CHAPTER 2: The Lion of the Forest
A week had passed since Ruby had arrived on Camarth and joined Zabriel and his band of refugees. In that time she had learned more about the great galaxy and the Imperium of Man from the old Dark Angel as she learned his legion was called. How the apparent homeworld of humanity, Terra had been unified, the treaty between the Martian Mechanicum and the early years of the burgeoning star Empire, and the many wars fought to unite man under this so-called Master of Mankind, this Emperor. The more she learned of the Imperium the more she came to hate it, not just its current state but the empire it used to be ten thousand years ago. It was monstrous to her eyes a nation built upon subjugation and genocide on a scale that would make even the most racist of the Atlesian elite tremble at the sheer brutality and disregard for human life. With her fearing what would happen to Remnant if the Imperium found her planet, having learned of the Imperium's policy of racial purity and how she and everyone on her world were considered mutants to either be enslaved or be exterminated. Despite this she continued to work with Zabriel seeing the citizens of this cruel regime as merely people of circumstance who knew nothing of a life beyond the hate they were taught with the same applying to Zabriel, coming to pity the old Dreadwing Sergeant once she learned how the Astartes were made, being taken as children and subjugated to grueling training and surgeries to make them the warriors they were. And while she didn't agree with his more hateful views he saw a sense of nobility to him seeing him genuinely care about defending the innocent like her. During an outing the pair made into the perilous forests of Camarth to get firewood the two made periodically for their camp Zabriel spoke to the young huntress.
"I can see the resentment in your eyes you have given me these last few days, huntress Rose, I believe there is something we must discuss if we are to continue working together, for the refugees sake." He spoke calmly with no hint of emotion in his voice as usual.
Ruby's eyes widened having believed she had hid her emotions well enough to the old Astartes before her eyes furrowed. "Something to discuss?" She asked sarcastically. "I don't know what to discuss other than the fact I'm working with a man who takes pride in the atrocities he committed and the worlds he helped destroy. In the many aliens you have told me that were exterminated for the crime of simply existing alongside humans. Besides the fact that I see you as a monster Zabriel I don't think there's much for us to talk about '' she ranted letting out the resentment she had bottled up towards the Dark Angel in the last week finally free.
"I presume this is the issue since you speak sarcastically, am I correct?" Zabriel asked in his usual tone of voice, causing Ruby to facepalm, annoyed by the Space-Marine's lack of emotional understanding.
"Of course it is, what else would it be!" She yelled into the forest causing the birds or what looked like birds to her to fly away.
"Perhaps I am a monster for my actions. I will not deny that but I am one of necessity, Huntress Rose. Perhaps it would have been better to work with the xenos and the other human polity's we came across rather than destroy them to have focused our resources on battling the true enemy. And perhaps it was folly to force man under one banner damning our species to a slow death that our species finds itself now in. Perhaps all these things are right but you will have no regret from me if that was what you hoped for in your ranting. I am a product of my time, a weapon nothing more. Too stubborn to change as was His design." He spoke plainly.
"You're more than a weapon, Zabriel!" She yelled, causing him to recoil. "I have seen how you protect the people of Camarth. If you were so heartless you would have left them for the beasts to eat. You are a protector that's not the sign of a weapon, that's the sign of a man with a heart" she continued. "You lie to yourself when you say you are only a "mere weapon" incapable of change, to these people you are a guardian, a beacon of hope. You don't want to admit that because it wouldn't absolve yourself of all the blood that's on your hands"
"You know nothing of me" he sneered, causing her to jump thinking he was going to attack her.
"It's enough to see the regret that you carry yourself around the camp," she replied.
"How would you know of regret girl" he growled.
"I let an entire nation die, destroyed centuries of history, and killed countless millions to slow an unkillable enemy. I think I know a thing or two about regret" she said, doing her best to keep tears from pouring from her eyes.
"What's there to regret? You did what was necessary for the greater whole of your people." Zabriel replied.
"I could say the same Zabriel of the Dark Angels weren't those worlds you and your legion burned done out of necessity, all the aliens you slaughtered needed deaths to save billions? Why feel any remorse for that? I thought the stars were man's manifest destiny or was that a lie?" She said turning his previous statement against him. Zabriel froze walking to the giant knight Ruby placed her hand on his gauntlet.
"Be what these people see you as Zabriel not the monster I see you as, prove me wrong." Zabriel pushed her hand off before regaining his composure before walking over to a pile of branches.
