AN : And here is the last step of my preparations before the Azarok War can finally begin in earnest. I am quite excited about what comes next.
Nothing more to say this time - just that I will be returning to the Fifteenth Ascendant next, it's been too long since I wrote anything about it. Plans for the Times of Ending of the Roboutian Heresy continue apace.
As usual, please tell me what you thought of this chapter so that I can improve my writing in the future. The Azarok War will be the last arc of this fic, and I want the story to go out on a bang (a loooooooong bang that brings doom and destruction to entire star systems as they drawn in the fires of heresy and damnation).
Zahariel out.
I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inner Edge of the Wailing Storm
Date unavailable
The flames of the Warp finally vanished from Asim's vision, replaced by the hold of the Hand of Ruin where the Coven had performed the ritual that had sent him and Carthago to the place marked by the trinket of Karalet's pawn. Nine Sorcerers stood around the ritual circle, each wearing armor painted black. Behind them were the acolytes whose powers had helped fuel the transfer, men and women whose psychic sparks had marked them for use by their Astartes masters. Sweat, tears and blood stained their robes and the metal floor beneath their feet. Out of the ninety-nine who had been brought at the beginning of the ritual, only about half remained alive, the rest consumed by the Sorcerers' demands of them. Their bodies laid on the metal deck, either horribly twisted by the energies they had channeled, or reduced to dry dust. Asim had expected a worse death count.
The ninety-nine humans who had been brought in to assist the ritual were divided in nine groups, each under the leadership of a wizard, a human psyker who had risen above mere wyrds by learning some degree of sorcery and surviving. Of the nine, six had come from the feudal world of Eldur, and two of those – an old man and a younger woman – had been instrumental in the last stages of that planet's conquest. They were also the greatest results of that project, where an entire civilization had been manipulated into producing warriors of all stripes for the warband, all of which possessing skills and battle experience far above that of the common rabble the Forsaken Sons employed. Even now, years later, Asim was awed by the scope of Arken's planning there – and, though he hadn't admitted it out loud, more than a little worried about the exact means by which Arken had been able to affect Eldur years before the Hand of Ruin had reached the planet.
The other three magi had varied origins. One had been born among the tribes living aboard the Hand of Ruin itself, and had learned the basis of sorcery through the whispers of the daemons haunting the ship's darkholds. He had risen to become a petty tyrant until Asim had humbled him and taken him as a servant of the Coven, where he had been infused with Fifteenth Legion's gene-seed by the Fleshmasters. He had survived, becoming one of the few successful "hybrids" born of Magnus' gene-line and gaining psychic abilities that complemented his sorcerous knowledge. Now he wielded power his former tribe would have believed exclusive to their "gods", but he was still acutely aware of how inferior he was to his Astartes masters.
Another had spent three millennia of subjective time manipulating the kings of her birthworld, starting wars and ending empires for her own amusement until she had been shown what power truly meant and knelt before the Awakened One, begging to serve him. The survivors of her honor guard still surrounded her, soldiers clad in blue and gold armor marked with the symbol of the God of Change and wielding swords and shields, along with the more modern weapons their mistress had secured for them since they had joined the Forsaken Sons. Of the thousands who had once enforced her will, only the thirteen present in the room remained, the rest slaughtered by the Awakened One and his Terminators in a direct assault on the sorceress' castle.
And the last had been a sorcerer-king, master of an entire world, ruling through his army of terrified servants and twisted, half-living creatures. Young Iames, newest of the Coven, had brought him to his elder brothers when he had been reunited with them at the end of the campaign to conquer the Wailing Storm. Asim had laughed for the first time in what seemed like centuries when the psychic Unbound had told him how he had forced the little king to submit. He had needed that laugh, especially after what had happened with Lucian. Apparently, the Blade of Terror and its accompanying fleet had spent three weeks in orbit, studying the situation – then Iames had teleported directly into the sorcerer-king's chambers, in the middle of the night, while he was still suffering from the intoxicating effects of the many stimulants he had taken in the evening. While the Unbound had taken care of the ruler's guards, Iames had ripped his way into his target's psyche, greatly diminishing his power, but ensuring his eternal, terrified obedience.
In truth, though, none of that really mattered to Asim, which was why, while he knew their histories and abilities, their names were lost to his memory. The mortals were all tools to him and his brothers, of no consequence so long as they performed adequately. Wyrds or magi, pure humans or hideous mutants, all it changed was how useful they could be, and how careful he had to be not to break them needlessly. At least none of the magi had died – it was far, far easier to replace eleven or even a hundred wyrds than it was to find or train a single competent wizard. It still amazed him how much the warband had gained in the last … years ? Decades ? Centuries ? He did not know how long the conquest of the Warp Storm had lasted. Any sense of time had been lost in the long journeys through the Warp, and the periods he had spent away from his brothers, sent ahead of the Hand of Ruin by sorcery so that he could prepare the way for the Forsaken Sons.
He had many fond memories of that time. Civilizations had burned at his will or bowed before him, and he had once spent twenty years directing the construction of a city-sized library that the warband now used as a repository for all the esoterical texts they had found in the Storm. That library had also produced many acolytes for the Coven, scholars of the forbidden whose minds overflowed with dark lore upon which their masters could draw whenever needed. None of those living repositories of knowledge had psychic powers of their own – the members of the Coven were the only psykers allowed in the Grand Library of Tesseroth. Considering the nature of many of the texts, it was simply too dangerous to do otherwise. Asim had learned that to his cost when Tesseroth had almost been burned to the ground by a conflict between two rival factions among the scholars before he could intervene and kill their leaders, burning them to ash where they stood.
