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Azarok Sector – Berrenos System
744.M32
"From the skies they came, on wings of fire and lightning, clad in holiness and carrying death in their hands and hatred in their hearts. And lo, before them the unholy did weep and cry out, as the Emperor's own wrath descended upon them !"
From the Nine hundred and sixty seventh Canticle of the Ophelian Creed
A pale, translucent figure walked across the wastes of Berrenos, leaving no trace on the mix of sand and dust that stretched between the hive-cities. It moaned in pain as it walked, haunted by the echoes of its death. The wraith did not recall its name. In truth, it remembered very little, and what pieces of its memory remained served only to torment it further.
It remembered walking, in the heat and the abrasive wind, with the lash slapping at its back to keep it going. It remembered fear, and hunger, and thirst. And, beyond those memories, it remembered that there had been a time before that torment, a time when it had not suffered; a time when it had still had a name.
The ghost reached the end of its walk, and vanished, reappearing a kilometer back, where it began its walk all over again. It was trapped there, this remnant of a man who had once been a merchant in one of Berrenos' cities, before the coming of the Unbound Host. Condemned to repeat his final moments, over and over, a little more of his essence stripped away at each agonizing cycle, until there was nothing left.
It did not know this, of course. All it knew was that it had to keep walking. When the cycle began anew, it was all it remembered : only after a few hundred, pain-filled meters did the wraith began to remember anything else. And, every cycle, it took longer for the memories to return.
Halfway through the walk, as the first memories of hunger began to emerge, particles of light appeared around the wraith. It did not pause, for it could not notice anything that differed from its final moments : it was why it had kept walking through the days and the nights since its death.
The particles coalesced into arcs of lightning, and the air was filled with the scent of ozone. The air thrummed with increasing levels of energy, until it reached a peak and reality was torn apart in a flash of blinding light that turned the dust to glass in a thirty-meters radius. Within that light were five towering silhouettes, and the blazing light of their spirits was the last thing the wraith perceived before it was caught in the raging empyric energies and, with one last pained cry, obliterated.
The Grey Knights emerged from the teleportation at full battle readiness, their Nemesis weapons drawn and powered up. There were five of them, sent from the holds of the ship that had broken off the main Imperial fleet and was now anchored in orbit, hidden from detection by a variety of cloaking devices. Their power armor gleamed in the faded light of Berrenos' star as it passed through the thick clouds of dust and pollution that covered much of the ruined hive-world.
Upon the hallowed suits of warplate were engraved hexagrammatic seals of purity and protection, along with sacred oaths of devotion and hatred and thrice-blessed purity seals, which had been applied days before when the warriors had made their final preparations for the war to come. As the last sparks of the energy storm unleashed by their teleportation faded, the air around them continued to shimmer, as the ambient corruption in the planet's very atmosphere reacted to their presence. Each warrior was anathema to the things that dwelled in the Warp, a champion raised from the dregs of Humanity. Only five warriors, and yet, the cost of their wargear's creation alone would break the economies of many Imperial worlds.
Together, they were a force that could bring down the schemes of the Ruinous Powers and cast their infernal minions back into the depths of the Empyrean that had spawned them. Indeed, they had done so many times before, in the years since they had been taken from the holds of the Black Ships and reforged into living weapons. Whoever they had been before the Chapter had dragged them out of the muck was lost, gone entirely behind years of mind-scrubbing and hypno-conditioning. Any weakness they might have inherited from their mortal origins had been removed and replaced with the strength of the Emperor's Gift and the surety of their purpose.
With their eyes and minds, they scanned their surroundings. Once they were satisfied that there was no immediate threat, they set off, walking in perfect synchronicity, covering each other's back and keeping their weapons powered up. They may not have sensed any imminent danger, but that only meant any danger that was present was subtle enough to elude them – and therefore dangerous in the extreme.
To the north, their destination could be seen behind the dunes. A black pyramid rose from the wastes some ten kilometers away, its surface crackling with arcs of purple lightning that jumped between the unholy, blood-red Chaos runes that were engraved into the construction. Each dark symbol was more than two meters high, and the keen eyes of the Grey Knights, enhanced further by their helmets' display, could see that there were hundreds of them on the smooth outside of the pyramid, from its base to its peak, exactly eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight meters above the ground.
Taken as a whole, the runes formed a complex malefic incantation, the un-words of a dark ritual that channelled the energies of the pyramid into the Aether, staining it with Chaotic corruption. To the psychic senses of the Grey Knights, the stain was all the more visible. Its vile corruption radiated like a baleful beacon, pulsating like an arrhythmic heartbeat in response to the unholy acts being performed within the pyramid. Daemonic spirits circled above the pyramid, half-formed nightmares drawn into being by these terrible things.
Whether by arrogance or design, the foul traitors who had despoiled Berrenos had done little to hide the source of the threat. From the Teleportarium chamber aboard the vessel Promised Deliverance, the Grey Knights had teleported as close to the source of the disruption as possible : now, they had to cross the final distance on foot, and put an end to this festering evil.
"There are bodies beneath the sand," called out one of the knights on a heavily encrypted vox-link. "Their terror and pain permeates this accursed land."
The warrior's armor bore the marking of a justicar, for he was the leader of this squad. In his hands, he held a shining Nemesis sword. On one of his armor's paldron, like on his brothers', was the emblem of their Chapter's Second Brotherhood, the Blades of Victory. The other paldron bore his personal heraldry, which marked him to all other Grey Knights as Asterios Deneus. Unlike other Chapters, the Grey Knights did not write their names anywhere upon their person, lest that knowledge be taken by their enemies and used against them. Their brothers knew who they were, and that was more than enough – glory meant nothing to ones such as them.
"You are right, brother-justicar," answered another of the warriors. With the haft of his Nemesis halberd, he stirred the ground at his feet, revealing bleached bone. Like all Grey Knights, Pallas was a psyker, and could sense what Asterios had detected. So many had perished here, in so similar fashions, that their last moments had left a powerful psychic imprint upon the land. "But look deeper : the dead line up in the same direction, toward this blasphemous construction. These must be the sacrifices who were dragged here and didn't survive the last length of the journey."
"If the enemy was willing to let so many perish before even reaching their destination," pointed out Perses, who also held a halberd, "then there must have been many more who survived long enough. Or perhaps even those deaths were part of their heretical designs."
"Then it is even more important that we prevent their foul plans from succeeding," cut in Asterios. "On the move, brothers. Our duty awaits us."
The Strike Squad advanced at a brisk pace, not quite running but still fast enough that a mortal man would have struggled to keep up on a flat surface, let alone in the shifting sands. They followed the trail left in the sand by those who had came before.
"If our enemy needed prisoners, then why bring them here on foot ?" asked Menoetius, who had been silent so far. Of the five, he alone held a massive daemon hammer, engraved with symbols of exorcism and anathema to the Neverborn. "This desert spreads for hundreds of kilometers. The conditions must have killed half of the captives sent from the rest of the planet at least."
"A combination of ritualism and practicality, I suspect," replied Asterios. "The survivors would be exhausted and traumatized by the time they arrive. Besides, only specialized vehicles would be able to thread this region, and those must have been requisitioned by the invaders for their own use."
Menoetius grunted. The justicar could feel his brother's simmering anger at the callousness of Berrenos' invaders. He shared this anger, but Menoetius' emotions had always been somewhat more intense than those of the rest of his squad. It was the source of his strength, but it was also why he hadn't been made justicar, despite being a better warrior than Asterios. It wasn't to the point that his emotions would influence his judgement, of course – he would never have been made a Grey Knight if that were the case. But the Grand Master had judged that his passion would serve the Chapter best as a champion, and Menoetius was happy with that.
The Grey Knights arrived at their target less than fifteen minutes later. Up close, they could make more details of the black pyramid. The stones of the temple could only have been laid down a few weeks ago, unless their intelligence on Berrenos' situation was incredibly wrong. And yet, the structure already looked like a millennia-old ruin. The angles of the stones were eroded to smooth curves, and there were cracks in the foundations. Asterios called this to the attention of his brothers.
"The foul rituals taking place within are eroding the fabric of reality," said Pallas. "Time is breaking apart as the Materium wears down. This is not a good sign."
"We have arrived not a moment too soon then," noted Japeth.
"They made no effort to conceal their activities here," said Perses, the last of the Strike Squad. It had been him who had been sent to assist in coordinating with the other Imperial forces deployed in the system, though he had done so through intermediaries – even the situation in the Azarok Sector did not override the Grey Knights' secrecy protocols. But with the forces of Chaos having come to Azarok in strength not seen outside the Despoiler's own Black Crusade, the Second Brotherhood needed to have a voice at the war councils. "Every psyker worth the name in the fleet felt the currents of the Empyrean gathering here. If we had not come, another Chapter would have sent forces to attempt to stop it instead. Inquisitor Galloreene had to intervene to prevent the Red Hunters from dispatching one of their cruisers ahead of the rest of the fleet."
"What did she tell them ? Though the Red Hunters are closely tied to the Ordos, only their Chapter Master is allowed to know about us."
"She simply told them that she had this matter in hands, Menoetius. Our cousins knew better than to ask questions. Besides, they will have more than enough foes to face in the void."
"Then we shall make sure that the good Inquisitor's word isn't broken. Prepare yourselves."
The path leading to the entrance was lined with stone statues, standing on pedestals of the same materials. There were more bodies piled up against the pedestals, in various states of rot. Judging by their position and the damage they had suffered post-mortem (broken limbs and dashed skulls), the corpses had been thrown away to free the path to the entrance with more than human strength.
