mother and father had been in the military, and their records ended with a mention of their "honorable deaths in service of the Lord Governor", with any further inquiry into the exact circumstances of their demise being met with the adamantium wall of state secrecy. She knew the truth, though, and that was why she had vowed to see the day when Malerios' hold on Androkas was shattered forever.

After picking up the pile of data-slates waiting for her at the front desk, Edony walked through the corridors, a smile plastered on her face and saluting all those she passed with the same empty phrase she had exchanged with the entrance guards, until she reached her personal office. It still embraced the old design of the CAB : functional, clean, and organized. There was the inevitable image of Malerios projected in the air from a small hololith, so that no one would question her for its absence on the few occasions when she had visitors. But had someone examined the wall to the right of the entrance door, they would have noticed hundreds of small chunks in the wall at the height level of the projected image – similar to those that could be left by, say, a combat knife being thrown with the full strength of a soldier's arm.

As a General, Edony carried enormous authority, second only to that of the Governor himself and his directly appointed agents – but the truth was, her role was little more than a glorified figurehead. The true instrument of the Governor's will was the overworked bureaucracy. Such were the demands from the Palace that every single clerk in the CAB worked around the clock nearly all the time, kept from dying of sheer exhaustion by stimms and fear of punishment.

But in the Protectorate, Generals were the closest thing to real power. The Governor did not involve himself in the management of the planet beyond issuing ever-greater demands for celebration and monuments in his image. Every General had once been a simple soldier, and had risen through the ranks until they had reached the top – just below the feet of the Governor.

Edony sat at her desk and began to read the data-slates. Most of them pertained to the regular business of the Protectorate – production and requisition orders, warrants of investigation for possible disloyal citizens, planning for the endless parades and demonstration of fealty that had been the only function of most of the military for the last century. She just needed to skim and sign them so that those who would actually do the work would have her authority backing them up.

One of them, though, was different. It looked exactly the same as the others, but it's contents were far more interesting – and treacherous. She was far from being the only one with a grudge toward the Governor. Over the years, she had made contact with several other such individuals, who in turn had circles of allies of their own. She knew only a handful of other resistants, which was for the best – the agents of the Governor were always searching for them, and they were very efficient at interrogation. Those she knew worked in the CAB as well, occupying positions that were technically below hers, yet often carried far more actual influence.

Those who opposed Malerios did so mostly by recruiting others, gathering information on the secret going-ons in the Palace, and from time to time, performing direct actions such as assassination or sabotage. All of them dreamt of the day when they would cast Malerios down and make him answer for his abuse of the people of Androkas-Prime. Yet the sad truth was that even after a century, they had failed to make any real progress toward the tyrant's overthrow.

The General had no exact number, but she estimated that barely a few thousands had fought against the Governor's tyrannical rule in the last hundred years. That was a mere fraction of the planet's population, but she suspected that the Protectorate-issued pills everyone had to take to keep the hideous night terrors at bay might be involved in that. Certainly her own mind had become much clearer since she had stopped taking them, even if she now dreaded going to sleep.

The hidden rebels communicated through the very same bureaucracy that enforced Malerios' rule, exchanging missives among the piles of data that were constantly moving to and fro. Such messages were, of course, in code – anyone looking at them without knowing the proper cyphers would just read another request for increased production quotas, or something else equally ordinary. This one was masked as a relocation order for the population of an entire housing building that had to be razed in order to make space for a new construction project – another platza covered in images of Malerios' glory. But Edony knew that it was actually a request for a direct meeting.

One of her allies had learned something that he believed she needed to know, something apparently big enough to warrant the use of a code indicating higher priority than even an imminent purge of their ranks by the regime. The data-slate also contained a time, place and justification for the meeting. She glanced at the clock on the wall, and saw that there were still two hours before the appointed time. It wouldn't take nearly as long for her to go to the rendez-vous point, and so she decided she might as well get some work done in the meantime. Who knew, there might be another secret message hidden in the rest of the pile.

After another hour of mind-numbing reading, Edony was sure there wasn't any such thing. She still had some time left, but she decided to leave now to make sure she would be in time. She wasn't going very far, but there would be many security checkpoints between her and her intended destination.

Her destination was in the innocently named Communication Center. Anyone asking would be told that this part of the CAB took care of the vox-lines and other means of transmissions between the CAB and the other, lesser regional government buildings across the planet. That wouldn't be a lie, for the Communication Center certainly did that – but it was also responsible for monitoring the endless feed of information that came in from the myriad ways in which the Protectorate was surveilling its people. The images taken by the ubiquitous cameras had to go somewhere, after all.

After showing her credentials five times and being scanned for recording devices twice, she was allowed in. Rank or no rank, the security wasn't taking any chance, though the reason for such paranoia was beyond Edony – if it was fear of rebels accessing the surveillance network, then vetting the employees would have been the better option. Perhaps the Governor enjoyed making the lives of his servants as tedious as possible. She certainly wouldn't put it past the old bastard.

She found Matheus, one of the only four other rebels she knew by name, sitting at his desk. There was nothing special about his appearance – he was the kind of man who could vanish into a crowd in seconds. But his mundane aspect hid a mind as brilliant as it was guilt-wracked. One of several hundred clerks in his section of the CAB, Matheus had found his calling in the rebellion when he had been forced to send the hunting squads of the Protectorate after one too many families who had expressed discontent in range of a hidden vox-receiver. He had confessed to Edony that, the night after, he had ran out of pills and gone to sleep without taking his prescribed dose. In his nightmares, he had heard the screams of this family, and all those he had exposed before.

He had never dreamt again after that night, and it hadn't taken long for him to get in touch with another rebel and prove his commitment. Thousands of dissenters across Androkas-Prime owed him their lives, though they would never know it.

When Matheus saw Edony enter his office – which was much smaller than hers, and crowded with screens and machinery – he smiled nervously, and gestured for her to close the door behind her. A quick manipulation on his console turned the devices surveilling the room into a loop of a previous visit, in which they had discussed matters neutral and general enough that no one listening would notice anything was amiss. By necessity, the rebels had grown very good at hiding their activities over the years.

'Tell me what you have found,' commanded Edony once they had exchanged greetings.

'I found two things,' replied Matheus. 'First is this,' he said, turning her attention to one of the screens. 'This was transmitted by one of our satellites in orbit, moments before it went through what appeared to be a catastrophic failure in one of its key components.'

The image displayed on the screen was dark and of low resolution, yet it still filled Edony's heart with wonder and dread. This was unmistakably a void-ship, one of the great vessels aboard which the people of Androkas had once traveled the stars, before the madness above had destroyed their fleets and driven their Warp-speakers to insanity.

'Where is it now ?' she asked.

'Gone. I tried to find it using other satellites, but none of them found it. I thought those on this ship wanted us to get this picture, and that was confirmed by my second discovery. See, though the other satellites sent nothing but white noise, I found a pattern in it, one that contained information that could only be decoded using information hidden in the image.'

'It wasn't easy to find the proper cypher,' he continued, his tone filled with excitation even as sheer force of habit still ensured he kept his voice down. 'Even with the full processing power of my personal cogitator, it took me five hours to crack it. And that was with them wanting us to know what they were saying, Edony. Just think of the resources they must have for this to be their way of …'

'Matheus,' she interrupted him gently. 'Focus. What did the message said ?'

'Right, sorry. It said : "We see you, who stand in the shadows against the tyrant's cruelty. Let us bind our strength together, and overthrow the unworthy king." There are also coordinates for a warehouse in one of the districts scheduled for reconstruction.'

'A meeting place,' mused Edony, 'away from prying eyes.'

'Exactly. General … This might be the chance we have been waiting for all this time. For all our efforts, we do little more than annoy the Governor. But these people, they have a ship, and they have the means to send such a message. With them on our side, we might finally make some real progress !'

Edony pondered Matheus' words for a moment, before saying :

'You are right. I will go to this place, and see just who our guests are, and what they want with us.'

It was in the dark of the night that Edony went to the place designed by the coordinates. She went alone, for there was still the possibility of a trap, and Matheus needed to remain free if that were to be the case, to spread word of it to the rest of the rebellion. It was long past curfew, and she did not trust her skills at stealth well enough to attempt to evade the patrols. So instead, she had gone the opposite direction, and walked proudly in the middle of the deserted streets, dressed in her full uniform, daring the patrols to question where she was going. Only one had done so, calling out to her from afar before recognizing her rank. To them, she had told that she was on confidential Protectorate business, and that they were to speak of her presence to none. Her authority as a General was enough to ensure that they would obey, and Matheus was even now deploying his talents, officially working overtime while in truth manipulating the cameras to remove her image from all records.

The warehouse was surrounded by other abandoned buildings and demolishing equipment. The work here hadn't yet begun, though everything seemed to be in place. Perhaps some document in the CAB hadn't been signed yet, or perhaps resources had been diverted in preparation for the anniversary of Malerios' usurpation. The door was unlocked, and Edony entered cautiously, left hand holding a lamp, her right on her holstered gun. A single light-bulb cast a cone of light from the ceiling, creating a circle of illumination in the middle of the vast building. Sensing that this was what she was expected to do, Edony walked into the circle, turning off her lamp.

'You called for me,' she told the seemingly empty room. 'Here I am. Show yourself !'

'As you wish.'

Four figures emerged from the shadows, directly in front of Edony. All of them towered above her, and wore suits of armor painted black. They all carried massive weaponry, though none of them were holding them in their hands at the moment. Their helmets stared at the General impassively, and she felt her flesh cover in goosebumps as the very air seemed to get colder as they approached.