A groan at his feet dragged Asim's thoughts back to the present, and he lowered his gaze. There was Gaelis Serventas, the pawn of Karalet who had opened the way for him and Carthago. The transition had been unkind to him, though he had clung to Asim and beneficed from some measure of the protective aura the Sorcerer Lord had spread around him. Lacerations covered his skin, the playful caresses of the Neverborn, adding to the wounds he had already sustained in the Inquisition's stronghold. His right eye – the last one made of flesh and not machinery – was gone, replaced by four smaller, globular black ones arranged in a diamond shape.
+Can I play with him ?+ sent Carthago. The xenos alpha-psyker was hunched over the prone form of the fallen Inquisitor. Asim could sense that she was already over their banishment, filing it away in her twisted memory as she focused on new games to play. Or perhaps she had already forgotten completely – it was hard to tell the difference, with her alien and warped thought process.
+No,+ Asim replied. +He belongs to Karalet, and I don't want to anger another of the Chosen, not now. We will send him back to the Lord of Ashes when he returns from his assignment.+
One of the Sorcerers approached Asim, carefully avoiding to look at Carthago. Even after everything the Forsaken Sons had done, the old hatred of the xenos remained strong in most of the warband's Astartes. His right shoulder paldron bore the mark of the chained daemonhead, the emblem of the Forsaken Sons, while the left still bore the emblem of the Legion that had birthed him. Few warriors still did that – many had abandoned their bloodline entirely. But this one still held some measure of affection for the past, as was his right. Arken had never asked his brothers to paint their armor black – it had simply spread across the warband over time. No one spoke of it out loud, even if everyone saw and thought about what it meant.
'Did you succeed ?' asked Zarieth, once a Librarian of the Seventeenth Legion, reborn as a Sorcerer during the Battle of Calth. The other eight were within hearing distance, and Asim could feel their eagerness for an answer to that same question. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by all :
'Yes. The heirs of Malcador were decimated, and the few survivors shocked to their core. Azarok will be deprived of their leadership in the days to come, just as the Awakened One ordered.'
'And the … other matter ?' said the former Word Bearer cautiously. Some things were to be known only to the Chosen, and those whom they trusted above all others.
'It is done as well,' confirmed the lord of the Coven.
A predatory smile formed beneath his horned helm as he thought of the other thing he had done when facing the Conclave, while they had all been focused on the obvious and very real threat of Carthago tearing them apart with her awesome power. Once more he marveled at Arken's intricate designs, plots within plots, none of them vital to his goals, all of them sublime and terrifying. It had been the Awakened One who had come up with the plan to cripple the Azarok Conclave before the war could even truly begin. And he had known Karalet and Asim were the best ones for the job. Working with the Dark Apostle had been … a novel experience. But what would result of this collaboration would be worth the discomfort a hundred times over. At first, the goal had merely been to destroy the Conclave and deny the Imperium the asset of their knowledge, limited as it might have been. But when Arken had received the reports from Gaelis' interrogation, he had adapted that plan, extending it so that it would have even greater consequences. Today's destruction was only the prelude, a mask to hide the true intent behind Asim and Carthago's journey.
Soon, these self-proclaimed guardians of the forbidden and watchers of Mankind would learn the true depths of their ignorance. Already they surely wept for the dead and the lost – but when the time came, they would scream in horror and despair. It staggered Asim just how much the Imperium had forgotten, how much its self-proclaimed custodians had hidden from themselves and those who would come after them. The Imperium had always been blind – in the beginning, it had been the desire to illuminate the empire that had driven Lorgar to rebellion – but this … this was something else entirely. Though his armor was painted black and his shoulder bore the warband's emblem, he had expected that they would be able to recognize his armor's design, and know from which Legion he had been born. But as he glanced into their minds, he had seen that none of them had any knowledge of the Fifteenth Legion – they had only regarded him as a renegade, a traitor. Did they truly think not knowing about the dangers haunting the galaxy would grant protection from them ?
And yet … one of them had clearly not believed in those restrictions. One of them had actually possessed some degree of skill in the Arts, though he lacked psychic abilities. Had not most of Asim's power been dealing with the other matter, he was confident he could have dispelled the banishment spell the Inquisitor had cast. But with things as they were, it was all he had been able to do to complete his task before he, Carthago, and Karalet's pawn had been sent back. Regardless, the Inquisitor had the potential to become dangerous for the warband's plans, especially if he let go of the few restraints he still had, a likely reaction in the aftermath of his peers' massacre. Asim would need to warn Arken about that Inquisitor, see what could be learned of him from the intel the renegade's interrogation had given them.
He was glad Arken had bestowed the task of dealing with the Conclave upon him. The mere existence of the Inquisition was offensive to him, a hideous echo of Mankind's most primitive, hate-filled days, when willful ignorance and self-blinding to the truths of the universe had ruled supreme. Simply by allowing its creation, the False Emperor had proven that those the Imperium called traitors had been right to rebel against Him. How many cities had burned at the hands of those he and Carthago had slain today ? How many worlds, reduced to ash not for conquest or to punish rebellion, but simply to hide the truth ?
One hundred and seventy-nine cities, came the answer from deep within him. Six inhabited worlds. Would you like to know why they died ?
Asim ignored the voice of the Herald of Blood. In the years he had spent in the Wailing Storm, he had never found a way to end his connection to the creature. His best hope, the former assassin Balthazar, had died to free Carthago of her prison. He had made no deal through the daemon since that day, though he was bitterly certain that he would, if Arken demanded it of him. Mercifully, its offers had grown less frequent since Carthago had been released and had begun to stay in his presence more and more often. He did not think he could have dealt with the two of them at once.
'Send the thralls back to their quarters,' he ordered Zarieth, before tilting his head toward Gaelis and adding : 'and take care of this one. I may need to question him later, and we will return him to Karalet when the Lord of Ashes return to us in any case. How long was I gone ?'