The passage into the heretical temple had too many angles, and their degrees didn't add up in any fashion conform to three-dimensional geometry. As the Grey Knights walked between the statues, Asterios raised hand, and they stopped.
A hot wind began to blow, carrying a scent of blood that found its way past the filters of the Grey Knights' helmets before crashing against the walls of their psyches. It brought with it a voice : first a distant whisper, which grew in volume until it sounded as if the speaker were right among them. It was a rotten, vile sound, full of mockery and arrogance.
"Ah, our guests have finally arrived. Very well. Let the festivities … begin !"
The statues on both sides of the squad suddenly exploded, the stone shattering to reveal the infernal creatures that had been concealed within. Screaming from things that only resembled mouths, two dozens monstrosities charged the Grey Knights – only to be met by the blessed metal of Nemesis weapons.
"Smite the unclean, brothers !" bellowed Asterios as he faced the first daemon to reach him. "We are the tip of His spear !"
"We are the edge of His sword !" his brothers roared back in answer.
His sword blazed bright with azure light as he struck his first blow on Berrenos. The Nemesis blade cut through the raised limbs of an amalgamation of stone and bloody bones before burying itself deep into its skull. Asterios pulled the sword free just in time to block another assault, this one coming from a thing of black, oily tentacles and lamprey mouths. The power field surrounding the weapon sizzled as the unholy limbs clung around it and burned.
The storm bolter mounted on his left wrist roared, and the daemon burst apart as the holy ammunition penetrated its skin and detonated inside of its grotesque body. Another hellspawn hurled itself at Asterios, and he battered it aside before plunging his sword into what passed for its head. Next to him, Menoetius' daemon hammer crackled with energy as it smashed into something with a white, featureless face and a body made of rusted knives.
Asterios turned his gaze just in time to see Pallas put a bolt shell through the multi-faced head of a chimeric creature with glistening chitin and furry, clawed limbs. Next to his brother, Japeth and Perses were putting down their own adversaries, a near-identical pair of daemons with blue shells and spikes the color of bleached bone.
And then it was over. All of the daemons were gone, banished back into the Empyrean. The wounds dealt unto them by the Grey Knights' weaponry ensured that it would be centuries, if ever, before any of them reformed and found a way back to the Materium. The only damage they had sustained was a single blow Japeth had taken to his shoulder paldron, where the claw of something with black feathers and beaks made of pearl had scratched the paint.
"Did the master of this place truly expect to take us by surprise ?" asked Menoetius, pulling his hammer free of the rapidly dissolving remains of his last kill. He sounded almost disappointed.
"I doubt it," replied Perses. "This … it reeks of a test. And that troubles me. That voice seemed to imply that we were expected."
"Of course we were. You said it yourself : the heretics didn't even try to hide what they are doing here. They must have known someone would be sent to stop them."
"Yes, but there was something about the tone … It's like they were expecting us."
There was a moment of silence. There was no need for anyone to say out loud that this should not be possible : that the Grey Knights' very existence was meant to be concealed from the Archenemy.
"Whether they were or not," said Asterios, "it does not change our duty. On me, brothers. We are going in."
The instant Asterios crossed the threshold, he nearly stumbled. Suddenly, his mind was assailed by a cacophony of screams, hundreds, thousands of voices screaming in pain and terror. The wards engraved on his armor briefly flared, reinforcing his mental defenses, and the pressure eased, though the screams did not fade away entirely. They remained clear enough for Asterios to recognize them. As his brothers followed him past the threshold and adapted to the pressure in turn, it was Japeth who gave voice to that realization :
"These aren't the screeches of daemons. These … these are human screams."
"The prisoners," Asterios realized. "We suspected they were brought here as sacrifices. This unholy temple is a psychic battery of sort, accumulating the sorcerous energy generated by their deaths. That's why we couldn't hear the screams outside the wards surrounding this place."
"Then we shall avenge them," declared Menoetius, taking point, his daemon hammer in hands.
The being that dwelled at the bottom of the bone pit called himself Ix Vocar.
Once, what seemed like an eternity ago, he had been human. He didn't like to think back on that time : it disgusted him to think that he could ever have been so weak, so limited. He had discarded all ties to that existence when he had become one of the Ix, renouncing his humanity so that he may do more than merely survive.
On Nebrend, the Ix had been predators without equals. They had ruled the planet, enforcing their will upon a cowed human population by making examples of all those who dared defy them. In ages past, when the heavens had burned and the world had been cut off from the rest of the galaxy, the Ix had risen, destroying the human civilization and building their own feudal kingdoms upon the ruins. Ix Vocar hadn't been alive to see it : he hadn't been there when the skies had turned black and red, and the Pit of Fire and Flesh had opened on Nebrend to deliver immortality to those who were worthy of its dark blessings. No, he had been born under the rule of the Ix, and chosen to join their ranks when he had proven his worth to the one who had owned him, body and soul.
She had taken him to the Pit of Fire and Flesh, and there, he had been stripped of everything he had been and made anew. He had been grateful to her; grateful enough that, when he had made his move to overthrow her and claim her territory as his own, he had given her the mercy of a quick demise.
For centuries after that, he had ruled his domain, selecting others to be taken to the Pit so that they could serve him, always wary of another trying to do unto him as he had done unto his maker. He had risen through the hierarchy of the Ix, though even he had always be beholden to the Ancients, that mysterious council of the Ix that ruled all of Nebrend through their agents and puppets.
He had cultivated his power and abilities, fighting against both rivals, would-be usurpers, and the occasional daemonic incursion. Despite the edicts of the Ancients, there had always been those foolish enough to believe that daemons could help them ascend beyond their station. They had always been devoured by the very things they called forth, though there had been rumours that this was because the Ancients themselves made sure to sabotage all attempts in a bid to prevent any from challenging their rule through daemonic assistance. Regardless of the truth, for Ix Vocar, it had been a time of prosperity and power.
That time had ended when the heavens had burned with the fires of descending drop-pods. The Unbound had shattered the delicate balance of power, casting down the Ix' carefully cultivated empires. Their mortal armies had been slaughtered with effortless ease, and though the progeny of the Ix Lords had fared better once herded against the invaders, they too had been defeated eventually. By the time the Ix Lords had been resigned to fighting themselves, it was too late : in a single night of bloodshed, the invaders' lord had conquered Nebrend's capital, slain half of the Ancients, and seized the Pit of Fire and Flesh. With the source of the Ix' power in his hands, the one who was called Mahlone had been able to dictate his terms to the entire planet.
The Ix Lords had gathered in their ruined capital, and made to swear fealty to the Unbound Lord. Each and every one of them had been marked with sorcerous brands heated in the Pit's own flames, enforcing their compliance – though, as in all things, there were ways around these restraints. A handful of Ix Lords and a single Ancient had been left behind to rule Nebrend in the name of the Unbound Host, while the rest joined their conquerors' army. The Pit itself had been taken from Nebrend, its power extracted from the planet by the Sorcerer Iames and the other witches in the Unbound Lord's service.
They had fought alongside their new masters to help in the conquest of other worlds within the Wailing Storm, until the call had come for all of the Forsaken Sons to gather. Ix Vocar remembered the terror he had felt when he had witnessed the full might of the host that had answered the call : until then, he had believed the Unbound Host to be unstoppable, but the sight of so many ships and armies gathered in one place had shown him the full scope of his masters' power quite decisively.
They had no choice but to obey, now more than ever. In one of the systems where the Unbound Host had stopped on its way to Berrenos, Mahlone had thrown the Pit of Fire and Flesh into the system's sun, causing a massive daemonic incursion that had scourged the system's five inhabited, well-defended worlds. For twelve days, the Chaos fleet had remained at the edge of the system, fighting skirmishes with picket fleets and laying waste to the outermost stations. Then a stealth ship of the Dark Mechanicum with a sacrificial crew had reached the sun, and thrown its deadly cargo inside it. Mahlone had ordered the fleet back into the Warp as soon as the psykers had started to scream, but even so, they had lost over a dozen transports in their flight from the doomed system.
When the truth of the Pit's sacrifice had been discovered, half of the remaining Ix had revolted. As it turned out, Mahlone had been prepared for that eventuality. The rebels had been slaughtered before their insurrection even began, and the remaining ones had only survived by attaching themselves to Jereb. But they had not forgotten what the Lord of the Unbound had done. Without the Pit, the Ix couldn't create more of their kind. Worse, they had started to age again, for their immortality had been tied to the Pit's mysterious origins.
But Jereb had promised them salvation. When the Ascended's great work was complete, a new Pit would be delivered onto the Ix, who would rise higher than ever before. Neither Ix Vocar nor any of his kindred trusted the Ascended, but they had little choice left. They had followed Jereb to Berrenos, helped it build the Black Temple using their superhuman strength. Then, as the blood of the sacrifices flowed and their flesh burned in the sacred fires, Jereb had bade the remaining Ix to burrow into the bone pits, and wait there for the enemies that would come. They had born this supreme indignity, knowing that to defy Jereb was to abandon their last chance at preserving their immortality.
And now, laying down at the bottom of the pits, Ix Vocar could feel the intruders above. Distant though it was, their presence burned at him, filled him with rage. They had no place here, in this sacred place where the future of the Ix was to be reforged. He began to move, feeling all of the other Ix Lords do the same around him. Though only a fraction of their number remained from the time they had ruled over the world of their birth, they still vastly outnumbered the intruders.
As he rose through the bones, his body twisting into its war-shape, Ix Vocar felt a cold satisfaction flow through him. Soon, he would have the chance to unleash all of his pent-up frustration at these foolish intruders. After all, whoever they were, they couldn't be as dangerous as the Forsaken Sons.
