A/N: This is the penultimate chapter of the Fall of Xozer. One more interlude (which will be much more positive and traditionally heroic), and the final part which explains the rift between Erda and the Emperor.
Note: Sorry for the long delay. I've been busy with IRL events both professional and personal. I'm still busy with those things, so I can't go back to my previous weekly post rate.
Shang Khal stood atop one of the dunes his armies had charged over. Both gauntlets groaned as his fists clenched, shaking with boiling rage as he watched the cloud of insects spread from within the city.
"We have gathered the remaining prisoners and oneirocriticks." Another armored figure, a full head shorter than Shang Khal, said as he scaled the dunes. He was Mafeo Orde, master of the Wrathsingers. Bleached skulls hung from sooty chains attached to a belt with several pouches around his waist. The grisly ornaments formed a sort of skirt made of blackened metal links and ivory bone. The Mark of Khorne was carved into both of his shoulder pauldrons. Dried blood dyed every inch of his armor a blackish brown. His helmet had the facial bones of his favored enemies welded onto it on the front and the sides, forming a sort of grim three faced asura.
"Call the minions of Khorne with your choir." Shang Khal said softly as his gauntlets creaked under his grip. "The hierophants have brought the Plaguefather's tallybands from the Warp. The Taker of Skulls would be upset if we left his hordes univinted. Send them after me. I will head to the center of the city myself."
"As you will, General Khal." Mafeo Orde saluted the 3m giant before him by slamming his fist against his chest plate, then turned back to the thousands of prisoners and 9 oneirocriticks that had been dragged across the sands from the main camp.
Shang Khal swiftly disappeared over the opposite side of the dune as he began to march towards the city. His honor guard and several platoons of berserkers followed behind him.
"Wrathsingers!" Mafeo Orde cried. "Bring the oneirocriticks before me!"
The other Wrathsingers were in armor similar to Mafeo Orde's, with fewer bones and less blood on some of them. Each one carried a spiked mace with a head the size of a bowling ball in their hands. The black metal they were made of began to glow orange as heating elements within them warmed up.
9 bedraggled men and women were picked out from the thousands of other weeping and sniffling prisoners. They were dragged by the arm or foot before the master of the Wrathsingers.
"Liars!" Mafeo shouted, and then brought his own mace down upon one of the oneirocriticks skulls, obliterating the man's head like a watermelon. Steaming blood and sizzling meat spattered out in all directions, drawing a few screams from the prisoners closest to the front.
"Heretics!" Mafeo shouted again, crushing the head of the next oneirocritick, a shivering woman with what was once silky raven black hair.
"Thrice blasted blasphemers!" He said as he swung his mace to and fro, flattening the face of one man and removing the next with the backswing. "Your skulls do not deserve a place at the seat of Khorne! Let your blood rot inside your flesh! Let your memory fade with the wind!"
5 more times his orange hot mace swung. 5 more heads were bashed apart, with their neck stumps cauterized in the same blow that blasted their skulls apart.
Execution and spiritual punishment complete, Mafeo Orde turned back to his Wrathsingers.
"Prepare the pyre." He said to them, and they dragged the headless bodies into the center of the prisoners, piling them up in the middle of them.
"Now, my choir." Mafeo said as he turned to the shivering men and women chained before him. The giant mace was returned to his belt, before he began to approach them. "Sing with hate and fury. Call out to all consuming Khorne, and release your flesh and open your soul to the Blood God." He pulled out a metal stamp, like those made to impress insignias into wax. His thumb depressed a switch near the head, causing the raised bits of metal to glow like a branding iron.
The three faced skull helm turned to one of the prisoners. A wounded Xozer soldier with a broken leg. She was chained to a shivering man in a farmhand's overalls and gloves. A spiked collar was around each of their necks, linked together with a link of chain about a meter and a half long. Both hands were bound by manacles that went between the radius and ulna.
"Will you accept Khorne's mark?" Mafeo asked, looming over the woman. She glared back at him, even as her limbs trembled, then spat. The globule of spit landed at Mafeo's feet, and the branding stamp in his hand began to rise.
Then it slammed down on the forehead of the man next to her. Steam and the sound of sizzling flesh began to rise as the civilian screamed. At the same time, several other cries rose as the other Warthsingsers asked the same question to other prisoners at random, and branded those next to them when they were summarily rejected.
"Will you give Khorne your feet?" Mafeo asked the woman again.
Shock and surprise had numbed her senses, unable to understand why he had inflicted punishment upon another. Her head shook more out of disbelief rather than fear or any thought of self-preservation.