The question made sense : though he had only been absent for a few minutes from his perspective, time was often distorted whenever the Warp was involved, something the Forsaken Sons had made great use of during their campain of conquest in the Wailing Storm. Zarieth's response confirmed that this had been the case this time too : the circle had kept the spell powered for more than an hour before the Sorcerer Lord had returned.
'Then I better go to Arken,' he declared. 'He and the other Chosen will await my report.'
The Sorcerer bowed, and Asim started to walk toward the room's exit. He could feel the awed gazes directed at him, who was one of the Chosen, one of the few who dared to speak Arken's name rather than any of his plethora of titles. That, too, wasn't something Arken had commanded, or even a rule ever spoken aloud. It was just something that had happened after the warband had gathered, heeding the call of its master after years spent wandering the Wailing Storm, bringing daemon worlds to heel. When the Forsaken Sons had come together again, their conquered legions had come with them, seeing each other for the first time. For all those who had not been part of Arken's own splinter of the warband, it had been the first time they had been within the same system as the one who ultimately owned them. Many rumors and legends circulated through the lower ranks of the warband about the Awakened One, some of them rooted in truth, others nothing more than mad fancies, and others – the ones Asim was most wary of – signs of what the former Son of Horus might yet accomplish and become.
Carthago floated next to him, looking at everything around them like a child in a toy-maker's shop, occasional giggling in his mind when she glimpsed something she found amusing. He had long since given up trying to figure out just what criteria she used for that – even longer than had passed since he had begun to think of the xenos as a she rather than an it. In the grand scheme of things, he had found, some hatreds simply weren't worth the effort to cling on to them. His hatred of the Imperium was more than enough for him, and Carthago shared it – in fact, hers was possibly even greater than his own. Behind her childish façade lurked a darkness that whispered in the hearts of all aboard the Hand of Ruin, and even beyond the limits of the Wailing Storm. Asim knew the source of that hatred, knew that it went beyond what the Sisters of Silence had done to her. He remembered ancient texts he had read in Tizca, histories from Mankind's distant, all but forgotten past. He knew what the name Carthago meant, and the implications still disturbed him whenever he thought on them. Once more, Asim turned his mind away from such considerations.
The holds of the Hand of Ruin were packed to the brim with slave-warriors from all across the Wailing Storm. Hundreds of thousands of them, living in smaller warbands and fighting each other for glory and the favor of their transhuman masters. As long as they did not impede the working of the ship itself, the Forsaken Sons left them to their own devices, some of them looking upon the battles with amusement and interest, selecting those who displayed unusual cunning or strength and making them their own agents. The Fleshmasters were among those, always seeking new subjects for their experiments, and releasing their successes back to observe them in this environment. The humans told tales between themselves of the lords who took the worthies and transformed them into greater beings. These legends were encouraged by the Fleshmasters – it made their subjects less likely to run away when they realized the truth of the "Enhancement Protocols" and their dangers.
Asim passed thousands of these slaves on his way to the strategium. All of them prostrated themselves at his approach, recognizing the mark of his power if not his identity. He could feel their terror, their awe, their envy – and their hate. Most of it was directed to the xenos that floated at his side, but he wasn't foolish enough to believe that none of it was aimed at it as well. Many knew him, knew what he had done to their worlds. Others just hated him because he was above them, and they could not tolerate it. They wanted to be like him, one of the Chosen who sat at Arken's councils and spoke with his authority.
Once, the Chosen had been an informal group. During the Parecxis Campaign, there had been those few who had been given tasks from the Awakened One himself, and none had dared to go against them. But that had been at a time when the Astartes still made up the bulk of the warband's forces, and all of their mortal servants were subservient to all transhuman warriors. Now, there were simply too many disparate groups united under the banner of the chained daemonhead. Astartes were still feared and obeyed, as was proper, but not all could give commands to the mortal lords of the gathered armies. The Chosen were Arken's warlords, the lords of lords, each wielding tremendous power both in their own and through those they commanded. Some of them would remain with Arken, helping him as Asim had just done. Others, mainly those who had led their own forces in the conquest of the Wailing Storm, would direct the separate fleets and armies once the warband's forces splintered again over the course of the Black Crusade.
Black Crusade. Another term that should be unfamiliar, yet felt to Asim as if he had always known what it meant. Arken had shared little of his sorcerous communion with Abaddon, the former First Captain of the Sixteenth Legion, but Asim had his own ears in the Warp. He knew what Abaddon had become, and what he had done. It felt strange to think of another being than Horus Lupercal as Warmaster, but time changed all things. Just like Abaddon had unified the forces of the Eye of Terror and inflicted great destruction upon the Imperium, so would the Forsaken Sons do with the Wailing Storm and the Azarok Sector. It would be on a smaller scale to be sure – but it wouldn't look like it to those caught in it, of that Asim was certain. Arken had less Legionaries under his command that the Warmaster, but the armies of the Wailing Storm still numbered in the millions, and they had many warriors in their ranks who, while not the equals of Space Marines, were still powerful in their own right. The former explorers of Eldur were but one such group. Outside the hull of the Hand of Ruin, an entire armada of troop carriers awaited their orders, each equally full.
The defenders of the Azarok Sector would weep when they realized the scale of the threat that was about to be unleashed upon them. Only a being of immense will and power could keep such a force united, however – and that being was the one Asim was going to meet, in the Hand of Ruin's strategium. Deep within the flagship's hull, the strategium was one of the most heavily guarded sections of the vessel. Only Legionaries with important business – or the Chosen themselves – were allowed in by the Terminators who guarded the entrance. These warriors were Arken's own bodyguards, all of whom had sworn to lay down their life before allowing harm to come to their liege lord. Since the completion of the Wailing Storm's conquest, Arken had spent almost all of his time in the strategium, and therefore his bodyguards had spent most of theirs guarding it. Recognizing Asim, they let him pass with a respectful nod – and a glare toward Carthago. Once, they had tried to prevent the xenos psyker from accompanying the Sorcerer Lord. That was a mistake they would not make again – no one had died, but it had been a very close thing.
