Scab City, as it turned out, had a bar.
It wasn't a good bar by any means. It wasn't anything more than a counter made from rotten planks and scrap metal with drinks that tasted as if they were concocted with motor oil and questionable ethics. They were somehow even worse than the sludge that Brelja had been able to scrounge up. But it was still a bar nonetheless.
Oh, and the patrons were downright boorish.
"Drink! Drink! Drink!" Kosa and Cai chanted to Brelja and Jep as the two raced to finish their dirty glasses of alcohol first. It wasn't much of a competition.
Brelja slammed her glass down on the bar and leaned back with an easy, confident smirk. Jep, on the other hand, hadn't even finished half of his before he started to expunge the contents of his stomach out onto the floor. Krasper leaned over and gently patted his back as he cleansed himself.
"You gave it a good try, Jep," Brelja laughed.
Jep wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up. "That… was terrible."
Chuckles rose up from their group. Cai cackled so hard he started coughing.
"How about you, girl? Care to go toe-to-toe?" Brelja asked with a wolfish grin.
Artemis snorted and rolled her eyes. "Absolutely not. I have no intention of embarrassing myself today. No offense, Jep."
"Ha ha," Jep said with obvious irritation. Despite that, he still smiled as everyone made light at his expense.
Artemis ran her finger along the rim of the glass that she'd barely touched. Even with all the levity in the air, she could still sense the tension that each of her friends were carrying. This wasn't normal for them. Hell, it wasn't normal for anyone aboard a ship that belongs to the VIIIth Legion. Cheer and celebration simply didn't exist in the long shadow of the Night Lords. And yet they did anyway, because they deserved to, because they needed to. They had earned that right again.
"Something on your mind?" Krasper asked, bringing the drink up to his lips. The leathery man was normally reticent and withdrawn, but Artemis had seen enough to know there was more going on beyond his eyes. Thoughts that he hoarded like a trove of wealth, only to be gifted out as he saw fit.
"Just concerned," she admitted quietly as Brelja attempted to talk Kosa into an arm wrestling match. The former woman tittered and blushed, but wasn't trying particularly hard to dissuade the Fenrisian.
"We did everything right," Krasper replied. Normally, such a response would only amplify her worries, but Artemis got the impression that if the coarse man ever started speaking in more than single sentences then she should probably start fretting.
Artemis eyed Jep from across the bar. He watched with a nervous grin as Cai offered to challenge Brelja on Kosa's behalf, much to her not-so-subtle chagrin. She tapped her finger on the side of her glass in thought. Jep had been avoiding her recently. Ever since the incursion, he'd been… distant. Artemis didn't like that. She still… still needed her friend.
Standing, Artemis casually stepped next to him and leaned up against the bar. Cai struggled with both hands to get Brelja's arm to move while she made a show of yawning.
"No sign of Phihks?" Artemis asked.
Jep shook his head. "He's… elusive when he wants to be. Like… like…"
"Like a rat?" she offered with a grin.
Jep's lips quivered into a smile. "Yeah. Like a rat. He wasn't at his stand when I went to invite him and… Well, I don't really know where he lives, so…" He shrugged.
"I'm sure he'll turn up," she said and the two fell into an awkward silence for a moment.
"I keep feeling like one of them is going to come," Jep finally said. "That one of the gods are going to crash in here and take us one by one for torture. And… And not even for… what we did, but for what we're doing." He gestured to the bar.
"It's not a crime to drink together and have fun, Jep."
"Maybe," he said, voice haunted, "but who knows what they consider to be innocence and guilt. Alcohol was illegal on Kim's homeworld, you know. So maybe we are committing a crime."
"Jep…" Artemis placed a comforting hand on his arm. And he flinched.
It was subtle, barely noticeable and he tried to mask it with a tired smile, but she saw it.
Why are you afraid of me?
"Sorry," he stammered, turning to place his elbows on the counter—which conveniently allowed him to pull away from her touch. "I don't… don't mean to put a damper on things."
Artemis forced herself to snort in amusement as she matched his posture. "I've lived in fear for years, Jep, and it's only gotten worse since I decided to… do what we did. Not a day goes by that I'm not some flavor of terrified every minute of the day. But… it'll be better. Once it's all done. Once we reach Kleos. We'll finally be able to find some peace."
Jep sighed. "I certainly hope so." Then his brow furrowed. "I never realized you were scared too. You've always just seemed so… solid, a force of nature. Like a Leman Russ."
"Throne, Jep," Artemis groaned as she put her face in her hands. "I haven't shat in over a week, I've been so stressed."
He laughed then. A true, full laugh that forced his shoulders to convulse and tears to come to his eyes. Before long, Artemis found herself joining him, the two leaning into each other for mutual support as their balance waned under their hysterics.
It was in that moment that she thought that, perhaps, they would be alright after all.
Entering realspace once again felt like the first chimes of a funeral dirge.
After donning his armor, Pyotr had gone to the observation gallery and stood stalwart on the viewing platform, watching the colorless writhing mass of the Warp pass by. Black-on-black shadows emerged from the darkness, forming the faces of screaming souls and clawing talons and skeletal hands until, eventually, it began to pull away like a spear piercing through a dark veil. What appeared on the other side was the speckled eternity of the void and, in the distance, a single mauve orb that was positioned directly forward of the ship's trajectory like a guiding star.
Kleos.
He remembered the planet, of course. Reflection upon the warband's time there had been pointless, however. Even now, there still was little to be gained for doing so, but without much better to do, Pyotr found himself pondering over it anyway.
