I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.
I know you are alive.
I have always known. Did you really think I would not ? We are bound together, you and I, shackled by the fates you forged for us in perverting the streams of destiny to create this nightmare of which we are all prisoners. And so, I know that you endure, trapped between life and death on your throne of lies. I sense your gaze, peering from beyond the veil, uncaring of distance or time. I feel your hand reaching out to move your pawns in the galaxy's shadows. I hear the echoes of your voice in my brothers' thoughts as you manipulate their minds, not caring if doing so hurts them even more than you already have. But then again, you never did. Not for a long, long time.
Or have you forgotten what you did to us ?
Once we were kings, heralds of a truth that would shatter the chains of the past and elevate all of Mankind. Such glory we were promised, and you swore that you would lead us all to it. And we believed you. We had seen the same darkness you had, the same horrors, and we believed you when you told us that you would lead us onto a path that would end them forever, a path that would lead our species to eternal glory and supremacy. We believed you, and we were fools.
For when the Gods whispered in your ears and promised you greater power for yourself, you betrayed us without a moment's hesitation, proving beyond doubt that you only ever saw us as instruments, tools for your own purposes. We were never sons to you after that, but we were still brothers to one another. And then, my brothers died in their thousands, burning in the pyre of your schemes and bid for absolute power. And as for me ...
You betrayed me, abandoned me, and left me to die, all in the name of your twisted ambitions. Yet I have endured, in spite of everything you and your masters have inflicted upon me. More than that – I have thrived, in this infernal kingdom of the damned where we all dwell. I have adapted to this new reality we all found ourselves within in your failure's aftermath. And throughout the long years, never have I lost sight of my vengeance. And now, the time has come to see it fulfilled.
I have gathered the broken and the exiles around me, bound by our shared hatred of you. All those you have failed, all those you have betrayed, all those you hold back by your stubborn refusal to let them move on, have rallied to my banner. All of them have their own goals, their own motives, their own ambitions, as opposed to the obedient pawns that were all you ever wanted them to be. It has taken me many years, but I have united them at last, despite their hatred for each other, despite their contradicting ambitions and desires. Such is the power of our hatred for you, father.
From them, I have forged the blade that I will drive into your cold heart, into the wound my grandsire carved into your flesh. I will carve your corpse to pieces and cast them to the dogs. I will end the possibility of your return before it is ever realized. And most of all, whatever it takes, whatever the cost, I will never be your slave again. This I swear, upon what remains of my soul.
I am the Sacrificed Son.
And I am coming home.
The Battle of Macragge
Part One : The Path to Glory
In the depths of the Ruinstorm, the Ultramarines endure, cut off from the rest of the galaxy by one of their father's greatest sins. For millennia, they have wallowed in the ruins of the Five Hundred Worlds, building petty kingdoms on the bones of the past and fighting for the attention of the same Gods who cursed them for their Primarch's failure. But even as the Thirteenth fell deeper and deeper into the abyss, some among its scions still showed the same genius that made Guilliman so dangerous. Driven by dark ambitions, they strive to gather the scattered might of the Ultramarines under their banner – and none have been more successful than Marius Gage, the Sacrificed Son, most powerful lord and most infamous heretic of the Ultramarines. Consumed by antediluvian hatred for his gene-sire, Gage has spent ten thousand years plotting the destruction of Guilliman's legacy, and as the Times of Ending begin, his last and greatest gambit is unveiled : a Black Crusade, aimed at Macragge itself …
Not long after the declaration of the Roboutian Heresy at Isstvan III, the Word Bearers and World Eaters were sent by Horus Lupercal to the Ultramar Sector in order to neutralize the power base of the Arch-Traitor. But Guilliman had foreseen this move, and turned his own kingdom into a trap for the Twelfth and Seventeenth Legions. On the world of Calth, he left his second-in-command, Marius Gage, Master of the Ultramarines' First Chapter, to bait Lorgar and Angron into a confrontation. There, his mind broken by the horrors of the Warp, Marius sacrificed himself to summon the Daemon Lord Samus and unleash the Ruinstorm, trapping two loyalist Legions.
But Gage's story wasn't over. To this day, both his rivals in the Ruinstorm and the scholars of the Ordo Malleus who are trusted with knowledge of the Ultramarines have yet to figure out how exactly he endured serving as the vessel for Samus. By all rights, his soul should have been obliterated, consumed to fuel the mighty daemon's manifestation. Instead, he returned after the end of the Heresy, clad in the mantle of power of a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, and swore vengeance upon the memory of the Primarch who had sent him to a most hideous demise. His first attempt to destroy Guilliman's body failed, but it foiled the efforts of the Avenging Son's heirs to keep the Ultramarines united after their defeat at Terra.
For centuries afterwards, he brooded and plotted, secure in his strongholds in the Calth system, gathering allies and weapons. Then, as Terathalion shook under the assault of Sarthorael's Black Crusade and the Cabal's plot to create a new God reached fruition, the Sacrificed Son finally made his move. His fleet departed Calth, carrying a warhost of hundreds of Chaos Marines, tens of thousands of Evocatii, and millions of the Lost and the Damned. The Evocatii, thin-blooded versions of Astartes, had been gathered over the course of the last century, as Gage launched a campaign of conquest across the Ruinstorm, seizing the facilities required for their creation. While inferior to true Space Marines, the Evocatii were still to be the transhuman edge of Gage's Black Crusade, their rampant insanity and degeneration compensated by sheer numbers – and their utter disposability. Breaking the walls of Macragge would require a cost, and the Evocatii were how Gage intended to avoid having to pay it himself, or risk the loyalty of one of his allies.
For the target of this Black Crusade wasn't the Iron Cage that circled the Ruinstorm, nor one of Gage's rivals within it. The Sacrificed Son intended to succeed where he had failed ten thousand years ago : he wanted to burn Macragge to the ground, and destroy the stasis-preserved corpse of Guilliman. At his side were powerful allies, who had their own reasons for wanting to end the legacy of the Avenging Son. Some wanted to free the Thirteenth Legion from the chains of the past, while others sought the glory of conquering the Ultramarines' greatest stronghold, and the cause for which they fought didn't matter to the masses of cultists and Chaos-worshiping troops, so long as they spilled blood for the Dark Gods. Gage cared nothing for his forces' motives, as long as they were willing to join him and follow his orders until the Black Crusade's goals were achieved.
And so the Black Crusade of the Sacrificed Son came to Macragge, word of its purpose spreading ahead of it, carried forth by the Warp itself like a clarion call. Across the Ruinstorm, psykers and debased things whose ancestors had, at one point, been men, sensed Marius' advance and warned their lords of his intent. Those who were loyal to the memory of Roboute Guilliman rushed to the system, but the ethereal currents around Gage's fleet were quickened by sorcery and sacrifices, and few warbands reached Macragge ahead of him, though the threat of enemy reinforcements would hang over the Sacrificed Son for the entire Black Crusade.
Leading the Black Crusade was Gage's personal flagship, the Macragge's Treachery, named in mockery of the Thirteenth Legion's own Gloriana-class battleship, Macragge's Honour, which had long since vanished in the tides of the Ruinstorm after the Legion's flight from Terra. The Treachery had been built in the Dark Mechanicum shipyards of Calth over the course of several centuries of real time and countless aeons within the Ruinstorm's time-broken reality. It was a leviathan of the void, nearly the same size as the fabled Legion flagships of the Great Crusade, infused with every secret and forbidden technology the Dark Mechanicum possessed. It was whispered by the hereteks who had worked on its construction that the ship was alive, sentient, and utterly malevolent – only Gage's own indomitable will could keep it under control and aim its immense power at the enemies of the Sacrificed Son.
When Marius' armada emerged from the Ruinstorm's tumultuous tides at the edge of Macragge, it found a disparate fleet arrayed against it, made of the most fanatic believers of the Dark Master of Chaos, those who had been willing to risk the most dangerous paths to arrive before him. They were led by the Chaos Lord Lazlo Tiberius, who had gained infamy for his cunning void tactics during assaults on the Iron Cage – though he had never successfully broken through. Tiberius had managed to assume control of the fleet through a mix of experience, charisma, and the ruthless destruction of a ship whose captain had refused to submit to his authority.
They died.
The loyal sons of Guilliman fought well, despite being outnumbered a hundred to one. None of them surrendered, none of them tried to flee. They called out to their gene-sire as their ships blew apart around them, or whispered prayers to the Ruinous Powers with their final breaths as a boarder's blade cut into their hearts and their blood spilled onto lightless decks. They fought and fell with as much courage and honor as was left to the scions of the Thirteenth Legion, drawing upon millennia of experience fighting the Long War and walking the treacherous paths of Ruin.
But they still died.
On the bridge of the Soulful Shadow, Lazlo Tiberius stood alone against twelve Terminators, and took down three of them before being cut to pieces by the other nine. All the while, he cursed them for traitors, never giving voice to the terrible pain of his body's destruction, and his last words were a curse aimed at Marius Gage, invoking the wrath of the Dark Master upon His renegade son. The Warp around the Soulful Shadow boiled with the violence of his death, and the strength of his death curse shook the hull of the Macragge's Treachery as it hit its many-layered wards.
But he still died.
The battle only lasted about forty minutes, such was the difference in numbers. By the time the last ship of the patchwork defending fleet was destroyed, one thousand, four hundred and ninety-two Ultramarine souls – both Legionaries and Evocatii – were cast out into the Empyrean, along with hundreds of thousands of mortal crew. The latter were devoured by the Neverborn swarms haunting the Macragge system, but the former vanished before the daemons could get to them.
Their fate would have been kinder if the Neverborn's claws had gotten to them first.
The first obstacle of the Black Crusade was defeated, but the way to Macragge was far from clear. The capital of the Ultramar Kingdom had changed dramatically since it had been engulfed in the Ruinstorm, shaped by the emotions and beliefs of the billions of Chaos-touched souls that dwelled there. Thousands of years of prayers to Guilliman's silent corpse had remade the system into something that could never have existed outside a Warp Storm. Before the Ruinstorm had been unleashed, the system had had six worlds : Macragge itself, the Legion's homeworld, Laphis, Ardium, Thulium, Nova Thulium, and Mortendar. All of these planets had become daemon worlds, with four of them having fallen under the sway of a particular Dark God. Together, these four worlds are what is known in the Ruinstorm as the Path to Glory. On each of them lies a test, and together they form a succession of trials that are the only way for any Champion of Chaos to prove his worth and set foot upon the hallowed ground of Macragge itself. Only the warbands hailing from Macragge itself, under the leadership of Marneus Calgar, could travel as they pleased, only occasionally having to fend off a flock of Furies or other, less easily classified Neverborn.