"Come huntress Rose the firewood will not collect itself best not to keep the flock waiting in the cold."
Walking back to the forest in silence, their hands full with firewood, they arrived at the camp finding the survivors surrounding a tall giant similar to that of Zabriel in both design and heraldry, another space marine she thought to herself. Looking at the differences between the two, Ruby noted how the stranger's armor was a dark forest green color in contrast to Zabriel's black. Turning his head to face them they were greeted by an aging blond haired man with a receding hairline and bushy mustache and beard whose eyes looked ever inquisitive in their gaze. Upon seeing his face Ruby noticed Zabriel freeze up before dropping the firewood he had gathered. Grabbing his bolt-pistols he began firing at the dark green giant who what appeared to Ruby to be in near instant dodged the high explosive micro-rockets that Zabriel unloaded towards him in what use of being less than a microsecond if not more. Diving out of Zabriel's shot, the green giant lunged at Zabriel. Crashing into Zabriel the stranger pinned the Dark Angel to the ground, slapping away his bolt-pistols as if Zabriel were a child. All this happened in less than ten seconds to Ruby. Struggling under the strength and weight of the stranger, she watched as Zabriel struggle stopped being replaced by what most would call fear, something Zabriel told the Space-Marines were trained to not feel. Also dropping her firewood Ruby pulled out Crescent Rose, and swung the oversized scythe towards the green giant instead of slicing or denting his armor; it merely pinged off of it causing the little huntress to vibrate as she felt her teeth chatter before falling on the ground.
"Get off him!" One of the survivors in the camp screamed. "He is our protector!"
"He is a traitor," the man growled in a hoarse yet noble voice.
"You are the traitor!" Zabriel yelled back in a rage that Ruby thought the old Space-Marine was incapable of even after their argument in the forest. "You abandoned us, you abandoned Caliban, and you abandoned the Imperium!"
"Lies!" The green giant snarled.
"Lies? Then where have you been for ten thousand years?" Zabriel demanded of the giant. Ruby watched as the stranger opened his mouth to protest Zabriel's claim but found him slack jawed as she watched his face grow pale.
"Take your helmet off" he demanded of the Dark Angel after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. Causing everybody to look at the giant in confusion.
"What?" Zabriel asked, perplexed by the demand.
"Take your helmet off," he repeated. "Or I will remove it for you" he growled. For a few seconds the air was tense before Zabriel reached towards his helmet and pulled it off as the giant told him to. Reaching towards his own face the giant with a single hand rubbed the lines on his face before speaking again.
"No. Ten thousand years is an impossibility. A primarch…" Primarch? Why does that sound familiar? she thought to herself trying to remember the small repository of information Zabriel had told her in the last week. "I cannot be sure how we would age. But a Space Marine would be long dead, I am certain of it." He continued.
"The warp storm scattered us not just through space, but also through time" Zabriel told him, causing Ruby to remember how the Astartes had told her of how he got sent to this time. "I re-emerged perhaps four hundred years ago. Four hundred years of running and hiding from my little brothers," his voice filled with scorn upon mentioning the current Dark Angels chapter. Little brothers? Zabriel didn't mention that to her or how he had been on the run for the last four hundred years. Just what in the brothers was going on. "We were always single minded once we engaged a foe, but ten thousand years of hatred in an attempt to extinguish guilt? Truly, my lord Lion, you taught your sons well." Lion? So that's what this guy's name is. Weird name. Relieved she had one question answered.
"What mockery is this?" The Lion snarled. "We returned to Caliban from Terra, only to find the system held against us! You opened fire on us without warning, and your leaders had made pacts with-". The Lion stopped mid sentence looking around at Ruby and the other survivors of Camarth before whispering the rest in a low voice that only Zabriel's superhuman hearing could pick up. "I cannot explain how I have come to be here, for my memory was impaired until I laid eyes upon you, and some things are still hidden from me, but one thing is plain- as soon as you saw me, you tried to kill me again! Why should my loyal sons not hunt traitors like yourself?"
