I sat reclined in the house of the family that I had murdered, blood painted the walls, and their bodies littered the floor. The image was eerily reminiscent of the scene of slaughter I and my squad had walked up on, the catalyst that had made me into the monster that I am now. Suffering had given birth to me, nourished me, shaped me, and now it empowered me.
After I had come back to myself from the haze that had overtaken me in the moments after my transformation, knowledge filled my head unbidden. The memories and knowledge of the Grand hunter, that was the power suffering had granted me, and by the Emperor it was too much. Two thousand years of fractured and piecemeal knowledge and memories assaulted my mind, pushing my consciousness back and back and back until I barely had even the slightest connection to my body.
I saw his beginning, that moonlit night when the stars aligned and the chanting of the druids rang out through the black forests of Germania. The darkness pooled at their feet, and the light swam above their heads as they called upon the primal howling winds, as they called upon that which never should have been, that unending hunger for the hunt and death.
The blood of a thousand bulls ran alongside that of a hundred virgin men and women, staining the ground red for a thousand years to come, and cursing the forest itself to be haunted by the wailing souls of the deceased. The Druids themselves didn't care about the wails of the dead, or the blood that stained their hands, or the way light and dark seemed to be at war around them, the entirety of their focus was instead directed toward the penultimate monument of their ritual.
A great stag stood pinned to the stones, its eyes gouged out and chest ripped open in such a way that it's still beating heart was displayed for the world to see as the still living animal raged against its bonds, nearly insane from pain and panic. This stag acted as the locus and the vessel into which at the height of the ceremony as the druids slowly cut their own necks one by one he was born. The hunter, the Fey Lord of the raging winds and howling hounds.
The stag was transformed by his immortal soul, mutated and changed until with the final druid's death it changed forevermore. Gone was the stag and in its place was the Grand Hunter, lord of the Wild Hunt and great Wodens' wrath and will made manifest on the mortal plane. His frame stood tall, even larger and taller than my own, his eyes were far more radiant than mine had ever been, and his cloak swayed in the air on a nonexistent breeze, never touching the ground, yet still providing him all the protection and coverage that he would need to carry out his grimm purpose.
He killed them all, the rival peoples that had been slaughtering the clans that the druids had hailed from, he killed them in their entirety. It was a genocide plain and simple, on the wings of a hurricane and with the cries of a thousand dogs and dead warriors behind him the Grand hunter destroyed them, wiped them off the face of the earth. Their people killed, their culture destroyed, and the remnants of their habitation forever removed and replaced with a fake history so known would know that these peoples had ever existed.
That was his first foray into the mortal world but it would not be his last as the Grand hunter was summoned time and again throughout the annals of history, never to exact any purpose but those so dread that those that had summoned him would kill themselves to try and wash away their sins. That was the fate of the Grand hunter upon the mortal plain, that was his story, an unstoppable natural disaster that the desperate and the foolhardy thought to summon for their own purposes.
It was the mantle I had inherited, and it was why I had slaughtered that family and felt nothing from it while I was in this form. The hunter felt no guilt in his hunt, and neither did he, not while he stayed as the Fey Lord at the very least.
"What do you think Reinhardt, Should I feel guilty about killing you?" I Held the soul of the patriarch in my hands, and the anger and rage that came from the little soul in my hands was enough to make me nearly laugh. The man had tried to kill me and yet he was the one that was angry at me for simply doing the same to him, just far more effectively. "Come now I know you can speak to me, if you say something I might let your soul go into the embrace of the Emperor. Call it a freebie."
Silence was my answer, silence and loathing. "You know I actually have a better idea. I was gonna make you into something more, but I think I'll keep you, and let you watch." I set the soul down carefully, making sure to keep the magic of the fey firmly tied around him. I didn't want him escaping my grip after all. He had committed a grave offense against me after all, and the fey did not forget nor forgive.