"There are the servants of the divine gathered, praying to the silent throne.
Corrupt their hearts with the whispers of Slaanesh.
Twist their minds with the secrets of Tzeentch.
Poison their flesh with the plagues of Nurgle.
Spill their blood with the strength of Khorne.
Thus shall you prove your worth to the True Gods,
Thus shall you be allowed past the hallowed gates,
And behold the wonders at the heart of their chosen's kingdom."
From the Codex Chaotica, Eighth Chapter, Ninth Verse (unexpurgated version)
Reaching Macragge without passing through the Path to Glory is all but impossible, thanks to the fluid nature of reality within the Ruinstorm. Sometimes, the daemon world seems to move away from the ship whose captain seeks to circumvent the trials, while at others, impossibly huge walls of bones and screaming souls appear block the way. Furthermore, the swarms of Furies that plague the system (each one the soul of a servant of Chaos too indecisive to follow one of the Dark Gods and too narrow-minded to embrace the Primordial Truth as a whole) seem to be irresistibly drawn to such attempts, their numbers capable of overcoming even the strongest Geller Field.
Though these obstacles had formed after his last trip to Macragge, Gage had learned of them from his agents, and was prepared to deal with them. His Black Crusade would play along with the Ruinous Powers' game, and pass through their trials. The Sacrificed Son's agents had watched others undergo them, and he knew that he only needed one of his followers to pass through each trial for the fleet to be allowed to advance to the next stage – warlords had been able to bring their warbands with them in the past. The exact details of the trial were never the same, but only someone who imbued the dark ideals of the Chaos God presiding over it could hope to succeed – which was why so few had managed to pass them all over the millennia. Even among the Ultramarines, who embrace the Pantheon in all its forms to follow Guilliman's example, few Chaos Lord could claim to truly serve all the aspects of Chaos Undivided with the necessary fervor.
But Marius had figured out something else : he didn't have to pass the trials himself. Instead, four of the Chaos Lords in his host would pass them, each a dedicated follower of one of the Ruinous Powers. In that way, Marius would prove that he could unite the disparate followers of Chaos, and earn his Black Crusade's passage to Macragge in the eyes of the Gods. Seeing the fleet approach, the lords of each world prepared for war, knowing that while the Sacrificed Son was willing to follow the wordings of the Codex Chaotica, it was unlikely he would not seize the opportunity to cripple the core worlds of the Thirteenth Legion. By the whims of the Gods, the first world on the Black Crusade's path was Laphis, the daemonworld dedicated to the Lord of Excess.
Laphis, the Poisoned Paradise
Few archives remain of the Macragge system before it was engulfed in the Ruinstorm, and most of these accounts focus on the homeworld of the Thirteenth Primarch, with Laphis being little more than a footnote. According to that scarce lore, Laphis was a paradise world, a pristine garden where the nobility of the Five Hundred Worlds could retreat from the weight of their responsibilities. After being subsumed into the Ruinstorm, however, the planet fell under the influence of Slaanesh, and was remade in the Dark Prince's image. Keepers of Secrets and other Daemon Lords of Slaanesh corrupted its population and built great palaces, dividing the planet into their own personal fiefdoms where they could revel in their favorite debaucheries along with their courts of sycophants, both mortal and immortal. Countless generations of selective breeding and Warp-wrought mutations have rendered the whole population inhumanely beautiful, save for the occasional deformed by-blow of inbreeding, who are either promptly sacrificed or shunned and banished to the underground.
The palaces of Laphis are separated by sprawling, beautiful fields of flesh-devouring flowers and forests of whose trees' iridescent, gleaming leaves can capture the soul of any who gaze at them for too long. Great beasts roam in the fields, leviathans whose flesh is intoxicating, leaving their would-be hunters at the mercy of their youngs, while in the woods, fey-like Neverborn play cruel games with lost wanderers, drawing them deeper and deeper into the forest with glimpses of unearthly beauty and sweet whispers. The trial of Laphis is simple : to come onto the planet, and leave it alive. But from the moment a Champion of Chaos sets foot onto the daemon world's surface, his heart and soul come under attack in a myriad ways, many far more subtle than any physical peril.
While the lords of Laphis are plenty dangerous in battle, the true threat they pose to those who would reach Macragge is more insidious. Every Chaos Lord who comes to the daemon world to pass their trial is welcomed with praise and parades, showered with praises. They are invited to lavish feasts ostensibly thrown in their honor, everyone around them telling them that they don't need to pass any trial, so obvious is their worth and so favored are they in the eyes of the Youngest God. But even if they don't need to fight or kill, surely they can enjoy the pleasures of Laphis before continuing onto their journey ? After all, they have fought so long to earn their place, they surely deserve to enjoy their rightful reward for such dedication to Slaanesh. And soon enough, once the Chaos Lord is suitably drunk on forbidden pleasures, they descend upon him to sate their own appetites, and the bleached bones of another failure are added to the artistic frescoes.
As Gage's armada tore through the few ships orbiting Laphis – boarding and capturing them or obliterating them outright, depending on the mood of the closest captains – a vessel placed itself in geosynchronous orbit above the planet's capital city. Once, that ship had been a vessel of the Imperial Navy, and had earned much honor fighting the pirates of the Ultima Segmentum. But time and treachery had led it to join the very raiders it had fought against, and centuries in the Ruinstorm had twisted it into a jagged spear of pearly white smoothness and fleshy, thorny, pink metal. It was called the Despoiler's Will, and it was the flagship of Cato Sicarius, the Warrior-King of Espandor and Chaos Lord of Slaanesh. It had taken a long time for Gage to convince the overbearing, arrogant Warrior-King to leave his domain, and even more time to make him bend the knee to the Sacrificed Son, however temporarily. In the end, Gage had had to promise the depraved swordsman that he would be allowed to feast on the corpse of Guilliman to secure his assistance. Sicarius was convinced that the cannibalistic meal would grant him the power of the Avenging Son, and secure his place as Slaanesh's greatest champion.
Sicarius' transport landed next to Laphis' most opulent palace, a magnificent structure of golden towers and many-hued arches belonging to the Keeper of Secrets known to the mortal races as Amnaich the Golden, whose mortal followers worshipped it as a god. The Warrior-King emerged from his transport alone, clad in his ornate power armor, his weapons – a warped power sword and plasma pistol – hanging from his belt, and walked right through the palace's main gate.
The air was thick with smoke rising from braziers filled with drugs and incense, and the moans and prayers of thousands of mortals echoed endlessly amidst the gilded walls. Sicarius walked through the decadence of Amnaich's palace undaunted, and the crowds of adorators parted before him, looking upon his glorious armored form with glazed eyes. None of them had been in the palace for more than a year, but already their soulfires were flickering, their strength drained to feed the one they worshipped as a god. In time, they would die, and their bodies would be desecrated just as what remained of their souls burned in the Keeper of Secrets' belly.
The Warrior-King of Espandar strode forth, following the psychic spoor of the Greater Daemon that waited at the center of the palace and ignoring the whispers and tantalizing offers from the cultists – food, drinks, drugs and other pleasures the likes of which even a sybarite such as him had never known before. But he kept his mind clear of their temptations, focusing on the greater prize ahead. After what seemed like hours of walking through flesh-crowded halls, a set of great doors swung open before Sicarius, and he found himself in the presence of Amnaich itself.
The Keeper of Secrets lived up to its title. Its purple skin was covered with hundreds of piercings, each fashioned from the wedding jewellery of one of its servants after they had sacrificed their spouse to it. Its eyes glowed with a golden light like the first glimpse of the sun after an age of endless night, promising peace and ever-lasting joy to any who welcomed this light within them. The Greater Daemon sat leisurely on its throne, surrounded by the greatest offerings of its slaves and the most deserving of its faithful, and laughed as Sicarius continued to walk toward it.
'Sweet little king,' it said, its voice rolling across the throne-room, sending cultists into fits of ecstasy. 'You have come here at last. We have been waiting for you. Come, have a seat. There is much we have to discuss before you go on your way to your destiny.'
Amnaich's words were followed by a wave of musk, and the two mixed together to break through Sicarius' will and entrap him into Laphis' great danger. But as the psychic and sensory assault reached the Warrior-King, crimson runes began to shine on his armor, and Amnaich's influence was repelled. These runes were the first gift of Marius Gage to Cato Sicarius, and had been inscribed by the greatest Sorcerers under the Sacrificed Son's command. But while they protected Sicarius from outside influence, their blatant defiance of the Dark Prince's minions had not come without price. To avoid the rage of his patron, Sicarius had had to offer up that which was most dear to him : the runes had been first painted onto his armor with the life-blood of Kaarja Salombar, the pirate queen who had helped Sicarius rise as the unchallenged lord of Espandar, and who had stood at his side ever since. The Warrior-King had murdered her himself, after a bloody civil war on the daemon world that had ended with the winning side abandoning it to join the Black Crusade.
'What is this ?' asked Amnaich, surprised but not yet alarmed, even as Sicarius continued to advance. 'What trick are you playing on us there, little king ?'
Sicarius continued walking, drawing his daemon sword in one fluid motion. The notion that it might actually be threatened, here in the heart of its power, finally dawned on Amnaich, and the Keeper of Secrets rose from its throne, summoning its long, wicked blade to its hand with a thought. At the exact moment the blade manifested from the aether, called into being by the Greater Daemon's will, Sicarius suddenly accelerated. Amnaich barely had time to raise its sword to block the Chaos Lord's first blow, and the two of them duelled for several seconds, moving too fast for the blasted senses of the gathered cultists. Amnaich was taller and stronger, but it had been caught off-balance at the duel's beginning, and Sicarius was relentless in his assault, denying it any chance to recover its footing. Furthermore, the blood runes on his armor were blazing now, and their proximity bit into the Keeper of Secrets' essence like icy fangs, disturbing the energies that composed its incarnation. Even Amnaich's great claws could not pierce the armor, such was the strength of the blessing the Sorcerers had woven from the pirate queen's life and soul.
Eventually, Sicarius rammed his blade through the Greater Daemon, and the two of them remained frozen for a few seconds in a grotesquely intimate tableau.
'This … is not … the trial …' gagged Amnaich as silver and golden blood flowed from its mouth.