In the center of the strategium throned the Hindsight's Might. The device had been heavily modified of late, its cogitating power increased dramatically so that it was able to simulate several battle zones at once, and even void conflicts. At the moment, it was projecting an abstract representation of the Azarok Sector, with data about each planet's defenses hovering in the air next to the symbol depicting the world itself. Intelligence had been gathered by Dekaros' infiltration efforts and a few careful scouting missions of the warband's first targets. Arken had used that information to simulate the campaign hundreds, perhaps thousands of time, searching for the optimal deployment, sometimes adding data to the simulation that made no sense but that he seemed to think was necessary. The rest of the strategium's personnel, a mix of dark magi, crew members fused to their stations and mutated humans whose brains were living data repositories, worked as silently as possible, unwilling to disturb their master's thoughts.
Runes were inscribed on nearly every surface of the strategium. Every member of the Coven had worked upon them, shedding his blood to fuel their power. Together, they turned the room into a nexus of aetheric energies, a chamber of power unlike any other in the entire fleet. Even the Coven's ritual chambers had not had so much effort gone into them. It had been the Awakened One's will that this be done, though, and so the Coven had obeyed. Looking at the enthroned form of Arken, sitting on the other side of the Hindsight's Might's display, Asim could see why.
Arken sat in unnatural shadows, on a throne that had once been a mere seat of metal, but had grown bony protrusions over the course of the journey through the Wailing Storm. It now looked as if Arken was sitting within the maw of some immense sea-beast, like a conqueror on a feral world who had turned the corpse of his greatest prize into a symbol of his power. His eyes glazed in the gloom, a pale un-light that made the veins of red crystal running on the warlord's face glow. Yet it was in Asim's second sight that Arken looked most dangerous. The power of the Warp was seeping into his soul, channeled through the entire ship by the runes of the Coven and directly into his flesh. The throne of bone and metal was at the center of the aetheric alignment, and its effects on the spirit of the Awakened One were profound. Any lesser being would have been consumed by the currents long ago, their will unable to hold their body together under such a strain. But Arken had not just survived – he had thrived, becoming less and less mortal as the conquest advanced. The physical changes in his face were but the most obvious of the transformations he had undergone.
It was strange, and more than a little disquieting, in Asim's opinion. In the past, Arken had expressed nothing but disdain for those who courted the Dark Gods' ultimate blessing, yet now he seemed well on his way to having it bestowed upon him. The Sorcerer Lord knew why his master thought it necessary to increase his personal might in such a manner, yet his doubts lingered. Had the Awakened reached this conclusion of his own and changed his mind, or had it been changed for him, as the Powers' hold on his soul grew ever stronger ?
He is changing, Asim thought. We are all changing, reshaping ourselves in the fires of our hate, defining who we are by what we dream of destroying. Many of those we regard as slaves look up to us as gods, and from their point of view, we might as well be. What will we become, in the end ?
Strong, came the voice of the Herald of Blood. You will become the instruments of the Imperium's destruction, and wield power such as you couldn't even dream of when you were still blinded by the Anathema's lies. Such power cannot come without sacrifice, father.
'Arken,' Asim called out to his brother, breaking the silence of the strategium and turning his thoughts away from the daemon's unsettling prophecy. 'Your will has been done. The Azarok Conclave is crippled, and the seeds of their world's complete doom have been sown. Karalet's agent performed well, and I brought him back with us.'
On his throne at the end of the strategium, the Awakened One stirred from his contemplation of the Hindsight's Might's hololithic projection, his body emerging from the shadows and becoming visible to Asim's mundane sight. The lord of the Forsaken Sons wore the Terminator war-plate that had been more or less fused to his body since the wounds he had taken fighting the Daemon Prince Serixithar on Parecxis, with vicious-looking lightning claws ending each of his arms. At the moment, the blades were depowered – but still sharp enough to tear through flesh and bone with ease. His chestplate bore the image of the chained daemonhead, though the sculpted Neverborn was shown screaming in agony, the chains biting deep into its flesh. Asim recognized the daemon, too : it was the bird-like face of Serixithar. Sometimes, Asim fancied that he could see the face move, and that the Daemon Prince could see through it from its eternal torment on Parecxis, where Arken had bound its essence to serve as the Anchor that kept the Wailing Storm in existence.
The light of the hololithic projection shone on the crystals threading Arken's skin, making him look like a blood-drenched spectre only halfway returned from death. Next to Asim, Carthago went silent, as she always did when in Arken's presence.
'You speak truly,' said the Awakened One, 'and yet, I hear uncertainty in your words, brother. Why is that ? What happened on Kemyros that we did not anticipate ?'
'There was … one of the Inquisitors who didn't die. You asked that I ensure not all of them perished, but there was no need for deception. One of them had the skills to turn the ritual that brought me and Carthago there against us, and he sent us back here. While his actions prevented the risk of our enemies divining our intent from my holding back, he might be a problem later down the line. I think we should make sure he does not survive to see our plan reach fruition.'
'For you to speak so highly of his skills, that man must be remarkable indeed,' remarked Arken, not appearing fazed in the least by the Sorcerer's announcement. 'Very well. When we make contact with our allies in Azarok, you will contact them and arrange for this to be taken care of. We cannot hope to control the flow of the Black Crusade completely – it would be folly to even try – but we can and shall do our best to … limit the number of unforeseen variables at play. Dekaros will be the best to call upon, I think. But it will be some time before we are in a position to contact him and Karalet again, I fear. In the meantime, you will have to extract all the information the renegade can tell you about this particular Inquisitor, and make your own plans for dealing with him.'
