"This…this is wrong, brothers…this is all wrong…" Unease and disbelief lace Korgane's words as the five Thunder Warriors travel deeper into the Blood Bastian's interior, moving as fast as they are able down a long corridor lit by dull red lumens that do nothing to dispel the darkness. In contrast to the dry, dusty wasteland they have left behind the inside of the Bastian is dank and moist and dripping with blood. The walls themselves seem to be secreting vitae and the decking beneath their boots is treacherously slick with what looks and smells like dissected corpses that have been turned inside out and pressed into the metal like some obscene carpeting.
"Where are the defenders?" Heidic's voice is raw with tension; he has taken point of his own volition and the lack of resistance is gnawing at his meager reserves of patience. "Where are the captain and his command squad? Where are the brothers who entered before us? We should've encountered someone by now."
The slaughterhouse stench is overpowering; to Haldrad it is as if they have become lost within the innards of some monstrous, otherworldly beast – a beast whose flesh has been melded with the superstructure and mechanizations of a madman. They can feel the faint vibrations and hear distant concussive booms as the Bastain's guns continue to fire, but to the Thunder Warriors the sounds seem remote and unimportant, as if the battle outside is taking place in on a different plain if reality altogether. Even more disconcerting are the sounds of combat echoing all around them: screams and war-cries, the familiar bark of bolters and the shrieks of chainblades chewing into flesh – sounds that inflame their blood, goading them onwards to seek out brothers to reinforce or foes to slay – yet no matter how swiftly they move, no matter how many turns they take, the promise of battle remains just out of reach, a tantalizing hope that will never be realized.
"None of this is real," Korgane insists as he drags the teeth of his chainaxe along the right-hand wall, coating the gore-stained weapon anew in fresh blood, "someone is toying with our senses. Can you feel it, brothers – the pressure building like a storm behind your eyes? Our foes are afraid! They know we come with the Emperor's judgment, yet they would rather hide and confound our passage with mind-tricks then face us in honest combat."
"Psykers!" Bors growls, his voice tight with pent-up aggression.
"Sorcerers!" Baral spits in disgust as he slashes at the wall with his chainsword; more blood gushes from the gash in the metal, spattering across the mess of raw, quivering flesh carpeting the deck, "Filthy craven witchbreeds!"
"Keep moving, brothers," Haldrad commands, determined to keep the Thunder Warriors focused despite the pressure mounting within his own skull. "The cowardly scum can't hide from us forever, and when we find them we'll –"
+We are not hiding, you pitiful twisted gene-slaves – we are waiting…+
The sibilant voice does not issue from any external vox-speaker, nor are the words spoken aloud by a living enemy lurking within the shadows; the words insert themselves fully-formed right in the center of Haldrad's brain, each syllable digging into the meat of his mind like a hooked claw, sweeping aside his thoughts and searing him with a blinding migraine pain that nearly drives him to his knees. His men cry out as the psychic intrusion spears into their minds, ruthlessly violating their unstable psyches; in the past they had been far more resilient to such attacks, yet their mental conditioning had degraded slowly over the decades as their bodies waged an attritional war of rejection against their enhancements. Heidic loses all restraint, roaring out unintelligible curses and slashing out blindly with his chainblade as he charges ahead. Bors' grenade launcher hits the deck as he clutches his head, reeling as if intoxicated; Baral vomits and collapses against the wall, shuddering and gasping; tears of blood run down Korgane's face as he stumbles onwards, firing his bolter on full auto down the corridor at nonexistent foes.
"Get up! Get up now, damn you!" Haldrad strides back to Baral and hauls him roughly to his feet; stooping, he grabs Bors' dropped launcher and forces the weapon back into his shaking hands. "Keep moving! We will find them! We will kill them!" Turning swiftly he slams the butt of his boltgun against the side of Korgane's head, staggering the bigger Thunder Warrior. "Stop wasting ammunition, you bastard; there are no contacts!" He is in on the brink of losing them for good – he is on the brink of losing himself. "It's all lies! Nothing but falsehoods and bewitchment! Advance, brothers! We must keep advancing! For the Emperor! For Unity! Advance, you dogs!"
