Klye Bransonch didn't understand politics, didn't understand statecraft, didn't understand the rationality as to why his little country was going to war with the biggest and most powerful nation on the world. In the past they'd always escaped their predation, when he was a boy it was said they survived always where other countries fell because they were a hardy and tough people, hardened by centuries of privations living on their islands, wresting survival and some small measure of prosperity from the seas. It was said they alone could truly claim its bounty, they alone could withstand its fickle nature, the displacement of schools of fish, the battering waves, the storms. They were superior not because of wealth or resources, but because they got by on little and survived in spite of the conditions that would have withered lesser peoples.
When he became a man he realized that because they had nothing they were not worth taking, that the cost would outweigh the gain, this was the true reason they still stood alone and independent where other nations had fallen to the Great Central Empire of Barut. But something had happened, and the government that had long seemed something superfluous had called a conscription levy, there were promises of great prosperity to come from the stars and allies that would help them crush Barut and set themselves as the master of fate for the world.
Rather than wait for his turn in the levy to come, sitting in anticipation for a conscription order that may never come, he'd volunteered in a stab of truly self-mortifying fatalism. For he did not believe the story of allies from beyond the stars, he'd never believed the myths that humans came from a faraway world long, long ago. He knew that this was the world where humans had always lived, that the myths were just that; myths, there was no more claim on the part of humanity to the galaxy than he had to a plantation in the fertile lands of Barut. Even with allies from other nations, it would not take Barut long to crush them all and the repercussions of an imminent loss would be dire indeed, better then to die fighting the Barutians where they lived and in so focusing on killing this old foe, perhaps a miracle could happen, but he would not wait for one, he'd take his one grip on fate and either shake it loose or let it shake him apart in turn.
For Private Klye Bransonch of the 323rd Marine Weapons Company, fate seemed to be very close this day, more so than any other. The crude airfield the Barutian 3rd Expeditionary Force had established on Bediuan Island was too heavily defended and he had to take some cold measure of introspective comfort in knowing he would die before he started watching the Mikroi Federal Republic begin to lose territory and whole towns' worth of sons. He didn't leave a wife or children, he had another brother and a sister to care for their mother should the Barut somehow be defeated or chose not to invade the entirety of Mikroi. All these things occurred to him as he continued the fight, the chatter of automatic weapons, the harsh report of his own rifle and others like it, the screams of the dying, the din of explosions and petroline engines, the heat of the sun burning above and below as if reflected off concrete and sand, the grit of soil and sand and rock thrown across the battlefield from artillery and mortars and field-gun fire.
"Right one five, down two."
He grasped the 60 millimeter mortar from his ammunition pouch and held it over the tube, "Hang round." He shouted.
"Drop!"
He released the round and it slid down the tube and the primer ignited setting off the propellant charge with a pop and the round shot out, missing an oncoming enemy tank but striking amid a cluster of infantry surrounding it.
They had displaced three times, displaced…they had retreated, they were falling back, they didn't have the operational strength to dislodge the forces around the well defended airfield, but there was nowhere to fall back to anymore, into the flattened stands of trees then back to the beach, and there they would be overrun. They were outnumbered eight to one at full strength, and his company was far below strength now, none of the other Mikroi Marine Companies had made it this far inland, they would be slaughtered, but he was not about to accept death calmly, he would fight until the end, which would come soon.
"I trust you to my brother Vulkan, your fury is well matched to that of his sons."
"Father-"
"I am not your father, Kheyan, I am your primarch and commander."
"Of course, sire…I know…do you send me away because I am a psyker?"
His lord had let out a harsh chopped laugh…he seemed to laugh more now, speak more calmly, even when the pounding of the nails was so pronounced that his other sons could feel it, "No, Kheyan, I send you to learn more, I have seen you in the cages, you fight as furiously as the best of the Hounds and better than most, but they tell me you neglect your witch-gift even though you are immensely powerful as such things are measured. I send you to fight with my brother's Salamanders because along-side your cousins you may learn to additionally temper your abilities through necessity."
He had lowered his head in a display of shame that his lord would rarely countenance, "I hate it…being a psyker."
He had expected a blow, Angron did not suffer warriors showing shame or lowering their eyes, but none came, "Why?"
"It is unnatural." Then, he had ventured, "You hate psykers."
"It is also a weapon, there is little more that can be taught to you about the blade or bolter or of strength of arms you have not already learned and mastered, but you have another weapon in this witch-gift and you must hone it, become the war hound your potential dictates, then return stronger." Blood had begun to drip from Angron's nose and he had wiped it away on the back of his gauntlet. "And I do not hate you, Kheyan."
He had not yet had the chance to fight alongside the drakes, when the transfer had occurred the XVIIIth had been in the midst of transfer to compliance of a cluster of some thirty worlds, all in various stages of primitive development. Lord Vulkan had split his legion into various battalions each dedicated to compliance of a world that was not ready to accept Imperial Rule, this world in question was post-industrialization, but was still primitive, subdivided along national and regional identities, their industry supplemented agrarian concerns and military conflict, they had not yet sent up even primitive rockets into space. Representatives of the XVIIIth and Auxilia had made overtures to a number of nations, all of which were ready to accept compliance, but there still stood a single strong military empire that would have to be crushed and dislodged before the world could be brought fully to compliance. Lord Vulkan sought to honor alliances, and as the various nation states rose up against the planet's primary empire, he had detailed Kheyan's forces and the Salamanders he served beside to assist them. Even now he sat in the hold of a Thunderhawk as it descended towards a small island where forces of one of the hardy independent oceanic nation states struck against the Barut Empire.