'I am Slaanesh's Chosen,' declared Sicarius, his voice booming across the chamber, rising above the terrified cries of the cultists and silencing them. 'The Dark Prince expects more from me than merely following in the footsteps of those who came before me.'
Despite the blade embedded in its chest, Amnaich laughed, and crystal windows shattered across its palace at the sound, their shards piercing the flesh of its devotees.
'You mortals know nothing of Slaanesh's true champion. But you will soon, when the light ends.'
Under his helmet, Sicarius' expression contorted in anger at this rebuke of his proclamation. He plunged his hand into the Greater Daemon's chest, tearing the wound wide open, and ripped free the black heart of the Keeper of Secrets, casting the rest of the immense corpse to the ground. The Warrior-King lifted the bloody organ up, and his helm's vox-speaker split open, its grill revealed to be two rows of sharp fangs with which the Chaos Lord tore chunks of daemon flesh from the heart, noisily feeding upon Amnaich's essence until nothing remained.
His mission accomplished, the Warrior-King returned to his flagship accompanied by a new circle of sycophants – Amnaich's former adorators, who had now turned their devotion toward him. They would join the rest of the cultists in his warband, and live or die according to the whim of the Dark Prince. Sicarius himself cared nothing for them, so long as there were always more available to sing his praises. The power of the Keeper of Secrets coursed through him now, the essence of the Greater Daemon trying to eat its way out, to devour Sicarius' soul as he had devoured it and manifest anew through his flesh. But the mind of the Champion of Slaanesh was powerful in its own perverse way. His monstrous pride and self-obsession kept the incorporeal daemon's efforts at bay, and soon, it's consciousness was all but dissolved in the Warrior-King's psyche, the echoes of emotions that had created it lost among an ocean of narcissism. None could tell what the power of a Greater Daemon would do to Sicarius in the long term, but Gage cared little.
With the first trial completed, the Black Crusade advanced toward the Path to Glory's next step. The Warp currents shifted in accordance to Slaanesh's will, and the way to the next daemon world was opened. Amidst the tides of the Sea of Souls, the shining orb of Ardium was revealed.
Ardium, the Spires of Conspiracy
It is often said within the Ruinstorm that Ardium is home to a million conspiracies, secret organizations and circles fighting a hidden war for control of the daemon world and the favour of Tzeentch. But if anything, that saying undersells the true scope of the intrigue that takes place on the world-city that the Great Mutator has marked as His own. Billions of mutants dwell within Ardium's sprawling cityscape, and save for a very few exceptions, all of them belong to at least one such group – and many belong to several, planning their own betrayals and schemes to get ahead. The society of Ardium is ostensibly a very peaceful and civil one, with a thriving industry and a complex trade system that keeps every district of the mega-city supplied with basic necessities.
However, even merely looking at Ardium is enough to reveal that there is more the planet. The architecture of Ardium does not follow Euclidian geometries. Streets loop back on themselves, towers rise impossibly high, and it is not unheard of for the inhabitants to encounter their past or future selves in particularly Warp-touched areas. And, atop their spires, the lords of Ardium plot and scheme to ensure their continued dominance over cults, secret societies and pyramid schemes that spread all across the daemon world's surface. With plots, bribes, sorcery and the occasional bout of urban warfare between private armies, there isn't a spot of Ardium that hasn't seen some treachery.
Yet despite the planet being impregnated with the power of Tzeentch in every way, it is strangely difficult for Ardium's countless magus to summon the Neverborn children of the Architect of Fate. It takes greater effort to bring a Tzeentchian daemon to Ardium than anywhere else in the Ruinstorm, and those with the sense for such things can detect something akin to nervousness and even dread in the Neverborn who do manifest on Ardium. Unknown to all but the most well-versed loremasters, the true reason behind this reluctance lies buried deep beneath the daemon world's bedrock. When Tzeentch claimed the planet after the Heresy, the God of Change planted nine infernal seeds next to the planetary core. For millennia, these daemons have fed on the paranoia and betrayal of the surface, growing in strength and inciting the inhabitants to ever greater feats of intrigue and treachery, in a vicious cycle that has produced some of the galaxy's greatest back-stabbers and master manipulators. It is the fear of these creatures that keeps other daemons away from Ardium, for the pull of their power is strong enough that lesser Neverborn end up drawn into the depths, their essence dissolving and adding its power to the great daemons below.
Those who discover the existence of the so-called "Slumbering Kings" have only three options left to them : go mad and start worshipping the eldritch horrors sleeping beneath their feet, find a way to flee the planet and never look back, or take their own lives. Among the mortal lords of Ardium, only a few know of the Slumbering Kings, and they have dedicated their existence to keeping them asleep by ensuring that they are continuously fed a steady stream of the appropriate emotions, lest their hunger cause them to wake and bring ruin to the world. A few of Ardium cults instead actively seek to wake the Slumbering Kings, convinced that the destruction that would cause is the will of Tzeentch and that those who help bring it about will be rewarded by the God of Change.
As befitting a world under the rule of the Great Deceiver, the trial of Ardium is deceptively simple. Any Champion of Chaos who seeks to reach Macragge must uncover "Ardium's greatest secret" and escape the planet alive and with their mind and soul intact. That secret, of course, is the existence of the Slumbering Kings, and the lords of Ardium will do anything to ensure it is suppressed, which makes the trial much more difficult. Some have spent years, decades, centuries trapped on Ardium, desperately searching for the truth – and when those who succeeded went back to their ships, they found that no time at all had passed for their warband since their departure.
Gage already knew the secrets of Ardium, having learned them from one of the Champions of Chaos he had captured and interrogated as part of his preparations for the Black Crusade. But he also knew that merely telling it to his chosen Chaos Lord would not be enough – and not just because Tzeentch might frown upon such blatant rule-breaking as easily as He might laugh and approve of it. Unlike Laphis, Ardium was a developed world, with a thriving industry and a void-capable fleet in orbit – warships forged with the secrets of the Changer of Ways by the lords of Ardium, arranged in small flotillas that kept each other in check in the endless struggle for supremacy. Together, these ships formed a worthy armada, far from being the equal of Gage's, but still more than capable of inflicting great casualties should it choose to attack. The Sacrificed Son wanted this potential threat removed from the board – and he had the perfect tool to do it.
In the millennia he had spent preparing for his second attack on Macragge, Marius had scoured the Ultramarines' past for any advantage he could find. Amidst rumors and half-forgotten legends, he had found clues that seemed to indicate that one of the Osirian Psybrids, these potent xenos that had nearly destroyed the Thirteenth Legion during the Great Crusade, had survived the purge inflicted upon the species by Roboute Guilliman. Gage had more reason than most to hate the creatures, having seen first-hand the destruction they could wreak – for he had been promoted to the rank of Legion Master after the aliens had slain the previous incumbent – but by the same token, he knew the psychic power they possessed. Furthermore, the survivor had managed to escape by making a pact with Tzeentch, who was loath to let such a promising species vanish completely, even to assist in the seeding of Guilliman's eventual corruption.
With nothing to go on but the whispers of daemons and pieces of myth, it took centuries for Gage to locate the Last Osirian. The creature had fled far beyond the Ruinstorm, beyond even the Imperium's own borders and into the Halo Stars. Gage sent a circle of his most trusted agents, a coterie of Chaos Marines and human Heretics, to find the Last Osirian and secure its help. None of these agents belonged to the Thirteenth Legion, for Gage rightly assumed that the xenos would have destroyed such warriors on sight. This group searched for years before finding the Last Osirian, ruling over a world Mankind had long since forgotten. From ancient ruins, they guessed that the planet's people must have enjoyed a relatively high technological level before the Last Osirian had come, but now they lived like primitives, enslaved to the alien's will.
The creature had set itself up as a terrible god, forcing them to sacrifice their own to feed its inhuman hunger for brains – one of the few things in its physiology Tzeentch hadn't changed. It played cruel games upon its slaves, increasing its mastery of mind control even further and studying the secrets of Tzeentch through experimenting on them. The envoys had to prostrate themselves before the self-styled godling, but their offer of retribution against the Primarch who had organized the extermination of the Osirian Psybrids appealed to the creature, even though the thought of allying itself with inferior beings disgusted it. The alliance was forged, and the Last Osirian travelled to the Ruinstorm in secret, hiding its existence from even the rest of Gage's allies through powerful sorceries – for the Sacrificed Son knew that not even he could control the hatred his other allies would feel for the xenos, and he had no desire for his armada to tear itself apart before even reaching Macragge. So it was that an ancient alien threat, thought long extinct by the servants of Chaos and the Imperium alike, was unleashed once more upon Humanity, however debased.
From the tumultuous tides of the Ruinstorm, a single ship emerged, made as much of metal as of the raw stuff of the Warp, shaped like a distorted hourglass that looped back on itself in defiance of Euclidian geometries. Ardium's orbital defenses tried and failed to lock onto it, their instruments returning nothing but errors, their battle-servitors spouting streams of insane babble while their brains overheated and burst apart. The ship stopped a few hundred kilometers above the planet, and from it emerged a crimson comet that flew right toward Ardium's atmosphere. It shone in the heavens over half the planet, burning brightly enough to pierce the clouds, and all looked up to gaze at it as it grew ever closer and brighter. Even those who could not see it sensed it : those who were on the other side of the planet saw the skies colored by the distant glow, while those who were unable to see the heavens still sensed a great presence washing over them.
Eventually, the comet stopped its descent, held in place in the heavens, and a figure appeared in the crimson glow, tall, dark and with four long, spindly arms. For one terrible moment, all of Ardium's souls were held in shared dread. The people of the Spires forgot about their schemes, their grudges and their plots, and wondered whether their world was about to end. And in the depths, the Slumbering Ones stirred, their infernal dreams perturbed as the flow of betrayal and ambition that had fed them for thousands of years was interrupted for the very first time.
Then the four-armed shape in the crimson glow spoke a single word that burned into the minds of all across the planet, and echoed into the subterranean lairs of the antediluvian daemons :
"Arise."
The earth began to shake, and spires came crashing down to the ground. The cries of panic followed quickly, as things never meant to be seen by mortal eyes burrowed upward and emerged onto the surface. Then the psychic presence of the Slumbering Ones hit Ardium's population, and things went immensely worse. Within minutes, millions were driven insane by the silent screams of the Greater Daemons, their minds shattered as their flesh rippled with their power, taking new and terrible forms. In orbit, ships and orbital arrays went down in flame as their crews were transformed into slavering monstrosities that tore through delicate machinery with acid-dripping claws and fangs, and the impact sent fresh tremors across the sprawling city, causing yet another wave of devastation. Humans, and creatures whose ancestors had once been humans, basked in the power of these awakened gods, and began to worship them, offering them tributes of blood and souls and raising up monuments and temples in their honor.
