Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 38

Xavaar had heard of Reflex Shields, the Raven Guard's secret technology wasn't as confidential as it used to be, but knowing a thing could be done and seeing it in action were two very different things. He nearly leapt out of the co-pilot's seat as space began to shimmer then peeled away to reveal a starship right in their path. Eight kilometres of plasteel and Adamantium appearing out of nowhere was quite a spectacle and his jaw fell as a Styx-class battlecarrier sprang into being.

Sedaxus however didn't seem surprised. He leaned forward in the pilot's seat and called into the vox, "The Long March. A cuckoo in the nest. Muster call at dawn."

Xavaar glanced back to where Arkqas was crammed into the gunship's small cockpit but the Mad warrior merely shook his helm to indicate he did not understand the coded jargon either. Yet the vox crackled, "Blood in the streets. A murder of crows. Fly the white flag. The gloaming."

Sedaxus leaned back in his seat and muttered, "They agree to let us land, but they're furious I brought you back. Expect a frosty welcome."

"No change there then," Xavaar sighed, "You may have forgotten what it's like, but we're used to being loathed."

"What makes you think they don't loathe me?" Sedaxus snorted as he guided Victory's Crucible towards a starboard hanger.

The overloaded gunship coasted in on a slow burn. Sedaxus had been taking it easy the whole way, not taxing the drives. Xavaar didn't blame him, he'd never seen a gunship so overloaded, Night Lords triple-packed into the troop hold. They were piled high, standing on each other's shoulders and Xavaar was concerned they'd start slitting each other's throats any minute. Still he was glad this voyage was vacuum-based, he doubted the engines could push so heavily burdened a craft through atmosphere.

Silently he watched as they slid into the yawning hanger bay and gritted his teeth as artificial gravity took hold. Thrusters flared wildly but Victory's Crucible still crashed to the deck with an eye-watering squeal of landing claws being tested to their limit. Sedaxus cycled the engines down with alacrity but Xavaar was more interested in the bay. A wide atrium stretched away, filled with equipment, planes and serfs. It was standard for an Astartes launch bay, but it was painfully bright by VIIIth Legion measure. It was also filling rapidly with running Space Marines, squad after squad circling the gunship, with weapons raised and an uncomfortable number of heavy weapons. There were an awful lot of scouts in light plate, but still Xavaar counted over two hundred angry Raven Guard out there.

"They came prepared for a fight," Xavaar noted.

Arkqas leaned over the back of the seat and counted, "Lascannons, missile launchers, grav-cannons, Heavy Bolters, Plasma Cannons… a Volkite Culverin, where the hell did they dig that up? They really aren't kidding."

Sedaxus muttered, "Stay here, do not let anyone step outside. I'll tell you when it's safe to come out, only you, one Night Lord will be bad enough, let alone a mob."

With that he stood on his seat and worked the seals on the pilot's ejection hatch. It was too tightly packed in the hold to exit that way and Sedaxus had to climb out the roof and slide down the canopy. The pair watched as he strode to the lines of angry Raven Guard, where he began arguing with a pair of warriors, one with an outdated helm and augmetic arm, the other with a long sniper rifle.

Arkqas muttered, "This doesn't look promising."

"It's not like we have anyone else to turn to," Xavaar retorted, "We are literally out of options."

Arkqas' helm leaned in as he whispered, "Sedaxus wasn't as careful as he should have been. He missed a small arms locker. We've liberated a few pistols and bolters."

Xavaar grunted, "Tell the Claws to put them back, we're outnumbered three to one and have nowhere else to go. Our only chance for survival is to convince the Ravens to let us stay."

Silence fell as they watched Sedaxus arguing with the Ravens, and by the looks of things it wasn't going well. Yet finally he turned back and waved Xavaar to come over. The Skinned Man stood up to climb out and wasn't surprised when Arkqas followed, better to put their best face on, he reckoned. Together the pair climbed out of the roof and dropped to the deck, boots ringing in the wary silence. Xavaar was painfully aware of scores of bolters tracking his movements, held by furious looking Raven Guard. He knew one wrong word would see them mowed down by hails of bolts, but held his head high as he marched over to the waiting leaders.