With the soul of the patriarch watching me I grabbed the souls of his family, his wife and the matriarch came first. I could see from her memories that she was a beautiful woman, at least by the standards of a hiveworlder, one who loved her family dearly and believed deeply in the right to independence for all people. She was a nice woman, one who had been deeply horrified when her husband sank that axe into my back, but she also understood why he had done it, and before the act had occurred even encouraged him to do so.
She was a loyal dog, a companion and a broodmare from which Reinhardt had been given five children. So I called upon my mantle, and the magic inherent in all fey, that innate ability to transform and disfigure the souls of mortals. I made her into what she really was, bone formed around her soul first, ghostly and glowing green, more illusion than real, yet somehow more real than it had any right to be, with a metaphysical and magical pull that could only come from flesh made by the magic of a fey.
After bone came muscle, powerful and savage, far stronger than any man could ever hope to achieve, and finally flesh. Dark fur crowned the body of Diredog, a female, a companion and a loyal hound that would act as the first of my pack. She was beautiful with glowing green eyes that looked at me with the same love and devotion that had once been reserved for her husband. I could still hear the screams of her soul as she cried in despair over her transformation.
Her screams only grew louder as I picked up the first of her children's souls, all while Reinhardt kept quiet and let the grief and rage flow from his spirit in waves. I had no doubt in time that this room would come to be seen as haunted by those who eventually moved into it due to the sheer malice and grief that infested it now. Not that I particularly cared about that, instead I was perusing the memories of the child, a fourteen year old boy that had dreamed of joining the guard, of becoming a soldier, he had looked up to them despite his parents hatred of the Imperium, and he had been the only one of the family who was both given a voice in the decision to kill me and had voted to let me live.
As a reward for his kindness, as useless as it was now, I gave him his dream. I changed him, and in a process similar to his mother a new, better body began to form around his soul. Unlike his mother however, this body was humanoid, fair, and lithe. I was sure the ignorant zealots of the Imperium would see him as some sort of Eldar offshoot with his fey features, tall frame, and graceful movement. But he was anything but, he was to be the first of my kin, a fellow hunter, and the start of my retinue.
When the magic neared its end and the last of his new body came into being the eyes that met me were a kaleidoscope in a mirror of my own, though far less vibrant, and much more subdued. Like his mother he gazed at me with a devotion and loyalty I could only describe as near worship, even as the soul that made up his base being rebelled and cried in rage against my control. "I shall name you Dyrrath, first of the hunters, do you accept this name and pledge?"
Names held special power to the Fey, and to be named willingly by another was to become their child, their servant, and their guardian all in one. It was a mantle of loyalty that said fey would never be able to break, except for in the rare occasions that their namer died and took with them the mantle itself. I let the boy inherit this knowledge even as his body spoke for him. "I do my Lord, I am Dyrrath of the Wild Hunt, and I am yours now and forevermore."
I smiled slightly and ran a hand down his face, as androgynous as it was I could almost mistake him for a woman. He leaned into my hand in an obvious attempt to show affection, but before he could get too comfortable I drew my hand back and turned my attention to what was really important. Reinhardt was beyond anger now, beyond grief, he simply watched me, and waited. I could feel the thoughts rumbling through his head, how despair had completely overtaken his being.
I figured it was time to finish this, in one move I grabbed the four remaining souls, and as the sweet cries of the mother reached my ears I transformed them. The second son, strong and quick to fight with his siblings and other children, I turned into my spear so that he might fight eternally. The First daughter, pretty and vain, always the talk of the town due to her escapades and adventures, she became my Crown-helm, her beauty forged by fey magic to become an aegis to protect me from all heavenly Harm.
The Second daughter, quiet and sneaky, fond of books and tales of old, wished to be a great archer that tales would sing of, and great knights would never approach for fear of her arrows and wisdom. She became my bow slung across my back, and the arrows in my quiver, always returning me to and always striking true. As she always knew where my enemy's weak spot would be with her wisdom. The final child, a third son. He was tricky, still young and developing; he would never know what it was that he truly enjoyed, taken from this world after only two years in it.
