The ashwings know Rell is going to die. Over a dozen of the gray-pinioned carrion birds are shadowing his ascent, cawing their hunger and impatience. The sky above is turning red. Below him the gullies and ravines of the Defile are filling with shadow. He climbs on, dragging his exhausted body up a sloping expanse of barren rock, striving to reach the ridgeline before the sun sets completely. His fingernails are torn and bloody and his twisted ankle is purple with swelling. Rell pushes past the pain and keeps pulling himself upwards. He knows he has failed, knows he'll never reach the hidden Tower in the heart of the Defile, knows he'll never get the chance to join the Sky Warriors and sail the heavens in their great starships. Yet he keeps ascending, determined to look upon the Tower before the end – at least then he'll know if it's real and not merely a rumor or a legend or a lie.
The shadows below Rell deepen. The sky is dyed as with blood; the ashwings wheel and flap, waiting. He reaches the ridgeline, the last of his strength bleeding from his burning limbs. Panting, he lifts his dented canteen to lips and gulps down the final mouthful of water. Resting his back against the gnarled trunk of a dead stunted tree, the boy looks out over the bleak labyrinth of jagged rocks and narrow ravines he'd spent the past four days wandering. The Defile is a shunned inhospitable region claimed by no clan, and its pitiless desolation drains the will of the soul just as it leeches the life from the body. Still, Rell's heart swells a little at the view. I made it this far, he thinks as the ashwings begin to settle upon the tree's skeletal branches. He recalls passing the bleached bones of those who had come before him. I got further then they did. I got to see the Tower…
The Tower. Rell sits up in alarm, his drooping eyelids snapping open. The sun is sinking and the hidden Tower of the Sky Warriors is nowhere in sight. He tries to stand but his injured ankle will not support his weight. The ashwings watch as he collapses, clicking their beaks and ruffling their feathers. Rell groans and grinds his fists against the rock in frustration; he would have wept, too, but his body has no moisture to spare. He sees no Tower, sees no man-made structures of any kind – only pinnacles of broken stone rearing against the blood-red sky. A legend, then; or a lie – it no longer matters. Rell has nether the strength or the provisions to travel deeper in. Death is certain and he knows it, just as the ashwings have always known it.
"I tried, papa," he whispers wearily through cracked lips, half-heartedly trying to console himself in the face of abject failure, hoping his long-dead father will forgive him for throwing his life away in pursuit of a rumor. He pulls his goatskin jacket from his canvas rucksack and draws it about his thin frame as the temperature begins to drop. "Even though there isn't any Tower after all, at least I tried…"
"The Tower of the Lost Ones cannot be descried from here, boy."
The voice is deep and strident, the voice of a demigod laced with a harsh metallic undertone. Rell starts in shock. The ashwings emit a chorus of irate squawks and take to the air in a flurry of wings. The Sky Warrior has materialized out of the gathering darkness as if he had been lurking on the ridge the entire time, waiting for Rell to arrive. The boy cowers against the tree as the black-armored giant approaches him, terror quickly mingling with his wonderment. The Sky Warrior has no face – only a leering bone-white death's-head whose eye sockets glow with a sinister crimson light. He glowers down at Rell as if in judgment, his inscrutable gaze seeming to bore into the boy's soul as he takes stock of every weakness and failing.
Overawed by his sheer physical presence, Rell averts his eyes. He had not expected the Sky Warriors to look like shadow-shrouded monsters sprung straight from his clan's myths of Old Night. The ones depicted in his grandmother's ancient history book had all been wearing dark red armor and holding aloft great shining swords, each stylized figure the embodiment of martial perfection, yet this Sky Warrior is nothing like them – he is like nothing Rell could have ever imagined.
"Look at me, boy," the skull-faced giant commands. Quailing, Rell forces himself to meet the crimson eye-sockets once more. The sun has disappeared. The ashwings are gone. Darkness rules the Defile.
