AN : 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.
Interlude : Endgame
Two figures sat opposite to one another, with a table of black marble between them. Each figure was cast in shadows, the only source of illumination a single crystal that hovered in the air above the center of the table. On the table, directly under the crystal, was a deck of cards, and around that card was a spiraling map covered in countless other cards and pieces – the result of the last stages of the game that the two figures had been playing for longer than any living soul remembered.
The first figure reached toward the deck with a hand clad in a black metal gauntlet and drew the first card. With a cruel chuckle, it laid it face visible in front of it, revealing the Lord of Stone. The adversary winced in anguish and sorrow as the card was placed in the path of an emerald statue with small, ruby eyes. The green figurine would not be enough to destroy the Lord of Stone – but its might would weaken him, expose him to manipulation further down the game.
The second figure reached out in turn, with a hand covered by a golden and white gauntlet. The card he drew was the Lord of Iron, and his black-clad opponent growled at seeing it in his opponent's hand. After careful consideration, the white player set the card down, along with another drawn from his own deck : the Trial of Wrath. It was a risky move – should the gambit fail, the Lord of Iron might still fall under the black player's control. But success would see the value of the card increase dramatically, and when it did, the Lord of Iron was freed from his mortal flaw.
The next card to be drawn was the Huntmaster, whom the black player placed in the midst of the Corrupt Court. Then the Dark King was set across the Mourning Mother, and the black player groaned in cold rage to see such a valuable piece claimed by his foe. But the card he drew next caused a cruel and vicious smile to form within the shadows that composed his face, and a single tear to fall from the white player's eye. The Lord of Angels card fell onto the board, surrounded by the Twisted and the Mad, and the black player smashed another card atop it : the Betrayed Martyr.
The game went on. The white player drew the Herald of Truth, and used it to wipe the Arch-Priest off the board, though the black player picked up the piece by playing the Dark Resurrection card. Then he drew the Savage King and bound him with the card Weight of Guilt. When the black player placed Temptation on the Cyclops card, the white player countered by playing Revelation above it, cancelling Temptation and ensuring the Cyclops' loyalty to his side for the rest of the game.
But then the black player drew the Uncrowned King, and his laughter caused the crystal's light to darken. He placed the Firstborn across the card, where its influence would transform it over the course of the game. The white player considered that move and its consequences for a long time before drawing his next card and smiling in relief as he laid down the Warmaster, one of the most powerful cards in the game, and atop that card he laid down that of Wise Counsel, linking the Warmaster with the Cyclops' card.
Next the black player drew the Fractured Blade, which allowed each player to play a card from their hand to affect it. The black player placed the Whispers of the Void, while the white one played Unshakeable Duty and claimed the High Knight and the Prophet from the other's clutches. He then compounded that success by using Unclouded Sight to block the black player's Deception and prevent the attempt to turn the Shackled Warrior from his appointed path.
The next card drawn by the black player was the Shadow, and upon it he laid one card face visible, the Torment, and another that remained hidden. The white player placed the card Rescue upon the Shadow, discarding the Torment, but the other card remained in place, waiting for the right time.
The white player scored a major victory when he drew the Hydra and managed to have it reach the Dark King before the black player's Necessary Sacrifices could take full effect. But this left him unable to intervene when his opponent cast the Heartless card upon the Gorgon, dragging it away from the path of Humanity and into sections of the board more vulnerable to his control. The white player then drew the Perfect Champion, and used the Eyes of the Gifted card to prevent him from being influenced by the black player's Treacherous Blade.
Only two cards remained in the deck. The black player drew the Undying Drake, while the white player drew the Lord of Death. Both cards were placed upon dangerous grounds, but both of them endured, though they each ended up walking a very different path.
All the cards from the deck had been drawn, but the setup wasn't finished yet. Each player had a reserve of tokens that must be placed before the game could enter its next stage. They considered their options at length before beginning to put them down.
The black player placed a crimson token upon the Lord of Stone, a jade one upon the Gorgon, a blue one upon the Fractured Blade and a purple one upon the Lord of Angels. Each time the token touched the card, the image upon it changed, reflecting the transformation wrought upon it by the token's effects. The Black Crown went upon the card marked with the XIII symbol, and the Uncrowned King became the Dark Master as the Firstborn was stripped of his power. The Exiled token fell upon the Savage King, whilst the Reluctant Slave landed on the Undying Drake and the Chosen upon the Shadow. Strange choices, thought the white player, but he knew better than to underestimate his old enemy. There was method in his madness, in his evil.
The white players had fewer tokens to place, but he took even longer to decide. One, the token marking the Custodian, was easy to assign, and bestowed upon the Lord of Iron without hesitation. But the remaining three tokens – identical pieces of bone shaped as tiny skulls – each marked a card for Decimation, and would allow the black player to choose one card among them to remove from play completely. Finally, with heavy heart, he set one on the Dark King, the Hydra, and the Death Lord. With a cruel laugh, the black player reached across the board and tore the Dark King's card apart, discarding the pieces away from the table. His laugh was short-lived, however, when he saw the cards that the Dark King had concealed, and that with his sacrifice now entered play. The Heirs of Night were not as powerful as the Dark King card, but they could be in several places at once, and each still held considerable might in his own right.
