~Midsummer Slaughter~
~801. M30~
~Segmentum Tempestus~
~Raisa~
~Abram Cadmus, Knight-Lord of Raisa, Baron of the Golem Keep~
He stands thirty-three feet tall. He weighs sixty-six short tons. His skin are plates of burnished steel. His muscles are beams of banded hydraulics. His bones are struts of hot-wove plasteel. His right hand is a revolving cannon, his pinky another gun. His left hand clenched with power and crackled with energy. A gun extended from his heart, and from it he spat hateful bolts.
He was his knight-armor, not the weak slabs of mortal flesh that just so happened to house his mind and cock, currently plugged into his real body. That blood-filled thing was for entertainment and maintenance. This frame was what he truly was.
Subject to change if he ever found a stronger frame, of course. Getting content was a good way to get dead. He ignored the grumbling from the ghost in his throne. Stronger frame dumbass, ain't that good?
His right hand made a pleasing sound, as if the death wails of a dozen men, as it rotated and turned a line of braying and furious half-men into gore and red mist. He stomped through this, wading through their crude traps and smashing their puny warriors underfoot. The bio-reading cogitator wired into the side-view of his cockpit alerted him to another eleven kills. A comfortable three-hundred thus far. He was aiming for at least a thousand before the sun set.
It was a shame the beastmen tried to flee instead of fighting. Each was six to nine feet of pure muscle, probably could try harder than this if they really tried. Just intelligent enough to know that attempted resistance was futile. Not intelligent enough to make this any more fun for him. Not even stupid enough to make this more fun for him either, if they just charged at him instead of trying to hide, this would be over faster, don't they know?
He was King Abram of knight-house Cadmus, greatest butcher Raisa has ever known. He had proved this with no less than seven consecutive years of victory in the Cull.
The beastmen of Raisa breed quickly in the darkness of the ever-deep wilderwoods. It was necessary to purge them regularly, lest they attempt more dedicated attacks on the mountain keeps. Long ago, one of the most venerable and ancient ancestors had what is actually a grand idea. Rare for what seemed to be an escalating series of shit decisions on their part.
The house that performs best in our yearly culls shall lead the affairs of our world. They shall be our king, and all glory shall be upon his name. All the glory, all the women, and all the best fucking food.
"Damnit Abram! Leave some for us!"
"Don't let the big bastard win another year!"
"I'm knocking you off your godsdamn throne, blaggard!"
The delightfully aggrieved shouting coming from his weathered com-link made his meat-body grin behind a plated helm.
He was the young once-Baron Abram of house Cadmus, a title earned solely through his proficiency in slaughter. Were it up to popularity, he would be thrown to the beastmen to be torn apart. Loathed and feared in equal measure. Beloved by fucking no one, not since birth, not during life, and almost certainly not after death.
The fuckers couldn't do a goddamn thing about his rule, not without going against all those fancy fucking traditions they held so highly. He was the best goddamn murderer Raisa had ever produced. He was going to stay in charge so long as he lived, lest they finally decide to toss out tradition and try to murder him instead of the beasts.
He was looking forward to their inevitable attempts, the only difference between them and the beasts is that they would put up more of a fight.
Well, unless they tried something outside of their armors. Fortunately, they were lackluster there too, and he wasn't.
A nice crowd of charging beastmen invited him to use his nice missiles, one screaming forwards on jet-fire and trailing smoke before crashing into the center of the group.
The explosion and shrapnel tore through seven more. They attempted to smash into his knees with massive meter-long clubs and axes. The first thing the fuckers always went for, they couldn't hit anything else.
He crouched, and swiped a massive armored hand in a wide arc. Beastmen turned into sprays of gore as cracking, disruptive energy flooded their weak, meat frames. Another three died in the process of painting his left side a lovely shade of red.
His right hand roared, and a spray of one-point-one-eight inch diameter bullets cut the rest of the group in half, organs and guts smeared across a dozen-feet long cone behind their heads and legs. Two more.
