Chapter 5:
The humid summer wind swept through the tall, dry grass. Waves of golden wheat rolled across the plains with the wind in a soft rushing sound. The human settlers tilled the fields with their servitor harvesters. These simple folk had come to settle this frontier for the glory of their "God-Emperor". The more "spirited" of the heathen natives were rendered compliant tools for "the manifest destiny of mankind" by having their mental capacities revoked.
Their wiser kin educate themselves on "the glories of the God-Emperor" with the instruction of a sister of the Order of Sabine at their newly constructed chapel. Slowly but surely, the world of Naduesh was being reclaimed for the glory of the Imperium by the hymns of the martyrs, the toil of the faithful, and the blood of the savages. These simple folk lived in a tiny village that stood in the shadow of a long abandon hive-city. Now reclaimed by nature, these man made mountains serve as labyrinthian mausoleums to a long forgotten past.
The penitent and mournful choir of Sororitas rises on the wind as the Heathen Star that serves as this world's sun sets over the horizon. Yet to an attentive eye, blazing fast shadows sailed over the edge of the freshly encroaching night. The winds shifted and blew cool as a heinous chant echoed across the hills.
"Karlei karlei karlei karlei, karlei lai!"
Frightful shadows dressed in dark, spiked armor race above the verdant soil. Their war banners beat furiously in the great gale of blistering velocity. Reavers have tubes plugged directly into their arteries that feed them a steady supply of bright green liquid narcotics as their jet bikes hiss and whirr. Scourges screech as they swoop down out of the sky with their fell bat wings. Hellions cackle madly as the engines of their gliders set the crop fields alight.
As the last rays of the sun vanished over the horizon, the red-purple of twilight giving way to the cold black of night, the wailing of the alarm is sounded. It's too late. Before any man-at-arms can call his fellows to action, their paltry defenses are obliterated in a hail of canon fire. A great explosion tore the guard tower asunder. Green fire ran along the length of the palisades. The fortunate die in the first exchange of fire, their bodies obliterated by the overwhelming firepower of Aeldari technology.
Women and children desperately flee to the safety of the church as men trade what little shots they can with the invaders, but in the blink of an eye the dark eldar are upon them. With lightning speed, hellions snatch women off the ground. Scourges pluck infants out of the arms of their wailing mothers and hurl them against the stone walls of the sepulcher. The reavers dismember all who dare stand against them. The battle is over before it has even begun.
What's left of the human defenders bunker inside their homes and shoppes, desperately barricading any and all entrances. They stand no chance. With the majority of the enemy's fighting power eliminated, a blue ripple of energy manifested in the air and a webway gate opens in the town square. Dozens of kabalite warriors rush through, howling with a depraved zeal and carnal bloodlust.
Their splinter rifles ignite the nerves of their victims and makeshift barriers of furniture prove utterly futile against the chemically enhanced, super-human speed and strength of the Drukhari. The glowing eyes of black helmeted menaces leer rapaciously at the cowering humans. The razor tips of their claws rip and tear away flesh as the hissing and sputtering of electro-whips stun as they scar. The slaves are bound, beaten, and drug out onto the streets. Their tears and blood turn the dirt to mud.
With the town secured, five towering dark warriors with horned helmets and spiked armor emerge from the webway. The incubi, with their dracon Dha'khar taking point, observe the unfolding mayhem. Ragging crop fires extend far into the night. Civilians are drug out of the church, as the holy ground holds no power over these demons. Filled with the thrill of plunder and slaughter, the hungering of Slaanesh hangs think in the air. Drukhari hover over their prey, salivating like dogs over red meat. They begin to pet, paw, and grasp at whatever catches their eye and fancies their hunger.