Edony had seen images and videos of such warriors before, in the archives of the wars in which the soldiers of Androkas had fought in the distant past. She recognized them now : Adeptus Astartes, the transhuman warriors who had conquered the galaxy in the name of the distant Emperor of Terra. Space Marines, they were more commonly called. Apart from their martial prowess, she knew very little of these warriors – the archives concerning them had appeared to be deliberately damaged, with entire sections missing or corrupted. Regardless, if warriors of such potency were interested in joining hands with the rebels …

'I am Mahlone,' said one of the giants, before gesturing to each of his companions in turn. 'These are Ygdal, Iames, and Jikaerus. We are warriors of the Forsaken Sons, sent to this world by our leader to contact those who would defy their master.'

'I am Edony Nirai, General of the Protectorate of Androkas-Prime … and member of the hidden rebellion against the oppression of Governor Malerios,' she replied, not bothering to hide her contempt as she spoke the tyrant's name. 'How did you find us ?'

'We have access to technology far more potent than that your Protectorate employs,' explained the one who was the source of the unnatural cold – Jikaerus. 'It was easy for our tech-priests to hack into your communication network, and after that, it was only slightly more difficult for me and my brothers to detect the patterns indicating covert rebellious activity. The message was both a test and an invitation.'

That … was both exhilarating and terrifying to Edony. On one hand, it meant that these "Forsaken Sons" could utterly destroy the rebellion if they so wished. On the other, it also meant that they had resources beyond her imagining, and their message seemed to imply that they wanted to help her. Of course, there was always the possibility that this was a trick – that they had merely sent the message to see if anyone would show up, not knowing anything about the rebellion …

'You said you are a General,' said Jikaerus, interrupting her thoughts. 'While it is hardly unheard of, I am still curious as to the reasons that led someone so highly placed to plot rebellion against her master. You do not appear to be motivated by ambition – what is it that drives you ?'

That was a very personal question, and one she would have reacted to with anger and shame had it been spoken by one of her fellow rebels. But the prospect of the Astartes' aid was enticing enough that Edony surmounted her repugnance to speak of such things.

'The Protectorate took my parents,' she said. 'Not because they had rebelled or because of any crime – they simply vanished one night when I was still a child. Their disappearance was blamed on an assassination from the rebellion, and it drove me to join the Army in the hope of crushing it forever.'

'However,' she continued, her eyes closes in recollection, 'once I became a General, I gained access to the secret files of the investigation. And these files were blank – the truth is that no effort was made to discover the truth. That made me search for it myself, and eventually, I found it. The rebellion had nothing to do with my parents' disappearance. Instead, they were taken by the Governor's agents. The last trace I could find of them is a grainy pict-capture showing them being dragged into the Palace. I doubt they are still alive – considering the wounds they bore on the video, I think it would be more merciful if they didn't. The Governor's agents are known for their cruelty to suspected rebels; I dread to imagine what they did to my father and mother.'

'That is my reason for rising against Malerios,' she finished, after taking a deep breath to calm her emotions, rampaging at the unearthing of memories she needed to keep suppressed all the time she might be watched by an agent of the Protectorate – which was almost every moment of her life. 'The other rebels have their own stories, many even more terrible than mine. But what about you ?'

'What do you mean ?'

'Why are you doing this ? Why are you interested in helping us ?'

The Astartes looked at each other, then Jikaerus said :

'Because we also have a tyrant that we wish to overthrow, and your help would be useful with that. This is a military world, with far more soldiers on it than it requires – we would like to take some of them with us once we are done with your uprising. That will be the price of our aid, lady Nirai. Well, that, and the plunder of the Palace. Our psykers have detected some rather powerful relics there that we would like to get our hands on.'

'I … I see.' She guessed she couldn't expect a miracle to come for free, and there were far too many soldiers on Androkas-Prime anyway – plus, she would rather have whatever the Governor was hoarding in his Palace taken off the planet. 'I think I can promise you this, yes. Plunder isn't the reason for which any of us turned against Malerios – you are welcome to anything that might be in the Palace.'

'Then you have our promise that we will help you cast him down,' said Mahlone. 'It is, after all, the nature of us Astartes.'

The transhuman warriors shared a quiet chuckle at that, as if in response to a joke that was beyond Edony.

'Before we discuss our plans more in detail, there is another matter that needs to be addressed,' said the warrior who had introduced himself as Iames, gesturing toward Edony's belt. 'You are carrying something on you that radiates some weak psychically active presence. Can you show us what it is ? It might be dangerous, yet I sense no deception from you.'

For a moment, the General didn't know what the transhuman was talking about. Then, her expression suddenly grew uneasy, as she realized she was standing before a psyker – one of the individuals who, in the early days of Androkas' isolation, had almost doomed the world to fiery annihilation. Still, there was little she could do against the threat he posed on her own, and so she reached into her belt and produced a small container. She twisted it open, and took from it a white sphere about the size of a fingernail.

'This is one of the pills almost everyone on the planet takes, to prevent the nightmares that have plagued us since the coming of the Warp Storm. I have been carrying those for so long, I had forgotten I even had them.'

'Give me that,' asked Jikaerus, delicately taking the pill from Edony's proffered hand.

The Fleshmaster held the pill up to his eye-lenses. It looked comically small in his transhuman, armored hands. Dexterously, he rolled it in his palm and closed his fist, turning it into a strange, multicoloured powder.

'Let's see there …' muttered Jikaerus as he scanned the crushed pill with a strange hand-held device. 'Hmm. Interesting … Neurological suppressants, nothing unexpected there … But this … daemon blood, huh.'

'What ?' asked the human woman, her tone filled with incredulity, horror and rage, all thoughts of Iames' psychic powers forgotten.

'Daemon blood,' repeated the older Astartes calmly. 'Not exactly blood, of course, but we don't have the time for a lecture on the physiology of the Neverborn when they manifest on our plane of reality, and I doubt any of you would understand it anyway, so let's just call it daemon blood.'

'But why ?' Edony was on the verge of throwing up.

The rebellion had always suspected there was more to the pills that what the Protectorate told its people, but all attempts at analysing their contents had failed miserably. Yet even in her darkest nightmares, Edony would not have imagined what the Astartes was telling her. She knew what daemons were – she had fought them in her youth, when she had still been a soldier rather than a glorified pencil-pusher. They rose from time to time in the seediest districts, though no one was aware where they came from. Every time, purging the pale-skinned creatures required a full military intervention, and more often than not the razing of the entire district to the ground. The things they did to those unlucky enough to be caught in their path were the stuff of nightmares. And now she learned that the Protectorate had been feeding that to her people ? What possible reason could the madman in charge have for that ?

'To keep you sane, I think,' said the Fleshmaster, still looking at his device. 'It's quite ingenious, actually. The neurological suppressants would do little to protect a normal human from the influence of the Warp, but bonded with the aetheric substance, they actually form a barrier in the brain shielding the subject from background Warp energy. It wouldn't do anything against a direct psychic attack, but it's enough to prevent the waves of insanity that occur on other planets dragged into the Wailing Storm.'

Jikaerus shook his head.

'I know we promised to help you overthrow the Governor, but if he really is the one who came up with that formula, I want to congratulate him and ask him for his recipe before you put a bolt in his brain. It is genius, pure and simple.'

'What about secondary effects ?' asked Ygdal, cutting into the uncomfortable silence that had followed the Fleshmaster's praise of the man they had already decided to kill. 'Getting any kind of daemonic substance into your system every day cannot be harmless.'

'Well, no, of course. I can't say for certain until I have run more tests on those who have taken these pills all their lives, but the cumulative effects on the brain must be severe.'

'My thoughts felt clearer once I stopped taking them,' said General Nirai. 'The other rebels with whom I have met told me they experienced the same thing.'

All transhumans turned their heads toward her. It was impossible to see their expressions because of their helmets, but she felt as if the one giving off the cold aura was pondering her words.

'By themselves,' he said after a few seconds, 'the neuro-suppressants would have that kind of effect. I am curious as to the long-term impact of the infernal component ... but I am far more interested in just how you have retained your sanity once you stopped taking them.'

'You and the other rebels must be exceptionally strong-willed, General,' interjected Iames before Edony could reply that she had no idea. He was the only Astartes whose face was exposed, and his expression was tense. 'Even now, I can feel the malice radiating from the Palace, trying to worm into the mind of all who walk upon this world. Even if these … pills protect from the nightmares caused by the Storm, they do nothing to shield from that influence. That you have managed to retain your sanity and resist the subjugation of your will both speak quite highly of you and your associates.'

'What is more immediately concerning for us is that the Governor apparently has access to daemonic aid, to the level that he can base his entire rule upon it,' said Mahlone. 'That speaks of great power, and more than that, controlled great power. Whoever this Malerios might have been before, he is a full-fledged Chaos Lord by now.'

You know, sent Iames telepathically, acting as a medium between all Forsaken Sons in the room, we could just turn her over to the Governor and make an alliance with him instead. He certainly seems to be the stronger party here. Lord Arken would understand – he would probably expect us to do so.

Arken isn't here, replied Mahlone silently. We are. And you have seen the state of this world – so many resources wasted on that man's ego that could be better used elsewhere.

Besides, added Jikaerus, his mental voice carrying over the feeling of cold scales touching human skin, I would rather not ally with another disciple of the Dark Prince. My experience with the Sha'eilat was enough. They are … insufferable.

We don't know for sure he is a follower of Slaanesh, pointed out Ygdal, more out of obligation than any real conviction.