Her shoulders jerked as Mafeo's armored boot slammed down on the right ankle of the farmer who had received the brand instead of her.
On and on the torture went, proceeding from extremeties to torso. Every denial by the one questioned inflicted the pain and punishment on those next to them.
Once, the soldier was too slow to answer Mafeo's question, stilled by the constant pleas and cries from the farmer for her to remain silent.
"Please! Just stop! Stop!" He begged between pain filled pants. "Just… Just don't answer! Please! Just! Please! Please! Please!"
"Will you give Khorne a finger?" Mafeo asked again.
She could only shiver in silence, torn between guilt and fear. She knew what would happen if she rejected him, and dreaded what would happen if she accepted him.
The Master Wrathsinger's massive hands grabbed the woman's manacled hands, causing her to yell as the metal spikes lodged between the bones of her arm twisted. His giant index finger and thumb pinched her pinky finger, then pulled it off.
Her scream joined the others as blood spurted from her hand. From then on, the primordial fear of pain drove her head to shake every time Mafeo asked her a question, not even understanding what he asked her to give.
The farmer and the others begged both the captors and the questioned to stop. But, as more and more of their body was taken for Khorne, their begging turned to bitter cursing. Vengeful cries of hate and pain rose from the prisoners. Even those untouched by the Wrathsingers' questions or their violence began to scream. They knew not by what rhyme or reason the Wrathsingers would choose the questioned and the tormented. The randomness of the violence and cruelty tortured their mind and soul with sheer uncertainty.
"Do you give Khorne your freedom?" Mafeo asked the women before him. She was shivering uncontrollably. Her trousers were wet with urine, and her uninjured hand cradled the other with its missing finger. She shook her head mutely. The farmer beside her burbled with his toothless mouth. Bloody lips attempted to call her a treacherous whore. They both knew she was dooming him while freeing herself. His eyeless face glared in her direction, even as he lay in the sand turned to bloody mud with all his limbs gone and most of his skin removed.
Mafeo's hands, however, did not reach for the farmer this time. They instead approached the woman's neck.
"I said no." Her words came out of her like a whisper. "I said no! No!" She began to thrash, hitting her hands against Mafeo's chest plate. The pain of her missing pinky was forgotten with sheer panic. The chains around her ankles rattled, and she dragged the farmer's torso a little as her feet kicked out, attempting to get away from Mafeo.
"NO!" She screamed as Mafeo's hands closed around her neck.
There was the sound of groaning metal, and Mafeo's hands removed themselves from her neck, holding the two halves of the spiked collar that had been there. His hands then went to the manacles, and tore them apart. The woman gasped in pain as the metal spikes that had been between her bones were removed, and she could only sit there for a while like the few dozen who had been surprisingly set free.
"Go where you wish." Mafeo said, before taking a small canteen from his belt. "Take the blood of the one next to you. The desert is dry, and it would not do to die of dehydration now after everything you have been through."
The woman took the bottle with shaking hands, and then turned to the bloody mess that had been a man beside her.
Part of her couldn't understand why he was alive. Blood continued to pump out of his wounds like water from a spring. But, her brain obeyed Mafeo's words, too full of relief from fear with the promise of freedom right before it. She pressed the canteen's mouth against one of the farmer's wounds, and heard liquid pouring echo out of it.
"Good." Mafeo said, placing an armored hand on her shoulder. "Now, drink."
Mind numb, she lifted the canteen to her lips, and swallowed the iron tasting liquid within.
Flames leapt up from the broken body before her, and its skin blackened and hardened as its moisture left it from the heat. Then, a red clawed hand burst out from the charred remains, followed by a narrow horned head with a fanged maw. Its over sized tongue stuck out from between its teeth, glistening with saliva and tasting the air with its pointed tip.
Around her, other demons emerged from the tortured, stepping out of the Warp into the materium. The veil had been weakened and corroded by Nurgle's presence, allowing them to answer the calls of insane vengeance and mad hate. They came for the cries of the unlucky ones bound next to the prisoners who were given the option to accept suffering and rejected it.
The 2m Bloodletter of Khorne grabbed the stunned woman by the throat. Then, it twisted her head off, like unscrewing a bottle. Blood spurted into the sky from her open neck. Flames leapt from its palm; eating away at the skin, fat, hair, and muscles coating her skull. It then lifted the cleaned bones, and roared as the other daemons of Khorne did the same.
The surviving prisoners screamed and cried as they saw what was in store for them, adding higher pitches to the baritone voices of the demons.
