The Lone Lamenter

Part One

When Alcor Gerakides was thrust into the arena, no one expected him to survive. He had been given a crude blade, a laughable thing, and thrust inside.

His opponents were not prepared to fight a Lamenter. Alcor didn't bother using his sword. As the first wych bounded up to him, he realized that in a straight fight, he would be dead in two heart beats. So he threw his sword at the wych who effortlessly dodged it.

Only to be caught by Alcor in his massive fist. Before she could stab, struggles, or even scream, Alcor opened his mouth and bit her head off. Three quick chews later, Alcor swallowed and his mind began immediately sifting through the memories of the wych. Within a single heartbeat, his mind had found enough memories of the wych in combat for him to be ready for the next.

And that still wasn't enough for him. The next wych had crossed half the length of the arena by then and swung her bladed whip. Alcor's cheek was cut open. He thanked Sanguinius for preserving his eye. As his blood ran down his face, Alcor caught the whip and yanked it. The wych had not been expecting such insanity. Or perhaps she didn't care. But it didn't matter since she was lifted into the air by Alcor's vicious pull and a few heart beats later, had her head bitten off as well.

The remaining wyches did not attack immediately. Perhaps they were afraid, perhaps they were scheming, or perhaps they were simply surprised. But Alcor didn't want to remain on the back foot anymore. He sprinted forward, covering the distance as quickly as he could. The wyches, for their part, decided to charge as well.

One wych's memories hadn't been enough but the memories of two wyches was. Alcor managed to weave through the entire wych horde with all his vital organs intact. He dodged, side-stepped, ducked, leapt, rolled, and dived his way through, having anticipated each wych's movement. A thousand cuts and lacerations were the penalty for his audacity but they were a small price to pay. Alcor felt no shame in retreating and running.

With a light jump, he ended outside the arena and in the audience stand. He decided to eat another Drukhari just in case. There were screams and shouts all around him as many tried to pull out their weapons and blades in time. But the damage had been done. Alcor had eaten the Drukhari's flesh and had a general idea where to run.

The streets of Commorragh were homes to the worst excesses of the Drukhari. Even the quietest streets were filled with the screams and cries of the condemned and the damned. And there was no escape from it, no matter how much Alcor Gerakides tried filtering them out. As much as he wished to rescue the victims, he was rational enough to know that the odds were stacked against him. He promised himself to return later.

He fell asleep. Parts of his mind did. As his body automatically ran on muscle memory and navigated using the recollections of the Drukhari he had consumed, parts of his mind began dreaming.

"Will I be an angel like you?" he had asked the Son of Sanguinius standing in front of him. The angel had smiled radiantly, his warmth bright enough to even make his younger sister feel comfortable. Her sister had red hair, he recalled. She always made him comb it ten times and he had always complied.

"If you prove yourself." He had answered. And that had been motivation enough for Alcor to do his best.

His mind drifted further down the years. He had become an angel of the Emperor, a son of Sanguinius, a Lamenter. And his brothers had warned him as he was more human than all of them.

"Brother! Fall back!" he had yelled, power sword and bolter in hand as he fought off what felt like waves of Drukhari. He had dimly recalled his brother Mizar desperately fighting to get to him. A little further away, the rest of his brothers fought with a fury he could scarcely believe. The Drukhari did not believe it either for they retreated but not before managing to stab him through the chest and drag him away with them.

He awoke.

For a moment, he did not know why. He was still in Commorragh. The atmosphere was still tortured beyond sanity. Then he saw the Drukhari leading a chain gang of slaves. And at the end of the chain was a young human girl with red hair.

Before the Drukhari even knew it, his head had been crushed to a pulp by Alcor. The slaves, who ranged from humans to other xeno, stared at him. Their eyes were blank and their mouths agape. Alcor considered killing the xeno but decided against it. He had wasted precious time. Why had he even done it, he could not tell. He briskly walked up to the red haired girl, broke her shackles then picked her up. The girl did not struggle or protest. She was thin, very thin. Alcor did not know how much flesh did a healthy human have but he was certain that he should not be able to feel a human's bones. He resumed running but this time he did not dream.

He struggled with his own self. He had abandoned other humans in favor of one. He was quite certain that if his brother learned of his actions, he would be chastised and even punished.

"Sentimental as always, brother." the voice in his mind, which sounded so much like Mizar, said. Would Mizar actually have said that? Alcor did not know. Mizar had once said that the survival of the chapter was more important than any individual battle-brother's safety, just as how the survival of the body was more important than the safety of a limb. And yet he had forgotten his own words when Alcor had been captured. Would Mizar have acted like he just had, freeing those slaves? Alcor did not know.

There was the sound of a whine in the air and if Alcor hadn't eaten the Drukhari before, he wouldn't have recognized the sound. He dodged just in time to avoid being gored by a Reaver jet bike. Someone cried out in pain. It took Alcor a moment to realize that it was the girl he had rescued. He had dodged, forgetting his ward, and she now sported bruises on her arms and neck. Some of them were as large as Alcor's fingertips.

There was another whine as the Reaver decided to try his luck again. Alcor stood up and got ready to deal with the annoyance. But at the last moment, a memory of one of the wyches surfaced and he realized what the Reaver was about to do. As the Reaver got close, he suddenly twisted the jet bike out of the way and opted for the heat lance instead. His movements were even faster than the wyches and Alcor, despite his best efforts, failed to dodge.