For a few seconds, Arken closed his eyes, his aura flaring with images of armies and fleets moving through the stars as he considered the warband's course of action. When he opened them again, his expression was set and firm, and he looked at the Hindsight's Might with absolute focus.
'Now, the time has come. All of our preparations are complete at last.' Arken took a deep breath before continuing, the sound like the wailing of lost souls. He turned toward one of the attendants, and commanded : 'Call all of the Chosen in the fleet. They are to come here at once.'
Never before had the Chosen gathered in such number. Save for Karalet and Dekaros, whose missions still kept them in Imperial territory, all members of this dreadful brotherhood were present in one way or another. They circled the hololithic table, filling the empty space between it and the cogitators and their attendants. Only those who were physically bound to their stations remained in the room, the rest having departed long ago. The mutated, cybernetically enhanced wretches kept even quieter than when Arken had been meditating, if that were possible. Asim stood at Arken's left side, and Damarion, the chief of the Awakened One's bodyguards, at his right – their places marking their positions as the most favored seconds of their lord. Carthago hovered at his back, her thin arms draped over his shoulders and around his throat as she peered at the assembled worthies. Those gathered here were all smart enough not to take offence at her presence, bearing her gaze with uneasy grace, even if none of them could quite suppress a shiver whenever she giggled while looking at them … well, none save for Arken and one other, who sat directly opposite.
Farther from the throne of power – both physically and metaphorically – was Mikail Korzhanenko. The hybrid of Fulgrim's gene-seed was the most diminutive of the Chosen – but, Asim knew, not the weakest. When before he had been but a servant of his better, the devotee of Slaanesh had been transformed – transfigured even – by his trials in the Wailing Storm. The degeneration that had been poised to claim his life had been cured by the dark arts of the Sha'eilat, but that salvation had come at an unexpected cost. While he slumbered in the altering tanks of the Gene-Lord who had promised to save him, his right hand had been removed and replaced with a piece of Dark Tech from the Age of Strife. The hybrid had used the relic as payment for his cure, but the Sha'eilat had returned it, for its desire to see the artefact used was greater than that of ownership. Power blazed from the crystalline matrix embedded in the augmetic, coursing through the rest of the artificial limb and into the rest of Mikail's body. The seed of ruin that had been sown within the mortal's soul long ago, before the Forsaken Sons had come to Parecxis and gathered those there who served the Dark Gods, was growing stronger with every passing week, feeding on the energies of the device.
Mikail was a symbol among the slave caste of the Forsaken Sons. His story – grossly inflated to suit the hybrid's ego – was spread throughout the fleet, telling of how a simple human had risen to the heights of power, infused with the gene-seed of the Astartes lords and augmented even further by the graft of his new hand. He was living proof that, among the Forsaken Sons, anyone could rise to power, if they proved worthy. Playing on that reputation, Mikail had amassed a great following among the warband's mortal servants, especially within those who, like him, served the Dark Prince. His ship, the Bite of Darkness, had once belonged to a Rogue Trader who had been trapped in the Wailing Storm when it had erupted, and was now packed to the brim with tens of thousands of cultists with various levels of martial skills. Rumor had it that the Rogue Trader still lived, kept a prisoner within what had been her own personal quarters and were now Mikail's private chambers.
Next to the Slaaneshi Third Legion hybrid was the only xenos besides Carthago whose presence was allowed in the room. Ezyrthin, Firstborn of the Sha'eilat, who had left his domain of Parecxis to join in the coming crusade. As the Firstborn stood silent, he could be mistaken for a normal Eldar – only his black eyes and the pallor of his skin betrayed the corruption writhing within him. He did not wear his suit of living armor, but leathery clothes fashioned from the skin of gene-spliced human slaves. Their varied coloration – from pink to crimson to blue and green – was entirely natural, the product of careful genetic tailoring in the cloning facilities of the Gene-Lords on Parecxis. Ezyrithn also appeared to be unharmed, but that did little to curtail the looks of distrust the other Chosen sent in his direction. They all knew that he was far from harmless – one did not keep supreme command over a group such as the Sha'eilat without a few tricks up one's sleeve.
Since the Forsaken Sons had departed Parecxis and left it in the hands of their Regent, the Sha'eilat had risen in power among the factions there. Nalemos, the ruined hive-city Arken had offered to Slaanesh, had been rebuilt into an image of what the system had been when the Sha'eilat had held sway over it, before the Great Crusade. When the rulers of Parecxis had been called upon, as per the Accords they had signed, Ezyrithn had led the contingent the various factions had provided. New ships had been built in Parecxis' orbital facilities, including several of the Sha'eilat's own designs – twisted things whose mere appearance exposed the soul to the caress of Slaanesh. Right now, Fleshmaster Jikaerus was aboard the flagship of this dreadful flotilla, helping the Sha'eilat witches bring new members of their species back from the Dark Prince's court. There were rumors of an Eldar presence in the Azarok Sector, though even Dekaros had been unable to obtain confirmation. If the Children of Isha were truly there – and Arken had told Asim he expected their involvement in any case – the Sha'eilat would be the warband's best weapon against them.
Completing the trio of Slaaneshi at the gathering was Orpheus, son of Fulgrim, member of the Coven and the appointed leader of the warband's splinter which had contained the Dark Prince's devotees. Orpheus' armor had been thoroughly desecrated, all signs of his erstwhile allegiance to the Imperium removed or defiled. The Aquila still shone on his breastplate, but the two heads of the eagle had been removed as if the bird had been decapitated, rubies playing the part of spraying blood droplets. Screaming faces carved in silver decorated the armor, their empty eye sockets seeming to glow with the light of captive spirits. The Sorcerer still wore his psychic hood, though it had been warped into some manner of dark crown that dug into his temples and pumped a strange, black liquid directly into his brain. A pair of bare power swords hung at his waist, the only pieces of equipment that had not been marked. The weapons still bore the emblems of the First and Seventh Legions, from which had hailed the champions on whose corpses Orpheus had claimed them.