This time, the attack almost took the Grey Knights by surprise. The first room they had found, at the end of a long corridor, was filled with scorched, broken human bones – hundreds, thousands of them. Vast pits had been dug into the floor, with a single path left between them that led to the other side. Asterios tried not to think about what the human sacrifices must have thought as they were dragged along that bridge, which was barely wide enough for the Grey Knights to walk across.
The psychic echoes clinging to the human remains had hidden the monsters until they had reached the surface of the mass grave. But while their grim refuge had kept them from the Knights' psychic senses, the physical disturbances in the piles of bones had reached their ears. They had had only a few seconds to react, but it was enough.
Asterios' sword severed the difform head of the first monster to jump at them in a single, clean sweep. Its blood-red eyes opened wide in shock as it fell, and Asterios felt its last, silent screams before its brain realized it was dead.
The justicar gave himself a single heartbeat to observe the creature he had just slain. Its bald head, which had rolled over the bridge and ended at Asterios' feet, seemed to have devolved from a human baseline. Its mouth was wide and contained only two singular canines, which were more akin to tusks than fangs due to their size. Its yellow eyes, split by vertical pupils, were wide open as if in shock, and a purple tongue spread from its mouth. Patterns of scales marked its pallid skin, forming shapes reminiscent of those displayed by scar tissue.
The rest of its body was over two meters long. Thin membranes of scaled skin connected the upper limbs to the torso, which was still clad in the tattered remnants of rich finery. Each of the four limbs ended in an identical set of claws, some of which were covered in tiny engravings. Purple blood flowed from its severed neck, and the body was already starting to rot as the sorcerous energies that had animated it despite its violation of biology's most elemental principles faded away.
This was no random mutation, as evidenced by the fact all of their attackers shared the same deviant traits. This was the creation of an infernal designer, pulled from Mankind's antediluvian terrors and given flesh for the amusement of the Ruinous Powers Asterios snarled in disgust and crushed the monster's skull under his boot.
Spread across the bridge, the Grey Knights' mobility was much reduced. Each planted his feet, becoming a bastion of purity against which the mutants crashed uselessly. The hafts of Nemesis halberds were used as often as their blades, smashing into bodies mid-leap with sickening crunches. Asterios saw Japeth assailed by three of the creatures at once, their clawed hands imbued with pale-red light. The Grey Knight cut one down and smashed in the skull of another, but the third slammed into his leg, breaking its fists against the blessed armor. Even as it plunged back into the sea of bones, screeching as its flesh burned from the holy touch of hallowed ceramite, Japeth lost his balance and began to fall.
Asterios caught his brother's outstretched gauntlet and pulled him back to his feet, before ducking out of the way of Japeth's vengeful halberd as its blade caught another mutant in the torso. He rose back up and plunged his sword into the guts of another creature, while firing at yet another one.
More and more of the mutants emerged from the bones. It was as if the slaughter of their kin was driving them into a frenzy, making them willing to throw their lives away in a futile attempt to take the Grey Knights down with them. Some of them were entirely wreathed in sorcerous energies, but even they were no match for the blessings and wards laid upon the Grey Knights' wargear.
"Hold fast, brothers !" Asterios called out. "We are the bulwark against corruption ! We are the wall against evil !"
"We shall never fall !" came the reply. "We shall never break !"
And so they did. For nearly ten minutes, the Grey Knights held their ground, cutting down all mutants who threw themselves against them. Until, at last, the piles of bones were still and unmoving once more.
The Grey Knights did not know, as they resumed their advance deeper into the pyramid, that they had just brought the Ix, a mutated breed of half-daemonic creatures which had ruled over an entire world for hundreds of years, to complete and utter extinction. But even if they had, they would have felt little emotion about that fact – other than, perhaps, the smallest tinge of satisfaction.
Leaving the bone pits behind, the Grey Knights found themselves into a wide spiralling staircase. Every step was suffused with the pain of the captives who had been forced to haul themselves up on steps that had clearly been designed for Space Marines rather than humans.
"We should already have reached the top of the pyramid," said Japeth after a while.
"More signs of the Materium's distortion," came Menoetius' reply. "Still … I think we are about to – yes, here we are."
The stairway ended before an archway leading into another room. Like the bone pits before, this room too had only two entrances, with the other being on the opposite side as the archway before the Grey Knights. Unlike the bone pits, though, the defenses of this room were plain to see.
At the center of the empty room, held in place by silver chains that were linked to stakes embedded into the stone, was a tall, difform beast of warped ceramite and twisted appendages.
The creature had, at one point, been a Space Marine. Its base humanoid frame remained, but mutation after mutation had been heaped upon its once-glorious form. Its skin was ivory white and bright pink, the two colors woven together in shapes that would have burned the eyes of an unaugmented human. Its left arm had become a nest of tentacles the color of rotting meat, each one ending with a glowing eye. Its legs bent backward and ended in paws covered in what looked like thin black fur – but Asterios could sense these were miniature tongues, not hair. Its head had no eyes – not even empty sockets where they must have been prior to the traitor's possession. A second mouth opened across the forehead instead, filled with jagged teeth and two black tongues that looked like two snakes coupling as they stirred in and out of the opening.
The source of these mutations was obvious : it was the sword in its grip, its pristine aspect utterly at odds with its wielder's monstrous appearance. The weapon burned in Asterios' second sight with witch-light. Threads of this light were woven into the creature's entire body, and Asterios didn't doubt for an instant who was in control of this blasphemous union. The daemon within the blade was of exceptional power, and if anything remained of the warrior who had foolishly sought its power beyond a hollowed, silently screaming shell, Asterios could not sense it.
The Possessed turned toward the Grey Knights, its flesh sizzling against its chains as it moved. It spoke, its voice like gravestones grinding together :
"Welcome, little knights. Welcome to the Black Temple. I trust you have already tasted the hospitality of its master ? Good. Then you know what to expect here."
It lowered its head, as if trying to bow.
"I am Uqz'nyn'neuith, child of the Dark Prince. Once, I danced among the stolen stars of the Aeldari, and drank deep of the blood of the whore-priestesses of Isha when they celebrated my master's birth. Will you tell me who you are, before we begin ?"
The name wasn't the daemon's True Name, of course. No creature of the Warp was foolish enough to give such a weapon to an enemy, let alone one like the Grey Knights, who were covered in arcane protections, both obvious and hidden.
But it was a name, and it contained within it some portion of the daemon's identity. It was one of the weaknesses of the Neverborn : they could not simply use pseudonyms and false identities. As creatures of ideas and emotions, they were their names, and using one completely opposed to their true nature could very well rend them apart. The Grey Knights and the Inquisition had used this to identify the daemonic patrons behind Chaos cults throughout the Imperium many times before.
"No answer ? How impolite. The servants of the Corpse-Emperor used to be much more vocal when faced with one of my kind. Have you grown wiser ? Or simply ruder ?"
"You are not fit to hear our names, daemon," said Asterios. "Know only that we are your death, and that of all your kind. We shall destroy this vessel you inhabit, and force you back into the pit from which you crawled."
"The Unbound Lord too thought I could be forced out of this vessel." There was a sickening tone of pleasure in how the daemon told the tale. "He believed that his own master's witches could sever the bond between me and my dear, beloved Lucian. When he found out he was wrong, that he had denied his former superior the chance to rest in peace for a false hope … Oh, little knights. I wish I could tell you that his heart broke … but by that point, he didn't have much of it left already. I saw it happen, even from within my prison. Piece by piece of his soul, left burning in the flames of Chaos as he walked further down the Path to Glory … Always another step to take, always another deed to perform. And now … this. A brother, in spirit if not in blood, abandoned to the cruelty of the Daemon, to be used as a weapon against his enemies … He has changed, just as dear Lucian here has changed. And he will change more, before the end …"
"Are you done, daemon ?" asked Asterios as the Possessed fell silent. Listening to the words of the Neverborn was never a good idea, but the Grey Knights needed more information about the enemy they would face in this campain. Every sliver of information they gained from this operation, once properly analysed and scoured for deceit, might be of vital importance later on.
"Of course not. We all know how this will end, but before we begin, there is one thing that tradition demands I do. You, little knight, are strong – stronger than poor Lucian ever was." The creature's tone was filled with mocking respect. "Will you take me up, and wield my power in the name of your God ? Will you bend the strength of the Warp against itself ?"
"Never." The word was charged with all the revulsion and hatred Asterios felt.
"Why not ? One of you wields one far more terrible than I already … or has it not happened yet ?" The Possessed cocked its stolen head, seeming to ponder the possibility.
Asterios didn't fall for the attempt at trickery, nor did his brothers. They knew that the daemon was lying. The hellspawns existed outside of linear time, and it was common for them to speak of events that had not yet happened when they were incarnated in the Materium. But the very idea of a Grey Knight ever wielding a daemonic weapon was beyond ridiculous – it was obscene. The very thought of the possibility was heresy, and no champion of Titan would allow it to take root in his mind.
"Enough lies," spat the justicar. "We will destroy you, abomination, and deal with your masters after. We will not stop, not until all of your vile kind are purged from the stars !"
The Possessed chuckled, a wet and revolting sound. "You will try … and you will fail."
As one, the chains binding the creature snapped. This could not have been coincidence – something else was watching them, likely the same presence that had greeted the Grey Knights at the entrance of the pyramid (or, as the daemon had called it, the Black Temple).
