A/N: I've added some links to music and ambient sounds. These are just my personal opinion, so take them or leave them. Put the name in quotes ("") if searching on YouTube, otherwise you'll get a lot of unrelated search results.
1 Legio Symphonica - From Iron Cometh Strength | Warhammer 40K Music
1
Keyser looked at the legions of disposable berserkers before him from his steed. Millions of 2 meter giants encased in spiked black and red armor stood eerily still with motorized chain axes or swords in both fists. A few of them had black canisters attached under their nutrient and power packs. They surrounded the city on all sides. Sand dunes had been piled up in front of them, protecting them from the laser emitting walls and Volkite Caliver wielding snipers that stood upon it. Xozer now lay in what looked like a misshapen yellow crater almost 300 km in diameter. The sun was just rising, coming up from behind them and casting their armored shadows towards Xozer. The blood and guts from the refugees who had been denied entry covered each of the gates, like jam on the lips of a messy eater biting through a slice of toast slathered in pureed fruit.
"Are we still in contact with the other battalions?" The Lord Marshal asked his comms officer.
"We are." The man nodded.
"Good. Order them to begin the wave attacks, and wait for our signal."
Berserkers began to climb the dunes, edging their way to the top so they would all appear above it at the same moment.
Then, all at once, they charged. Swarms of soldiers ran silently, screams of rage locked inside their own armor with their bodies.
Yellow-ish orange beams of Volkite fire struck them, but their battle-lust drove them to instinctively bob and weave, forcing the snipers to adjust their aim as their target's side stepped or dove forwards to escape the cutting effect of the laser tweezers each Volkite Caliver fired.
Suddenly the sands before the city exploded as something sparkly yet invisible whipped to and fro. Cuts began to appear in the armored suits of the berserker nearest to these small explosions.
Laserthorn hedges were buried around the city. Each one was a bundle of 7 crystalline tentacles made of fiber optic cables that carried laser light from the walls' optical resonator out into the field, deploying the immense concentration of photons from inside the walls in anti-infantry quanta.
Yet, the lasers the hedges emitted were set to frequencies most effective against metal and ceramics; the two most common materials that armor was made out of. Flesh and bone boiled and charred, but it took the laserthorns two or three seconds more to cut through the berserkers themselves, compared to the milliseconds it took to penetrate their armor.
The berserkers did not give them that time, nor did they falter from losing an arm or a leg. Sand and dust was kicked up as their armored feet skidded through it, obscuring them from vision for a moment before they charged through the temporary smokescreen they made. Berserkers ducked under or side stepped the almost invisible optical tentacles lashing out at them, relying on the bestial instincts and superhuman reflexes their forced enhancements gave them. In turn, they slashed at the fiberglass cables of the laserthorn with the serrated teeth of their chain weapons. Their limbs were black blurs as they hacked into the laserthorn hedges with their chain weapons, sawing through them while constantly moving. Soon, the outermost layer of hedges were turned into sparking crackling wrecks, writhing around like beheaded snakes.
However, the laserthorn hedges had done their job. The snipers with Volkite Calivers all had genetically enhanced eyes with reorganized retina that were placed above the blood vessel layer, and several hundred times the neurons in an unmodified eye. Beams of yellow-ish orange energies struck the berserkers exactly where the laserthorn hedges had opened up their armor, converting the water in their bodies into miniature hydrogen bombs and blowing them up and anyone near them in grisly fashion.
Red splotches began to spread across the yellow sands around Xozer, as if a mass of fully engorged mosquitoes had been smashed by an invisible hand.
Still, the berserkers came from behind the dunes. Wave after wave of armored soldiers proceeded forwards, cutting through the next row of laserthorn hedges and drawing closer to the city walls.
Finally, the walls themselves opened fire, sending pillars of light five or six men wide across the ground, like a prison searchlight. Everything caught within the shimmering circle of light melted. Day turned to night from the brightness of Xozer's defenses, as the walls' beams outshone the sun. Soon, a circle of molten glass surrounded the city like a castle moat. The feet of the new waves of berserkers sank into it, slowing them down to the point the Volkite Calivers could be directed at them long enough to melt their armor and detonate them from the inside. In turn, the laser walls fell silent, recharging their optical resonators. The snipers were enough to deal with Xozer's enemies for the moment.