+Are you lost? Do you feel like rats in a maze?+ the unseen psyker taunts, +We could keep you all trapped within the Bastian of Blood for a lifetime, forever racing down the same corridors, unable to quench your battle-lust while your brothers fight and die without you. It is tempting – it is so very tempting…+
The corridor they are traversing seems to expand, to lengthen before the Thunder Warriors' astonished eyes, stretching out before them and extending outwards into the crimsoned vistas of infinity. Nothing else existed beyond its confines; they have been running down it since the beginning of time and they will be running down it long after all time has ended; they will never escape, never complete their objective. The dread possibility of failure gnaws at Haldrad's heart, more terrifying than any death on the battlefield; the Thunder Warriors considered themselves the mightiest soldiers bred under Sol; if they could not complete the mission who else would continue the campaign in their stead? Instinctively, Haldrad touches a hand to his breastplate, feeling for his good-luck talisman; the ancient shard of bone still hangs about his gorget, still with him even in this reeking tunnel of witch-whispers and wounded metal, still whole, still unbroken. Reassuring himself of its presence brings a measure of stability and fortitude to the sergeant's afflicted mind. Putting one foot in front of the other he pushes on, dragging his brothers along with him through sheer force of will.
+But we are growing bored…and we will soon run out of things to kill…so come to us, gene-slaves…come and slay us, if you can!+
Haldrad's ears pop and blood trickles down his neck as the psyker withdraws its influence from their minds and he retches as the taste of burnt sugar and pyre-ashes taints his tongue. Immediately he stumbles over a large, bulky object lying in his path on the deck. It is the body of a Thunder Warrior; dead Thunder Warriors and Iron Marauders lie strewn across the passageway, blood still streaming from their death-wounds, interspersed with the bolter-riddled wrecks of murder-drones and combat automata. Gunsmoke hangs heavily in the air, mingling with the stench of voided bowls and spilled offal; the corridor no longer reaches out into infinity; now it reassumes its proper dimensions, becoming one of the Bastain's primary thoroughfares. Smashed barricades and torn-out gun emplacements testify to the battle their brethren had waged mere minutes before; in the distance a massive pair of blast doors loom, partially reduced to slag by melta charges and plasma cutters. Battle rages beyond, calling out to Haldrad like the seductive song of a siren. Infuriated by the deception and the resulting delay he sprints towards the breached doors, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs as he brandishes his chainsword; their target is within their grasp at last and nothing will stand in the way of their judgment.
"For the Emperor and for Terra!" the Thunder Warriors roar together as they charge in; Haldrad has no idea what to expect; he does not know which section of the Bastian they have ended up in, nor does he care. That his brothers fight here is enough. The squad emerges into a vast, amphitheater-sized chamber ringed by tiered platforms filled with banks of archaic machinery whose purpose and functions Haldrad cannot even guess at. Around and above them their brother Thunder Warriors engage Iron Marauders in running gun-battles or clash hand-to-hand upon various catwalks and gantries; unlike the speed-cultists that comprised the warhost's vanguard these Marauders have been heavily augmented; many are as large and as tall as the Thunder Warriors themselves and their limbs bristle with fearsome arrays of exotic weaponry. Bodies litter the deck three deep in some places; multiple electrical fires rage out of control as sparks spew from severed cabling and damaged cogitators vent smoke. High above them arches a great sky dome of reinforced crystalflex so time-warped by age the sunlight streaming through is dimmed to a murky twilight. The chamber is a combination of command center and observation gallery; now it has become a killing-floor. Overlapping klaxons wail on and on, their warnings unheeded; flashing cogitator-screens display screeds of damage reports that go unnoticed; the conflict is tearing the place apart, yet the Iron Marauders fight on with a fervor bordering on fanaticism, for the eyes of their masters are upon them.