"Cousin?"
He opened his eyes to look into the onyx face of Zabual, a sergeant of the 38th Battle Company's Fire Drake detachment, his Tartaros pattern armor resplendent with brass accents depicting the heraldry of their legion and the fire and drakes of their world. "We are two minutes from target, prepare yourself."
"Aye."
The fire drake nodded, smiling as he did, the good nature of his legion showing even in these preparations for battle.
To Kheyan's left and right sat five more Warhounds, each outfitted with a chain blade a slung phobos pattern bolter and holstered phobos pattern bolt pistol along with a pair of melta-charges. There were other weapons as well; Jeus carried a meteor-hammer, Bron had a pair of hatchets, Kord a chain flail. Their role was to be a spearhead element that would destroy the hardened positions of the foe while the Salamanders began their advance. The Fire Drakes forming the belly of the spear-blade while the pyroclasts and astartes of the XVIIIth swept up the enemy infantry elements. Elsewhere in the offensive force his other battle brothers were divided into squads of 5 to perform the same role, moving ahead of the Salamanders to breach and destroy enemy positions and hard-targets. Thirty of Dorn's sons were also among this element, the stolid warriors of the VIIth equipped with breacher shields to act as a mobile fortification for the apothecaes and communication element.
Zabual lifted his thunder hammer from where it was sitting on the deck of the Thunderhawk and spoke in a loud tone to be heard over the sound of the ship's engines. "Remember, our allies also lay siege to the airfield, you will mark them by their olive uniforms and camouflaged helmets, we cannot commit ourselves to saving them, but at the same time, we should do what we can to avoid harming them."
Kheyan rested his hand on the hilt of his Dussack and took a series of deep breaths as he began to feel the tingling itch in his eyes as he began to draw forces of the immaterium around him. The fans in his helmet kicked on as the heat began to rise inside the enclosure, he felt a series of what seemed to be static snaps in his brain as the powers of the warp sparked from the nails driven into his brain. He was one of the few psykers in the legion that had opted to receive the Butcher's Nails and while some said they drove psykers berserk or destroyed their minds, he'd never found them to be much more an occasional annoyance when his witch-gift sparked at their edges, a moment of peculiar discomfort that permeated his body for a split second when the snaps occurred, odd but not painful. Angron had tried to discourage the psykers from taking the nails, as he had his sons until he finally enacted a prohibition against the implantation after Leman Russ had accosted them on Ghenna. He still remembered the treasonous words Angron had challenged Russ with, but he had to admit, they did make a great deal of sense. Compliance was an odious concept when looked at through the lens of an individual right of self-determination, tithe levies were a form of slavery as many of the tithed guard and auxiliaries were not free to leave their position, relegated to stay in the levied regiments and tercios until deemed no longer of use or of more use elsewhere or until death rendered their duty discharged. Worlds of little worth, people of no substantive value were forced into compliance or death for no other reason than the face they shared; a genomic base similarity, they were humans and humans were to serve the Empire and of course any and all other races were to be slaughtered.
The discomfort the Nails caused was a fair trade off for the feeling of indestructible fearlessness they gave him, if anything they eliminated his willingness to pull on his psychic powers as he rarely found himself taking the time to concentrate on them. Perhaps that was what Angron spoke of, he needed to turn the usage of his abilities into something reflexive, something he would do even while under the ecstasy of the nails' call to battle.
Klye looked to his right and left as he heard the sudden absence of weapons fire coming from the cover behind which he and his fire-team were arrayed. For a moment he'd almost reflectively assumed they were all dead and he found no real lack of solace in the concept that he would be next in a matter of moments. But the firing hadn't stopped because of their death but rather because a strange sound seemed to echo behind and just slightly over the sounds of battle.
It was a distant growl slowly building to a roar, it seemed to come from everywhere at once, as if the sky and air itself was expressing distaste over the bloodshed occurring on this small spit of land in the pale blue green oceans that lay under it. He could almost feel it in his skull, like something heavy was weight down on the atmosphere, and when he looked up he saw streak of smoke high in the sky, like a rocket's contrail on a cold morning from films he had seen as a child. The contrails stopped, but he thought he saw small dots far off in the blue, descending…falling would perhaps be more apt. What could get so high in the sky, it had to be miles up? The planes that existed couldn't go that high that he knew of, behind him he could hear another roar, throaty and deep and punctuated by a scream, not a thing that could come from a human throat or any creature he knew of, it was unending. As he looked back through the bent and shattered palms he saw huge shapes skirting over the water, fifty or sixty feet above it, almost like a plan but too big and too blocky, it was huge…huge as a boat, painted green with a huge reptile's head painted in white on the nose.