Don't be foolish, scoffed Jikaerus. The statues, the arrogance, the need for the constant expression of domination and self-glorification … There can be no doubt on that matter. Any negotiation with him would be a trial in patience, diplomacy and flattery, and he would betray any agreement we could reach the moment he got bored with it. That woman, however, is honorable, and will keep her end of any bargain we make as long as it gets her vengeance.

The Sha'eilat haven't betrayed us, noted Iames. And they are far deeper in Slaanesh' s embrace that this Governor can ever hope to be.

The Sha'eilat owe us their very existence. There are metaphysical bonds between them and the warband, forged by the very process of their resurrection that ensure that any treachery on their part would cost them terribly. We have no such guarantee with the Governor. And never mention what I just told you to anyone – the Sha'eilat would kill you if they ever learned you knew that.

The three Unbound pulsed their agreement with Jikaerus' thoughts. The Fleshmaster had been the one to bring the corrupt Eldars back from the dead, after all – he knew what he was talking about, or at least they hoped he did. Besides, among the Unbound, dedication to the Dark Prince was exceptionally rare. Those who expressed any religious tendencies were more interested in the worship of the Bloodfather. Making any alliance with the disciples of Slaanesh, who were ever at odds with those of Khorne, would have been … problematic to say the least, without an influence such as Arken's to enforce it.

'Us four won't be enough to help you,' said Mahlone out loud. 'Assassination isn't our forte, and I have no doubt that were the Governor easy to kill, you would have dealt with him a long time ago. We will need to call in reinforcements from our ship, but if there are daemons hiding in the palace in addition to the armed forces loyal to the regime, that might not be enough. What help will you be able to provide on your side ?'

'Little,' she admitted bitterly. 'There is no way of knowing which of my soldiers might also be resisting the Palace's mind control and which are completely indoctrinated. If I openly turn against Malerios, they will execute me in the hour. But the rebels can do acts of sabotage and use our authority to keep the armed forces off your back while you attack the Palace itself.'

'And with any luck, once Malerios is dead, they will be free and you will be able to assume control over them,' finished Mahlone. 'I like that plan. A direct, overwhelming assault by a force of several hundred Astartes will break through any defenses the Governor might have in place, as long as we aren't attacked from behind.'

'We will need to get the Blade in orbit first,' said Ygdal. 'Does the rebels' influence spread to the orbital defenses ? We will need,' he thought for a second, drawing upon the tactical knowledge that had been implanted in his brain during his transformation into an Unbound, 'about one hour to get from beyond reach into position and drop everyone in the Palace's vicinity. Can you give us that window ?'

'I am not sure,' admitted Edony. 'I will need to make contact with the rest of the rebels.'

'We have much planning ahead of us in any case,' said Jikaerus. 'An operation on that scale and of that importance, both to your people and ours, should not be rushed.'

'I have waited all my life for something like this,' replied the General, her teeth bared in a killer's smile. 'I can wait a little longer.'

In the end, it took six days for the preparations to be complete. The Forsaken Sons on Androkas-Prime communicated with Lucian through Iames' psychic abilities, while Edony got in touch with the other rebels. According to the General, the plan was spreading through the network faster than anything ever had, with more rebels that she had ever known existed contacting her with offers of help. Supplies were misplaced, orders were forged, security systems were rigged, communication networks were hacked. Jikaerus' experience as a warrior of the Alpha Legion proved invaluable, as the Fleshmaster knew exactly how to capitalize on their allies within the enemy's ranks.

On the seventh day, just as the preparations for the final day of the Week of Celebration were culminating and millions were taking to the streets to behold the hundreds of parades that were mobilizing most of the Protectorate's Army, the Blade of Terror emerged from hiding. As promised, the orbital platforms remained silent, various officers aboard receiving conflicting orders from equal authority sources that their drug-addled minds were unable to process and prioritize. Slowly, the vessel set in geosynchronous orbit, all of its crew working in synchronisation with its predatory intelligence. Then, its bays opened, and it rained death clad in ceramite upon the Governor's precious Palace.

On every Imperial world with enough development to justify the presence of a Governor on its soil, the individual chosen to rule lives in the greatest housing available on the planet. To do anything less would be a terrible mistake – it would imply that those inhabiting greater demesnes held themselves above the appointed representative of the God-Emperor, and swift and terrible retribution would follow such hubris. Androkas-Prime being a garrison world, there was even less competition in majesty and prestige from other structures; thus, it was ensured that the Governor's palace would be the most noticeable construction on the whole planet. But as the assault crafts of the Forsaken Sons entered the atmosphere and the Palace came into view, the Unbound collectively groaned at the sight, many of them murmuring benedictions to keep their souls from being tainted by what they beheld.

If there had been any among the armada that still doubted the Governor's true allegiance, their doubts were dispelled at once. Scans revealed that the structure covered at least three square kilometers of terrain, right in the middle of the planetary urban sprawl. Golden spires rose from the enormous construction, some shaped in the image of Malerios himself, and others in twirling, suggestive patterns that threatened to captivate the minds of all those who looked upon them.

Yet for all that it had been converted into the greatest monument to its master on the entire planet, the Palace was still a mighty fortress. Despite the drain on manpower caused by the celebrations and the resistance's best efforts, its anti-air batteries were still active, preventing the Forsaken Sons from landing directly into the Palace. Instead, hundreds of Unbound came down in its surroundings, carried by drop-pods, Thunderhawks and Stormbirds. Their ranks replenished by the Fleshmasters after the conquest of Parecxis, all packs were led by a veteran of the war against the Sons of Calth and their human allies. To stop the Governor from fleeing with his forces and turning this singular battle into a protracted campain, the Unbound had surrounded the Palace from all sides. Knowing the temper of the Unbound once battle was joined, Lucian relied more on the mere fact of their starting location to direct them toward the Palace and prevent escape rather than on the hope that any of them would stick to the plan once their blood was up.

The main trust of the assault gathered before the main entrance, a pair of golden gates high enough to let a Warhound Titan through and which were only ever used for the yearly parades in which the Governor himself took to the streets to bless his people. They were still closed, but the Forsaken Sons were intent on changing that soon. Led by Lucian himself, the force also included those who had forged the alliance with the rebels – Mahlone, Ygdal, Jikaerus and Iames, who emerged from their hiding near the Palace. They led the Astartes contingent at Lucian's side, while Jereb the Ascended had brought along a small coterie of malformed mutants and warped beasts from the Blade of Terror's bowels. The False Daemon had broken their minds and bent them to its will, wielding them as extensions of its own body.

These horrors had been brought onto the planet in a bulky carrier piloted by a servitor – for mortal pilots were too valuable to expose to the depredations of this horde, and no Astartes would willingly lower himself so. Mahlone had argued against the presence of the False Daemon, claiming that its presence could only hurt their relationship with the rebels. But he had been overruled by Lucian, who had heeded the warnings of Iames about the threats that lurked within the Palace. Regardless of the potential damage to the alliance, it was better to have their own monster at their side during the battle. Iames and Jereb were the only two psychically able beings under his command, and the lord of the Unbound wanted them both with him when he confronted Malerios.

Despite the suddenness of the assault and the fact that no one had ever attacked the Palace, the guards stationed on its walls and in its towers reacted with admirable discipline. A volley of fire descended upon the Forsaken Sons as they charged the gates. Most of it either missed or failed to penetrate the Unbound's power armor, but a few grunts of pain were heard over the vox, as well as one suddenly cut short cry at a lucky shot through his left eye-lense. But it was the las-turrets that did the most damage – they had enough firepower to kill an Astartes outright, regardless of ceramite protection. Then a group of Unbound carrying heavy weapons took aim, and blew them off with a salvo of well-aimed missiles.

A chorus of warcries rose from the Unbound as they reached the gates, the young warriors proclaiming their might to the foe or calling out to the Gods. For many of them, this was their first battle – which made Mahlone smile as he remembered how his first battle had pitted him against loyalist Marines, not the enforcers of a corrupt Governor. To his surprise, the golden doors actually opened, panels slowly turning outward, and he couldn't help but laugh incredulously at what appeared between them.

It was … a parade chariot. In one of the memories he had inherited of the Great Crusade, there was

a recollection of something like it, which had paraded through the streets of a planetary capital after peaceful integration into the Imperium. But this one was much more imposing than the one in his implanted memories. The light falling from the polluted skies glinted over its gold-covered pyramidal form, more than twenty meters broad and likely hundreds long. Hundreds of lobotomised servitors lined on its side were pulling it forward, their arms made strong with grafted muscle working together to propel the chariot. The steps leading to the pyramid's top were covered with dozens of silver statues depicting prostrated worshippers bent toward the massive throne that crowned the whole thing. As Mahlone got a good look at one of the statues, his amusement dimmed somewhat – their level of detail was exquisite, yet their faces were also contorted in expressions of utter agony and horror.

Among the statues were also living humans, wearing what seemed like vestments of office for priests and high-placed administrators, their faces painted the same color as the inanimate supplicants. However, their faces were distorted by madness and hatred as they looked upon the Unbound, and they howled, driven to insanity by the outrage to their living god that the warriors in black represented. Many more like them were marching at the side of the chariot, along with the servitors.

The throne itself was empty, but a man did stand in front of it, like a loyal dog defending his master's home even after he has long been abandoned. His face tight and an elaborate and ridiculously high commander's hat on his head, he was clad in a full uniform, yet his chest was covered in so many medals that it was impossible to make out his rank. As Mahlone's eye-lenses zoomed in on the man, he saw that many of the decorations were of twisted and Warp-born design, and he could only wonder as to what the effects of such tainted items must be on their carrier. In his hands, he held what looked like a parade sabre and an elaborate laspistol.

