Sometime in the future...
Lord Kotharis Mul stepped off the bulk lander, his boots crunching on the frozen gravel of Tholmar's landing zone. He stood tall in silence, his armor caked with frost and engraved with pale runes. The atmosphere whirled with ash and drifting flakes of half-frozen spores. He tasted bio-taint in the air. He was used to it.
Fifty White Walkers Legionnaires followed him in disciplined ranks. Each wore Power Armor the color of hoarfrost, etched with deep cracks of faintly pulsing ice. They moved without sound. Their breaths made no visible plumes. They needed no oxygen at all.
A cluster of reanimated thralls lumbered behind them, billions in number, rumbling the very ground. Loping beasts stitched from the bones of slain xenos. Half-decayed humans with hollow eyes and limbs locked in permafrost. A silent horde, bound to the White Walkers by ancient pacts of living winter.
Beyond that legion of undead lay a deeper darkness. Trillions upon trillions—scattered across the galaxy—ready to awaken at Kotharis's command. Not all would come here. He only needed enough to purge Tholmar. He had studied the situation. The Tyranids had devoured most of the planet's biomass. The Imperium needed it cleansed. The White Walkers had been summoned for total annihilation as they always were.
Kotharis gazed at the charred horizon. Ruined spires rose in the distance, remnants of an Imperial city. A swirl of dust and snow battered their broken arches. The sky above was thick with storm clouds. Flashes of pale lightning revealed drifting spores and ragged silhouettes of xenos harpies. He smelled them. He felt them through the cold.
He lifted a gauntleted hand. The storm overhead crackled in response. Thin streams of ice-laced energy rippled around his armor, dancing across the filigree. The White Walkers behind him shifted, sensing his intent. Their eyes, hidden behind crystalline visors, glowed with faint azure light.
A smaller figure approached. Magos-Kryos, an Adeptus Mechanicus liaison, stood in red robes at the edge of the landing field. His mechadendrites twitched, scraping the ground. He bowed stiffly, servo-harness wheezing.
"Lord Kotharis," he said, voice crackling. "Spare the manufactorums if you can."
Kotharis gave no sign of acknowledgment at first. His helm tilted, scanning the horizon. Then he spoke, his tone low and unhurried. "We will do our duty."
Magos-Kryos paused, fidgeting with a data-slate.
"Yes, my lord," he said. He hesitated, glancing at the silent legion of reanimated thralls. The rustling of bone and sinew made him shift uneasily. "I shall take my leave."
Kotharis marched forward. The fifty White Walker Legionnaires moved as one. Their footsteps left icy imprints in the dust and debris. The billions of reanimated corpses that accompanied them emitted enough frost to begin altering the weather. Flickers of snow drifted across the open air, the first sign of the ice age that was to come.
As Kotharis led them across the rubble-strewn plain, the temperature dropped. The ground crackled with hoarfrost. The battered remains of once-verdant farmland now lay charred and slicked with Tyranid bio-fluid. Mycetic spores dotted the terrain, pulsing with faint life, but the cold began to suffocate them. Ice crystals spread over every surface, sealing away the living corruption.
A shriek tore across the sky. One of the harpy creatures descended, elongated claws outstretched, chitin glistening. It hurtled toward the White Walkers, spines rattling. Kotharis lifted a single hand. A shard of True Ice coalesced around his fist, crackling with silent energy. He hurled it. The shard streaked through the air, piercing the harpy's carapace. The beast screeched and crashed to the ground, thrashing madly. A legionnaire stepped forward, jammed a frost-bladed sword into its skull, and ended its flailing. All was quiet again, save for the moaning wind.
They pressed on. Tholmar's once-grand city soon rose before them, a maze of broken towers and collapsed hab-blocks. Tyranid spore chimneys jutted from the ruins, belching greenish mist into the slate sky. Scuttling shapes scurried among the rubble. Kotharis felt them through the cold. Gaunts, Lictors, Genestealers. Their presence vibrated in the ice-laden air.
And then, the same creature that'd once been their enemy arose to serve them in death, like so many others.
