Day 1
Castius Rex awoke, his entire body throbbed with pain from foot to forehead. Shapes moved around him, and he heard rough, muffled voices from above him.
Above. He realized he was in the fetal position on the ground, his cheek had been pressing against the cold permacrete beneath him, and the room itself was cold and smelt of mold and vomit. His arms, held behind his back and above his lying position, were awkwardly hoisted up above his chest, the blood having pooled in his biceps and leaving his hands insensate.
Slowly, the voices above him began to coalesce into something intelligible.
"Eyup, this one ought to give us some good fun when we let the hounds at him. I saw him work down in the Habs, he's got legs for running." A male voice said above him and to his left.
"Well, he ain't running anywhere anytime," a deep, female voice responded, sounding obscured and slightly modulated through some helmet or filter.
"Oi, he's waking up." One directly above him says, with an authority to his tone that immediately singles him out as some kind of leader.
Castius groans involuntarily, trying to sit up before a boot slams into his gut, taking the wind out of his lungs as he crashes back down to the ground and brings his knees up tighter into a ball.
"Merciful Emperor." He wheezes, prompting another booted kick into his back.
"Keep that nonsense outta your mouth, Loyalist! Your Corpse-God can't help you here!" The Captain shouts, nodding to the man at his left.
Castius feels nails dig into his flesh as clammy hands go around his shoulders, he grimaces up into the face of a man with an empty eye socket, maggots squirm in the cavity as he pulls the Zealot into a sitting position and reveals the temperature control unit he's been shackled to, the big, bulky machine huffs and puffs along, letting out a steady mechanical wail as it cools the room they're in.
He's in some kind of sub-basement or storage space, but it has been cleared save for the bulky machine and himself. A trio of the Mobian Sixth stand over him, the Captain crossing his arms and sharing a grin with his two cohorts.
He looked to the diseased trio and fought to keep his cool, feeling the involuntary rage bubble up inside him at the sight of these plagued wretches. Their bodies were mottled and discolored, with sores, scabs, and weeping wounds. He looked to his shoulders and saw that there were lines of filth drawn across his once-untarnished, wine-red robes where the man had touched him.
"Now, listen here." The Captain began, squatting down before the Imperial's face. "You're going to tell us everything you know, about Tertium's defenses, about your friends working up in Atoman Low-Orbit, about everything," His voice came out muddled and slurred as he struggled against what Castius imagined to be thick, glutinous mucus and spittle coming from lungs undoubtedly filled with fluid. "
And when you've told us everything, ye can either renounce your dying God and join us as a Brother, or we can sic the hounds on you and see how fast you can really run." He pushed off his knees, noticing his awkward gait, not unlike someone with severe arthritis.
Still, Castius held his tongue, staring ahead resolutely, mentally intoning litany and prayer, girding his mind with faith in the Emperor, he was prepared for them to break his body, but they would never shatter his belief.
They did, however, shatter his nose. Slamming a booted fist directly into his face that sent him reeling back against the control unit, his head hit the machine with an echoing bang as pain bloomed from both his broken nose and his throbbing head.
"But first, we're gonna get a little payback for all the good men and women ye killed…"
Day 2
They had beat Castius on and off for about three hours, they beat him with chains, with pipes, with their own hands, each time producing a new bruise that purpled across his skin or cut that wept blood down his body, smearing across the inside of his besotted robes.
It was a whirlwind of pain, but pain was familiar to him, from his self-imposed flagellation on his homeworld of Midlothian, to his quarters aboard the Morningstar. Pain is weakness leaving the body, and pain was offered as holy sacrament to the God-Emperor of Mankind, Master of a Million Worlds. And by the Emperor, Castius had pain in droves.
At some point, his captors had lost their steam, filing out of the sub-basement, leaving him to stew in his pain and injury, and by some miracle, he managed to shut his eyes and get a few fitful hours of sleep.
His rest, however, was interrupted by the clanging of the immense metal door that divided him from the Nurgle Cultists, he heard locks be unbolted as it swung open to reveal one of his captors.
It was the female among them, more specifically the Trapper who had captured him to begin with during his mission.
The Heretics diseased bodies piling up at his feet, the long, easy swings of his eviscerator, chainblade whining as it tore through flesh and bone, the two veterans and psyker at his back are laying las and autogun fire into the surging, diseased crowd. He hears the clunking of kit to his side, and the whine of a netgun, he tries to twist away from the crowd to dodge, but is too late….
She descends down the few steps onto the floor proper, toting a chair beside her which she lays down before Castius, still prone, musters up a mumbled curse that comes out as a groan as he turns his head away from her.
"Shaddup." She barks, slamming the door shut behind her as she plops down in the seat. "Consider it atonement for your sins, Loyalist." She snarls, pulling a bag which hangs around her shoulder.
She is out of uniform, bereft of her flak armor and kit, but her voice is unmistakable, curt and venomous. He guesses the bag is full of torture implements, he can see it now, rusty and unwashed scalpels and plies, they mean to infect him, to defile him as they carve his flesh away, he prays under his breath.
He hastily scoots further back against the machine he's chained to. She just glares at him and pulls her bag to her side, and his grim resignation and disgust turns to confusion as he notices the caduceus-and-snakes of a Medicae's field dress kit.
"Listen, this is what's gonna happen. I'm gonna treat yer worst wounds, and you're not gonna flop around like a fish while I do it, otherwise my tools are going straight into your neck. Got it?" She says.
He stared at her for a long while, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Finally, she let out an exasperated sigh, holding her hands up to show off the thick, rubber gloves she had on either hand. "I'm sterile! Sterile as I can be. The Cap'n can't have your brain all loopy on infection, and you haven't earned the right to be given the gift, in any case."
Castius stares a while longer, then turns his head away and lays still. His body is as rigid as a board as she presses her gloved fingers against his body, feeling his ribs and stomach, checking for any internal bleeding. He sucks in a breath as pain flares up just near the bottom of his ribcage, his breathing coming out ragged.
Her fingers prod and pry over him, the Zealot holding his breath to the best of his ability as the scent of rot looms over him.
She sighs, with exasperation or relief, he cannot tell.
"Only fractured, not broken, that's good, can't have ye spilling your guts with lungs full of blood, right, loyalist?"
"My name…" He rasps. "Is Castius."
"I couldn't give a damn what your name is." She replies curtly, pulling back his sleeves and the legs of his robes to dab antiseptic spray on the array of cuts along his extremities, she wiped down his limbs as well, almost reluctant as she wiped the filth clean from near his wounds to prevent infection, something which Castius was sure was anathema to the woman.
"Sit up, sit up right now, you idiot." She cursed, pulling him from his fetal position on his side onto his behind. "Don't rub against the damned floor, if you die of infection it'll be my head on the line."
Castius laughed at the irony, it hurt his chest and the laughter sounded weak and sad, even to him, but at that moment all he could do was laugh. He laughed until he started coughing, pinkish spittle flying from his lips as he covered his mouth with his elbow.
When he put his elbow down, the heretic woman glared at him before slapping him across the face with her rubber-gloved hand. "Shut up." She hissed, sitting up from him before grabbing his robes and drawing a knife from the pack, he tensed up until he heard the tearing of fabric, she drew the knife along the underside of his robes before ripping upwards to bare his bare skin to her.
Castius shivered with revulsion as she cut away his clothes, awkwardly standing up with his hands still cuffed to the machine behind him, she hadn't even spared his modesty, and he reflexively twisted his thigh to cover his groin.
His eyes went wild as he stared off into a random corner of the room, his heart pounding out of his chest as he struggled to maintain his composure. He could take torture, he could take death and corruption of his body, but they sought to defile him even further. He let out an incessant stream of prayer and litanites of salvation as he stared at the woman, turning to fetch something out from the bag.