And there they stand, the Thunder Warriors' true target, gazing down upon the engagements raging below, presiding over the battle like a host at a banquet. Haldrad's gorge rises at the sight of the warlords of the Iron Marauders, fully understanding why no alliance can ever be made and why the Emperor had given the order for their annihilation. Azkymarr and Azkyruss watch the unfolding carnage from the terminus of a central command dais jutting out like the prow of a battleship midway between the crystalflex dome above and the communication pits below. The warlords are massive, nearly twice the height of a Thunder Warrior, yet their inhuman size is nothing compared to the true threat they pose; the two hairless heads that look out from between hulking shoulders are crowned with multihued haloes of witchfire; two pairs of pit-black eyes regard the Thunder Warrior intruders with undisguised malice. The warlords are brothers: a pair of hideously conjoined twins sharing a single monstrous body. Fleshy lips peel back from filed teeth as Azkymarr and Azkyruss gesture with their left hand, hefting a huge double-headed poweraxe of antique design.
+Come – yes, come to us. Come and die as fodder for your self-proclaimed 'Emperor!'+
It is a challenge no Thunder Warrior present in the chamber can ignore; Haldrad roars in fury as he realizes their target is the very same psyker who had taunted them and toyed with their perceptions during their ascent up through the Blood Bastian's lower levels. A nearby iron-wrought stairway leads up from the pits to the upper tiers, the grilled steps strewn with the bodies of Thunder Warriors and the augmented Marauders of the warlords' body-guard. "Come, brothers! It's time we finished this!" Haldrad cries, and with Heidic still on point they make for the stairs even as another lost squad of Thunder Warriors bursts into the chamber at their heels.
Baral is the first to fall; a solid round takes him in the throat and he drops without a sound. There is no cover; Marauders fire on them from all sides and angles as they ascend; the Thunder Warriors' Mark I warplate and their own enhanced musculature soaks up the brunt of the punishment; only their speed will see them reach their target before they are cut down. Haldrad barely registers the pain. Heidic is in his element, howling with inarticulate delight as he cuts down a Marauder wielding a pair of power-swords that had been grafted onto its forearms. Enraged beyond all reason by his sibling's death Bors resorts to using his grenade launcher as a club to bludgeon and smash aside the Marauders who confront him; Korgane pounds up the stirs just behind, laying about with his chainaxe and sending streams of explosive bolt-rounds slamming into the Marauders firing down upon them from the tiers above.
Bors dies next, blood spraying from his mouth as a thickset Marauder barges past Heidic and plunges a power-spear into his midriff; refusing to be halted the Thunder Warrior lunges forwards, fully impaling himself; letting the launcher fall he wraps both gauntlets about his slayer's neck and they crash down the stairs, locked together in a death-struggle. Haldrad barely spares Bors a second glance as he leaps over him; his vision is starting to tunnel as his wounds multiply and the pain grows more severe. Still he fights on through the maelstrom of death, slaughtering everything barring his path as he strides across gantries and storms over catwalks; ammunition is expended at an appalling rate and he is forced to leave behind his combat knife wedged between the jaws of an Iron Marauders champion with brazen horns curling out from its steel-plated skull. The world around Haldrad begins to shrink, narrowing until he can only focus on the objective, the target, the reason for it all; bellowing out defiant war-cries he forces himself to keep on advancing despite the blood and the pain and the noise, refusing to relent, refusing to fall, each step a testimony of his resolve against the massed might of the foe.
Azkymarr and Azkyruss are waiting for them when the remains of the squad finally reach the command dais. The mutant's grotesquely-muscled body is clad in a ramshackle harness of thick armor plating daubed with blood. A cloak of cloned tyger fur falls from their shoulders and clusters of flensed skulls hang from trophy-chains at their belt. Captain Ackarrius lies at the abomination's feet; the commander of the 5th has been hacked open from throat to groin, his organs pulled out and arrayed about him as if the warlords had sought to perform a crude autopsy to determine what kind of creature he was; the warriors of his command squad lie dead all about the dais amidst wrecked cogitators and shattered vid-screens along with the bodies of the Marauder body-guards they had slain.