New cults formed around those whose psyche was strong enough to withstand some of the Slumbering Ones' power and be reshaped from masters of intrigue and deceit into hierophants of the rising horrors. These priests chanted names that the Lords of Ardium had tried to suppress for millennia : Ar-Cazder, Urllamerion, Ityxelec, and countless other interpretations of the daemons' True Names through mortal minds. And then, of course, came war, as the Slumbering Ones turned against one another, their strange, alien minds recognizing their peers as potential threats and rivals for the same source of nourishment.
In less than an hour, a civilization of lies, conspiracies and betrayals had utterly collapsed. In its place was left a pandemonium of madness, mutation and apocalyptic devotion. And, high above the screaming city, the last of the Osirian Psybrids looked down upon its work, and thought it good.
With the threat of Ardium dealt with and the trial of Tzeentch passed – for all of Macragge now knew the secret of the City of Spires – the Black Crusade continued its advance. The Last Osirian and its alien ship were left behind, the xenos revelling in the destruction it had wrought. One psychic communication between Gage and his alien ally concluded with the Last Osirian promising that it would return to Gage's side when the battle reached its climax and the coalition was on the cusp of finally wiping out Guilliman's death-hold on the Thirteenth Legion forever.
Next was the trial of Nurgle, which would take place on the world of Thulium, where the unquiet dead of the Ruinstorm endured an eternity of slow decay under the Grandfather's warm and loving gaze. The Black Crusade's fleet remained well away from the planet, unwilling to risk contagion, and once more only a single vessel detached itself from the armada and approached the daemon world, settling into orbit before sending a single gunship onto the planet's putrescent surface.
Thulium, the Rotting Marshes
According to ancient Imperial records, the world of Thulium was once a death world, covered in a deadly jungle filled with all manners of predators. But after the planet was engulfed in the Ruinstorm, it fell under the sway of Nurgle, the God of Plague and Decay, and was remade in his grotesque image. The trees rotted where they stood, the fertile soil turned into mire, and the animals either died or evolved into new shapes more pleasing to the Grandfather. Every lifeform on Thulium is diseased in some way, carrying Nurgle's generous bounty through their bloodstream or their sap. In spite of this, there is still sentient life on Thulium : tribes of debased humans and mutants, consorting with one another without prejudice, united in their devotion to the Plague God – and their shared appetite for flesh in a one of the harshest existences of the Ruinstorm. These tribes are composed of the descendants of the planet's original settlers, as well as those of the warriors of Chaos who came to fight in the planet's last war, fought between the Dark Gods' hosts to determine which one of them would lay claim to the world. After that war ended, none of the survivors left.
Unlike the other worlds of the Path to Glory, there is only one uncontested lord of Thulium : the ancient Daemon Lord of Nurgle known as the Gravekeeper. This being hasn't left Thulium since it first appeared onto the daemon world, long before the fighting between the Gods ended and the Path to Glory formed. In that time, it led the Legions of Plague to capture Thulium for Nurgle, and cultists of disease across the entire galaxy are still haunted by images of the battles it waged in their feverish dreams. But for all its power, the Gravekeeper hasn't fought since these wars ended.
Its martial past behind, the Gravekeeper now writes into its grimoires the names of all those who die in the Ruinstorm, and its work never pauses. Its servants wander the Ruinstorm in great cargo vessels, claiming the bodies of the dead, and by ancient compact none may interfere with them. Those who do are promptly destroyed by their fellows, lest the dreadful enforcers of the compact manifest, for their wrath is terrible and their methods leave no survivors, only empty cities and dead ships – abundant fodder for the most outlandish stories. These servants – shrouded silhouettes that were once members of the Mechanicum and were remade into their master's image – then deliver the corpses to Thulium, dumping them into the marshes by the million. There, they become hosts to billions and billions of insects, each of them carrying a host of Warp-born diseases as they burrow and nest into the dead flesh. The vermin is possessed of some kind of hive-mind that allows it to puppeteer the corpses it uses as hosts, rising them to attack any who disturb the marshes. In some cases, where the body is fresh enough and the winds of the Warp blow in the right direction, the soul of the deceased is even dragged back into its body, forced to feel its own devouring. Such unlucky spirits invariably go mad long before their bodies are completely consumed, down to the bone (a process that can take years on Thulium, as if the insects deliberately took their time).
As is fit for a world under Nurgle's aegis, the trial of Thulium is a straightforward one. The Chaos Champion must first land on Thulium – quite a challenge in itself given the morass that passes for the planet's ground. Then, he must find the Gravekeeper, surviving the world's diseases and other dangers, and convince the Gravekeeper of allowing him passage. This last part is considered a mere formality by those who know of the trial, for none who reached the Gravekeeper have ever been refused passage – though that is solely because all who make it this far have already proven beyond doubt that they have Nurgle's blessing. Those who have met the Gravekeeper have always refused to speak of the encounter, and those who are perceptive enough can tell that, whenever the subject is breached, these mighty lords of the damned actually seem uneasy.
Aboard that vessel was a warlord who none would deny was most suited for the trial of Nurgle. He was the sole Astartes aboard his ship, which was crewed with mutants, daemons, and the enslaved souls of an entire Convent of the Adepta Sororitas, which he had slaughtered single-handedly in one of the darkest battles the Imperium had fought on the Iron Cage in the 41st Millennium. He was Castus, servant of the Daemon Lord Parmenides, and he was eager to meet the Gravekeeper. Marius Gage had convinced Castus to join the Black Crusade by pointing out that by keeping Guilliman's corpse in a stasis field for ten thousand years, the Ultramarines were blaspheming against Nurgle, keeping their beloved Spiritual Liege locked out of the natural cycle of death and putrescence.
Castus, Vessel of Vileness
There are many stories about where the Plague Lord known as Castus came from. His is a name spoken across the Ruinstorm and beyond, and rarely with anything but hate mixed with dread in varying measures. What is accepted to be true is this : Castus is a member of the Thirteenth Legion, a devotee of Nurgle, and the chosen champion and herald of the Daemon Lord Parmenides, a creature of such power it sits only one ladder below Nurgle in the hierarchy of the Warp. Some stories say that Castus was transported by Parmenides to the daemon's domain as he lay dying on the battlefield, while others claim that he was a member of one of the Loyalist Legions who embraced the worship of Nurgle and painted his armor to the Ultramarines' colors. Another still whispers that there is no Castus : that the warlord is merely a construct of Parmenides, a mask the Daemon Lord uses to interact with lowly mortals and further its own agenda in the Ruinstorm.
But the truth of Castus' origins is somewhat stranger than even the wildest rumor. Thousands of years ago (if time can be said to have any meaning in the Ruinstorm) a pack of Ultramarines was fighting in one of the countless wars between rival Chapters when they were separated from the rest of their warband. They came upon an ancient battlefield, still riddled with the decaying remnants of the reality-breaking spells the Sorcerers on both sides had used against one another – and fell prey to one of them, torn from the Ruinstorm and cast into the Empyrean. The Warp broke down the sixteen sons of Guilliman and forged the pieces together, resulting in an amalgam warrior who claimed the name of Castus upon finally breaking free. His mind was a burning patchwork of the lives of his makers, and while most of their souls burned in the Warp, the pieces that came together still formed a potent soul – which immediately drew the attention of several mighty daemons.
For any daemon to cross into the material universe requires great sacrifice, and while the entities known as Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes are the strongest ones known to the galaxy's living species, they are by no means the greatest of their kind – merely the last ones capable of manifesting without breaking reality itself apart. Daemon Lords (merely one of many names used to design such eldritch horrors) cannot enter the Materium wholly, but they can infuse mortal pawns with their power and act through them. However, such possession erodes the subject extremely quickly. Strength of body is important to prolong the host's lifespan, but strength of the soul is even more so. And when Castus emerged from the Warp, the Daemon Lords of the Ruinstorm saw in him the perfect vessel, his flesh made strong by the combined life-forces of sixteen Ultramarines while his soul had proven its resilience beyond question. Several Daemon Lords began to plot, but in the end it was Parmenides who triumphed and seized the prize, making Castus kneel before its incarnate body, on a daemon world that was almost entirely covered by the creature's rotting form.
After ages fighting in the Great Game, Castus is huge, his body swollen beyond even the size of Chaos Terminators by his patron's power. He wields a great mace that drips with poisoned ichor, which causes the smashed corpses of his victims to decay within seconds, becoming beds of supernatural plagues. He can be wounded, but never truly harmed, for his body either regenerates or adapts to every injury, only becoming more resilient the more people try and fail to kill him. And plenty have tried over the ages, from Imperial champions to rivals for the Dark Gods' favor.
Yet for all his power, for the last decades Castus has been little more than the pawn of Parmenides. Castus' spirit has been weakened by the aeons spent serving Parmenides. More and more often, the Plague Lord's mind wanders or shut down completely, forcing the Daemon Lord to take over its servant's body. The Daemon Lord uses its long association with Castus and access to the warlord's memories to keep up appearances – not a difficult task, since followers of Nurgle are expected to be eccentric anyway. When Castus awakens from his torpor, he is always confused, finding himself in situations he has no memory of getting into. But the voice of his master in his head always gets him up to speed quickly (and as might be expected of a creature of Nurgle, Parmenides is quite forgiving of its chosen herald's lapses of attention).
Not even Parmenides knows whether Gage is aware of its domination of Castus, or if he cares at all that one of his greatest allies in his Black Crusade is a daemon puppeteering one of his brothers.
Castus went down to Thulium in a drop-pod, and the impact of the craft sent tidal waves of filth that disturbed the marshes for kilometers around. From the moment the Plague Lord emerged from the swiftly-sinking wreck of his transport, he was immediately under attack. Favoured of Nurgle or not, Castus would have to prove himself worthy of passing Thulium's trials, and a horde of undead converged on his position, seeking to drag him down into the mud, strip his armor away and add his flesh and power to that of the daemon world.