"Oh for the love of the FATHER!" She exclaimed, throwing a set of folded clothes at his nude form, which he flinched at, he looked down at the pile to realize they were probably the closest to fresh laundry the cultist's had, they were clearly old and had a musty smell, but it was a relatively clean set of the Mobian Sixth's fatigues.
"Put those DAMN things on before they get even dirtier." She screamed at him, the realization clicking in his head. With freshly tended wounds, but the same dirty robes on, he'd be at the same risk for infection.
Quickly, he began to change, awkwardly crouching down to grab the edges of the pants and slide his legs into them, with his hands bound, he could, at best, awkwardly shift around and fasten them closed, but as for the shirt he would need to be uncuffed to slide his arms through the holes.
The Trapper stared at the topless man, then down at the shirt at his feet, then she rubbed the bridge of her nose in a sign of frustration. She realized the folly of her decision, but at least he had pants on, now.
Though, she had to admit, though it would only ever be to herself, that the Loyalist didn't just have a nice set of legs.
"Alright, finally got that humiliation over with." She huffs, sitting back down in her chair before him. "Now for this one." Her features shift, and that exasperated, impromptu medic melts away to the sadist trapper Castius better knew this woman as. "Tell me, how many troops have the Tertians mobilized in this sector? Lie to me and I'll undo every single mend I've made to your pathetic, sterile body and then some."
"This sector?" He repeats, confused. "What sector would this be?" He looks around, there are no windows in the sub-basement, and he genuinely has no clue if this is the same sector he was sent to on his mission, or another one halfway across the Hive.
"Sector D-18-58b."
"Ah, that one." Castius grunted.
In truth, the Zealot had no idea of the greater strategic situation at any given time, he was perfectly content to be a weapon in the hands of the Inquisition, to be pointed at the heretics and dispatch them or die trying. But he had the feeling that simply telling that to the traitors would dramatically reduce his life expectancy. And while he had no qualms over dying, he would not give up his life without a fight.
So, as he had reluctantly learned, from the convicts and degenerates he had been forced to associate himself with, he pulled on one of the oldest tricks in deceit and subterfuge: Always mix the lie in with a bit of truth.
"I don't know exactly how many troops are stationed there, but I've heard from troops along the checkpoint wall that they're expecting support for a big armored push deep into heretic-occupied sections of the Hive."
"What kind of support?"
Castius swallowed. "More Leman Russes, pulled from Manufactorums asides from the big one your people have been hitting, and we've been repelling you from." He says, not without a bit of satisfaction.
"And the one we've been taking back." The Trapper fires back, hotly. Her nose wrinkles up at his statement. "There are only a few manufactorums capable of Leman Russ production at scale, where are they getting the capabilities to work on it?"
"They've been cannibalizing the other 'factorums for parts, it's slow-going, but they expect they can buy time after the offensive."
"And when is this offensive?"
"I don't know."
The Trapper narrows her eyes at him, and Castius returns her gaze, jaw clenching and unclenching, his body as tense as a board, finally, the Trapper pushes off her chair, grabbing it by the back.
"Well, now that's a good and proper start, isn't it?" She forces a smile, and he wrinkles his nose at her yellowed teeth and discolored gums. She opens up the door again and pulls herself and the chair through it.
Before she fully enters, she cranes her head out. "Hope you're as cooperative tomorrow, Loyalist." She says, taking her turn to laugh as the door slams behind her.
Day 3-4
Castius spends the next two days living in dread, expecting at once for the door to slam open, for the Nurgle cultists to have discovered his deception and set upon him. It was the same nerve-wracking dread of death row which he had felt when he was on the verge of his execution date as an apostate on Midlothian, a sham tribunal, of course, for his Faith was ironclad and the corruption of the Church-Fathers was apparent to any with the eyes to see.
Of course, on Midlothian he was allowed his Liber Imperator. Here, in this dank, musty cellar, he was forced to recite passages of the Holy Book from memory, an easy enough task, but no matter how long he retold the story of the Emperor's death and rebirth as a God upon the Golden Throne, it did not assuage the creeping sense of grim resignation that set into him.
He simply knelt, using the discarded, worthless shirt as a sort of prayer mat, his own personal victory over the Heretics' unusual charity.
By the same logic which they mended his wounds, the traitors attempted to feed him, occasionally sliding bowls of quivering, green slop along to him in such a way that to actually eat he would need to bend over and eat it like a Grox at a feeding trough.
He resolved himself to fasting, subsisting off prayer and the foul-tasting but miraculously drinkable condensate water which dripped from the pipes of the machine he was bound to.
At times, he can hear voices shouting, undoubtedly his Heretic captors, he strains to listen to their muffled voices through the metal door for any inkling of his location, situation or that of the Heretics themselves. Occasionally, he manages to pick up on a word.
…Malcador…
…Sycorax…
…Loyalist Assault…
He doesn't dare have hope for rescue, at least not from the outside, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment, he reminds himself, hanging his head as he turns to prayer and the Emperor for consolation. The hours pass him by.
Day 5
The doors open on the Trapper woman, the silhouette of her and her chair burned into Castius' memory at this point, he can see faint glimpses of the world outside, furniture and rifles arranged along a rack.
The door closes behind her once more, closing him off to the world beyond her plagued frame, she settles her chair down before him once more.
"Good morning." He says, feeling the gallows humor overtake him for a moment.
"Rot take you." She curses, pushing her hair to the side. For the first time since his capture, Castius has been able to get a good look at her.
She was a husky woman, well built and square-shouldered, her ragged and stained tunic was sleeveless, revealing the pallid, boil-ridden arms she crossed over her chest, on it he could see both her dogtags hanging from a chain around her neck, as well as a small sculpture of some bird he could not recognize. Her eyes, one clouded with glaucoma and the other a dull brown, stared back at him.
"Next question, where is the Inquisition sourcing-"
"How do you live like this?" Castius interjects, leaving the Trapper at a loss for words for a minute.
"Like what?" She shoots back hotly, her face would've had a rugged beauty to it, before her fall to Chaos, Castius could still see remnants of it in her defined jaw and cheekbones. Scar-tissue now ran from temple to chin, her lips were cracked and peeling, revealing blossoms of raw and red flesh beneath.
"Live with your body falling apart, bit by bit, every day. Beyond the mere abomination it is, does it not frighten you, to see your skin go sallow and clammy, watch these…gifts sprout like tumors across your once-holy flesh?"
He sees her pallid features flush as she clenches her fists together. "I should cut your karking tongue out you book-thumping bastard." She cusses, her foot setting to bounce against the floor as she uncrosses her arms and leans in, Castius brings his head back against the machine, feeling its rhythmic rumble soothe the back of his head. "They are gifts, signs of our new God's favor. In this pestilence, we're all united together, united by choice, united by purpose. The Imperium is only base survival, and damn anything else along the way. This, our choice, is true life. And so what if that life takes the form of these boils, of these scabs and scars!?"
Her voice went an octave higher as she enunciated every syllable with an acid tone. Castius felt the headrush of righteous fury wash over his head like a wave, his urge to strangle her suppressed both by his own self-restraint, and the very literal restraints around his wrists.
He felt something akin to his time on his homeworld, debating the finer points of Ecclesiarchical doctrine with his brother, he had always gotten fired up as the holy flame of hatred stirred within him, but those arguments had taught him restraint. And, in failing in the ability to defeat a Heretic with sanctified flame and chainsword, he resolved himself to defeat the heretic with superior belief.
"What has that choice cost you, if it truly is your choice, that the Emperor had not provided thence?"
