"What's going on here?" I demanded as I skidded to a halt near the base commander of the Legio Custodes. The Soldier looked at me and snorted.
"What do you think you can do Astartes?" he mocked, his voice laced with scorn at the word Astartes. "The Legio Custodes has this under control; go back to stomping on rats or whatever it is you do in your free time." I growled at him, trying hard not to punch him square in the face for questioning the power of an Astartes.
"Aww did I hurt the little Astartes?" he said, not covering up the condescending tone in his voice at all. "Is he going to try and hurt me?" I clenched and raised my fist, but just before I thrust it forward and knocked him flat on his back, I heard a voice.
"Please, children! Stop fighting, you are brothers after all," The Emperor said, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. "And besides, we have far more important things to worry about. So please, Herdoxitand, brief the Astartes."
The Custodian officer, who I now knew was called Herdoxitand, snapped to attention in an instant, his right hand on the left hand side of his chest in salute to the Emperor.
"Y-y-y-yes my lord," He stammered, obviously stunned by this rapid change of events. He cleared his throat and turned to me, a fire of hatred still burning in his eyes, and continued to explain the situation to me. "As far as we know, it's a barbarian tribe from somewhere close to the ravine of the old Britonnica Channel. That's only a guess though, judging by how far they must have come and how long it would have taken them to get here. They seem to have some pretty advance tech too, las-weapons of some descriptions." As soon as he finished talking another mortar round punched the ground a while away, causing the ground to shake and cause confusion to spread through the fast assembling Custodians. The emperor looked sad suddenly and I knew that he hated the prospect of having to fight more of his own race to achieve his unity; he took each battle and each death personally. To see the emperor look upset filled me with a passion to destroy this new foe.
"Herdoxitand, I'll need a small group of soldiers of either Army or Custodian Guard, as soon as I have them I will brief them on a plan to crush this tribe whilst you remain here and protect The Emperor, understood?" I ordered the Guard, relishing in the power I could now wield as an Emperors Chosen. He saluted me in the customary pro-unity manner and turned away to do my bidding, refusing to lock eyes with me or even acknowledge me verbally.
I turned and faced the Emperor, my knees turning to jelly knowing that I had just pledged to protect him. What would happen should I fail? No, that was out of the question. I would not fail.
I darted back into the camp and grabbed a holo-map of the area, pressing the activation stud the moment it was in my hand. A beam of light shot up into the air and expanded into a detailed pict-view map of the area. I dropped the projector onto the floor to give me a bird's eye view of the area and so let me plan out a counter attack more strategically. The area around the camp was a tricky landscape to plan around; hills and small dense woodland areas gave perfect ambush points to the barbarians. A small section of the Britonnica Channel could be seen up in a far corner of the map and I dropped a pin into the map just to one side of the channel as an estimate of where the barbarians were situated then, with the target in mind, I went about planning my approach and assault on the camp.
I had two options for the approach; the first was to use the hills and woods as cover, scaling the hills at every opportunity to make sure that I had the high ground for as long as possible, but then I ran the risk of ambush from the woodlands and being slaughtered on the way up the hill sides, however the only other option would be to stay close to the bottom of the hills, a run and gun approach, avoiding the woodlands all together and therefore removing the chance of ambushes. Both presented risks, and I knew that in the heat of battle neither would go according to plan, but I decided that using the woodlands for cover and dealing with the ambushes was probably the safer route.
With a plan formulated in my mind I went to see who Herdoxitand had managed to muster to help with my counter attack. As I stepped out through the tent flaps his hatred to me became all the more obvious. Standing in front of me where the most pathetic and feeble looking mortals I had ever seen. There was only about eight of them, and not one of them was over 6 feet tall, each of them was as skinny as a bean pole and one of them even had glasses on. One of them kept dropping his rifle as it was obviously far too heavy for him, and another's armour was hanging off him, dwarfing him by its sheer size in comparison to him, clearly the man inside of it was puny. They all snapped to attention as I came out the tent and one of them lost his balance from the effort of trying to do it quickly. I shook my head suddenly realising how difficult this counter attack was going to be with the pathetic resources id been given. Damn the arrogance of the Custodians.