After the white player tried to stop the Huntmaster by playing the Broken Ranks card, the black player added another card upon him : the Dread Resurrection, transforming him into the Wraithlord. Soon after, the black player sacrificed a card of his own. The Savage King, who had brought desolation upon the City of Hope and caused many wild cards to appear, vanished from the board, and the Fractured Blade became the Prince of Mists. But the High Knight and the Prophet destroyed the Eternal Serpent, and the High Knight struck a great blow upon the Prince of Mists, while the Prophet disappeared from play, saved along with his brethren by the Shattering card.
The game accelerated to a fever pitch as both players unleashed every tool at their disposal against their enemy. The Shadow's card was finally revealed as the Primordial Madness, increasing his power dramatically, though not without a horrible cost. The Herald of Truth and the Shackled Warrior were trapped within the Storm of Sacrifice, while the Perfect Champion was lost to the cruelties of the Twisted Scions. The Dark Master marched toward the white player's stronghold, where his strongest card awaited, fighting yet another scheme of the black player : the Assassination, which, although failed, had still removed the white player's Ascension Project from the board, leaving a gaping hole in his final fortress' defenses in the process.
The Undying Drake escaped the Lightning Dagger through the Ruinous Pact, and together the forces of the black player circled the white player's stronghold, where he had gathered his own cards for the greatest battle the game had seen in many, many turns. The Shadow and the Firstborn locked the Silver Knights from taking part in the battle, but were in turn prevented from acting. The Lord of Angels fell the Warmaster and was remade into the Insane Godling, but before the black player could seize this momentum and win the game, the white player revealed the Perfect Champion, perfect no longer, rescued by the Heirs of Night. At the same time, he revealed the Herald of Truth and the Shackled Warrior, escaped from the trap and about to rejoin the battle.
To avoid the destruction of his forces between the defenders of the stronghold and these reinforcements, the black player sent the Dark Master, the Prince of Mists and the Lord of Stone into the stronghold. Thanks to the Labyrinth card, they were separated, and the Prince of Mists faced the Cyclops, the Lord of Stone confronted the Lord of Iron, and the Dark Master came face to face with the Emperor, as both players had known would happen since he had received the Dark Crown. The first two duels ended in draws, but the third was about to go the way of the black player when the white player revealed the card he had kept under the Emperor card for most of the game.
This card was one of the most potent in the game : Sacrifice and Salvation. With it, the Champion was able to come to the Emperor's aid, and thanks to the latter's sacrifice, the Dark Master fell. The black player placed a hidden card upon the Dark Master, removing it from the white player's fortress and back into the Storm of Sacrifice, out of the white player's reach. The other cards of the black player scattered, most of them eventually ending within the Great Vortex. There, due to the rules of that section of the board, they turned against each other, no longer fully under the black player's control. Meanwhile, with the Emperor crippled, the white player's own hold of his cards began to wane, though he still had a stronger hand on them than his foe.
After that, the game continued at a slower pace. Both players schemed and gambled, and though the black player held the advantage in the long run, each time he came close to claiming victory, the white player managed to deny him, either by sacrificing some of his own cards and pieces or by some cunning plan long in the making. Yet both players knew that eventually, the game must end.
The signs of that end were many. Entire sections of the board that had been under the white player control fell to the black player, while both sides placed cards they had been hanging on for hundreds of turns in play once more. In the Great Vortex, the Mad Consortium stirred, one of the black player's longest plans finally about to reach terrible fruition as the Black Host gathered various assets to its banner in numbers never seen before. And in the white player's stronghold, the Throne card was starting to reach the end of its lifespan, heralding doom for the entire side.
But the definite sign that this end was near came when the Penitent Son, under the white player's control, reached the Halls of Knowledge. United with the Bane of Daemons, the card was transferred to the Mausoleum just as the black player's Destroyer of Hope was about to reach the silent Cyclops. With a grim smile, the white player turned the Cyclops' card back up, and the Destroyer of Hope was removed from play, though the black player managed to rescue a few of his pieces from the following slaughter wrought upon the force he had gathered to slay the Cyclops.
The black player still had the advantage. He had several pieces in place to claim victory for him, while the white player's forces were scattered and beset by the board's other dangers. These included the Great Devourer, the Beast, but also other powers, that had been growing out of both players' control for a long time now, and were finally ready to make their own moves. Perhaps new players would join the game, before the end. Perhaps, even, new alliances would be made. But one way or another, it was clear that, after countless turns, the endgame was here at last.
And the white player still had one last gambit of his own to make – one card left under the Throne.
AN : Here is the short story I talked about in the last chapter. It is inspired by The Board is set, a story from the Black Library's advent calendar, which I really enjoyed. Come to think of it, all of the stories of the advent calendar were quite good. If you are considering whether to buy the collection, I think it's worth the cost.
This story was written with the help of my old deck of Primarch cards, which I made myself when I was first considering writing the Roboutian Heresy. The order in which the cards are drawn in the story was decided randomly, though I made sure it was one Loyalist and then one Traitor.
Nothing more to say this time ... Except this : thanks you all for your kind words on the conclusion of the Siege of Terathalion. I see a lot of you enjoyed it ! There is a lot of speculation about the meaning of the chapter's events, which is very fun to read : I can't stop laughing, saying to myself "oh, they have no idea". Yes, I know, I am a sadist.