He was going to run out of ammo about halfway to his goal. That was fine. The latter half of the cull always required mostly melee to keep going, ammunition bins running empty would only stop amateurs from keeping the murder going. Said amateurs using mostly guns like cowardly shits.
Of course, pure melee meant that you were shit out of luck for long range targets. Like the ones his optics just spotted attempting to hide. Mostly females and young.
Some knights would pick out the less repulsive looking ones to fuck back in their private keeps, called it 'conquering the wilds' or something stupid like that. He didn't have any interest in fucking a hole with a goat's head though, he stuck to the bastard-daughters of such unions. They were less repulsive to look at, human faces with fat tits and an eagerness to please.
The wild ones?
Those were for the slaughter.
He fired a missile, and let the fire and gore wash over his optics. He began a malicious, snarling laughter as he trampled deeper into the wilderwoods of Raisa. His right hand roared, his left hand burned, and his footsteps smashed half-men into puddles of blood and bile. The forest floors were hard and dense, pummeled by thousands of years of knight-armors stomping beastflesh into the dirt. They made a good surface for chasing meat through fragile thickets.
He thanked whatever gods may be, because he loved himself. Someone certainly had to do it.
He was going straight to hell when he finally went down. He had been told that his whole goddamn life.
Might as well live while he could, huh?
The ghosts in his throne sighed.
—
"Announcing his eighth consecutive victory in our most honorable culling of the beastmen, King Abram of House Cadmus! With One-thousand, six-hundred, and thirty-four of their number dead by the arms of his knight-armor!" The herald called out in the midst of the immense plateau where the dozens of knight-armors that still functioned from the hundreds of years of decreasing repair efficiency. The knight-scholars knew just enough to keep them repaired and ammo stocked, and that was about it.
So naturally, as king he took the choice bits for himself for his personal knight-armor. It was tradition to name each knight-armor after a heroic deed or knightly virtue.
"Astride his noble knight-armor, Butcher Beast, His majesty claims another year of leadership! May the King of Life bless him with his divine wisdom!"
It had a different name before he first became king. His first decree was to have it painted pitch-black and renamed. This was a whole lot more fitting he felt. Standing on top of his knight-armor's back and looking out to the assembled, he let a wide viscous grin paint the lower half of his face.
Around him, his competitors despaired and raged, often throwing their helmets to the ground in fury and ranting to themselves. Another year that he was not dethroned.
Around them, their various horned slaves did their best to assuage their lords and masters, while wives watched impassively on. Dressed in fine garbs and holding data-slates of various types, the ones that handled all that boring 'governance' shit while their husbands and sons had fun with the murder and the feasting.
It's not like they didn't have their own bloodsports going on, it's just women preferred the murder to some mystery drama bullshit that he had no time for.
In the distance, thousands of commoners cheered as they heard how much less likely the halfmen in the woods were going to climb the mountains and murder everyone in their sleep, possibly combined with a rape or being eaten, and in no specific order. Beastmen were unpleasant sorts like that.
He let out a rumbling chuckle as they carefully avoided looking at him. His reputation was almost as unpleasant. The black-clad slaughter-king. He'd kill you if he feels like it that day, don't you know? He won't torture you, sure, but he's got to murder at least once a day. He's got beast-blood in him, violence is his nature.
Ignoring of course, that most of the commoners had dainty horns coming out of their heads, unlike him.
Looking down, he took a few steps with mechanical feet to reach the ledge of his knight-armor, before making a short leap off. The machine-slaves could handle taking it back to the armory.
His nearly five-hundred pound body smashed against the rocky terrain with a relatively tremendous boom for a human to make. His mechanical limbs absorbed the shock of the impact with relatively little pain, and slowly he rose to his full seven foot height once more.
When you get into enough scraps, eventually you need to replace a few limbs. Old ones break on you. He had been getting into scraps since he was born.
He kept his contemptuous grin on his face as he walked onwards, ceremony basically over already. A woman was waiting for him with a cold expression and an overly stuffy dress. His mood soured immediately as the other half of Golem Keep's administration started walking in step with him.