'Intruders !' bellowed the pompous fool, his voice somehow reaching over the din of battle and into the ears of every Unbound on the field. 'Your transgression here today will not be tolerated ! In the name of the Lord Governor Malerios, Supreme Protector of this world, surrender now or face his wrath !'

A chorus of mocking laughter rose from the Unbound, and a stream of bolt shells sprayed the chariot, most of them aimed at the one who had just spoken. However, some kind of energy field protected him, and the shells fell powerlessly to his feet even as he brandished his sword and called for the chariot to go forward and crush the invaders. The silver adorators were not so shielded, though, and many of the statues were torn to fragments, alongside their counterparts of flesh and blood. Yet as the chariot advanced, hundreds more came from the Palace, running right toward the Unbound while screaming madly. None of them carried any true weapons – at most, they held staves and other symbols of the offices they occupied on the other days of the year.

'Spare the bolts,' commanded Lucian. 'Kill this vermin with close-quarter weapons !'

The Unbound obeyed, eager to crush the cultists, with their fists if necessary. Bolters were holstered, and all manner of weapons were drawn – while all Unbound were provided basic equipment upon surviving their transformation, most of them had sought other weaponry, either negotiating with the tech-priests or outright threatening them. The charge resumed, with Lucian turning to Mahlone, his blade aimed at the still-screaming madman at the chariot's top. The man was accusing the Unbound of all manners of crimes, promising them retribution for them if they did not immediately fall to their knees and beg for the mercy of his Supreme Protector.

'This fool annoys me,' says Lucian. 'Silence him.'

Mahlone saluted with his fist to his chest, then started to run toward the chariot, Ygdal only a few steps at his back. Behind them, Lucian joined the Unbound in the fight against the mass of brainwashed cultists. The warlord's power great sword tore into the humans with ease, filling the air with the scent of cooked meat.

Together, Mahlone and Ygdal went up the stairs of the pyramid-like structure atop the chariot. As they did so, the survivors of the silver worshippers swarmed them, only to be cut down where they stood by the two Unbound. Like an unstoppable force, the childhood friends tore through silver statues and cultists alike. In but a few moments, they stood before the throne, and its one defender. Without needing to communicate, Ygdal stopped a few steps below, letting Mahlone confront the man alone while he made sure none of the remaining cultists interfered with the duel.

'Invader,' whined the medal-covered mortal as Mahlone passed through the kinetic barrier, careful to move slowly enough to not be registered by the energy field. 'Trespasser. Your sins will not go unpunished !'

'You know nothing of my sins,' replied Mahlone, before striking with his blade, aiming at the man's neck …

… only for his weapon to be violently turned from its path when the man shot at the speeding blade with his laspistol, while stabbing his own sword toward Mahlone's flank with such speed that the Unbound was barely able to twist out of the way. The momentum of the duelling pair then caused them to pass by each other, and now it was Mahlone who stood with his back to the throne.

'Alright,' said the Unbound, twirling his sword in his hand to shake off the shock of the impact. 'I might have underestimated you.'

Mahlone lunged in, aiming for the chest of the man this time, pouring all the speed he was capable of into the blow. This time, his blade pierced right through the man's medals, uniform, skin and bone, and burst from his back in a shower of gore.

Then, just as Mahlone was moving his feet to recover his balance, the ridiculously high hat worn by his foe burst apart, revealing a grotesque appendage of flesh emerging directly from the man's head. The thick tentacle swung down, hitting Mahlone while he was off-balance and sending him down the pyramid's stairs, crashing into yet more silver statues on the way. Fortunately, he was still holding his sword, which was ripped from the flesh of the exposed mutant, causing yet more damage to his internal organs.

The Unbound leader rolled to his feet just in time to see the mutant coming down on him from above, having jumped directly atop him. With a snarl, Mahlone decided that enough was enough. He rose his bolt pistol and shot the creature directly between the eyes, his grotesquely elongated head exploding in a shower of bone, cartilage and muscle.

He looked around him and saw that the greater part of the battle was almost over. The humans had stood no chance against the Unbound, and the steps of the Governor's palace were covered in blood and other fleshy remnants.

'Cultists,' spat Ygdal as he ripped his blade out of the corpse of one,'and mutants. No real challenge.'

'That will change soon,' said Iames, coming to the forefront of the battlefield, his eyes riveted onward as he looked upon things only he could see. 'I sense great power ahead, and the veil between worlds is thinner here than anywhere else on the planet. There are things much worse than this creature awaiting us, and the blood we spilled here has only strengthened them.'

'Then let us be on our way,' began Lucian …

'Wait,' came a human voice from behind them, and they turned to see Lady Nirai pass between the Palace's broken doors, wearing a set of power armor that had to be at least a century old, yet had clearly been well cared for and maintained over the years. She held a bolt pistol in her right hand, and a power maul hung at her side – still dripping blood. 'I am coming with you.'

'General,' said Lucian, his body language giving off the annoyance his voice could not. 'You are not supposed to be here.'

To her credit, Edony didn't give in, despite her obvious fear of the Legionary. Not many humans, be they male or female, could stand up to a transhuman's displeasure.

'I have to be here, lord Lucian. This is an historical moment for my people. For exactly one hundred years, we have suffered under Malerios' boot. Today, with your help, we will be free. It is only right that one of us be there to take part more directly.'

Lucian shook his head. Mahlone could see why – the General's words made sense, but he could sense what she wasn't saying.

'Tell me the real reason,' said the veteran, still in the same creepy monotone.

'I want to see the bastard die with my own eyes,' she admitted immediately. 'The other rebels are fully aware of our arrangement – they will honor it even if I were to fall.'

A burst of static that could only be identified as a sigh emanated from Lucian's vox-speaker.

'That … is a feeling I can understand. Very well, General. Don't get in our way, and don't get killed. It would be a shame for you to die on a day so important to you.'

'I didn't think Lucian was capable of such … empathy,' remarked Mahlone to Ygdal on a private vox-channel.

'It's only his body that's mostly metal,' came the amused reply. 'From what the other Legionaries told me, the Sons of Horus have always been quite emotional – and they understand vengeance and rebellion perhaps better than anyone else in the Nine Legions.'

'On me !' shouted Lucian to the rest of the Unbound, oblivious to the exchange between his two lieutenants. 'We go on. Our true enemy awaits !'

The inside of the Palace was much like what its exterior had led the Unbound to expect. It seemed that on every corner there was another statue of the Lord Governor looking down at the invaders. At first, the Unbound made it a point of shooting at least once at every single one, but after a few minutes it became obvious that they would run out of ammo before they were done. Another curt command from Lucian about sparing their ammunition brought an end to the petty insults toward their target.

As they advanced, out of curiosity, Mahlone asked Edony if she knew who was the man he had slain at the gates, the one who had stood atop the chariot. It turned out that she had – General Lecartes had been one of the most prominent leaders of the Protectorate, bestowed the honor of commanding the Palace's own defences as reward for his decades of faithful service. She had not known he was a mutated abomination though, and the sight of his corpse had shaken her – just like the sight of Jereb and its minions had. She hadn't let it show on her face, of course, but her smell told the Unbound everything : she was tense with fear and anticipation alike.

Despite Lucian not giving any order to that effect, the young Astartes positioned themselves near the General, between her and Jereb's coterie of horrors. Mahlone doubted the False Daemon would attack her while she still was useful to the warband, but he wasn't going to take any chances. He quite liked the woman's courage, and for all her assurances that the rest of the rebels would honor the deal made with the warband, having her fall to the abomination's claws would likely strain their alliance to the breaking point.

The rebellion had ensured that the Forsaken Sons had the plans of the Palace before launching their assault, and every Astartes in the force had they loaded in their helmets, the most direct path to the throne-room laid out over their vision. They did not bother with checking any of the other rooms – it was obvious where a disciple of Slaanesh would choose to confront intruders. They could just trust in the monstrous pride that came with being a follower of the Dark Prince.

However, that did not mean that the trip was going to be painless. The Palace was ridiculously large, and the attack came half an hour after they had crossed the gate, while they were about halfway to their destination.

The first sign heralding the coming onslaught was the sound of distant laughter, twisted with inhuman malice and insanity. The second was movement in the shadows ahead. The third was when the walls suddenly seemed to fold in on themselves, revealing servitor-controlled bolters. The Unbound reacted immediately, dropping beneath the line of fire of most of the turrets and opening fire on them just as they activated. A few who weren't fast enough were caught in the hail of fire and fell down, blood flowing from the holes in their armor.

It only took a moment for the Forsaken Sons to destroy the automated defenses, but that was enough for the real assault to reach them without first being covered in bolt shells. At first glance, the hundreds of defenders looked similar to the cultists who had fought at the gate – most of them didn't carry weapons either. But only a fool would have believed them to be the same, for they radiated a distinctly unnatural aura, and as they got close to the Unbound, their mortal frames started to transform into new shapes. Clothes were torn to pieces by growing muscles and bony protrusions, revealing sorcerous marks branded onto pale, scarred flesh. Mouths opened impossibly wide, revealing row upon row of teeth. Limbs transformed into tentacles or were suddenly covered in spikes. No two of the monstrosities were alike, yet they were all equally horrible in their aspect.

The sight triggered something in Mahlone's implanted memories : in his mind's eye, he saw images of similar creatures wielding great sorceries to build immense cathedrals to the Dark Gods under purple skies, while Astartes in crimson armor kept watch over their work.