The incubi can all sense it. They're about to lose total control over their minions. Dka'khar drug his monstrous klaive through the dirt as he stomped towards the ravenous pack. Without a word of warning, he raises the massive blade and crushes one of his warriors beneath it. In a flurry he slices his way through all within reach of his weapon, human and Drukhari alike. Lost in their hunger or blind with rage, some of the warriors leap at him. Dha'khar smashes their ribcages with his armored fists or shatters their skulls beneath his heel. The last of them is a drooling, screeching wretch whom the dracon seizes by the head and jabs his thumbs into their eye sockets. They wail in agony as the last specks of life sputter and twitch out of their body.
"Mwwuaaaghhhh!" Dha'khar howled as all the kabalite warriors fall to their knees and bowed their heads. Covered in the blood of a dozen of his own men, Dha'khar had restored order. "Wait your turn, half-born!"
Dha'khar panted heavily as he restrained his rage. With a wave of his hand, he gestured for his lieutenants to approach.
"That was too easy," he snarled.
"No Sororitas," one of his lieutenants said.
They had picked this village because they knew it was lightly defended, but not this lightly. The archon had given his orders and the arbiter had supplied the information.
"There's supposed to be a coven here," the second lieutenant chimed in.
The third glanced over to the church. There were women dressed in the red and black habits of the corpse-seer's daughters among the other monkeigh filth. Yet none wore the golden power armor nor carried the bolters nor flamers of their battle sisters.
"Perhaps these aren't the warrior kind," he said.
"Or perhaps the arbiter isn't half as smart as everyone thinks he is," the fourth snipped.
His peers snaped their heads and fixed their searing gazes upon him. Dha'khar stormed up, ripped the upstart's helmet off and viciously battered it against his head. Jalaqier fell to the ground, lip split and blood rushing down over his brow.
"Be silent, filth," Dha'khar snarled, "your lineage no longer protects you. If I catch a half breed like you slandering a true born again, I'll take you as my "treasure" till we return and I report your treachery to Lord Lau-Fey." The dracon knelt down over Jalaqier. "I will crush your coccyx and leave you a cripple. So please," he stroked Jalaqier's face as he spoke, "disobey."
"My lord!" the cry of a soldier called to Dha'khar.
The incubus commander leered at Jalaqier for a distressingly long moment before turning his attention away.
"What?" he snapped.
"The little monkeigh bitch was attempting to call for help," the warrior said as he flung the ornately dressed daughter of the seer-corpse.
Her hair was white and sigils of the Imperial Inquisition tattooed her face. This woman was no mere recruit. White vestments hung over her red frock. But more than anything else, there was no fear in her brown eyes; only fury. She spat, hissed, and shouted in her primitive babble.
Dha'khar rolled his head as he flapped his hand in the motion of a mock mouth. Then he pulled out a small gun, pressed it against her jugular and fired. The human woman grasped at her throat as she violently coughed. Between fits of gasping for breath her primitive monkeigh chatter became comprehensible to their cultured ears.
"Gurgh! Urgh…filthy-guh-xenos!" she snarled, "May the light of the God-Emperor smite you were you stand! Your degenerate breed will be wiped clean from the galaxy!"
Dha'khar slapped her in the face, "shut up."
The daughter of the corpse seer grit her teeth as she stared nova hot murderous death at the incubi. This one would not be so easily broken.
"She was attempting to use this, my lord," the soldier said as he handed Dha'khar a primitive communicator.
The dracon took it. His eyes scanned the various buildings as he mulled the device in his hands. Then he turned around abruptly and pointed at his lieutenants as he addressed them.
"Arken, see the slaves ready for transport. Eufan, Jalaqier; thoroughly investigate these buildings. We don't need any survivors or escapees to give away our position. Orishar, we're going to put on a show."
"Yes sir," they all replied.
Three of the four fanned out to attend to their duties as the other remained by his commander's side. Jalaqier kept an eye and ear turned towards the unfolding spectacle as he wandered towards the row of shoppes on his assigned side of the street.
"You'll have the honor of feeding first," Dha'khar told Orishar, "but only on my signal."