"It is impressive you managed to come this far," the Sky Warrior growls in his harsh metallic voice, "but you should have never entered this region, for in doing so your life is forfeit. The Tower of the Lost Ones is no place for aspirants; it is no place for any sane man. Why did you not journey to the Testing Grounds beyond the White Dunes? The warrior-sons of the desert clans who desire to join the Charnel Blades must prove themselves in feats of arms, not by wandering about the Defile until they perish from thirst or exposure."
Rell swallows hard, finding his courage and his voice at last. "But I'm not a warrior, lord. I was a thrall of the Dust Jackals Clan; my mother and I were taken captive during a raid when I was six. The thrall-folk of the Jackals aren't even allowed to handle weapons. I only learned to fight with my fists. Then five days ago my master, Herrek, led a successful raid on a Wind Reaver caravan; later he got drunk during the victory celebration – almost everyone did; he was with my mother in his tent, expecting me to unload his sand-rover like I always do. I stole it instead…crossed the ashflats at night and made it to the Defile before I ran out of fuel. I'd heard stories about a hidden Tower… how if you managed to find it the Sky Warriors would let you join their clan. I know I'm not a warrior, but I didn't want to be a slave for the rest of my life, so I took the risk – I had to prove myself worthy somehow…"
Rell's voice trails off and he dry coughs wretchedly, his chest hitching in pain. The Sky Warrior is silent, standing as still as a stone, a towering contemplative shape in the thickening gloom. "Please, lord," Rell rasps, his thoughts starting to grow disjointed, feeling as if he's about to pass out. "Can't you take me with you? I know I failed….I know I didn't find the Tower – but at least I tried…"
Wordlessly the giant reaches for him; his huge hands are also cased in armor and his grip is both unyieldingly firm and surprisingly gentle. He lifts Rell and cradles him against his chest as if he weighs nothing at all. The armor plates feel as warm as living flesh and the whole suit hums with mysterious technological workings. "I'm so thirsty…" Rell says with a sigh as his eyes drift shut, his exhaustion overcoming both his wonder and his fear.
"I know. So am I. Rest now – I will take you to my brothers."
The Sky Warrior begins to make his way swiftly along the ridgeline, striding – and occasionally leaping – from rock to rock, his movements impossibly fluid and graceful, never once faltering or losing his footing. Rell loses all track of time, lying limp in a half-swoon in the giant's arms. His mind wanders. He remembers his mother comforting him whenever his sleep had been troubled by bad dreams; he remembers his father hoisting him above his head and spinning him about, his bearded face smiling up at Rell as he squealed in delight. Then he remembers the Jackals' night attack, the panic and the screaming, his terrified mother clutching him to her breast as Herrek stalked towards them, the raider's blacksteel axe dripping with his father's blood…
Then the Sky Warrior lays him down; rough stone digs into his back. A soothing breeze brushes across his face. Rell considers opening his eyes, then decides the darkness is too comforting. He wants nothing more than to simply sleep. There is a faint hiss of depressurizing air. A deep breath is taken. "What is your name? And what was the name of your birth-clan?" the Sky Warrior asks quietly. The metallic distortion is gone; the giant's rich baritone voice sounds almost human now.
"Rell…Rell of the Dawn Hunters." Rell whispers; he can barely bring himself to speak. Four days. Four days spent traversing the Defile on foot, lost and alone, searching franticly for the Tower in growing desperation. Even though he's no warrior it still has to be a feat worthy of recognition; perhaps the Sky Warriors will make an exception for him due to his tenacity and resolve; perhaps he will be given a second chance…
"Rell of the Dawn Hunters," the armored giant intones solemnly. "I shall remember it." Had Rell opened his eyes at that moment his last sight would have been of the Sky Warrior's unhelmed face, his pale angelic features marred by a plethora of scars inflicted by creatures more terrible then any monster ever conjured in Rell's darkest nightmares. The Sky Warrior lowers his head and bares perfect white teeth; his cold blue eyes gleam like a dune-wolf's in the newborn night, filled with a deep and abiding hunger.
"You had no hope of ever ascending to the ranks of the Charnel Blades, Rell – yet there is another way you can serve my brotherhood. Be at peace; your struggles are at an end. May Sanguinius' wings shield your soul on its final journey and may the Emperor account you worthy to abide forever in His eternal Light."