Castius closed his eyes, pulling from memory one of the many scraps of verse and precepts he had memorized in his lifetime of study and devotion. "Men united in the purpose of the Emperor are blessed in his sight, and shall live forever in his memory." He recites solemnly before opening his eyes again, looking back at the Trapper
"It is my understanding that the Moebian Sixth was the best Atoma had to offer, you gave your lives heroically, selflessly, in defense of your homes and mankind, more than enough to win your places beside the God-Emperor, and yet you turned away from him. You slaughter those you once swore to protect, did you choose that as well?"
"They're all BLIND!" The Trapper roared, rising from her chair to jab an accusatory finger at the preacher. "Blind like you! Blind like I was, like we all were! We are just now opening their eyes to the truth, after milennia of deception, after centuries of lies from people like you!"
Once more, he waited for the red to recede from his vision, taking in just enough of her words to formulate a response, but not enough to let her heretical words chink away at his ironclad faith.
"What has your new 'truth' brought for you, besides mutation and desecration?"
For a moment, there was silence in the dimly lit chamber, broken only by the rumbling of the machine Castius was chained to.
Suddenly, there was a banging on the door, it sounded frantic.
"FINISH UP IN THERE." Came the muffled voice of the one-eyed man through the heavy metal door. "WE'RE MOBILIZING. C'MON, KESTRIA!"
The heretic woman flinches as she hears her name through the door. Castius can finally put a name to the Trapper who's been his captor for the past week.
She doesn't say another word to him, slamming the door shut as she hollars back to her comrades
His face reveals nothing, but inside his heart sings praise to the Emperor for another small victory over the heretics.
Names have power, over the demon, and over people, if they let it.
Day 6
The Cultists have been absent for a day, as Castius can tell from the absence in the repulsive slop they've been trying to feed him and the silence from the world beyond the door. He uses this time to meditate and pray, occasionally catching water from the dripping pipes in his mouth.
He can't clasp his hands into the sign of the Aquila, so he does it mentally, bowing head-over-rump along his prayer-mat shirt he has been kneeling on. Prostrating himself before the God-Emperor, thanking him for every day of his life in the Blessed Materium, begging forgiveness for his contact with the impure, however involuntary it is, and wishing for salvation, in this life or the next.
"Emperor of Mankind, in this time of darkness and uncertainty, I turn to you for guidance and strength. I beg thee, shield my soul from the corruptions of the mutant, the machinations of the heretic, and the scourge of the demon.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; through thy sword and thy word thy shield me, for the Emperor Protects."
As the last syllable left his lips, Castius balked at the chime of an enormous bell. Its great reverberating timber shook him to his core as he whipped up so fast from his knees that he feared he may have dislocated a shoulder.
"Am I going mad!?" He bellows to nobody in particular, eyes wide as he looks around. Again, the bell chimes, massive and reverberant. But this time, he realizes it is not coming from within his own shattered mind, but from the real, outside world.
The bell chimes once more, and relief floods into Castius' brain like sweet salve.
"PRAISE BE TO HIM!" He bellows, breaking into machine-gun laughter as he kicks and dances with glee. He dances because he knows that is the Bell of Redemption, which ringeth every six days to call upon the penitents to cleanse themselves of Sin in a massive ceremony held by the Ministorum.
With the explosion of fighting and heretical activity taking place on Tertium, it had prompted a flood of average citizens to be vigilant in their duties, and be proactive to atone for real and perceived heresies.
The Bell of Redemption is ALSO co-located with a sizable garrison of Tertium's defenders, to protect the penitent crowds from Heretical subversion and infiltration. If it was in ear-shot, he could reach it and likely find a shuttle back to the Mourningstar.
"The Emperor Protects! And the Emperor provides! Praise be!"
Days 7-9
With the passing days, Castius well and truly begins to plan an escape. With his hands bound he is effectively target practice for the woman, and even without a las-pistol or any other weapon she could likely just beat him to death, his fasting had been taking a toll on his physique, and while faith nourished his soul, his hunger pangs were only growing more intense.
Still, he gritted his teeth and persevered. His suffering was nothing compared to what the Master of Mankind suffered every day from atop his Golden Throne.
Day by day, bit by bit, he worked at the pipe his manacles were clamped around, his hands were bound but the chain itself was around the pipe, bit by bit he rocked forward and back, pulling back and forth in an attempt to loosen the pipe, not only would he free himself but he would have a section of pipe to defend himself.
The machine was rusted in places, and he was slowly wearing away at it, he was careful to obscure the damage he was doing with his body when Kestria visited him, he made careful use not to use her name, despite knowing it. He was both saving it for a moment that felt right, and also wanting to keep her guessing about whether or not he had actually understood what was said on the other side of the door, to keep that nagging thought in the back of her mind.
She had the good sense to recognize her outburst the last time she had spoken to him had netted her no information before she was pulled away, so his further attempts to goad her into philosophizing and rationalizing her many heresies were unsuccessful, she would only repeat her questions. And Castius would continue to exaggerate and interlace truth with fact, always presenting it through the veil of rumor or snippets of overheard conversation.
The heretic's intel must be in bad shape if they're needing my tall tales to get by. He thought, letting the idea of it soothe him.
He occupies his time alone with prayer and working away the rusty section of pipe, bit by bit, he feels it start to give.
Day 10
Something has gone wrong for the heretics, and while his soul sings at their defeat, the fury of the surviving band is less cause for celebration, though. Especially when he sees that the trio which beat him to a pulp his first day are among the survivors.
With his fasting, he doesn't have the energy to put up any decent fight, it's all he can do to curl his knees up to his stomach and ball up. He feels pathetic, the mental image of him being a helpless, chained creature being stomped on by heretic boots isn't the picture any of the faithful truly envision when they fantasize of martyrdom. He can't even bring his hands over his head to shield it, so he tucks it between his legs, made slender through malnutrition.
He does get some small mercy in that Kestria intercedes on his behalf, somewhat, with her grunting about needing him alive to see if they can extract more intel before he dies. But it's enough, and this retaliatory beating lasts only a little under an hour.
Like before, everyone files out, and she brings out her chair from the outside world, she has new scars today, shrapnel from a grenade has cut across her cheek, she doesn't bother to dress the wound, and blood and greenish fluid mingle together in a runny stream down her neck.
She just sits in that chair for a minute, huffing, her breaths labored and raspy through whatever accursed gunk is clogging up her trachea.
"Are you afraid to die, Loyalist? Think your Corpse-God'll save your soul?" She finally barks at him, a scowl twisted her pallid, scarred face, revealing teeth flecked with dark spots.
He doesn't look at her, hanging his head. "My name is Castius."
"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOUR NAME IS!" She roars at him, spittle flying from her lips and landing on the permacrete floor just short of him. "Answer my karking question." She hisses
Castius looks up at her through his own bruises, his right eye has swollen shut, the blood which has dried all over his face flakes away as he flexes his sore muscles and finally begins to speak.
"I know the Emperor shall come for me, I have no fear of death. Does your demonic patron provide that for you? Your master of Filth and Decay?" The energy has gone out of him in light of his beating and malnutrition, but his faith has not.
"He does, more than you could ever know or understand. Nurgle gives us life in all its forms. Your Emperor can only guarantee the life of a slave and an ignominious death. We serve life itself, and in turn are rewarded with it."
"Is that what you're doing, serving life? When you butcher and maim your fellow citizens, when you take the lives of more and more Moebians, when you pollute and deface and desecrate the body of Tertium through your bombings, your poisoning, your corruption?" His voice is calm, level, careful to exclude the undercurrent of absolute rage in his thoughts.
"In death comes renewal, and some things must be torn away so that they can blossom into a new shape. The corpse feeds the new life in the form of the maggots, the worms. Death feeds life." She says the last part more to herself, her eyes now drifting off of him down towards the spot on the ground before his bent knees.
"Who decides what shape that new thing takes? Kestria? Tell me, is there anyone amongst your number that truly understands what the endpoint of your insurrection is? Or are you just sacrificing yourselves to a power no farther removed from yourselves, than you believe I am from the Emperor."