It had been listed as a mining world in the Imperial records that they had pilfered, but quickly found that it was only such in name alone. The planetary governor of Kleos, it seemed, had constructed his realm in such a way that they met their required tithes, but nothing more. The end result was a planet that resembled a paradise world rather than any real contributor to the glory of the Corpse God's perfect empire.
He remembered being frustrated when they arrived, finding not bountiful minerals and resources to claim, but a pastel pink sky, cities with architecture that prioritized aesthetic beauty rather than compact efficiency, and idyllic, rolling landscapes that had barely been touched by human intervention.
They had made due by taking as many slaves as possible instead.
Where there's smoke…
Pyotr frowned as that phrase came to mind yet again. Ever since his final duel in the Gauntlet of Dominion, Zasharr's words had continuously cycled through his mind like rolling tank treads. He wasn't sure why.
Sonorous metallic chimes crashed and echoed behind him, followed by the reek of decomposing ocean life. Pyotr did not have to turn to know who was approaching.
"There you are, brother," Gargahl rasped.
"The worm finally crawls free from his hole," Pyotr responded.
The daemon prince laughed. The sound was wet and viscous. "Such harsh words from such a sad toy soldier." The clang of metal-on-metal continued as Gargahl drew closer. Pyotr frowned. That was not the usual sound of the daemons talons raking against the decking.
"What do you want?"
"To thank you, of course. It would be rude to not show my gratitude in person for such a gift."
Pyotr breathed through his nose and sighed inwardly. He turned to brace himself for whatever taunting and jeers that Gargahl would be preparing for him, only to see his ascended kin adorned in dense plating painted in the deep blue coloration of the legion.
"I stand in midnight clad once more because of you!" Gargahl laughed joyously. Pyotr said nothing. Dreadnought scrap. That was what Gargahl's new armor was crafted from. That was the purpose that the master of the catalogs had in mind for the war machine.
What a ridiculous waste.
"I am glad to see that you do not let matters of leadership affect our personal relationship, Pyotr," Gargahl continued, brandishing his maw of crooked and discolored fangs. "Even if it will not change anything."
"Change anything?" Pyotr echoed without passion.
Gargahl hummed, his leathery wings stretching outwards from the armor's allotted slots as he approached the viewing port alongside Pyotr and dwarfed his brother. "This mission will fail, brother."
The lord discordant did not let his discomfort show. "How do you mean?"
"It's the only outcome for a warband this weak," Gargahl wheezed. "We're a tinder that has been burning away since Horus failed us. Ash is the only result."
"Unless someone extinguishes the flame," Pyotr said, his tone noncommittal.
Gargahl's grinning leer broadened. "Yes. Unless someone extinguishes the flame." The daemon flexed his claws, then placed them on the glass in front of them. "All things mortal end, brother. It used to be my greatest fear. But now I've conquered it, I have ascended beyond such frailties. I have become strong when once I was weak. I only want the same for my brothers."
"By converting us to a god of rot and decay."
"By showing you the gifts a god of preservation and eternity can offer," Gargahl countered, his claws sliding down the viewing glass, eliciting shrill cries as he lightly scarred its surface.
"If this mission is doomed to fail, why bother supporting it?"
The daemon's expression morphed to a scowl. He pulled his bestial hand back and stepped away from the platform. "The thought of watching the False Emperor's drones writhe under the pain of Nurgle's holy gifts… excites me."
"And what of your brothers?"
"Either they welcome the Grandfather or their deaths become fertilizer for his children. The warband grows stronger either way."
Pyotr scowled. "How very callous."
"Callous?" Gargahl snorted. "Do not look down your nose at me on the ways of empathy, brother. I can smell the rank mark the Prince of Pleasure has left on you. I know the stone that has replaced your hearts. Even before that, you sooner would have traded your legion for a cogitator of lukewarm secrets. Callous." Gargahl's snarl shifted, his lips drawing back into yet another shark's smile as he regarded Pyotr. "Oh, but you have given up on that, haven't you? Is it because of your curse or because you finally realized you would never have created anything worthwhile to begin with?"
The words did nothing to the lord discordant. Perhaps they would have before his corruption, before even his duel with Zasharr, but not now. At present, the barbs were more akin to a gnat flitting just outside of his vision.
Pyotr looked to what once was his brother and let out a disappointed sigh before turning away. He had intended to ask the daemon prince about disease and illness, as a follow-up of the information that Artemis had told him, but no longer had the energy for such a test in patience and endurance for self-aggrandizement. How unfortunate that the passion for his craft would be reignited when it was too late.
"You have fulfilled the purpose you have found me for, Gargahl. Leave me, tend to your… disciples before the battle."
The tense pause of hesitation filled the space between them. Pyotr knew that Gargahl was currently warring with the logic of the lord discordant's words and his own petty desires to yield to no authority other than his own. Eventually, however, the daemon prince turned and lumbered out of the chamber, chuckling to himself about lost brothers and dead fools.
Pyotr was left with not even a minute's peace before his vox crackled again as he was hailed. He debated ignoring it, but recognized the identifier sigil and frowned.
"Zseron?" he asked.
"Pyotr," the Sorcerer of Stars croaked. His normally calm and dulcet voice was hoarse and frantic. "Conspiracy. Someone aboard the cruiser plots against us."
"Who?" Pyotr furrowed his brow, glancing at the space Gargahl had just stood before he exited.
"I know not," Zseron admitted.
Where there's smoke…
The lord discordant looked back into the void, watching as the stars slowly passed by as the Savory Wound sped ahead to its deathbed. Thoughts burned across Pyotr's mind at the same rate.
"I do," he said, then cut their connection. He'd already turned and was halfway out of the room before he forged a new one and the individual on the receiving end accepted the link. "We must speak. Now."