"Send in the Red Engines." Keyser ordered. "Prepare our mortars, and send the signal."
The first wave of Red Engines galloped up the dunes, and ran across the burning orange liquid silica. Each one let out a mechanical scream that sounded like an overexcited dog, happy at seeing a familiar face. The sight in front of them reminded the creatures that inhabited these machines of their home in the Warp; a place where flames and liquid brass erupted from the land as blood poured from gigantic skull towers under an ashen sky.
Volkite beams hit the Red Engines, and were ignored as they charged towards the walls. Even as several snipers directed their fire in unison at the head and shoulders of one, they only succeeded in melting off its metal skin, revealing only metal muscles and metal bones which would not explode.
The second wave of Red Engines walked slower with platoons of berserkers, acting as roofs or shields against the Volkite snipers of Xozer like an ancient battering ram does against arrows.
The last remaining laserthorn hedges erupted from the sands that still remained near the base of the crystalline walls, severing the metallic limbs of the first wave of Red Engines, sending their writhing bodies skidding across the ground.
The Red Engines that walked more slowly stopped out of range of the thrashing tentacles, then began spewing flames upwards at the snipers, hiding the berserkers who lept out from under it from their sight. These berserkers, under the cover of flame and smoke, cut down the last of the defensive hedges.
But, by then, the crystalline walls of Xozer had recharged and they let loose their fury in all directions. Daemonic machines and madmen vanished in a flash of light, and were replaced by a hellscape of boiling glass that warped the image of Xozer with heat mirages.
"Fire the mortar!" Keyser ordered, and an angled tube wide enough to swallow a fully armored berserker roared as it launched an atomic in a high arc towards the city. Mortars from the other brigades followed suit, sending more atomic shells from the battalions surrounding the city totalling to over ten thousand radioactive warheads that rained down on Xozer from all sides.
Lasers began to fire upwards from the outer and inner walls of Xozer to intercept the shells, melting their casings, and prematurely detonating the explosives that would cause the fission reaction of the atomics. The shells shot out of the sky scattered their military grade fission material across the land. Uranium purified till it was 90% the radioactive isotope fell down upon the snipers, causing them to be violently sick with radiation as its deadly rays passed through their skin and sliced up their cells.
But, ten thousand shells was too much for the crystalline walls of Xozer to shoot out of the sky, especially with their optical resonators so depleted by their previous attack. Only those that would have hit directly or landed inside were shot down. Mushroom cloud after mushroom cloud erupted around the megalopolis as the atomics Xozer's defenses were forced to ignore struck the ground outside the walls. Dust engulfed the city as the heat and shockwaves from the atomics rocked the land, sending cracks through the crystalline walls, and wiping out the surviving snipers who stood upon her ramparts.
Even the armies of Ursh hiding behind the dunes outside the city tens of kilometers away stumbled as their atomics exploded again and again around the city.
"Now!" Keyser shouted, and his steed reared back. "Charge!"
The Tupolev Lancers thundered up and down the dunes with the rest of the berserkers and Red Engines. Even as the dark mushroom clouds loomed over them, they dove into the dust and ash. The six clawed feet of their steeds ran across the burning glass, traveling almost a hundred kilometers an hour. Radioactive dust obscured them from Xozer's sensors, and their enhanced bodies weathered the gamma rays that penetrated everything while their air tight armor kept out the alpha and beta radiation.
Beams of light shot out blindly through the dust, turning the gray and brown cloud into a blazing orange as it set the particles floating through the air aflame. But the dust dispersed the light coming from the laser defenses of Xozer, weakening them. A normal man would still be cooked to cinders, but the armored soldiers of Ursh could still move for a single second in that beam. That was all the time those on the edges of the laser needed to dodge out of the way. The unlucky few who were caught dead center by some miraculous shot melted and burned before they could clear the blast radius of the beam.
After 15 minutes, Keyser and his Tupolev Lancers reached the East gate of Xozer. Despite the explosions and laser fire, the remains of the refugees were still plastered upon it. The bloody gate was clamped shut like the mouth of a tortured prisoner of war, bloodied, but still refusing to answer their interrogator's questions.