She rises up from her chair with such force that it clatters to the ground beside her, balling her hands into fists as she bends over forwards and jabs a finger at him.
"You ask for a slave to justify the overthrow of their master!? Is freedom not enough!?"
Castius doesn't flinch at the finger, instead staring past it and into her one dull brown eye.
"Not freedom, you simply enslave yourselves again. And you fight and die for it every day, you dishonor the memory and legacy of your comrades who died beside you out on the Frontier."
The Trapper flinches as if struck, that scowl intensifies into a full on mask of rage, her hand reels back and strikes him across the face. Castius grimaces, feeling the bruise already beginning to form.
She turns her back to him, hands resting on her hips as she glowers, exhaling through her nose deeply, coming out as a strained wheeze as she pushes against phlegm and other detritus clogging her nasal cavity.
She spins around on her heels, her hair flying across her face before she pushes the thin strands back up over her head with a hand. "Tomorrow, if you don't talk, we're cutting your tongue out." She growls in a threat, before slamming the door behind her.
Castius is left in silence, staring down at the chair overturned by Kestria's outburst. He lets out a long sigh and begins to hum a psalm in the darkness.
Day 11
The day had gone by relatively uneventfully, so Castius had filled it with rocking and working away at the pipe; he felt that just a day of effort would be enough to finally be able to prise it from the machine with one final pull. He would only have one attempt, since there would be no hiding it.
The use of Days in his head was mostly arbitrary, the only consistent measure of time was the tolling of the Bell of Redemption, and that was only in six-day intervals. He couldn't even tell if it really was day or night outside, not that it even mattered within a Hive-City like Tertium.
Regardless, he had the nagging intuition that he was in the "small hours" of the night, and it was then that Kestria entered the room.
Her normal profile seemed off, turned more to the side as if to have any attention slide off her. She had no chair this time, and she went down the steps with deliberate caution.
Finally, she walked up to Castius and squatted before him. Her wound had festered in the time since she had gotten it, turning into a weeping sore that marred her face like an impact crater, whatever beauty she had as a Human was once again defiled by her dark god's affection.
"I don't even feel it, you know." She said quietly, noticing his staring, the revulsion in his eyes. "I don't feel any of it, not the scars, not the sickness, I get a cough sometimes, but that's it. And this eye-" She brought a hand to her face, and Castius noticed how her joints had swollen as she held her top and bottom eyelid open to expose her cloudy eye.
"I can see through this eye, I can see better than my other one, the healthy one." She says, drawing out 'healthy' in a mocking voice, yet one still hushed, as if fearing eavesdropping.
"Are your mutations worth sacrificing your Soul to a snarling, fetid creature of the warp, Kestria? Are they worth the person you once were, the person who had aspirations beyond this…rot?" For reasons unknown, Castius spoke in a hushed voice as well.
Kestria backed up, dropped from her squat into a sitting position opposite from him, sitting just where her chair would be normally, she mimicked his posture, bringing her knees up against her chest, bringing her arms around them, idly scratching at the boils the bloomed up from her rotted skin. The entire display and the dispassionate, wide-eyed stare she had on her face sent a chill down Castius' spine unlike anything he had ever felt. She started to rock back and forth ever so gently.
"On the battlefield-" She began in her hushed voice. "The Emperor did nothing to save my squad, my friends. In the filth and the mud, it was the Plague-Father who carried us through the day, who gave us the strength to persevere. I saw…blessings, blessings I've never seen in my life before, not from the Emperor, not from nobody-"
Castius was quiet for a moment, then looked up to her. "Your friends, what were they like?"
She hesitated for a moment, Castius shrugged. "Tell me or don't, I'm dead either way."
She sighs, resting her chin on her blotchy and discolored forearms.
"Well-" She said, her voice hitching, which Castius first thought to be another episode of congestion, but then he realized that she was holding back tears. "There was Sergeant Kellor, always yelling, in good times and bad. And Elyssa, our markswoman, could bore a hole through an ork skull at 1,800 meters, and she was just as on point with her jokes. The laughter didn't stop 'till she did. And then Nhvaun, brave sod, we called him Filo."
"Filo?" Castius murmurs.
"First in, last out." Kestria grins before resting her head down again. "There was also Teol, our cookie, his pots and pans jingling around his kit, we always used to joke about his cookpot being better than our standard flak. Dimnas with his knife tricks. Thaddeus, our regimental priest, you would've liked him."
As she spoke, Castius listened, his dark brown eyes focusing on the woman who was, for just a moment, not a heretic, but a guardswoman, like the billions which served across the Imperium, which died by the millions every day, so that humanity might endure.
By the time she was done, the tears ran down her face freely, mingling with the blood and pus, she hung her head between her knees.
"Can I ask you something?" Castius said with a softness not even he was expecting.
Kestria looks up and manages a small nod.
"What do you think they would say to you, if they saw you now?"
The question seemed to age her a thousand years, the tears ran silently down her face as she looked at him. Finally, she got up and slowly cracked open the door.
"Goodnight, Castius." She murmured before it shut tight behind her.
Day 12
Castius wakes to the reverberating chimes of the Bell of Redemption, letting out a sigh as he realizes he's been down here for nearly two weeks. He imagined it feeling much longer than that, time lost its meaning with nothing to really reference.
For the first time in about as long, they decide to feed him again. His refusal to eat had been at first met with anger, they threw the muck in his face, tried to force-feed him, but everytime he had made himself vomit, not a difficult task, given the foulness of the fare. Eventually, they had just decided to cut their losses and stop wasting their brew on him.
However, instead of finding that feculent stew in the bowl pushed before him, there was the distinctive rectangle of a ration bar. He stared at the bar, awe-struck, then looked up at the booted feet of Kestria.
"Got it from the same stockpile I got your uniform. It's dusty, but edible for those who haven't accepted our truth." She remarks gruffly, planting her chair before him as they begin their daily ritual. "Eat."
He looked down again at the bar in the bowl, bending over to sniff it, to his surprise, she was not lying. While its age didn't exactly trouble him, as Rations were non-perishable by requirement, he was astounded as he realized it didn't seem tampered with in any way.
He took the bar with his teeth, getting around a chunk of it before snapping it off and beginning to chew, the sensation of having real food in his mouth after so long had flooded his mouth with saliva.
Kestria waited as he repeated the motions, swallowing down the bar just before taking another bite.
"Why have you been doing all this?" He finally asked after having swallowed down the last of his bar, he felt his stomach begin to cramp up a bit after going without food for so long, but he pushed the discomfort out of his mind.
He didn't need to clarify what he meant, the talking, mending his wounds, this gift of food, their conversation, her kindness.
"You're smart, Castius. You know why. I wouldn't want to kill someone who could become a brother."
A part of him knew already, figured they were grooming him to abandon the Emperor, but to hear the confirmation nevertheless struck a bolt of fear into his heart. He saw red once more, for a moment his hands tensed around the rusted length of pipe. Just one firm pull…
"We both know that's not happening, Kestria."
She exhaled in frustration, her pallid skin reddening where it wasn't mottled by eczema and scarring. "You'll really die for your absent God! Die in the most horrible ways, even after everything I've told you!"
"Everything you've said so far has only reaffirmed my faith, Kestria. Our lives are defined by death, they are given value by death. What your Cult fails to understand is that the cessation of life is no evil, but in fact the ultimate wellspring of good in the galaxy."
"Heresy!" She shrieks at him, but he finds any movement for her to silence him conspicuously absent.
"The Guardsman, knowing that he has but one life to give in service to Mankind, gives it regardless, and his knowledge of his all-but-certain death pushes him to great heroism, he kills the foe with wild abandon, he throws his life in harm's way, to defend the worlds of Man and all who inhabit it.