The trio didn't bother to greet them, merely turning away and marching to the side of the bay. Curiously the pair followed them in silence, passing glaring black eyes in great number. The procession took them to a small supervisor's office, a tiny room set aside for work-crew overseers to plan their daily routines and argue over schedules and loading priorities with a modicum of privacy. The five Space Marines marched inside and Sedaxus closed the door, leaning on it with his arms crossed. Xavaar faced the pair of Ravens and waited for them to speak; unfortunately the pair didn't seem inclined to start proceedings and waited, their bearing angry and uncompromising.

"Well…" Arkqas started, "This is nice."

Silence was all that came back and Xavaar asked, "Could we reduce the lights?"

The slim one asked, "It hurts your eyes?"

"Yes."

"Good," growled the broad one.

"Damolos, Engar, you agreed to hear them out," Sedaxus stated.

"Against our better judgement," Damolos snapped, "You were supposed to be killing these curs, not inviting them back for Tanna and sweetcakes!"

Sedaxus retorted, "Need I remind you we're trapped between the Red Flayer and an Ork Waaagh? If we are to stand any chance we need every advantage we can get."

"Night Lords aren't an advantage," Engar hissed, "They are treacherous and devious, they'll be thinking up ways to double-cross us even as we speak."

Xavaar was painfully aware of the purloined bolters his Brothers had acquired but said, "I assure you we wouldn't be here if we had any other options. We are desperate, without a home or comrades. We few come to you without deception. We speak truly when we say we mean you no harm."

"No harm!" snarled Damolos as he ripped his helm off, "Did you mean no harm on Istvaan V?! Tell me you weren't there; tell me you didn't delight in betraying everything the Legions had fought for!"

Xavaar's hearts fell as he groaned, "I was really hoping that wouldn't come up."

Engar removed his helm, revealing the traits of Corax's bloodline as he hissed, "You murdered our Brothers by the thousand and laughed as you did so. Ninety-eight days in the Ash Wastes. We heard your mockery on the wind, we heard you laughing as we died."

"We had orders," Xavaar protested, "Can you disobey your Primarch?!"

"Only following orders," Engar jeered, "The excuse of every black-hearted cur."

There was a soft hiss as Arkqas reached up and removed his helm, revealing tortured features. The pair actually winced at the sight as he said, "You don't believe our promises, nor our intent, but believe me when we say we want revenge. Look at what Kharkul did to us, all of us. We want that filth's head, and will go to any length to get it. If that means joining with you, we'll do it. I pledge my troth that we will stand with you as honest Brothers."

"There's no promise you can make that we can trust," Damolos growled, "You break every vow you make, for the sheer pleasure of it."

"You delight in murder," Engar hissed, "Lording over the helpless and the weak. The Night Lords are monsters, you always were."

Xavaar's anger stirred at the contempt in their voices and retorted, "And you believe the Raven Guard are any better?!"

"We don't have to believe anything," Damolos snorted, "We simply are better."

Xavaar glared back and hissed, "Can you claim to have never killed a man who didn't deserve it? Never killed someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or taken pleasure in killing for its own sake? Can you truly pledge that the vaunted XIXth never fought a war that didn't need to be fought?!"

The pair fell silent with angry glowers and Arkqas retorted, "Your silence is all the answer we need. The Raven Guard and Night Lords aren't so different. Face it, had Corax heeded Horus' call to war and Curze stayed true to Terra, we would be the victorious loyalists and you the despised Traitors."

"You know nothing of us!" Damolos spat.

Engar hissed, "And we're supposed to trust the butcher of Herdian?! Oh yes, we've heard of your misadventures, how you slaughtered the men, women and children without mercy. You tracked them all down one by one and took their lives, not in blind murder-rush but with cold calculation. Don't you dare compare us!"

"That's not how it went down!" Xavaar snapped, "It wasn't…"

He clamped his mouth shut before finishing but Engar pressed, "Wasn't what?"

"It's not important," Xavaar muttered.

"Sound pretty important to us," Damolos growled.

"I can't tell," Xavaar protested, "No one can know."

But Arkqas leaned in and said, "Brother, if there was ever a time for the truth, this is it."

Xavaar's throat closed at the thought of revealing his secret, the burden he had carried for so long. Years he had buried that truth under a lie, till he himself believed it. To reveal what had truly happened that day would ruin him, destroy all he had worked to build, but there was no other choice. Everything he had owned was gone: legion, glory and followers, and if there was to be any chance of surviving this day then he had to do the unthinkable and tell the truth.