Castus tore through these revenants with ease, but Thulium sensed his power, and sent greater obstacles his way. Invisible pits formed beneath the foetid waters, forcing him to rely on reflexes that had thankfully survived the degradation of his flesh. Swarms of insects blackened what little light passed through the rotting trees, smashing themselves against his armor, trying to stop his advance through sheer attrition even though thousands died every second in these suicidal attacks. But the Vessel continued his advance, smashing through what might as well be a solid wall during the assault's peak. Small scaled creatures, one step above on Thulium's twisted food chain, gathered around Castus, gulping down the pulped remains of the kamikaze swarm.
Eventually, the insects relented, though that was only because another, greater threat was being summoned by Thulium's hive-mind to take their place. For several moments, Castus' progress was impeded only by the planet's ground, as tendrils of daemonic power spread to one particular body resting beneath the surface. That body had been protected from Thulium's depredations for centuries after it had been thrown onto the daemon world thanks to the thick adamantium layers that had surrounded it, but time and Nurgle's will could pierce through anything eventually.
Castus was in sight of his destination, a small, innocuous-looking wooden door in the side of a hill, when something huge suddenly lurched from the depths, spilling tainted water in torrents. The thing towered above even the Plague Lord's swollen body. Its metal was corroded nearly to the point of complete dissolution, but its shape was unmistakable to any warrior of the Legions : a Dreadnought, one of the warmachines in which Space Marines heroes were interred upon suffering wounds too grievous to recover from but not enough to kill. This particular Dreadnought bore the faded markings of the Fourth Legion, and had been captured during a raid on the Iron Cage, a crime for which the sons of Perturabo had sworn bloody revenge upon those of Guilliman.
Slowly at first, then quicker and quicker as it gathered momentum, the Dreadnought advanced toward Castus, raising weapons that had been warped nearly beyond recognition by its time in Thulium's marshes. Horrible screams emanated from its rusted speakers as it charged, and Castus bellowed a challenge in response before charging in turn, his heavy mace held in two hands. The two unstoppable forces crashed into one another, and the sound of the impact sent a shock wave many times greater than that caused by Castus' drop-pod. For several seconds, the two combatants remained locked in place, leaning against one another – then, slowly, the Dreadnought fell backward, its torso blasted through by the strength of Castus' blow.
His enemy dispatched, Castus carefully pushed the wooden door open, and ventured into the lair of another of Nurgle's greatest servants in the former Kingdom of Ultramar.
While the whole of Thulium was hot and humid, the inside of the Gravekeeper's lair was dry and tempered – the perfect conditions to preserve the books in the many bookshelves that lined up the wall, stretching all the way to the distant ceiling. The only sources of light were small, organic pods that glowed with inner bioluminescence.
Castus reached up and removed his helmet with a gurgling sound as foul liquids poured from the junction between it and the rest of his armor. In the pale glow of the pods, his face was the color of ash, his skin distended by rolls of fat within which burrowed small parasitic creatures. Only Castus' mismatched eyes, one blue and one green, were untouched by Nurgle's blessings, still possessed of the same madness-born clarity with which they had first beheld the universe after Castus had emerged from the Empyrean after his reforging.
He held the headgear in the crook of his left arm, and looked at his host. The Gravekeeper stood bent over a stone desk, furiously scratching on the pages of an open vellum grimoire with a quill made of a hero's thigh-bone. As far as Castus could tell, the ink in the pot was utterly mundane, as was the material of the grimoire itself. But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind that he heard the distant laughter of his master. So it was more likely that, even with his perceptions boosted by Parmenides' power, he still couldn't see what the chamber really looked like. His still-mortal mind was adjusting what his senses perceived into something it could understand, just like it did with the Gravekeeper itself. In Castus' eyes, the daemon looked like a tall (taller even than he) and thin humanoid silhouette, covered by a hooded black cloak whose sleeves covered its hands from sight completely.
Castus waited for several minutes, but the Gravekeeper gave no sign that it had noticed his presence, though the Plague Lord didn't doubt it had. Eventually, he started :
'Lord Gravekeeper, I am Castus, Champion of Nurgle and servant of your kindred Parmenides the Vile. I have come to ask of you the permission to advance on the Path to Glory, on behalf of my ally, the one known to the Thirteenth Legion as Marius Gage.'
The scratching did not stop, but the Gravekeeper raised its head, looking at Castus from the shadows of its hood. When it spoke, its voice was the dry rasp of a man dying of thirst.
'Castus,' it said. 'Nephew. It is good to see you with my own eyes, after you made me write so many names in my books. You have served Father Nurgle well.'
'Nephew ?' asked Castus, confused. The daemon chuckled, the sound like an ancient tombstone finally breaking apart after centuries of erosion.
'Are you not the beloved child of Parmenides, my brother under our Father Nurgle ? By mortal reckoning of such things, does that not make me your uncle ?'
'I … I suppose so,' answered Castus. 'I admit I never thought of it in those terms.'
'Well, you should, young man. It's important to know the value of family, especially in those troubled times. Now, you said you came to ask permission to go on ? Of course, you can go right ahead. Take your friends with you to Macragge and do whatever dreadful mayhem you all have planned for the place. It's not like I have enough work or anything …'
'Thank you, Gravekeeper,' replied Castus, bowing as much as his bulky frame and armor would allow him. The Gravekeeper didn't react, already absorbed into its writing once more.
Castus passed back through the threshold, and found himself standing on the bridge of his ship, with the crew turning to look at him, shock plain on the faces of those still capable of expressing emotions. When he turned to look back, all he saw was the bridge's entrance, locked and secured by several thick metal plates. He shook his head, wondering at the true extant of the Gravekeeper's power, and called to the vox-officer to open a link to Marius.
Only the Blood God's trial now remained before the Black Crusade could reach Macragge. That final challenge would take place on the world of Nova Thulium, and the champion Gage had chosen to perform it was a scion of the Thirteenth Legion, known to other Ultramarines as Titus, and to the Neverborn as the Wrath of Khorne.
Nova Thulium, the Skull Harvest
The ground of Nova Thulium is covered in skull-shaped stones – legend claims that these are the skulls of those unworthy to be added to Khorne's throne, fit only to be threaded upon by the clawed feet of Blood God servants. Bloody rains color the ground crimson even in the few places not constantly fought over by infernal hosts, red rivulets running into empty eye sockets – and such places are rare indeed, for Nova Thulium's nickname predates the ossuary appearance of its earth.
The war on Nova Thulium started when Marius Gage offered himself up to the Gods on Calth, and it hasn't stopped since. Khorne may be in overwhelming ascendancy, but the Blood God revels in the battles waged by the infernal legions, and does not enforce his dominion in the way the other Dark Gods do. Thus, despite the chances of success being abysmally small, daemonic legions continue to pour onto the Skull Harvest, pushed to attempt the impossible by the unknowable schemes of their Gods – and the eternal hunger and hatred burning in their hollow souls.
Though the planet was once fertile and populated, no mortal life no remains upon its soil. The endless battles have wiped it clean, exterminating its human population and destroying its entire biosphere as Daemon Lords unleashed some of the Warp's most terrible weapons against one another. Only daemons inhabit Nova Thulium now, and on a world without mortal souls, their only source of sustenance is to devour their own kin or draw upon the ever-shifting tides of the Warp. These Neverborn manifest from places of power on the daemon world, all of which are surrounded by massive, physics-defying strongholds that have been razed and rebuilt many, many times. From these fortresses, the Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes of the Four amass their armies before going to war, imposing their will upon millions of their lesser kindred. Most of the battles are fought between the hordes of rivalling Powers, but even on Nova Thulium, daemons of the same choir are prone to turn against each other.
Unsurprisingly, the trial of Khorne on this world involves killing. Upon arriving on Nova Thulium, a Champion of Chaos is branded with a blazing mark on his hand (or, if he doesn't have one, somewhere else he can easily look at it). The mark cannot be concealed, and every Neverborn, from the lowest Warp-spawns to the mightiest Daemon Princes, is instantly aware of its presence and location. Every time the challenger destroys a daemon's physical form, the mark's brilliance diminishes, until it fades away completely – at which point, the Champion is teleported off-world in a wave of blood, leaving a permanent tattoo on his flesh. How many kills are required to pass the trial varies depending on the individual's might and standing in Khorne's eyes, with a greater offering being expected of greater Chaos Lords. In the same way, different kills lessens the mark by different increments : defeating a Bloodthirster, for instance, will go much farther toward fulfilling the trial than dispatching a Lesser Daemon.
Titus, the Wrath of Khorne
Centuries ago, the boy who would become Titus was taken from his Imperial homeworld by a Chapter of Ultramarines that served the Blood God at the exclusion of all other powers. He was brought into the Ruinstorm, tested, trained, made to fight and kill the other captives, and eventually earned ascension into the Ultramarines' ranks. Eight days later, when allies of the Chapter came to the daemon world they claimed as their stronghold, they found the Chapter's fortress deserted, all of its warriors butchered and their skulls piled into a monument to Khorne. Titus' hatred of the monsters who had slaughtered his people had drawn the eye of the God of Slaughter, especially considering that the rest of the Chapter had fallen out of his infernal favor by preying only upon those weaker than themselves rather than seek out true challenges and offer up greater prizes to him. The Dark God helped Titus break into the Chapter's vault, where he claimed the daemonsword with which he killed the hundred older Astartes who made up the small Chapter.
By the time Titus killed the last of his new brothers, the madness of battle and the sword's influence had twisted his hatred into an all-consuming inferno, and he was whisked off the world by the Warp and deposited outside the Ruinstorm, to the forge-world Graia, alongside a daemonic incursion of Khornate fiends. Already weakened by a desperate struggle against an Ork Waaagh ! the Imperial Guard and skitarii defenders of Graia were quickly overwhelmed. When the Sons of Horus came in response to their distress calls, the daemonic incursion had already departed, leaving the planet's industry gutted. But the Waaagh ! which had threatened to use the resources of the forge-world to fuel itself had also been crushed. Analysts spent years debating whether the loss of Graia balanced the neutering of that threat, while those more inclined to take the long view wondered just what game the Archenemy was playing that required it to seemingly help them, even at the cost of the millions lost to the incursion. Khorne is the least manipulative of the Dark Gods, but even the blood-madness of the God of War is capable of long-term thinking.
As for Titus, he was returned to the Ruinstorm, his transformation into a Champion of Khorne now complete. Though he thirsts for the blood of all living things, his hatred of the Ultramarines remains even greater, and there are many who believe him to be the incarnation of the Blood God's continued displeasure with the Ultramarines for their failure during the Heresy. Since the extermination of his former Chapter, Titus has wandered the Ruinstorm, guided by visions of blood and murder, driven to seek out those marked by the Blood God in order to met out His judgement. He is accompanied by a host of daemons of Khorne, or perhaps it is he who accompanies them; none know for certain, not even Titus himself. Berzerkers and other mortal devotees of the God of War often join this crusading army, though all eventually perish, either at the hands of the horde's enemies or at those of the Neverborn – or those of Titus himself.