Moving with inhuman swiftness, the Possessed lunged at Asterios. Rather than the creature striking at him, it was as if the blade was moving on its own, dragging its wielder behind. Asterios barely managed to bring up his Nemesis sword in time to block the first blow.
Reality buckled as the blessed blade met the unholy weapon, and Asterios was forced to take a step back. The Possessed warrior pressed its attack, striking with a speed and strength far beyond that of a normal Astartes – beyond even that of a Grey Knight. It took all of Asterios' own might, training and reflexes to parry or dodge every blow, and he dared not use his psychic abilities against such a foe. Since the Grey Knights had entered the Black Temple, they had avoided opening their minds. None of them were Librarians, and they had been instructed to avoid taking such risks unless absolutely necessary.
One on one, the issue of the duel was all but certain – all of the Emperor's gifts to Asterios could not match the unholy strength the Dark Gods had bestowed upon their pawn. All but one, that is.
For while the Possessed was alone, a feral beast kept in chains until let loose upon the foes of its masters, Asterios fought alongside his trusted brothers. The two of them had been fighting for less than three seconds when the first of them struck, having moved into position. The Possessed weaved out of the way of the blow, moving with revolting, boneless grace. But in doing so, it put itself in the path of another strike. It dodged that one as well – but that was all. A blade cut deep into its flank, and a shell struck it in the shoulder.
It stumbled, momentarily distracted, and Asterios seized his chance. His mind reached out to his brothers, and briefly, the five of them became one – one will, one mind, one blade. The Nemesis power sword of the justicar moved with a speed and strength equal to that of the Possessed, but driven by righteous fury instead of corrupt madness. It struck the daemon sword point-first, directly above the pommel. There was a flash of light as the energies surrounding the weapons fought, and the focused might of the Grey Knights prevailed over the ancient enchantments woven upon the tainted blade. The black metal twisted and cracked, before the blade that held the daemon Uqz'nyn'neuith broke into a thousand pieces that burned holes into the stone floor.
As the sword shattered, Asterios saw the daemon's essence flee from its ruined vessel. It flowed through the connection between weapon and wielder, extinguishing the last spark of the host's soul utterly. The daemonhost, no longer a Possessed, lunged at the justicar, its tentacles grasping for his head. He moved out of its reach and fired, blowing off the creature's knees. Another swipe of Perses' halberd severed the tentacles at the shoulder. The monstrous appendages fell to the ground with a wet sound, still twitching.
The limbless, mutated torso fell down, unable to move. As one, the Grey Knights opened fire on their prone enemy, blasting it with holy shells until Asterios bade them to stop with a psychic command. They had inflicted enough damage upon the body, saturated the bloody remains with enough thrice-blessed ammo that the daemon would not be able to use it as a gateway to fully manifest now that its bindings had been broken.
With a bubbling sound, pieces of ceramite and flesh amidst the ruined remains melted, revealing a face that stared at the Grey Knights. This visage was human – a noble, patrician visage, which made its patchwork nature all the more revolting. It smiled mockingly at the warriors who towered above it as it spoke in the daemon's voice :
"Do you think this matter ? Me, you, our masters, and our masters' masters. We all fight in the shadows of destiny, but nothing we do can ever alter what has been written by the Powers Beyond. You cannot change fate, little knight, and none of you will live to see the end of days … but I shall. Thank you for freeing me from this prison at last. I am in your debt, little knights."
"Not so fast," growled Menoetius. Before the daemon's essence could fully dissipate, Asterios' brother was on its body. On his lips was the Scourging Litany, a holy incantation developed by the Supreme Grand Master himself and used for the first time during the secret wars of the Scouring.
"You will pay for that, slave of the Corpse-God !" howled Uqz'nyn'neuith as the daemon hammer smashed into its constructed face, and purifying psychic energy flowed through it as Menoetius finished the Litany, every word a blow as potent as the hammer's own. "I will hound your kind across the stars for all eternity ! I … I … aaaAAARRRGH !"
With a screech like rusted nails on chalkboard, the daemon's burning pseudo-soul was banished, cast back into the Warp with Menoetius' brand upon it. No matter how high it may have claimed to sit in the infernal choirs, such a mark would not go unnoticed – the daemon's torments were only beginning.
Uqz'nyn'neuith would return, one day. Not even all the lore of the Grey Knights could change that. The only known method of nullifying the threat of a single daemon completely was to bind them within an impenetrable prison, and the mission's parameters didn't allow for that here. Perhaps it would be torn asunder by the claws of its kindred when it returned to them in shame, but somehow, Asterios doubted that. Truly powerful daemons did not end so easily.
But the Neverborn would remember the pain that Menoetius had inflicted upon it here today. In fact, it would remember it forever.
The heart of the Black Temple was a vast, circular room, with a domed ceiling supported by ten pillars. Braziers lit the shadows with red, blue and green flames, yet Asterios' helmet display told him the temperature was barely above freezing. The sensation of disjointed reality which had been present since they had approached the pyramid was strongest here. Shadows seemed to move of their own accord, and the exact dimensions of the room defied comprehension. Distances could only be measured as relative between two objects … and even then, there was no consistency. Two of the braziers were less than a meter apart, yet one was less than ten paces from where the Grey Knights had entered while the second was hundreds of meters distant.
"We are running out of time," said Pallas as the Grey Knights passed through the archway. "Reality is coming apart. Whatever they are doing, we must stop it now !"
Each of the supporting pillars was wide as a Dreadnought, covered in sculptures of daemons and dark sigils. There were chains tightened around their top, and from where he stood Asterios could see that these served to hold captives bound, facing the inside of the circle formed by the pillars. The ten men still bore the remnants of robes marked with the Ecclesiarchy's emblem, but their foreheads had been branded with the eight-pointed star of Chaos, and lines of eldritch scripture had been carved into their skin with great care. These marks covered every inch of skin Asterios could see, and they burned bright red in his helmet's infra-red display, as did the eyes of these unfortunate servants of the Imperial Creed. In the end, their faith hadn't protected them from the depredations of the Archenemy : he could sense the infernal essence dwelling within each of them.
"Daemonhosts," grunted Japeth. Not Possessed like the creature they had fought in the last chamber. These were corpses, their souls either mercifully lost before their bodies had been defiled, or long since devoured by the entities that now used their physical remains as vessels.
The Strike Squad had experience fighting daemonhosts, though the last ones they had battled had been far more amateurish – for lack of a better word – than these seemed to be. Cultists who had willingly offered themselves up to the monsters of the Warp, believing that their sacrifice would result in some blessed afterlife instead of the horrible end their wretched souls had found instead. The daemonhosts atop the pillars were different : for one thing, Asterios doubted the Imperial priests had gone to their doom willingly. In a display of cruel irony that was typical of Chaos, their defiance would only make them more appealing hosts for the daemons that now wore their flesh.
The daemonhosts were far from being the only threat awaiting the Grey Knights. There were dozens of figures arrayed before them, clad in tattered rags that did little to hide the mutations of their flesh. Feral psykers, their middling talents forced open by the power of Chaos, at a terrible cost to their soul and sanity. In his second sight, Asterios could see the damage that had been inflicted upon their psyche : they were little more than animals now, driven by fear and hate.
There were other figures scattered among this throng of the damned : tall, bulking abominations, with teeth and claws the size of sword. And there, too, were warriors clad in battle-plate of black and gold, bearing the emblem of the chained daemonhead upon their shoulders. Forsaken Sons, the true power behind the Black Crusade which had swept over the Azarok Sector.
And behind them – if "behind" meant anything in that broken space – was an altar, located atop a dais whose steps ran red with the blood covering them. Standing at the altar was creature that blazed with power in the Grey Knights' second sight. Here, Asterios knew, was the master of the Black Temple, the one responsible for all the countless blasphemies that had occurred in it.
It was tall, taller than the knights who had come to slay it. Its skin was stretched on its bones, to the point of breaking, and glowing veins could be seen coursing beneath it. A trio of curled black horns emerged from its forehead, casting shadow upon eyes that glowed golden. Its long, gangly arms were crossed across its chest, and its disturbingly normal feet hovered a few centimeters above the stone floor – which was charred black beneath the creature.
Asterios had fought many daemons in his years of service among the Grey Knights. He had faced the spawns of the Ruinous Powers in their many aspects, from the teeming, cackling masses of the Nurglings to the towering Bloodthirster he and his brothers had battled on the plains of Merinios. Like all Grey Knights, he was learned in the various manifestations of the Neverborn, made to memorize lore of which the possession of a mere fraction would be grounds for immediate execution for any Imperial citizen. He had been made to know the Daemon, so that he may kill it.
And this creature which stood at the head of this grotesque ceremony was no daemon. Its appearance mimicked that of a daemonhost in the last stages of its flesh being overtaken by the corruption within. But the soul animating that warped body was not infernal in nature. It was like nothing Asterios had ever encountered – and it certainly wasn't a human soul, either.
What had the Forsaken Sons wrought ?
"Ah, our guests of honor have finally arrived. Welcome, noble lords, to the Black Temple. Welcome … Grey Knights. I am Jereb the Ascended, lord of this place."
The voice of the creature was the same as the voice that they had heard at the entrance of the pyramid, before the statues' failed ambush. Despite all the damage that the Grey Knights had inflicted, all the enemies they had slain and the traps they had crushed, it was still just as full of arrogance as it had been then. But none of that mattered. This creature knew their Chapter's name.
"How can this creature know about us ?!" hissed Perses over the vox. "Our Chapter's secrecy has been kept for centuries, through the most ruthless methods at our disposal !"
