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.
Such things I have seen …
I have seen cities burn in hellfire, and armies of the damned broken by a single act of courage.
I have faced the wrath of the Imperial Fists, and tasted the kiss of a Blood Angel's poisoned blade as it plunged into my hearts. I have listened to the war-cry of Ullanor's master as the Ork Waaaagh ! swept across the stars in an unstoppable tide, and witnessed the wondrous choreographies of Harlequin dancers aboard an Eldar Craftworld that has since fallen to the Archenemy.
I have seen three souls banish a daemon born of the betrayal of the last Romani dictator by those he trusted, with nothing but the strength of the loyalty they held for each other. I have seen men give up their humanity to ancient xenos artefacts, and be transformed into abominations that stared at the universe with eyes that knew nothing of mercy. I have raced with White Scars riders and fought sons of Russ in the tombs of forgotten empires. I have seen Imperial soldiers hold the line against the plagued legions of the Iron Hands, watched heroes kneel before the heralds of the Black Dragon, and pulled the trigger that ended the suffering of those touched by the Ravenlord's arts.
Most of all, I have seen the sins of the Legion that was once my own. I have seen the madness that has claimed those who were my brothers. I have listened to them as they justify what they have become with talk of destiny, of inevitability. How they so desperately try to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own actions by ascribing it all to the will of their foul god. How they preach and proselytize, trying to make others see the galaxy through the same cracked lens as they do. They think of themselves as puppets, refusing to accept that the only strings making them move are those they willingly put around their souls, and ones that they could break at any time if they chose to. They cry out for purpose, for there to be an inherent meaning in the universe, and in their refusal to see that the only meaning is that which we create ourselves, they bring torment and ruin to billions.
They are the first of the damned, who renounced their free will for power and lies.
And yet, the evil of my corrupted brethren pales in comparison to what is yet to come. I have seen the darkness that lurks between the stars, impossibly old and cruel, waiting for light's end to come and smother all that is good in the galaxy. I have seen the fate that may yet befall all of reality if the Primordial Annihilator isn't stopped, if Chaos consumes the galaxy. I have seen Humanity cast down, enslaved to Ruin. I have seen Hell, claiming every soul that ever was and ever will be, forever and ever. Reality itself bent to the hateful whims of Chaos, every planet a daemon world.
But I have also seen how this dreadful future may be averted.
For ten thousand years, I have born the weight of my sins and hope. I have died many times, but always I have returned, denied death by the mark of the Beast upon my soul. Wherever I walk, the storm follows, bringing destruction and ruin upon all as the great Hunt catches up to me.
I am Cypher. Lord of the Fallen. Son of Lion El'Jonson. Brother to Luther. Dark Angel.
I have other titles, spoken only by the Neverborn and those within the ranks of my traitor brothers who think they know the truth of what happened on Caliban a hundred centuries ago. They call me the Swordbearer, the Bane of Ix'thar'ganix, the Despairing One, the Hated Son. I know secrets that would shatter the minds of those who style themselves as stewards of the Imperium, and revelations that could bring about the end of Chaos itself in the right hands. And I am so, so very tired.
I am Cypher. Greatest and last of the Fallen. Keeper of the Sword of Luther. Arch-enemy of the First Legion. The Dark Angels have hunted me for thousands of years, willing to make any sacrifice to find me and drag me in chains to the monster that the Lion has become. Again and again the Grand Masters have sent their agents to capture me. But I am still here. Still standing. Still defiant.
I am Cypher.
Fear me.
The Terran Crucible
Part One : The Hunt for Cypher
Among the Nine Legions, the Dark Angels stand out as those of whom the least is known in Imperial records. Unlike the sanity-blasting knowledge of the Raven Guard, however, this isn't due to the efforts of the Inquisition to purge any and all heretic lore, but because the First Legion itself strives to maintain its cloak of secrecy, keeping its methods, goals, and most importantly history hidden from its enemies – and its own members. The Dark Angels are a Legion built on secrets and lies, defined by those of their own who refused to follow their Primarch into damnation. For ten thousand years, the Dark Angels have hunted down these Fallen, believing in a wide array of reasons for this millennia-long quest, none of which were true. Lion El'Jonson kept the truth hidden, for as long as the Fallen live, his power is diminished by the wound he suffered at the hands of his mentor Luther during the destruction of Caliban, the Legion's long-lost homeworld. The Daemon Primarch has driven his Legion to hunt down those who defied him and whose very existence keeps his terrible power in check. Now, only one of these loyalists remains, the greatest and most mysterious of all : Cypher, the enigmatic Lord of the Fallen. Ever since the Heresy, Cypher has carried his own dark secrets and terrible destiny, a shadowy figure that has come to the Imperium's aid many times. Entire cabals of the Inquisition have tried and failed to uncover his identity, motives, and the source of his mysterious powers and apparent immortality. And now, as the Times of Ending are upon us, it is time for the truth to come to light at last …
Necromunda, Solar Segmentum, 999.M41
Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak walked purposefully toward his destination. All around him were the many sights and smells of the Necromundian underhive. The immense majority of the planet's population was born in places like this, lived lives shortened by pollution and crime, and died without ever seeing an open sky. Air recycled a million times was circulated by rusted industrial fans. Billions dwelled in those depths, working from childhood to an early death into one of the thousands of industrial complexes scattered across this labyrinth of metal corridors.
Of all the worlds Czevak had seen in his five centuries of life, Necromunda wasn't the worst to live on, nor the most dangerous – but it came close. The authority of the Imperium was a distant thing here, with clans ruling in a brutal autocracy while paying lip service (and heavy taxes) to the Adeptus Administratum. These clans (or Houses, as these jumped-up thugs called themselves in a pretence of nobility) were responsible for the fulfilment of Imperial production contracts, handed over by the Imperial Governorship (itself belonging to House Helmawr, the most powerful of all the clans) through an ever-shifting game of alliances and bribes. These dynasties solved any and all conflict between them through proxy wars fought by the gangs of the underhive, preventing Necromunda's industry from being affected by the bloodshed.
The planet produced weapons for the Imperial Guard throughout the entire Segmentum, and its soldiers were among the best killers the Astra Militarum could boast. When faced with these benefits, the Lords of Terra had chosen to let the masters of Necromunda rule as they please, regardless of the cost in human lives and misery required for such productivity. The suffering of Necromunda's people was necessary to maintaining the safety of the Solar Segmentum – their pain served to protect Holy Terra itself, and in the eyes of the High Lords, that was all that mattered.
Once, Czevak had accepted that reasoning. He still did, for the galaxy was a dark and cruel place, where Mankind's survival in the face of countless threats was bought with the blood of billions shed every day on thousands of battlefields large and small. But he had seen enough horrors and acts of heroism performed by those the Imperium heedlessly crushed under its heel to know that there was potential being wasted here, and he knew that, if there was one thing the God-Emperor loathed above all else, it was the waste of His servants' lives.
The Inquisitor had the face and body of a man in his prime, with none of the signs of the rejuvenation treatments used by the Imperium's elite to fend off old age. But one only had to look into his eyes to know that he was a lot older than he appeared. He was bald, and wore a blue trench coat. The lower half of his face was covered by a re-breather that filtered the poisoned air.
This deep in the underhive, such a device was an absolute necessity : unaugmented humans breathing in the air would collapse within minutes and die shortly after. Of course, Czevak's re-breather was of a much higher quality than those used by the dregs around him – he had taken it off the body of a noble in the higher tiers of the hive. His pistol hung from his belt in plain sight, its quality far beyond the typical armaments seen in these parts. Such a blatant display of wealth was all but an invitation to trouble on Necromunda, yet the Inquisitor did not appear troubled by the danger surrounding him, an off-worlder in the underhive.
All around Czevak were thugs, criminals and other degenerates, people who made their lives in this environment, one of the harshest of all the Imperium's many hells. Yet none of them disturbed him, though he was getting plenty of looks. He wasn't bearing any mark of his office – if he had, they would have been running away, not just ignoring him. But Czevak had spent many years cultivating the aspect and manners of someone not to mess with, and he projected an aura of menace just by walking. He could turn it off, of course – he would have been a poor Inquisitor if he couldn't – and pass himself off as one of the gangers, walking through the dark streets without anyone looking twice at him. But that would have limited his speed, forced him to avoid certain areas, and just putting on the appropriate disguise would have been the work of several minutes. Czevak was afraid he did not have those to spare.