Normally it was tradition that the current wife of the King handled the administration of Raisa. Unsurprisingly, just about every woman on the planet absolutely refused to marry him on grounds that he was a walking monster. So it came that he just told Wealhtheow, the previous king's wife, to keep handling it. She was competent enough, even if she was a massive cunt.
"The sensor-watchers tell us there are ships in our system." She tensely spoke out, little of the usual cuntiness in her voice. He raised a brow as she continued. "They claim diplomacy in old human tongues, but this could easily be deception."
He considered it for a moment. "Have the knight-armors re-armed and don't disperse the pilots yet. Then keep the sensors watching for guns getting ready, and prepare a welcoming feast."
"A welcoming feast!" She snarled out in a whisper. "I tell you there are ships at our door and you say to prepare a welcoming feast!"
Women were not taught about proper warfare on Raisa, it made sense that she didn't know how to react to this. Women warred with poison and dainty knives.
"I'll change your official title to 'cunt' if you don't shut up, woman." He growled out in turn. "They have ships, which means orbital bombards. If they want to kill us they easily could, so that's moot fucking point. If they want to conquer us, all our knights are here, so we need a reason for them to stick around."
"...And a feast for them to indulge in…" She trailed off, considering the factors. Smart women, brain worked quick once someone pointed her in the right direction.
"Will keep them around long enough to fight would-be conquerors." He growled out, completing the thought.
"I'll have the servants water down the wine." She tersely replied. He frowned deeply. It was probably for the best, the many knights of Raisa couldn't seem to hold their fucking drinks, but now the wine was going to taste like shit.
"Have my slave girls attend me. Having one on my lap might make the wine bearable." He commanded.
"Servants. King Abram. Not Slaves." She grumbled out, ignoring the impunity of it.
He rolled his eyes and ignored her sharp glare. What was the difference? Both were people you ordered to do shit that you didn't want to do.
"Tell Hrothgar to come too, I haven't had a good brawl since he retired."
She glared at him, but didn't respond. He turned to her with a quizzical look on his brutish face. She refused to look at him, teeth grinding in her jaw and fist clenched around her data-slate.
Ah, Hrothgar was probably 'conquering the wilds' right now. Horny old goatfucker.
—
The Golem Keep was the mightiest fortress built on Raisa, right in the center of the greatest plateau, and surrounded by the single largest city-state on the planet. It was hard to build any lower than 'up in the mountains', the beastmen were quick to swarm any settlement they could reach.
The mighty Golem Keep was composed of three primary layers of construction. The highest layers were mostly wooden, add-ons for whatever his predecessors wanted. Currently, there were great ships plated in bone hovering overhead, sides of their bulks bristling in currently deactivated weapons.
The second highest layer was mundane stone interlaced with steel beams. Great construction that served as the bulk of the keep's overall mass. The bottom layer, widest and most durable, was composed mostly of stoney golem-corpses.
Golems were massive creatures of living wood and stone, conjured by some ancient spell-towers in the deepest parts of the wilderwood and greatly displeased by any human trying to live here. Raisa used to have a golem problem, armies of things even larger than the knight-armors marching forth to tear down keeps and trample humans into gore.
He said used to, because his predecessors were selfish pricks who didn't leave any left for him to fight. From the histories they have preserved, the golems were living castles and tore into knight-armors like humans tearing into river-crabs. Get the shell off to pick at the meat inside. It took a hundred years of constant, brutal warfare to deal with the things and destroy their spelltowers.
He wished he could have killed a few.
Inside the main keep itself, the great hall in the very center, were the primary trophies pillaged in ages past. The ones that they could display publicly, that was, the undervaults below the Golem Keep were filled with random shit that landed on Raisa long ago. Obsidian meteorites that turns flesh into stone, golden drinking horns that never run out of beer that makes you sick, a woman with pointy ears in a stasis pod, things of that nature.
The better trophies were on display. The skulls of beast-champions, the ancient swords of fallen knight-kings, pelts of massive beasts from the deeper woods.