"You men stay close to me, shoot at anything that moves and you might just survive. Let's move!" I ordered to the assembled army squad. I started jogging off towards the edge of the camp and vaulted over the low fence that surrounded it. I looked over my shoulder and had to stifle a laugh as the squad managed to flounder there way over the fence that I had practically stepped over. Almost the moment I was over the fence though, las-fire cracked from a nearby hill top. I darted into a crater in the ground made by a mortar and drew my bolt pistol. It would have been far more preferable to have my regular bolter with me, but I had been going to see the Emperor and had assumed I wouldn't have needed it. Obviously I was wrong. The hole wasn't providing any level of decent cover and las-rounds were still landing dangerously close to me, so I decided it was time to go on the assault. I leapt over the prow of the hole, raising my bolt pistol, grasping it firmly with two hands; I let off two rounds into the crowd of enemy soldiers assembled on top of the hill. It barked loudly and bucked in my hands. One of the soldiers on the hill spun as the first round clipped his shoulder, causing his arm to be blown off at the joint, a second simply dropped to his knees, the bolter round having punched clean through his skull tearing his head from his shoulders. The las-fire faltered as the troops on top of the hill realised the severity of their situation. The break in the fire gave me an opportunity to take out another one of the soldiers, the bolt pistol barked and a barbarian flew backwards a hole punched clean through the middle of his chest.
Suddenly las gun fire whizzed past me, coming from somewhere behind me. I dived to one side, spinning in the process and coming up on one knee ready to slaughter the new attackers when I realised it was the army squad following me. Their zeal impressed me; I had expected them to all have turned tail and run back to the camp as soon as the enemy fire started. Clearly they were going to be more useful than originally thought. I turned back to the barbarians on top of the hill and realised that they were suddenly very preoccupied with returning fire to the army troops shooting at them, rather than trying to take down the massive Astartes running around. I sprinted to the hill and then started scrabbling up one side of it. The barbarians were still focused on the troops when I managed to reach the top, giving me a perfect element of surprise.
I leapt over the last stretch of the hill and picked up a barbarian, using him as a meat shield. He screamed and squirmed in my grip, but I held him fast.
"It's a Thunder warrior! KILL HIM!" one of the barbarians shouted and suddenly all the las-fire was aimed at me again. I could count five troops still alive on this hill top, and all of them were very much focused on me. "OPEN FIRE!" the same man screamed. Two of them instantly started shooting, including the man bellowing orders, but the other three hesitated, not wanting to hit their comrade. I helped them with their decision of whether to kill a friend or disobey an order by swatting the two men shooting at me away with the now limp body of the barbarian in my hands, then tossing it away with a simple flick of my wrist. Before the remaining three could even raise their rifles I had closed the distance between me and them. I raised my free hand and brought my elbow crashing down on the head closest to me, causing it to shatter, then with my bolter I turned and blasted away the other two with a single bullet. The bolt exploded just before exiting the first man and sprayed the second with shrapnel. The force of blast blew him onto the ground where he lay coughing and spluttering. I towered over to him, a pang of sorrow for the mortal bubbling up in my chest.
"Why are you doing this to us?" he coughed, his words garbled by the blood frothing from his mouth.
"Because the Emperor wills it," I replied, not wanting to drag out this man's suffering any more than necessary. The man laughed then hacked up a load more blood, staining the front of his flack armour.
"You mark my words Thunder Warrior. Your precious Imperium won't last. Someone will become dissatisfied with the emperor, and when that happens all hell will break loose across the galaxy," he vomited up a load more blood, each word obviously paining him. "I've warned you Warrior, your Emperors arrogance will cause the Imperium to burn, and the galaxy will burn with it." As soon as the last word left his mouth I levelled my bolter and blew his head off. The words that he spoke were treacherous, but he was a barbarian, he couldn't know any better. His words stuck in my mind though. If the imperium was being founded on violence, what could possibly be in store for it besides more violence? And what would happen when we have nothing left to conquer? No I cast out the thoughts from my mind. The Emperor is good, The Emperor is powerful and can never be cast down.