And besides, considering his entourage, stealth had never really been an option. Escorting the Inquisitor were half a dozen individuals, each hardened by a life of strife, all bound together by Czevak's will and cause. They were a colorful group, one that had fought together and survived through many scraps only by the tiniest of margins. They trusted – if not liked – each other with their lives, for if they could not, they would already be dead. To follow Bronislaw Czevak was dangerous even by the standards of Inquisitors, for he was marked for death by the First Legion.
The Companions of Bronislaw Czevak
Akrane Tyler
The Temples of the Assassinorum are supposed to be above politics. Ever since the Vindication Wars, following the Age of Apostasy and the rise of Goge Vandire, this has been enforced by the Alpha Legion and the Night Lords, working alongside the Ordo Hereticus. And for the most part, they have managed to prevent the internecine feuds that allowed Vandire to subordinate the Temples to his side during his bloody reign. But there are always exceptions, and Akrane Tyler fell victim to one of them. A member of the Temple Culexus, Akrane served loyally for more than a decade after completing her training, eliminating her targets with pinpoint precision. She didn't realize that her master was using her to remove the political opponents of Imperial nobles, men and women who had committed no crime against the Throne, until his plans fell through and the Ordo sent Assassins after him and all his accomplices – including Akrane, even though she had known nothing of her master's plots. She survived the first attempt on her life through sheer luck and went on the run, using her training and shape-shifting abilities to disappear. Yet she was still loyal to the Throne, and ached for a purpose now that she could no longer return to the Assassinorum. She met Czevak on an Imperial world as he was fighting against a group of Raven Guard cultists, and discarded her disguise to assist him by instinct. After a few tense moments of discussion, she joined the Inquisitor on his quest, helping him navigate the vast web of the Imperium with her infiltration skills.
Sebastian von Hierenbach
The life of a psyker in the Imperium is a difficult one at best. Those too weak to be of use are sacrificed to the Golden Throne, while the rest are subjected to painful trials culminating in the soul-binding to the Emperor, followed by a short life of service among humans who fear and distrust all witches in their midst. It is therefore no surprise that many seek to elude capture by the Black Ships, and Sebastian von Hierenbach is one of the few who actually manage it. Born among Imperial nobility, his family arranged for him to fake his death rather than having to admit that a psyker was born from their blood, and he fled from Imperial space altogether. For several years, he trained himself to master his immense psychic potential, and rose to become the captain of a piratical vessel preying upon shipping lanes. His destiny changed when he boarded and captured a pilgrim transport that turned out to have been harboring Czevak. The Inquisitor was taken captive, but the Dark Angels had been tracking him, and soon the sons of the Lion attacked Sebastian's base, seeking his august prisoner. Sebastian barely managed to escape with Czevak when the Dark Angels subverted his crew, and swore bloody revenge against the First legion. Affecting the appearance of one of the nobility, he is a charismatic man, well-trained in sword and pistol. With Czevak's aid, he has been learning more about how to use his psychic powers. Though most of his power is spent preventing daemons from using him as a vessel, he is estimated to be a psyker of beta-level.
Darius Theocron
The sacred quest for knowledge of the Adeptus Mechanicus has led them to dig out things best left buried time and time again, with often disastrous consequences. So it was for the forge-world over which Darius Theocron ruled for over a century, when one of the expeditions under his command returned with their ships laden with strange relics uncovered on several dead worlds with human ruins on them. Less than a year later, Dark Angels warbands attacked the forge-world, seeking to reclaim the arcane weapons their brethren had left behind after destroying these planets. Theocron escaped with his life and a few of his followers, but the Dark Angels kept hunting him, until he alone remained, and he met Czevak aboard a derelict space station, home to pirates, renegades, and worse. Darius joined Czevak for survival and revenge, for his perfect memory does not let him forget the billions under his charge who perished at their hands – or worse, were corrupted by them. Though his appearance has fallen far from his glory days, and many of his augmetics no longer function, Darius' mind remains razor-sharp and loaded with some of the Omnissiah's greatest secrets. In the years since joining the Inquisitor's warband, Darius has provided technological support and access into the data-vaults of Imperial offices and cultists alike, providing the information required for the group to continue their journey. Yet he is far from defenceless : his dirty and tattered robes hide a plethora of weapons, and what remains of his flesh is well-guarded.
Sister Blade
The Order of the White Veil was a coven of the Adepta Sororitas founded in the 38th Millennium in order to honor the memory of Saint Urizkella. It was named after the veil that the Saint wore during most of her life to hide the mark left on her face by the claws of the Imperial Fist warlord Karghok. Then, in 987M41, Karghok returned, having been transformed into a Daemon Prince by the Lord of Skulls and having spent the last thirty centuries atoning for his death at the hands of a slave of the Corpse-God. Leading a daemonic legion, he burned the Order's strongholds one by one before besieging their greatest sanctum, where the White Veil itself was kept. No daemon could approach the stronghold due to the relic's aura, and so Karghok took one of the Sisters prisoners and summoned a Bloodthirster from the Realms of Chaos and bound it within the flesh of the woman. Shielded by the Sister's body and her own agonized faith, the Bloodthirster entered the sanctum and destroyed it, killing all surviving Sisters but leaving the Veil untouched. His purpose accomplished, Karghok returned to the Warp, but the possessed Sister was left behind, abandoned on a dead world. One year later came Czevak, who used the power of the Veil to free the possessed Sister. Now calling herself Sister Blade, she swore to follow the Inquisitor and fight at his side against the spawn of Chaos, hoping to atone for the weakness of her faith that allowed her to be made into an instrument of evil. Her traumatic experience has made her immune to further possession and the whispers of daemons, and she fights with chainsword and flamer.
Yragan
The White Seers of the Black Library see many things, and it was their visions that made them expel Bronislaw Czevak from their domain half-way across the galaxy from Terra. Ever since then, they have kept an eye on him from a distance, remaining separate from him in order to avoid drawing the attention of the Ruinous Powers on the Inquisitor. But as Czevak drew nearer to Cypher, they knew that hiding (which had been a risky and not entirely functioning tactic to begin with, but the best available to the Seers) would no longer be an option. At the same time, the Blood Angels warband led by Rafen the Kinslayer was approaching, and the White Seers did not have the resources to send an army to help Czevak complete his mission. Instead, they sent Yragan, an Eldar Ranger from Craftworld Ulthwhé who had come to the Black Library to deliver something from the Farseers. Yragan met Czevak five meters away from the landing pad where the Inquisitor's transport touched ground, and managed to speak quickly enough to convince the rest of the group not to kill him on sight. Yragan's mission is to help Czevak complete his own, but he was not told what that involves, only that it is vital to the Eldar race that the Inquisitor succeeds. Having learned that the group seeks Cypher, whose legend is known even on the Craftworlds, the Ranger (who is quite young by the standards of his kind) wonders just what it is he has fallen into.
It had taken thirty years for Czevak to reach Necromunda after leaving the Black Library of the mysterious Eldar xenos. The White Seers had dropped him half a galaxy away, with only the vaguest of instructions as to what he was supposed to do next. Of course, since then, he had understood the need for secrecy. Every step of his way from that desert death-world to Necromunda, he had been hounded by the agents of his enemies. He had left a trail of bodies and ruins in his wake, and he felt the guilt for all the lives lost weigh on his soul more heavily than they had ever done during his four centuries of service to the Inquisition, before he had found his current purpose. Those who walked alongside him were but the latest in a long line of companions, having joined him on his odyssey across the stars for reasons known only to them and their master.
They were approaching the very bottom of the hive, where millennia of construction reached the planet's bedrock. Even there, with the weight of a hundred mountains above, human life teemed. Gangs of mutants and the worst kind of criminals dwelled there, far from any of Necromunda's authorities. Here there were no churches, for no god turned his gaze there, and no outposts of the Arbites, for there was no law. Here there was only strength and death, an endless struggle for survival amidst the refuse of a thousand generations. The gangs who lived there had to fight against uprisings from the mutant kingdoms beneath, shedding their blood in unremembered wars that were all that kept the upper tiers of the hive from being swarmed by the monsters lurking in the dark.
It was here that Czevak would find Cypher at last, and be relieved of his great burden.
