Locum Ignotum Chapter 22
The music of battle was everywhere, the deafening clamour enveloping everything and wrapping all in its suffocating din. From one side came righteous cries of rage and shouts of exhortation mixed with millennia-old battle-cries. On the other were inhuman screeches and giggling laughter, chittering enticements that defied understanding and sanity. Chainswords roared and bolters sang their song as the counterpoint of snacking claws and gnashing fangs tried to drown them out.
Amid all that Jubila was strolling, enjoying the music all around him. He walked as if he had not a care in the world, as if nothing could touch him. He was clad in his armour, polished to its most extreme potential and shimmering with fresh colours. He also had his Charnabal sabre and plasma pistol in hand, he was a hedonist not an idiot after all.
All around him Daemons and Chaos Marines were battling blue-clad Imperial lickspittles, creating a glorious calamity. It struck Jubila as odd that the Storm Heralds had chosen this ground to stand on, their dull Codex wouldn't have approved. But in their pedantic dreariness, they had positioned themselves between his hosts and the helpless weak mortals. How predictable, how dull, how magnificent an opportunity to crush them utterly.
Jubila felt his senses being stimulated by the rush of battle, driving his emotions to their most extreme edge. Sometimes he could understand the urges of the Kakophoni, those among the Emperor's Children Legion who became addicted to the rush of battle, often peeling their eyes open and mutilating themselves to better experience it. Jubila enjoyed a wider range of stimulations but battle still pleased him endlessly.
All around him his troops were throwing themselves into battle, taking their carnage to the most extreme potential. Jubila had once known a warrior of the IIIrd Legion, a dull creature called Maxivus Dane, who had oft talked about their need to improve upon the Emperor's work. He had been limited and narrow-minded but he had been right about that at least. Everywhere Jubila's armies unleashed horrors beyond those the accursed Emperor had intended and he would not have recognised those who professed themselves to be his children.
Jubila spied Baeghost unleashing his Blastmaster in long bursts of sonic disruption. He threw caution to the wind as he twisted his weapon left and right, blasting as many of his allies as enemies. He was laughing as he wreaked carnage, revelling in pure destruction and Jubila approved most heartedly.
There was Rebis, using his power to direct the Daemonic hordes and summoning new entities with every gesture. There seemed to be no end to the forms they could take and Rebis was an expert at finding new, and delightful shapes for the ethereal beings to manifest. His madness only added to the display, a performance as devastating as it was fresh and original.
Jubila sped Salmacis duelling a Storm Herald one on one, the pair exchanging blows as fast as the eye could follow. The Daemon bound into his chainsword was singing as it cleaved the air, an insane melody without rhyme or rhythm. The Storm Herald was fighting hard but could not prevent the blade scoring his arm, cutting through the Ceramite with ease.
The lickspittle's skin was nicked by the smallest cut and the Daemon cackled as it pulsed a vision of Chaos into his soul. The Storm Herald collapsed in convulsions as his mind was wracked with the glory of the Warp and the beauty of Slaanesh. He fell to his knees in a paroxysm of joy and despair and Salmacis did not hesitate to swing his blade wide to take off his head.
Suddenly Jubila was distracted by a roar from above and he spied the form of an Assault Marine arcing high. He seemed to have been separated from his squad but fought on regardless. Now he was dropping right at the Warlord's position, seeking his head. Jubila went still as the lickspittle dropped then at the last moment twisted aside and let the Marine hit the ground beside him. Jubila effortlessly rode the impact of the shockwave and laughed as the loyalist cried in frustration.
Jubila cried, "Welcome to my arena, let us dance together!"
The Assault Marine snarled, "You die here Heretic!"
Jubila sniggered and said, "Do they actually teach you such dreary dialogue?"
The Storm Herald threw himself forward, swinging an ugly Chainsword in a clumsy overhead sweep. Jubila stepped adroitly out of its path and used the tip of his sabre to deflect the blade aside. The Marine came at him in a crude sweep but Jubila ducked underneath and his sabre flicked out to cut into the Marine's right knee.
The Storm Herald roared like a stuck pig and tried to batter Jubila down but the warlord had already relocated. He spun behind the warrior and his sabre swished by to penetrate his left knee. The Marine staggered like an old man, desperately fixing his amour's legs solid to keep him upright. Jubila giggled to see his foe stumbling around and lashed out to spear through his opponent's sword hand.
The chainsword dropped to the dirt but the Marine desperately grabbed for a bolt pistol. Jubila was faster though and his blade neatly clipped off the other hand in one blow. A swift kick followed, knocking the Assault Marine into the mud, helpless and defenceless.
Jubila laid his sword across the fallen Marine's neck and said, "Any last words?"
"For the Emperor!" snarled the Storm Herald.
"I met him you know," Jubila sneered, "He wasn't all that great."
The Marine barked, "You lie!"
Jubila grinned and said, "Of course I am, I never met him, but you're never going to get to tell anyone."