Did Barut have such aircraft? Were they being flanked? Was this the end? If Barut had vehicles like this, what could they do to stop them? This was it, they'd all be killed, and Mikroi would be next on the path of Barut's consolidation…there were no allies from beyond, none of the other countries would come to their aid, he'd die here today without them having put a dent in Barut, without even giving a proper accounting of themselves. All that was left now was surrendering to despair or…to kill out of spite. He went back to the sights of his rifle when he noticed that even the Barut were frozen in awe of what was occurring, looking up to the sky as the strange falling objects got bigger, strange tear-drops of metal, nearly a dozen of them…all falling towards the ground. He started to take aim when the scream and roar of the approaching aircraft almost deafened him, a blast of hot air washed around him, pushing down and throwing dirt and debris around, he looked up to see one of the great green aircraft holding stationary above him, a furnace blast of wind blowing down at them as a ramp dropped at the aircrafts nose and from down the ramp came giants, jumping twenty feet to the ground. They were shaped like men, but covered from head to toe in what looked like tank armor. Five wore dirty white with dark flat blue accents on their shoulders, huge packs on their backs made of the same armor belching hot air from a pair of exhaust vents. Behind them came more of the giants in the same green as the ship, their armors mostly ornate and accented in black and brass with stylized flames painted on some of them. The biggest of them carried giant shields texture with what looked like lizard hides and huge sledge hammers. One of them turned its head, red eyes glowing through its mouthless helmet like some ancient warrior regarding him specifically for a moment then he started sprinting with the four other giants in white armor towards the Barut lines.
Klye could feel an oppressively murderous intent directed towards the Barut lines and the Barutian Expeditionary Forces started to fire after a moment of panic. The bullets didn't even phase the giant as it charged, a curved blade in one hand, a mammoth pistol in the other. He aimed the pistol at a knot of Barutian soldiers and fired, a loud pop then a hiss accompanying the firing as a large brass casing kicked out of the weapon, the Barutian soldier exploded from the waist up, the force of the detonation of…whatever it was…knocked down five other soldiers around him. One of the giants in green pointed some sort of weapon with an oblong bore at another group of Barutian soldiers and a trail of translucent orange speared into one of infantry men, a loud screech pierced the air as soldier instantly turned into sparking ash, the soldiers around him caught fire, one the two closest lost limbs in a cloud of ash their screams quickly choked off as they fell to the ground.
The light tanks tried firing at the slower plodding giants with the shields, one brought up his shield as the 57mm projectile struck, the giant halted, staggering a half step as the round struck high on the shield tipping it back in his mighty hand, but it righted the shield, straightened its knees, and continued onward. More of the green giants, maybe twenty, in plain armor moved over to where Klye and his squad remained ducked behind a mound of dirt and rock, firing their equally giant rifles at the Barutians. Klye and the remainder of the 323rd were too stunned to add their fire, he wasn't even certain it would be of benefit at this point. One of the giants in the white and blue armor was tearing one of the tanks apart…literally…tearing it apart with some sort of growling blade, the edge covered in hooked teeth moving on a track. From behind their line, Klye saw a group of more giants, these in armor of yellow with black and brass accents, they all carried large shields, thick and large enough to cover nearly their entire bodies, their armor was more like the giants in white and blue and the normal green armored giants that had taken up position around him. They marched shoulder to shoulder in perfect unison, their movements almost mechanically precise as they fired their rifles over a notch in the shield, when they cleared the cover they split into groups of two, each forming a chevron as the green warriors around them fell in behind the cover they had produced and began to march forward.
The giants in yellow had an icon of a clinched fist on their thick plate of their right shoulder and the armor plate on their face was thicker, otherwise the armor was identical to that of the warriors in white and green though even more spare as utilitarian in terms of details and accents. Klye almost jumped when another warrior walked up to them, he was not holding a weapon in his hands, but he bore a thick gauntlet with numerous cruel looking weapons on it, and a small glass screen like he had seen in televisors the few times he had seen one. The giant was followed by a floating skull, a red light coming from one of the empty eye sockets and a series of segmented metal what looked to be tentacles and blunt pinchers hanging down from it. The giant took a knee in front of him, and from a screen near the throat piece of the armor a voice issued. The voice was deep, and grating, but it did not speak loudly, the tongue it spoke was Anglian, or something like it.
"Have you suffered injuries."
Klye stared in awe, how did the giant known Anglian or some derivative of it?
"What?"
"Are you hurt?"
The giant wore white armor, but unlike the others in white his shoulder plates were green with brass accents and the white icon of the reptile head on one. On the knee plate and opposite shoulder a series of three squares turned to touch bottom to top at the verticies with a pair of stylized wings were present in brass or gold in relief on the shoulder and in the same green as the other giants on the white plates at his knees.
"What are you?"
The giant reached up and pressed something on its helmet, a hissing sound issuing forth as he lifted it off. Klye felt his eyes widening to the point he didn't think he could open them anymore as he stared at the coal-black skin and glowing red eyes. It was the face of a man, but like no man he'd ever seen.
"We are your allies from beyond; you were told of our existence, yes?" The giant's voice was boundlessly deep but seemingly gentle, patient but obviously indicating the need for haste.