The artist, the sculptor, the poet. They are bound by death's shackles, so they preserve to create works that endure beyond them. In doing so, they create breathtaking works of art that venerate their worlds, their people, their Emperor.
You relish in your cycle. I've heard your kin chant it as they come to battle us. Life. Death. Renewal, yes?"
Kestria doesn't answer him, her leg only bouncing in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest.
"But, like the tire of a ground-car, it goes round and round forever. Forever bound to the whims of the one who turns the wheel."
He falls quiet, And Kestria clenches and unclenches her jaw as she thinks.
"Your faith in your Emperor and his supposed gift of 'one life to give in service' is nothing but a lie," she retorted, her leg still bouncing in agitation.
"What you call heroism, I see as futile sacrifice. You glorify death as if it were a noble pursuit, but in our worship, we embrace the inevitability of decay and rebirth."
She leaned forward, her voice lowering with intensity. "And your tire analogy is weak. Our cycle is one of transformation and renewal. Life, death, and rebirth. It's not bound to the whims of some distant God, but a fundamental truth of existence in this galaxy. We don't fear death; we accept it as a part of the grand design, a way to shed our mortal limitation."
She leans back in her chair, arms still crossed over her chest, "Your Emperor may offer a single life, but we offer eternity. Tell me, Castius, which is the true path to salvation?"
Castius ran his tongue over his dry and cracked lips, he could see the plea in her still untainted brown eye. Join me, please.
He simply furrowed his brows at her, resolute.
"Kestria, your perspective is clouded by the corruption of Chaos. What you call 'transformation and renewal' is, in truth, a descent into degradation and despair," he responded,
"You speak of accepting death, but it's not death you embrace; it's the decay of your very soul. Your master's 'benevolence' is a lie that has led you astray. The Emperor's Light offers true salvation. It's not about a single life; it's about the eternal soul."
Kestria stands up, turns away from him, her foot taps against the floor as she fidgets.
"Your salvation," he presses. "Have you seen where that path leads, have you seen the Chaos Spawn?"
For just a moment, she falters, confusion flashing in her one clear eye as she looks over her shoulder back at him. "Spawn?"
"You haven't seen them…" Castius allows the genuine surprise to soak into his voice. "They're horrible, they're immense, hulking monstrosities, they wail like tortured hounds, tentacles and mutated appendages flailing as they bludgeon and maim anything they can reach for. I've seen your own fellows torn apart by them."
Kestria turns to fully face him, face is stoic, but he can see her mind working, chewing on the inside of her pockmarked cheek, she fidgets, rubbing her thumb over a small blister on her pointer finger.
"You've heard them." He says, taking a wild guess, he could only assume that she was wrestling with something internally, rather than debating how to best dispose of his body when she inevitably killed him.
"There was some roaring from down-hive near one of our outposts-" Her voice is quiet now, as if wary of her plague-ridden brethren on the other side of the door listening in. "Captain said it was just some Scum-Hydra that got through the floodgates of the Sewer Cistern, my mates said they were performing some ritual that went wrong."
"Nothing went wrong, Kestria. That is the reward of loyalty. You spoke to me the other day of the ignominious death my Corpse-God provided, but that is nothing compared to the eternity of torture that awaits those who serve your demonic master."
"No!" She snarls in disbelief, shaking her head at him. "No, that's not right, damn it. If it was something we did, the Ritual really DID have to go wrong."
"Then why would your Captain lie about it?"
She scoffs and waves her hand. "Command lies sometimes to maintain morale, cover their ass and for a million-and-one other reasons. In the Guard, I've had Generals lie about the progress of entire theaters! Getting thousands of men and women killed in the process, just to keep their cushy position in the upper ranks."
Castius sits up, a bit invigorated by the small amount of strength his ration bar lended to him.
"I have seen dozens of Chaos Spawn in the time I've been fighting in Tertium." He murmurs. "They are not aberrations. The Sixth calls them forth to face us, then puts as much distance between them and it."
Kestria furrows her brows at him, gripping her thigh tightly.
"Ask your Captain, if you don't believe me." Castius entreats. "Ask him what happened in Trash Sump KL-16-6. We had to mobilize a strike team to neutralize it, it tore through nearly two-thousand sanitation menials before we stopped it."
She grimaced at him. "Maybe I will." she finally said, turning towards the door, leaving in such a rush that she had left her chair behind.
Once alone, Castius fell into his usual routine of prayer and meditation, though a new, unspoken verse now graced his lips.
"O Emperor, whose light pierces even the darkest of souls,
I humbly beseech thee, in thy boundless mercy and grace,
Look upon the one who has strayed from thy path, blighted by darkness,
With a grave heart, I pray for her redemption and atonement.
Guide her, O Emperor, back to the path of righteousness,
Cleanse her spirit of the taint that binds her,
Grant her the strength to cast aside the chains of corruption,
And to embrace the purity of thy divine light once more.
May she find forgiveness in thy eternal love,
And may her journey towards redemption be hard and eternal,
For in thy service, all souls are worthy of salvation,
And in death, all sins can be scoured away.
I offer this prayer with unwavering faith,
In the name of thee, the Master of Mankind,
Amen."
Day 13-14
Nobody visits Castius the day after, instead they fall into the pattern of echoing bangs and loud voices, interspersed with long period of silence, which the captive zealot associates with the heretics going out on sorties.
He notices less and less voices coming from the other side of the door, from what he judges as later in the day, he hears a few muffled words between Kestria and the Captain, he hears something a muffled syllable of the word "spawn" before the other side of the door explodes into violent argument.
Castius strains to hear at first. But the Captain is undoubtedly yelling.
…NOT…TO KNOW THAT!
KES!
LOYALTY!
He hears more voices rise in the cacophony, at least a half dozen or so, Kestria's protestations are drowned out by the others, who begin to chant, he hears yelps, the smashing of objects. He grits his teeth and shakes his head, trying not to listen to their apostatic chants. Almost in retaliation, he begins to recite the hymnals of his youth.
Emperor, great and holy,
Eternal lord, firm and just,
In your light, there is salvation and hope,
We adore you, Almighty God.
In darkness, you are the light,
In peril, you are the protector.
You are our guide, you are our hope,
Emperor, loyalty to you, loyalty above all.
Earth and sky, your creation,
All under your power.
We serve you, with humble obedience,
In your name, unwavering faith.
He can hear the choirmates of his youth singing alongside him, his head bowed in prostration as he raised his voice to drown the fighting and chanting on the other side of the door, the tears ran down his face as he sang until his throat was ragged and scratchy.
In darkness, you are the light,
In peril, you are the protector.
You are our guide, you are our hope,
Emperor, loyalty to you, loyalty above all.
In your name, our strength,
In you, we trust, light and glory.
We adore you, Almighty God,
Emperor, guardian and savior.
In darkness, you are the light,
In peril, you are the protector.
You are our guide, you are our hope,
Emperor, loyalty to you, loyalty above all.
Finally, the chanting stopped, he heard someone whimpering on the other side. Finally, silence set in, and continued through into the next day.
Day 15
And the day after that, or so Castius had assumed, nobody had come for him, he hadn't received any food, and was back to fasting, which was at least made slightly more tolerable from the ration bar of several days prior.
Nobody had come to pick up the chair his captor had left behind in her haste to leave, so, Castius had leaned down and used his leg to drag it to him by one of the chair-legs, planting himself down in it's worn, faded plastic, pushing aside the shirt which had served as his prayer mat for so many days now.
He's startled when the door opens, he had been on the verge of nodding off while in his 'new' chair, its metal creaking sets his eyes to scan the darkness. Once again, the Cultist slips inside. She doesn't even give him much of a look, not even a word of displeasure over him taking the chair, she simply sits on the floor and puts her head in her hands.