Keyser pulled out his lance, and the rotating gears roared as he stabbed it into the side of the gate.
"Climb!" He ordered the berserkers as he and his lancers dug into the metal and ceramics of the gate.
The berserkers began to climb up the side of the gate. They first clambered onto the mechanical steeds of the lancers, then the shoulders of the lancers themselves. After going as high as they could go, they pulled out their chain weapons, and cut out shallow grooves and notches for their fingers to grab hold of. Slowly, they scaled the sides of the gate, digging out hand holds for themselves as they went.
Keryser finally pulled his lance out of the hole he had dug, then pulled out a black canister from a pouch on his steed. He looked up at the berserkers, and saw the ones with the black canisters had gotten into their pre-planned positions. They too began cutting shallow indentations into the walls with their chain weapons.
He placed the black canister, a melta-charge, into the hole he dug and then ordered a berserker to place themself over the hole. The berserkers with the melta-charges did the same with their own bodies, pushing their explosives into the indentations they had dug.
"Detonate!" Keyser yelled, and the melta-charges exploded. The berserkers who lay on top of them acted like a make-shift seal, directing more of the explosion into the gate and walls of Xozer.
Bits and pieces of blackened armor and limbs rained down on the Tupolev Lancers and remaining berserkers. But, Keyser only smiled as the bloody East gate of Xozer slowly fell inwards.
"Finish tearing down the outermost walls." Keyser ordered all the berserkers, and they began to walk into the now exposed guts of the thick walls, torn open by the falling gate and their melta-charges.
Meanwhile, Keyser turned towards the site revealed by the opening they had made.
Green farmlands were rapidly turning brown as their crops wilted, killed by the radioactive dust falling from the sky. Beyond them was another crystalline wall.
Such a sight should have made any sane man lose hope, especially after seeing the cost of taking the outermost walls. But, Keyser's reinforced eyes told him this one would be easier than the last. He could see the snipers who were supposed to be on top of it were missing. Most likely they were already dead from the atomic explosions that had occurred outside. Only the innermost walls protected by the shimmering dark blue void shields survived unscathed. It was that, or they were crippled with radiation sickness. Regardless, the armies of Ursh would have an easier time taking it down.
Off in the distance, he heard a series of new explosions followed by the crash of a different gate falling inwards. Crackling and rumbling filled the air as a section of crystalline wall crumbled like a calving glacier.
In the sky, he saw the sun grow dark, obscured with ash and dust. Lightning flashed in these new clouds, filled with ionizing radiation, generating ion storms that were steadily growing stronger.
Behind him, the ground glowed orange from the heat, and scores of armored soldiers and Red Engines crossed over the molten glass to flood into the breached outer walls.
The Lord Marshal dropped off his cybernetic steed, and grabbed a handful of dirt on the ground. He felt the damp clumps of soil between his armored fingers, then turned to his lieutenants.
"Bring up the mortars and prepare the burners." Keyser ordered. "Begin the wave attacks on the second walls, but let loose the Red Engines first. Their laserthorn hedges cannot fly out of this damp heavy soil. They can only work in dry sand."
There was no heaviness in his voice, no regret in his tone. Neither was there satisfaction, elation, or even the faintest tinge of joy.
This was a mundane spectacle to Keyser. The sights and sounds around him were merely those of another war on Terra. The weapons and tactics may have differed in other battles, but the effect on those waging it and the environment were the same.
Death, destruction, and the creation of hell on earth out of what was once somebody's home.
—-
The assault on Xozer continued. More atomics were launched at the inner walls from mortars, but burners were added to this as well. Thick smoke poured from these flaming contraptions that looked like massive instrumental horns on wheels. The black clouds blocked the berserkers from the defensive wall's sight, forcing the defenders to use their energies inefficiently to take them down. Wave after wave of genetically modified men and women in irremovable armored suits came at them, depleting their optical resonators of photons quicker than they could recharge.
After several hours, these walls fell in the same way as the first, with sacrificial melta-charges buried into holes and dents carved out by drill bits and chain weapons.