"You came from the stars?" Klye couldn't believe it, there had to be another explanation.
"We did, we have been tasked by the Emperor of Mankind to bring this world to compliance, and to make you that will accept the Imperial Truth the new guardians of its destiny."
"But-"
"Are you hurt, have you suffered injury?"
To his right one of the men from his squad, Jhotanan, lifted his right arm, a brutal gash had ripped through his uniform and taken an obvious chunk from his forearm, the skin and flesh tattered. The giant made a clucking sound and reached into a pouch at his belt, pulling out a small cylinder which he opened and held upwards as the floating skull reached in with a pair of long, narrow plyer like hands and began to unroll the bandage. He then tapped a few keys on his horrific gauntlet and a needle emerged.
"This will sting a little for a human, but it will prevent sickness taking to the flesh and bone." He injected it into his arm with a quick poke and fluid rushed from a small vial into the needle. A second item emerged, a nozzle like one would see on a water atomizer and sprayed on the wound. The skull drew closer and they all recoiled.
"Oh, do not mind him, he is my medical assistant." The Giant declared with a slight upward cock of the corner of his mouth, a smirk…it was a smirk, just like a human would do.
"Is that skull…real?" Klye asked, needing to confirm his suspicion.
"It is, it belongs to a medicae menial, a mortal human like you, he served at my said for sixty standard years, when age and infirmity began to take him he made me swear to him that when he died we would repurpose his skull to use as a servitor."
They stared at the giant agape, the idea was ludicrous, bizarre, it was a machine that floated in the air and could perform fine tasks built on a skull.
"In this way, my friend still serves beside me to this very day." The giant took the slack of the bandage and the skull's forceps released one end and he quickly wrapped it twice around the arm before lifting the loose end again, the pincher grasped the loose end then released the other as the giant performed two more wraps from the other direction. He alternated back and forth until Jhotanan's arm was wrapped completely in a precise over-under fashion. The giant arched a brow as he looked down at the dressing, then stood.
"The medicae will arrive shortly, when you show it to them, tell them an apothecary dressed the wound, they will know what to do." He took a step towards the field of battle, reaching down to unclamp his helmet where it had stuck to his belt.
"Wait!" Klye exclaimed, the being turned to look back at him, both brows arched, "Are you human?"
The Giant smiled, his lips pulling back to show white human teeth, the expression unmistakably one of mischievous mirth, "That is difficult to explain."
The mortal allies of this world were outnumbered and outgunned, that much was certain upon reaching visible range of the island. They were pinned down by overwhelmingly superior forces but they were electing to still fight in spite of the odds. They may not have had a choice, he did not have time to give consideration to such things, these enemies had spat upon compliance, even with their limited technology they were so haughty as to believe that they were undefeatable, this hubris required sanction.
He fired on the advance, but he longed for close combat, close combat he found as a horde of enemy soldiers rushed from another part of the airfield to respond to their sudden and overwhelming attack. He was amidst them before they even had time to react, his Dussack was already in his right hand, and the Butcher's Nails snapped with the psychic spark cued by his aggression. He struck out, moving on instinct and as his training dictated, not even aware of each move and blow, and before he knew it, the concrete was slick with blood and none of the foe were still standing.
The Vox in his helmet crackled, the sound distorted by the fans pushing cooled air into the helmet and by the effects of the threads of the immaterial he pulled, "Kheyan, fall back to regroup, we have spotted a bunker complex."
He growled, the nails pulsed, there were still more foe to kill, he wanted to hunt, to range.
"There are plenty to kill still, brother, fall back to the approach edge of the hanger."
Angron wanted to test him, to see how much further he could push himself, could he become the hound their primarch wanted him to be, recalcitrance was not the mark of a good hound. He turned and ran back, his dussack scattering drops of blood as he went, the nails hammered, he felt the control teeter, then he almost felt Angron's voice booming over him, Fury can be a club or it can be a scalpel, rage can be a light that fills a room or be a laser, hate care tear down walls or set the foundation.
Precision, focused fury, control the nails as they control you, let the fury build, direct it, unleash it. The very presence of their Primarch was enough to make the members of the librarius quake in the pain his proximity brought, the nails themselves seemed like a wound in the immatterium that left them weaker and drawn, and he'd forced them to overcome it, enduring the pain that pyskers caused by their presence that set the nails in his head to biting as they learned to endure the pain and focus through it.
Thus he had trained them and alternately sent them to train with the librarians of his brothers' legions and brought librarians from other legions to visit with their own battle brother auxiliaries as part of the constant transfer of personnel among the exclusive brotherhood of the dauntless to which their legion had been initiated. Tempering his sons on every level to become the Legion they needed to be, the legion they had come to want to be; beloved, honored, and respected by their cousins and, most of all, subtly cherished by their primarch, general, and gene-father.
Be the scalpel, be the laser, be the foundation…fury, rage, and hate in focus, controlled, channeled.
As he rounded the corner he heard the shout over the vox.
"Kheyan, look out!"