Despite the selfish and arrogant nature of all champions of Slaanesh, Orpheus had managed to keep the forces under his command from falling apart, even when Mikail had risen to prominence. He had kept the balance between the different groups, keeping internal bloodshed to a minimum – though he had not even attempted to suppress it completely. His flagship, the Oblivion's Keeper, was now home to warrior-cults and other cultists of the Dark Prince – an elite force compared to the masses of corrupted humanity under Mikail's command. Noise Marines, Raptors, and other Astartes who bore the mark of the Youngest God had also gathered under his leadership, unwilling to follow an upstart mortal like Mikail, no matter how powerful he might have become. The armed forces under his command and his gift for diplomacy among those who shared his faith were the reasons for which he had become one of the Chosen, despite no longer being in actual, direct control of all the forces Arken had entrusted to him.
Youngest of all the Chosen – younger even than the half-mortal Mikail – was Mahlone, Lord of the Unbound. The vagaries of Warp travel had likely made that assertion irrelevant, but it didn't stop the other Chosen from regarding Mahlone as such. Regardless of how long he had lived, he had been born long after everyone else, harvested from the Mulor system and turned into an Unbound in the Hand of Ruin's halls. When Lucian, Arken's appointed commander of the warband's splinter that had held the Fleshmasters' first and greatest creations, had succumbed to the call of a possessed blade, Mahlone had defeated and imprisoned him, before taking command. In the years that followed, he had led the forces under his command to victory after victory, gathering an impressive host behind him when the call of the Awakened One had come and all Forsaken Sons had been drawn to the edge of the storm their master had unleashed, what seemed an eternity ago.
Mahlone had hoped – or so he claimed – that the Coven would be able to free his possessed lord, but by the time the battle-group had reunited with the rest of the warband, it had been too late. The Sorcerers had tried their best, but the claws of the Slaaneshi daemon were too deep in Lucian's soul – any attempt at exorcism would only result in the warrior's demise. Still, there had been talk of killing Lucian and release him from this bondage, but Arken had overruled it. So much was the Astartes in the daemon's hold that death would bring him no release from his torment, and at least he could still serve the warband, now that the Coven had applied the proper bindings upon both his body and the infernal blade that held him in thrall. Chained within the Blade of Terror, Mahlone's flagship, Lucian had become another weapon in the warband's arsenal, the daemon controlling him too prideful and mighty to allow free roaming.
Mahlone had come to the gathering alone, as commanded – but it felt strange to Asim to see him so. The Lord of the Unbound was rarely without some counsel at his side – his kinsman Ygdal, the young Sorcerer Iames, or even the Fleshmaster Jikaerus and the Ascended, Jereb. Some whispered this was because Mahlone lacked confidence and power deserving of a Chosen, but Asim had seen in his soul, and he knew better. Mahlone cut an imposing figure in his black and gold armor, his face hidden beneath his helmet. The same people who questioned his worth saw it as a further sign of weakness, a pathetic attempt at concealing his youth from sight. But again, Asim knew better. He had sensed the mark upon Mahlone's soul and flesh – a secret that he had kept. A sword and pistol hung from his belt – both prizes he had taken from slain foes during the conquest of the Wailing Storm. His gaze slowly moved from one member of the assembly to the next, never stopping long enough that it could be taken as a challenge, yet Asim could feel that the Lord of the Unbound wasn't looking at those present in the room – he was looking at something only he could see. His aura flickered with glimpses of the memories and dreams he was contemplating.
The Unfettered was one of the Chosen not present in person, instead taking part in the meeting through a hololithic projection. Ever since the reunion of the Forsaken Sons and his elevation to the circle of Arken's lieutenants, the Fleshmaster had kept to the ship the Awakened One had given to him, the Truthful Gate. The Truthful Gate was a medical and laboratory ship, once a frigate of the Imperial Army dedicated to the study and treatment of the countless diseases and afflictions that infested the galaxy. Now, it was the Unfettered's personal lab, filled to the brim with the deluded faithful of a ruined hive-world whose prophets had foretold the coming of the Forsaken Sons for generations. Amidst the desolation of their world, these genetically pure humans had waited for the coming of their gods, who prophecy claimed would elevate them and free them of mortality. This made them eager volunteers for the Unfettered's research into infernal transubstantiation. The members of the Coven stayed clear of the Truthful Gate – the Warp around the ship was constantly fluctuating with spikes of tormented power and joyous agony in rhythm with the experiments. Asim was glad the Unfettered wasn't here in person – the obsession of the former Word Bearer with "claiming the immortality that the Gods had promised to Mankind" was unsettling to say the least. At Arken's command, a handful of members of the Coven had gone over to the Truthful Gate to assist the Unfettered in his experiments, and what they had told Asim was dreadful even to him. But the Awakened One had given his blessing to the endeavour, and therefore it would continue.
While the Unfettered was only present through hololithic projection because his experiments couldn't be left alone for long, Pareneffer had to resort to such means because his body wouldn't have fit at the table. The real body of the Infernus Dreadnought was still aboard the Crystalline, connected to streams of cable that allowed the corpse-like son of Magnus interred within to watch the other Chosen directly, without the need for actual hololithic projections on his end of the connection. The hololithic projection only showed the centrepiece of his massive body – the ornate sarcophagus in which Pareneffer's physical remains were interred. The Dark Mechanicum adepts whose forces constituted the bulk of the Chosen's armies had honored their master by reworking on his frame tirelessly, and the sarcophagus now displayed an image of Pareneffer as he had been in life, wearing his armor and surrounded by icons of the Eightfold Omnissiah.