He raised a hand, signaling the legionnaires to spread out. They moved in disciplined precision, boots crushing bone and rubble. Each marine carried a frost-lance or a blade carved from living ice. Their bolters, shaped by the White Walkers' craftsmanship, fired shells laced with sub-zero charges. The reanimated thralls fanned out in a ragged wave, some climbing ruined walls, others slithering across shattered streets. Many still wore remnants of the flesh from their previous deaths—human, xenos, it didn't matter.
In the city's center, the Tyranid brood stirred. Gaunts squealed, skittering into alleys, forming living waves of chitin. A monstrous roar echoed from deeper within the wreckage. Kotharis advanced, unhurried. The horde parted around him, White Walkers calmly pouring disciplined volleys into the oncoming xenos. Bolts struck with muffled thumps, each explosion leaving behind a flash of ice, freezing Tyranid flesh solid. Whole clusters of Gaunts shattered like glass, limbs scattering.
A group of Warriors lumbered out from a ruined manufactorum, towering beasts with scything talons. They hissed, drooling acid. The White Walker legionnaires formed a firing line, unleashing a coordinated barrage. And then, their undead hordes charged, headless of fear, biting and gnawing and smashing. The Tyranids fought back with equal fervor.
Kotharis strode into the fray. His presence dropped the temperature further. Snow began to swirl indoors, drifting through shattered windows, creeping across the floors. He summoned a spear of living frost in one hand, its tip flickering with condensed cold. He drove it into the lead Warrior's chest. The beast shrieked, flailing. Frost surged through its veins, freezing its black ichor mid-flow. It toppled, stiff as a statue, then shattered under a single stomp from Kotharis's boot.
He turned to the next Warrior. It lunged, scything talons raised high. A legionnaire intercepted, smashing it back with a frost-lance that spewed sub-zero blasts. The Warrior's carapace splintered. Another legionnaire decapitated it with a heavy swing of an icy blade. Their synergy was absolute, their strikes silent. The Tyranids died as swiftly as they attacked. And each one that fell arose once more as their servants.
Deeper in the city, a node of synapse creatures rallied the swarm. Hormagaunts flooded from side-streets, hurling themselves at the undead thralls. A few, more specialized strains targetted the White Walkers themselves. The marines didn't falter. They aimed calmly and perfectly, bolters thumping in eerie unison. Each shot claimed multiple Tyranids, freezing them mid-pounce. Reanimated thralls swarmed any that got close, tearing them apart with bone-like claws. The thralls themselves died in droves, but more rose to replace them, reanimated from fresh corpses. Tyranids that perished soon found their forms reshaped by the cold, forced to fight their own kind.
Near the city's central square, Kotharis paused. The ground quaked. Something massive stirred below. A trio of Carnifex beasts burst through the cracked pavement, chitinous plates glistening in the gloom. They roared, flechette worms spewing from bioweapon symbiotes. The swarm advanced behind them, an avalanche of Tyranid biomass.
Kotharis channeled more of the White Walkers' power. He slammed a fist into the ground. Spikes of True Ice erupted around the Carnifex, encasing one up to its waist. It bellowed, thrashing. Another lunged, snapping its jaws at a legionnaire who leaped aside with preternatural agility. Bolter fire peppered its flank. The reanimated thralls flanked it, climbing its massive form, stabbing it with shards of frost. The beast roared, swirling around, crushing dozens of thralls. It tried to fling them off, but each new wound spread more ice. Soon, it sagged under the weight of the cold, its limbs stiffening. A final barrage from the White Walkers blew its head apart in a burst of frozen gore. And, like all the others, it soon stood up to fight for its new masters.
The last Carnifex charged Kotharis. He raised his spear. The monstrous creature thundered forward, drooling acid from its oversized maw. Kotharis thrust, meeting it mid-lunge. The spear pierced through muscle and chitin. The Carnifex howled in agony, lashing its tail. The blow collided with Kotharis, sending him skidding back a few paces. His armor groaned but did not buckle. He exhaled, letting the cold intensify. The Carnifex's shriek fell silent as frost clamped down on its throat, choking off any sound. It tried to resist, tried to raise its scything talons. They froze mid-motion. Kotharis pulled the spear free, then slammed it through the beast's skull. A final muffled grunt escaped, then the Carnifex toppled, stone-dead.