It wasn't a pillbox at all, not a part of the bunker, it was a monstrous as-hoc siege weapon, the round metal housing layered in iron-bar lattice then set over with concrete, a tracked labor vehicle served to propel it and inside was a quartet of fire-linked autocannons. They had believed it was a fixed pillbox and even then it would have been bad enough against an advance of regular astartes, the attempt to get the Fire Drakes close enough had been a disaster in degrees with one brother killed outright and two others severely burned when the promethium tanks were struck and cooked off. Their attack had faltered when it rolled up from behind a sand-bag barrier, mobile where it should have been stationary and the hail of high-explosive autocannon rounds had scythed through the advance. From its position relative to the advance, it had managed to halt nearly seventy astartes as the punishing high-caliber projectiles tore into them with such ferocity that even the Firedrakes were halted. Only Dorn's sons held fast, forming a shield wall to compensate for the lack of cover behind which most of the Salamanders had arrayed themselves.
Angron's sons were attempting to flank the gun platform but each time they drew forward a set of autocannons would train on them, forcing them back to cover. Zabual was preparing to call the Thunderhawks back down when he the Warhound Codicier rounding the corner, his shout through the Vox came out just as the autocannons swiveled to lay into him.
From where Klye sat, he'd seen one of the giants in the white armor dash off towards a hanger, his speed was alarming, nothing that big in armor that thick should have been able to sprint that fast, then the world had seemed to come apart, the bark of four anti-aircraft cannons firing rapidly seemed to weigh down the atmosphere, shots struck the giants, some of them fell, others caught fire, the stream of cannon shells ripped past them, striking some of the men in his company and they just seemed to come apart. Barut was rallying, beginning a counter-attack, the lighter tanks that had fallen back were starting to rally, Barut infantry falling in behind them.
Then the giant in white that had dashed ahead of the others was back, unlike the others his armor had a large metal cowl that came from the back-mounted motor to partially cover his head and the helmet seemed larger than the others with additional exhaust fans. He came around the corner of a bunker with a sword reddened with blood in his right hand, single edged with a fat blade and a slight curve, then the cannons fired at him, shifting from the yellow giants with the shields and all four cannon barrels began firing at their quick cycle rate.
He wasn't sure what he saw, what happened, if he could believe it, he tried to force himself awake when the giant lifted both hands towards the rolling turret and the cannon rounds began to explode in pops of bright white and blue meters away from the giant. It was as if he was holding them back with a gesture and pure will, he couldn't believe it as he saw blue light and smoke begin to come from the eye lenses of the helmet.
The nails ticked and bit the moment he perceived it all, the stricken Salamanders in the dirt and sand, two still burning with licks of flames from exploded promethium tanks. He sensed the intent of the gunners and instinctively ripped at the edges of the immaterium to ward him from the weapons fire he sensed coming his way, the heavy explosive rounds blowing themselves to pieces against the barrier of thin un-reality he created, and it was then the nails bit, and the rage came.
The distance was too great to charge, and focusing on the barrier he could only creep forward step at a time, he saw his battle brothers rise and begin forward, two pyroclasts of the stricken squad did the same and instantly one took a light-tank round in the chest for his efforts, the high velocity round blew through his armor, rupturing his fuel tank setting aerosolized promethium in a cloud behind him as the round detonated, creating a sudden fuel-air flash and knocking the warrior flat, but avoiding igniting the other tank of promethium.
kill
Kill
KILL
KILL, MAIM, BURN!
Blood for the blood thirst, a throne of skulls to the triumphant!
He felt the need to push the barrier forward, to set the world to fire, to call all the power he could into him and just let himself explode in fury. His vision reddened, the perimeter of his field of view blurring, he wanted to kill and kill and kill until there was nothing left to kill. Then he could hear Angron's charge; to focus the fury, the rage, the anger, to turn it into a defined weapon that could be applied asymmetrically in a very precise fashion.
Still with the distance…he must shorten it, focus all his rage on shortening the distance, striking at a single point, letting his rage track the subtle fissures of the material, to crack and break, rend, crush, destroy. The nails were singing now, for he'd formed the plan and began pulling at the weave, pulling strings of unreality through the fabric of reality, and forcing the latter into the former, twisting everything, he was faintly aware of the claws reaching at him, trying to take him, to pull him under or to cling to him to be pulled into the living realm, the howling machinations of unlife and unreality clamored for him, but they were nothing to his rage, his indignity, his howl of fury, and then everything snapped.
Klye watched in awe as the giant in white with the great metal cowl began to blur, as if he was captured as a single frame of movement against a static backdrop, and a blue flame began to dance over his body, but as if moved by a steady gust of air, pulled back and seeming to trail him even as he stood still, it was like he was moving faster than anything could move, so fast he had frozen himself in an instant of time, after-image of an event that occurred to quick for the eye or mind to perceive. From the giant sound began to build a bellow, a roar, a man spitting out his hatred at a foe with the sturdiness of his vocal chords and the power of his lungs. It drowned out everything, even the loud throaty bark of the cannons slid back and slunk away like some whipped cur from the heartiness of the giant's rage. The blue flashed, there was a sound of a crack that left the world momentarily silent, somewhere between lightning and a bullet and the ending of a world.