When Pareneffer's fleet had arrived at the mustering, there had been much surprise across the warband. After the events of Parecxis, many had believed that Pareneffer's assignment was a thinly-disguised death sentence – for what hope could one small ship and a handful of Legionaries have to conquer a forge-world ? Yet the Infernus Dreadnought had returned with the largest armada, save that gathered by Arken himself, and his place among the Chosen had been unquestionable. The dark magi of Argenta Primus and their skitarii legions had conquered many systems, reaping a harvest of flesh that had gone through varied augmentation processes to increase their numbers. Some worlds had been left bare in their wake, while others had been "uplifted" to new technological levels, though their people most likely didn't appreciate the changes to their planet. Several worlds which were particularly rich in natural resources were even in the process of being turned into forge-worlds of their own, a process that would take years but would provide the warband with a reliable supply of materiel further down the line. All in all, Asim thought, a fitting atonement for the near-disaster at Parecxis that Pareneffer's meddling in Primarch cloning had almost brought upon them all. Arken's decision to turn the near-dead Sorcerer into a Dreadnought had certainly been justified.
The same couldn't be said for the last attendant, one whose inclusion in the ranks of the Chosen still baffled Asim. Hektor Heker'Arn, the Blood Champion, was only here as a sorcerous projection, an echo of his Warp presence manifested by a ritual circle inscribed onto the strategium's floor for that precise purpose. The Possessed was still held within a hold of the Hand of Ruin, locked away from the rest of the ship. Of course, his power couldn't be denied – over the course of the Wailing Storm's conquest, it had grown just as Hektor's humanity had diminished. Even the Coven's wards couldn't contain his aura completely, and the section of the ship surrounding his extensive cell were the lair of the most blood-crazed of all the Forsaken Sons and their slaves. But ever since the last battle of Parecxis, the Blood Champion had been little more than a living weapon, barely coherent most of the time even when outside of battle. Though he wouldn't say so out loud, Asim thought that Hektor had truly become the living image of his Primarch. The Sorcerer Lord needed to shield his thoughts from just what emanated from the projection, lest images of slaughter fill his mind.
Yet still Arken had named Hektor one of his Chosen, and had not answered Asim's questions about it – nor, to the Sorcerer Lord's knowledge, those of anyone else. Eventually, Asim had figured that it had probably something to do with one of the Awakened One's secret plans, and resolved to wait and see it reach fruition. Perhaps it was so that the Blood God would have a representative at the council ? But if that were the case, then why had none of the Plague God's servants been similarly elevated ? A small Plague Fleet accompanied the Forsaken Sons' armada, vessels of rusted metal and cancerous flesh aboard which the followers of Nurgle were more or less quarantined for the protection of the rest of the warband. The Plague Marines of the warband ruled the mutants and cultists who crowded these vessels, along with Neverborn bred from the surrounding sickness. For a long time Asim had expected Petronicus, who led the former Death Guards, to become one of the Chosen – yet that had not happened. Though Asim had nothing but contempt for the Lord of Decay's ideology of surrender, part of him worried that Arken might draw his ire for this.
At least the Blood Champion wouldn't plot for his own advancement in the eyes of Arken, or against the other Chosen. Though the warband had only been gathered for a few weeks, there had already been several moments when they had come close to open warfare. The pull of opposing Dark Gods was strong, and without an enemy to fight the armies of the Forsaken Sons would eventually begin to fight. The Legionaries who had undergone the Exodus together wouldn't turn upon each other, but the Unbound's discipline was less certain. Truly, it was time for the Black Crusade to begin, before they did the Imperials' work for them.
The Hindsight's Might had been configured to display the border between the Wailing Storm and the Azarok Sector, as well as much of the latter's systems. It showed the known Warp routes as well, connecting stars like blood vessels allowing the Imperium's isolated worlds to rely upon one another for countless supplies. One world of the border in particular was surrounded by far more information than the rest, and, at a silent command from Arken, the projection zoomed in on the planet, showing an orb of poisoned seas and vast, dry plains. All of the Chosen were looking at it, but it was Arken who spoke its name, like a judge announcing the death sentence of a criminal :
'Silberstadt,' he breathed, the name echoing in the strategium's silence. 'Sentinel of the Abyssian Marches, guardian-world of Azarok against any threat rising from the Wailing Storm. After the Orks ravaged it during the War of the Beast, it was remade into its current form as part of the Imperium's rebuilding process. Millions of Imperial Guardsmen are stationed there, along with a base for Battlefleet Azarok and an Adeptus Mechanicus contingent. For nearly two hundred years, its forces have kept the Sub-Sector pacified, crushing any rebellion that might be stirred by the influence of the Storm and keeping the trade routes safe from piracy coming from the wild regions of space.'
The Chosen stirred at the words of their lord. For all their differences, they were all of them warriors, who were only truly in their place when they were fighting – and Silberstadt looked like it would be a great battlefield indeed. They had faced challenges in the Wailing Storm, though none as difficult as their war against the Sons of Calth and the remnants of Imperial forces that had gathered at Parecxis. There had even been a few actual wars, where the smaller splinters had spent years of relative time conquering a single system or even planet. But Silberstadt … that would be a different matter entirely. Though most of them had already studied the worlds of Azarok, they still hung on to Arken's words eagerly.
'The world stands at a crossroads of Warp routes that allow swift navigation to all other worlds of the Abyssian Marches,' continued the Awakened One, 'including a channel leading deeper into the Azarok Sector. The planet's moon has been taken over by the Administratum and turned into a hub of trade and logistics, monitoring the flow of resources through the Sub-Sector and to the rest of Azarok. Hundreds of merchant vessels pass through the system every day, their authorizations checked by the drones of the Administratum before they can continue their journey.'