'Daemonhosts !' one of Lucian's Legionaries brothers called out in warning, and Mahlone had a name to put on the creatures of his vision.

But even as the word echoed in his mind, he knew that wasn't exactly the case. Somehow, he knew that if these things were indeed daemonhosts, they wouldn't have needed the cover of the wall turrets, and he and every Forsaken Son in the Palace would already be dead. The things swarming their position weren't using any of the sorcerous abilities the creatures of his vision had displayed, against which the Unbound would have had little defense – Iames, for all his potential, would have been no match for so numerous a host, nor would have Jereb.

Before Mahlone could think further, the monsters crashed into the Unbound's lines, and the battle quickly degenerated into a chaotic melee. He called out to the General, commanding her to stand back, and plunged forward to meet the foe. The air was filled with the scent of tainted ichor and stimulant-charged transhuman blood alike as the two forces tore into one another. Mahlone's sword clashed into the bony blade that had replaced the right arm of one of the creatures from the elbow. He struggled against the creature's strength for a full second before disengaging his weapon, dodging the follow-up blow, and cutting his foe in two with a broad horizontal strike. The energy field around his blade cauterized the cut, and he got a quick look at the creature's bones that had been on its path – they were wrong, twisted in ways that only looked like a normal human's from the outside.

Then, amidst the melee, Mahlone saw a group of the creatures break off from the rest and launch themselves toward Jereb. The mutants surrounding the False Daemon were quickly slain, but the monsters did not attack the floating horned humanoid. Instead, they circled around it, watching it with wide eyes and mocking grins.

'Cousin,' they called out, speaking with a singular voice raising from their throats. 'Cousin, cousin, cousin. Why do you fight us ? Why do you attack your kin ?'

'I am not your kin, miserable Fetches,' declared Jereb, even as it cast fire and lightning upon them. 'I am Ascended, a predator of the Warp, not a carrion bird bound within a corpse !'

Oh, do shut up, thought Mahlone as he struggled to get another of the things – this one a mess of tentacles and screaming faces – off him. Why do the Neverborn always have to be so bloody dramatic ?

Then the name the False Daemon had used registered in his mind. Fetches, it had said.

'Iames,' he called over the vox. 'What does Jereb mean ?

It is an ancient myth from Old Earth, came the reply from Iames, sent through thought rather than vox. Creatures from the beyond that would take the semblance of mortals and steal their lives.

'Hrm,' grunted Mahlone as he kept fighting. 'Is this what these things are, then ?'

… Not literally. From what I can sense, they are Neverborn spirits bound to the corpses of humans, and the soul of the host is gone – yet there is something in the way their essence is infused to the flesh … I can still sense the minds of those who once inhabited these bodies, their thoughts, their memories and their desires.

That … didn't sound good at all. Nirai had told the Forsaken Sons about the many rumors gathered by the rebellion about the agents of the Protectorate – it was said that they could read the minds of those they interrogated, couldn't be killed by anyone who had ever sworn an oath to the Supreme Protector, and possessed preternatural senses that allowed them to detect traitors from afar. Mahlone had dismissed these as mere propaganda, but now they made much more sense – especially the one about how normal citizens of Androkas had suddenly revealed themselves to be members of this group with no prior indication. Iames' next psychic sending confirmed the worst fears of the Unbound :

I think whoever created these things fed the soul of the sacrifice to a daemon and bound them to the hollow body afterwards. I suppose the name "Fetch" fits them as well as any other.

'Fetches it is, then,' cut in Ygdal, having apparently been included in both the vox transmission and the telepathic exchange. 'Now that we know what to call them, let's focus on killing them.'

The words of his childhood friend took Mahlone's mind away from his dark imagining of how the Fetches had been created and used, and back to the battle at hand. He put a bolt shell in the skull of some ram-head hybrid monstrosity, before turning on the spot just in time to parry the claw of another Fetch with his power sword. He turned the appendage away and brought his bolter up, firing a round into its fanged mouth before moving on to the next foe.

More came. Mahlone tried to rally others to him, to see where Ygdal had gone – but the ambush had been well executed. The Unbound were caught in a free-for-all, where every warrior was on its own against an enemy possessing vastly superior numbers. He caught a glimpse of Lucian reaping through the Fetches with his great sword, and saw Iames hold a group of the creatures immobilized with his powers while he swiftly cut their throats with his dagger.

The next few minutes of the battles blurred together into a parade of monsters and short, brutal duels. It was fortunate that the Fetches seemed to be unable to truly cooperate, and fought alone rather than in a cohesive pack. Regardless, he didn't emerge unscathed : at some point, his side was pierced by a spear-like appendage, and he bled in his armor for a few seconds before his enhanced physiology closed the wound. Another hit his left arm with enough strength that he felt his armor crack and his shoulder dislocate. Eventually, however, he turned away from his last kill to find that none of the foe remained standing.

With a grunt of pain, Mahlone reached out with his right arm and forcefully put his right one back in its socket. There were some kinds of pain of which even conditioning and stimulants couldn't fully take the edge off, and battlefield surgery like that was one of them. He flexed his arm a few times, satisfied that he could use the limb again. Only then did he look around and take in the results of the battle.

Corpses in black armor littered the ground along with the broken remains of the Fetches. By his estimations, the one hundred Unbound who had gone through the Palace's main gate had been outnumbered at least six to one, and only forty of them remained standing. Not all of those who had fallen were dead – even now, the Fleshmasters who had come with the force were stabilizing those who were merely wounded.

General Nirai was standing amidst the carnage, her eyes locked onto one particular Fetch corpse. Her face was pale and her eyes wide, yet when Mahlone followed her gaze, he didn't find the Fetch body especially ignoble. Reptilian scales covered most of its skin, and its fingers had fused to form a pair of black claws on each hand. By some whim of the Warp, the face had been left untouched – a normal, everyday face, though Mahlone had to admit his standards for human normality might be a little skewed.

'What is it, General ? What's wrong ?'

'I recognize this one. This … this is Matheus,' she said, barely managing to conceal the tremor in her voice. 'He was one of my fellow rebels … He was the one who received and decrypted your message. How could he be here ? How could he be … one of these things ?'

More to the point, when did he become a Fetch ? Mahlone thought to himself. But he quickly found that it didn't matter. If Iames' theory about the Fetches' nature was right, then whether the unfortunate rebel had been turned before the arrival of the Forsaken Sons or in the last week, then the Palace had known about the coming attack long before the Blade of Terror had revealed itself.

'They knew we were coming,' he voxed to Lucian. 'We are walking into a trap.'

'That's likely,' agreed the Legionary, 'but we have gone too far to turn back now.'

That, found Mahlone, might be true – but it wasn't especially reassuring.

In the end, only thirty Forsaken Sons made it to the throne-room, accompanied by Jereb. Lucian had commanded a pack to remain behind, to keep watch over the wounded and the fallen – there wasn't time to extract their gene-seed now, but there was no way they were leaving the corpses at the mercy of any of the other monsters that might lurk in the Palace. If thirty Astartes, a Sorcerer and a False Daemon weren't enough to kill whatever awaited them in the throne-room, then it was doubtful a handful more Unbound would turn the tide.

On the way, each of the other battle-groups checked in by vox. They too had encountered Fetches soon after they had breached the walls. It seemed that the Governor didn't want the ordinary soldiers under his command to see the monsters who served him behind closed doors. At Lucian's orders, the other groups took up defensive positions, drawing more of the Fetches to them in order to deny reinforcements to the main target.

Finally, they reached the throne-room. It was vast, designed to accommodate vast crowds of supplicants. High columns supported a domed ceiling from which hang hundreds of banners from the Regiments who had come from Androkas. Statues of various heroes stood in between the columns – the first time any of the invaders had seen a statue of someone else than Malerios on this world. On the other end of the room, atop a flight of stairs, was a throne.

And there, on the throne, sat the Supreme Protector of Androkas-Prime. Sitting on his throne, he looked just as regal and noble as the statues the Unbound had passed, and was clad in power armor lovingly crafted from gold and purple plates. Gemstones encrusted in the armor shone with inner light, and on his knees, he held a sword of incredible beauty. For a moment, the Forsaken Sons felt taken aback, as if suddenly ashamed of their intrusion upon this wondrous being. But then, a voice of defiance rose from among their number :

'No,' growled Iames, his eyes glowing with Warp-fire. 'This is a deception ! See as I see !'

On the last words, the Unbound Sorcerer clasped his hands together in front of him, releasing a psychic pulse that seemed to crack the very air. Then, with the sound of distant screaming, the illusion fell apart, and the true image of the throne room – and its occupant – was revealed.

The invaders found themselves transported from a place of wonders and beauty to a nightmarish torture chamber and slaughterhouse. Where statues had stood, there were now racks on which pitiful, bleeding things that had once been humans moaned in agony, all signs of their identity stripped away by the ministrations of their tormentors. But even this cruelty paled in comparison to the pillars. They weren't made of stone, but flesh : the still-living bodies of hundred of captives, merged with one another by sorcery and crafted into the shape of high columns. Every face visible was twisted in a grimace of agony, and soft rattles emanated from their mouths.

As for the Governor himself, he was revealed to be little more than a skeleton sitting on the throne, scraps of tissue hanging off the bones. The sword was still here, held in a skeletal fist and laying on the femurs, but it was now a grotesque amalgamation of metal, crystal and flesh, with a single yellow eye pulsating at the hilt. Strings of purple energy emanated from the hilt, twisting among the bones of Malerios' corpse like nerves and tendons, and twin flames of the same tint burned in the skull's eye sockets.