+Ah, more gene-slaves come to destroy us! The self-styled Emperor's finest warriors! + Sneering in contempt the massive mutant stamps a misshapen foot down on Ackarrius' head, crushing his skull. +We are not impressed by your prowess. All we see are mindless beasts on a rampage. We had hoped your Emperor would come himself…such a disappointment…+
Heidic springs at the warlords with a spittle-flecked roar, gunning his chainaxe, all self-control cast aside. Azkymarr and Azkyruss surge forward to meet his charge, their right hand outstretched; indigo witchfire flares to life at their fingertips as they conjure as psychic barrier to shield their body against the bolt-rounds fired by Haldrad and Korgane. In their left hand they raise their great poweraxe, its head now incased in a crackling disrupter-field. Chainteeth are sent flying in all directions as chainaxe and poweraxe collide and Heidic's weapon is split asunder by the energized blade. Dropping the ruined axe, Heidic reaches for his combat knife as the mutant slashes at him with fingers sheathed in psionic talons of pure energy; the Thunder Warrior's last warcry is cut short as his body comes apart in five pieces, each separate part flopping wetly to the deck in a welter of gore. Haldrad and Korgane are already in motion, howling in wordless fury. Azkymarr and Azkyruss both grin simultaneously, reveling in their sorcerous superiority.
+You cannot defeat us – this is our realm and we rule as Emperor here; die knowing that you are nothing but corpses before the reaper's scythe and despair!+
The psyker makes a fist and Korgane's boltgun explodes in his gauntlet as the remaining rounds in its magazine detonate simultaneously, shredding his hand and blowing his arm off at the elbow. Ignoring the wound he sweeps in low with his chainaxe, seeking to disembowel the mutant; another blast of psionic power sends him reeling backward and the swing goes wide. Still grinning, Azkymarr and Azkyruss close the distance and bury the head of their poweraxe deep in the Thunder Warrior's chest; Korgane seizes the haft with his remaining hand as he collapses, dragging the weapon down with him. "Kill it, Hal!" he screams, "Kill it now!" Tossing away his spent bolter, Haldrad grips his chainsword in both hands and rushes in, intending to ram the sawtoothed blade through the mutant's body. A telekinetic surge collides against him with the force of a gale, lifting him from his feet and sending him crashing into a half-demolished bank of cogitator units, his chainsword ripped from his hand and sent spinning beyond of his reach. Korgane emits a strangled snarl, and as Haldrad rises from the wreckage he sees the warlords' free hand tighten about the Thunder Warrior's throat; then, with a savage twisting wrench, they tear Korgane's head from his neck. Blood fountains from the torn arteries, splashing across Azkymarr and Azkyruss' faces, and they laugh in unison like a pair of hyenas hunched over their kill.
+Ah, it has been a good while since we last tussled with such invigorating prey! Yet you are still flawed, ill-conceived creations, as doomed to fail as all things ever crafted by the hand of man. Your Emperor is a coward; if he wants the Bastian of Blood for himself he should come conquer it by his own hand instead of sending his slaves to do his dirty work.+
"The Emperor doesn't give a shit about the Bastian, witchbreed," Haldrad replies as he limps forward, casting about for a weapon even as he braces for the warlords' next psychic assault. "He just wants you and all your techno-freaks dead…and if that means tearing this hell-box apart piece-by-piece than that's what we'll do…we won't stop coming; we are the Emperor's thunder legionaries, fashioned for war by his own genius…and nothing will stop us from fighting until His dream of Unity has been achieved – nothing…"
+So do you consider yourself your Emperor's champion then?+ the warlords remain still, making no move to attack, their joint expressions of triumph now replaced by honest curiosity. +Do you believe you are destined by the gods of battle to slay us in his name?+
"There are no gods…there is only the will of mankind and the Emperor's vision to see us raised up from the darkness once more…" Haldrad's chest spasms in pain and he coughs violently, spitting blood from split lips as broken ribs dig into his tortured lungs; reaching down, he retrieves Captain Akarrius' mastercrafted longsword from where it protrudes from the chest of a Marauder body-guard. "I know I won't live to see the Unification of Terra…I made my peace with that truth long ago…but slaying you, before the end? I'd welcome that more than anything…the blood of my brothers demands nothing less..."