Rell smiles faintly, the gentle words of the Sky Warrior's benediction suffusing his soul as all physical sensation begins to fade. Through the darkness he sees his father approaching, his bearded face filled with pride as he holds out a hand. "Papa," Rell murmurs as the Sky Warrior's fangs pierce his throat. He feels no pain. He takes his father's hand. Peace fills him. The darkness envelops them both.
# # #
Chaplain Varsoreth feeds like a famished beast. The distant stars watch coldly from their lofty abodes within the void; nearby a lone ashwing caws once as if in admonishment. Beneath his battleplate the Space Marine's superhuman body shudders in pleasure even as his soul cries out silently in revulsion. It has been so long. Rell's lifeblood – warm and full of youthful vitality – spills down the Chaplain's burning throat, quenching the Red Thirst; scenes from the boy's brief hardscrabble life flicker through the Space Marine's mind as his omophagea fulfills its purpose, immortalizing Rell's deeds in the eidetic memory of a living weapon of war.
Forgive me, Father, for I know exactly what I do. Varsoreth raises his head as the familiar scrape of claws upon stone reaches his ears. "No hope," he whispers mournfully, wiping a gauntleted hand across his crimsoned mouth. He is no longer referring to the dead would-be aspirant lying on the impromptu alter of stone before him. The Space Marine straightens, glaring into the shadows, his hand falling warningly to the crozius arcanum mag-locked at his hip. Glittering feral eyes shift in the darkness as eight Lost Ones begin to circle warily about the altar-rock, drawn by the scent of the boy's blood. They growl low in their throats and snap at one another as they prowl closer, their flesh-hunger spurring them on. The Chaplain reaches down and gently closes Rell's sightless eyes, thankful the boy will never learn the truth concerning the Tower he'd been seeking.
"Under different circumstances he might have become a fine warrior of the Charnel Blades," Varsoreth says with a bitter smile as his bestial gene-kin pace restlessly about him, "Or perhaps he would have been numbered amongst your ranks and entrusted to my care. Still, he died free while striving to overcome his fate and become something greater than himself – a worthy end for a mere clan-thrall."
Uncomprehending, the Lost Ones snarl impatiently at the Chaplain, their elongated jaws bristling with fangs, drops of acidic saliva burning holes in the rock as they drool freely in anticipation. Then Kasvo, their alpha-leader, approaches Varsoreth, his head lowered in deference. The mutated neophyte is naked save for a soiled loincloth and carries a battered gap-toothed chainsword in one clawed hand; scars earned in scores of dominance fights crisscross his pallid skin and his left eye is missing. In contrast to the gene-crafted perfection of the Charnel Blade he is a pitiful degraded creature, a grotesque failure of the insanguination process – yet the sacred blood of Sanguinius runs true through his genhanced veins, bonding him and Varsoreth as brothers all the same.
"Lost Ones are hungry – need meat." Kasvo speaks with great care, his needlelike fangs drawing fresh blood from his tongue as he struggles to form the correct words. Incapable of standing fully upright he kneels awkwardly at the Chaplain's feet. "Var is well-fed? Lost Ones can eat now, yes?"
Varsoreth rests a hand upon Kasvo's bowed head and glances down at Rell's exsanguinated corpse for a final time, sorrow and shame gnawing at his hearts. Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they do. "Yes, Kasvo – I am finished. You may feast."
Immediately the Lost Ones fall upon the body and begin tearing it to pieces with their fangs and clawed fingers. Kasvo quickly joins the feeding frenzy, beating his brothers back with the flat of his chainblade so he can devour the most nutrient-rich organs. Donning his helmet Varsoreth turns away from the savage spectacle, sickened and enticed in equal measure. Lines of bio-data transmitted by tracker-beads implanted at the back of each neophyte's neck scroll down his visor display, warning of elevated vitals and adrenaline-spikes; he blink-clicks them away and strides to a narrow spur of rock overlooking a wide valley, striving to ignore the wet cracking of bone and the eager rending of flesh.