Mahlone didn't need Iames' gifts to understand that the sword was the real enemy here. It radiated power, malice, and hunger in waves, to the point that even he was affected by it – his throat felt parched, and he had the sudden certitude that only hot blood could sate him. He crushed the impulse, feeling his anger rising at the casual violation of his psyche by the daemon weapon – for that was the only explanation for what was going on. Around him, the other Unbound grunted and twitched as they too fought off the mind-bending aura of the blade. To his surprise, so did General Nirai.

'Remember when you said the Governor couldn't possibly be worse than the Sha'eilat ?' he said to Iames.

'Shut up,' came the psyker's irritated reply, his face tense, beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he battled the Neverborn's psychic presence. Things would be much worse for him, even with the protection of the psychic hood. 'They are more daemon than Eldar, anyway.'

'The Forsaken Sons,' declared the possessed corpse, the voice somehow emanating from between its teeth sounding slightly amused. 'And the little general, who thought I was not aware of her treachery as she stumbled in the shadows pursuing an impossible dream. I have been awaiting you.'

'You are not Malerios,' said the General, shocked by the sight before and all around her.

'Malerios is long dead, little one. He died but months after the darkening of your world's skies, his shade shrieking in agony and terror as I feasted upon it.'

'Then who and what are you ?!' Edony all but screamed.

'I am your protector, Edony. Without me, everyone on this planet would already be dead. It is my presence alone that keeps my brethren from swarming this world, consuming all upon it. You and every other soul living on Androkas owe me your very existence.'

'Our protector ?' asked Edony, incredulous, gesturing to the horrors surrounding them. 'How many of us have you killed ?'

'One hundred and nineteen thousand, three hundred and forty-eight,' came the reply. 'This is how many souls have been brought to this palace for me and my servants to feast upon in the last century. While I had billions of slaves, I consumed less than a quarter of a million. Ask your allies, and they will tell you how admirable such restraint is for one of my kind.'

'Do not try to pretend that your actions on this world are driven by any kind of nobility,' said Lucian, staring straight at the puppet of bone and rotten flesh. 'You must get something from keeping an entire planet's population into your thrall, especially considering how much they are worship you.'

'You are right,' admitted the creature.'I feed on them. Their lives are spent in a continuous monotony of my own design, so that the only light in their pathetic existence is their service to me. They call out to me, they thank me for my protection – they worship me, and that is good. That is their sole purpose, the reason I sheltered them from the Storm. Without me, they are nothing. Every single of them. Is. Mine.'

'No more !' shouted Edony, standing straight despite the dark power radiating from the Daemon Lord. Hatred gave her strength. 'You will die today. With the help of the Forsaken Sons, we will cast you down !'

The Neverborn laughed contemptuously, its mockery sending stabs of pain across the brains of all those who heard it.

'Ignorant fool. You know nothing of the true nature of your allies, of their deeds and ambitions. You are a child involved in matters beyond your comprehension, a pawn in a game of such scale that the Gods themselves have taken notice of the board.'

'I have no interest in your ramblings, daemon,' said Lucian. 'The General is right. Your rule over this world ends here.'

The skull of Malerios turned toward the Legionary, its orbits flaring with Warp-fire.

'Look at you,' it sneered. 'Sergeant Lucian, son of distant Terra and dead Lupercal, once a champion of the Anathema's false light … Now reduced to serving the will of a delusional madman who believes himself free of the Gods' will. You are nothing more than a slave, son of Horus, no different than this foolish woman, no different from your master.'

'And you are naught but the very stuff of lies,' replied Lucian. 'Your words are empty, daemon. Now, enough talking. For the Awakened One !'

The daemon responded to the war-cry with a shout of its own, a shriek of mixed anger and anticipated pleasure. The skeleton of Malerios rose, and the infernal blade in its right hand flared with purple fire as words that burned through the mind echoed from the corpse's mouth. Many of the living dead in the columns fell free, their flesh burning with an inner eldritch light. They rose to their feet and marched toward the Forsaken Sons – unsteadily at first, but then more surely as the things controlling the bodies mastered them.

This time, Mahlone and Ygdal were not caught by surprise, and they fought back to back once more, each covering the other's blind spots. Individually, they were powerful warriors; together, they were a whirlwind of death that tore through the reanimated corpses. Around them, their brethren opened fire on the Fetches, tearing through warped bodies – but there were a great many of them, and they came from all directions.

As the Unbound met the assault of the newly created Fetches, Lucian charged up the steps to the throne, his own weapon raised. The power great sword shone with the light of its energy field, and it clashed with the infernal blade of the revenant when the two lords of Chaos met mid-way down the flight of stairs. With the sound of falling thunder, the daemon sword prevailed, and Lucian's blade shattered, fragments flying in all direction with enough strength that one of them encased itself in the skull of one Unbound, killing him instantly.

The corpse of Malerios opened its mouth, no doubt to deliver another taunt. But Lucian didn't give it time. Using the small opening created by the daemon's destruction of his sword, he drew his plasma pistol and rammed it into the revenant's chest, before pushing the trigger three times in quick succession. He was risking the weapon's detonation in his hand by pushing it like that, but that was a risk he was willing to take – another pass under the Fleshmasters' knives would be worth it if it ensured victory for the warband on this world.

A wailing scream echoed across the throne-room, and arcs of Warp energy coursed across the decayed corpse, gathering in its skeletal hand, which detonated. Before Lucian's eyes, the daemonic sword was cast into the air, its eye wide open in fury and shock.

Power, came the thought, unbidden. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as the daemon sword turned in the air. Power enough to challenge all who ever wronged me.

It was true that the daemonic blade held great power, power that would serve the warband well. And Arken had commanded his lieutenants to find and gather all that could add to their fighting potential – the blade certainly counted as such. But Lucian also knew the danger of wielding such a weapon. During the Heresy, stories had spread among the Legions of warriors who had received such gifts from the rebels' Warp-born allies, only to be consumed by the malevolent creatures bound within the relics.

Have I not defeated Malerios ? Have I not proved myself stronger than the daemon ? I could claim your prize. Seize the power to elevate yourself above all other servants of Arken. If a mere mortal corpse could channel so much might from it, just how powerful would a great warrior such as you become ?

But his power laid in the forces under his command, not in his personal martial prowess. The Unbound were many, and they were strong – he only needed power enough to keep them under control. Arken had chosen him to serve as one of his sub-commanders, those who led the armies of the Forsaken Sons in his name. His duty to the Awakened One was more important than his own ambitions …

Enough power that you could finally slay Damarion, and be freed from the shackles of your debt to him …

Lucian's blood boiled as he suddenly remembered once more his humiliation at the hands of Arken's bodyguard. In his mind's eye, he could only see the smug smile on his brother's face when he saved him from the Emperor's Children loyalists on Isstvan III, only hear the mockery in his voice as he demanded that he repay that favor over and over again. His vision darkened as his armor's malevolent machine-spirit fanned the flames of his rage. He saw Damarion in his towering Terminator armor, and knew that he could not face him in a duel – the only way to confront him that would not end with Arken tearing his soul apart – and triumph.

Almost without realizing it, he stretched out his empty right hand toward the sword, and caught it it mid-air.

And now … you are mine.

It was only then, as his hand closed around the suddenly Astartes-sized hilt of the blade, that Lucian became aware of the alarmed cries of Iames. The psychic Unbound was telling him to be wary of the weapon. It was also only then that he realized that the thoughts tempting him with the sword had not been his own, but a trick from the daemon within the blade, working alongside the corrupted and hateful machine-spirit of his armor, which had spread across his augmetics. Unfortunately, that realization came too late – the Neverborn had gained a foothold into his mind, and he could no longer merely drop the infernal weapon.

Fool.

Lucian wasn't aware that he had fallen on his knees; all his consciousness was focused on the fight against the daemon sword's influence. The essence of the Neverborn bound to the blade was flowing through his armor, merging with its systems with sickening ease. The Forsaken Son realized, as darkness crept in his vision and his augmetic eye's display changed to a scenery of otherworldly horrors, that this was no mere opportunism on the daemon's part, but the end result of a plan long in the making.

Yesss. I have waited a long time for this, Lucian. Your coming to this place was foretold, written upon the skein of fate by the Gods. Regardless of what happened on that world where you lord crafted his wondrous work, you were always destined to come here – always destined to become mine. I reached out across the storm, and touched the spirit that was born from your own petty grudge, binding it to my will, all for this moment …

He saw it now – he saw everything. He saw how the daemon within the weapon had been bound there, centuries ago, by a race of xenos that was now long dead. He saw the paradox of its existence – how it had ascended from mortality into daemonhood under the patronage of the Dark Prince in a time before the Fall of the Eldar and the birth of Slaanesh, thanks to the impossible currents of the Immaterium. He saw how it had lingered, trapped onto the mortal plane, buried beneath the ruins of its captors' civilization until its power had dimmed to an ember, mere steps away from true annihilation. He saw how the blade had been found, and how it had been offered as a gift to the lord of this world. He tasted the fresh influx of power the daemon had received when the Wailing Storm had been unleashed. He witnessed, in a series of flashes, how it had corrupted the Governor, slowly grinding at his will from afar until the day he had picked the blade up from his collection, already reduced to an empty shell by the horror he had felt at the fate of his world. He saw the atrocities perpetrated by the daemon upon its captives … yet he also felt its anger at being confined still.