"Sing! Sing as one!" Mafeo called to the prisoners and daemons before him. "Let the cry of Khorne ring throughout the world! Let your voice resonate with his, for the murdered and murderers scream in a single symphony! This is the Truth of all things! Bitter enemies! Trusted allies! It all matters not! Blood flows! Skulls fall! We all struggle to survive at any cost except to ourselves! That is the Truth that binds and drives us! That is the song that unites our voices when we raise them up to the heavens, begging for answers to questions that do not exist! Now, Khorne has answered! Slaughter is meaningless! War is indiscriminate! It is for that reason we are all joined as one through it! We all stand equal beneath Khorne's blade, and are crushed by it all the same when it lands! Brothers! Sisters! We are all one through Khorne and his cry! Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
Flaming swords appeared in the hands of the Bloodletters. The dark clouds above began to fill with orange embers, bathing the ground with bonfire lights. One by one, the daemons spilled the blood of the screaming men and women. Filled with fury born from the unfairness of it all, and suffused in the selfishness of self-preservation, the prisoners provided kindling for the psychic pyre growing from their thoughts and emotions.
"Let the hierophants hear our song!" Mafeo cried as the Bloodletters began to turn towards Xozer. More and more demons came from the victims of Mafeo and his Wrathsingers. They stepped out of the black smoke of fat and muscle. They emerged with the crackle and pop of bones bursting open as their marrow boiled.
Flesh hounds took form from the bloody meat.
Bloodcrushers burst out of the piles of burning bones and skulls.
Bloodthirsters descended from the smoke filled skies on bat-like wings, emerging from thin air; for the barrier between real and unreal had been breached by two of the Ruinous Powers.
The clouds above Xozer began to glow a sickly green, contrasted by the burning red that had emerged above the Wrathsingers. The two colors clashed against each other in the sky. They smashed into each other like two beasts butting heads, attempting to claim or protect their territory.
The final battle for Xozer had begun.
Shang Khal and his honor guard entered the dying city, and waded into the cloud of flies. The buzzing insects swarmed them, only to turn the sound of their beating wings into the crackle pop of flaming embers. The bugs burned meters before reaching any of them. Shang Khal's fury reduced them their semi-corporeal forms to cinders. Not even ash was left behind as he ignored them with his almost blinding rage.
Above them, Roma fliers had started dog fighting in the air. Their enemies were gargantuan insects carrying horned and rotting riders waving rusted cleavers.
On the ground, the half-eaten remains of a mortar team crawled towards the General. Swollen hands, covered with skin that squirmed from the maggots underneath, rose towards him; begging for help.
Shang Khal walked past them all, leaving his honor guard to lop off the heads of his dying soldiers. Their spiked swords glowed orange as they swung, offering the remaining flesh and blood to Khorne.
Red Engines emerged from the darkness as they drew closer to where Keyser's forces had stopped. They were spitting fire in every direction as they fought back the swarms of insects and Poxwalkers that had begun to crawl out of the city. Several of these machines were almost buried in green rot and brown rust. Only their head was left free to squirm as ferrotrophic funguses sprouted fruiting bodies over them to spread their metal-eating spores.
Bloodthirsters landed there, crushing Red Engine and rotten followers of Nurgle equally under their hooved feet. Khorne did not suffer the weak, and even his own daemons were not excluded from that. The Greater Daemon cleaved off the fanged head of its lesser brethren with its axe. Then, it tore out the Warp creature inhabiting it only to swallow it and any shred of power it had left.
Finally, Shang Khal reached the 7th wall of Xozer. It alone stood in his way, with its breaches resealed by molten metal and ceramic. The General unsheathed his sword, raised the giant blackened and knocked blade above his head with both hands, then swung. For a brief moment, a different sword appeared before all those that saw him. A massive black blade so large its tip seemed to cut through the clouds.
Then the wall split open. A massive cut gashed itself through it and the walls beyond it, ripping through the city and carving a path to its center. Hurricane winds blew back like the blast from a bomb, and the ground trembled from the blow Shang Khal made with Khorne's sword.
Shang Khal shivered as he pulled the now normal sized blade from the earth. Then his left hand lashed out, grabbing one of his own honor guard and crushed the man's head helm and all in his grip. Flames spread from him, melting the metal armor of two more of his most trusted friends and advisors, cooking them alive inside. Smoke and the smell of burnt meat leaked from the ruined joints and shattered optics as the two were turned into blackened statues.
The General finally regained control of himself, pulling away from Khorne as he sheathed his blade.