I made him into my cuirass, leather and fey metal became one around my chest, protecting me with the innocence of a child made manifest. His sense of invincibility never dulled even after death, he truly made the best armor that I could ask for. I could only admire my new equipment, made from the souls of the dead and slain, now mine to use for eternity.
:You're a monster, a Daemon made flesh and form." I paused my inspection of my new arms and armor, Reinhardt had finally decided to speak to me. Took him long enough. "I am no Daemon, I am a Lord of the Fair folk, a fair hunter of the Tuatha De Danann. My fair form should tell you that at least, is my face not the fairest you have ever seen?"
I let the glamor that shielded my true form from mortals drop for but a second, but it was enough to silence him once more as he caught sight, true sight of just what I was. I was about to go back to admiring my spear and bow when he spoke once more, the anger back from the depths of his soul. "You may call yourself fair, and hide behind lofty titles, but you are a Daemon, born and bred true. You laugh at the suffering of others, and indulge in twisting and enslaving the souls of man to serve your own purposes."
I could almost feel him pointing at his son as he continued. "You have turned my son into another of your kind, and even now I can hear the screams of his immortal soul, the haunting wail that will torture me for the rest of my days." The pointing sensation shifted to his wife, now my loyal hound. "And my wife…" The sound of crying was audible from the soul, and for a second I could feel my humanity cry out as the weight of my actions slowly reached into the deepest parts of my soul and I began to realize what I had done to this family, these people.
"You've corrupted her, changed her so completely that no one will ever know that she was once a part of mankind, once a thinking, living person. A mother, and a lover. You have forever taken that from her, and I have no doubt that you plan to play some further sick joke on me with her as the punchline." He was right, I would likely be turning the next soul of those I killed into yet another hound to mount her and breed her. At least that had been the plan before, now though it felt wrong, it felt… disgusting in a way that's hard to describe. What was happening to me?
The patriarch did not stop talking. He didn't shut up like I wished he would, but a small, strong part of me refused to make him do like I knew I could. "And my beautiful children, I cannot even hear their screams. You have changed them so completely and fundamentally, and I wonder if they are even there anymore or if you've completely erased their souls from existence." The despair in his tone was palpable, and while a portion of me was celebrating my victory over him, and a growing and much stronger portion, my resurgent humanity was horrified.
Because he was right. The children were gone, their souls completely and utterly subsumed into the items that I had made from them. Despite what I had wished for the silence that came from him after his final grieving statement was suffocating. Because I was back, the mantle of the Grand hunter was fading quickly after expending so much power, combined with my own wishes to expel it and go back to my original body the mind of the fey was gone, and the mind of a man stood supreme once more.
"I'm so sorry." My words caught the man off guard, and I could feel the disbelief emanating from his soul. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." My ranting words came out quicker and quicker and the dead man could only watch in horror as tears poured from the eyes of the Daemon that had killed his family, and transformed them totally into tools to be used. That horror only intensified as the form of the Grand Hunter slowly dematerialized and what was left in his place was a boy. The boy that he had killed, or attempted to kill, the boy he was finally seeing for what he really was.
Barely five foot six, scrawny, and haunted by what he had seen. Reinhardt, murdered father of a martyred family, could only wonder what would have happened if he had simply let this boy go instead of jumping to the conclusion that he had to die. He would never know the answer to that however as the magic of the fey disappeared and his soul was freed from the chains that had held him.
He could only watch as the things that had once been his wife and son rushed to the boy to try and comfort him, to try and calm him down. He would forever wonder what could have been as the warp claimed him and his soul began the journey that would determine his fate forevermore. Whether that be devoured by a Daemon, the halls of the Emperor, or a slow dispersal into the infinite sea of the warp, Reinhardt could only hope that he would meet his family again some day in the far future.