Orishar laughed fiendishly as he removed his helmet and tossed it aside along with other fragments of his armor. He seized the human woman and pulled her in close to sniff her hair. His hands groped at her chest as Dha'khar activated the communicator.
Jalaqier entered the ruins of the first shop. He could hear Dha'khar speaking the monkeigh's primitive tongue. As he was speaking, a heinous choir of pained pants from the human woman and the enthralled grunting of Orishar filled the air.
For some reason he couldn't quite place, the sound unnerved Jalaqier. He'd been party to it first-hand more times than he could count, but something was different about it today. It was one part fear, for it reminded him of his fate as Yr'lendriel's toy. Another part was that of unmitigated envy. I wanted to have her. Lastly, there was a revulsion creeping up his throat as Slaanesh whispered in his ear.
"Fuck everything while you still can!"
The hungering was so severe as to make his knees buckle. He could feel his body beginning to decay and age. His fears and doubt only served to exacerbate the hunger. He had to feed…but if I get caught…he was disgusted by the cautious quibbling mess he had become. Father's right about me.
Jalaqier hunched over his knees as he buried his face away and held his hands over his ears.
"Mwwaahhahaha!" Slaanesh cackled, "What's that going to do? Feed me you limp dick fey simp!"
Tears welled in the corners of Jalaqier's eyes. Away from the sight of his fellow predators, he succumbed to his weakness and wept. He hated everything that he was: human, Drukhari; but also wasn't. His life flitted between a menagerie of posts. He was a half-breed true born. What a sinister joke that is.
"Do you get it yet?" the jester snipped.
But Jalaqier did not want to hear it. A single voice of an ethereal, demonic power omnipresent in his mind was already one too many. Head in hands, he curled up into a ball against the wall and meekly wept. The arbiter is right, I am a child scared of the demon.
As he sat there, rocking himself back and forth like an infant, his mind drifted to a time long ago. When his mother would hold her precious baby in a loving embrace and rock him to sleep with a gentle hum. He remembered the amber of her eyes and how her gentle tune would drown out all the screams and shrieks of the Dark City. It was a sweet but melancholic tune.
As the incubus warrior laid there in a groveling heap, his sylvan ears twitched as they picked up a strangely familiar tune. He shot his face forward.
"It can't be," he muttered under his breath.
The fiendish warrior rose to his feet, armor clanking with each step. He followed his ears. The sound was faint but it was undeniably coming from within the building. There had to be stragglers hiding in the ruined heap of stone and timbers. The sound led him down a stairway into the basement.
With every step he took the dim sound grew louder and louder. Jalaqier looked down at the stone floor. It was covered in soot. In the dust there were tracks, human tracks that vanished into a wall. Jalaqier placed his head at the side of the wall and his finely tuned sense of hearing could indeed pick up the distinct sound of several human females. One was weeping and the other was humming that tune.
Jalaqier ran his armored hand across the stone, looking for some manner of switch or concealed button. It was a well-constructed safe room. Not the sort of thing that could be beaten down by his raw power. However, it would stand little chance against a proper power rifle or haywire grenade…but that would mean ratting out his own discovery.
"They're so afraid. Give them every reason to be. Take their pain for your pleasure," Slaanesh whispered to him, "Do it while you still can."
Jalaqier would not be denied this. The hunger clasped at his soul. His body continued to desiccate and the blood flow from his injuries worsened. He quivered at the thought of what he would do to their bodies as they begged him to stop with their "ooh ooh ah ahs". Jalaqier licked the stone as he slowly clenched and unclenched his teeth. I have to get in there! They are mine!
He ran his hand over a lump in the stone. He brushed the dust away to reveal a Drukhari rune. In a great circle that spanned the length of a human's arm span were letters of a sylvan language. Lost in the hunger, Jalaqier paid no mind to that detail. In this feral trance he noticed that there were some that had the dust wiped away from them. They spelt the word for "open". Jalaqier pressed one in after the other and the wall did exactly as it was told.