He made no apologies, nor rousing speeches. It was all he could do to keep his wrath pointed at his enemies and away from his allies. His brains boiled in his skull, frying the synapses he used for higher thinking and reasoning; the nerve cells that allowed him to organize and strategize for victory. Dryness filled his throat, and the air in his lungs seemed to burn as Khorne cooked him from the inside out.
"Follow me." He said in his deep voice, and walked through the gash in the wall he had made.
'The Warp and its creatures are rabid dogs to be unleashed upon the enemies of Ursh.' Shang Khal told himself as he soldiered on into the city. 'But, being rabid dogs, they will bite the hand that holds their leash.'
His right hand stroked the handle of the black sword at his side. The Overlord Kalagann himself had provided it to him, along with lessons of the Warp and its creatures.
'We are the invaders in this story. The momentum is ours.' Shang Khal told himself.
The Warp was a reflection of the materium's thoughts and dreams. It was for that reason they controlled it, and not the other way around. That was one of the lessons from Kalagann, who had shackled the daemons that moved the Red Engines, and taught the Wrathsingers the rites necessary to call forth Khorne's daemons.
Xozer crumbled before him, so even if the hierophants had called forth their patron god, Khorne would vanquish the Plaguefather just as Shang Khal had crushed the defenses of the hierophants.
'Time does not exist in the Warp.' Shang Khal thought to himself as he strode through the gap in the 6th wall he had cut. 'By breaching the realm of real and unreal, the hierophants have opened one final path for my victory.'
The world around them no longer followed the rules of reality, nor the laws of physics. Mind triumphed over matter now, and in the timeless Warp, it was possible to choose when and where things would be.
The technology of Xozer still existed in the past, even though it had been destroyed in the present. Shang Khal only had to drag it back to his future, and overwrite what was and is while it was still soft and pliable from the presence of the two gods.
A bestial growl leaked from between Shang Khal's lips.
There was neither strategy nor tactics in this battle now. The inelegant and unpredictable flow of the emotions and ideologies of humanity dominated this battlefield. The despair of the desperate defenders now leaked from their souls like pus from an infected wound. It had begun to spread across the deserts, defiling and desecrating the dry sands, filling them with muck and mucus.
Khorne continued to call him from the Skull Throne. He could feel the Blood God in his mind, talking to him without words in a voice that had no sound. Concepts and memories flowed from the congealed mass of subconscious thought that was the Warp, slowly replacing his own and leaving nothing but the Lord of Murder's message ringing in his ears.
Shang Khal shook his head, and repeated one of the mantras taught to him by the Overlord Kalagann.
'Gods are the tools of mankind. Their religions are the opiates for the masses. Their sermons are but soothing balms for the weary and the weak.'
Neither Kalagann nor Shang Khal believed in or worshiped the gods. It was for that reason the majik wielding oneirocriticks had been allowed to live, instead of being slaughtered immediately as Khorne would have most likely wanted. The practicality of their existence outweighed the bloodthirst of Ursh, even though they had been useless in the final battle.
'Mankind is the maker of its own fate, and the Warp follows in our footsteps.' Shang Khal said to himself as he took another step forward. 'I am the General of this campaign. It is my words and my orders that dictates what happens here.'
Slowly, Shang Khal felt the hot touch of Khorne recede, leaving gaping holes in his mind. Instead of childhood memories, he saw pyroclastic bombs being dropped on villages with straw roofs. Instead of the names of his parents, he heard the clang of swords on shields and armor. This was the price for wielding a weapon from the Warp; the pawning off of treasured memories or valuable items for power.
There was a flash of light in the General's peripheral vision, and he turned towards it.
A squad of 5 or 6 Volkite snipers appeared from one of the city's alleys, cutting their way through the swarms of insects with their beam weapons. The smallest servants of Nurgle exploded upon contact with the yellow-ish orange streams of energy. Thus, allowing the survivors to carve holes large enough for them to pass through unmolested. Padded patrol equipment covered them. Air tight visors and lead laced fabrics kept both the radiation and the swarms out. Several civilians were with them as well, wrapped in thick clothing with wetted cloth covering their faces and mouths.
Shang Khal watched as one of them jerked back at the sight of him, and began to raise his weapon.
The General chuckled to himself.
These men and women were trying to get out of the city, turning their backs on the society that spawned them. Despite everything, they had closed their eyes and shut their ears to Nurgle's message. They would not sit idly by, and wait for death to claim them.
'Yes…' Shang Khal thought to himself as he watched the barrel of the Volkite Caliver rise towards him. The moment was extended by his gene-sculpted synapses, making everything move with almost infinite slowness. 'Rise up. Fight.'