Xavaar couldn't look at them so stared at the wall and confessed, "Herdian med-orbital, the day I became a legend among my brothers, but none of them knew what really happened. They thought I'd been sent to depopulate the satellite but it wasn't supposed to go down like that. The planet was first conquered by the XIIth, Angron's butchers, perhaps the only Legion worse than us. The local rulers saw Angron's mutts would wipe them out and so feigned surrender, only to plot rebellion the instant they left. The VIIIth was nearest Legion when the uprising began and a small detachment was sent ahead of the main fleet, to soften the target. Herdian med-orbital was still in Imperial hands, but we knew a rebel cell was lurking there, so I was despatched to flush them out. I was meant to haunt their dreams and stalk their days, kill a few orderlies, use my talents to make their nightmares walk, nothing the Night Lords haven't done a million times over. But what no one knew was that I wasn't the first to arrive. Angron's frenzied mutts, one of them had been left behind, lost in the confusion of war and left in a coma for months."

Arkqas gasped, "They... they didn't try to wake him up?"

Xavaar nodded, "They didn't understand what they were dealing with. Not a Marine, not even a man, the Nails had turned him into a rabid animal... there wasn't anything left of his mind save rage and the urge to kill. He rose from his deathbed with a scream that left psychic shivers etched into the walls. He killed the medicaes with his bare hands then went on a rampage. He killed the healers and the janitors, he killed the clerks and the Enginseers, the cleaners and the chirurgeons, even the sick laying helpless in their beds. Men, women, children, none could fight back but he spared no one. When I saw what he had done I... I... No, I thought I was cruel, but that was beyond my worse nightmares."

Sedaxus growled, "Tell me you ended him."

Xavaar continued, "I tracked him to the maternity ward, where tiny scraps of skin hung from the walls and bones smaller than a mouse's littered the floor. His mind was a frothing cauldron, immune to my illusions, but I had an Astartes' strength and skill while he was a rabid animal. We fought and I ended it, I ended him. I excised his madness from the universe and flushed the corpse into space."

"And then what," Engar snorted, "You decided to take the credit?"

Xavaar whispered, "I didn't mean to, but word leaked out and my Brothers assumed I had done it and they made sure word reached the planet. The rebels surrendered overnight; they couldn't believe what we'd do to our own people to put down one cell. An entire planet throwing down arms because of a lie. Curze was pleased, one orbital for a planet, everything he believed fear could achieve. I was elevated to the highest courts, my name feted, I had respect! But... it was all based on a lie."

Sedaxus turned his head to Arkqas and asked, "You knew this?"

"Not a bit, I don't think anyone ever suspected. Brother..."

Xavaar couldn't look at him and hissed, "Don't, just leave it be."

Suddenly the room was split by snort of derision, which quickly became a mocking laugh. All eyes turned to Damolos who was chuckling, "Oh, this is rich!"

"What do you..." Engar started.

But Damolos cried, "To think we were all so wary of myth, a ghost story told to impress gullible fools. You're no monster of the dark, no sorcerer prince of Chaos... you're a fraud! Everything about you is a lie. What did Sedaxus call you: a con-man. That's what you are, nothing but a swindling phoney!"

Xavaar lowered his head in shame but Arkqas interjected, "Be that as it may, we still have the problem of an Ork Waaagh and an insane Red Flayer to deal with."

Damolos sniffed, "Working together that shouldn't be an issue."

Xavaar's head rose a hair as he asked, "Then you're willing to stand with us?"

"Might as well, we have nothing to fear from a fake like you."

Xavaar accepted the offer and swallowed the insult, and yet Engar hissed, "We can't make a decision like that on our own! The other Raven Guard won't wear it."

Sedaxus countered, "Then get all the Sergeants and Claw-leaders together, we need to thrash out a strategy anyway."

Damolos sniffed, "We can get them to listen, we promise no more than that."

"It'll do," Sedaxus affirmed, "I'll convince them to fall in line, no matter what it takes."

Resignedly Xavaar sighed, "Night Lords and Raven Guard, working together. This is going to be one interesting meeting."