Zabual watched as the livid energies rolled over the warhound Codicier, he'd heard navigators describe in the past what it was like to feel the warp passing over the Gellar Fields, some described it as sliding through oil or sludge, some said it was drowning, still others had said it was being bathed in fire. This had intrigued him, and a few times he'd snuck his way into a part of his company's ship to view the entry into the warp where a shudder was always slow to close. As he watched now, he witnessed the blue bathing and running over Kheyan like he'd witnessed the flow and pulse of the warp. He'd seen this kill psykers before, or sometimes they would be taken by the Xenos that resided in the Warp and would have to be killed, even Astartes were not always immune to this, and part of him feared that the Warhound would meet the same fate when his very body seemed to stretch as an image, as if he was caught in the split second of unbelievable acceleration.
He vanished with a crack of air displacement and electro-static discharge and incredible speed. He hadn't even finished the sudden disappearance before they were assailed by the cacophony of destruction, of a hundred things being smashed and rent at once, of the utter and complete spindling of an object. And there, amidst it, standing in sand burned to black glass was Kheyan. The armor of the Manicae on his arm was gone, shattered away, blood dripping from split skin and burned fingers, his saber fading from white hot to a steaming dull red-grey. Scraps of the self-propelled auto-cannon turret hung in the air or were scattered across the sand, concrete powdered or cracked, chunked away or ground to pebbles, metal bent and twisted and tore, springs popped, bolts sheered, nuts flew off their threadings. The pure fury of the impact created a momentary air-displacement vortex, a vacuum that sucked one of the gunners part way through the firing port with such force that is blew off his clothes and avulsed his torso down its length as his shoulder caught on the edge and held in place as the rest of his frame was pulled through the opening.
Everything was silent, not a sound uttered, not a single eye pulled away, and save for the sound of settling metal, the wind, the water, and the distant report of weaponry, he would have thought he had gone deaf. The parts that remained levitated in the air fell in a further clatter as Kheyan lifted the still smoking blade over his head, shouting in guttural Nagrakali. His brother Warhounds roared their own ecstatic war-cries and immediately charged; sprinting towards the foe, fast even by the standards of Astartes, driven in fervor by the display of prowess and power of their battle brother. Chain swords roared as they cut into tanks that had been flanking the turret, shoving bolt pistols into rends in the light armor and discharging death into the vehicles as the hound named Jeus spun his meteor hammer in a wide circular arc, the chain whipping past with a buzzing woosh that could be heard as far as where he stood taking the supporting infantry and cutting them apart as the chain hammer scythed through them with such speed that the chain itself cut them in half. The battle was renewed, and with this push they could utterly break the morale of the foe and shore up that of the allied forces, the tales of the Giants from the stars and their battle prowess would serve to further cement their support.
Zabual lifted his thunder hammer in the air, bellowing to his battle brothers, "Salamanders! Brothers! To the hounds of Red Angron!"
The Salamanders cried out their battle cheer and moved forward as the shield wall of Dorn's sons quickly began a jogging advance to push up as the six Warhounds lay into the foe with almost joyous fervor.
Sixteen months amongst the XVIIIth Legion had seen Kheyan and the five battle brothers of his squad engage in eight planetary campaigns, fighting along-side legionnaires of Rogal Dorn's Fists, Leman Russ' Wolves, Magnus the Red's Thousand Sons, the sons of the Beloved Angel Sanguinius in the company of his Salamander cousins of whom he considered many brothers now. He'd shared blood oaths of kinship and fraternity among all the legions present, he had studied and fought along codiciers and epistolaries of all the legions present, he had been called the Lightning Hound and Kheyan the Bear-Shirt by the sons of Russ and their Rune Priests who had given to him a cloak of bear furs and had etched his pauldrons with the runes of Fenris. He had held his hand in the flames of the Archamusians, and taken the oaths of their order in fraternity, he'd flown the great ocean with Corvidae seers and shared blood-cups with the sons of Sanguinius. He returned to his legion a warrior, one of repute and great honors, whose name had come from the lips of the Primarchs Vulkan and Sanguinius whom had personally laid honors upon him for his conduct in the campaigns and compliances. When they arrived back to their task group, his five battle brothers had disembarked ahead of him, making a path for Kheyan the Lightning Hound, menials carried his oath parchments of one hundred eighty three oaths of moment discharged in his service with the XVIIIth while labor servitors wrestled the massive cannon barrel of a fortress-tank he had smote on the world designated 92-11 to be borne to the legion's museum as a battle honor. But more important than all of that, as his battle brothers ordered people aside, to make way for the Lightning Hound, he had earned the devotion and respect of his battle brothers and he had learned to tune to song of the Nails and in so doing had been able to produce unity of the song in his squad and this unity made them such an asset on the field of battle, all the ferocity and rage focused to a pin-point that could destroy and vanquish with such precision they were almost like a contained orbital bombardment when set loose, and their remit had been to act as just such a devastating piece of overwhelming force.
He had hoped he would have so proven himself as to gain the attention of his Primarch, longing for his approval, but when they disembarked on the Adamant Resolve and later posted on the frigate Fearless Resolution he had heard nothing from his gene-father. For a week he travelled back and forth between the frigate and the Adamant Resolve to train in the cages and fight in the pit where Delvarus of the Triarii asked Kheyan to join him on the chain where they had faced any challenger who was willing to go to third blood.