Night now reigns in totality. Echoderia, Homneria's solitary moon, has crested the northern ridges, flooding the heart of the Defile with a pale silvery light. The Tower of the Lost Ones dominates the center of the inhospitable valley, dark and foreboding. Confined within are twenty-two more genetically deviant neophytes the Chaplain has deemed too bloodthirsty or mentally unstable to be allowed to roam at liberty. No mortal clansman has ever found the Tower for Varsoreth has been condemned to guard the Defile until either death or the Black Rage claims him. Yet I am no better than the creatures I watch over, Father. The Flaw runs too deep within me. Once again I have disgraced your legacy and your name by the shedding of innocent blood. I am not worthy to be called your son…
His hunger sated Kasvo prowls to Varsoreth's side, his guileless inhuman features slathered in viscera, his thick blond mane matted with blood. Licking his jaws in contentment he rubs his muzzle affectionately against the Charnel Blade's pauldron. The Lost One is holding Rell's head in one hand. The boy's eyes have been torn out. Gritting his teeth Varsoreth struggles against the temptation to draw his crozius and stave in the neophyte's malformed skull. Kasvo is the most intelligent and self-aware of his charges and has even mastered rudimentary blade skills – yet his flawed nature cannot be redeemed. As his debased kindred squabble over Rell's remains the young Space Marine hunkers down next to the Chaplain and together they watch as Echoderia climbs higher into the star-strewn sky.
"Why is Var sad?" Kasvo asks as he starts peeling Rell's scalp from his skull with gore-stained claws.
"I am not sad, Kasvo," Varsoreth says with forced patience. "I am melancholic. I miss the fellowship and camaraderie of my battle-brothers."
"Lost Ones are Var's brothers also," Kasvo reminds him, unable to comprehend why Varsoreth would prefer the company of other Charnel Blades to that of the volatile cannibalistic neophytes. "We are all Great Angel's sons."
"It is not the same – we are not the same." The lie darkens Varsoreth's soul further and his shame burns hot. Kasvo snorts, as if finding the Chaplain's denial amusing. "We are same," he insists. "Var drinks blood; Lost Ones eat meat. We have brother-hood – we run, hunt, fight, play, rest. We are brothers, yes. Why is Var sad, then?"
Varsoreth sighs in resignation, his frustration fading. "I am sad because I have been left behind, Kasvo. In my hearts I yearn to be at Baal with the rest of the Chapter, fighting alongside the Blood Angels against Hive Fleet Leviathan, redeeming myself by laying down my life in the defense of the primarch's homeworld. I am sad because my sins have brought shame upon the Charnel Blades; I am sad because my penance has denied me the absolution my soul craves." I am sad because I am too much like you, brother.
Losing interest in Rell's head Kasvo tosses it over the spur's edge and starts sharpening the remaining teeth of his chainsword against a stone. "Emper's foes come soon. Lost Ones will fight them. Var drowns in blood. Be glad. We die to-gether."
Varsoreth smiles thinly, bemused by the neophyte's simpleminded certainty. "The tyranids are far, far away, Kasvo. There will be no fighting or dying for us, not anytime soon. We are –"
"Not xenos," Kasvo snarls in sudden agitation; he thrusts the brutal chainweapon at the rising moon, a deep animalistic growl rumbling in the depths of his heavily-muscled chest. His scarred body trembles. "Var does not hear? Hear drums beating? Hear blades clashing? Var's old enemy comes – blood flows, much blood…blood and skulls and death –"
Time staggers to a standstill. Varsoreth stiffens in sudden agony, his breath stolen by pain. Beneath his warplate old wounds that have never fully healed open up in his chest and right side as if torn afresh by incorporeal claws – daemon-inflicted wounds that had exacerbated the Thirst, leading to the fateful loss of control that had disgraced him forever in the eyes of his brethren. Varsoreth drops to one knee, his vision swimming, nausea twisting his stomachs. Blood runs from his nose and ears. His visor display is a riot of overlapping environmental alerts and conflicting health reports. It has been decades since the Chaplain knew such pain. He catches his breath. He roars. The neophytes roar with him in empathic sympathy – a variable chorus of beasts.