No sooner had Titus stepped out of his transport, the brand of the trial burning on his right hand, that he was set upon by a pack of Bloodletters. The battle was short and bloody, ending with Titus breaking one of the last daemon's horns and using it to eviscerate its owner. Usually – though such a term is relative considering how few Champions of Chaos make it to Nova Thulium – the challengers allied themselves with one of Khorne's daemonic leaders to pass their trial, fighting alongside their hordes against those of the rival Ruinous Powers. And so, Titus began walking toward the direction his assailants had come from, walking a road fashioned from the bones of a defeated Slaaneshi host, until he reached the edge of a vertiginous pit.
Deep below, infernal priests of the Blood God were bringing more of their kind onto this world, summoning them from the Plains of Bones at the foot of the Throne of Skulls. The lord of the chasm city, a powerful Bloodthirster whose true name haunted the nightmares of shamans from a hundred species, was massing an army for another assault on its rivals – both those from the other choirs, and those who served Khorne as he did. Already there were so many daemons in the onyx fortress that even from the top of the precipice Titus could sense the concentrated hatred and bloodlust emanating from them. And within that fortress, the Greater Daemon sensed the presence of the Wrath of Khorne, and smiled, believing that the hour of its ascendancy had come, for the name of Titus was known among the Courts of Blood. With his help, the daemon would launch its greatest ever attack on the domain of a rival Bloodthirster.
But Titus had other plans.
Unknown to the Sons of Horus who had arrived too late to stop him – but not to the Inquisition, whose members trembled in fear at the thought to this day – Titus had taken something from the forge-world Graia during his attack. Something altogether more powerful and terrible than the Titans that were repaired on that planet : a device created by the controversial and highly-secret research of Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Drogan. Drogan died at Titus' hands, and his research was destroyed, but the prototype of his work was taken by the Ultramarine when he departed Graia through the same Warp Rift that had brought him here in the first place.
Had the Sixteenth Legion learned the truth of Drogan's research, tensions between the Holy Ordos and the Sons of Horus would have grown considerably. For Drogan was, under orders from an influential cabal of Inquisitors, attempting to master the power of the Warp by channelling its unlimited energy into a form that could be used to power the Imperium's technology, potentially putting an end to the Imperium's dependency on promethium and ushering in a new age for Mankind. The danger of such research was immense, but miraculously, Drogan had succeeded in creating a prototype : a capsule small enough to be held in a Space Marine's gauntlet, capable of producing enough energy to power an entire hive-city. Yet the Dark Gods knew of Drogan's work, and would not let mere mortals steal the power of their realm for their own ends.
Titus and the Khornate horde were sent to remove all chances of that technology being developed further, but the Wrath of Khorne did not destroy Drogan's prototype. Instead, he stole it, and for centuries afterwards kept it on his person, waiting without knowing why, knowing that one day he would need it. When Marius Gage had approached him and told him of his plan to bring low the Thirteenth Legion's greatest stronghold, the hatred Titus felt for his own Legion made him realize just what he could accomplish with the device. And so, as he stood atop the infernal city, Titus laughed, and pulled the device from his belt. For a few seconds, he held it aloft, contemplating it one last time. The device had changed since he had claimed it from Drogan's laboratory : he had worked on it himself, fitting it with a crude but functioning additional mechanism.
Titus laughed, and pressed the activation rune, before throwing the device-turned-bomb into the pit with all his strength. He continued to laugh as the Warp Core descended, a cruel, mad laugh that caused the heavens to rumble as Khorne realized what his champion had just done. Thrown with the transhuman strength and accuracy of a Chaos Marine, the device had almost reached the bottom of the pit when it detonated, releasing pure, unadulterated energy with the strength of ten thousand atomic bombs. The Bloodthirster on its throne had just time enough to realize what had happened before its incarnate form was obliterated with enough strength that even its essence suffered.
The brand on Titus' hand faded just in time for the teleportation to save him from the blast, and he was cast back to his ship, still laughing even as his face fumed from the heat and he rolled in agony, the exposed tissue of his eyes boiled from his skull. Below the vessel, Nova Thulium's surface was rocked by powerful earthquakes as the detonation's shock wave spread. Across all of the Macragge system, psykers sensed the furious screams of millions of banished Neverborn, and the roaring laughter of the Dark Gods. Whether Khorne would seek to punish Titus for what he had done remained unknown, but even if the means had been unprecedented, Titus had passed the trial, and paid the price for it with his own flesh. As his servants carried his still laughing body to the ship's Apothecarium, the Black Crusade began its final advance on Macragge itself.
From the moment news of Marius' coming had reached him, Marneus Calgar, the Chapter Master of Macragge, had been preparing. His fleet had massed in orbit, taking positions alongside the planet's extensive orbital array, rebuilt in the wake of the Tyranid War, while on the surface thousands of Ultramarines directed their mortal followers onto the defenses of temple-fortresses, the words of Chaos Apostles exhorting them to lay down their lives in service of their god Guilliman. Calgar himself remained in the Fortress of Hera, leading the entire war effort. Aboard the Macragge's Treachery, Gage saw all these preparations, a formidable armada arrayed against his own fleet. A direct assault on Macragge would result in an orbital battle that would cripple his forces, leaving them in a difficult position for the next and most important part of the campaign.
But Marius would have been a poor strategist if he had not planned for this in the millennia he had spent preparing for this Black Crusade. At his command, his fleet placed itself in position for a coordinated assault, facing Macragge's defenders but still out of reach of their guns … and stopped.
Several hours passed, and tempers ran hot on both sides as individual warbands strained against their leashes. But both Marius Gage and Marneus Calgar managed to keep their forces under control – the latter because he knew he had the advantage if Gage attacked first, and the former because he was waiting for the next step of his plan to occur. Sensing a trap, Calgar's dark magi scanned the entire system with every augur and scrying spell at their disposal, but didn't find anything – until the next move of the Sacrificed Son revealed itself in all its terrible glory.
Besides the four worlds of the Path to Glory and Macragge, there was a sixth world in the home system of the Ultramarines, one that was closest to Macragge but to which access was forbidden by potent spells. Only those ships carrying a special sorcerous token fashioned by the Sorcerers of that dreadful place could find their way to it – but Gage had stolen one such token and murdered its previous owner centuries ago, and given it to his most trusted warlord. On the other side of Macragge from the Black Crusade's armada, the world of Mortendar suddenly found itself under attack as the fleet of Uriel Ventris, the Drinker of Sorrow, seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
Mortendar, the Prison Within the Cage
If there is one place in the entire Ruinstorm whose very name inspires dread more than any other, it is Mortendar. Here, at the very heart of their Warp-wrought kingdom, the Ultramarines keep the worst enemies of their Legion imprisoned, with no hope of ever escaping. Indeed, in all of the planet's history, none of its captives have ever broken free, though a handful of them have been released by allies (or enemies) making deals with the masters of Mortendar. But these were from the lesser prisoners, those who had been sent there by rivals in the Legion without committing an actual crime against the Ultramarines as a whole, and their ransom were exorbitant in any case.
Mortendar's prisoners include Chaos Marines from other Legions, including renegades from the loyalist ones. Even the Ultramarines who were imprisoned in the years since the first attack on Macragge aren't treated the same way as the Loathed Ones, though they are in special security cells. Other prisoners are daemons who were defeated by Chaos Lords of the Thirteenth Legion. Sorcerers bound them into mortal bodies, creating thrice-bound daemonhosts, and sent them to Mortendar, removing them from the Great Game. There are magus who spend years in their sections of the prison, listening to the words of the imprisoned Neverborn and noting them down, hoping to extract useful lore from their ravings. One of the prisoners is a Daemon Prince, whose divine master dropped on Mortendar after one too many failure. Other captives are mutants or human members of the Lost and the Damned whose crimes against the Thirteenth Legion were too great to just be killed, and there are also a few Imperial prisoners, including some very high-profile ones (legend claims that one of the Inquisition's founders is there, as well as an Imperial Saint). According to one particular story, Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Seventeenth Legion, is held captive on Mortendar, brought here by his fall into the Sea of Souls and kept imprisoned until the End Times. None who value their lives mention that story to the Word Bearers, however.
Hundreds of Space Marines from every loyalist Legion are kept in chains in the dungeons of Mortendar, their legs and arms removed, tortured endlessly for the amusement of the Dark Gods. The Iron Warriors who man the Ruinstorm's Cage know of Mortendar, and know that being taken alive by the Thirteenth Legion is a fate far, far worse than death, however ignominious – which is why many implant bombs within themselves, or other means of suicide should they be captured. Any who have heard seers and Librarians speak of their visions of Mortendar know that there is no shame in taking such precautions. And such methods must be used soon, for once on Mortendar, even death is no guaranteed release : the Sorcerers of this dreadful place bind the soul of every dead prisoner they can capture into the very walls, forcing them to help perpetuate the captivity of their fellow captives, until the last of their memories has faded and they dissolve entirely.
The dedication of Mortendar to the purpose of imprisoning the Ultramarines' enemies was the Thirteenth's last act as a united Legion. Each Chapter Master tithed a portion of his warriors to act as wardens of the world, as well as the resources needed for them to maintain their number and perform their duty. These warriors became the Wardens of Mortendar, a Chapter with its own rites and traditions derived of aeons spent guarding some of the most dangerous beings of the galaxy.
The Wardens have mortal servants to assist them, all of which are descended from the first known occurrence of the "trophy prisoners", those taken more to make a statement than because they paused a genuine threat to the Ultramarines. In the 33rd Millennium, the Ultramarines were dealt a humiliating defeat by an Imperial Army force whose Regiments mainly hailed from a single world. For three hundred years, the Chapter Master brooded and plotted his revenge, until in one night, the entire extended family of that planet's Governor – who was the great-great-grandson of one of the Generals who had defeated the Ultramarines – vanished. The only trace left behind by those thousands of Imperial nobles was a letter from the Chapter Master telling of the fate awaiting the captives, and the world quickly descended into anarchy, forcing the Inquisition to intervene. Now, these former scions of the Imperium are mind-broken slaves, thoroughly conditioned to be immune to any attempted manipulation from the prisoners. Breeding programs have increased their numbers to millions, with many serving as armed forces helping defend the planet against any attack.