Kestria had new bruises over her arms, purple and black, with some spots leaking blood and other fluids. She simply stared down at the floor.
"I take it your companions didn't take kindly to your questions." He says in a low voice.
"Be quiet, not a word from you." She mumbles, her words bereft of any real venom.
Castius sucks on a tooth, then slides his foot over his prayer-mat shirt, kicking it over to Kestria.
"Wipe yourself down, you're…oozing." He says, a hint of disgust in his voice, knowing he now has forsaken that shirt forever.
It was dusty, and worn down to mere strands at this point, but it was dry, and Kestria took it in hand and began to wipe herself clean of the blood and pus. It was ultimately a futile effort, but the symbolic meaning of it could not be understated. Any self-respecting heretic would never accept an offer to rid themself of even a bit of their beloved filth, the fact that Kestria did spoke volumes.
When she was done, she crumpled the shirt into a ball, casting it under-handed off into a corner before she looked back up at him. "Thank you." She said, nodding softly. He nodded in return.
"I heard shouting, and chanting, and other things the past few days. What did they do to you?"
She fidgets, playing with her hand, she squeezes a boil on her thumb so hard it pops, a wet explosion of fluids sets her to cursing and reaching back to retrieve the shirt-rag.
"Goddamnit, you're not that dense." She cussed, soaking up the vile fluids that wept from her hand. "They…beat me. Spat on me, reaffirming the faith, is what they called it."
She goes quiet, wiping herself off further, flicking the filth off into a corner in an attempt to clean the rag again. "They didn't even let me wipe down, just left me to fester in it. I didn't even get an answer as to what happened. Just got told I didn't have any business knowing, before they started."
"That is the nature of their heresy, Kestria. You see how they savage you, your 'brothers and sisters'. It is a thin guise, a mockery of the camaraderie you shared with your comrades when you fought for the Imperium."
"Shut up." She moans, running her hand through her hair as she inhales sharply, a dusting of dandruff and filthy particulate falling from her scalp like a light snow.
Castius holds his tongue, studying her, her dogtags swing from the chain around her mottled neck, besides it, that same bird charm he had seen since the earliest days of his captivity.
"That bird of yours," He begins, prompting her to glare up at him. "What is the meaning of it?" He asks, changing the subject.
"Oh." She says, her hand impulsively going to her throat. "You noticed that, it's nothing, just a family heirloom I was given on mustering, when I first went out to fight the Darktide."
"Hmm. I've never seen a bird like that on Tertium, just those idiot doves that nest in parts of the upper Hive."
"Makes sense, since it ain't native to Tertium," she began, a hint of sadness in her voice. "My family, we started as Nomads, surviving out in the wastelands beyond Hive Limits, went like that for generations. But then, something happened. A fire or breakdown in ventilation, or maybe the water purification failed – whatever it was, it killed a good number of the lower hab-dwellers. The Administratum needed replacements to keep productivity up. So, they dispatched teams to gather families like mine, whole clans roaming the outback. Some put up a fight, but mine didn't. We were barely hanging on out there, and suddenly, we had shelter, water, and food that didn't try to rip your skin off. Still, one of my ancestors longed for the old outback days. So, as soon as he could, he had a charm crafted by some artisan. It depicted one of the great birds of prey that soared over the outback."
She pulled her chain out, holding it by the thumb so he could see better, while the chain of her tags was rusted and corroded in places, the charm was still intact, made of colored resin and wood and gleaming metal, it depicted an enormous songbird in brown and wildfire orange, it's wings extended, framed within a circle of silver alloy.
"It's beautiful."
"Aye," she agrees, looking down at it and smiling softly. "It's called a Dunehawk. Apparently my ancestor had it all crafted from memory. My own Grandpap used to tell me the stories of how we used to navigate through sandstorms by following the songs of those big, bloody birds. They were guides to us, in the outback days." She hangs her head again and lets out a shuddering sigh. "Wish I had something like that now."
"Where's your family now, Kestria?" Castius asked gently.
Whatever softness had lingered on Kestria's face disappeared in an instant, replaced by a mask of barely contained rage and profound sorrow. She pressed her palm into her rheumy eye, her fingers digging into her scalp, drawing dark, vile blood as her nails pierced her flesh.
"What happened, Kestria? What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything," her voice emerged as a ragged whisper. "They did it to themselves. They wouldn't listen, they wouldn't convert."
"You killed them," He murmurs in numb recognition/ "Kestria, you killed them all. You made martyrs of your own family."
Kestria writhed in invisible agony, covering her face with her hands as Castius continued his calm, rhythmic condemnations.
"You have betrayed them all—your God-Emperor,"
"But I-"
"Your Regiment,"
"No. No. No. No."
"Your world,"
"Stop it."
Your family."
"I SAID STOP!" She finally yells at him, immediately wincing as panic surged through her. Both of them stopped speaking and turned to the door, waiting for one of the other heretics to burst in and shoot them both for their blasphemies.
But nobody came. Castius breathed a sigh of relief and turned his head to see Kestria sobbing into her hands.
"I'm a traitor, I know that. But what is there left for me? There has to be a reward, there has to be a purpose to this suffering. Otherwise, what have I been doing this for?"
"You've been lied to, Kestria. The Demon is a deceiver, first and foremost. He must always dress his curses in the veneer of righteousness or liberation. Or else all sentient beings would rightfully hate and despise him. He has deceived you, along with the rest of the Moebians. But there is still time to turn from his lies-"
"Oh, Priest, your persistence is admirable. But there's nothing left of me to save, I'm afraid," she replied in a hopeless voice.
"You still have your Soul, and that, by far, is the most important thing you can still possess. Do not continue down this path and sacrifice it as well." Castius spoke with unwavering conviction, his words echoing in the dimly lit cell, a plea for redemption.
They sit in silence for a time before she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and stands up. "It's getting late, don't wanna be noticed out of place for too long."
Castius nods. "Goodnight, Kestria. Think long and hard about what I said. The Emperor's Light can pierce even the deepest dark."
She doesn't look at him, hanging her head as she slips beyond the threshold and shuts the door behind her.
Day 16
There was an unmistakable change in Kestria's demeanor from that day forward. A bone-deep weariness, to her movements, to her tone. They did not engage in conversation or questioning for very long, not even looking at him as she slid another Ration Bar his way. She was out for what he believed were hours. The voices of her other cultists were distant, sparse.
She does, however, muster up enough time and energy to question him once, bringing yet another chair down so they can be on an even level.
She leans in, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair. "Have you never felt shaken in your faith, Preacher?" She asks in a quiet voice. "Am I so evil from turning away from the Emperor?"
"To answer your latter question, you are Evil. But you are merely an extension of that ultimate evil, the Forces of Chaos, which seek to subvert and destroy our Blessed Imperium and feast on the souls of those within. You are an instrument, but not the wielder."
Kestria appeared a blend of anger and hurt, and Castius sighed, feeling compelled to go on.
"But, I have felt my faith waver, once." He breaths, as if the admission condemned him as much as Kestria's corruption condemned her.
"As you know, I am not from Atoma. I hail from a Shrine World, Midlothian. Such a place is rich in faith, in penance, in culture, and vigor of belief. My own Father and Mother, every one of my sisters and brothers, had their fates intertwined with that of the God-Emperor, some as artists, some as warriors, some as scholars and holy-men.
I studied our scriptures from birth, memorized the feats of Saints and the prose of wise, studied men and women of the Faith. I committed myself to the God-Emperor with every fiber of my being. However, accordance with the God-Emperor and accordance with the Church-Fathers is not always one and the same.
I noted discrepancies, omissions, and other seditious edits to our Holy Texts. I began to suspect that such changes were being orchestrated by our own leaders to serve their own interests, rather than that of the Blessed Master. I organized protests, called for change, for rectification..."