The witchfire crowning the warlords' twin heads fades away, and they take hold of their poweraxe in both hands. +Then come, champion of the Emperor, and we shall add your corpse to our kill-tally!+
The hilt of the longsword rests in Haldrad's gauntlets so naturally it feels as if the weapon had been forged for him and him alone; with a flick of his thumb he triggers the sword's disrupter-field and a cage of coruscating energy envelops length of the blade. It could not end more fittingly than this; his brothers have played their part and the weight of his duty settles upon his shoulders as he breaks into a charge, scorning his injuries. Azkymarr and Azkyruss move with an uncanny agility that belies their crudely-armored bulk and when the two power-weapons collide the force of the warlords' raw physical might nearly slams Haldrad onto his back. Every straining muscle in the Thunder Warrior's overtaxed body screams in protest as he digs in and braces against the blow, matching fury with fury, strength with strength, the longsword seeming to dance in his hands as he counters every strike and counter-swing of the axe. Snarling out their hatred like beasts they clash against one another, never at rest, heedlessly demolishing the last few functional machines left standing, their warcries drowned out by the noise of the greater conflict playing out around them. Haldrad is blind to everything save the mutant's presence; armor plates are sheared free and sent scattering across the deck as the frenzy of his attacks increase; he roars in jubilation, giving voice to his combat euphoria as he wields the sword like some mythic blademaster of forgotten antiquity, his blood boiling in his veins, his heart on the verge of rupturing as he sees an opening and presses forwards to deliver the killing –
– and then there is nothing but pain, pain so acute it steals Haldrad's breath away; hot blood is pouring down his side; he twists away in agony, stumbling, unsure of what has happened, his flesh and armor sundered by the axe's monomolecular edge. Instead of following up the blow with a decapitation strike Azkymarr and Azkyruss smash the flat of the axe against the Thunder Warrior's head, cracking his helmet and staggering him to his knees. A brutal kick to his injured side sends him skidding across the blood-slick deck, the longsword dislodged from his grip; before he can recover the weapon the mutant drives a fist into his face, fracturing his jaw and breaking his nose and cheekbones. Haldrad's head lulls back and he goes limp, gasping for breath as blood floods his gorge, spilling out in a crimson torrent over his shattered teeth.
+Get up.+ The warlords snarl into his mind as they loom over him, leering in derision, their arms spread wide, tauntingly exposing the score of wounds he had inflicted upon them during the duel, wounds that had done nothing but delay the inevitable defeat. +Or do you intend to die with your duty left undone?+
Haldrad's burning muscles tense as he attempts to rise, seeking some last reserve of strength to draw upon for one final attack, but his brutalized body has nothing left to give and he slumps back to the deck, coughing up blood and convulsing as the first death pangs tear through him.
+How pathetic+ Their own strength undiminished, Azkymarr and Azkyruss reach down and seize him by the rim of his gorget; ignoring the Thunder Warrior's struggles they lift him off his feet and begin walking towards the edge of the command dais, treading without regard upon corpses and ruined machinery alike. +Your Emperor deserves better. If you and your warriors are the best he could send against us then he is unworthy of ruling this world. The sands of time will swallow him and he shall be forgotten by all – as will you.+
Images of the horrific battles he has fought for the cause of Unity and his brothers' brutal deaths at the warlords' hands flash through Haldrad's mind and something rekindles in his breast like a last burst of flame flaring up against the encroaching night. Galvanized, he tears the bone talisman from his neck and drives its scrimshawed tip into a gap between damaged armor-plates directly over the mutant's heart.