With the pained churning of old gears, the stone walls ground as they slowly peeled open. Jalaqier snickered with sadistic glee as his eyes did indeed did behold two human females. One was an old crone with greyed hair and the other was delightful dish he simply had to have.
His body lunged forward, acting on its own primal will. He couldn't wait for this decrypt excuse of barrier to finish moving of its own accord. Jalaqier had to have them, before Dha'khar would confiscate what was rightfully his conquest. The incubus dug his claws into the stone and forced the stone doors from their tracks with a mighty shove and heinous "krek".
"Hello my lovelies," he hissed as he flicked his tongue out of his mouth.
The young woman screamed as the old crone held her nerve. Her eyes glared defiance at the towering, lanky monstrosity that forced its way into their sanctuary. The crone plucked a vial of treacherous liquid from her necklace and seized the other female by her mouth. She ripped off the top in an attempt to force the young woman to drink it.
"Bitch!" Jalaqier roared. He knew exactly what the crone was attempting to do. As quick as she was in her actions, they still paled in comparison to the speed and grace of an Aeldari. In the blink of an eye Jalaqier had closed the distance, wrenched the poison free out of the old woman's hands. Then he viciously back handed her into the wall. The Drukhari chuckled at the sight of her frail old body smashing against the stone. The he turned his eyes towards the real prize.
With her curly blonde hair hanging in her face, the young human female wept on her knees as she pleaded in her gibberish monkeigh speak. Jalaqier grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up off the floor. He sniffed her terror and pain as she gasped for breath.
"Shut your pretty whore mouth," he whispered sinisterly in her ear, "or on second thought…let's put it to good use."
"Keep your hands off her, you edgy fuckboy!" the old woman shouted in flawless Drukhari.
Jalaqier sneered as he slowly turned his head over his shoulder. There the old woman stood, beaten and bloody, but still defiant. He couldn't believe it. He loosened his grip and the young woman fell to the ground in a coughing fit. His greasy black hair hunger in front of his soulless black eyes.
"So you want to be made an example of, crone? Witness what awaits you, sexually sufficient monkeigh," he told the young woman.
Then the incubus lunged across the room. He grabbed the old woman by the throat, choking the life from her frail old body. With his free hand he danced his fingers in between hers.
"I'm going to break off your fingers and eat them in front of you. You will plead for mercy as I peel the flesh from your bone. You will beg for death but not receive it. I'll leave you just alive enough to watch as I take the pretty one and-,"
"Jalaqier!" she stammered.
That voice. It can't be! Jalaqier snapped his head towards the old woman. Her amber eyes had gone soft. In place of anger and defiance, they were now filled with anguish, sorrow, but also sparkled with a hint of joy. Beneath the wrinkles, the similarity could not be denied. The old woman reached her hand out and touched Jalaqier's face and he instinctively knew the warmth of her touch. Even after all these decades, he never forgot her smell.
"Mother?" all anger and hate fell from his voice as he asked the question. The old woman smiled. "My boy. My baby boy."
Jalaqier was left frozen, utterly bereft of the ability to speak or act. His mind raced with a hundred conflicting thoughts. In the same breath that his soul sung with joy, it too wept in shame. There were so many questions he wanted to ask: how is this possible? Is this where you went? Have you missed me? Are you ashamed of me? Do you hate me?
"Shhh shhhh shhhh," she gently hushed him, "Hush now, my sweet prince."
At that, Jalaqier broke. Tears cascaded down his cheeks as he gasped in between sobs. The "disciple of terror" fell to his knees and buried his face into his mother's stomach. She lovingly stroked his hair and patted his head. Jalaqier had often felt the ceaseless jittering of inferiority in his bones and the poison of self-hatred filled his stomach. But never before had he felt the crushing blow of shame. It felt as if his body were being condensed tighter and tighter inside a blackhole. Yet the warmth of his mother's touch soothed his soul.
Then Slaanesh spoke.
"Yes!"
Jalaqier's eyes grew wide and his lips trembled as he quietly pleaded with her, "no."