'This, my brothers, will be our first target. Even now, the Imperials gather their forces, warned of our coming by the signs we have sown, but their pathetic attempt at stopping us will fail. We will burn this world to the ground, and its fall shall send a message to the slaves of the Corpse-Emperor throughout the entire Sector. All will know that not even their best warriors can stand against our might. Fear and despair will spread, weakening the rest of the Sector's worlds long before our fleets darken their skies. Here, we will light the spark of the inferno that will consume the entire Azarok Sector, and from the ashes shall rise the doom of the Imperium itself !'
'Return to your ships,' declared Arken, rising from his throne and gesturing with his claws as if to stab through the projected image of the Azarok Sector, 'and prepare for Warp transit. Today, the Forsaken Sons go to war ! Death to the False Emperor !'
'Death to the False Emperor !' roared back the Chosen.
The fleet of the Forsaken Sons had gathered in a system that had been at the edge of the Trebedius Sector, in the time before Arken had unleashed the power contained at Isleas and created the Wailing Storm. The single inhabitable planet had been scourged clean of life by the aetheric winds, leaving behind nothing but warped cities and statues of crystal and stone depicting the last horrified moments of the few millions who had called the world home.
After the Chosen had made the trip back to their own flagships, the fleet began to move toward the edge of the system, right at the sea of eldritch energies that had drowned the Trebedius Sector. Across the fleet, crew members who realized what they were about to do were filled with cold dread. Navigation from one point of the Wailing Storm to another was difficult, but breaking through the tides of Chaos and emerge back into reality was all but impossible. No Geller Field or sorcerous ward would be powerful enough to keep the raging storms from ripping the fleet apart. In their sealed chambers, the Navigators – both those who had accompanied the Forsaken Sons since the flight from Terra, those captured since, and those who did not bear the third eye but used other, less elegant means to guide a ship through the Warp – trembled. They had received only the simplest of instructions from the Hand of Ruin : to lock onto the warband's mighty flagship and follow its course through the Sea of Souls. The twelve-kilometers long vessel was leading the fleet, and looked to be about to sail directly into the near-solid wall of Warp energy – then, it happened.
In one of the spires of the Hand of Ruin, whose access was forbidden to all but Arken himself, the Awakened One stood before a viewing bay, staring through the reinforced window and at the swirling tides beyond. Around him were relics collected during the conquest of the Wailing Storm, artefacts so dangerous that he had kept their very existence secret from the rest of the warband. There was the genetic code of the Children of Woe, all of Pareneffer's research compiled in a single data-slate that was more heavily encrypted than the secrets of a High Lord of Terra. Atop an altar made of black stone was a primitive knife of bone engraved with runes that glowed softly with the power of the Greater Daemon bound within the ritual blade, while a simple, featureless white mask hid ancient technology that would kill anyone who put the mask on and replace their personality with that of the insane techno-warlord uploaded inside its cogitators. There were many more of these relics, yet none were more dangerous than the one who had gathered them all.
As he looked into the Wailing Storm, Arken felt its claws reach toward his soul. For all that he had created the Warp Storm and was responsible for its continued existence through the Anchoring, the primitive, bestial sentience of the Wailing Storm still sought to tear his soul apart. But it would find no weakness in the fortress of his will. Instead, it would submit to him, though not without cost.
Long had the lord of the Forsaken Sons planned for this moment, having known it would come from the very moment he had unleashed the power of Isleas' dead. As the Word Bearers' abandoned weapon had been activated, he had known that one day he would need to depart the Wailing Storm in order to continue to prosecute his war against the Imperium. And so, he had prepared, bending his every effort toward uncovering a path out of his creation while the rest of the warband went onto the business of conquering what the Trebedius Sector had become. But he had found nothing. The Wailing Storm's borders could be broken by small, individual vessels – Dekaros and Karalet had left in this manner. But there was no path stable and large enough for a fleet to go through. When he had realized the trap in which he had fallen – the cruel machinations of the Ruinous Powers revealing themselves to him in a supreme moment of clarity – he had nearly gone mad.
When the first Warmaster had learned the Primordial Truth and shared it with his Legion, Arken had seen the Dark Gods for what they were – great powers that could be used in the war against the False Emperor, allies whose help came at a cost that the rebels had to be willing to pay in order to challenge the might of the self-proclaimed Master of Mankind. He had used them in the Parecxis campaign, making the offerings that had anchored the Wailing Storm into existence so that the Forsaken Sons would have the time to conquer it all. Now, the warband had gathered an army bred on a hundred worlds, but it was useless to the Long War if it was trapped within the Wailing Storm.
Arken had not considered himself a servant of the Dark Gods – but he had no choice but to become one now. He must walk the Path to Glory, which led only to death, spawnhood, or transfiguration into one of the Neverborn. This was the price he had to pay in order to continue his war. No true mortal could command to the Sea of Souls – only the Gods could do that. And the Gods would not grant him this boon unless he willingly and completely dedicated himself to their cause. After all, true power only ever came through sacrifice, and real sacrifice was that of the self. That had been the subject of much of his discussion with the new Warmaster, though Abaddon did not walk the same path. That was some consolation to Arken, at least : there would be someone to bring about the Imperium's destruction once his story ended and the Powers came for him.
With a scream of anger, hatred, and deeply buried sorrow, Arken the Awakened One, Champion of Chaos Undivided, ripped the space before him with his claws. The power of the Warp and the blessings of the Gods that coursed through him channeled his intent, and the wall of aetheric storms parted before the Hand of Ruin, allowing passage through the edge of the Wailing Storm.