His face contorted with holy ardor as he recounted his tale, the memories etched deep within him.
"I was not successful; my conspirators and followers were apprehended, sentenced to penal brigades and work-camps. And I, the pyre."
Castius's voice lowered, carrying a quiet intensity as he continued, "You see, however, that I am still here, and that is by the intercession of the Inquisitor and his Agents. So I serve, in the hopes that I can return to my Homeworld and seek the retribution I am owed."
Kestria listened with rapt attention, her own struggle echoing in Castius's words.
"But still, there are rare, fleeting moments, when I allow a niggling, horrid thought at the back of my head to take root..."
"-what if you're wrong?" Kestria finished, her empathy for his struggle apparent. Castius nodded without a word.
"So, what keeps your faith?" She asked.
He smiled softly, then looked up, his eyes filled with ironclad conviction.
"I am still breathing. That is what keeps my faith, what shows me beyond the shadow of a doubt that I walk the Blessed Path, for if I have strayed for so long and so severely, the Almighty Master of Mankind would have struck me down long before we met. I was saved by His Most Holy Inquisition, and I am saved again and again through His Wrath and His Protection.
It is what keeps me of the firm belief that my belief is Right, and that something foul and malefic brews within the halls of power back on my Homeworld. I only pray that He offers protection to the faithful."
Kestria couldn't help but mimic his smile. "You've got a funny idea of blessings, priest, but I see what you mean."
The moment of levity didn't last long, and Kestria let out a long, contemplative sigh.
"Is my soul even worth saving? Is it even possible at this point?"
"I do not know, Kestria," Castius admitted sadly. "But I can see that beyond your fetid, corrupted body, there might lie a Soul that still burns with the fires of Mankind, that has not yielded to the forces of damnation that swirl about the rest of your lost compatriots."
"Might?"
"I cannot promise anything, that is between you and the Emperor, who judges us all. I can show you the path, but only you can walk it."
"You say that as if I have a choice."
"All we have are choices. It is just that the Emperor is the only correct one."
A pregnant pause dominates the air. Kestria looks at him, a pleading look in her dull brown eye. "What do I do?"
Castius sits up straight, sensing the gravity of her words. He adopts a deadly seriousness to his mannerism, accented by his sunken, malnourished features.
"First, you must renounce this demon and all his foul blessings. You must acknowledge the corruption that has taken hold of your body and soul and reject it with every fiber of your being."
Kestria nodded slowly, her brow furrowing in contemplation. The gravity of her choices crushed down upon her, and she realized that redemption would neither come quickly nor lightly.
"Then, we pray," Castius continued. "We pray for the Emperor's forgiveness, for His guidance. We ask for the strength to deny the lies of the demon and the seductions of the traitor."
Kestria closed her eyes, and Castius saw a tear trickle down her cheek.
"And finally, when the opportunity arises, you must help me escape this place. Together, we can continue His work, and perhaps, in time, you can find your way back into His light."
Kestria opened her eyes, and there was a glimmer of hope amidst the despair. She nodded, her voice barely a whisper. "I will try, Castius. I will try to find my way back to the light."
The preacher nodded, and within the dank, fetid darkness of his cell, the flame of their souls, one brilliant, one fluttering but still alight, burned together.
Day 17
Castius had not dreamt in the time he had been imprisoned, sleep was sporadic, but when it came, it was a black, deathly slumber. Not so tonight, for the first time, he dreamt.
He was upon a hill in his most basic robes as a priest, the red sash of the Midlothian clergy draped across his shoulder, in his left hand he held a torch, and in the right, a sword.
The wind beat at his face as he looked upon an endless field of tall-grass, rippling like the waves of a world-spanning ocean, it disappeared into the horizon, where storm clouds gathered and thunder boomed through the air.
He looked closer, he saw the Grass move, not following the natural movement of the wind, but moving on its own, towards him.
As it drew closer, he could see the grass was not grass at all, but shambling legions of Poxwalkers. Mindless, horrific things. The ruins of what had once been loyal Imperial Citizens, they sprouted chitinous horns, dragging their ruptured intestines between their legs like wet, rubbery snakes. Flies buzzed around their heads in mimicry of the green-hued storm clouds overhead.
They stumbled forward as if driven by the whips of a cruel slave master. Trampling the grasses and blackening the ground beneath their tread with a festering rot. His fingers curled tight around the hilt, rough leather biting into his palm.
High Gothic flowed past his lips in a voice alien to him, an invocation of his wrath and a challenge to the fetid horde.
"Rex castius sum, nec ad dominus tudo putrefacius!"
I am the Chaste King, I deny your rotten lord!
"Ego sum custodes planum hucus, et non pollues illud amplius."
I am the custodian of this place, you will pollute it no longer.
And like that, they were upon him. The poxwalkers elbowed and butted eachother out of the way, eager to rush headlong into a horizon sweep that sent heads flying. Such was their number that they spilled out around the frontal assault and wrapped around to attempt to envelop him. He darted back, sword in hand, brazier hanging low in his hand as he set the grasses alight, creating firebreaks which funneled the damned into the scarlet embrace of his sword.
The ashes coated his robes and sash as he danced amidst the carnage, splitting a walker from sternum to stomach, his rancid guts discharging in a final vile blossom of gangrenous gore, Castius flicked his left hand, hurling embers from the sconce as one would waft incense, the embers caught on the grasses and cleansed the depraved masses with flame.
Still, they came, in hundreds and thousands, dying to his slashes and stabs but only seeming to grow in number. Like all creatures of the dark, they feared the flame, cringing away as he held his torch alight to grant himself space to maneuver, but they shambled through the firebreaks he had created, or had trampled them out through sheer accident via their numbers. He felt teeth dig into the leather of his robes.
Rotten teeth cracked as they dug into his forearm, he sucked in a gasp as he smashed the pommel of his sword into the Poxwalker's skull, it crumpled inwards with a wet crunch as it fell away, already he could feel the sweat-droplets bead on his forehead as he burned with fever. He was already gone.
Still, he killed and killed, jabbing his sconce into the head of one of the abominations and setting it alight, but still more and more came, they began to sneak past his defenses, a slash of a rusty knife along his back, scratch marks made across his face with dirty, overgrown nails. He felt his legs go out from under him, a poxwalker torso bereft of its legs biting down on his shin, he fell to his knees, and they held down his sword arm, leaving him to only hold his torch aloft.
He could feel them start to feed, to sink their teeth into his flesh and rip ragged chunks from his body, he grit his blood-soaked teeth as he looked up towards the sky. His torch was now a grenade, caught in his death grip, pin tragically unpulled, and with no way for him to get his other hand around it.
The world was fading, the burn of pain now dulling under shock and feverish numbness, he barely recognized the presence of another there, standing besides him, human, yet unmolested by the Poxers.
She ran her hand up his arm, from shoulder to forearm, till her hands curled with a delicacy over the grenade held in his fist, she pulled the pin then laid her hand over his.
The grenade erupted in his hand, long plumes of fire bursting from the ragged and scorched ruin of his fist to explode out all over him, the woman, and the hundreds of poxwalkers around them, it burst into existence like a second sun, the flames wafting down over him, the last thing he saw before the flames blotted out his vision were sad, dull brown eyes staring down at him.
He rose from his chair screaming, moving so fast he was yanked back by the pipe he was still cuffed to, falling back into his chair as his chest rose and fell in frantic huffs. He could still feel the phantom pain of his burning body, feel the tingle of his melting fleshing running down his face like tears. In his absence of free hands to inspect his body, he flexes the muscles of his face and body. Once the irrational fear has fled, he sags in the chair and says a prayer.
His head ached, dreams of martyrdom, dreams of retribution. They were not alien to him, not in the slightest. But he had started to fear the atmosphere of Rot in this place had started to well and truly afflict him.