Then his blade tore sideways and ripped off the head of his foe entirely. Jubila stepped back as the lickspittle's corpse crashed backwards and looked around for his next thrill. The battle was going well, his forces had the numbers and the momentum to carry the day. Over on one flank resistance was fierce, a stomping roaring Dredanought delaying the advance, but the rest of the field was practically his. Save for one spot, one tiny corner that was holding firm against all odds.
Jubila frowned at this imperfection and peered over to see a tight knot of resistance, a small group of Storm Heralds battling back the Daemons that surrounded them on all sides. Among them he spied a warrior in Captain's heraldry, the boring clichéd patterns demanded by their stifling codex. He was surrounded by a core of veterans warriors, fighting tooth and nail to fend off the Daemons, while overhead fluttered a Standard.
These must be the Storm Herald's most elite warriors, their leader and his best men and it showed. They were slaughtering Daemons left and right, cutting them down with ease whenever they closed. Their slaughter was incredible to witness, a fearful tally that made even Jubila blink.
Then Jubila's eyes narrowed as he realised these warriors were a little too good, they were causing too many casualties without loss. Nobody was that good, not against Daemons. No, Jubila realised, it wasn't the warriors it was the Daemons themselves, something was affecting them. Whenever a Neverborn came too close to the group they would slow in their motions, seemingly dazed and lethargic, vulnerable to counterattack.
Jubila's nose wrinkled and he turned to call, "Rebis, what's happening?"
"It can't be a Pariah, I would sense it," Rebis called in a masculine tone then repeated in a feminine pitch, "There's a locus of positive belief working against us. It surrounds them like a halo and it's affecting the Neverborn."
"What?!" Jubila shouted, "The Imperial lickspittles have never had that power before!"
"We're in the Warp, thoughts shape reality here," Rebis barked in a Masculine tenor then in a feminine timbre, "Neverborn are emotional gestalts, faith and belief are more real to them than bolters or blades!"
Jubila's anger surged and he barked, "Well do something about it!"
Rebis immediately began to chant and a corona of dark power built up around the head of his staff, a crackling nimbus of energy. With a mere gesture he cast the bolt outwards, sending it hurtling towards the embattled Storm Heralds. The bolt flew over the heads of the Neverborn and stray arcs of power shot out, incinerating random Daemons to ash.
It looked like it would hit the squad head on and end their defiance in an instant yet at the last moment there was a flash of purest light from amidst the Storm Heralds. The bolt began to unravel, picked apart even as it closed on them and by the time it arrived it was nothing more than a cloud of smoke.
"They have a Librarian, a young one but powerful," Rebis snarled in a masculine voice and then in a feminine accent, "Try to counter this fool."
A gesture of the hand brought a hundred daggers of pure darkness into being, floating around the Sorcerer like flies. Jubila watched as he sent them flying away, arcing over the crowds to fall like rain. Yet his frustration grew as he saw a shimmering Kine shield emerge over the enemy's heads, a barrier that the knives bounced off harmlessly.
Jubila snarled in anger and roared, "Finish them or it's your head next!"
"Worry not, I have something special I held back," Rebis giggled delicately then growled, "Let's see how you handle this, child."
Rebis made a complicated series of gestures and uttered a strange phrase that had nothing to do with any human tongue. From the hordes of Neverborn emerged a rotund creature, strangely squat and inelegant compared to its kin. It was a toad-like Daemon, about the size of a pony, with large bags of flesh hanging under its throat.
Jubila blinked and said, "That's it?"
"Size matters not," Rebis hissed then barked, "Go and do what you were spawned to do!"
The Daemon blinked and then bounded away, moving as fast as a Mastiff after a hare. It disappeared into the heaving crowds, headed straight for the embattled Captain and his squad. Jubila tried to track it in the melee but he could not see a thing, all he could do was wait and watch.
Long seconds passed and Jubila thought his emissary had failed, he was about to cut down Rebis for failure but then there was a sharp pop. Jubila's eyes widened as he saw a thick cloud of fog arise all around the Storm Herald's elites, a cloying vapour that seemed almost alive in the way it expanded and contracted. Daemons all around fell back, shrieking as their ethereal flesh dissolved, the merest touch disintegrating their bodies.
Jubila was amazed as a large gap appeared in the melee and the vapour burrowed into both armies. It took almost a minute to clear and Jubila said, "What is it?"
"The Daemon's sacs were filled with Warp poison, deadly to mortals and even an Astartes would be rendered unconscious at the merest breath," Rebis explained in a superior tone then he growled, "They will be unconscious for hours."
Jubila looked again and saw the clouds evaporating, revealing the aftermath. The Captain was down as were his elites, leaving only two still standing. The first had the Psychic hood of a Librarian, he must have been shielded by his Warp power. The other was a Standard Bearer, oddly unaffected by the Warp touched gas. It was peculiar but hardly relevant, the elites were out of the fight.
Jubila felt the rush of triumph as he felt the battle turn in his favour and called, "The time has come, bring up the Soul Grinder!"
From the thick of the throng Salmacis called back, "Are you sure?"
Jubila smiled and said, "Oh yes, I am in the mood for total overkill. Let us cry havoc and let loose Ozymandias."