Cannons were brought up to lay siege to the next set of walls, firing from behind the destroyed remains of Xozer's outer defenses, and out of their line of sight. These inner walls were smaller and weaker than the outermost, for each ring decreased in circumference, reducing the number of focussing crystals and optical resonators they could carry. Now, the Urshite armies could afford to use more conventional explosive shells, which fell upon the snipers and crystalline walls, forcing the defenders to split their fire between Ursh's artillery barrages and the endless berserker hordes.
Shang Khal truly had amassed billions for his armies, and even if each wave cost thousands of lives, he could have them repeat the same charge a million times over.
The farmlands that were between each wall wilted and withered as the black smoke from burners, radioactive fallout from atomics, and chemical residue from cannon shells polluted the land. What remained was trampled beneath the berserker's boots, or burned under the clawed feet of the Red Engines.
When Keyser reached the 6th wall from the center of the city, his charge stopped. They had reached the ancient void shields that had kept the original city safe from the atomic apocalypse that had burned everything else around them, and his cannons and atomic mortar shells could not penetrate it. The blue fields of energy only rippled, even when fission reactions erupted directly on top of it.
However, the population within Xozer's original walls eclipsed what it had been designed to support. The inhabitants of the farmlands between the outer walls and refugees from the outer colonies filled the streets, crushing anyone who fell beneath them as they struggled to find safety somewhere in the overcrowded city. Already, some of their number suffocated as the sheer number of bodies trying to move forwards compressed and compacted their chests.
The original inhabitants of the inner walls who had taken shelter in their homes did not have much to look forward to either. Although they were safe from the masses for now, it was only a matter of time before the riots would begin. Anyone on the bottom floors was sure to be easy prey, and these inhabitants had begun barricading themselves in preparation for the chaos that was to come.
Dark clouds covered the sky, smothering the remaining solar arrays the city still had. Without them, there would be far less clean water to drink and grow crops with. Overpopulation already physically impaired the city, but things would only get worse from there. It was now only a matter of time before Xozer's population would begin to die from hunger and thirst.
Outside, Keyser's forces set up a siege, placing their cannons and mortars in more ideal positions, so their volley fire was dispersed evenly across the shield, stressing every part of it at once so its capacitors would have no time to take turns to recharge.
The hierophants watched all of this from the center of the city, behind the dark blue veil of the void shields. All 7 of them sat in a circle, while the nobility sat or lay around them.
Despair should have taken a hold of them as volleys of explosive shells and atomics fired in unison beat their final defenses at once in organized regular intervals. There would be no quick death from incineration. The force of Ursh made sure that enough time was given to confirm the shield still held, before firing the next wave of artillery fire. Keyser and Shang Khal would ensure all within the last murengon of Xozer died at the hands of their soldiers, not their explosives.
However, the men and women in power only smiled tiredly. They had known this time would come the moment they started selling fresh soil and water. Yet, they had to do something to stop the recurrence of another famine. They had never expected it to come so soon, or so quickly. Who could have dreamed a billion soldiers could cross their desert while constantly being harassed by Volkite fire and the elements?
"The impure assault us once more." A robed man said quietly. A circlet of metal with the number 1 hung from his neck. He was referring to the genetically enhanced Urshite warriors and techno-barbarian ravagers as one group. Both were genetically impure savages in the hierophants' eyes, as were most of the people outside Xozer.
"It is a cycle that has gone on from before." Another robed hierophant with the number 2 hanging from his neck shrugged. "Do you not remember how Xozer came to exist in the first place?"
Their city had survived the original atomic fires that scoured the planet. That war too had been fought with genetic abominations shaped like oversized men.
"Then, there is no hope for humanity." A robed woman with the number 3 sighed.
"There never was any hope for humanity. Look at the nobility." Hierophant number 4 said as he gestured to a drooling man with a ridiculously protruding chin and dull eyes. "Does that look like perfection? They are the purest humans we have, and all they can do is sit and rot."
The most genetically 'pure' humans in Xozer had been preserved, cut off from the genetically 'impure' rabble. Secluded away, they had bred only with other genetically 'pure' humans for over a thousand years. Even with their medically extended lives, enough generations of inbreeding had left the nobility of Xozer a mentally deficient mess.