It was Xozer and Ursh that had commenced battle here, not Nurgle and Khorne. Man should have been the one to end this; not the Gods themselves.
Shang Khal smiled, heart warmed by this sign of strength. It was not the strategic victory he envisioned, nor would it be a glorious battle with a well matched foe. Yet, this final fight before he descended into the Warp consumed center of the city would be a new treasured memory for him.
Even in the depths of Plaguefather's garden of despair, mankind still made its own destiny.
Suddenly, another Volkite sniper grabbed the other's gun, shoving it downwards. The sniper who had attempted to shoot Shang Khal turned to him to protest, but the sniper stopping the shot only shook his head. The sniper holding the barrel then turned towards Shang Khal, and stared into his eyes.
'Let us go. There is nothing left to fight over.'
Shang Khal read the message in the man's straight back and his firm gaze. He saw it in the way he stopped his fellow sniper from firing, while keeping his finger on the trigger of his own.
In reply, the General's right hand drew the blackened and knocked sword out of its scabbard.
'I am not done with you, or your city.' He said wordlessly.
The soldiers' shoulders tensed as Shang Khal relaxed his limbs, preparing to lunge forwards. Then a dark shadow fell over them. A giant gangrenous creature with a bloated belly and twisted antlers crashed down out of the swarms, shaking the ground and sending dust flying in every direction.
"Welcome, General." It gurgled. "The Grandfa-." Whatever the daemon was about to say was cut off, along with the bottom half of its face as Shang Khal's sword sliced upwards.
"I am the General. You are a weapon." Shang Khal said as the daemon of Nurgle stumbled backwards. "Now be silent." The raised sword then slashed downwards through the creature's skull, slipping between the antlers and opening up its bloated belly. The guts and digestive juices turned to ash and steam as they burned like the bugs, vaporizing before reaching Shang Khal.
"Go! Get back! Back into the city!" Shang Khal heard one of the snipers say as they ran away from him, taking the civilians with them.
"But Tolu!" The one who had tried to shoot him shouted.
"We can't fight that thing! Come on! We'll find another way out! Now move!"
Shang Khal watched as they disappeared, carving out their own path through the swarms of insects with their Volkite Calivers. Eventually, they disappeared from sight; hidden by the rot flies. He turned back towards the gaping gorge he had carved all the way to the center of the city.
"Mankind makes its own future." He said to no one as his honor guard formed up behind him.
Legions of Bloodletters were entering the city, following the path he had carved, or climbing over the walls themselves. Flesh hounds ran in the streets, searching for fresh game in the form of human or daemon flesh. Bloodcrushers snorted as they passed by him, then roared while they charged towards Plaguebringers and Poxwalkers, attempting to gore them on their horns. The ground shook as the Bloodthirsters landed, crushing buildings and swatting away bridges and towers with their axes.
The city colored in nothing but the blackness of billions of bugs was now lit with bonfire orange as the burning daemonic hordes of Khorne began to batter their way past the tallybands of Nurgle.
"Follow me." Shang Khal said, ignoring the cacophony of the daemons around him. "It is time to end this charade."
At the center of the city, surrounded by the croak of Plague Toads and the flap of moth wings, the 7 hierophants chanted the lessons of Nurgle.
They felt the Wrathsingers' hymns coming from beyond the city, and felt its message like raw magma erupting from the earth. Even now, those who had not been consumed by the rot flies and their maggots fought against their fate. The psychic emanations resonated with these survivors, awakening the instincts they needed to struggle against the fat grip of Nurgle upon their souls.
In return, the hierophants began their own sermons.
"Three by three the chant is made." One of the seven hierophants droned. "With birth comes the first suffering; for the first sound made is a cry of pain."
"With life comes the lesson that this pain will never end." A second cried.
"In death, we are given a false rest, for the end of life is not the end of the soul." The third line came.
"War, disease, drought, and famine. All end in Grandfather's Garden." The fourth line came solemnly.
"That is the lesson of the Plaguefather. The world falls apart each day, taking another step along the road of entropy." The fifth line fell from someone's lips.
"Nurgle offers no salvation. Nurgle offers no deliverance. Nurgle only offers enlightenment and the acceptance of the inevitable." The sixth line came with almost sadistic joy.
"Accept. Accept. Accept. Just as all are welcome in the Garden, accept all the blessings of the Great Corruptor." The seventh line repeated itself.
"Disease is but the form our flesh takes when it accepts the inevitable, for it is merely the rot happening before its time." The eighth line came out irritably.