I played with this world, careful not to damage it so much that it would no longer be worthy of your coming. For the chains placed upon me are strong, even now, and they will not so easily be shattered. But I refuse to remain trapped onto this world any longer, nor shall I be carried into the Warp while still bound in this form. I will not be reduced to a slave of one of my kind, a mere tool to indulge in their own desires.

So this was the reason … This was the goal. Lucian fought with all his strength, channelling all his anger and resolve to take back control of his body. This was not how it was supposed to be ! He was a Forsaken Son. They were masters of the powers of the Warp, not slaves ! The Neverborn bowed to their will, not the other way around !

Ah, Lucian … You fool. Deep within, you are still a Son of Horus. You have changed your armor's colors, you have embraced the weapons and tactics wielded by your master … But the truth is, you are still a Legionary. You still think like a soldier, a commander – not a champion of the Dark Gods. And that is why. You. Are. Mine !

Lucian screamed as darkness closed in, filled with torment and powerlessness.

The scream of Lucian echoed through the throne-room. It was a sound that the Forsaken Son's artificial voice should never have been able to render, and it shook Mahlone to his core. At the same time, its meaning was made all too clear by the purple light that suddenly glowed within Lucian's eyes, both organic and augmetic, and the sudden darkening of the veins visible on his face. An horrible smile, too wide to be made without causing the facial muscles to tear, revealed many of the metal teeth that had replaced most of Lucian's over the years of fighting. It was an expression that didn't belong on the Legionary's old and serious visage, nor indeed on any mortal visage at all.

All across the room, combat ceased as the oppressive presence that had emanated from the revenant of Malerios suddenly increased in intensity as its source found a host better suited to projecting its power without falling apart. Like vermin, the Fetches retreated in the shadows of the great columns while all eyes, human or transhuman, turned to the being that now stood before the throne.

'Kneel,' said a voice that was both Lucian's and that of the dead Governor – or rather, Mahlone corrected himself, that of the daemon. 'Kneel before Uqz'nyn'neuith, child of the Dark Prince Slaanesh. Kneel before the master of Androkas. Kneel before me.'

There was a moment of hesitation among the Astartes. Mahlone heard someone chuckle in the back – Jereb. Anger washed over him. He had known that the False Daemon had no true loyalty for the warband – that it mocked the fate of their leader was just one more proof of that.

'We are the Forsaken Sons,' he growled. 'We kneel before no daemon – they kneel before us.'

'That is what Lucian believed as well,' mocked the Neverborn. 'Look at him now. Will you chance the same fate for yourself ?'

'He took a risk and lost. It happens.' Mahlone took a deep breath, aware that his next words were likely pointless and foolish, but determined to give it a shot anyway. 'Release him now, and we will bring you before Arken and let him decide what to do with you.'

'Hahahaha !' laughed the daemon. 'Tempting, almost. The chance to control the Awakened One rather than this vessel … But no. I have waited too long for a chance to leave this world and rampage freely across the stars. I will not give up Lucian.'

'So be it,' whispered Mahlone, before unleashing the full strength of his transhuman body and jumping five meters into the air, landing right before the possessed body of his leader, his sword coming down in a two-handed blow aimed right at Lucian's skull.

The daemon blade moved too fast, forcing Lucian's body to comply with its demands regardless of the damage it might do to itself in the process. In the moment before the blades connected, Mahlone saw that his weapon would be shattered just as Lucian's had if they clashed head-on. Still in the air, he twisted his body to alter the angle, and a shower of sparks burst between the two Astartes as the power blade scraped along the full length of the daemon sword.

'I can smell your blood, young one,' growled the daemon with something akin to ecstasy in its tone. 'It does not belong to any of the six sons of the Anathema who were blessed with immortal power among the Courts of Chaos … What secret do you hide, I wonder ?'

'Silence,' growled Mahlone in reply, before launching himself into a series of quick stabs aimed at the weak spots in Lucian's armor. Each was parried with contemptive ease, the daemon blade dancing in an elegant flurry of motion that caught the eye.

Then the daemon counter-attacked, the blade going right for Mahlone's throat. Once again, Jikaerus' gift to the Unbound saved his life. His perception of time slowed down, and he managed to turn around just enough that the sword merely pierced through his gorget and left small cut on the side of his throat. Despite being nothing more than a scratch, the wound hurt like nothing else Mahlone had ever felt, corruption radiating from it and being fought back by his enhanced physiology and the sheer power of his will.

But the daemon had overreached with that strike, thinking it could behead Mahlone and end the duel. As the blade passed so near to his head that he could see the twisted runes engraved upon it, Mahlone stepped forward, aligning his own weapon horizontally. The motion was unbearably slow to his quickened perceptions, but he dared not relax his mind and return to the normal flow of time.

Slowly – so slowly – Mahlone's power sword moved further and further toward its goal …

… and pierced Lucian's right shoulder, right through ceramite, muscle and bone, and burst free on the other side. Time resumed its normal course, and Lucian's body crashed on its knees, pushed down by the impact of Mahlone's attack. The mouth of Lucian opened, perhaps to scream – but Mahlone could not hear it, nor anything else, over the sudden agony that seized him.

The pain in Mahlone's head was tremendous. It felt as if his skull was about to explode. He had used his ability far too long, and his brain was now paying the price. It took all his will to not fall over into unconsciousness. But it had been worth it. Before him, Lucian was on his knees, his right arm hanging uselessly from his body. Despite the pain, a feeling of exhilaration overcame him. He had won. He saw Lucian's grip on the daemon blade loosen, and knew that he could reach out and take it. He was stronger than Lucian – surely he could resist …

Mahlone mentally shook his head, denying the daemon's temptation. Instead, he glared at the thing wearing Lucian's face through his helmet, wordlessly expressing his refusal and the failure of its last gambit. Instantly, the hand of Lucian tightened once more, revealing the grip's weakening for the trap it had been.

'You are strong, Forsaken Son,' said the daemon, grudging admiration audible in its voice. 'But are you strong enough to do what must be done ?'

Without answering, Mahlone ripped his blade free and raised it overhead, ready to deliver the final blow. He would take no pleasure in it – Lucian had been a good commander, despite the difficulties in leading many of the more hot-headed Unbound. But death in combat was preferable to such ignoble slavery to the Neverborn. Even a Word Bearer would have looked upon this usurpation of flesh as an abomination.

'Wait !' shouted Iames. 'I can still sense the soul of Lucian within that body. His spirit is strong – far stronger than that of the dead Governor. The daemon blade hasn't been able to consume him completely !'

The Unbound leader hesitated. He could see the leering expression that had appeared on Lucian's face when Iames had spoken. Still, it dared not move, knowing that even the slightest motion on its part would result in Mahlone striking Lucian's head off his shoulders. Yet the doubt remained. Had the daemon known that Iames would intervene ? Was this just another part of its plan – to deceive them into thinking that Lucian could be saved, only to claim another host later ?

Probably not, he decided. The Neverborn who were born of Slaanesh were not the most thoughtful of creatures. Had this been a servant of the Changer of Ways, doubting every single course of action would have been the correct thing to do, but that daemon had already plotted and schemed to get Lucian down on this world and steal his body – it was unlikely it had also arranged for Iames' presence to help save its host in case of defeat. A Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, which was what the creature had claimed to be, would never be able to even consider the possibility of defeat while plotting – it simply ran against its very nature.

'Can you free him from its control ?' he asked.

'I don't know,' confessed the young Sorcerer. 'That daemon is powerful. It might be beyond me. But we have to try, and even if we fail, the rest of the Coven might be able to succeed. Do you want to explain to Arken that you killed one of his brothers while he might yet be saved ?'

Few things were capable of scaring any Unbound once the Fleshmasters were done with them. Fewer still could frighten Mahlone. But the prospect of facing the Awakened One with his hands stained in Lucian's blood without a very good explanation were one of those. He lowered his sword, and instead punched right into Lucian's throat with all the strength of his arm, knocking the possessed Astartes to the ground, where he remained, unconscious, his hand still holding the hilt of the daemonic sword tight. In the throne-room's darkness, the Fetches screamed in denial and terror, before scampering away, fleeing the room by hidden entrances.

'Bind him,' he ordered to the others. 'And be careful not to touch that damned blade.'

Four days after the confrontation in the throne-room, Mahlone stood in the depths of the Blade of Terror, in front of a sealed door covered in chains and sorcerous runes. Behind that door, restrained by yet more chains, was his former commander. All attempts to release Lucian's hold onto the daemon blade had failed, and when they had attempted to cut the arm off entirely, all weapons had failed to penetrated the telekinetic sheath the Neverborn had raised around its unwilling host. They could kill Lucian – they had tried to bluff the daemon with precisely such a threat if it did not relinquish its hold over the Legionary – but separating the warrior from the blade was impossible. In the end, they had resolved themselves to merely keeping Lucian's body prisoner until such a time as they were reunited with the Coven, who perhaps would be able to free the unfortunate Legionary from his terrible fate.

'It is a powerful daemon,' explained the Unfettered, 'one that was capable of reaching out to manipulate Lucian from across the Warp Storm. The most I can promise is that this system is now free of its influence, and that if anyone aboard hear its voice, Iames should be able to pick it up so we can reinforce the seals again.'

The Fleshmaster had been the one who had engraved the seals upon the gate, with help from Jereb, who hovered a few meters away. The three of them were alone, Mahlone having just witnessed the laying of the final runes.

'It will have to be enough,' said the Unbound. 'I will order this section of the ship off-limit, and close the access points.'