Klovis the Redeemer watched in satisfaction as the faithful chanted. The Disciples of the Living Flame had gathered in numbers, from every corner of the underhive and beyond. Every cell, every secret lodge, all had answered his call, and it filled him with pride to see them all here today. Representatives from the other hive-cities had come in secret, each bearing the secret mark of his order, now displayed with pride for all to see – the first time any of the sacred symbols had been exposed to those outside their particular branch of the faith, and a sign that the time had come at last. Here, in the depths of Hive Palatine, the capital of Necromunda, it would begin.
For decades, ever since he had first heard the call of the Manifold One, Klovis had worked tirelessly to spread the word of the Living Flame. He had abandoned his life of power and privilege, thrown away his beauty by burning his own face away with coals taken from the fires of the most destitute of Necromunda's cast-offs. His words and deeds had rallied them around him, and through him their meaningless lives had found purpose : through him, they had been Redeemed in the eyes of the Living Flame. Others had come from above, having heard the same whispers he had, and together they had woven a web of true believers hidden all across Necromunda's many levels.
To the witless Imperial authorities, they were known as the Redemptionists, a fanatical cult of the False Emperor they had infiltrated and consumed from within. The reputation of that order had been useful in masking their true purpose. They had even allowed a few of the original members to survive, blissfully ignorant of the corruption of their order as they continued their blind crusade against all those they perceived as deviants. Even these fools had served the Disciples' true aim, as their hateful persecutions had driven more and more souls into the Living Flame's embrace.
A dozen of these Redemptionists now burned on the cult's pyre, sacrificed to the Living Flame's glory now that their use had run its course. Just before the pyre had been lit, each of them had been told the true nature of their order, that their betrayed cries may add power to the ceremony.
'Brothers and sisters !' he called, and the crowd roared in reply, before quieting down as he raised his left hand – his right held his fire-mounted metal staff. A winged, blue-skinned imp leapt down from the steel beams supporting the ceiling of the great space where the congregation had gathered, landing on his shoulder. The creature was a Caryatid, and there were many more above the gathering – as if all those of the hive had come to witness this momentous event.
To the Imperium, Caryatids were an innocuous mutant breed, drawn to individuals with important destinies. Klovis knew what the Imperium did not : that the Caryatids were the creations of the Great Ones, the distant masters of the Disciples. Aeons ago, they had brought the creatures to Necromunda, to find and guide those worthy souls toward their appointed fate. To have so many flocking to this place was a good omen – it meant the Great Ones were watching over them.
At the same time, however, the sudden departure of so many Caryatids from those who thought themselves their owners must have raised some concerns. The departure of such familiars was seen as a sign of imminent death within Necromunda's culture. Still, all must be as the Living Flame intended. After all, paranoia among their enemies could be a boon, if used properly. And their presence certainly helped whip the crowd into the proper frame of mind.
'Long have we waited for this day !' he continued. 'For generations, we have worked in the darkness. Our forebears have laid down the foundations of this grand achievement, offering their toil and their lives for a cause they knew they would never see fulfilled. But we, my brethren, we are among the elect ! We shall see our grand endeavour complete ! As was revealed to our predecessors, the reign of the False Emperor and the Angels of Dust shall end, and the true Angels shall come to free us from our lives of misery and waste !'
'By the Living Flame, all of Necromunda shall be reborn ! This great inferno we have stoked will wipe away the mistakes and pains of the past ! Though the rebirth shall be painful, and many shall be consumed within its flames, this day shall usher in a new and glorious age for this world !'
Klovis took the flask of spook handed to him by a prostrated cultist and drank deep, letting the green liquid flow into his system. The sacred drug, fashioned from ancient human remains transformed by mutated fungi, threw open the gates of his perception. He could see the fires that burned within everyone present, the humans and the mutants alike. Most of them were dim, flickering things, for the Disciples had raised from among the meek. But the incense, the ambiance, the sacrifices – all of these had contributed to making these embers flare, and it now fell to him to channel that energy into a great flame that would serve as a beacon to the Great Ones.
'We call upon you,' he roared, 'oh our lords and masters ! Come forth, we beg you, and deliver us from our sinful existences ! Come forth, and grant us redemption in the eyes of the One True God, He Who Is Many ! We offer you the lives and souls of the deceived, we present unto you our eternal devotion, we give you all that we have achieved on this world ! COME FORTH !'
The flames rose up and up, flickering blue, pink, and other colors that had no name in human tongues. They caught the Caryatids on the beams, and the imps screeched as they burned – yet they did not move away, willingly adding their essences to the sacrifice. The crowd was screaming now, senseless wails that echoed in unholy harmonies as the fabric of the universe thinned.
And then, finally, it was done.
They walked out of the pyre, untouched by the raging heat. There were nine of them, eight clad in warplate of dark green and blue, and the last in obsidian black. It was this one who walked ahead of the other, his face a leering, daemonic skull, one hand casually holding a mace as large as Klovis' torso. And even as Klovis collapsed onto his knees, breathing harshly as his heart thundered in his chest and his head felt as if it were about to burst, he knew this was the leader of these lords.
'I am Asmodai,' declared the Great One as the Disciples fell to their knees. His voice was as grand as his aspect, full of confidence and power. 'And I have come to guide all of you to Redemption.'
Asmodai, the Lord of Redemption
Among the Interrogator-Chaplains of the First Legion, Asmodai is perhaps the most cruel – not an easy feat in a group of torturers specialized in breaking the minds and wills of their captives. Though the hierarchy of the Dark Angels is a byzantine, ever-changing maze, Imperial intelligence is reasonably confident that Asmodai operates as the second-in-command of Azrael himself. This proximity to the Lord of Lies puts him only under the nine Grand Masters – and, of course, Lion El'Jonson himself – in terms of authority within the ninefold-accursed First Legion.
Despite not being one of the Grand Masters, Asmodai claimed the title of Lord of Redemption after bringing his ninth Fallen captive to the throne of the Lion, on the World of Mists and Shadows. Such presumption was unprecedented in the ritual-bound First Legion, but since the Daemon Primarch did not punish Asmodai for his arrogance, it was tolerated. Even the Neverborn are known to call him by that title, though they never do so without what passes for laughter among their kind.
Asmodai is known and respected for his talent at corrupting mortals and driving them to embrace the worship of Tzeentch. He can see the weak spots in the bodies, minds and souls under his "care", and he applies pressure with the talent of a true master of his hideous craft. And while he tortures his victims, he never feels a shred of guilt, having convinced himself long ago that he is doing Tzeentch's will, and that neither he nor those he torments have any say in their own fate. His own faith in the Architect of Fate pulses from his soul like a dark beacon, affecting those around him.
But while thousands of mortals and dozens of Space Marines have been Broken under his knives, he has never succeeded at turning one of the Fallen – every time, he was forced to give up and bring his prisoner to Lion El'Jonson with defiance still beating in his hearts. It is said that after each such delivery, Asmodai undergoes a pilgrimage across the deadliest realms of the Dark Angels' homeworld, and returns with his new Black Pearl imbued with the power of these shadowy places. Nine of those dark artefacts hang around his neck, and he can use them to perform dark rituals.
Asmodai has convinced himself that his nine failures to break captured Fallen were not due to any weakness on his part but actually a trial of Tzeentch, intended to harden his resolve so that he may succeed in his current and most important mission. For as the Times of Ending approached and Azrael prepared to join the Black Crusade against Terathalion, the Lord of Redemption has been summoned before the throne of Lion El'Jonson himself. There, he has been given one task : to find and capture the arch-renegade Cypher, long-standing nemesis of the First Legion. Asmodai will let nothing stand in his way, for he thinks himself a weapon specially crafted by the Great Deceiver for the sole purpose of ending Cypher's ancient defiance. To fail would force him to confront the truth, and there is very little more frightening than that for the Champion of Tzeentch.
While no psyker himself, Asmodai has been trained in the Dark Arts in the Eye of Terror, and is capable of summoning and binding to his will all manners of Tzeentchian abominations. The mask he wears under his hood was crafted in the infernal forges of the Eye of Terror, and resembles a daemon's skull. In battle, Asmodai wields a daemonic mace, named the Hateful Might, capable of cracking through even Terminator armor when propelled by Asmodai's mutation-increased strength. The daemon was bound within the mace as a reward for Asmodai's capture of the Fallen Malvine Rhemell on the Hive-Moon Sigma, during the Macharian Heresy. Some Inquisitors believe that the entire collapse of Warmaster Macharius' conquests was orchestrated by the Dark Angels for the sole purpose of facilitating Asmodai's hunt, but other clues point to a whole other purpose.