"He comes! He comes!" Kasvo howls in anguish, red tears streaming from his single eye. "The Slayer of Stars! The Render of Worlds! He comes for skulls and souls! Death! Death!"
Reality contorts, twisting and writhing as if undergoing excruciation at the behest of thirsting gods. The very stones cry out. Then the stars vanish as the galaxy itself is torn asunder.
# # #
"Var?"
The full moon is glaring down upon him – yet Echoderia is no longer illuminating the night with her soft pale light; the satellite has grown vast and swollen, blood-red and baleful like –
– the Eye of Horus looming triumphantly over him as the Talons crush his wings; he collapses to the deck, bleeding and broken, looking up into the warp-lit eyes of the one he had cherished above all others, but the Warmaster only smiles mockingly at his pain; with a roar of rage he rises and hurls himself once more at the unholy vessel his brother has become –
"Var!"
Something heavy strikes Varsoreth savagely upside the head and the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit dissipates from his mind's eye as he slips through time from one nightmarish reality and into another. He blinks confusedly. Kasvo stands before him, fangs bared in anger; the neophyte has torn off the Chaplain's skull-helm and hit him with it hard enough to draw blood from his temple. Two more Lost Ones are clinging tightly to Varsoreth's arms, preventing him from attacking their alpha with their own formidable strength.
"Not time for bad dreams, Var!" cries Kasvo, dropping the helmet and revving his chainsword to shrieking life. "All must fight! Chaos is come!"
"Release me – now," Varsoreth gasps out the command, stifling the urge to kill them all for their temerity. The young Space Marines let go and draw back; the Chaplain staggers unsteadily to his feet, his armor's servo-joints snarling in protest. A new world unfolds before his horrified gaze. "No." The plea escapes him before he can fully master himself. He stretches out a hand as if he can halt the annihilation of all he has endeavored to safeguard throughout the lonely years of his exile through sheer effort of will. "No."
The Defile is filling with blood. Raging rivers of vitae rush through its canyons and gullies, converging and spilling into the valley in a rising vermillion flood. The Tower of the Lost Ones is slowly being submerged; impossibly, Varsoreth can hear the deranged cries of the neophytes imprisoned within as the red tide engulfs the stronghold's base and surges against the walls. A torrent of crimson rain begins to fall, drenching all of Homneria in the liquid detritus of a galactic slaughter. Like a maddened beast the Thirst thrashes in the cage of Varsoreth's self-control as the blood-rain drenches his exposed face. The Charnel Blade begins to salivate uncontrollably, his canines aching as they lengthen. Dread grips his hearts and he turns away – he must not succumb, not again, not when damnation lies so close.
"Is it not glorious, Varsoreth? Is it not breathtaking? It is not what you truly desire? Rejoice, for now is the hour of rending and bloodletting; now is the time of battle unceasing and slaughter unending!"
At the sound of the daemon-lord's proclamation the whole ridgeline quakes and the stones split. Varsoreth looks skyward, eyes slitted against the downpour. Above him churns a shifting expanse of roiling clouds the color of butchered meat. The stars are gone. Hell seethes in their stead – a vast warp-rift has been torn in the fabric of realspace and the horrors of the empyrean are spilling into the material realm in a cataclysmic tide of destruction and madness. Loathsome half-formed daemonic visages leer down at the Chaplain from the boiling tempest before dissipating only to be replaced by others more horrific still. Agony lances into the Space Marine's skull and his soul reels under the infernal assault. Then fury fills him – the cleansing righteous fury of the Angel Betrayed. No. This will not stand – not while I yet draw breath…
"Show yourself, Azkur'azkandar!" Varsoreth roars as he draws Retribution, his consecrated bolt-pistol and activates his crozius' disrupter field, channeling his fury into his ancient staff of office. "I stand against you as I did upon the killing-fields of Daluthe! In the name of the Emperor of Man and the Angel Sanguinius I deny you this world! Depart! Crawl back to the Skull Throne and report to your master he will find no worship here!"