"My brothers died fighting for something greater then themselves! When Terra stands unified they will be commemorated as heroes forevermore, unlike you and all the other petty tyrants we've crushed under our boots!" In desperation he twists the talisman, trying to force it deeper into the dense layer of muscle, and the bone shard snaps in two, leaving one half in Haldrad's hand and the other imbedded in the warlords' chest. With a shriek of pain the mutant hurls the Thunder Warrior into the iron railing enclosing the circumference of the dais, the thick bars buckling outwards as they nearly give beneath his weight. Half-stunned, Haldrad gazes numbly at the remaining piece of bone he still grips in his hand. "You broke," he whispers, "After all this time you finally broke…" He presses the good-luck charm protectively against his chestplate, "but we ended together, just as I hoped we would…it is…enough…"
The warlords scream again, this time in outrage, and Haldrad lifts his eyes to see the Azkymarr and Azkyruss advancing upon him, their entire body now consumed in witchfire and their axe raised high to deliver the executional stroke. Haldrad bares his broken teeth and makes a vulgar hand-gesture, too weakened by blood loss to stand. "For Unity…For the Emper –"
The sky dome explodes inwards. A shower of crystalflex shards rain down across the dais. The mutant swiftly throws up another psychic shield, deflecting the worst of the deadly shrapnel, both heads gazing upwards, joint expressions of shock and fury contorting their faces. Haldrad can do nothing to protect himself; a jagged piece of crystalflex pierces his thigh while another punches into his pauldron and lodges deep in his shoulder. The Thunder Warrior is oblivious to the fresh pain. He grins, realizing immediately what is about to happen; he would have laughed aloud, too, like a child, had he not been drowning in his own blood – yet there is still enough life left within him to behold once more the power and the glory, to look with naked eyes for a final time upon the ineffable, unwaning, light…
"My lord…" Tears of joy sting Haldrad's eyes, "My king…"
And He comes, falling like lightning from heaven, plummeting to earth like a star cast from the heart of the firmament. Azkymarr and Azkyruss screech with one voice and launch a psionic spear of infernal energies up at the Master of Mankind as He descends through the shattered dome in a blazing vortex of solar light. The Emperor answers with an outpouring of psychic power that coalesces into the shape of a snarling wolf's head; the energy-bolt vanishes into the wolf's ethereal jaws before it can make contact and the entire dais reverberates as the Emperor's boots hit the deck in front of the warlords with a sound akin to a thunderclap.
And He is not alone. Clad in artificer armor of lustrous golden auramite a squad of ten Custodians follow in His wake, the roaring of their jump-packs filling the command center before they land in a perfectly-coordinated circular formation around their liege lord and His opponent, forming a cordon around the two combatants, their shields raised, their guardian spears leveled inward at Azkymarr and Azkyruss. Additional Custodes kill-squads are dropping down further into the Blood Bastian, deploying from the rear hatches of hovering dust-shrouded gunships, ornate boltguns barking in their fists as they fire upon the Iron Marauders still contesting the gantries and catwalks; the battle is soon joined and the surviving Thunder Warriors cheer and fight on with renewed determination as the Emperor's elite honor guard joins them in unfettered slaughter.
Spitting out blood and tooth fragments, Haldrad wills himself to stand; he wants to keep fighting, to take up a weapon and rejoin his brethren in the fray, but his body is no longer responding to his commands and the sight before him is too mesmerizing for any other consideration to exist in his mind for long. The Emperor swings His flame-wreathed sword with such unsurpassing speed it leaves searing afterimages burned into the air behind it as He parries every strike of the mutant's poweraxe. Arcs of otherworldly light surround the two psykers, swirling about their bodies in a roiling tempest of impossible colors; one erratic bolt of crimson leaps clear of the psychic whirlwind and strikes one of the Custodians, overloading his armor's conversion field and slamming him backwards to the deck. In a second he is back on his feet, his breastplate scorched black, rejoining his brothers in maintaining the cordon as if he had never been felled.
"End it, lord…" Haldrad urges the Emperor, struggling to keep his eyes open and focused on the battle before him, willing himself to live for a few minutes more so he might witness the end and die knowing Vylar, Baral, Bors, Heidic and Korgane had not given their lives in vain. "Show them why you are the true Ruler of all Mankind…"
A nova of golden radiance lights up the dais, obscuring both the Emperor and the warlords as if they have been engulfed within the fiery depths of Sol itself. Haldrad raises a hand to shield his face. The Custodians hold their positions. There is a sound of sundering metal and a dreadful psychic wail rips through the minds of every living thing in the command center; then the radiance dims and through the thinning veil Haldrad sees Azkymarr and Azkyruss down on their knees in defeat, their poweraxe shattered. The Emperor towers over them, tall and terrible and godlike, the very image of a living avatar of war. With a great cry He brings His flaming sword down in-between the mutant's two heads, carving the warlords of the Iron Marauders in half and separating in death what nature had so blindly conjoined in life. The body of Azkymarr and Azkyruss falls to the deck in two halves and a cascade of gore washes across the dias. The Custodians raise their guardian spears and salute their sovereign; more cheering echoes up from the tiers below as the Thunder Warriors chant Ave Imperator, Ave Imperator, at the tops of their voices. Haldrad tries to join in and only succeeds in coughing up more blood. Rest now, brothers, he thinks as darkness starts to gather at the edges of his vision, it is finished…
One of the Custodians breaks away from the others and strides towards him, leveling his spear at the Thunder Warrior's chest. Behind him the Emperor is bending over the mutant's gristly remains, His gauntlets wet with blood, as if He is searching for something. As the Custodian draws closer Haldrad's eyes are able to pick out the litany of names engraved in elegant script upon his breastplate and pauldrons; one name stands out, a name Haldrad knows by reputation, through he has never met the warrior in person until now: Sagittarus.