The War of Necromunda began exactly where the Houses had always suspected it would : in the underhive, far from sunlight and law, when Klovis the Redeemer opened the way for the Dark Angels. But none of the Spire-born nobles had anticipated how it would begin, or why the first spark would be lit. The Disciples of the Living Flame had hidden their presence so well that even the guilders, those Imperium-sanctioned bounty hunters tasked with bringing the most dangerous scum of Necromunda to justice, hadn't realized how deep the cult's corruption truly ran.
As Asmodai and his warriors passed through the Warp portal that the Redeemer had opened, the Disciples enacted their long-planned schemes all throughout Necromunda. The cult had members in all strata of Necromunda's many-layered society, and all had been given a purpose in this great hour. The outpost of the Sons of Horus, in Hive Palatine, was obliterated from existence without any of the twelve Space Marines and nineteen Aspirants within it even noticing anything was wrong before the heretical tech-priests completed their sabotage of the stronghold's plasma reactor.
Within the high spires of the nobility, indoctrinated sons and daughters drew poisoned daggers and struck, in a coordinated series of assassinations that crippled the top of Necromunda's feudal hierarchy. Lord Gerontius Helmawr, the Governor of Necromunda, himself barely survived an attempt on his life orchestrated by three of his own family members. The shoot-out that ensued within his palace resulted in hundreds of casualties, both among the Helmawr servants and troops and the family itself. In the end, Gerontius was saved by his illegitimate son, Kal Jerico. His hands still red with the blood of his Inquisitor mother, who had died in his arms after being reunited with him for the first time in ten years, Kal Jerico led a troupe of guilders as well as alien visitors to Necromunda through the palace and rescued his estranged father from his Spire-born kin.
From the wastes came the Ash Raiders, the disparate mutant tribes united under the leadership of a beastman with a broken horn and the fire of Tzeentch in his one good eye. Gathered in a host of hundreds of thousands, they overwhelmed the outer defenses of Hive Trazior and rampaged freely inside, plundering the wealth of the hive while slaughtering and then devouring its inhabitants.
In the rad-bombed ruins of Hive Secundus, where a Genestealer uprising had once been put down with a nuclear holocaust, things whose distant ancestors had once been humans emerged from piles of scorched rocks. Slowly, they began to crawl toward the distant spires of the nearest hive, their minds drawn to the beacon Klovis had lit within it. It would be many weeks before they completed their journey, but then, the people of Hive Palatine would know true horror.
House Cawdor, entirely controlled from within by the cultists of the Living Flame, declared war upon House Delaque, claiming that the House of spies and infiltrators had betrayed the God-Emperor. Its household troops marched in the streets of the upper hive, clad in the finest finery, before a coordinated sniper volley took down their officers, revealing them to have been witches weaving an illusion around their troops to hide their mutated nature and their heretical banners. Whether the snipers knew the true nature of their targets beforehand is known only to the head of House Delaque – whoever that shadowy figure may be.
The Disciples had spent centuries cultivating grudges between the Houses and the gangs serving them, and now, they played upon this hate, performing false flag operations to turn Necromunda against itself. The friends and lovers of gang leaders were found dead, with evidence incriminating their nobles overseers planted nearby. The ancestral estates of Spire-born bloodlines were attacked by packs of mutants armed with Militarum-grade weapons stolen from assembly lines and wearing gang colors. Gardens where water purer than anything ever drunk by nearly the entire population of the world was used to sustain imported flowers were set ablaze, the gardeners left impaled onto the spikes of their fences, their bodies held in place with thorned wines.
Elsewhere, the Disciples had fostered mistrust toward the Guild, spreading rumors of the bounty-hunters' excesses and cruelties. On a world ruled by a precarious balance of power between rival Houses that enforced their rule through strength of arms and cunning, the guilders were the one pillar of order – a symbol of justice, even if it was of a justice bought and paid for by Imperial coin. The cultists' work at encouraging hatred and fear toward the Guild had effectively undermined the very foundations of Necromunda's fragile order. As word of the fighting across the planet spread, it only took a few demagogues, trained by the Disciples and gifted by Tzeentch with a silver tongue (sometimes literally so) to rile up mobs and send them toward the guilders' strongholds.
It is a bitter testament to the Disciples' abilities that, in the hours that followed Asmodai's arrival on Necromunda and despite all the horrors they had unleashed, only one death in ten occurred at the hands of the cultists and their Ruinous allies. Necromundians were perfectly capable of killing each other – they had done it for millennia, longer than the Imperium had existed according to some heretical records. In the confusion created by the Disciples, lines of communication collapsed, and the planet turned into a monstrous free-for-all where very few alliances could still be trusted. From his crystal throne in the Court of Change, the Great Conspirator looked upon this grand web of treachery, and was pleased with the work his mortal pawns had done in his name.
Had the Disciples made use of that momentum, the opposition to their takeover would soon have collapsed, especially with Chaos Marines leading the charge. But as had happened many times before, the obsession of the Dark Angels was their undoing. Asmodai knew that Czevak was to meet Cypher in the depths of the Hive Palatine, and to the Lord of Redemption, the Disciples' efforts to bring Necromunda under the control of Tzeentch were secondary to the capture of the Lord of the Fallen. In Asmodai's mind, Cypher wasn't simply a man, or even the most elusive and powerful of the Fallen – the Interrogator-Chaplain had constructed an image of Cypher as Tzeentch's greatest trial, a way to purge the weak and the unworthy from the First Legion in order for the Dark Angels to be forged into the perfect instruments the Architect of Fate required.
Asmodai had been told that Czevak, who had been hunted by the Dark Angels for decades, had come to Necromunda to meet with the arch-renegade. And so, the Lord of Redemption too the bulk of the Disciples' fighting strength in Hive Palatine and went to find the rogue Inquisitor and his warband, thinking to use them as bait for his true prey. They had to fight every step of the way, for even as the horde passed through battlefields where rival gangs were settling scores in blood, the gangers more often than not put their grudges aside and made common cause against the cultists.
Yet once Asmodai took to the field, even the bravest and most chemically-couragous ganger recoiled from his dark glory. The Dark Angel looked upon the criminals, and spoke words in the tongue of daemons that burned their way into their minds. Fighters hardened by a life in the underhive stood before the Lord of Redemption; corpses and madmen stretched in the wake of Asmodai and his brothers. Like a daemon out of Hell he marched, and those who saw him lost hope. The hearts of the Disciples were filled with righteous madness, and they charged ahead of their Great Ones, eager to offer their lives in the name of a cause they did not understand.
Czevak and his companions were not caught by surprise. The screams and sounds of destruction reached them long before the frenzied cultists. At first it was distant and vague, almost impossible to distinguish from the groaning and shifting of thousands of years of decaying infrastructure and gang warfare. Then, like an approaching storm, it swelled up, and they began to hear individual screams and gunshots. War had come to the underhive, and they were ready for it.
More than an hour passed between the beginning of this crescendo and the moment Czevak drew his sidearm and shot a man with four eyes and five arms in the head, but after that, things accelerated dramatically. Mutants and cultists burst from the underhive in their hundreds. Gangers fought against these intruders, driven by territorial instinct, bloodlust, and, in more than one case, a surprising amount of faith and belief in the Golden Throne and devotion to the people under their protection. Many gangs had been infiltrated by the Disciples of the Living Flame and their allied cults, but those who were not fought with a vigor that wouldn't have made any Imperial Guard Regiment proud. The underhive was filled with war, and at the center of it all was Czevak's group, drawing the heretics to them like scavies to an abandoned Lupercal tank.
As the cultists drew near, Czevak ordered his warband into a sprint. They were close now, according to Yragan, who had been given the knowledge needed for the last leg of the journey. He had not known then what that knowledge was : the White Seers of the Black Library had implanted it into his mind, for had he known it was a map of a mon-keigh city, the prideful scion of Isha might have refused his duty. Now, in the final hour, that knowledge blossomed, and he guided the party through the collapsed buildings and the heaps of refuse spilling from above.
On and on they ran, but they were not fast enough, for they were driven by duty and oaths, while their pursuers were driven by madness and the fires of blind faith to their Dark God. And so they stopped running, and turned back to face the onslaught rather than be run down. Czevak's companions told the Inquisitor to go ahead – that they would hold back the tide so that he may complete his task. But Czevak knew that there was no escaping his enemies this time, that there was no path through the horde bearing down on them. He too would make his stand there.