The bloodthirster's contemptuous laugh all but sunders the stricken heavens. Jagged spears of multihued lightning strike at pinnacles of rock all about the Defile; the Lost Ones bunch protectively together, growling threateningly at enemies they sense but cannot yet see. The cosmic stench of the warp assails Varsoreth's senses, bringing bile to the back of his throat. "Only you, Chaplain?" the unseen Neverborn mocks as the rain of blood increases. "Where are your battle-brothers, those proud angels in red and black? The last time we met three full-strength companies stood alongside you. Why are you now so alone?"
"I am not alone, Chaos-filth," Varsoreth retorts as a defiant Kasvo takes his place alongside him, the neophyte's naked skin now dyed a bright crimson. The Chaplain has no hope of outside reinforcement or extraction. The entire mustered strength of his brotherhood has long since departed for the Baal System, led by Chapter Master Sarova Kyrosavor himself, heeding the summons of Lord Commander Dante. Only a token garrison remains to hold the Charnel Blades' fortress monastery in the frigid snowy regions to the far north. Varsoreth knows the venerable bastion must be under assault by the daemon lord's minions – his remaining brothers cannot aid him even had they wished to. So be it then, Father – your grace will be sufficient for the task.
"So, this is your reward for all your years of loyal service: to play nursemaid to your Chapter's genetic rejects – a lifetime of selfless sacrifice undone by a single death. How the mighty have fallen! Your brothers could not wait to wash their hands of you once you had surrendered to your innate hungers. Your primarch's curse festers within you like a poison that cannot be excised. What a perfect monster you are!"
The daemon laughs again and Varsoreth staggers back as if struck by a thunderhammer, unwelcome memories invading his mind – memories of PDF Captain Regina Hammiel struggling helplessly in his grip as he tore open her throat and drank his fill while the Imperial city of Kastermar burned around them. "Let the beast dwell with the beasts," Reclusiarch Nikovac had proclaimed during the final verdict as Varsoreth knelt before a tribunal of Sanguinary Priests and his brother Chaplains, their collective condemnation searing his soul. Lifelong exile from the main body of the Chapter had been decreed, for the Tower of the Lost Ones had been in need of a new warden. Not even Baal's desperate plight had been justification enough for his return.
Yet his brethren had been right to leave him behind. The Charnel Blades combated the Thirst by adhering to a strict creed of total abstinence and little mercy was shown to those who lapsed. The taste of Rell's lifeblood lingers still-savored upon his tongue – proof indeed that beasts should dwell with beasts.
"My sin of self-indulgence was abhorrent and my brothers' judgment just," Varsoreth snarls, refusing to allow the shameful recollections to weaken his resolve. "Do not seek to turn me against my Chapter, daemon-spawn. The Flaws of our gene-sire are ours to bear, not yours to exploit."
"You succumbed to the Thirst once, Varsoreth, to your own disgrace – then you succumbed again, with the boy. Your weakling primarch may have taught his sons to differentiate between the blood of the guilty and the blood of the innocent, yet my master cares not from whence the blood flows, so long as it flows. You are more a true son to him then you are to the Slaughtered Angel. Blood is all you want, Varsoreth, and blood is all you care to want. So it is with your entire accursed gene-line. You know this in your hearts. Why struggle against a hunger you can never hope to overcome? Pledge your soul to Khorne and the blood of the galaxy shall be yours!"
Insidious visions assail Varsoreth – flashing glimpses of the future awaiting him should he renounce his oaths to the Emperor and Sanguinius. He sees himself slaughtering the Lost Ones in a whirlwind of violence before kneeling and offering the daemon-lord Kasvo's severed head as a show of fealty….
"You have already murdered the degenerate by-blows in your hearts time and again! Claim their skulls now and free yourself from the strangling chain of servitude that binds you!"
He beholds himself imbued with the Blood God's unquenchable fury and boundless strength, standing victorious within the fortress-monastery's Grand Reclusiam, his uplifted hands red and dripping with the vitae of the Charnel Blades garrison force, the mutilated bodies of murdered battle-brothers piled upon the profaned high alter…
"Your own brotherhood exiled you to live out your days amongst subhuman beasts! Why not remind them what it truly means to be one – for who amongst them knows better than you?"