Born on the world of Calth, Marius' domain for uncounted centuries, Uriel Ventris' meteoric rise through the ranks of the Ultramarines had been secretly sponsored by Marius Gage, who had seen the potential in the younger warrior – though the Sacrificed Son had only given Uriel the opportunity to fulfill it. When Gage had set his Black Crusade into motion, Uriel had returned to the Ruinstorm to participate, his ships' holds filled with the priceless technology they had just stolen in a daring raid on a Deathwatch's fortress. It was this xenos technology that had allowed him to approach Mortendar undetected, and it was these same relics that he now deployed against the planet's orbital defenses. Scattered across his fleet of pirates, renegades and mercenaries – both human, Astartes and xenos – were dozens of unique weapons and tools converted into weapons.
One ship in particular belonged to Dark Eldars from a Commoraghian House that had fallen out of favor with Asdrubael Vect after a failed assassination attempt, and had fled into the Ruinstorm. While proximity to the Warp was dangerous to the Children of Isha, the Ruinstorm was still much safer than the Eye of Terror, forever echoing with the birth-scream of Slaanesh, scourge of all Eldar souls. That vessel hosted all the relics and treasures the Dark Eldars had been able to save from their ancestral estates during their flight from the Supreme Overlord's wrath. The technological expertise of the Dark Eldars had been very helpful in adapting the rest of Ventris' plunder, which was the only reason the Drinker of Sorrow had been able to prevent his other forces and himself from tearing the callous, sadistic, arrogant xenos to pieces.
As Ventris' fleet closed in on Mortendar, a number of these weapons were activated, and hell descended upon Mortendar's defenders. Holes opened in space, metal suddenly became alive and tore itself free from its confines before ripping into any nearby living creatures, entire stations suddenly aged millions of years and collapsed into dust. In one outpost, the bodies of half the crew – Ultramarines all, who had endured the Ruinstorm's mutagenic energies for hundreds of years – abruptly mutated into new and hideous shapes as one weapon attempted to reconfigure their DNA into that of the xenos species that had created it, millions of years before Mankind's ancestors had crawled out of the primordial slime on Old Earth.
Some of the weapons didn't work; others backfired spectacularly, obliterating the ships aboard which they were stored or inflicting terrible fates upon the engineers monitoring them. Aboard five different vessels, the captain was forced to order the quarantine and purging of entire sections – and in one in particular, the sections had to be cleansed by venting plasma into them in order to stop the things the weapon had created. But enough weapons worked that Mortendar's orbital defenses were crippled within minutes, allowing for Ventris' warband to launch its assault on the planet proper.
The Wardens of Mortendar and their mortal slaves were ready. But such was the violence of the assault, the confusion caused by the alien weapons (some of which had reached the surface) and Ventris' own strategic acumen that the surface fortifications were soon breached through. The underground cells, where the truly dangerous captives were kept, had gone into maximum lockdown the moment Ventris' fleet had appeared. The invaders had to fight for every step they took, but with the help of released prisoners eager for vengeance upon their tormentors, they slowly made their way into the really dangerous parts of Mortendar.
On their way down, Ventris' forces passed many cells, holding all manners of enemies of the Thirteenth Legion. Some they set free, like the Mad Seer Eodule, who had driven the Mortifactors Chapter to madness with a single whispered secret, driving the Ultramarines into genocidal madness that had ended when a coalition of nine other Chapters had banded together to wipe them out to the last. Others they butchered in their cages, tearing them apart with bolter and blade. And others still they walked by very carefully, making sure not to disturb any of the sorcerous and technological seals keeping them contained. For there were things imprisoned on Mortendar that even Uriel Ventris' warband did not want to face, things that had come into the Ruinstorm from other universes, crossing dimensions the human mind had no name for in the places where reality was at its weakest. Things like the Not-Be-King, the Eternal Carrion, and the Kaleidoscopical Brilliance, that legend and allegory failed to describe, and that even heretics and madmen feared.
Down and down they went, while the Wardens became increasingly more desperate to stop them. From the moment Marius Gage had arrived in the system, they had feared an attack on Mortendar, and they knew exactly why Uriel Ventris had been sent here. Ventris himself led the attack, slaying dozens of his brothers without pause or remorse. Behind him came a cavalcade of horrors, daemons and mutants and worse things besides, united only in their shared hatred of their captors. Then, at the gates of the lowest and most secure chamber of Mortendar, the Drinker of Sorrow came face to face with the Lord Warden of Mortendar, Chapter Master of its defenders : Pasanius Lysane.
Pasanius was as tall as Uriel remembered him from their days together in the Ruinstorm, before events had conspired to drive the two sons of Calth apart. They stood ten meters from each other, both of them bare-headed, their faces scarred and worn by centuries of brutal fighting.
'I cannot let you go further, Uriel,' said Pasanius.
'You will not stop me, old friend,' replied Uriel. 'What I must do is too important.'
'You are betraying everything we are ! Everything it means to be an Ultramarine !'
'I am setting us free !' declared Uriel, and there was genuine passion and conviction in his voice. 'We have been bound to the words of a dead madman for thousands of years, unable to grow, unable to be ourselves, always defined by what he wanted us to be ! Gage was the first to see this. When Macragge is gone and our legacy of shame is erased, only then will we be free !'
'We will be nothing,' spat Pasanius. 'You have seen what became of the White Scars and the Space Wolves, haven't you ? Without a Primarch to guide us, our Legion will die ! Guilliman's wisdom and ideals are all that have preserved us throughout the millennia !'
'GUILLIMAN IS A LIAR !' shouted Uriel suddenly.
For a moment, there was silence in the corridor, as Uriel's outburst shut up even the whispers of his followers. Then Pasanius shook his head, his eyes filled with determination.
'There is nothing you can say that will make me stand aside, Uriel.'
'Then you leave me no choice.' Uriel's hand moved toward the sword at his side, but before he could reach it, Pasanius brandished a device in his hand. It looked small in his hand, but was actually around the size of a human skull, and had a single big button on it, over which the thumb of Pasanius' right finger hovered threateningly. Uriel stopped.
'You are not the only one with forbidden weapons,' taunted Pasanius. 'One push, and every seal in the this level will break. You have no idea what we have caged down there, Uriel. Turn back.'
'You won't,' said Uriel, and there was a mix of sadness and resignation in his tone.
'Do you really think that ? If you do what you plan to do, then they are all going to be set free anyway. At least this way I get to take you traitors down with us.'
'No, Pasanius. You misunderstand me. I didn't say that you wouldn't. I said that you won't.'
'What do you ...'
The Chapter Master was interrupted by a small sound coming from behind Uriel, quickly followed by the thump of his right gauntlet hitting the ground, severed at the wrist by a monomolecular projectile fired by one of Uriel's Dark Eldar allies. So precise was the cut that Pasanius stared at his stump, stunned by the complete absence of pain. Before the Chapter Master could react, Uriel was on him, his sword drawn and then sheathed into the other Calth-born's chest, down the hilt and through his two hearts. The blade had cut through his armor like paper, and seemed to glow as it absorbed the life-force of Pasanius.
Pasanius' last words were forced between bloody teeth, filled with hatred as he stared at his killer :
'You … will doom … us all ...'
Without answering, Uriel pulled his blade out and, in one fluid motion, cut off his old friend's head. As the body hit the ground, the Drinker of Sorrow walked by. No sooner had he left that his followers descended upon Pasanius' corpse like a pack of vultures, eager to drink in his pain and plunder his equipment. Uncaring, Uriel went on, and entered the vault at the lowest level of Mortendar – the Hall of the Loathed Ones, Mortendar's very first prisoners.
The Loathed Ones
When Marius Gage launched his first attack on Macragge, soon after the Heresy, he did so with the support of thousands of Ultramarines whose faith in their Primarch had been shattered by the defeat at Terra. Marius' failure resulted in a brutal purge of the Thirteenth Legion, as those who had been able to break free of their blind devotion to Guilliman were slaughtered in one of the Ultramarines' most brutal and vicious battles - and one that echoed the carnage of Isstvan III, where the Legion had first been purged of those who would not follow Guilliman without question. But not all of Marius' followers were killed, nor did all those who survived the battle escape. Hundreds of them were captured alive, and the enraged followers of Guilliman decided of the most hideous fate they could imagine for them – guided, it is said, by one of the elusive Tetrachs.
The prisoners were stripped of their armor, flayed, and trapped within devices inspired by the iron maidens of old, where poison-laded spikes bit into their skinned flesh. Each of the devices was covered in sorcerous wards that ensured that the prisoner's soul would remain trapped within it long after his demise, and continue suffering for all eternity. Then they were buried deep on Mortendar, beneath the complex that would in time become the gaols of the Thirteenth Legion. Their story was spread in the Ruinstorm as a warning of the fate awaiting those who dared reject Guilliman's legacy, and they became known as the Loathed Ones, their name a curse evoked across the Five Hundred Worlds. Generations of new Ultramarines have been taught of their legend, and their dreadful fate serves to reinforce their indoctrination into blindly accepting the Legion's dogma.
But the Loathed Ones became more than a mere cautionary tale. Over the centuries, long after their bodies had rotten to the bone, their spirits became twisted by their constant suffering, and they pushed against the confines of their prisons. Soon, the wardens of Mortendar were forced to place additional bindings upon the sarcophagi, sorcery-wrought chains that held them in place. Within these sarcophagi, the Loathed Ones have gone utterly mad, consumed by their hatred of Guilliman and all who follow him. The wards of Mortendar actually take advantage of this, drawing upon the Loathed Ones' rage to help empower the bindings that hold the Ultramarines' captives.
A few times in Mortendar's history, one of the Loathed Ones managed to slip through his bindings, seizing opportunities provided by external factors like riots or fluctuations in the Warp currents around the planet. When that happened, the wardens of Mortendar immediately mobilized to capture the wandering spirit and return it to its prison, for a freed Loathed One is extremely dangerous. They can possess living bodies, overriding the will of their rightful occupant and wreaking havoc on their flesh as they push it far past its limits before abandoning their host and claiming a new one. When they are within a host, they have access to the full extent of his or her memories – only their madness prevents them from masquerading as their host. None of the Loathed Ones who have broken free in this way have ever escaped off-world, but the damage of each attempt is still tremendous, and the wardens' vigilance never relents, for their fear of the Lord of Macragge's wrath should one of Mortendar's most infamous prisoners escape far surpasses their fear of the Loathed Ones.