Although they existed as a class in Xozer society, they were merely the mouth pieces of the hierophants, and scapegoats should things go wrong.
One of the hierophants sighed, the number 5 swinging from her neck. Then, she smiled as she stroked the balding misshapen head of one of the nobles. The man was morbidly obese, and sat in a puddle of his own filth. Yet he giggled like a little boy as he vacated himself, clapping his hands together gayly. "But look at the joy in their eyes as they putrefy." The hierophant said, voice tinged with both jealousy and love. She envied them for their simplicity, and their freedom from all things due to their simplicity.
They had raised these nobles from birth, for the parents were too mentally impaired to do it themselves. Each one was like a child to them, and they treated them like their own.
"Indeed, it is a joyous sight…" Hierophant number 6 chortled. "To wallow in your own stink and filth, like pigs in mud."
"Hence the name of this place." Number 1 replied solemnly.
Xozer. The term is an ancient noun for pigs, boars, and swine. When used as an adjective, it describes a thing that is fat and filthy.
This was the name that the city chose itself, with only the hierophants fully aware of what it meant.
"We are all pigs, rooting around in the remains of what was once a verdant world." Hierophant number 7 said as he stood, placing a hand on a meek looking girl covered in bloody bandages. Her body could not produce clots, and her skin was so weak it split at the slightest bit of stress. Red eyes and white hair showed a total lack of melanin production in her body. A single ray of sunlight would be lethal to her. Yet, she smiled as the number 7 patted her head. He was the father who gave her all she needed to live, and the father who raised her to be dumb, mute, and ignorant.
"Let us show them all what that means, and the Truth of all life."
Each hierophant reached down, and picked up their staves of office. Each stave looked like a shepherd's crook, and a bell hung from the crooked top of each one. The metal clappers clanged against the insides of the bell, tolling them as the hierophants gently guided their inbred nobility down the halls in a single line.
"Death comes from life." Hierophant 1 chanted. "Mold only grows when there is moisture and food. Rot only spreads upon the fresh and the ripe. For death to exist, there must be life. For release to exist, there must be suppression. For despair to grow, there must be hope."
"But in the end, there is only the end." Hierophant 2 continued.
"That was the lesson we learned when the famine struck, and the crop blight claimed all we created." Hierophant 3 said as she slammed the bottom of her staff against the floor. Her bell rattled as the echo traveled down the stone halls, like the sound of a judge's gavel at the end of a sentencing.
"Half a city starved to death, and the remaining half only kept alive by feeding them the ones who died." Hierophant 4 spat out, lips pulled back revealing his yellowed teeth and bleeding gums.
"We are here because our forefathers failed to learn the lessons the other ancients took with them." Hierophant 5 sighed as she swung her crook, tolling her bell like a shepherd calling his sheep towards them. "They refused to die when it was their time, and so our agony continues long after it should have ended."
"But that is the point of all life." Hierophant 6 laughed. "To struggle, to fight, and eventually to fall back into the muck it was born from, fully made aware that there is no escaping death."
"And it is then that the Grandfather provides his blessings, and cures us of the pain that is life." Hierophant 7 pronounced grimly.
"But we have failed the Grandfather." Hierophant 5 lamented, her voice solemn and back bending from shame.
"Indeed, we have." Hierophant 1 cried from the front of the line. "The pigs we prepared have been taken by wild dogs, but in their haste they have chased our cattle into a corner, and now the despair we had hoped to grow over another hundred years is ripe enough to harvest."
"The fruits of Eden grown for plague and pox are now rotting outside ahead of schedule." Hierophant 4 muttered bitterly, like a farmer who had his cattle poached or taken by wolves.
"The harvest will be smaller than planned, but there will be a harvest." Hierophant 2 said soothingly, making the best of a miserable situation.
The line of hierophants, and the shuffling nobles finally came to a set of blast doors, airtight and locked shut. Hierophant 1 pressed his hand against the keypad, and the door hissed as it unlocked itself and opened to reveal a dark and grimy airlock.
All of the hierophants and their charges huddled inside, and let the contraption cycle as broken sprayers attempted to clean the individuals inside it before opening the next set of doors.