Drums beat. Blades clash. The innumerable armies of Khorne muster beneath bleeding skies, preparing to sweep across the galaxy in an unopposable tide of carnage and conquest. Varsoreth fights at the forefront of one great host, drenched in gore and bellowing praises to the Skull Throne with each swing of his crozius as his foes break before his onslaught, free at last to slake his bloodlust for all eternity untroubled by restraint or guilt…
"For there is only war!" Azkur'azkandar roars in empyric exaltation as the Chaplain falls to his knees, frothing at the mouth and gnashing his teeth, the alluring promises of everlasting battle and bloodshed in Khorne's name causing the angel and the beast bound within the very fiber of his genetic lifecode to contest for the dominion of his soul. "There is only blood for the Blood God! Only skulls for the Skull Throne! The stars will drown in the blood of the Anathema's dying Imperium! It has already begun! I shall conquer this planet and refashion it into a daemon-world worthy of the eternal glory of Khorne! Bow down to me, Varsoreth, and I will raise you up as its new lord!"
Blood is all Varsoreth can see; all he can smell; all he can taste. Blood rains down upon his armored form; blood runs from his worsening wounds; blood seeps up through the rents and splits in the rocks beneath him. His homeworld is being remade by the corrupting defilement of Chaos. A full-scale daemonic incursion is immanent. The galaxy is screaming. His battle-brothers are dying. The Thirst is rising, clawing at his sanity and eating away at his defenses like a corrosive acid. The hunger, the pain and the shame entwine and become as one within his hearts. Varsoreth weeps, and blood taints his tears. Oh Father, why have you forsaken me…
Then a firm hand grips the Chaplain's pauldron and pulls him to his feet – the clawed hand of a creature who is both a beast and a brother. "We defy you!" Kasvo cries, brandishing his chainsword challengingly at the seething hellscape above; behind him the seven Lost Ones roar and howl in support of their alpha. "We are sons of Great Angel! We are brothers!" the blood-soaked neophyte proclaims proudly. "We defy you for-ever, Never-born! Come fight us!"
"So be it! Let angel strive against daemon for the delight of the Blood God!"
And in a tide of teeth and talons and bloodthirsty blades the daemons of Khorne descend upon them, flooding into the material plain like arterial blood spilling from a mortal wound, their desire for skulls and souls spurring them towards the gathered Space Marines with frenzied abandon. The vanguard is comprised of screaming bloodletters and baying flesh-hounds. Varsoreth does not wait for their onslaught and countercharges, the enraged Lost Ones at his heels, Kasvo still at his side, matching his pace stride-for-stride.
"For Sanguinius! For the Emperor! Death! Death!"
The first bolt-round to speed from the prayer-etched muzzle of Retribution flies straight between the gaping jaws of a bloodletter and detonates within its skull, rupturing its horned head in a shower of ectoplasmic gore. With a wordless warcry Kasvo decapitates a lunging flesh-hound with his chainsword as the mutated neophytes clash with the hellish canids in a slashing storm of fangs and claws. Varsoreth knows there can be no victory, no future for him or his world beyond this moment, yet he fights on with all the fury and skill his Astartes birthright demands, reveling in the ecstasy of pure combat. Each bolt-round finds its final home within a diabolical skull until Retribution's magazine clicks empty, and each strike of his energized crozius shatters warp-forged steel and discorporates unnatural daemonflesh alike.
Yet the foe is without end. Time has become a meaningless concept. One-by-one the Lost Ones die, their hulking bodies ripped apart by ravenous flesh-hounds or run through by the hellblades of the bloodletters. With each death Kasvo grows more desperate and undisciplined. A roaring Herald of Khorne astride a bellowing brazen Juggernaut charges into the fray, wielding a monstrous battle-axe ablaze with scarlet warpfire. Casting aside his chainsword Kasvo drops down on all fours and launches himself over the Juggernaut's lowered head as the beast bears down on him, his jaws wide, his claws extended for the Herald's throat. The huge daemon laughs and shoots out an arm, seizing Kasvo mid-leap by his blood-matted mane. It swings its axe once, and the thrashing neophyte is hewn in half at the waist.