And right over his throne, the centerpiece of Golem Keep, the preserved arm of the mightiest beast Raisa had ever seen, Mark-Stepper. The arm, withered by salts and pickling, gruesome and wondrous to behold, was as long as knight-armors were tall. Some thirty feet in length and looming over the feast hall from its ancient wooden supports.
Gods, he wished he could have been at that fight. The beastmen were strong then, strong and furious.
He let himself fall back in his chair, filling out the seat better than skinny old Hrothgar ever did, and resting a hand on his fist. The feast hall was full of tables and knights and merry-making. Watered wine and meats hauled out to feed the many appetites, men and women getting into the spirit of the event as they waited for the star-strangers to enter the hall.
Obediently, his cute little slave crept up and curled into his lap, the little woman with curly little horns and a fine body shivered in his lap. He grinned in a cruel manner and brought a hand up to rest on her hip, squeezing and kneading in just the right way. She let out a cute gasp, bracing her hands against his chest, and squirming, trying to disappear against his body.
Just like everyone else on this rock, she hated and feared him in equal measure. Terrified of his mere presence and trembling whenever he glanced at her for more than a moment. He took out his frustrations by making her squirm and writhe.
He was a black-clad king, after all. Thuggish and beastlike, only fit for murder.
The hall opened and the herald at the door cried out, shouting over the merry-making. "Announcing the lord-guest of King Abram!" The merry-making grew quieter as the herald continued. "High-King Roboute! Lord of two-dozen systems, master of warfare and statesmanship, and son of the Emperor of Mankind!"
The feast-hall was silent.
A minotaur-sized man and his retinue strode into the great chamber, his head almost scraping against the immense oak doors that served as an entrance into this place. Golden-haired and blue-eyed. Clad in thick plates of blue… bone? And covered in an immense white cloak. Golden shield on his back and golden sword at his waist.
There was a sharp-eared woman by his side, as tall as Abram was and… Did they have one of those down in the underkeep? Might be good to get rid of it now. There was other men in armor flanking the stranger-king, great big fuckers in thick plates and carrying big guns at their waist, guards probably.
Abram frowned as he considered the stranger and his fancy armor and fancier titles for a moment. He kept up his ministrations on the slave-girl's hip, who now writhed in deep embarrassment as well.
He frowned deeper when he noticed how quiet the feast hall was. All his knights and their women were practically slack-jawed as they looked upon the stranger. They haven't even turned their gazes to the rest of the retinue behind him. He let his face twist into a snarl as he shoved slavegirl off to the side, now sitting on the arm of his throne, and standing up.
"Are you bastards maidens swooning over the tall stranger?! Get your fucking acts together before I shove you off the godsdamn cliffsides!" He roared out, causing many to break from their stupor and look at him in shock. This only lasted a moment before they remembered how much they hated him, and started glaring.
He huffed in fury before turning back to the stranger in blue, giving him a long look up and down. To his credit, the stranger looked amused rather than angry at the shouting.
"Not everyday I meet a man taller than me." He growled out in consideration. Rolling his neck and shoulders and frowning. "Alright. You brought a fleet to Raisa. What do you want?"
The tall stranger smiled all diplomatic-like, before raising his hand to reveal a pretty little device. It glowed for a moment, before showing off a holo-pict of the galaxy. "I am Roboute. Son of the Emperor of Mankind."
The herald already said this, dumbass.
"I seek to conquer the southern fifth of the galaxy. Every world therein, and build a realm unconquerable. Your world is within this range. I would prefer if you join my banner as allies, and not the conquered."
He reached a hand up to scratch at his dark red beard.
"I suppose you'll need lots of knights and land to develop then. Lots of places to conquer, enemies to slaughter"
The stranger smiled.
"Correct. I don't expect to run out of wars for the rest of my life, and I need soldiers and warmachines for them. I have plans for the development of this world, repair and improvement of its knight armors, and…"
Abram held up a hand, signaling the tall stranger to stop talking. A sharp and toothsome grin filled his face, and savage intent filled his eyes. The sharp-eared women behind the stranger flinched.
"You had my sword and banners when you spoke of endless war."