If he had been even a little slower, his entire face would have been melted. As such, only his right eye was boiled into vapors. The heat lance was a close combat weapon and it had missed. But the shear heat was enough to injure Alcor. His body screamed and tried to repair itself but the damage had been too grievous. His eyeball was mended but sight did not return.

"Father," the words came unbidden to his lips. "What should I do?"

But it was not the wisdom of Sanguinius that came to him. His mind wandered to Mizar once more. He wondered if he would ever see him again. He had so much to discuss, so much left unsaid. He needed to apologize for his transgressions, his mistakes, his follies. Mizar had been his brother, his teacher, his friend. And dying here would be an affront to every moment he had spent with him.

The survival of the body was more important than the safety of a limb.

The Reaver did not expect the hulking monkeigh to jump at him. Doing so would be suicide. A Drukhari Jet bike could easily reach the speed of sound in an instant. It was, in fact, a favourite tactic of Reavers to use the sonic boom to disrupt their prey before they inevitably slaughtered them. As his head was crushed between the monkeigh's teeth, his last thoughts were not of anger or fear.

As deaths went, being devoured alive onboard his jet bike wasn't that bad.

"We must go." Alcor said as he landed on the ground. He did not pick up the human girl because he couldn't. His body had finally started betraying him. To be fair, tackling a jet bike like that was stupid. He had intended to just grapple the Drukhari off his bike. He had underestimated the speed and had instead ended up being carried away. The impact had been enough to break some of his bones and his strained body struggled to repair the damage. The landing from such a height had done him no favors either.

Alcor felt fear.

As the human girl wordlessly followed him, Alcor felt afraid. He had acted most unbecoming of an Astartes. He had let his emotions clouds his judgment, he had taken needless risks, he had failed his Chapter, and he had failed his brothers. He was now most afraid for the girl. If he failed her as well, he was truly a lost cause.

They both stopped. A lone Drukhari stood in the middle of the street. Alcor noticed the weaponry on him. The blade and the firearms would kill him. But that was not what caught his attention. It was the Webway Portal that the Sybarite was carrying that Alcor he needed. As he watched the Sybarite, Alcor wondered why he wasn't being rushed by Drukhari everywhere. Because he could hear them. All around him. They were laughing and cheering and shouting and moaning and slurping and slobbering and jeering and hissing and laughing at him. The cacophony would have driven an ordinary man insane. He suspected that it had even driven him a little insane. But somehow he understood why no one rushed to aid the lone Drukhari.

This was just another spectacle to them. The streets were now the arena for the Drukhari. And the lone Drukhari, the Sybarite, was to be his executioner.

The Sybarite, to the dismay of the Drukhari, did not rush to slice him up into pieces or stab him a thousand times. He was a soldier and he resorted to brutal efficiency by bringing up his firearms and opening fire. Alcor couldn't help but admire the xeno 's actions. Practical tactics seemed completely alien in Commorragh so a Drukhari Sybarite to actually use them felt comforting somehow. Alcor grabbed the human girl and ran despite the protestations of his body. The Sybarite shot the buildings around him, missing him by hair breadths. He did not seem to be in a hurry to destroy him. He was letting Alcor tire himself out. Regrettably practical.

The chase turned out to be short. Alcor was an Astartes but even he had limits. As he choked on the blood in his mouth, he prayed. He finally prayed to the Emperor. He prayed not for himself but for the life of the girl he had tried to save. He had ended up in a dead end and there was no way out. The Sybarite blocked the way.

"Sanguinius," Alcor whispered, trying to ignore the whining and the cheering in the background. "Mizar. I am sorry."

The Sybarite raised his weapons once again. This time, he couldn't resist and raised his arms slowly, relishing each moment.

The next moment, the girl suddenly darted in front of Alcor and threw a rock at the Drukhari Sybarite. The Drukhari, for his part, was so surprised that he didn't move out of the way. The rock harmlessly hit him. But it was enough.

The whine grew louder and then exploded into Alcor's field of vision in the form of a Raver jet bike. But Alcor had been ready this time. He easily plucked the Drukhari Reaver out of his seat and threw him against the walls. He grabbed the bike, which struggled against his grip. After aiming it at the Sybarite and pushing the human girl down, Alcor let it go. The now freed Drukhair vehicle sped through the air and impaled the Sybarite in the abdomen. The Drukhari's upper half was torn off while his lower half collapsed onto the ground. And the Drukhari, realizing that their prey was about to get away, descended upon him in a howling mass of writhing limbs and blades.

But they were still too slow. They watched in dismay as their prey grabbed the Sybarite's Webway Portal and activated it. They howled in rage as the two monkeigh disappeared.

Alcor Gerakides found himself on a grass plain with the bluest sky he could imagine. The wind had never felt gentler while the sun had never felt warmer. He let himself get carried away and closed his eyes, simply enjoying the moment. When he opened his eyes, he saw the human girl looking at him.

"My name is Alcor Gerakides, child." He said. "What is yours?"

The girl looked at him for a long time before speaking.

"Etro." She whispered. Alcor nodded. Etro, a fitting name.

Then he fell on his face and lost conscious.

~O~O~

Alcor: is a binary star system in the constellation of Ursa Major. It is the fainter companion of Mizar. Alcor was originally Arabic al-Suhā, meaning either the 'forgotten' or 'neglected' one.

Gerakides: is a Greek compound word made from the words Geraki meaning 'Hawk/Falcon', and the Suffix –Ides, meaning 'Son of'. Gerakides roughly means Son of the Hawk.