Yet he still had a play to make – one last throw of the dice. As the Lost and the Damned gathered around his warband, the Inquisitor reached into his coat, and produced that which had been entrusted to him in the Black Library, that which had kept him hidden from the sight of the First Legion until now. He brandished the Atlas Infernal, the sacred and accursed map of the Webway, crafted from the still-living, willingly offered skin of a Pariah, in the days before the Heresy and the collapse of the Emperor's dream of taming the Webway to His will.
'Cypher !' he called out, roaring as loud as he could. 'Here is your key ! Come and take it !'
And then the battle began.
Czevak fought side by side with Akrane and Sister Blade, the three of them surrounded by a growing mound of corpses. The Inquisitor fought with his pistol in one hand and a short sword in the other, moving with the speed of a young man compounded by the experience of centuries. Akrane's skills, taught to her in the Assassin Temples, were more than a match for the cultists' primitive weapons and fury, and the righteous wrath of Sister Blade lent her strength. And whenever their guard slipped, Yragan shot from the shadows, taking down those who would take advantage of the opening.
Sebastian screamed as he fought. It hurt like hell to use his powers here, in a place so steeped in violence and abject misery. Since he had joined Czevak's little band, he had learned to keep his mind closed, but now he needed to throw the gates open in order to wield the full extant of his power. Lightning burst from his hands and his eyes, incinerating swathes of cultists, but he could feel other things flow in him too, and it hurt to expel them, to stop them from taking root. It would hurt a lot more if he let them, though, so he gritted his teeth and tried to bear it.
The psyker was a storm of eldritch energies, and the Disciples of the Living Flame could not touch him – but their masters, now that was a different story. A Dark Angel clad in black came forth, and blocked Sebastian's lightning with his mace, grounding its power within the unholy weapon. Other Chaos Marines followed him, and Czevak's heart sank as he saw them. His retinue were all powerful warriors, but they were still mortals, and no match for the sons of the Lion.
The skull-faced warlord went for Sebastian first – strong, proud Sebastian, who still stubbornly clung to his noble past even after everything that had happened to him, everything he had done. In the end, it only took a single blow of that infernal mace to throw him down, and he laid on the ground, bleeding, as the Interrogator-Chaplain towered above him. Czevak tried to move toward him, knowing what was to come, having seen it happen several times before, but the mass of cultists was pressing down on him and the others, invigorated by their master's prowess.
'Your soul belongs to Tzeentch, little witch,' said the Chaos Marine, pulling a sacrificial dagger out of his belt and looming over Sebastian. 'And now, in his name, I will send you to him.'
Even at a distance, even with the Atlas Infernal shielding him, Czevak could feel the evil radiating from that dagger. He had seen its like before, and he knew that if it killed Sebastian, the psyker's soul would be lost to the Dark God of the First Legion. He screamed then, in rage and frustration that there was nothing he could do, nothing but watch – again.
Arch-magos Darius Theocron was experiencing transcendence once more. He was connected to the ancient, ruined, half-mad machines of the hive, exchanging data with them through connections both physical and invisible. He could see, hear, feel, everything around them, and he was using that knowledge to devastating effect. His inner cogitators were over-clocking to provide him the processing power he needed to calculate the best course of action. With the tiniest nudges, he was causing collapses and cave-ins, burying hundreds of heretics not just here, but everywhere across Hive Palatine.
But it wouldn't be enough. Darius knew exactly how many cultists were surrounding them, he knew that the entire hive was at war, he knew -
- he knew that help was on its way.
A single bolt flew through the air and hit the dagger in the Dark Angel's hand, sending it flying. Then a volley of shots followed, each piercing the head or hearts of one of the Chaos Marines – except for their leader, who was surrounded by some sort of sorcerous shield that rippled as bolt shells uselessly hammered into it.
Czevak watched, incredulous, as six figures emerged from the shadows. Five were clad in unpainted ceramite, their armor devoid of markings except for an old emblem on the shoulder paldron. And the sixth wore a pale hooded robe over his armor. He wielded two pistols, and a greatsword hung on his back. He knew who this was, who this must be, but it was impossible that he had companions. The White Seers had told him only one of the Fallen was left -
'CYPHER !' roared the black-clad Chaos Marine, charging toward the Lord of the Fallen. 'I am your judgment, sent by the Lion and Tzeentch ! I am the Lord of Redemption ! Asmo -'
Cypher aimed one of his guns and pulled off the trigger, incinerating the Dark Angel's skull-faced head in an incandescent ball of plasma. His headless body remained standing for a few seconds, as if the ghost of the Interrogator-Chaplain was still clinging to it, unable to comprehend his death. Then it fell, smashing onto the ground, and the ever-burning fires of the daemonic mace died down as it slipped from the corpse's grasp.
'I don't care who you are,' said the Lord of the Fallen.
With Asmodai's death, the cultists' will to fight was broken. They scattered into the underhive, and those who survived the next few days would spend the rest of their lives (however short that might be) haunted by the memories of what they had done, what they had thought and become, when the Great Ones who were supposed to redeem them had come to Necromunda.
As for Cypher, he and his brethren (and Czevak could still not believe there were other Fallen left besides their Lord) led the Inquisitor and his surviving allies deeper into the underhive. They carried Sebastian's body with them, unwilling to leave him for the scavengers. The psyker had died well, in the end, and Czevak hoped that his soul had earned redemption for his past sins in the Emperor's eyes.
The Fallen brought them to a gateway, an arch of alien design made of cracked wraithbone.
'A Webway Gate,' explained Cypher. 'I came here after my research uncovered the possibility that one existed. Once, the people of this world – that is, the human settlers – used it and others like it to keep in contact with the neighbouring worlds. They did not know where it came from, or how to use what lies beyond for more than the shortest of trips. But it did enable them to build the Araneus Continuity, a coalition that survived the Age of Strife when so many other stellar kingdoms collapsed. And now, with it, I will finally be able to finish my journey to Terra.'
'Couldn't you have … I don't know, taken a ship ?' asked Akrane incredulously. 'This is Necromunda. Up until yesterday, there were ships going to Terra leaving orbit about every hour.'
'No,' replied Cypher curtly. 'We are too close to Terra. If I am on a ship that enters the Warp this close to the Throneworld, there is no Geller Field in existence that could hold the wrath of the Dark Gods at bay. I considered using sub-luminic speeds … But even that is too vulnerable to outside forces, not to mention unbearably slow. The Webway was my only option.'
The Lord of the Fallen turned toward Czevak. The Inquisitor was standing back, watching the gate with an unreadable expression. Now that he had handed the Atlas Infernal over to the Fallen, Czevak looked both older and younger than before.
'You have done what the keepers of the Black Library asked of you, Bronislaw Czevak,' said Cypher. 'With the Atlas in my possession, I will be able to complete my long journey and reach Terra, where I was commanded to go ten thousand years ago. What will you do now ? The choice is yours alone. If you so wish, you may accompany us through the Webway. It will be perilous, even with the Atlas to guide us, but you may walk upon Terra again.'
The Inquisitor shook his head.
'I have run from Chaos ever since I left the Black Library,' he said. 'I had no choice but to leave entire worlds to burn behind me, for I knew the importance of my mission. The White Seers made sure of that, before they entrusted the Atlas to me. There are things in the Library, Cypher, things that have no place in the universe, that they keep locked away because they threaten the entire galaxy. Some of them show what the future will look like if Chaos win, and they forced me to watch. After that … after that, I had no choice but to do as they commanded me. The alternative was unthinkable. And so I went on, betraying my vows to the Throne so that I may serve this greater cause. But every time, it tore a piece of my soul away. I have watched too many die without intervening – left too many corpses and broken souls in my wake. You do not need me to complete your task, lord Cypher. So I will stay here. I will fight on this world, to keep it from the depredations of the Dark Angels. The people of Necromunda will need all the help they can get in the coming months, and I know more of the First Legion's methods than most.'
Cypher nodded.
'I understand. Fight well, Czevak, and the rest of you as well. May you find victory here.'
'Thanks you, Cypher. I pray that soon, you too will be able to stop running.'
The Lord of the Fallen turned from Czevak, from Necromunda, and walked through the alien gate. What he thought of the Inquisitor's last words to him was known to no one. For a moment, Czevak stared at the gate, before shaking himself.
'Destroy it,' he commanded. It was done easily – the gate was old and damaged, as if only destiny had kept it standing this long. Now the cultists could not follow Cypher through.
