The year M42, somewhere in the Maelstrom sector
The ritual grounds stank with blood.
Not blood spilled during a battle, no that had its own smell, mixed with rust, oil and sweat. No, this site smelled like a butcher's shop. Neat, routine, orderly. Boring.
Harald Allser yawned and rubbed his blindfold again. The entire procession, happening in the ring of stones, was putting him to sleep. He was grateful that he didn't have to conduct it, even if he protested and snarled at the Apostle. He was after all the master of execution, ritualistic killing was technically within his purview. Oh he would've refused the honours of course, but the Apostle still should've asked. That damned Apostle. Harald sniffed the air again and felt his presence next to him. Covered in scented candles, scented oil, scented perfumes and whatever else the Apostle thought of, forming a pungent aura of holiness all around the man. Harald suspected half of these were applied to offend him personally, because the Apostle was doing a perfect job of it. Pushing all the right buttons, all whilst remaining beyond reach. Well Harald had no interest in someone who could not fight back, so he let the Apostle play his mind games, that's all he was good for anyway.
The servant of the gods and his scent walked further inside the ring, murmuring ancient prayers and litanies. From experience Harald knew that he would go around the circle eight times. Then he would make seven cuts with the ritualistic letter opener he called a knife, oh and then he would perform some ancient dance nine times and then he would inject six different hard narcotics into his useless excuse of an astartes-
"Your disdain can be felt lightyears away, master of execution." A plain, nasal, voice interrupted his line of thinking.
"That little?" He barked back at Uri, who was standing right behind him. "I'll do better then."
The sorcerer, who smelled of old books and parchments snorted derisively: "Do try to keep your temper in check, you are no berserker."
"No, I am not." Harald agreed, "Nor am I some bodyguard to stand around idle all day waiting on futile customs to be performed."
"Communion with the gods is hardly meaningless-"
"F-u-t-i-l-e!" Harald spelled the word, interrupting the sorcerer. "We're Corsairs damn it! We should be raiding, reaving, reveling! Instead we're on some forgotten planet without a name, spending weeks trying to find some long lost prophecy because our captain-"
"Has decided upon it." Another voice interrupted him. Deep, commanding, pretentious. "Do you object to my decision, Allser?"
Harald heard the sorcerer kneeling, the joints in his power armour clanking, and knew that he had probably overstepped a few social boundaries.
"I voice my disapproval with the current state of affairs, Lord." He said, somewhat nonchalantly but in a way to not invite disrespect.
"So the wolf can bark nicely if he wants." Mused the voice.
Letting the outburst go unpunished, Lord Captain Kalico moved on, stomping forth into the ritualistic circle, followed by his bodyguards. His scent… well he didn't exactly have one truth to be told. Bland. Oh, Harald was told that his armour was draped in blood and skulls and all the usual panoply of trinkets and baubles that exude power and dread. But no particular smell. If Harald could actually see the Lord, he would've had a different opinion. Allser however, gave up his sight for something far greater. What was sight to a man who could perceive souls? Harald touched the scarlet blindfold covering his face, where his eyes had once been. Not much at all indeed. The sight of a man told you what he wanted you to see, the soul of a man told you what he truly was. And beneath everything, Lord Kalico was bland. Perhaps that was why he was so obsessed with prophecies, anything to make himself stand out.
"Your tongue is going to get you killed, one of these days." said the sorcerer, sounding more intrigued by the ritual than Harald's fate. His soul was brighter than the rest, so Harald avoided looking at it directly.
"A mighty tongue it must be then, if it can slay our Champion." The Apostle chimed in. Always ready to provide a jest, that one.
"Concentrate on the Ceremony, Mansur." Snapped Lord Kalico to the Apostle, now standing in the centre of the circle and examining the offerings. "Fail me today and-"
"My soul shall forever be tormented, yes I know. A momentary lapse my gracious Lord Captain nothing more." The Apostle honeyed, almost mocking tone came and went as he continued the preparations.
"And his tongue won't?" Muttered Harald as the Apostle moved away.
"Mansur is no threat to anyone, you know that." The sorcerer rebutted, leaving the other part unsaid.