"Brother Kasvo!" Varsoreth's furious cry rises above the screams of the bloodletters and the howls of the flesh-hounds. The Herald of Khorne holds the young Space Marine aloft, even as Kasvo claws uselessly at its wrist. The daemon grins, licks its lips, and draws back its axe.
"Kasvo!"
Kasvo ceases struggling. His arms go limp. He twists his head and looks at Varsoreth. Their eyes briefly lock. The neophyte's eye is bright and clear and filled with a peace that surpasses Varsoreth's understanding.
"Var…" blood gushes from Kasvo's mouth. The Chaplain strains to catch his final words. "He comes, Var…he comes…the Emper's son comes…"
The Herald of Khorne sneers and swings its axe, beheading Kasvo with a single stroke. The daemons chant the Blood God's praises and clash their swords as the triumphant Neverborn holds up the neophyte's head by the hair, delighting in its newest trophy. Varsoreth fights down his grief and prepares to charge the Herald, only to find the way blocked by a forest of hellblades as the bloodletters close ranks and advance upon him, forcing him to retreat until he reaches the end of the rock-spur overlooking the valley.
"Now you are truly alone, Varsoreth – alone in every possible way. You see there is no hope. You see there is no salvation. I have spared you so you might bare witness to a mere fraction of the Blood God's true power. I now offer you one last chance: swear fealty unto Khorne, embrace the darkness in your blood and be reborn as one of his immortal lords of battle. His cup is inexhaustible. Will you drink?"
Varsoreth shudders and is nearly brought to his knees as another wave of visions subsume his fracturing mind. He sees the Everlasting Vigilance, the venerable flagship of the Charnel Blades' battlefleet, wreathed in flames above Baal Secundus. He sees Lord Commander Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, impaled upon the upraised bonesword of a Swarm Lord. He witnesses the deaths of entire Chapters of Sanguinius' lineage, thousands of brothers lost to the predations of the tyranid and the daemon. Despair fills the Chaplain's hearts like a black bile and the temptation to surrender grows ever stronger.
Then he beholds one final sight, the last thing Kasvo had witnessed just before his death; he sees, and understands. Hope kindles anew within his hearts. His sight clearing, the Space Marine gazes with quiet contempt at the ranked Neverborn trapping him upon the spur.
"No. I will never serve you or your bloody master. I am a son of the Great Angel and I shall die as one. There is still hope. As long as the Chapters of the Blood endure they will forever stand against you and all your blasphemous kind. My time is finished. I go now to my father."
Skulls rain down from the heavens and the daemons exalt as Azkur'azkandar begins to tear his way into realspace. With slow contemptuous deliberation Varsoreth turns his back on the emerging bloodthirster. Rivers of blood are still pouring into the valley below him and the Tower of the Lost Ones is almost completely submerged. Hideous serpentine shapes thrash and twist in the rising vitae, their glistening barb-scaled forms circling about the Tower, inexorably drawn to the souls of the neophytes trapped within. Varsoreth closes his eyes and spreads his arms.
"Lord Emperor, father Sanguinius. I confess my unworthiness. I am unfit to stand in your name. My blood is weak, my victories failures. In death I repent."
The Charnel Blade leaps. Gravity takes hold. The boiling skies are torn asunder as Azkur'azkandar screams in outrage at being denied the brief satisfaction of a second confrontation. Titanic wings beat the blood-tainted air in furious pursuit. Eyes shut and arms still outspread Varsoreth falls, clinging to the memory of the final vision for as long as sanity allows: the vision of a giant warrior clad in cobalt-blue armor, haloed in golden light and wielding a flaming sword.
Varsoreth falls. The valley of blood rushes up to meet him. Beyond the tempest the Cicatrix Maledictum seethes across the tortured firmament, heralding the beginning and the end of an age. The son of the Angel falls, and a final communion is sought. The Black Rage consumes him. A last roar of defiance rips free of his throat as Horus bursts up from the vermillion sea like a leviathan rising from the deeps; the Warmaster's arms are also spread wide, and at long last Varsoreth finds peace in the welcome embrace of absolution.