Now it was time to face the slaves of Tzeentch. For the first time in many, many years, Bronislaw Czevak smiled, and the members of his warband who saw his face shuddered at the sight. Never before had their master looked scarier.
Czevak's part in Cypher's tale was over. Or perhaps it was Cypher's part in Czevak's tale that was concluded. But though the Lord of the Fallen had left the world on his quest to reach Terra, Necromunda was still burning, and the Inquisitor's story had yet to finish.
'Alright,' declared Czevak. 'Time to hunt some heretics, I think.'
Do you remember, puppet ? Do you remember the face of Lord Cypher ?
Caliban, Segmentum Obscurus, 005.M31
This is how the Lord Cypher died.
The halls of Aldurukh, ancient stronghold of Caliban's knights, echoed with the sound of battle as the planet's heroes fought one another in a bitter fratricidal struggle. News had reached Caliban of the great betrayal of Isstvan, where Roboute Guilliman had broken his oath to the Emperor and dragged the Imperium into civil war. For several months, the Dark Angels stationed on Caliban under the leadership of Sar Luther had waited for more information, making preparations in case the planet entrusted into their keeping came under attack in the coming conflict.
Then word had come of the Massacre, and the truth of their own Primarch's treachery had come into the light. Despite the attempts of Luther's inner circle to contain that information, it spread suspiciously fast, throwing the entire planet into anarchy as the Imperial officers, tech-priests and Administratum agents realized they were now trapped on the homeworld of a Traitor Legion. Imperial Army Regiments took up arms and claimed entire cities as their dominions, enforcing strict martial laws upon the population, fearing an uprising from those loyal to Lion El'Jonson while keeping a fearful eye upon Aldurukh, waiting for Luther's next move. They knew, these men and women of the Imperial Army, that all their training and engines of war would not help them against the transhuman army dwelling within the fortress. But even they did not anticipate what came next.
Several voices rose among the Dark Angels, calling for them to leave their fortress and punish the Imperial Army for daring to interfere with their people. The Dark Angels were also split on the issue of whether to follow Lion El'Jonson in his rebellion or stay loyal to the Golden Throne. While most Space Marines sent to Caliban had arrived under a shroud of dishonor and humiliation, there were others who had been sent by Lion precisely in anticipation of this moment, to ensure that the planet remained under his control. Though few yet realized it, the Primarch had planned his betrayal for decades, having been the first of the Emperor's sons to turn from His plan and pledge himself to Chaos. Lion El'Jonson knew the secrets of Caliban, whispered to him by the twin voices of the daemon Kairos Fateweaver. He knew of the great power that dwelled within the planet's heart, and he had sent his agents to ensure that power was put to good use during the rebellion.
Chief among these chosen was the Lord Cypher, a Dark Angel with mysterious origins who had been elevated to his lofty position by the Lion's own decree and sent back to Caliban at the same time as Luther and the first of the exiles. For decades, Cypher had woven a web of manipulations through the halls of Aldurukh, ensuring that many of its warriors were loyal to him and him alone. His position as keeper of the Legion's lore had allowed him access to the Neophytes raised from Caliban's population, and he had shaped the minds of the most suggestible of them into instruments suitable for his purposes. Not all of them had proven susceptible to his lies – Luther's own moral guidance remained strong, and even Cypher hadn't been able to interfere with the codes of honor and loyalty of the ancient knight orders still being taught.
With the backing of several hundreds corrupted warriors, Cypher attempted to persuade Luther to throw in with Lion, calling upon the Sar's love for his adopted son. He also claimed that Caliban, in the Imperium's hands, would be brought to ruins, its resources ruthlessly exploited until nothing remained of its identity. He played upon Luther's fears of being left behind by the Imperium, the Order he had built made insignificant as the world it had defended became unrecognisable. And he also stirred the dark forces of Caliban itself, gathering mortal cults in hidden sanctuaries where they performed blasphemous rituals, seeking to awaken the slumbering horror at the planet's heart.
As the work of these cabals progressed, the presence of the entity grew stronger, and it weighed on the souls of all who had dedicated their lives to Caliban – and none were more dedicated than Luther. Even within the walls of Aldurukh, warded generations ago against such influence, Luther's dreams were tormented by visions of Caliban's possible fates – images of destruction and ruin, but also of glorious rebirth. He knew he was faced with a choice, but he did not know which decision would bring which outcome, nor did he know the true cost of either decision. All was proceeding according to Cypher's plan to make Luther vulnerable and ready to side with Lion El'Jonson, choosing to trust in the judgement of his adopted son over his own morality.
Had Luther been alone, such a ploy may well have worked, and the galaxy would have suffered greatly for it. But Luther was not alone. His three other main advisors – Merir Astelan, one of the first Space Marines to have ever been created, Israfael, Chief Librarian of the First Legion, and Zahariel El'Zurias, his greatest apprentice and a Caliban native – all advised him against taking Cypher's offer. Astelan did so out of loyalty to the Emperor, Israfael because he could sense the strange energies with which Cypher and the Lion had aligned themselves, and Zahariel because Caliban's mysterious guardians, the enigmatic Watchers in the Dark, had warned him of a terrible catastrophe that would befall the planet if Cypher was left unchecked. Sensing Luther's decision, Cypher unleashed his troops in an attempt to capture or slay Luther and claim Aldurukh by force.
Luther's council rallied the disarrayed Dark Angels, left shocked by this sudden betrayal. His plans for a quick coup foiled, Cypher resorted to even viler methods, calling upon the sorcerous powers he had been given by his Primarch. Soon, the Dark Angels found themselves fighting against daemons and Possessed Marines, their erstwhile brethren twisted almost – but not quite – beyond recognition as Cypher turned them into vessels for the Neverborn. Aldurukh had been warded against daemonic incursions, but such defenses can always be overridden by treachery from within – as the Rune Priests of the Sixth Legion demonstrated on Prospero, sometimes the free will of a mortal soul can accomplish what the Dark Gods themselves cannot.
But despite the suddenness and horror of the attack, the Dark Angels were still Space Marines, and they adapted quickly, learning to rely on blades, fire and psychic power rather than ineffective bolters when facing the Warp-spawn. With Israfael and Zahariel directing the efforts of other Librarians, and Astelan reaching out to other commanders who did not know who to trust or what to do, Luther managed to organize the loyalists and launch a counter-attack.
Eventually they managed to corner Cypher, who had taken refuge within a secret chamber of Aldurukh, where an entire library of forbidden lore had been hidden by generations of knights. While Astelan stayed behind to direct the rest of the conflict throughout the fortress, Luther and the two Librarians confronted the betrayer.
Cypher had changed a lot since the trio had last seen him. The dark powers he wielded had left their mark upon him, twisting his flesh into something straight out of the world's ancient legends. His armor was fused to his flesh, and scales and feathers sprouted from ceramite. He was huge, twice the height of a mortal man yet his back was bent and crooked. His face was hidden within the darkness of his hood, pierced only by the light of three glowing red eyes. His weight rested on a staff of twisted wood he held in his right hand, while his left arm hung at his side, armor and flesh withered. Zahariel recognized the wood from which the staff was made – it had come from the deepest forests of Caliban, where knights had feared to thread and only rarely returned. Now it was blackened by the azure flames dancing along its length yet failing to consume it.
'Lord Cypher,' said Luther, staring at the creature in abject horror. 'What happened to you ?'
Cypher laughed, a broken sound filled with insane glee. His three eyes blazed briefly, illuminating the face hidden within his hood, showing features that had once been noble, but had been warped into a nightmarish hybrid of reptile and bird. The Dark Angels recoiled, not in fear – for that emotion had long been removed from the Astartes among them, and Luther was too experienced a warrior to let it affect him – but in sheer shock and revulsion at the abomination before them.
'The Great Serpent calls, brothers,' he said, in a voice that had only the barest sliver of humanity left. 'It screams from the deep, into Caliban's dreams. It longs to be free !'
'You betrayed us,' said Israfael, his face a mask of resolve and cold rage. 'Why ? Why did you break your oaths to the Master of Mankind ? For … this ? For this abomination ?!'
The three eyes of Cypher turned upon the Terran warlord, and when he spoke again, his voice was full of bitterness and hate :
'Always so proud. Always so certain of your own righteousness. You know nothing of the true nature of the thing you serve, brothers. If you did – if you had seen past His burning mask, like the Lion did … Then you would understand. You would know that what we do, no matter how vile, no matter how cruel, is necessary !'