Yes, the Apostle was both a jester and a priest. An idiotic combination if Harald ever knew one but they were short on Astartes these days. And it was certainly a useful arrangement for Lord Kalico, ever fearful that his position would be usurped. He had nothing to fear from Harald, who considered leadership to be a burden. An Apostle however was always a threat for a warband's leader, so it was beneficial to have such a… neutered one. For the Lord anyway. Harald couldn't care less about warband politics, he was a professional, with a singular purpose. And right now he was out of his element. Like a blade without a swordsman, rusting away in a shed- Harald shook his head. He had to stop thinking like that. He was no tool, he was a free man now, free from service, free from oaths, free to roam the galaxy as he pleased. And yet he was still stuck here. So he was forced to care, forced to observe and obey his Lord. Oh, what great freedom the Gods gave him!
Harald yawned again (mainly to show his irritation) and decided to focus on the offerings that were silently weeping. How pathetic they were. Harald rarely paid attention to simple mortals, except if they were shelling him with artillery. Two lifetimes ago he was like them: weak, frail and chained. Now he was so much more, and they were beneath him.
He didn't judge them for their weakness. Why would he judge sheep for being sheep? The slaves were pathetic. That was a fact. Chained together in the centre of the ritual grounds. Six souls, dim like candles. In some small way, Harald pitied them. They who spent their whole lives slaving away for the master of Mankind, would now die, helping his enemies. In another life, Harald might've been just like them. The galaxy was unjust like that.
If Harald felt a sliver of pity, the Apostle must've had a torrent, for he now knelt near the slaves, water flask in hand, his book of rituals in another. He whispered reassurances, empty promises and white lies in the ears of each and every one. If any other Apostle was doing it, Harald would assume that the mental state of the offerings was instrumental to the ritual. But this was Mansur the Harmless, he was likely doing it to annoy someone.
"How long must we wait, Apostle?" Asked the annoyed Lord Kalico.
"Now, my Lord Captain the gods are fickle-"
"How long?" the Lord interrupted. Mansur sighed but bowed nonetheless.
"Just a few minutes more." He stated, bowing twice.
Harald yawned a third time for good measure, and tilted his head towards Uri: "Not participating?"
The Sorcerer shook his head: "I am no daemonologist."
"I thought you'd be interested. Communion with the gods and all" Harald grinned ferally, throwing the words back at the psyker, who to his credit, took it in stride.
"One does not need to be a cook to appreciate a good meal." He parried.
"What good is a cook that cannot cut his own meat?" Snarled Harald.
Uri shrugged, "One that knows how to delegate."
And indeed, as Mansur kept chanting, the two bodyguards approached the center of the circle. At the Apostle's signal they cut the throats of the offerings, one by one. As the Souls were extinguished one by one, Harald could smell fresh blood filling the grounds once again. He was told that the ancient stones had miniscule canals through which the blood could flow and fill an intricate mosaic. Harald would never see it, nor did he care. He did however care about the sudden drop in temperature emanating in the center of the temple. The first signs that reality was becoming one with the beyond.
Harald could feel light frost forming on his face. The Daemonic chants increased in magnitude no longer emanating from Mansur alone. Harald unwillingly took a step back. This was not his first ritual but he was uncomfortable with them, not since he got his true sight. Maybe it was the fact that he could stare into the abyss without a veil or maybe because he saw in it things that could not be slain with his blade. In either case Harald could not force himself to be near the tear in the Materium that was forming in the centre of the ceremonial ring.
The Daemonic chants kept on going. It finally hit Harald that the other voices came from the corpses of the slaves. Despite their vocal cords being cut, despite spilling most of their blood, the corpses were moving, singing with an unnatural grace, as if they were lifelong ecclesiastical choristers. Harald forced himself to stop trying to understand the words, that way lay only madness. Still the chant wormed its way into his brain, his body, his soul, all reverberated with each note.
And he could see it.
Alien tendrils, twisting and pulsing, invisible to the mortal eye, descended from a bleeding wound in reality. They were… elegant, encrusted with unknowable tattoos, moving with the rhythm of the chant, making every corpse move in tandem. Like a titanic hand on a drum of slave flash, beating out the tempo, following the will of a giant unseen..