"Of course we know about you," mocked the abomination, as if it had been able to listen in on the warriors' encrypted vox transmission. "The knights of Titan. Malcador's last blade, cast into the future even as the galaxy burned. Abaddon told my lord, and my lord told us. He didn't tell us how the Despoiler came to such knowledge, but I like to think it was during the Siege, by eating the brains of one of the Sigillite's leftover agents."
It doesn't matter, Asterios sent to his brothers telepathically, not trusting to the vox. Right now, our duty remains the same.
The five Grey Knights charged toward the gathered cultists and Chaos Marines. Atop the dais, the creature spoke a word, and the chains that bound the ten daemonhosts to the pillars shattered. They flew through the air, leaving trails of fire behind them, laughing and screaming as they descended upon the Grey Knights. As one, the squad unleashed a volley of bolter rounds, but only a handful found their marks. The hit daemonhosts didn't seem affected by the craters that opened in their chests, nor by the limbs that were blown off. Only one was destroyed, struck in the head by a precise shot from Perses' storm bolter. Its body ignited as it fell into the mass of cultists, who screamed as the Warp flames caught on their twisted flesh and wretched souls.
Then the remaining nine were on them, striking with blazing claws, beams of witch-light, and words that tried to burrow into their minds.
"Unspoken unknown unseen unheard"
"What is your name ?"
"The shadow burns, burns, burns in false fire"
"Harken to the toiling of the bell"
"Mummy, there is a monster under the tower"
Asterios managed to force the words out of his mind just in time to see a daemonhost on a collision course with him. He raised his sword arm, intent on cutting it in two before it could reach him, but the daemonhost suddenly accelerated and smashed into his hand with its left arm with such strength that the limb simply exploded at the impact – but the strength of the blow had also been enough to make the justicar relinquish his hold on the weapon, which fell to the ground.
Before he could react, the daemonhost was on him, its remaining claw pawing at his armor, tearing purity seals and raking gashes in the blessed ceramite. Holy fury rose within him, and Asterios plunged both arms into the creature's skeletal chest, his gauntlets tearing through the rune-marked skin and burrowing into the tainted flesh beneath -
"You don't know what they took from you"
"He walks among the ashes of his dreams"
"What happened on Cthonia ?"
"You will not see it or it will be too late for it to matter as above so below"
"It is an older nightmare than they think it must not wake it must not it must not"
With a roar, Asterios pulled, and the daemonhost came apart in his hands, silencing its mad whispers. With a flicker of psychic energy, his sword leapt in his grip. Had any not of the Grey Knights tried the same, the safeties of the blade would have obliterated their hands up to the elbow.
Around him, the rest of his brothers were dispatching the last of the daemonhosts, with Menoetius smashing three of them apart in a single swing of his daemon hammer. For the first time since entering the Black Temple, the warriors of Titan had not emerged from the short and brutal confrontation unscathed : several of the justicar's squad members were injured, their armor torn by the claws and sorcery of the daemonhosts. But they were all still ready and able to fight.
Before the Grey Knights, the horde of weirdlings and black-clad Chaos Marines stood still, save for those who had been set ablaze by the falling daemonhost. Their confidence had been shaken by the sight of the Emperor's servants defeating their master's pet abominations. Hesitation was spreading as the realization of their foe's true measure slowly sank into their minds. It was one thing to know that they had crossed all previous defenses, and another to see the might of the Grey Knights unleashed with their own eyes. But before they could break, Jereb spoke :
"Kill them all ! They are the favored slaves of the Corpse-God. Eternal glory shall belong to those who slay them !"
The voice lashed at the souls of the heretics, and they sprung into action. The Chaos Marines opened fire first, bolt shells flying over the heads of the crowd. Their shots were wild and undisciplined, but the sheer volume of fire and lack of cover available to the Grey Knights made sure that plenty still hit – though none penetrated the Knights' blessed warplate.
Caught in their master's frenzy, the cultists charged, screaming out their lungs, desperately trying to drown their own terror. The air around them rippled as their limited psychic powers bubbled out of their wretched souls, and things with no names and too many eyes peered from a realm that was getting entirely too close for Asterios' liking.
"For the Emperor !" shouted the justicar, leading his brothers in a charge of their own.
As they charged, the Grey Knights called upon their own psychic powers. Their armor and weapons glowed with protective auras, keeping the clumsy attempts at sorcery of the cultists from affecting them. When the spear formed by the Strike Squad met the crowd of warped mortals, the effect was like a chainsword meeting unprotected flesh. They tore through it without even slowing their advance, slaughtering the cultists and adding their blood to that of the countless thousands of sacrifices who had already perished in the room. It was only when they clashed with the Forsaken Sons amidst the horde that their charge slowed.
The Forsaken Sons' origins were shrouded in mystery. They wore the colors of the infamous Black Legion, but not its emblem. Their flagship, the Hand of Ruin, which had been sighted at the battle of Silberstadt, was recorded in Titan's archives as being a Sixteenth Legion vessel – yet there were theories that the Sorcerer who had slaughtered the Azarok Conclave had belonged to the accursed bloodline of the Thousand Sons, though he had abandoned that Legion's heraldry. And the fragmented intel they had on events throughout the Sector pointed to a coalition of various forces, using different approaches and tactics in the prosecution of the Black Crusade.
Asterios had fought Chaos Marines before. Unlike some of the Chapter's veterans, he had not lived through Abaddon's Black Crusade, let alone the Scouring or the Heresy itself. Neither he nor any of the warriors under his command were that old. But they had encountered some of the Arch-Traitor's cohorts who had managed to escape their rightful imprisonment within the Eye of Terror.
On a world whose name had been struck from all records, the Strike Squad had fought the Word Bearers, who had first broken their oaths of fealty to the Emperor and embraced the worship of the Ruinous Powers in ages past, and stopped their schemes from dragging an entire Sector into damnation. That struggle had cost Asterios the lives of half his squad, as noble knights of Titan fought to prevent the Chaos Marines from summoning the Daemon Prince who had arranged their passage out of the Eye of Terror into being. Despite these losses, when they had returned to Titan, it had been to be immediately sent back to join the retribution fleet bound for Azarok.
Asterios remembered very well how the Chaos Marines had fought. Despite their degeneracy, the sons of Lorgar had fought well. They had been old warriors, preserved from time by the foul powers of the Warp, and they had combined ancient strategies with the unholy "gifts" of Chaos.
These Chaos Marines, however, were no veterans of the Horus Heresy. They had the strength, speed and wargear of a Space Marine, but they lacked the discipline, the unity of true Astartes. They fought like they knew how to use the weapons they had been given, but not how to actually fight – at least, not against foes who were more than their match. They were raiders, not warriors. It was like facing psychopathic children given the power of demigods. They outnumbered the Grey Knights nearly five to one, and yet the sons of Titan were cutting them down almost as easily as they did their mortal slaves. Where had the Forsaken Sons found such troops ?
He moved to parry a blow from a chainsword, turning it aside before beheading the Chaos Marine who had struck it. The unexpected weakness of the foe was a boon that they could not afford to waste. The slaughter of the Chaos scum, as righteous as it may be, may actually be the foe's intent, with the blood and souls of the dead added to the ritual sacrifices. By that point, his subconscious had pieced together the broken geometries of this room, and he knew what he had to do.
Purge them all, brothers, he pulsed to his squad. I will deal with the leader.
Before any of them could object, he moved, stepping through the holes and stitches of space. His vision briefly turned dark, and he felt things slither on his skin despite his armor – then he was back, standing atop the dais, less than five meters from the levitating magister. The creature cocked its head as it looked at him, something like curiosity flickering in its soulless gaze.
"Impressive. You are adaptable as well as powerful."
"I am the Emperor's wrath, monster. No task is beyond me in His service."
Its attention was focused on him. Good. He had to keep it that way. There was no telling how close the enemy's work was to completion, how easily it may be finished. The aether was thick with unfulfilled potential, taught with the threads of possibility that had been created through the sacrifice of countless thousands of innocent lives upon the altar.
This close to the creature, he could feel the power radiating from it. It was mighty, of that there could be no question. But …
"You are no daemon," he said, knowing he wasn't wrong, but unsure what the truth was. "Is there any limit to the depths of blasphemy to which the Forsaken Sons will sink ?"
It laughed. "I am the future of Mankind, puppet. All of Humanity's pathetic weaknesses removed, replaced with divine strength. My creator went through a thousand failures before he succeeded in creating me. Is this not the same thing which was done to you ?"
It was Asterios' turn to laugh. "Do you really think such pitiful insinuations are enough to make me doubt ? We are nothing alike. Regardless of how you came to be, you are just another Chaos-spawned abomination that I shall put down in the Emperor's name."
Something that might have been a sneer flashed on Jereb's face, before vanishing just as quickly, replaced by the same arrogant smile it had worn before.
"Watch then, son of a dead god. Behold what I have wrought. Behold the true power of Chaos !"
Crimson smoke suddenly filled the air as the blood that had covered the altar suddenly evaporated, revealing the object beneath. The altar had been crafted out of the same black stone as the rest of the pyramid, and was engraved with unholy runes that glowed with baleful energy similar to those the Grey Knights had seen on their approach of the Black Temple. This close, however, Asterios could actually recognize the runes. He had seen their kind before, not so long ago, during that grim campaign that had cost the lives of five of his brothers.
These were Colchisian runes, the infernal language of Lorgar's warrior-priests.