"Hail, brother…" Haldrad manages to choke out as Sagittarus approaches, his face hidden behind his conical helm, his every movement precise and predatory; abruptly he stops, as if halted by an unspoken command, before putting up his spear and stepping to one side. The Emperor straightens. He is holding something in His hand. Haldrad stares, enraptured, as his creator comes up to him, unaccompanied by His men; the Master of Mankind no longer appears tall and terrible and godlike; a mere man now stands next to Haldrad – a man of average height and build, with bronzed skin and a mane of luxuriant black hair tied back from His ancient, ageless face.
"Imperator..." Haldrad slurs through the thickening blood.
The Emperor's dark eyes flicker briefly over the Thunder Warrior's ruined body before coming to rest on the object Haldrad is clasping to his chest. The Emperor extends a hand. He is holding the other half of the bone talisman, the broken half Haldrad had left imbedded in the warlords' flesh. A tired, sorrowful expression creeps across the Emperor's features and a distant look enters His eyes; the golden luminescence begins to seep from His form once more as He bows His head and touches the piece of bone to His laurelled brow. His lips move, forming two near-silent words:
"I remember."
And then all is changed; the Emperor's light washes over Haldrad, covering him, blinding him, suffusing all his senses. The Blood Bastian fades away like a fever dream along with the clamor of battle and the pain of his wounds; he takes another breath and pure salty air floods into his undamaged lungs. He is standing upright, his feet planted firmly as the ground dips and sways in long rolling motions beneath him. It is night. He can hear the creaking of timbers under stress and the rippling of heavy fabric caught in the wind; there are men standing on either side of him, all gazing outwards, shouting to one another and gesturing excitedly. Through the eyes of the Emperor Haldrad looks out, seeing the pale moonlight bathing the waves with a soft silvery brilliance, illuminating the foaming crests of restless whitecaps. The ocean is vast, vast beyond all reckoning, beyond all imagining, extending far out of sight beyond the horizon, the ship he sails upon nothing more than a mere speck of wood adrift upon the face of the deep.
Something colossal and unfathomable breaches the surface of the water.
The sailors gathered around him cry out together in fear and amazement as it erupts from the waves, arching up and over the sea, rising and rising as if it has no end, and as it rises it rolls, its flippers waving in the night air, the moonlight shining brightly upon the white hide of its vast underbelly.
It is a whale: a fin whale. And its entire genus had vanished from the oceans of Old Earth eight hundred years before the first colony-citadels had been raised upon Luna.
At the apex of its leap the leviathan clears the water completely, its white belly bared to the open sky; time slows, and it seems to hang suspended in all its immense majesty before Haldrad's barrowed eyes: a vision of something that will never come again, something that could never be restored, something long lost and unremembered, save within the mind of the one being who had walked the path of ages and who understood full well the price the human race had paid for the sake of its ascendancy and the price each man, woman and child would keep on paying for as long as the species continued to struggle and strive towards its destiny in a hostile and unforgiving galaxy.
Time resumes its proper course; the whale crashes down amidst the waves on its back, sending great plumes of icy water over the side and across the deck of the ship; the men laugh and cheer as they are drenched – yet Haldrad does not feel the ocean spray upon his face nor can he see the moonlit whitecaps anymore, for the darkness is reaching out to claim him and all things past and present are slipping away into that eternal abyss which is both time and death. He does not see the Emperor walking away from him; he does not see Sagittarus stepping forward and aiming his guardian spear at his head; he does not see the broken whalebone fall from his fingers and into the pool of blood surrounding his body, blood that – along with the blood of his brothers – is just another part of the price to be paid.
Once, there had been Thunder Warriors on Terra.