He had been surprised when the hulking warrior came forward, "Come stand a chain with me, brother, the pits call."
He had never been accorded that respect before, much less from a warrior like Delvarus, but now he was no longer just Codidier II Kheyan, he was the Berserker, the Lightning Hound Kheyan and the tales of his battles had made it all the way back to his legion and were told in the practice cages and dueling pits of every ship in the legion fleet.
On the eighth day since his return he returned to his chambers on the Fearless to find a suit of new armor in his arming chamber. It was the same Crusader Pattern as his old suit but instead of the hastily attached psychic hood the gorget had been artfully extended to form the complex neuro-reactive crystalline array. The white ceramite of his old manicae were replaced with brass accented manicae and on his pauldrons the icon of the Hound Rampant had been replaced with brass hounds with a crown of lightning bolts and on the right a carefully inlaid cross of stylized brass chains. On the armor a piece of parchment was affixed, the message was short in hastily scrawled Nagrakali;
Don your new armor and report to the Adamant.
-Kharn
When he arrived, arrayed in his new war gear Lhorke The First was awaiting him.
"Legion master."
The Revenant's voice, a thrumming machine tone that still seemed to possess far too much character to be considered truly artificial boomed forth, "I'm not the master of anything anymore, Kheyan. Come with me."
His frame began marching forward, a fresh scar marred the chest of his iron-form as he began his heavy stride towards the bay doors.
"Were you in battle, Lhorke?"
The Contemptor lifted his right arm in a gesture that might have been a shrug, "After a fashion, I fought with Angron in the pits."
Kheyan stopped in his tracks, "You fought with the Primarch?"
"He asked me if I wanted to, and I did."
There was much more to the tale than just that, he wanted to know and he wouldn't take another step until he had been regaled with the remembrance of the event.
"How did that come about?"
The dreadnought turned and a sound that could only be a sigh issued from the vox port on the chest of his iron form, "Two weeks ago, Angron was in the pits as is usual, and he took on twenty challengers at once. For thirty minutes he stood the center of the ring batting anyone who attacked away or tossed them about the arena, they came at him with live blades and they landed n'ery a touch on him, but they tried and tried valiantly."
Kheyan nodded, "And?"
"I told him he should pick on someone his own size." The dreadnought extended its power-fist, fingers open as if physically presenting a point, a physical mnemonic that indicated that The First's Iron Form was deeply in key with a mind that was still sharp and distinctive for a revenant of the Legion.
Kheyan's eyes widened, "What did he do?"
"He grinned at me and told me to hop down in the arena then, so I did…and I lost." The iron-form seemed to moved ever so slightly, almost as if Lhorke was manifesting the gesture of looking up and away, back to a moment of memory. "I did land a few good punches though."
"You struck the Primarch?"
The same buzz-sigh came out again, "He's been going to the pits the last fifteen years trying to get one of you to strike him, I'm just the first one that got close enough to do it."
Unbidden Kheyan's mind reached to the body that had once been Lhorke, to his memory of the end of the fight, Angron stood over his iron form, his right eye swollen shut from a blow to the head and blood pouring from his lips as he grinned with his steel teeth, "Rub a little oil on that one, Lhorke, the first black twist on your new rope."
"So you decided to keep the mark on your armor?" The codicier inquired.
"Aye, he fought me fair and he held back from causing the damage he could have, I lost fair and square."
After that they continued onwards to a small poorly lit access room, Lhorke gestured for Kheyan to enter then departed, moving down a side-corridor to the one they approached from. After a few moments a series of heavy footfalls made him wonder if Lhorke had been forced to come via a separate entrance when the dim light caught the brass accents of a massive suit of armor.
"Kheyan." Angron's voice was unmistakable, clearer and more sonorous than after his usual bouts of shouting which seemed to come upon him suddenly and unpredictably. Angron would shout during normal conversation such was the pain of the nails, he would shout and growl with a smile, bellow a joke, grit his teeth with a laugh, but now his tones were even and smooth, and light glinted from the steel teeth in his mouth as he approached.
"Sire." Kheyan replied, bowing his head in a nod.
"It is good you have returned, though I suspect my brother Vulkan would have liked to keep you."
He didn't know what to make of that specifically, he had met the Fire Lord once during his time with the Salamanders and had given it little thought beyond the gravity of meeting the Primarch of another legion personally. "Sire?"
"He spoke highly of you, Kheyan…as did the Angel, and when my dearest brother speaks highly of one of my men, it draws my attention."
"I fought hard to honor you and your legion, sire." Kheyan wasn't certain if he should be worried, it was sometimes so hard to accurately read the moods of the Lord of the Red Sands.
A massive hand clapped onto his pauldron, the acts of astartes and Primarchs were always violent in intensity but he felt what he could almost confused for a thread of tenderness in the act, "You have made me proud, Kheyan, you have made us all proud, Lightning Hound of the Twelfth."
The lights suddenly flashed into existence, revealing the Audaxia Primus into full view, the amphitheater filled with legionnaires who lifted fists and weapons and bellowed in salute. They had brought him here to honor him? He couldn't understand, he was just a warrior of the legion, why was he deserving of the recognition?