Once, Colchisian had been but one of Humanity's countless languages, pieced together from scraps after the coming of the Old Night and the sudden collapse of Humanity's first interstellar empire. But as the influence of the Ruinous Powers subtly crept into the priesthood of Colchis, the very language had become a vector for their corruption. Many of the Ordo Malleus believed that this had played a part in the ultimate corruption of the Primarch Lorgar, who had been cast down on Colchis after being stolen from the Emperor by the Ruinous Powers.
The cuneiform language had become a carrier of nightmares and madness, used to inscribe the bastardized representations of Chaos' un-words upon the Materium. There were still a handful of ancient Colchisian texts left in the galaxy that used a version of the language pre-dating its corruption (several of which were safely stored in Titan's most secured archives), and the Word Bearers sought their destruction with typical single-mindedness.
Asterios had learned all of this during his initiation, where portions of the Chapter's accumulated lore had been distilled into his mind through hypno-training. Since then, he had compounded that knowledge with more hands-on experience. He could not read Colchisian, but he could recognize some of the symbols covering the altar, and piece together an interpretation of their meaning.
He had been wrong. They had all been wrong, ever since they had seen the trails in the desert. The Black Temple did not store the psychic energy generated by the deaths of the human sacrifices. It was much, much worse than that.
It stored their souls. Now that the blood, and the final impressions of terror and pain that it held, was gone, the justicar could see the souls of the dead trapped within the altar upon which they had died. The altar that stood atop the dais was only the tip of a massive structure, carved out of a single block of stone, that plunged into the depths of the Black Temple like the roots of some eldritch tree.
The spirits of the Emperor's subjects who had been brought here and butchered were trapped in that stone, held between death and their ultimate destination. Not even the Grey Knights knew for certain what that may be : only the damnation of the heretics was sure. But whatever awaited mortal souls in the beyond, it couldn't be worse than this blasphemy.
"Ah, you have finally realized, haven't you ? The true nature of this great work of mine. Illumination comes to all sooner or later, whether in this life or in the next."
"You don't just intend to cause a Warp breach," said Asterios out loud, speaking to himself rather than the creature, too horrified to react to its taunts. "If you did, all you would need would be their pain and death. To keep their spirits trapped like this … a power source ?"
"You are clever. Marvellous, isn't it ? In life, these wretches served no purpose, but in death, their weak, blind souls will fuel my great work. They will lit a great pyre that will consume the boundary between this bleak reality and the realms of the Gods, not just here on this world, but across the entire system ! The void itself will be torn asunder, and all shall be brought under the aegis of Chaos !"
Images of what would happen flickered in Asterios' mind as he imagined the consequences. If the Berrenos system was plunged into a localized Warp Storm, all routes leading to and from it would be blocked, navigable only by ships crewed by the most expert of Navigators – or those, like the Forsaken Sons, who had access to heretical methods of sailing the Empyrean. The Imperial retribution fleet would be stranded at Berrenos, and the Azarok Sector would be cut off from the reinforcements it desperately needed. The Grey Knights would be unable to deal with the threats rising within that region.
It was unacceptable.
"You will be the first to die," continued to taunt Jereb. "You will fight, no doubt, but not even warriors such as you can withstand the infinite hordes of Chaos for long. You will die, and then it will be the turn of your little fleet. The children of the Gods will rend you apart, and build a kingdom upon the ashes of this system ! It will be … magnificent. And Berrenos will only be the start. We will drown the entire Imperium in a tide of Chaos, born of the burning souls of the Corpse-God's own subjects !"
For the first time, the creature moved its arms, weaving an arcane pattern in the air with its clawed fingers. The air shimmered between it and Asterios as light from a distant location passed through – a Warp portal, opened to another location on the planet. He caught a glimpse of a darkened room, and figures clad in black armor.
"You are strong, but you are alone. How many more Unbound can you kill ?" Its smile widened, and its voice deepened and echoed all around them : "Mahlone ! This one stands alone ! Send the others, and we can take him ! Perhaps even alive – how glorious would that be ?"
Asterios tensed, prepared to face whatever fresh horror emerged from the shimmering portal … but nothing came. The light emanating from it flickered and vanished as it shut down, and Jereb recoiled, eyes wide and black smoke rising from its burnt fingers. Whatever had just happened, it had taken the abomination by surprise. Treachery within the enemy ranks, perhaps ?
Hatred distorted the creature's features even further. "No matter ! I shall deal with you myself, and complete the work before your brothers can intervene. The glory of fulfilling Isleas' legacy shall be mine !"
A flash of recognition passed through Asterios' mind. Isleas. He knew that name from the briefings that had occupied much of the Grey Knights' time during the journey to Berrenos. In its folly, the abomination had revealed what might be a vital clue.
This would be a matter for later consideration, however. Right now, he had a mission to accomplish, lest this grotesque endeavour succeed. Jereb was rising before him, drawing power in preparation for an attack. Time seemed to slow as the justicar considered his options.
He did not doubt that he could defeat Jereb if the two of them came to blows. But the energies unleashed by their confrontation may trigger the final step of the ritual and make all of the Grey Knights' efforts for naught. Fulfilling the objective was more important than defeating Jereb – in fact, considering what the Chapter suspected was happening in Azarok, it was more important than the lives of his entire squad.
Brace yourselves, brothers, he sent to his squad. This is going to hurt.
The reply from Menoetius was nearly panicked.
Brother-justicar, what are you doing ?
In a single burst of telepathic communication, Asterios sent all that he had learned of the Black Temple's purpose and construction, along with every word Jereb had spoken, into the minds of his brothers. Even if he did not survive what he was about to do, the Chapter had to be informed of what he had learned.
The souls of the dead are the power source of this abomination. They are the key, he explained.
A pulse of understanding came back through the connection, and he felt his brothers raise up their mental defenses. The entire exchange had lasted less than a single heartbeat, and now it was time for Asterios to do what he must, as hundreds of Grey Knights had done before him.
Rising his Nemesis sword in both hands, Asterios turned his back on the ascending hellspawn, and plunged his weapon into the ritual altar. The power field surrounding the blade cut through the black stone with ease, and through the sword, the justicar made contact with what was trapped within. The entire chamber shook throwing cultists to the ground. Jereb roared in fury and reached for Asterios, aiming to throw him away before he could undo the creature's gruesome work.
But it would be too late. The world of flesh moved far too slowly compared to the realm of the mind, which was where Asterios' battle was now being waged.
He could feel them all. Thousands upon thousands of them, screaming in pain, horror and madness. Despite the terror, there were a few voices who were praying, reciting hymns of devotion to the Emperor, clinging to their faith even in this purgatory. But these sparks of sanity were but a drop in an ocean of torment and confusion. He caught flickers of burning memories – his hands moving on an assembly line; the sound of acidic rain falling on his hab-cell; a lover's kiss exchanged on his life's happiest day …
They were dead, all of them, men and women alike, and if there were no children, it was only because none of them had survived the gruelling journey to the Black Temple.
He felt his own identity begin to slip from his grasp, and tightened his hold on his own thoughts. He was Asterios of the Grey Knights, a warrior of the immortal God-Emperor. He was a son of Titan.
Turning his focus inward, he sharpened his will, forging his own awareness into a spear of aetheric energy. The howling of the spirits redoubled, yet Asterios noticed he was untroubled by it. Beyond the reach of this prison, he could feel a presence looming, potent and sharp. He recognized it as Jereb, who was trying to finish the ritual by brute force before Asterios could bring it all down. But Asterios could also sense that the howling of the spirits was acting as a barrier, keeping the abomination's will at bay. Had the dead servants of the Emperor somehow understood what he was attempting, and were now helping him as one final act of defiance against their killers ? Perhaps.
He threw the spear, aiming it straight at the containment wards. There was an explosion of psychic fire, which spread along the very channels which had been made to direct the ritual's power. In a raging inferno, the souls trapped alongside Asterios were ignited, released at last from their torment. The seraphic power, born from the spark of the Emperor's own divine might that dwelled within the soul of every Grey Knight, roared as it obliterated the sorcery of the Forsaken Sons. Close to Asterios and yet impossibly far, Jereb screamed in rage and denial as it, too, was annihilated by the blast. The Black Temple shook and began to collapse, as the vile sorceries that enforced its impossible geometries were undone.
Despite everything, the justicar could not help feeling a touch of horror at what he had done. The Grey Knight was no stranger to killing Imperial citizens : the necessities of the war against Chaos could not be avoided, lest all they fought for was brought to ruin. But to destroy the very souls of the innocent dead, whose only sin had been to be taken alive by the cultists and brought here …
Yet oblivion at the hands of a Grey Knight was better than being used as fuel for Chaos' ends. He could take comfort in that truth, cold as it was. Then he felt nothing more, as blackness took him.
Halfway across the planet from the Black Temple, Mahlone, Lord of the Unbound, let out a breath, and lowered his pistol. Before him, the wretched thing that had once been a standard Imperial communication servitor twitched and fell, a massive hole in its chest, its unholy screaming finally silenced.
"So, we are done with Jereb, then." Ygdal called out from behind his brother. Mahlone nodded. "I cannot say I will miss that foul creature … yet this is still cause for concern."
The two Unbound stood within a chamber deep inside their mountain stronghold. Iames was also present, and the only other soul left in the room. The Sorcerer knelt at the center of a complex ritual circle that occupied most of the open floor, blood dripping from his nose, ears and eyes. A patch of scorched stone stood before him, where had stood the portal through which the warriors that had fought in the Black Temple had passed moments ago. It was gone now, and the scar in reality it had left had been cauterized close by the psychic inferno unleashed by the … by whatever it was that had happened at the Black Temple.