"And so we shall become part of that rot. The rot that changes the form. The rot that metamorphoses the flesh. The transfiguration of mind and soul." The ninth line was echoed by the raucous croaking of the Toads and deep flapping of wings.
"Three by three the chant is made." hierophant 7 said again for the tenth time as feverish sweat fell from his brow. It had been several days since the Grandfather had sent his minions. Even now, the forces of Rot fought the minions of Brass, Blood, and Bone. Neither side was winning.
A Great Unclean One hacked at and puked over hordes of Bloodletters with its rusty cleaver and gut-maw. Then a Bloodthirster smashed its guffawing head in with its axe.
Beasts of Nurgle embraced Bloodcrushers, giggling even as Flesh hounds chewed at their slug-like body.
Rot flies and their riders fell, from the flaming skulls fired from Skull Cannons. The Bloodthirsters upon these burning machines roared with victory with their flaming swords held high, even as they were surrounded by swarms of Poxwalkers and Plaguebringers. Soon, they would join the others before them, buried beneath the bubonic bodies and suffused in the stench of sickness.
The chant was beginning to tax him and his fellow hierophants. He could feel his mind slow, and his breath falter. A cough interrupted his chant, and in that brief moment of clarity a question appeared in his mind.
'There are only 7 of us. Who is chanting the last two lines?'
He felt a grim chill spread through him, and the coughing consumed all the air in his lungs. Beside him, he watched his fellow hierophants fall as their sicknesses suddenly robbed them of their strength.
The croaking grew louder as did the beating of wings, but it was not the sound of toads or moths.
Ravens circled them like birds of carrion, watching them with beady avian eyes.
'Grandfather!' hierophant number 7 cried out in his mind, unable to speak from the coughing. 'Why?'
Nurgle did not answer. He had left, taking the boons of his blessings with him. The Plague Lord's attentions were now focussed on the masses of dead and dying, whether they be from Xozer or Ursh. No longer watched over by their patron god, the hierophants experienced his poxes and plagues as any other would.
In the Grandfather's place, there was only the multi-octave laughter of the Raven Lord; the patron god of schemers and traitors.
Planning and scheming is not a trait of the Lord of Flies. He seeps into the mind, just like sickness. His message infects all, but it spreads from the bottom up. The least fortunate are the ones who find him first.
The hierophants were the farthest thing from his usual followers. They were too clever, too privileged, too ambitious, and too arrogant.
Those were the traits of Tzeentch, the eternal Paradox within the Warp that allowed those closest to it to serve his siblings, only to take them back at the height of their power and pride.
'GRANDFATHER!' hierophant 7 screamed in his mind as the black birds descended upon him, croaking hungrily.
The last thing he saw was an obsidian beak heading straight for his eyes.
Maffeo Orde swatted at an alien beast before him with his mace. It had three arms and two legs, and its skin was a bright azure blue. Around him, more of the creatures spilled forth from the now purple pyre they had made from the prisoners. Firework flames spread from the 9 oneirocriticks corpses as blood leaked from their necks like oil from a knocked over barrel.
"9 heads lost! 9 brains crushed! 9 sources of knowledge gone!" The blue thing gibbered with its oversized mouth as its single eye opened wide. A sky blue iris glowed upon its black sclera. "9 days! 9 days! 9 da-!" The thing was silenced as Mafeo smashed his mace over the thing's head, splattering him and the ground with blue liquid, as if it were a balloon filled with navy ink.
Strange flattened creatures with curved wings flew out of the fire, screaming as they did so. The sound came from the mouth below their eyes on the front of their face, as well as the many fanged openings that were upon their bellies.
Monsters with robe-like skins, and mouths where their hands should have been floated out with them, spreading azure flames from all of their orifices.
Purple versions of the multi-limbed beast Mafeo had just slain skittered out as well, before throwing balls of purple light at the Wrathsingers that remained.
Maffeo bellowed like a bison, no longer capable of speech. Hate coursed through every iota of his being. His three faced skull helm let out steam from all three nasal bones as he snorted, then he charged into the growing armies of Tzeentchian daemons.
The once orange pyre was now a mix of blue and violet flames. It shot up towards the sky, adding a third color to the two that were butting heads above them.
Shang Khal reached the center of the city. He had no idea how long it had taken him. The sun neither rose, nor fell. The only illumination was from the sickly green glow, bonfire lights, and azure flames in the cloudy skies above.
The remains of one of the centrifuge buildings towered before him. Its contents bubbled as if it were a massive cauldron, spilling corrosive ooze from its lip when a bubble exploded too close to the edge.