'Lies !' roared Luther. 'For the Emperor and Caliban, brothers ! Kill this abomination !'
The four champions of the Dark Angels attacked together. The two Librarians stood back, and unleashed their great power upon the monstrosity, calling forth arcs of lightning and battering Cypher's grotesque limbs aside with telekinetic blows, while Luther charged, holding his sword high. The blade bit deep into tainted flesh, and multicoloured blood spilled onto the sacred stones of Aldurukh. Cypher screamed in pain and struck pack, but his body's mutations betrayed him, ruining his training and martial instincts. The powers he had enslaved himself to had only reshaped him half-way to whatever fell form they intended for him – in this state, he was vulnerable, only able to defend himself by manipulating the other sons of Lion El'Jonson.
Yet even though his body was twisted, Cypher's mind remained strong, its true potential unlocked by the selfsame dark covenant. As Luther kept striking, Israfael and Zahariel screamed in pain, their souls seared by the unholy strength of Cypher's psyche. The tainted soul of the abomination flared like a dark sun, and the three Dark Angels were forced back, blood dripping from their eyes and ears as their brains suffered under the psychic onslaught. Zahariel fell to his knees, holding onto his staff of office for support, desperately trying to keep the walls of his psyche up.
Then, all at once, the burden lightened. Luther seized the moment, rushing to his feet, and plunged his sword deep inside Cypher's chest. The betrayer twisted in agony, and the blade broke inside his flesh even as he struck at Luther with his staff. Impossibly, the gnarled wood broke through Luther's armor, sparks of Warp-fire blackening the metal. Luther was thrown to the floor even as Cypher fell, and the noise of his broken bones was almost as loud as that of the mutant's collapse.
Nor was Luther's injury the sole cost of this victory. Israfael laid unmoving, held in the arms of his pupil. The Chief Librarian was dead, having expended the last of his strength to protect his companions long enough for them to strike down the horror Cypher had become. In death, his face was twisted in a mask of absolute pain, its muscles locked by the terrible effort of his final moments. With tears running on his cheeks, Zahariel closed his mentor's eyes.
'What happened to you ?' Luther asked again, looking down at the broken form of Cypher. There was no more horror in his voice, nor pain, despite the wound on his chest – only sadness and pity.
'I heard … the whispers …' whispered Cypher as the last of his life left his twisted body. There was a sense of mad desperation in the words, as well as of deep, intense relief. 'You will hear them … too … just like your son did … Just like they all did, our brothers in the Crusade …'
With Cypher dead, the other corrupted Dark Angels were quickly put to the sword. No quarter was given, no prisoner made, for it was clear that there was no return from what the traitors had done to themselves. Within a few hours of Cypher's demise, Aldurukh was once again firmly in the hands of Luther and his cohorts. But when the outcome of the battle had become evident, a few of the traitors had managed to escape the stronghold, fleeing to the forests and cities held by their thralls.
The war for Caliban was only beginning.
The Webway, 999.M41
The six Fallen – five of them less than a thousand years old put together, the sixth nearly as old as the Imperium itself – walked through the corridors of the Webway. Even at its peak, the Labyrinthine Dimension had been almost impossible to navigate for mere mortals : it had been built and designed by inhuman minds, for their own use and that of their servants. Now, after more than sixty million years of catastrophes and decay, with only the utterly insufficient efforts of a handful of Eldar scholars to maintain it, going anywhere through it was as much a matter of luck as skill.
This particular section of the Webway had suffered less than most and more than some. The walls of the paths through which the party walked were made of mists and pale bone, their surface contorting in a disturbingly organic manner. It felt as if they were crawling inside the remains of some antediluvian leviathan. They could all see things move in the corner of their eyes, things that vanished the moment they turned to look upon them directly. They could hear voices echo in the distance, on the edge of being recognizable but never quite close enough for their enhanced hearing to make out clearly.
Ahrimal held the Atlas Infernal open, his eyes following the shifting patterns as he guided the party through the Webway. It wasn't an easy task, as the grimoire's still-living binding and pages, fashioned from Pariah skin, radiated an aura of soullessness that ate at his very being, but Ahrimal was the most clever of the young Legionaries, and he bore the strain as his mind computed the myriad branches of the Webway and traced a path for the group. Cypher would have born that burden himself, but the sword on his back and the darkness in his heart would have reacted poorly to the Atlas' Pariah properties.
On each side of Ahrimal, Urazel and Parsival held their greatswords, ready to strike down any threat to their brother, while Lycaon and Hasmid kept their eyes on the scopes of their sniper rifles as they advanced, searching for any hint of movement. Cypher, who walked ahead of them, following the directions of Ahrimal, had done his best to explain the dangers of the Webway to them. But even the Lord of the Fallen was far from an expert on the subject – if he had been, he wouldn't have needed Czevak to bring him the Atlas Infernal in the first place.
They had listened so intently as he taught them, like they always did.
Cypher remembered …
It had happened in the seventh century of this forty-first millennium. At long last, Merir Astelan, one of the oldest and greatest Dark Angels, who had joined the First Legion on Terra and been second-in-command to Luther on Caliban, had returned. No one, not even Cypher, knew what rules dictated the time and place of the Fallen's return to the galaxy – only that all of them eventually did return, and that the coordinates of their return, while rarely safe, were never immediately fatal.
Astelan had been surprised to learn that nearly ten thousand years had passed since the fall of Caliban, and even more shocked to see what had become of the Imperium. Despite the best efforts of the loyal Legions, the Emperor's domain had become mired in superstition and tyranny, the promises of the Great Crusade abandoned in the name of survival. Worst of all in Astelan's eyes, the legacy of the First Legion, to which he had given his life, was completely ruined in the eyes of the Imperium. Those few among the masses of Mankind who knew a fraction of the truth about the Roboutian Heresy assumed that the whole First Legion had joined the rebellion – the defiance and last stand of the Fallen appeared to have been completely forgotten.
With the help of two other Fallen, Methelas and Anovel, Astelan had quickly adapted to this new galaxy, though. Most other Fallen, upon their return, had quietly despaired, before taking up arms and resolving to do the best they could to help fight the many evils that threatened Mankind. But Astelan had always had more vision – some would say more ambition – than most Space Marines. Rather than become a knight-errant or attach himself to one of the Imperial factions deserving of his service, Astelan had envisioned a new force, a new power – a new Legion.
He had called it Port Imperial : a stronghold, hidden from the eyes of Chaos, where they could rebuild the First Legion again, pure and free of the Dark Gods' influence. And it had been a beautiful dream, one that had drawn many of the Fallen. In Port Imperial, they had harvested their own progenoid glands, and used recovered Mechanicus technology to cultivate them. After a few years, they had been able to implant the grown organs into carefully selected recruits, and a new generation of the First Legion had risen. Nearly a hundred of them, harvested from the most loyal Imperial worlds and subjected to harsh training, under the leadership of Astelan and the other Fallen. It had taken more than a decade to lay down the foundations of this endeavour, with the Fallen participating in it calling upon old debts owed to them by Governors and Cardinals.
In a way, it had been strange for Cypher to learn of Astelan of all people becoming an idealist. Back on Caliban, he had always been the pragmatic one, ready to make the hard calls. But he had not lived through what Cypher had. For him, the great rebellion, the war on Caliban, had only just happened. The ideals of the Great Crusade weren't fond memories of a better time – they were what he was fighting for.
For a time, Cypher had watched Astelan's efforts from afar. He had his own mission to fulfill, and he could not risk turning away from it. But in the end, when he heard of the danger that was heading toward Port Imperial, he couldn't help himself. He had known it was a trap, known that his enemies were hoping he would react – but he had no choice. He could not abandon his brothers.
Cypher had arrived too late. When his ship had exited the Warp, Port Imperial was already burning, its defenses breached by the host of Sammael, the Lord of the Hunt. Astelan had led his forces into battle against the Grand Master. From what Cypher had been able to gather while desperately fighting to get to the Fallen, it had been Sammael who had killed Astelan – the old Legionaire had been too tough for the Chaos Lord to take him alive.
In the end, Port Imperial had been destroyed, and Cypher had been forced to flee to avoid being captured by Sammael. Taking with him the handful of new recruits he had managed to save, the Lord of the Fallen had retreated to his ship and departed the system at speed. They had barely been able to escape, for just as Cypher had feared, the Dark Angels had hoped for his coming. His ship had entered the Warp with nearly fifty Chaos Marines boarders within it, and the first few days of transit had been a constant battle, one that had seen half the recruits he had saved killed – and the survivors transformed from fresh-faced recruits into veterans of the Long War, their hands red with the blood of their traitorous elder brothers.