"Twenty-four Unbound," noted Ygdal, "supported by Jereb's pet monsters, after they had already faced all the horrors of the temple's gauntlet – including poor Lucian. And not only did the enemy kill them, judging by the fact that the skies haven't started bleeding, they also stopped Jereb's plan. I don't know about you, brother, but I don't like these results at all. Just who are these warriors ?!"
Mahlone shook his head, hiding his own surprise at how total the defeat of the Black Temple's defenders had been. From the moment the attack had begun, they had received reports on the situation from Jereb, the False Daemon's words spoken by the now-destroyed servitor. When the attackers had reached Lucian, Jereb had torn open a portal with Iames' help, through which they had sent two full packs of Unbound to support the False Daemon's last stand.
And in the end, it had all been for nothing. Jereb had called for more reinforcements, but Mahlone had had neither the time to bring more warriors into the chamber, nor the will to send more Unbound to their deaths. He had ordered Iames to close the connection, and moments later, the communication servitor had started to scream and melt, until he had put it out of its misery.
"That is not for you to know," he finally replied. "I am already stretching the boundaries of Lord Arken's commands simply by involving you in this matter."
"Then why do so at all then ? Why take me from my other duties and drag me here ?"
"Because," said Iames suddenly, his eyes snapping open, "our leader didn't trust Jereb not to try something. Just as we sent our brothers to their doom, so too could it have sent something back if it had tried. He wanted you here so that you could watch his back if it happened."
"I thought I forbade you from peering into my mind, Iames," growled Mahlone.
"So you did, and so I have done. It doesn't take a genius to see your reasoning, my lord."
The Lord of the Unbound glared at the Sorcerer, unsure whether or not he was speaking the truth. In the end, knowing that he had no way to know for sure, he let it go. In all the time they had fought alongside one another, Iames had never given Mahlone cause to doubt his loyalty.
"Are you confident the way is sealed ?" he asked. "No one will be able to use it to get in ?"
Iames laughed weakly. "There is no way left, brother. Whatever our enemies did at the Black Temple, any trace of the portal was completely burned away. I felt the psychic shock wave all the way here, and I think even our fleet will notice it soon. For all our sakes, I hope that this particular foe will not take part in the war for Berrenos, or we might as well fall on our blades and get it over with quickly."
"I doubt this … psychic detonation is something they can do on command. No, this feels like Jereb's ritual went awry. And we need not worry about them participating in the rest of the battle. They came to deal with Jereb's ritual – the rest of this war will be fought by more conventional troops. The Black Temple was their only target in this system. They will want to save their strength for later."
"Even so, this will not be an easy battle," said Ygdal. "I have seen the preliminary estimations of the enemy strength in the system … The enemy troops match ours in raw numbers, and I have little doubt theirs are more disciplined. Marcus was still trying to get the Knights of Beribbon and the Cerulean Companies back in line when we left the command center and came down here."
"We have this fortress and those around it," said Mahlone. "The craft of our Mechanicum allies and the sons of Perturabo among us will compensate for the enemy's superior leadership. All that the armies under our command need to do is die fighting, and that is something even the least of the wretches we culled from the Wailing Storm can do."
"… You have grown cold, Mahlone."
There was no accusation in Ygdal's words, no condemnation. It was simply a statement of fact, and any emotion the Unbound felt at the observation was carefully concealed.
"Less so than our master. Or do you believe that Lord Arken truly regards us as brothers ? We are weapons to him, and have been since we were taken from the Dark and remade by Jikaerus' craft. And these warriors were to us as we are to him. Some are more useful than others, but they are all tools to our ends – just as we are tools to Arken's own."
The Unbound they had sent across to die in the Black Temple had been of the latest generation, raised from the children of slaves taken by the Forsaken Sons during the conquest of the Wailing Storm. Unlike when Mahlone and Ygdal had been created, the Fleshmasters had aimed for quantity over quality when they had inducted them into the ranks of the Astartes. Arken had demanded that the Fleshmasters make an army of these harvested children, and the Fleshmasters had delivered. Some of them had resented the order, seeing it as a waste of their talents, while others had relished the fresh challenge it presented. In the end, however, they had all done as the Awakened One asked.
The data they had collected by observing the first generation of Unbound fighting across the Wailing Storm had been put to good use. Instead of the customized designs used for the first generation, each aimed at producing a warrior who excelled at a particular aspect of warfare, the second generation had been conceived with numbers and adaptability in mind. The gene-seed harvested from fallen Forsaken Sons and Sons of Calth alike had been cultivated in vats, allowing the warband to stretch its limited supply of the priceless genetic material. Techniques first designed during the Heresy by Apothecaries desperate to replenish the ranks of Legions bled by the Warmaster's war had been put to use, breaking a number of oaths the Fleshmasters had once made, back before they had broken their most important vow of all.
Yet more desecration had taken place in order for the recruits to be ready in time for the Black Crusade. The bodies of dead Forsaken Sons, already stripped of gene-seed, were used as raw material by Dark Mechanicum machines. These Dark Tech constructs had transformed the remains of the dead into a biological liquid that, when intravenously fed into the future Unbound, combined with their omophagea implant, enabled them to absorb some of the experience of the fallen warriors. There had been some backlash from elements within the Forsaken Sons at this, but the reasoning of Arken, that this enabled the fallen to strike at the Imperium beyond death, had been enough to calm them down.
Many of the Aspirants who had survived the gene-seed implantation had been driven mad by this training process, their minds consumed by the endless scenes of violence and death. But Arken did not waste any resources, and these unfortunate souls had been sent to other commanders, who cared even less for their lives than Mahlone did. Some had even been given to the Blood Champion, cast into the Warp alongside him to fight in the jungles of Andros' Rest. The madness that followed the Secondborn Chosen would make even the dregs of the Fleshmasters' vats into useful fighters.
The Unbound Host had received the greater part of these warriors before the beginning of the Black Crusade. Their first engagement had been at Silberstadt, and they had proven that they could fight, at least. Most were aboard the fleet, ready to take part in the space battle that would begin as soon as Morkoth reached the Imperial armada. But Mahlone had kept a handful of packs planetside. A leader never knew when he would need some expendable shock troops to throw at a problem.
Mahlone wondered, briefly, if this was how Arken had felt when he had cast the first Unbound at the walls of Hive Anaster, on the planet Parecxis Alpha. Back then, the Fleshmasters' creations had yet had to prove their worth, and the Awakened One hadn't hesitated in using them in that assault's most dangerous part; even going as far as to deploy them alongside the Blood Champion, who wasn't known for his restraint and ability to distinguish between friend and foe.
Since then, Mahlone had risen to become a lord of his own, and the lives of those he called brothers were now his to spend. When Jereb had opened the portal, he had known that he was very likely sending these Unbound to their deaths, but had found that he hardly cared. With so many forces under his command, it was difficult to see any individual as anything else than a resource to be used.
Perhaps more elite forces would have been able to defeat the silver-armored intruders, and save Jereb and its plans. Mahlone doubted it, however, and it wasn't his part in Arken's grand design to kill them anyway. Jereb's demise and the loss of the Black Temple had served its purpose : it had confirmed that the so-called Grey Knights were indeed present among the Imperial retribution fleet.
Ygdal frowned, and Mahlone realized that he had been lost in thought for nearly a full minute.
"And you are fine with that ? I have seen the tactical projections. With luck and cunning, we might be able to defeat the Imperial forces currently in the system, but they are only the first wave. Without Jereb's ritual to summon the Warp tides and cut off any reinforcements, our prospects of survival, let alone victory, dwindle to nothing in the long term ! Are you satisfied with us being nothing more than sacrificial pawns hurled before the Imperial tide to gauge its strength ?"
Iames chuckled. The aura of power that surrounded him flickered with cold amusement.
"Our commander doesn't intend for us to be sacrificed, Ygdal. He has a plan. Don't you, brother ?"
"Indeed. Remember that I am the one here who was entrusted with Arken's designs." He regarded the two Unbound : one his old friend, a brother in all but birth; the other a comrade in arms whose bond they had forged in fire. "And while the Awakened One may consider us all expendable, I do not intend to die fruitlessly – and the two of you, at least, are not expendable to me."
Ygdal remained silent for several seconds before nodding.
"I trust you, Mahlone. Just … be careful. Somehow, I doubt Arken told you everything he has planned. Even those of us who aren't Chosen know that the Awakened One's ambitions reach further than simply laying waste to the Azarok Sector."
"At least none of the Ix remain," noted Iames, his face briefly contorting into a grimace of disgust. "Hateful creatures. You should have killed them all after we learned what the Pit – and they – really were, Mahlone. It's not like they were of any use in the Black Temple."
"Asim told us we still had a few centuries before even their eldest reached maturity," said Mahlone, repeating the same argument that he had made a dozen times since the muster of the Black Crusade. "It would have been a waste, both of them and of the resources it would have taken to make sure they were all dead. Besides, it might have made Jereb suspicious."
"Are we sure all of them are dead ?" asked Ygdal. "Iames is right, their destruction is one of the few silver linings to this debacle I can think of, but if there are any left …"
The Unbound Host, and the Forsaken Sons in general, were willing to use many horrific weapons, and had committed truly atrocious deeds without batting an eyelid. But even Mahlone could admit that what Asim's divinations had revealed about the Ix' true nature and potential final forms appalled him. Perhaps if there had been a way for the mutants to reach … that in time for the Black Crusade, Arken would have ordered it – one more catastrophe unleashed to serve the Awakened One's goals. But there hadn't been, and so the Pit's best use had remained using it to kill a sun.
"No," said Iames. "They were all at the Black Temple, I made sure of it. And there is no way any of them survived the destruction unleashed there."