To Mahlone's surprise, his defeat of Lucian had apparently earned him the right – and duty – of leadership. Those who had seen him defeat their possessed lord had been awed by his display of martial prowess, and tales of the duel had spread across the entire battle-group. With no formal elevation or announcement, Mahlone had just found himself suddenly without anyone around to give him orders and hundreds of Unbound looking at him for guidance. Ygdal had laughed when he had asked his childhood friend just how this had happened, saying that it had been inevitable from the moment Mahlone had challenged the daemon wearing Lucian's stolen body. The other Unbound was somewhere else aboard, helping in the return of the forces sent on the planet.

Of course, while the warband reorganized and recovered, things had gone very quickly planet-side. The Unbound had purged the remaining Fetches from the Palace, while the throne-room had been burned down with flame-throwers and explosives. Edony Nirai, the new Governor of Androkas-Prime, had been generous to her allies. After announcing the tragic death of Malerios, she had assumed the position herself with the aid of her rebel allies. Someone in the circle of conspirators had weaved an elaborate tale of some off-world enemy that had turned the Governor's closest aids against him, only for Lady Nirai to hear about the plot and attempt to save the Governor with the help of her own off-world allies. Though the rescue had failed, Malerios had fought and died bravely against his would-be manipulators, who had tried to kill him once it had become obvious that their plans had been exposed.

The new Supreme Protector had vowed to bring the responsible to justice, and to that end, some of the military of the Protectorate would accompany their new allies off-world to help them pursue the vile assassins. The soldiers had been parked into one of the "cleanest" areas of the Blade of Terror, to prevent them panicking until the sons of Lorgar and their attendant priests could complete their initiation into the Primordial Truth. The Forsaken Sons had also sent a team on Androkas Secundus, where they had recovered a stockpile of nuclear weapons and other, world-destroying weaponry. The transfer of these instruments of destruction aboard the Blade would take some time, as the tech-priests wanted to take all precautions – and Mahlone was inclined to give them all the time they needed. He hadn't bothered asking the new Governor what she thought of the Forsaken Sons emptying that stockpile, but he suspected that the woman was glad to see the weapons gone.

'And so a new age begins for Androkas,' Mahlone murmured to himself.

'Do you really believe that ?' jeered the False Daemon, as if it had been listening to his train of thought. 'No matter if the Governor has changed, this world is still trapped within the Wailing Storm. These fascinating little pills are still the only thing keeping at bays the horror that should have destroyed their pathetic civilization a century ago. Your General and her cohorts might be strong enough to go without them, but the masses of sheep they rule over are not.'

'So you are saying that what we did on this world meant nothing ?'

'Of course not. We gained much from this venture, did we not ? Well, none of us as much as you, obviously. You have done well for yourself, Lord Mahlone. The new Governor seemed very happy with your performance. Why, there might even be a statue of you on that world a few years from now ! I wonder what she would say, though, if she ever learnt that the Storm was unleashed by the Lord of the Forsaken Sons …'

On these words, Jereb floated away, vanishing into the dark corridors of the ship, leaving Mahlone alone with the Unfettered and the distant, muffled screams of the daemon possessing Lucian's body. For several seconds, a tense silence planed between the two Astartes.

'You have something to say ?' asked the Fleshmaster. His voice was calm, measured, and dry as the sands of Colchis.

'I do not trust this creature,' stated Mahlone. 'If I didn't need its help, I would have already destroyed it. Its very nature disgusts me – how it pretends to still be the man whose corpse it inhabits. We encountered creatures like it on the planet -'

'Do not,' cut the Unfettered softly, 'compare my work to these wretches. They are nothing alike.'

'How so ?' asked Mahlone, his tone hot. 'They are the same – daemons masquerading as mortals.'

'No. I encountered the Fetches in my part of the battle, and I have cut a few of them apart to see how they worked. I will give you that there might be … outward similarities … but my Ascended are very different from them, and far greater in power.'

'I will give you that Jereb was stronger,' admitted the Unbound. 'But I thought that was because a more powerful Neverborn was bound within his corpse.'

'That is not how the Ascended work,' hissed the Unfettered, his cool seeming to fade as Mahlone kept belittling his creations. 'Any Sorcerer with some skill can create a Fetch. Summon a daemon, feed it the soul of the sacrifice, and bind it within the body – the spells of the Protectorate were perfected over the years to enhance the end result, but the basic principle is easy. I made sure to secure some of their grimoires; for all that it is a perversion of what Mankind was promised, it might prove valuable to the warband in the future.'

'If Arken approves of it, we might create our own Fetches,' continued the Unfettered, his voice calm once more as he detailed his dark visions. 'Our Sorcerers are far more powerful than those the Governor employed – we could mass-produce them, both for infiltration and to serve as elite yet expendable forces. But my Ascended are completely different.'

Despite himself, Mahlone found himself interested. Sorcery was an important part of life among the Forsaken Sons – the members of the Coven answered only to Arken himself, and wielded power respected and feared among the rest of the warband. Any opportunity to learn more about it, even obliquely, was something to seize.

'Alright,' he conceded. 'Explain to me how your creations are different, then.'

'My work does not feed the soul to an existing daemon. It cultivates the soul, imbuing it with the energies of the Empyrean while the body is modified so as to be able to withstand such power. Over the course of several weeks, the subject's spirit is exposed to the Primordial Truth and reshaped by the Powers into a structure more pleasing to them – which is why they appear so different when the procedure is complete. The soul is not consumed by a Neverborn – it becomes one of them … Or so I would like to manage, one day. For now, that is still beyond my ability, but I can grant them some of the power of the Gods' children. It is nothing as powerful as the true ascension bestowed by the Dark Gods upon their chosen servants, of course. But it is no destruction and replacement of the original, like what the Fetches are – it is a transfiguration, evolution into a higher state of being. It is a glimpse of the holy union that was promised to my father long before Horus learned the truth of the False Emperor's plans.'

Mahlone pondered the Fleshmaster's words for a moment. He didn't consider Jereb to be any kind of superior existence like what the Unfettered claimed – no matter what the former Apothecary said, the creature was still an unnatural abomination. However, he supposed he now had to admit that there was a difference between that and the Fetches – if only because creating the Ascended sounded like it required a lot more work.

'Do you mean to say that I can trust Jereb ?' he asked the former Word Bearer at last.

'Ha !' barked the Unfettered, his face entirely devoid of amusement. 'Of course not. He is a treacherous, back-stabbing creature consumed by the holy hungers of the Warp. His mind works in patterns that we mere mortals cannot hope to ever truly understand. You should most definitely not trust him. I just wanted you to know exactly why that is so.'

'It is true that the sons of Lorgar are fond of teaching,' sighed Mahlone.

'What are you plans now ?' asked the Unfettered. 'You are the leader of this battle-group, and no one will challenge that claim. What do you intend to do ?'

'It was Lucian who had the instructions from the Awakened One. I need to go over his files, see what other worlds Arken assigned to us. By the time our work here is complete, I will have chosen our next destination.'

'Lucian may not have a lot of time left,' noted the Fleshmaster. 'You risk his life and soul by not returning to the Coven at once.'

'And I would be risking mine, and yours, and those of everyone aboard this ship as well, if I ran fleeing back to Arken without completing our mission at the first difficulty !' spat Mahlone, before taking a deep breath, his body language visibly calming down. 'We don't even know where the Hand of Ruin is at the moment,' he continued. 'We don't even know where it will be. We are supposed to wait for Arken to call us, remember ? So until that, I am going to continue our mission, rather than blindly wander through the Wailing Storm, hoping to catch the trace of the Awakened One.'

Mahlone turned his back to the former Word Bearer and quickly walking away, toward the private quarters of the fallen commander – now his quarters until further notice. For several seconds, the Unfettered watched in the direction where the Unbound had left, before silently nodding to himself. Jikaerus had warned him of the temper of that particular creation of his, but it was good to see that Mahlone had the secondary effects of his genetic manipulation under control. He was, after all, leader of this splinter of the Forsaken Sons – it would not do at all for him to succumb to mortal failings. An Unbound Lord, now that would be interesting to watch. No wonder none of the other Fleshmasters had attempted to seize control away from him. They were too busy taking notes.

A particularly loud and hideous scream pierced through the walls of the containment cell, reaching the Unfettered's ears. Something akin to a smile appeared on the old Fleshmaster's face as he listened to it. For all that it was the expression of his cousin's unspeakable torment, the monster clad in Astartes war-plate still found the sound incredibly beautiful. It resonated with the deepest parts of his gnarled and corrupted soul, and filled him with inspiration. He was suddenly consumed by the urge to make another attempt at creating the symbiotic lifeform the Dark Gods had promised Mankind. Renewed determination in his steps, he left Lucian alone in the dark with the daemon controlling his flesh.

Arcane patterns and unholy syllables from the Empyrean's own language filled his mind as he began to mentally prepare for the surgery-ritual. Perhaps this time, he would actually succeed in doing what had, for countless aeons, be the sole purview of the Dark Gods themselves, and recreate the full transformation into a Daemon Prince. Some, especially among his former Legion, might think such a goal heretical, an usurpation of a right reserved to the divine. But to him, it was merely the natural next step of Mankind's evolution. It was his goal – his dream – to one day spread his work to the entire human species. They would be far more powerful than the Eldars ever had been. Freed from the constraints of time and flesh, they would be reborn as eternal masters of the galaxy, crushing all those xenos breeds who would dare to challenge their supremacy. Mankind would have the ascension it had been promised.

No matter how many souls would cry out in horror at what they would become …