Kestria comes to visit once more, she seems more aware, now, in her one eye Castius sees the flicker of emotion. Disgust, self-awareness, his first thought is that she looks to have broken out of a trance.
She lays her chair before him and he notices the sullen look on her face.
"You've renounced?" He says in a low voice, thinking of his dream, the conflagration, her brown eyes staring down at him.
"Yes." She replies, just as quietly. "Said the prayers I learnt in school, every last one I could think of. Renounced my devotion."
"Then the path to repentance and redemption is open." Castius intones, "I'm proud of you."
Kestria only nods. "Think the path is more than open, priest." She says.
Something about her tone confused him. "What do you mean?"
She talks around his question. "There's gonna be an attack on this block tomorrow. The Bell, you've oughta heard it by now."
Castius' eyes widened. "The Bell of Redemption!?" He blurts out.
"Shhhh, shut your damn mouth." She urges before turning to him. "Yeah, we're gonna set off a virus bomb during procession, the plan's to convert all those repentant into Poxers."
Castius stared at her in horror as a smile slowly crept along her features, the look in her eye became manic. He wondered if all of this was some large ploy, if he was just a thrice-damned fool for ever attempting to confide in her.
"Least, that was the plan before I ratted out the whole damn thing." The smile on her face was delirious. "That's the second time I've betrayed everything I've known, it gets easier." She chuckles to herself, and the realization and relief wash over Castius.
"Good, good…" He nearly moans aloud. "You've saved the lives of thousands with your actions, Kestria." He exults, tears misting his eyes.
"I voxxed the garrison nearby, only told them there was a bomb smuggled somewhere on the premises. But it's only a matter of time before they trace the call. Regardless, the bombing's meant to coincide with an attack from the Sixth. It's still gonna get bloody, bomb or no."
That's fine. We can use the chaos to escape." Castius sighs, trying to come down from the euphoric sense of relief and triumph.
"My thinking exactly."
With that done, Kestria and Castius sat in the Cell a bit longer, giving the illusion of a thorough questioning, but in reality quietly praying, the zealot leading her through the long-neglected rituals of worship and exultation to the God-Emperor. Their private orison was a fledgling flame in the darkness.
Once she left, Castius continued his own, personal prayer. He thanked the God-Emperor for helping to carve through the corruption of Kestria's soul, to ignite the flame of devotion in the hopes of it burning away the heretical taint, he prayed for the cultist's plot to be foiled and for them to be stamped out in their entirety, and he prayed for the strength to do what he must, when the time came.
Day 18
Castius did not sleep that night, his nerves too fraught with anticipation. While he was chained, he could still sit and stand freely in place, so, to ease his frayed nerves, he did as many exercises as he could think of that didn't involve the use of his arms, or being in a prone position.
He was resting between bouts of exercise and prayer when he heard the great, reverberating chimes of the Bell of Redemption for a third time since he'd been captured. His pulse quickened a bit as he waited for the inevitable.
Outside, an explosion boomed, just moments after the final tolling of the bells, it shook dust from the ceiling of his cell as he gritted his teeth.
It's begun.
He pushed his chair aside, getting to his knees on the floor and rocking, he gave it one, then two, then finally-
CRACK!
The pipe snaps from its greater mechanism like a bone, and like that, Castius is free.
Or at the very least, able to move within his space. He rolls onto his back, the permacrete grating against the raw skin, he draws his knees to his chest as he pulls for leverage, getting his cuffed hands to his front. As he works, the sharp rhythmic pops of gunfire intensify outside, indiscrete shouting fills the air. There are calls from beyond the door in the cruel, familiar voice of his captors.
"KES! KES! C'MON! IT'S STARTED, THE LOYALISTS HAVE COME!"
"AYE! ON ME WAY!"
Castius has just enough time to throw himself back to his feet and pick up his scrap of pipe to use as a makeshift weapon when the door swings open.
Kestria steps forward in her full Trapper gear, save for the sackcloth mask, she ducks as the rusty pipe whooshes over her head. "By the karking Throne, it's me!"
Castius relents, holding his pipe to his chest. "Apologies."
She only has a half-second to process his newfound mobile state, looking over his shoulder to the broken pipe behind him. "Since when were you able to do that?"
"It makes no difference now, where are the others?"
She looks over her shoulder. "Everyone else has run off to join the fight. We have to be quick, it sounds like a slaughter out there."
"Theirs or ours?"
Another explosion rocks the building.
"Do you really wanna stay around and find out!? Come here!" She takes his wrist in a gloved hand, pulling him in as she slots a key into his manacles, like magic, they fall off, revealing his red and raw wrists, they stung as he flexed and rubbed over them.
"Take this, also." Kestria says, thrusting a laspistol into his hand, grip-first.
Castius stares at it for a moment, flexing his hands before taking it with a small nod.
Kestria returns his nod and turns back towards the steps to leave. "Now, we can cut through the sidestreets to try and get arou-"
For a heartbeat the room went ruby-red, the whip crack sound of a las-blast filling the air and pushing the scent of ozone so far into Castius' nostrils his eyes watered, Kestria fell forward as if pushed, crashing against the permacrete steps
Smoke wafted upwards from the barrel of Castius' las-pistol. There was something like a barb in his throat as he held the Pistol by his hip.
The beam had bored through the back of the woman's skull, but while her Soul may have been redeemed, her flesh still carried the virulent gifts of the Lord of Decay, and still possessed an unholy resilience.
Slowly, Kestria flipped onto her back like a turtle, gawking dumbly as her eyes rolled in her skull, propped up by her elbows leant against the steps.
"W-whuh?" She gasped, her eyes wide with shock.
"May He lift you up in his arms and carry you away from this world, guiding you, as he guides all Mankind, to a place at his side." Castius solemnly intones, aiming his las-pistol down at her.
"Cas…" Kestria starts-
Her eyes boggle, awash with primal emotion, shock, anger, pain. But somewhere underneath, if only the barest flicker in that dull brown eye, he sees relief, acceptance. She reaches for him.
He pulls the trigger again.
She falls limp, as if a puppet cut from its strings, Castius watches her until she goes still.
"God-Emperor, I beseech thee, grant your fallen servant the redemption she seeks. Though her flesh is wrack and ruin, her Soul still burns with the fire of the truly penitent. I beg thee, grant her the strength to endure the trials ahead. Protect her, Master of All Mankind, for the Emperor…" He swallows against the lump in his throat, finishing in a barely audible whisper.
"For the Emperor Protects."
At last, he laid the pistol down, and knelt beside her, making the sign of the Aquila over his chest and bowing his head, in one of the first actions he had taken with unbound hands.
As he looked over Kestria's body, he caught a gleam of something metal hanging at her throat, he leaned over and pulled. Coming away with her dog tags.
Rising to his feet, Las-pistol now hanging at his side, he dangled the tags by the chain, studying the Dunehawk charm. The Songbird was contorted now, warped by the residual heat from the las-blast, its resin partially melted and misshapen, intertwined with the rusty chain in some places. He then read the dogtags out
Name: Kestria Rosque
Imperial Guard Regiment: Moebian 6th
Blood Group: O+
Serial: IG-451-8492
Castius pocketed them both, and within him, his hate burned bright and true—brighter than it ever had. He had never hated so perfectly and singularly as he did at that moment. He hated the demons that corrupted and deceived good, human souls. He hated their multitudes of followers who urged their fellows to join them in pure evil and abasement. He hated anyone who sympathized with them, who hesitated to expunge them from the face of the galaxy, who allowed them to exist for one moment longer, letting them touch the lives of others like a metastasizing cancer. His hatred was pure, for his hate was love. Love for all of mankind, love for the Emperor, and love for the Kestria that could have been.
He looks to the door, then steps over her body to face the bloodshed beyond.