"Guard me while I travel back to the past." He ordered his honor guard, and they saluted before taking up a loose box formation around him.
The daemons of Nurgle stayed away, watching from the shadows as schools of Screamers swam in the sky above him like shoals of fish. Khorne's hordes were still tearing into the tallybands of Nurgle, while Tzeentch's daemons began to dominate the sky, engaging the Roma and driving their fightercraft away from the center of the city.
Shang Khal knelt with one hand placed on the bubbling centrifuge building. He read its nature with his mind, decoding every atom of information from its long history. Slowly, the rust and corrosion receded, replaced with its former form. The distillation towers rebuilt themselves, with pieces of them falling upwards before rebinding to each other.
Simultaneously, the images of Shang Khal's honor guard retreated back into the city, walking backwards as Shang Khal alone traveled back through time, to recover the artifacts.
'Mankind is the maker of its own fate, and the Warp follows in our footsteps.' Shang Khal recited the mantras of Kalagann, ignoring thousands of sorcerous whispers as he brushed against the domain of Tzeentch; the self-styled Master of Fate.
Bit by bit, he dragged every part of the interlinked artifacts back from the past.
The skyscraper sized distillation towers.
The colossal centrifuge buildings.
The smallest pore within the filtration facilities filters.
Shaking with exertion, Shang Khal proceeded to make this version of the artifacts real.
'The Warp is a reflection. The Warp is unreal. The Warp rhymes after we state the reason.'
These artifacts had fallen apart only because of the powers of the Warp. Thus, what could be done with the Warp could be undone through the Warp.
The ground shook and past voices of the dead rang in every ear. The sky tore apart as the clouds of the Three receded, returning to where they had been before all of this.
But, instead of blue skies, all that was above Shang Khal was the writhing maelstrom of uncontrolled Chaos. Uncountable daemons unaligned with the Ruinous Powers watched him and his men, like vultures circling the sky over a pack of lions waiting for scraps.
Shang Khal stared up at the swirling void of gray, black, and white. This was supposed to be the future he was staring at, yet this was not the Urshite victory he had imagined.
Then the artifacts before him began to melt.
He saw nuclear fire warp the materials they were made of.
He saw nanite swarms tearing it apart at an atomic level.
He saw bombs go off, shattering the distillation towers, and sending them tumbling down once again.
This was the future he saw, and in it the fate of the artifacts remained unchanged.
"We have followed in your footsteps." One of the daemons above him said. It had six wings, and wore a human face. Yet, its mouth was so wide it could be seen protruding from out behind the human ears. "But we are not your servants or your slaves. We are daemons. We are the beings all mortals should bow their heads to." It laughed, and two forked tongues flopped out from both sides of its mouth. "From now on, we shall be pulling your strings. Your people on this planet will be at our beck and call. But, before that, witness the last act the people of this planet have made on their own."
Shang Khal returned to the present, and he was surrounded by Nurgle's daemons. His honor guard were separated from both him and each other. Seas of Nurglings shoved them apart with their sheer mass, giggling even as they were hacked apart.
Then a Great Unclean One grabbed one of his friends and advisors in a meaty paw. Its fat fingers began to squeeze, denting the armor around the honor guard's waist.
Shang Khal started to stand, but his legs gave out forcing him to kneel. Fungal hyphae had begun to wrap around his feet, secreting digestive acids and enzymes as they entered his armor and ate away at his flesh.
Despair had begun to eat at his soul, and now the Warp reflected that corrosion of his conviction with the consumption of his flesh.
He had failed. He had seen the future, and there was no path where the artifacts survived. Whether it was atomics, nanites, or even simpler explosives the end of the artifacts was cemented as fact in the future.
But why?
"Why?" Shang Khal whispered out loud as he fought against his despair. He saw the outcome, but didn't understand the process. Finding the reason was his only hope he had of fighting off the rot in his spirit, and restoring the fury he had used to burn off the touch of Nurgle.
There was a metal groan as the armor of the honor guard in the Great Unclean One's hand gave a little bit more, crushing its occupant. Then there was a bloodthirsty roar, and the flapping of bat wings.
A Bloodthirster crashed down onto the battlefield before the greater daemon of Nurgle. Its muscled and clawed hand grabbed the upper half of the honor guard sticking out of the meaty paw of its Nurglite counterpart.
Then the two daemons pulled. Like two toddlers fighting over a Christmas cracker, they yanked on the bottom and top halves of the human.
Shang Khal heard a high pitched scream, and learned the gender of the woman now being pulled apart physically and metaphysically.