"And even if they did, without the Pit, they would wither away … Alright. In any case, now that the Black Temple is gone, Morkoth should reach the Imperial fleet soon." Ygdal sighed. "I must return to the command center and make sure everything is ready if … when they make it through."
The failure of the False Daemon meant that they could no longer hope to draw the entire Berrenos system into the Warp, where the Unbound Host's experience at fighting within hostile Empyric conditions would have given them the advantage. But that didn't mean they had lost. The Imperial fleet was still reeling from the destruction of the system's outermost world, and the true war hadn't even yet begun. But Ygdal was right, though Mahlone felt obligated to defend their brother :
"Morkoth is a capable fleetmaster. You saw that in the Wailing Storm, and at Silberstadt."
"He is, but somehow I doubt our luck is that good that he will triumph over them and we won't need to fire a single shot. This is our first true void battle in realspace since Silberstadt, and the odds aren't nearly as skewed in our favor now as they were then. Are you coming ?"
"Not yet. Get back to the command center," Mahlone gestured to Ygdal and Iames. "I have one last thing to take care of."
The thing that stirred before Mahlone was called a Metatron. It had once been an astropath, captured during the battle of Silberstadt and remade by the Coven into a limbless, mewling creature trapped in a cybernetic chair that was at once its life-support unit and its containment prison. It had been brought here, in Mahlone's personal quarters, by servitors which had then been reassigned to the training cages of the Blade of Terror, where their lifespan was measured in days. No one but Mahlone knew it was there; indeed, no one in this system but him knew it even existed.
According to Asim's lecture when the Sorcerer of Blood had handed this one over to Mahlone, the Metatrons had first been created during the Heresy. When the Dark Gods had filled the galaxy with Warp Storms, isolating the pockets of Imperial resistance and making communication all but impossible, Horus' allies had used the Metatrons to remain in contact with one another as they prosecuted the war.
The Sorcerer Lord hadn't gone into the details of their creation, but he had explained that, because of what they had gone through, the Metatrons could only "speak" with one another. Normal astropaths couldn't hope to understand the words they projected across the stars, and this was for this reason that Lord Arken had commanded the Coven to create enough of the wretched things for all of his Black Crusade's separate forces to use.
Most communication was still taking place over astropathic channels which could be monitored by the Imperium, though the encryption cyphers designed by the Coven were as vicious as they were complex. Use of the Metatrons was restricted to these transmissions which couldn't be entrusted to more mundane star-speakers, and couldn't be risked being overheard by the enemy.
The message Mahlone had to send today certainly qualified.
Mahlone pressed a handful of runes on the Metatron's control panel, and spoke his authorization codes into its audio receptors, carefully enunciating each of the hundred-letters password's syllables. Any mistake, Asim had warned, and the Metatron would be compelled by its machine prison into unleashing its full psychic potential all at once – something a non-psyker like Mahlone had no hope of surviving. But, like all Astartes, Mahlone had an eidetic memory, and he made no mistake.
The Metatron twitched and moan, and the air in the chamber grew cold, while the light dimmed and the shadows seemed to lengthen. Across the tides of the Empyrean, what remained of the Metatron's soul was stretching out, reaching toward another of its kind. Somewhere in the Azarok Sector – Mahlone only suspected where exactly – another Metatron started to cry out, drawing its master's attention.
Mahlone waited for half an hour. Then, finally, the Metatron spoke :
"Mahlone."
The voice of the Metatron was barely recognizable as a voice. While the words were understandable, they were laced with the echoes of distant creams that were the Empyrean's equivalent of static. Yet still, Mahlone recognized the voice. It was that of his master, Arken the Awakened One, lord of the Forsaken Sons and supreme commander of the Black Crusade.
"Yes, my lord. It is I. I have news."
"How goes the war ?"
"The Imperials have arrived, and the first blows have been struck from both sides. They have yet to make planetfall, but I believe our forces are evenly matched. We will be able to hold for some time."
"Very well. But you would not have contacted me like this if this were all you had to report."
There was no implied threat in the Awakened One's words : he was simply stating a truth both of them knew.
"No, my lord. I have called to inform you that they are here. Jereb's schemes drew them out. As you predicted, the Grey Knights have come to Azarok."
The Metatron made it difficult to gauge Arken's emotional response, and the Awakened One wasn't the most open of souls even in person. Even so, Mahlone could hear something in his master's voice, though whether that was satisfaction, eagerness or cold fury, he wasn't sure.
"How many ?"
"Only a handful were deployed, but there might be more, and even those few were enough to tear through Jereb's defenses like paper. Their ships are hidden from our auspexes, even with the Dark Mechanicum's upgrades. I … apologize that I do not have more information."
"No need, Mahlone. You have done well. Focus on holding Berrenos for as long as possible. Buy time for our other plans to progress. Then … you know what to do."
"Yes," answered the Lord of the Unbound, bowing his head despite the fact Arken couldn't see him.
"We shall meet again in person before this Crusade ends," concluded the Awakened One.
The Metatron went silent. Mahlone waited several minutes to make sure that the conversation was over, then pressed the runes that would return the wretched creature to its slumber. Then, he departed his quarters. There was much yet to be done.
Perses walked through the corridors of the Promised Deliverance.
The transmitter was a relic from pre-Imperial times, and had belonged to the Chapter since its foundation. It was part of a network of several such devices, which, through the arcane secrets of the Dark Age of Technology, could communicate with one another regardless of the distance separating them – but only as long as they were in the same star system. Transition through the Warp jumbled their configuration, and they needed to be put together and re-synchronized after every Warp jump. Even with that limitation, the Adeptus Mechanicus would have paid a forge-world's ransom for the artefacts – even gone to war to recover them, had they been in the hands of anyone else. But the Grey Knights' leadership rightfully believed that such faster-than-light communication methods was too valuable an asset to the Chapter to trade for mere political gain.
It was rare for the devices (called "ansibles" by the Chapter's Techmarines) to be used. The Grey Knights rarely deployed in numbers justifying the use of several starships. But this was an unusual campaign. When the Grey Knights had deployed to join the retribution crusade, the vaults of the Chapter had been opened by the Techmarines, and the ansibles deployed across the fleet. The one before Perses had been transferred to the Promised Deliverance just before the ship had separated from the rest of the Imperial fleet, and now, as Perses pressed the activation runes in the correct sequence, it would establish contact with another located aboard the battle-barge Fire of Dawn.
The hololithic projector that had been added to the ansible flickered to life, projecting the image of a proud and regal face that looked upon Perses with an inscrutable gaze.
"Grand Master Koios," saluted Perses, bowing his head to his superior, the commander of the 2nd Brotherhood of the Chapter. Even as an hololithic projection, to be in the presence of one of the Eight, the founders of the Grey Knights, chosen by Malcador the Sigillite himself and blessed by the Emperor during the darkest days of the Heresy, was an honor beyond measure.
"Brother Perses. Where is justicar Asterios ?"
"He is recovering. The damage he sustained was severe, even if we were able to teleport back before the physical consequences of our victory caught up with us. I am here to report in his stead. Our mission on Berrenos was successful : the schemes of our foes there were stymied."
"Very well. Proceed, brother."
For the next few minutes, Perses described what had transpired on the surface of Berrenos. He spoke of the Black Temple, of the defenses the Strike Squad had encountered, of all that they had observed and of Asterios' own discoveries, transmitted telepathically before his desperate strike to prevent catastrophe.
"You and your brothers have performed well," said Koios when he was finished. "Justicar Asterios especially. Make your way back to the fleet, but be cautious. The enemy knows you are here now, even if they haven't detected the Promised Deliverance."
"I will transmit your report to Supreme Grand Master Janus."
AN : Yep, I went there. I am actually using characters from the canon. What do I intend to do with them ? You will have to wait to find out !
That chapter ended up much longer than I anticipated. And it could have been even longer : at first, I intended this chapter and the next one to be the same, with the POV switching from one to the next. I changed my mind.
The next chapter in question will focus on the spacebattle between the Imperial armada and the Chaos fleet. I have been playing Battlefleet Gothic 2, Stellaris, and reading The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell, so I am full of ideas and inspiration.
One thing I have noticed is that, in the Warhammer 40000 universe, starships appear to possess faster-than-light sensors, as they are able to detect ships dropping out of the Warp at the system's edge almost instantly. The way I see it, there are only two options : either a lot of writers forgot about the size of a solar system and the time it would take for the light of the ships appearing to reach them, or the auspex commonly in use throughout the Imperium and the forces of Chaos use some legacy of the Dark Age of Technology to break the limits imposed by the speed of light. I suppose detecting warships dropping out of the Warp could be explained by the fact that Warp technology doesn't exactly follow the principles of the Materium, and the disturbance caused by a ship re-entering the Materium could spread instantly throughout reality. I already touched that concept with the ansibles used by the Grey Knights in that last scene (basically, the ansibles are quantum-locked to each other like it was described in the Mass Effect series, and passage through the Warp disable their connection).
One last thing : in this chapter, I switched from using single quotes for spoken dialogue to double quotes. That's because, while single quotes look fine on Libre Office, I have found, after reading a bunch of stuff on ffnet using single quotes, that I much prefer having double quotes when reading there. I am not sure why. If you absolutely want a return to single quotes, tell me, but you will have to argue your case.
OK, that's it for now. I am still on sick leave, so I am going to try and write some more in the coming days. I have recently found my motivation for Warband of the Forsaken Sons is returning after a period where I had to force myself to write it instead of the Roboutian Heresy, so I might as well make the most of it while it lasts.
Zahariel out.