Zabriel sighed. "I knew nothing of the powers which you speak. I have no contact with our leaders, Luther and Astelan and the others, save briefly and in passing. I was not party any order to open fire upon your fleet. But as for my reaction to seeing you…". Zabriel trailed on before raising his head to look the Lion in his eyes. "I saw you once only after you ordered us to Caliban. The fleet was raining fire upon us, and our brothers had landed to make war. I caught a glimpse of you, for the first time in years, as you cut your way through some new recruit who had never laid eyes on you, and whose first true battle wearing the armor of the First Legion was against their gene-father and his executioners. They died in moments and you pressed on presumably in search of Luther. I did not see you again. However even with what came afterwards, even when the planet splintered and the warp reached out to seize us all, it was the expression on your face that remained with me then, and for all the long years since." Zabriel paused as the always calm Astartes Ruby had known seemed to shudder. "It was hatred and rage, pure and unfettered. You were intent upon our deaths, and we knew better than any others that once you set your mind to something you could not be deterred." Looking at Zabriel as he trembled under the gaze of the Lion, Ruby could not blame the old Astartes for the fear he felt in the moment. This Lion was not someone to trifle with, his anger reminded her of a wild beast one controlled but still rabid when it lashed out.
"When I saw you here, having walked out of the forest, I could not mistake your features despite the age that has overtaken you, for your face has haunted my dreams for centuries. Either you were a Chaos-spawned mockery of my primarch, spewed forth from the Great Rift to torment me, or you were the Lion here to finally kill me. I was prepared to tolerate neither without a fight." Zabriel finally finished. His face was filled with contempt for whatever fate the Lion chose for him. For a long moment, Ruby waited as the Lion searched the old marine's face before speaking again.
"You say I abandoned the Imperium" the Lion's voice a low growl of contempt to Zabriel. "Do you swear to me by whatever you hold most dear that you remained loyal? That whatever the allegiances of your commanders, you, Zabriel, loved the Emperor and humanity, and that you only raised your hand to your brothers and to me because you thought you were betrayed in turn?" He asked eying him waiting for whatever response the marine gave him.
"I swear it." Zabriel replied. Letting go of Zabriel the Lion got up.
"Your story of ten thousand years is hard to accept," he said, raising an arm to assist the old marine up from the ground. "but I believe these words"
Zabriel did not move from his spot on the floor. "And do you also swear?"
The Lion's face turned to a frown. "Swear what?"
"Do you swear to me by whatever you hold most dear that you remained? That you, the Lion, loved the Emperor and humanity, and that you only raised hands to your gene-sons because you thought you were betrayed?" Zabriel said, repeating the mantra he had been made to make an oath on. Growling similar to that of a predatory animal Ruby cringed fearing that the two would begin fighting once more.
"I swear it," he says. With his oath Zabriel finally took the Lion's hand as he was pulled to his feet. To the surprise of both the primarch and Ruby Zabriel's eyes began tearing up before muttering something only the Lion could hear.
Turning away from Zabriel the Lion focused his gaze on Ruby, his eyes meeting hers. "And who might you be?" He asked incredulously.
Ruby froze under the voice of the Primarch. "Uhh…just a nobody sir Lion… sir?" She struggled unsure how to address the giant in front of her.
His eyes furrowed seeing past her lies. "A nobody who is brave enough to attack a Primarch and speaks an unknown dialect of Low Gothic who wields a weapon not of Imperial design?" He spoke bluntly holding Crescent Rose in his hands as if it were a toy.
"Wwwwell you see—"
"Cease your drivel girl your face betrays your lies"
Not wanting to test his patience, Ruby decided to tell the Lion of her predicament. "My name is Ruby Rose, I'm not from Camarth nor the Imperium. I'm from a world called Remnant. I was a huntsman, during a battle. I was somehow transported to this planet about a week ago where Zabriel found me and since then I've been helping him defend the survivors."
"A huntsmen aye?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm guessing you hunted great beasts that assailed your world defending the innocent?"
"How'd you know?" She asked, perplexed that he had guessed correctly.
"My homeworld of Caliban faced a similar dilemma but instead of huntsmen we had knightly orders. I united the orders and drove the beasts that terrorized the Calibanite people for millennia to extinction" he told her, dropping her weapon into her hands.
"Anything else I should be aware of huntress Rose?" He asked. Hesitant to tell him that she was a psyker Ruby relented knowing he would find out eventually better now than later.
"Hopefully it's not a problem for you Lion…uh?"
"Lionel El'Jonson"
"Yes Lionel—"
"Don't call me that"
"Jonson?"
"Nor that"
"What do you prefer than?"
"The Lion will suffice"
"Alright Lion I'm a psyker hopefully that won't be a problem." She told him.
"You have been taking the assistance of a feral witch Zabriel?" He asked the Dark Angel with some bewilderment.