"In our legion…" Angron began, voiced raised to be heard throughout the amphitheater, "we have never had a very bright view of psykers, we have relegated them to secondary status, when the nails were put in some of you, a few of their number elected to feel the steel's kiss in their brains. Of those of us who were psykers, the results tended to end…poorly."
Many of the psykers who had taken the nails had died, some having wiped out entire squads in their death throes, it was something of a sore topic among the Librarius and among those who had lost comrades to the uncontrolled psychic reactions, Angron, however, had never issued sanction and forbade the discussion of such.
"Your brother Kheyan possesses the Butcher's Nails…but he had tamed them, he has defeated them, he had turned them to his will and in so doing his battle brothers have had their nails guided by his focus and discipline."
Angron lifted his hands as he stalked around the stage, caught in his own oration. "Kheyan has conquered the nails, Kheyan has conquered the nails! When the nails bite the flesh of his brain, Kheyan bites back, when the nails cry for blood to slake their thirst, Kheyan denies them the remit until they beg him for release. No more a slave to the whim is Kheyan, Kheyan is free, and in being free he freed his brothers!"
There were more bellows of approval from the War Hounds assembled.
"The Psykers of Russ…his rune priests have honored him as the Bear Shirt, the same brother who confronted us on Ghenna has had the librarians of his legion honor Kheyan with the runes of power and the bear-skin mantle of the berserker, my brother Vulkan granted him a captain's remit in battle planning while his sons celebrated him as The Lightning Hound, the beloved Angel, my brother Sanguinius called him a warrior of the greatest peerage."
The Lord of the Red Sands spread his arms wide, "On the world called Muvizia, Kheyan harnessed the rage and earned the name by which he became known, smiting a war machine that had pinned down nearly fifty astartes including my brother Vulcan's elite terminators. On Muvizia his battle focus set the tone for the battlation he battle alongside and victories and honors were heaped upon them. On the world labeled ninety two eleven he and his hounds struck down an armored battalion with a brigade of supporting infantry that threatened to roll up the flanks of the advance, on the world we now know as Bellepheron he destroyed an entire regiment of enemies dug into the civilian population without spilling a drop of innocent blood but so thorough and ferocious was the destruction of the foe that the entire city and three more besides surrendered rather than face the white-clad war dogs."
The Primarch jerked the pugio from his belt and drew the blade across the span of his hand from the heel of the palm across to the base of the index finger, holding the hand high as the blood ran down, "Kheyan the Lightning Hound, Kheyan the Bear-Shirt…but to us he was just Codicier Secunda Kheyan. That is not the title for the Lightning Hound, is it?"
A roar of no's filled the amphitheater.
"No! Kheyan is no longer just a codicier, no longer just a battle brother, henceforth…I name you, Hound Keeper Kheyan!"
Angron closed his hand into a fist then opened it again as he placed the bloody hand-print on the chest of the armor, marking him, specifically, as a chosen hand of the Primarch himself.
The Primarch turned back and looked back out at the others, "When I came to this legion, Legion Master Ghreer told me of the ancient practice of war-dogs. A wolf may be cunning and ferocious…but a war-dog is the incarnation of persistence. A hound will run down its quarry no matter how far or how fast it runs, and once its jaws set, not even its death will ensure the release of its hold. Now a hound may be effective…but it requires a hand to train and guide it, one that will fight just as fiercely to ward its charges and ensure their success. The keepers of hounds, so shall this new title belong to those who can retain the control and command when the nails begin to sing. War hounds…"
As one the astartes straightened, giving their Primarch their full attention.
"Salute the Hound Keeper!"
Klye Bransonch had not seen Mikroi for nearly two years when the lighter touched down outside his town. He stepped off the ship piloted by Imperial Auxillia and a trio of servitors a far different person than he had been when he boarded a transport sea vessel over two years before. Instead of the rifle he had been issued he had a las-lock slung over his shoulder and instead of just the olive fatigues he had first been issued, he had a chest plate of carapace armor, instead of the badge of the 323rd Marine Weapon Company he wore the crest of the 1st Muvizia Guard regiment. Instead of looking up to the sky and thinking of only day and night, he now knew he was part of an Empire that spanned thousands of worlds and he had helped in securing this one for the Emperor he had taken an oath to serve.
There were many things he had seen that he would never be able to explain or if he attempted to do so nobody would believe him. He had seen giants and war machines the likes of which defied explanation, he had witnessed humans that had been changed into mythic beings wade into enemy fire and destroy entire companies of enemy soldiers on their own. He had fought beside them, bolstered by their own presence into acts of bravery he would have never been able to undertake on his own. He had even seen these same giants die in battle and had felt rage that anyone would dare to kill one of them. He'd witnessed them set on fire, witnessed them lose limbs, seen cannon rounds punch through their bodies and he'd seen them get back up and keep fighting.
He'd witnessed horrors and triumphs and everything in between. But more than anything he'd witnessed the future of his world and his people being forged and had been part of that process and no matter what came in the years to come, he knew that more than anything else he would be unable to adequately put into words; how he, Klye Bransonch had spent two years in the stride of giants fighting a war for their collective future.