When the inner doors of the airlock opened, everyone except the hierophants clutched at their stomachs, became violently sick, or bled from rapidly expanding burns on their weak skin.
Radiation had begun to fill the room, for they were walking above one of the wells where unfiltered and untreated water from the polluted mines deep in the crust was pulled up.
The hierophants dragged or beat the nobles they had cared for until now like cattle, forcing them forwards with their shepherds' crooks even as they squealed and grunted like piglets in a meat processing factory.
Hierophant 7 only wrapped his bony hand around the albino girl's upper arm, and forced her to shuffle along with him onto the catwalks above the well. The girl's bandages grew thick and heavy with blood as her skin broke apart from the unending onslaught of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Red wads of cloth began to fall off, taking chunks of skin with them, exposing fat and muscle to the toxic air.
The girl could only gag from the pain. Every inch of her body felt like it was burning.
One by one, the hierophants pushed or threw the nobles into the toxic waters. Their fat and misshapen bodies splashed into the brackish waters, then turned them white with foam as they thrashed about in pain. Meat and bone melted from the toxic chemicals left inside them, and even the blood that spilled turned black as the solvents inside the water reacted with it on a chemical level.
As hierophant number 7 came to the catwalk, the albino girl grabbed his hand and stared pleadingly up into his face.
Hierophant 7 looked down at the girl quizzically. He had not taught her anything, for he had thought her too stupid to learn. Her parents were particularly mentally deficient, unable to learn that sticking a finger into a fire would cause a burn. Thus, he thought her too simple to understand what was going on.
Yet, there was a fear in her eyes. She had seen what had happened to the others, and been able to put two and two together.
Through some miracle of genetics, this girl had a normal level of intelligence. It had merely been left to rot, unwatered with knowledge, and unkept by the hierophants who satisfied every need for her in her stead.
Slowly, a sadistic smile grew across the hierophant's face, realizing that the simple girl he had kept as a pet was not so simple at all.
"Wonderful." He whispered. "To think even after all we did to you and your bloodline, you still managed to be born." His other hand stroked the girl's hair, pulling strands from her scalp as her body continued to break down from the radioactive soup they stood above. "The Grandfather and his minions will enjoy you." He said, then dangled her over the catwalk, watching as the skin and nails of her hands began to tear as she tried to desperately hold onto him. Finally, the girl fell, and disappeared from view in a white splash of water.
"We will bring forth the Grandfather's gardeners, and his messengers." Hierophant 7 said as he turned his back on the radioactive pool below him. "They will fertilize the barren sands, and bring back the Truth to a people that forgot to die when they murdered the planet itself."
—-
Author's Note 1:
I understand some will be surprised that Xozer turned out to be a Nurgle enclave. It should be quite confusing, considering the fall of this city is supposedly what doomed Terra and humanity as well as caused the split between Neoth and Erda. For better or for worse, this is not something I have control over. Xozer was a Nurgle aligned state in canon material, and it remains so in this story.
All will become clear in good time (3 more parts to be exact), but I would also like to point out that, besides the name 'Xozer', there were several other hints and foreshadowings regarding what exactly was inhabiting the highest points of power for this city.
The most obvious tell is in the novel "Horus Rising", which is where the Chronicle of Ursh comes from. It is pretty clear that Nurgle is the one associated with Xozer, while Khorne is the one associated with Shang Khal.
However, that is an extra-literary source, so the foreshadowing in this story itself are below:
Part 1: The hierophant's speeches come every 3 hours, which is one of the numbers of Nurgle. His other number is 7 and 7 is his preferred number although 3 is supposed to be his as well.
Part 1: Nurgle's 'armies' (if that is what you can call his disorganized hosts of daemons), are referred to as Tallybands. Counting and recording the numbers of poxes and plagues, as well as the symptoms and deaths of each one is a vital part of their function as well. This 'accounting' is quite prevalent in those associated with Nurgle, with the rank of Tallyman existing for the Death Guard. The references to economics and the slothful way Xozer gained its fortunes is an attempted allusion to the way Nurgle works.