"She is safe my lord, she is unlike the other psykers we encountered, her fortitude and mental strength is unlike any I've seen before, if she were not I would have killed her the moment I found her" he told him.
"I can hear you, you know?" Ruby expressed with annoyance at Zabriel's last statement, the two ignored her.
"As you say my son" he said, eying Ruby with suspicion. "Know this if she signs of corruption I will do what needs be done for safety of everyone"
"I will not stop you"
"hello? I'm still hear could you two not discuss killing me"
"Yes the girl speaks the truth enough of this useless prattle" The Lion spoke before turning to Zabriel once more. "Zabriel," he said. "I must know our situation. What of the Imperium? What of my brothers? What of my Legion?" He's not going to be happy, she thought, thinking back to Zabriel's previous comments on how much the Imperium had changed since his time.
Zabriel snorted a laugh. "Where to begin? An exact date is… difficult to ascertain even for someone who has been counting the passage of time for four centuries."
"You don't even know what year it is?!" Ruby asked, shocked by the Astartes statement.
"As is the nature of the warp to fickle all things young Ruby" he replied before continuing with the Lion.
"The Emperor remains interred on the Golden Throne, or so His subjects believe - I certainly cannot say for sure one or the other. He is worshiped as a god-"
"He is what?" Definitely not happy.
Zabriel shrugged his shoulders. "The Imperial creed. The Ecclesiarchy is just as fanatical as the bastard Word Bearers were in our day, only they have the full power of the Imperium behind them now. To deny the Emperor's divinity is to be sentenced to death. I believe most Space Marines have clemency on the issue, but I have little opportunity to engage any in conversation. Every person around you considers Him a god, and I simply keep my counsel on the matter" he gestured to the survivors of Camarth. The Lion closed his eyes looking tired when he opens them again.
"How did my brothers allow this?"
"They are gone." the Dark Angel says with a sigh. "All the loyalist primarchs were merely a memory by the time I was spat out by the warp. Be assured that I went looking for information, desperately trying to find some link to the life I knew, but I cannot even tell you who was the last to fall, or how it happened. Some say they are dead, some say they disappeared, some believe in the primarchs only as figures of myth and legend. The Imperium is now ruled by the High Lords of Terra."
The Lion's hand curled into a fist as he looked like he was going to punch something through gritted teeth he controlled his fury.
"And my Legion?" He manages.
"Rearranged by orders of Lord Gulliman." Zabriel tells him. "All the Legions were dissolved into individual Chapters. The Dark Angels remain, as a force of a thousand or so, with many other Successor Chapters affiliated to them".
"Gulliman" he hissed at the mention of the lord of Ultramar. "Never content with the work of others! He even wanted to improve on the design of our father! I should have dealt with him when he first raised his hand to me on Macragge, why could it not have been him who fell, instead of Sanguinius?" Venom clear in his voice towards his long gone brother.
"I must go to Terra. If my father is still on the Golden Throne as you say, then if there is any scrap of life still in Him, any spark of His consciousness left, I will see Him"
Zabriel shook his head. "That may be a bit hard for us to do" Ruby spoke on his behalf.
"The huntress is right, such a thing is not possible. At least," he narrowed his eyes. "I would not consider it so. I do not know how you came to be here."
The Lion thought to himself before responding. "That is still something of a mystery to me, as well"
"Welcome to the club" Ruby sighed. The Lion ignored her comment.
"But why is travel to Terra not possible? Has humanity lost the use of the warp? Did all the Navigators die?" He bombarded Zabriel with.
"Nothing so prosaic," Zabriel said. "Did Halin and Sutik tell you anything about why the people of Camarth are reduced to this?" Gesturing towards the survivors.
"They said the sky opened, and the Bastards came," the Lion told them. "That it twisted everything, even the stars, and that I would see it when the sun went down." Ruby winced as he described the Great Rift, her eyes rang with phantom pain as she remembered first laying her eyes on the gash on reality.
"Accurate enough,". Zabriel said. "Dusk is nearly upon us. If you will wait until then, my explanations will be more easily understood." The Lion nodded his head before turning his attention back to the corpse of one of Camarth's many warp-tainted beasts.
"I still require a knife," he announced to the survivors, nobody came forward.
"You can't eat the meat, it's poisonous" Ruby told him
"I have no intention of eating it." He responded. Grabbing a knife from her waist the young huntress handed it to him, with it looking comical in his giant's armored hand.