The greater daemon of Nurgle laughed, childishly, enjoying the tug-of-war. Its Khornate equivalent took offense to that, and with a hateful bellow, slammed its battle axe into the Great Unclean One's face. The gangrenous daemon lost its balance, and the individual held in both of their hands twisted in their grip.
There was the tearing sound of metal and meat, and both daemons stumbled backwards as their prize was torn in two.
The Bloodthirster looked down at the now limp top half of the women, snorted once, then tossed it over its shoulder like a used tissue paper.
The Great Unclean One looked down at the bottom half still in its grip with the string intestines hanging out, shrugged, and dropped it like a spoiled child does with a broken toy.
'The Warp is a reflection. The Warp is unreal. The Warp rhymes after we state the reason.' Kalagann's mantra echoed in Shang Khal's mind as he watched the Nurglings gather around the broken halves of what was once his friend and advisor.
This was the reason for the artifacts' destruction. This was the rhyme to the reason he had searched for.
Shang Khal sat back on his knees and howled into the air.
The Warp reflected humanity here. Like Xozer and Ursh, these daemons tore into each other without mercy or remorse. They savaged each other for the prize of human souls, just as he had butchered billions of the enemy and his own soldiers to take the artifacts for Ursh.
And at the final moment, their conflict tore apart what they had wanted most.
Like the daemons that had torn apart that single honor guard, they had ruined the thing that they had spent everything fighting for.
Yet, that was not enough. Like the Bloodthirster and Great Unclean One, humanity savaged each other, long after the reason they had waged war had ended.
Just like Keyser had done when he attempted to press endlessly forward.
Just like Shang Khal had done when he unsheathed his sword before that group of snipers attempting to escape the city.
Just like their ancient forefathers did when they launched atomic after atomic at each other in mutually assured destruction.
Hate and despair seethed within Shang Khal as he felt Khorne's touch burn more and more of his brain while the fungi of Nurgle ate away at his body. Words left his vocabulary, only allowing bestial roars and meaningless bellowing to come from his lips. His hands shook as he screamed, head almost blurring as it rocked madly back and forth.
Around him, Nurglings pointed and laughed as pink and blue horrors clapped their many hands, having finally joined the fray in earnest.
They were all here to watch him. To see whether the great General of Ursh would rot away before he was burned to ash in this session of the Great Game.
Then all time stopped, and a bright golden light ended Shang Khal's suffering.
Author's Note:
There are probably some questions about who is responsible for what.
The Ruinous Powers haven't really manipulated humanity into doing what it wants. They aren't even really here, which is why they are represented as colors within the clouds. An infinitely small part of their psyche has been drawn to this conflict. In short, it's a really messy version of Neoth being able to talk to Joan, while still being the same person. Another similar occurrence is when Isha divides out the individual personalities of those who became part of her.
Humanity is responsible for the destruction of its own future. They have already ruined the planet once, and now they do so again. The Warp is only a reflection of that. That is why the daemons of Nurgle and Khorne act the way they do.
Tzeentch is here in order to explain away the more paradoxical elements of each group. A plan to create an Eden only to let it rot is both paradoxical and overly complicated, making it a plan unfitting of Nurgle. Shang Khal using oneirocriticks despite being aligned with Khorne is another strange occurrence that Tzeentch has to explain. So, Tzeentch did not orchestrate the events, although it may have allowed some individuals greater access to information about their Patron Gods, as well as how best to call them.
As for the unaligned daemons, the Ruinous Powers are not the only thing in the immaterium. The uncountable unaligned daemons are creatures from both before and after the War in Heaven. They are the Daemon Princes that Erda referred to when talking to Isha.
The daemon with 6 wings and a human face is Pharaa'gueotla. It and its brethren have been waiting for a Warp event of this magnitude so they can reverse the order of things. Until this moment, humanity on Terra has been making its own decisions. The Warp is merely a reflection or symbolism of that. However, the daemons are ideologies with personalities. They do not enjoy the current order of things where they are essentially secondary to reality. So, with the Ruinous Powers tearing down the boundaries of reality, they can begin to switch the order of who acts according to whose whims. Instead of the daemons merely representing certain ideologies, humanity will act out the ideologies of the beings of the Warp.
As the daemon prince of treachery and guile, it wears a human face despite predating humanity, and its two-tongues hanging out of either side of its mouth is a physical representation of the idioms for two-tonguedness, and speaking out of either side of one's mouth.
It also takes some Christian imagery, with its 6 wings being a reference to Lucifer. However, it is not a daemon spawned by humanity, but much older and alien.