The city shuddered. Tyranid bio-towers, grown tall from repurposed flesh and bone, began to collapse under the unrelenting freeze. Their organic structures couldn't withstand sub-zero infiltration. Chitin plates cracked, releasing steaming clouds of foul vapor. The White Walkers pressed the advantage, spreading out to extinguish each pocket of resistance. Tyranids, cut off from their synapse creatures, flailed in confusion.
Kotharis advanced to a towering cathedral of black stone, partially devoured by xenos growth. Within, he sensed a presence: the primary Synapse cluster, anchored by a monstrous creature—a Hive Tyrant, perhaps. He stepped through the doorway, his boots echoing on cracked marble. The once-holy edifice reeked of decay and Tyranid sludge. Residual icons of the Emperor had been defiled, half-melted by acid. Yet shards of True Ice now licked at every surface, creeping along columns and arches. He turned to the accompanying White Walkers and nodded just once, signalling for them to begin the summoning process that would bring forth a fragment of the Great Other–their faither–into the planet, freezing it for centuries in ice so cold that nothing, not even the hardiest microbe, could survive.
A deep hiss resonated from the central nave. The Hive Tyrant stood there, a massive silhouette of spines and claws. It towered over Kotharis, its eyes glowing with an alien intellect. Bio-cannon growths pulsed along its arms, and a lashwhip coiled around one limb. Spore sacs dribbled with toxic slime. It let out a subsonic growl that rattled loose debris from the ceiling.
And then, an veritable ocean of Tyranid warriors charged right towards him–a charge that was quickly met by the walking dead.
Kotharis lifted his spear.
"You and me," he said, though the creature could not understand. It roared in response, firing a volley of bio-plasma. Kotharis gestured, summoning a barrier of frost. The plasma splashed against it, hissing and steaming, but the shield remained intact. The Tyrant lunged, crossing the nave in two strides. Its lashwhip cracked, aiming to entangle Kotharis's legs. He sidestepped, counterswiping with his spear. The blade bit deep into the Tyrant's flank. Dark ichor spilled, freezing upon contact with the open air. The Tyrant shrieked, swinging a massive scythe-arm.
They clashed in the cathedral's ruined heart, each blow shaking the battered walls. Frost-laden rubble tumbled. The Tyrant's talons scraped Kotharis's pauldron, sparks flying. Kotharis shoved back, conjuring a wave of cold that encased the beast's lower limbs. The Tyrant tore itself free, but lost a chunk of flesh in the process. It roared, firing another blast of plasma at close range. Kotharis endured the strike, though his chestplate cracked. He staggered slightly, ice flickering around the wound. Then he pressed forward, driving the spear into the Tyrant's midsection. Frost crackled, ripping through the beast's insides. It smashed him aside with a final, desperate swipe. He crashed into a pillar, the impact jarring but not crippling. The Tyrant tried to flee, stumbling toward a side aisle.
Kotharis pursued, hammering the spear home in a savage thrust right into its chest. The Tyrant convulsed, gargling some thick fluid. Ichor poured from every fissure in its exoskeleton, instantly frozen. Slowly, it sank to its knees, arms twitching. Kotharis watched impassively as the creature's eyes dimmed. Then it fell silent, hunched forward, limbs locked by the cold. He yanked the spear free, letting shards of ice tumble from the gaping wounds. Moments later, it joined their army.
The nearby Tyranids quickly lost cohesion. There were likely millions of other Synapse Creatures across the entire planet; but they no longer mattered. As the battle between the undead thralls and the savage aliens continued, Kotharis calmly walked out and beheld the thick black clouds that blotted out the planet's sun and its nearby stars. The wind howled and screamed. And a new age of winter descended upon the world of Tholmar. He felt the presence of his father and so Kotharis, alongside the other White Walkers, fell to a knee and bowed his head.
AN: Chapter 14 is out on (Pat)reon!