"You've longed for her touch…,"
"No!" he yelled as he withdrew away from his mother and buried his face in his arms.
"You've never loved anyone else…,"
"NO!" Jalaqier roared as he shot up and paced like a caged animal about the room.
"Give me her and you'll feed off your own self loathing for the rest of your immortal life."
"I can't! I can't! You won't! You can't have her!" Jalaqier shouted at the sky.
Jalaqier's mother placed a warm hand upon her son's face and turned his attention back towards her.
"She Who Thirsts is speaking to you, isn't she?" she asked.
Jalaqier's eyes darted back and forth as he looked down at his feet.
"My love, truly he is your son," she said aloud to the absent archon.
"Don't call him that!" Jalaqier snapped, "He doesn't deserve your affection after he threw you away to feed on your sorrow."
Jalaqier's mother snorted as a precocious smile reddened her cheeks.
"Is that what he told you?" she asked, "Well, I suppose it's what he tells himself. It's easier for your kind to wear the mask of the monster than be honest with yourselves, I suppose. Jalaqier, sometimes cruelty is a mercy and kindness is cruelty."
She closed her eyes and sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry to ask this of you my sweet child, but I cannot be taken alive by the Drukhari twice."
Jalaqier wanted to protest but he knew better. He knew firsthand why he didn't want his mother to be taken alive by his kind. He fought back the tears and huffed like a feral beast till he had composed himself. The Drukhari closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He was prepared to honor his mother's request for a "cruel mercy".
"It won't be long before another dark eldar comes along. Jalaqier, you must promise me something," she said as she nodded towards the young woman, "you have to get her out of here alive. You have to keep her safe. Do you understand?"
"Yes mother," he replied.
"Good," she smiled as tears welled in her eyes and her voice broke, "I love you, son."
"I love you mommy."
She wrapped her arms around him as he withdrew a long, straight dagger from his armor. With a single thrust, he penetrated through her underarm, directly into the heart. With one final gasp of pain, she was released from her suffering and her body fell limp across his shoulder.
Again, Jalaqier was left immobile by the flood of his emotions. Al the while Slaanesh screamed in pleasure.
"Ahhh ahhha hha ahaaa…yes!," she panted wildly, "Oh your pain! Your hurt, your misery, your loathing; it's all so good!"
And at that Jalaqier's body begun mending itself. His wounds mended and desiccation vanished. It was as if he had never suffered any blemish in his life. He hated himself, Slaanesh, and all reality for it.
"Fuck you, cunt," he snarled at the Prince of Pleasure.
"Oh, you wish my love. You're mine for eternity. All you do is for me."
He wanted to fall apart. To just lay down, die, and let his soul be drug to the realm of Slaanesh but he had work to do. A promise to keep.
Jalaqier turned his eyes upon the young woman. She was left aghast and confounded by the wretched pageant that had played out before her eyes. She tried to speak to him in her primitive tongue but Jalaqier had neither the time nor the patience. He strolled up and knocked her out with a single well placed punch to the temple. The incubus then threw her limp body over his shoulder.
On his way out of the hidden chamber, he stopped at the secret wall. He looked upon the lifeless body of his mother. If for some reason they could identify her the haemonculi could reanimate her corpse or clone her. That was something he couldn't risk. So Jalaqier dosed her body and lit it aflame. He carried this mystery woman who smelled similar to his mother out of that place as his mother's ashes fluttered on the wind.
Jalaqier snuck out of the ruins as the rest of the kabal was enthralled with whatever lurid horror his fellow incubi were inflicting upon the corpse-seer's daughters. He snuck up on a reaver, crushed his skull in his hands, and tossed the human female's body on the jet bike. Jalaqier mounted the bike and whirred off under the cover of night and the blazing smoke of the field fires.
The young half-breed had no clue where he was going or where he even was. All he knew was that he had to get away. For all the times he had failed his father as a Drukhari, he wouldn't fail his mother as a man.