Then it ceased.
The chanting stopped. The hand froze in place. And it jolted toward Harald.
Harald leaped to his side, combat instincts kicking in. He could feel the attention of the being focusing on him even if for an instance. The Hand leapt, tendrils long, leaving the corpses behind. Harald braced himself for the mental assault, but he wasn't the target. No, the denizen of the Immaterium chose a far juicer prey. Uri screamed in pain.
That fool. Harald reoriented himself and came to face the sorcerer. The Hand was digging into his soul, tendrils wrapping around it, trying to puppet it like the corpses in the middle.
That fool. Harald roared in indignation and brandished his sword. Perhaps enough pain would shock the daemon off the-
Another soul stepped in his path.
"Do not ruin this." Commanded Kalico.
"This was not how the ritual was supposed to go!" Yelled Harald, activating the force field on his Relic blade. He senses the souls of the two bodyguards, moving to intercept him.
"He should've kept his mental defences." Snarled Kalico. "Now let this play out!"
"He's our brother!"
"And he's the key to my prophecy!" Thundered Kalico. "NOW OBEY!"
Harald bared his teeth, then he felt a hand on his shoulder plate. The Apostle.
"I admire your spirit, brother, but this is not the time." He said in a calm, commanding voice, bereft of any mockery. Harald nearly attacked Kalico anyway, but Uri spoke before he could move.
It was not Uri's voice. Not really. This voice was far too beautiful, far too refined for the nasal toned bookworm Harald knew. It was both male and female, soft and strong, powerful and powerless.
I see Simple Men, betrayed by their betters.
I see Hawks of yonder, their talons in fetters.
I see the Sons of Iron, claiming their steed.
I see the Claws of Badab, reaching new deeds.
I see joy, laughter, desperation and guilt.
I see cruelty, anger, admiration rebuilt.
I see her, I see them, adoration
I see her, I see nothing, only Wings of Damnation.
It ended as brutally as it began. The Hand moved back, letting Uri's soul go. The wound in reality closed, physics reasserting control over the unnatural. Uri's soul was still there but it was bruised, scarred by the encounter. He started falling. Harald moved but Mansur outpaced him, catching the sorcerer. Lord Kalico did not move.
"He's still breathing." Said the Apostle. "We might be able to limit the psychic damage if move him back to the ship quickly en-"
"What did it mean?" Asked Kalico, ignoring the fate of Uri.
Mansur kept his focus on the still breathing body: "My lord, Uri is our only sorcerer."
"We have mortal psykers on the ship! The prophecy Mansur! I need to know the meaning!" Kalico snapped.
The Apostle stood up. For a moment Harald thought that the exiled Word Bearer would finally break his vow of pacifism. As if he ever could. No, instead the Harmless simply bowed before the Lord Captain.
"I believe it was perfectly clear. 'Claws of Badap, reaching new deeds.' Clearly referring to an Astral Claw. You are destined to accomplish a great many things, my lord."
"And the rest?" Scowled Kalico.
"Will become clear in the fullness of time." Mansur assured him, "now may we get back to the ship?"
Kalico stood for a moment, considering, then nodded. "Fine, but you will decipher the rest."
"Of course, my lord." Acquiesced Mansur.
Kalico moved away, shadowed by his bodyguards. The ancient ritual grounds became calm once more. Harald cursed and took Uri by one arm, Mansur on the other. Wordless they started moving towards the shuttle.
After two minutes, Mansur broke the silence: "I did not know that this would happen."
"Perhaps not." Agreed Harald. "But you prevented me from stopping it."
"I doubt your blade would've been of any use." Noted the Apostle, his tone still apologetic.
Allser spat on the ground: "And now we'll never know."
"I know that I would have to dig a grave for a brother if you gone through this." Noted Mansur, carefully.
"Oh trust me Word Bearer." Said Harald, eyeing Kalico in the distance. "We'll need plenty of graves by the time this prophecy runs its course."
Editor's note: Hello there! this is a project I've been working on for more than a year. I eventually plan to submit it all to Black Library and hopefully get published. For now however please enjoy these few chapters about a prophecy, an overambitious Chaos Lord, and a regiment of Simple Men.