Part 1: Xozer as a society is afraid of innovation and change, which is what the conflict between the Xozerites and Upashtar symbolizes. The conservative Xozerites destroyed the Upashtar completely and turned them into mindless beasts, but the rest of Xozer only watched as this happened. As the Chaos power of stagnation and eternal cycles, this is in line with Nurgle's philosophy, and symbolizes his hatred of Tzeentch; the changer of ways.
Part 2: Xozer's military strategy in the Eastern deserts is based around fatiguing the enemy to death. This is a favored tactic of Nurgle's.
Part 2: Keyser expresses an almost instinctual hatred for Xozer, which is a reflection of Khorne's hatred for Nurgle and the lazy way the Plaguefather spreads itself across all things.
Part 2 and 3: Xozer's philosophy is often seen as deterministic. i.e. set in stone before birth. Genetics is the way this is done, but the concept of being stuck in a pre-planned route is a concept Nurgle encompasses.
Part 1 and 4: The city and its society is often described as greedy, fat, and gluttonous. These are all character traits of Nurgle. The way the gates are described as mouths covered in jam is another visceral imagery that is related to Nurgle.
Part 4: A minor symbolism, but the laserthorn hedges are a 'clean' version of the thrashing vines/tentacles of Nurgle's garden.
Part 4: (This is a slightly humorous meta reference.) I didn't give any of the hierophants names, because I was lazy. They all only receive numbers for that reason. Laziness is a trait of Nurgle.
Nurgle is not only the Ruinous Power of poxes and plagues. As the Greater Demon Ulkair once said, "corrosion and ruin are Nurgle's as well." Pollution and degradation whether they be moral or material in nature attracts Nurgle's interests.
Some might feel the idea of degradation overlaps with Slaanesh, and you would be right. That is why the two hate each other on an instinctual level. Nurgle is the degradation that comes from lack of maintenance and apathy. Slaanesh is the degradation that comes from active cruelty. Symbolically, this is why Nurgle was able to take Isha from Slaanesh in the first place. The degradation of the Aeldari's lives and society partially comes from apathy and indolence. Hence, Nurgle was able to lay claim to the Goddess of Life who did nothing to help them in the immaterium (no matter how painful that inaction was for Isha herself). Slaanesh still fought Nurgle for the mother of the Aeldari, and it was only after significant losses that the Plaguefather finally secured his prise in the route that did not happen.
Now that Xozer has been revealed to be a Nurgle aligned society, the more obvious Nurgle imagery described in the "Horus Rising" novel will begin.
Author's Note 2:
I'm putting in an interlude next week, because the depression has hit Nurgle levels for this section, and we need something positive to freshen things up. For those of you who want to just read the next part of the Fall of Xozer, a partial draft is up on my Pa-treon, along with the positive interlude.
Positive interludes are planned to be put in every two parts of the Fall of Xozer in order to brighten the mood, and remind everyone that the Fall of Xozer is an event that happened in the past. What is done is done. The only thing the characters can do is move forwards, and hopefully make improvements on their previous actions.
Author's Note 3:
I have received a question from a reader as to why the Emperor does not seem to have agents on Terra to do his will, and why none of them appear at Xozer. I have put my answer below:
Althought the focus of this section of the story is on Xozer, as the Emperor mentioned in "Mother meets Mother", other regions of Terra are also tainted by horrible things.
The Mericas have plutocrats that harvest fresh organs from children to rejuvenate themselves.
The Albians enforce rigid class rules, and treat the peasantry as little better than animals.
Other priest-kings, zealots, technobarbarians, and technophiles hold fiefdoms and domains across the planet.
This is also before the Psi-Wars, which is another devestating conflict which is when the Thunder Warriors were deployed in large enough numbers to be recorded in history.
When you look at it this way, the war between Ursh and the Nord Afrik Conclaves is just another war on a planet where war never ends.
Similarly sized conflicts are taking place in at least three or four different locations at the same time as the Fall of Xozer.
Also, as Erda mentioned in "Political Realignment", there are several Daemon Princes on Terra that are egging on the worst tendencies of humanity. This means that both the Emperor and Erda are not aware of which part of Terra is causing the worst damage to it. Isha, Neoth, and Erda know with hindsight that the fall of Xozer was the symbolic end of humanity's autonomy. However, at this moment in time, even Erda is unsure whether Xozer is the most important place.