My thoughts were interrupted by new cracks of las-fire. I felt the heat of one as it seared past my helmet. Rage boiled up in my veins again, and I relished in the thought of more killing. I charged off to a section of woodland where the las-fire was coming from. I came up close and heard one of the men scream inside followed by the crunching of undergrowth snapping under fast retreating feet. Just one set though, impressive; these mortals had some strength after all. I darted into the trees and my visor instantly adapted to the new low level light. Soon after that it picked out a target for me. He must have seen me looking at him because he just started to turn. I grabbed him by the hair and swung him at a tree, his back making a sickening crunch as bone struck wood, and the weaker of the two broke. I threw the now limp body to one side and laughed as the las-fire suddenly stopped.
"Please! Don't kill me!" I heard a man call out, suddenly the rest were all dropping there rifles and kneeling before me.
"Where are you coming from barbarian?" I asked the closest man.
"That way Thunder Warrior. Please, have mercy," the man gestured with a trembling finger in the general direction of where his assault was coming from.
"Your assistance is noted barbarian, however there is no room in the Imperium for traitors," said, coldly, as I raised the bolter and executed the man. The rest of the soldiers got up and ran away, fleeing from the event and the ruthlessness of what they just saw. I decided to let them go; I had limited ammo after all. I flipped my bolt-pistol to one side and checked the remaining rounds. Seven rounds left, not many, but enough if each one counted.
"TROOPERS! To me!" I bellowed as I left the woodland area, trying to get the rag-tag squad of army to regroup. They did as they were ordered moving as fast as there spindly legs would carry them; they looked completely pathetic. An Astartes could have covered the distance they were sprinting across in half the time and at half the pace. They caught up in the end, and I quickly briefed them on the new plan of attack. It was simple really; they give me covering fire as I charge in and massacre them, any targets that they can take down is a bonus so long as they don't hit me. I skipped the part that if they did, I'd kill them. I grabbed a large heavy tree branch to use as a club for when I got close, I could swing it like a Thunder Hammer catching multiple targets in one wide swing.
We moved out as a single unit, but the distance between all of us grew rapidly. Over the brow of the second hill I saw a small encampment. A few tents, surrounding a camp fire, nothing major. As I drew close I suddenly saw the weaponry they had: Las-weapons, plasma guns, heavy bolters, plasma cannons; the works. How did barbarians get that level of gear? It didn't matter though, most of it was too large for them to carry seeing as the majority of it came off tanks and mounted gun positions. The plasma guns concerned me the most though, they could burn through a Thunder Warriors armour in a second.
I pushed the doubts from my mind, it mattered not. I had made a promise to strike back at the Emperors foes with all my might and that was reason enough to fill me with courage.
I stood tall and proud on top of my hill and bellowed at the top of my lungs "FOR THE EMPEROR!" my club raised high above my head. And with that I charged down the hill towards the encampment. A few barbarians made their way out of the camp and took up defensive positions, but I was too fast. I crashed into them and they broke like limestone against a tsunami. Two of them were trampled underfoot, another fell prey to the swing of my makeshift club. One started running but I bolted him down in a second. The two remaining barbarians suddenly dropped, felled by the squad's las-fire. Seeing the new weaponry gave me hope, knowing that I could use it while the enemy could not. I glanced at a heavy bolter and could see it was loaded. I saw one of the mortars that were pounding the Emperors camp. I raised my bolt pistol, realising that I had no more need for it with the sudden arsenal of weaponry. I let the bolt pistol bark in my hands until it clicked empty. The three barbarians manning the mortar team fell, each one with two huge holes punched in them. One team down, god knows how many to be. I ran over to where I saw the heavy bolter lying and hefted it up, holding it tight. I lumbered around the camp, spraying tents and mortar entrenchments. The camp was simply smoking piles of rubble, small craters and screaming bodies by the time I was done with it. The stench of death hung heavy in the air, intertwining sweetly with scent of smoke and freshly turned earth. The squad of soldiers appeared behind me, grinning broadly.
"We won my lord..." One of them murmured. I smiled at his surprise. How could you expect any less from the Emperors Finest?