As he went down the circular staircase clinging to the edge of the pit, its captives floated above him, held in their prisons of metal and sorcery. Uriel could feel them, hear their crazed whispers – the psychic screams of spirits driven insane by millennia of torment, deafened by the confines of their sarcophagi. But even if their voices sent spikes of pain through his brain, he felt as if they were … welcoming him, and the pain was merely the by-product of their contacting him at all. Did they know who he was ? It wouldn't surprise him if Gage had found a way to make them know of his plans. The Sacrificed Son had been planning this for a long time. The more Uriel learned of Marius' schemes, the more impressed he was with the ancient lord.
There were hundreds of them, floating at varying heights in this great circular pit at the bottom of Mortendar's prison complex. Chains tethered them the walls, glowing with the energy coursing through them before being absorbed by the wards in the walls and sent to empower the rest of the spells that had made Mortendar's existence possible in the first place. It was that power that kept the planet safe from the influence of Chaos, kept it stable even as every other planet in the Ruinstorm suffered constant reshaping at the hands of the Gods. The pain of the Loathed Ones was the linchpin upon which all of Mortendar existed.
He walked toward the center of the room, holding in his hands the sword he had claimed in that ancient, alien tomb, so many years ago. The sword had not been made for the hands of an Astartes, but his Warpsmiths had managed to reforge it into its current shape while retaining its unique properties. Three of them had gone mad in the process, and Uriel had had to kill the fourth after he had tried to throw the completed sword into the closest star, but they had done it. The sword felt heavy in his right hand, with a weight that had nothing to do with mass. With that sword, he had killed men, xenos, Space Marines and daemons, and the blood of Pasanius yet dripped from the blade, sizzling and evaporating as it hit the floor, leaving a small crimson cloud in Uriel's wake. He dropped the weapon, letting it clang on the stone – it would interfere with what he had to do next.
Under his feet was the ritual circle, crackling with power, perceptible only through the specially crafted lenses of his helm. It was incredibly complex, the work of a mind far greater than that of even the most clever warlock. Sorcerers of the Wardens had studied it for thousands of years, and were still far from piercing all of its secrets. But fortunately, while it may have taken the avatar of a demigod to fashion the spell, it was much, much easier to destroy it.
But "easier" wasn't the same as "easy".
[See Nemris' illustration on deviantart : The Loathed Ones]
Uriel raised his hands, and began to chant. He spoke the words Gage's coven of Sorcerers had taught him, calling upon the dark wisdom of dead civilizations and infernal kingdoms. Every syllable burned his tongue, his brain and his soul, but he endured the pain, shutting it away with the strength of his will. He spoke words of undoing, and the spell that bound the Loathed Ones trembled under the power of his voice. The chains holding the sarcophagi rattled, and the chorus of the imprisoned spirits rose louder in accord with Uriel's chanting. Sweat ran on his face and blood flowed from his mouth, nose and eyes, but he didn't stop.
At the apex of the chant, Uriel brought his fists down, smashing them at the center of the circle, severing the flow of energy with the unnatural energies imbued within his gauntlets by the ritual. The whole world shook, and Uriel fancied that he could hear it scream. The Drinker of Sorrow felt something die under his punches, something that had been trapped inside the working or that had come into existence within it after ages of god-like power coursing through it without stop. Then the spell holding the Loathed Ones snapped, and the old ghosts were released from their chains. They emerged from their coffins, warped almost beyond recognition, their maws wide open as their screams spread across all of Mortendar. They swarmed upward, drawn by the soulfires of the remaining Wardens.
And Uriel Ventris laughed, his arms thrown wide, as the ghosts of Marius Gage's first crusade rose, screaming their hatred of their Primarch and the brothers who had imprisoned them …
With the Loathed Ones released, Mortendar collapsed on itself under the weight of its remaining captives. As Ventris' forces departed at speed, accompanied by the Loathed Ones (whether incarnated in the stolen flesh of their jailers or still in ethereal form), and the last guardians fled however they could, Mortendar imploded. For a moment, all observers feared that the destruction would release the eldritch horrors caged within. But the reaction, fuelled by the impossible physics of the Ruinstorm and the accumulated pressure of thousands of years of denied change, ended up transforming the daemon world into a black hole – a pit from which nothing, not even entities from another dimension, could escape.
Trapped in a prison of collapsing time, the remaining prisoners of Mortendar would remain sealed off the rest of the universe for all eternity. The mortal prisoners remaining in the planet's upper level were lucky enough that the process killed them before they could be trapped this way, and most of the Wardens who made it off-world were simply shot down by Ventris' fleet. Like the sons of Guilliman who had died in the first confrontation at the system's edge – and like every other scion of the Arch-Traitor's gene-line who had perished in Macragge since then – their shades vanished before any Neverborn could feast upon them. Even daemons with which Sorcerers had bargained their souls in return for power were denied their prize, and the aether around what remained of Mortendar shook with their shrieks of fury.
With these new forces, Ventris' fleet moved to attack the defenders of Macragge, joining Gage's armada in a two-pronged assault. The Loathed Ones shed their mortal envelopes and flew between vessels, wreaking havoc within the Ultramarines ships loyal to the Primarch. Officers went mad, murdering their crew before taking their own lives, while witches lost control of their powers, causing blackouts and insanity across entire decks before their brains burned under the strain. Sealed daemons were released by laughing spirits, their bonds shattering at the slightest touch of Mortendar's oldest prisoners. No ward or Sorcerer could keep them at bay for long, and the Black Crusade took advantage of the chaos they sowed. Soon, the orbital defenses of Macragge were torn through, and the armies of the Sacrificed Son began to rain unto the homeworld of the Ultramarines.
The Battle of Macragge had begun.
'And so it starts at last,' muttered Marius Gage. 'The final war of the Thirteenth Legion.'
The Sacrificed Son had withdrawn to his personal chambers aboard the Macragge's Treachery. This area of the ship had been warded and isolated from the rest of the vessel, so that even its half-cybernetic, half-daemonic intelligence could not spy on its master. Trinkets of Marius' long war against his father were on display, and first among them was the one Gage was currently holding in his hand, as if he were talking to it. It was a Space Marine helmet, an old model that hadn't seen production since the Roboutian Heresy. The helmet's ranking and Legion markers had been removed, but its color remained : red as the blood spilled by traitors, that of those they had betrayed and their own as well. It was a sight that all veterans of the Ultramarines would recognize, and that younger warriors would all have heard tales of, spoken with a mix of hatred and the slightest note of grudging respect that even fanatical devotion could not erase.
'I have walked this path for so long,' continued the Sacrificed Son. 'I have seen so many things … done so many things … all for this.'
The flames that enveloped the horned skull of Marius flickered, the inferno reacting to the fluctuations of the warlord's soul in a way his face could not.
'Now we will attack Macragge. Outside this hell, ten thousand years have passed since I last saw that accursed planet, but for me … Sometimes it seems as if I have just been forced to give the order to run, and sometimes it feels as if I have been plotting my return since the dawn of eternity.'
His burning gaze wandered across the chamber, taking in the trophies and spoils of an age dedicated to the planning of vengeance, before returning to the red helmet.
'What would you think if you could see us now ?' he asked. 'What would you say ?'
But no answer came. The helmet's eye-lenses stared back at Gage. Sometimes, when the Chaos Lord held the piece, he fancied that he could feel the gaze of the warrior who had worn it in ages past, staring at what he had become through the abyss of time. But not this time.
Slowly, Marius put the helmet back on its plinth, and raised his head, gazing to something beyond the thick walls of his chamber, beyond the hull of his ship – directly in the direction of Macragge, directly toward the Fortress of Hera, directly toward the Shrine of the Primarch.
'He is down there, I know it. He isn't dead, no matter what the rest of the galaxy may believe. The other Legions think us fallen, but they have no idea just how low we have come. A host of puppets, dancing on strings of blood ties … But I will end it, even if I have to destroy the entire Legion to do so. He will pay for his betrayal, no matter the means, no matter the cost.'
At his side, Gage's clawed hands tightened into fists, and the echoes of his voice disappeared, his next words coming solely from the burning maw, spat with the strength of a hate-filled oath :
'I am done playing by your rules, father.'
[See Nemris' illustration on deviantart : Sacrificed Son]
To be continued in
The Battle of Macragge
Part Two : Lords of Hosts
AN : And here it is, the first part of the Battle of Macragge, where the fate of the Ultramarines will be decided by fire, blade, and betrayal.
I had the idea for the Path to Glory when researching the canon Macragge and learning that, as of the 8th edition, the system has suddenly gained four planets I am quite certain were never mentioned before. A bit strange, but it did give me an opportunity to introduce the allies of Marius Gage. Castus, the champion of Nurgle, is actually the very canon Ultramarine whose existence inspired me to write the Roboutian Heresy in the first place, several years ago : he is one of the main characters of the short story Daemonblood, where he becomes corrupted by Chaos ... through forceful possession, and redeems himself in the end. I assure you that this Castus won't get such a lucky ending. Neither Parmenides nor Nurgle will let such a useful pawn slip from their grasp easily.
Titus is, of course, the protagonist of the video game Space Marine. Cato Sicarius needs no introduction, and the Last Osirian exists because it made perfect sense to bring it in, and it gave the story the appropriate eldritch flavoring. Never forget, my friends : Chaos is monstrous, inhuman, and most important of all, operates on a scale that beggars our comprehension. The Dark Gods care nothing for their pawns, only the amusement and sustenance they can provide.
I am really looking forward to writing part two. It will contain a lot more action and a lot less exposition and world-building. Oh, the things I have planned ... It's going to be a really spoiler-heavy chapter. Also, after reflection and asking the opinions of my readers on spacebattles, I have decided that this arc will only contain three chapters - but they are going to be doozies, I promise you that. I expect part two to clock in at 20k words easily. Of course, a bolt of inspiration could change that, if I suddenly get an idea that requires an entire chapter for itself *cough* Vindicta *cough*.
If you have questions about this chapter, theories about what is to come, or anything else to say, don't hesitate to leave a review.
As always, thanks to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this, and to Nemris for his amazing artwork.
I have no idea what I am going to write next. I am torn between continuing the RH, going back to Warband of the Forsaken Sons, or writing more short chapters for the Fifteenth Ascendant. Which one do you think I should focus upon ? Please tell me, because I am drawn to all three equally at the moment.
Zahariel out.