As the sun went down Zabriel and Ruby still found the Lord of the First busy with skinning the beast. Hearing their footsteps the Lion looks up to the sky upon the Great Rift that now made itself known.
"This is, I presume, is what will keep me from Terra? He asked the pair.
"Yes," Zabriel replied. "The Great Rift. So far as we know it splits the entire galaxy in two, but since the Astronomicon is obscured and warp travel is impossible to undertake for more than a few light years at a time, actually finding that which is not easy. Similarly astrotelepathy is extremely limited. Even though we are not in the Rift, the warp is so disturbed that any form of long range communications is virtually impossible. If not actively dangerous to those involved. Some claim the Rift has actually swallowed the rest of the galaxy, but I do not believe that," he continued. "Although I admit I have no evidence with which to support that conviction."
The Lion mutters something to himself barely audible for Ruby to pick out, what's the Ruinstorm? She asked herself.
"So, we are cut off from Terra, and the center of the Imperium's power. Warp travel is difficult and dangerous, astropathic communication likewise. The fabric of the Imperium has, I suspect, come apart and reavers have taken advantage?" He asked them.
"Sounds accurate" Ruby replied dowerly, the youth's sarcasm annoying the Lion.
"Xenos and Chaos alike "The Bastards" is how the people of Camarth refer to the warband which descended on their planet and ruined it, although they refer to themselves as the Ten Thousand Eyes- mutants, heretics, and some twisted Astartes. I came to this planet in secret, before the Great Rift opened, since it was garrisoned by a Chapter of Space Marines who had no link to the Dark Angels, and therefore my little brothers would find it harder to persecute me here even if they learned of me. The bastion was the first target of the renegade's attack, and it did not survive. The people of the planet who were not killed or enslaved now live like this. I stumbled into this group, me and the huntress have done our best to protect them, since neither of us can leave this world, nor gain aid. I do not even know if there is any aid to summon."
The Lion sat in silence for a time before speaking up once more. "I have lived like this before," the Lion says to them. "Isolated outposts in a forest, surrounded by malicious, intelligent beasts that would kill us all if they got the chance. Tell me Huntress Rose, you and I come from different yet similar worlds. What do you propose we do in this situation?"
Ruby thought to herself before responding to the Lion's question. "Organize what resources you have, maybe set up a supply line if you can with the little support you have and harass the beasts with hit and run tactics to whittle them down."
The Lion smiled at her response the first time he had since the two had met him. "A sharp mind, this one Zabriel, a true warrior you have found."
"What do you seek, my lord?" Zabriel asked.
"To repeat what I did on Caliban and exterminate the beasts from Camarth." He responded.
"You seek to forge a new Imperium?" He asked the Lion, causing him to growl at annoyance at Zabriel.
"No, only my father had the capacity to do that. Now the galaxy burns, my brothers are gone, and I am cut off from Terra." He told them. "If all I know of my father's work has been destroyed, then I shall return to what I knew before. Keeping people safe" The Lion noticed the psyker girl give him a warm smile at his last comment. "My father was a conqueror, and I became a conqueror on His behalf-" he noticed Ruby's face smile turn to a frown of annoyance he could see the anger she suppressed. "-but that is not my nature. I kill enemies, and all of humanity's enemies are my enemies. I shall demand no praise from the people of Camarth, and certainly no worship" the word filled with hate. "But I will kill their oppressors. They may follow me or not, as they wish"
"You intend to attack the Ten Thousand Eyes?" Zabriel asked, he and Ruby both bewildered by the Lion's plan.
"I take it they still have a presence on this world, since the humans are fearful of being noticed?" He asked the Space-Marine ignoring their response.
"They do." he replied before grimacing. "Very well, I can lead you to their closest stronghold, if that is what you wish"
"Will you fight?" The Lion asked Zabriel.
"I was a Destroyer," He replied, looking away from them. "I eradicated humanity's enemies with everything our Legion could bring to bear. I now have nothing more than a pair of bolt-pistols and a chain blade, and so I have not brought this filth to battle, since I knew I would be overwhelmed and any protection these might have from roving bands would be gone. However, if the Lord of the First is going to war…" Zabriel looked back into the Lion's eyes. "Then yes, I will fight. My lord."
The Lion turned his head to Ruby "And what of you Ruby Rose Huntress of Remnant? Will you join in my war against the Ten Thousand Eyes?"
"Of course, you don't even have to ask I wouldn't be a huntsmen if I were to let the innocent suffer, now enough wasting time we have a planet to free"