Cypher had saved a few, but he knew there had been many more young Legionaries left in Port Imperial. He tried very hard not to think about what had happened to them when the Dark Angels had gotten to them, but he did not always succeed. The Lord of the Fallen was all too familiar with the torments the Interrogator-Chaplains unleashed upon those of his brethren who fell into their clutches, and he doubted they had been any kinder to the new recruits of their ancient foe.
Since the fall of Port Imperial, three more young Fallen had perished, slain by the many enemies who had sought to block Cypher's path. Now these five were all that remained, and in the two centuries since they had joined the Lord of the Fallen each of them had performed deeds that, had they been known to the Imperium, would have made them heroes and legends. They had fought daemons, xenos, and Traitor Marines, as well as countless cults and renegades. Cypher had worked hard to keep their existence as much of a secret as possible – he had wandered the galaxy for so long, having more warriors on his side was often a very useful surprise. Even the Alpha Legion, who had contacted him millennia ago and taken his testimony of Caliban's final days as part of their efforts to compile a list of all the potential Fallen, did not know about them.
With Ahrimal guiding them, the group walked on. They passed many wonders : abandoned temples built by the Eldars' distant ancestors, back when the Old Ones were still figuring out how to uplift entire species; towers of white stone broken and cast down by dimensional quakes; and gardens of unliving trees, where the black water that covered the ground reflected a glorious party that had ended untold aeons ago. For a long time, they did not encounter any danger, the Atlas Infernal guiding them through the Webway without fail. Though he did not say so out loud, Ahrimal suspected that the grimoire was actually more than alive – it was sentient, and it longed to return to Terra, where it had been fashioned in the Imperium's early days.
The Fallen met the dead in what a human mind would have recognized as some sort of amphitheatre – a vast open space surrounded by sculpted tiers that went up, up, and up, until they passed through a grey mist that even the Space Marines' helmets could not pierce, more than two hundred meters above their heads. They had arrived through one of the entrances to the floor, and Ahrimal told them they had to leave through another entrance on the other side. As they advanced, figures began to appear on the tiers, indistinct shadows that stood utterly motionless. Hasmid noticed them first, and the group kept a wary eye on them as they continued to walk – until they began to appear on the amphitheatre's floor, manifesting out of thin air wherever the Fallen weren't directly looking. Noticing this patter, the Fallen formed a circle, keeping watch all around them.
But by then it was too late : they were surrounded. One of the shadows detached itself from the ranks of its kin, moving with brusque, jerky motions, until it stood in front of Cypher. Up close, it looked humanoid, but with subtly wrong proportions. It began to speak, in a voice made of dying breaths that came from the entire assembled host in a nightmarish choir, and the Fallen shuddered, even as they kept watch on the hundreds of shadowed silhouettes all around them.
'This land belongs to the dead,' said the shades. 'You have no place here.'
'Who are you ?' asked Cypher, his hands on his holstered pistol, his gaze fixed on the dark herald.
'We are the lost, the denizens of the shadow realms. We are those who died and escaped the claws of the Ruinous Powers, our spirits fleeing from their grasp and into this realm. We are the dead, and this is our domain you thread into, living ones. What are you, trespasser ?'
'Meat,' whispered one of the voices, before the word was taken up by more and more of them. The shadows drew closer and more agitated, and the Fallen's grip on their weapons tightened. 'Meat full of life for us to draw, to devour, before you join us in our silent kingdom. Meat. Me-'
'I am the one called Cypher,' said the Lord of the Fallen, and the ghostly crowd suddenly fell silent, freezing in its tracks. He smiled, and it was a cold thing indeed. 'I see you have heard of me.'
'Of course,' answered the dead, their chorus-voice suddenly sounding a lot more reluctant. 'Even here, where the gods fear to thread, we have heard your name.'
Kin-slayer,' they called out.
'Renegade.'
'Champion.'
'Traitor.'
'Hero.'
'Harbinger.'
'Undying.'
'Sword-bearer ...'
Cypher raised a hand, and the crowd of ghosts fell silent once more.
'If you know me,' the Lord of the Fallen said, his voice and demeanour as calm as if he were not surrounded by the restless spirits of the dead that had escaped the Realms of Chaos, 'and you know what I am capable of, then that begs the question : what are you still doing here ?'
There was another moment of silence, and then, to the astonishment of Cypher's companions, the shadows began to retreat, vanishing one by one into the darkness from which they came. Soon, only one shade remained. It approached Cypher, but this time there was no threat in its gestures. Hesitantly, it extended an arm, pointing at the sword that hung on Cypher's back.
'I remember when that sword was first drawn,' it said, in a singular voice now that the rest of its kin were gone. 'Tell me, wanderer : will it ever be drawn again ? Will the light shine once more ?'
'If the Emperor wills it,' answered Cypher. The shadow figure was silent for a while, before saying :
'Then pay heed to my words, wanderer, that this glorious day may come.' As it spoke, its form became clearer, as if it remembered what it had been like when it had lived. The shape of an armor of ancient design briefly manifested, pulled out from some impossibly distant past. 'Your hunters have followed you, even here. They have passed through the ruined gates that lie within the Great Eye, and they pursue you through the silent corridors, guided by your sire's infernal hand.'
'How many ?'
The ghost laughed, the sound of it unsettlingly musical.
'All of them, sword-bearer. All of them, or close enough as to make no difference if they catch you. The Lord of Whispers has gathered his host, wielding the authority of his dread monarch. The gates of the Pit have been thrown open, and the Prince of Shadows hurls his warriors into these lands, heedless of the cost to his Legion. He wants you, and will stop at nothing to get you.'
Then the ghost was gone, and silence descended upon the amphitheatre once more.
'We have to move,' said Cypher, turning to face his younger brothers. 'And we better be quick.'
War follows you wherever you go. You cast the shadow of death behind you, puppet …
Caliban, Segmentum Obscurus, 006.M31
In the aftermath of the battle of Aldurukh, the loyalist Dark Angels found themselves at war. A few of the Warped traitors had escaped, and Caliban's people were tearing themselves apart. Unlike the civil war seen on other Imperial worlds, this did not happen because some declared for Guilliman while others remained loyal to the Emperor. No, the rebellion of Caliban happened for older, more personal reasons, yet those still found their roots in the evil the Arch-Traitor now served.
The rebels had resurrected the ancient faiths of Caliban : terrible cults of madness and savagery, from before the establishment of the knightly orders, when the only way to avoid being devoured by the beasts was to appease them with sacrifices. Yet the beasts were dead, and these cults instead worshipped something they called the Great Serpent, the Ur-Worm, the Beast Beneath, the Infinite One, and a thousand other names besides (when they used names at all, for many were beyond the use of words). They maimed and killed and laughed and shrieked, and they preyed upon those who did not share their insanity. These cults did not appear to have a hierarchy, nor to proselytize new members into the fold. In afflicted settlements, people simply went mad, awakening from their slumber with their minds broken and twisted, picking up whatever weapons they could before joining into the slaughter. Even those who did not succumb were tormented by the hideous nightmares that rose from Caliban's depths, and the psychically gifted were afflicted worst of all.
From the gates of Aldurukh marched the Dark Angels, to hunt the monsters of Caliban once more. With Luther recovering from his wounds, joint command of the Legion fell to Chapter Master Astelan and the newly promoted Chief Librarian Zahariel. Companies of Space Marines advanced, their resolve hardened by the horrors they had fought within their own stronghold. Veterans of the Great Crusade, exiled to Caliban for real or imagined slight against the Primarch and his circle, along with newly-raised Aspirants who had undergone the training and trials demanded of a Legionaire since the Lion had emptied Aldurukh and gone to the Ghoul Stars, all fought side-by-side. Having seen the true face of the rebellion's evil with their own eyes, they would not stop until their world was freed from its taint. For whether they had been born of Caliban or Terra, this world was theirs now – they had spilled the blood of their Legion for it, and they would die to defend it.
It is not known when the loyalist Space Marines began to call themselves the Fallen. The idea of continuing to call themselves Dark Angels grew more and more intolerable as news of the greater war across the galaxy reached Caliban through the few astropaths who had survived the uprising. Yet following Astelan's idea and returning to simply calling themselves "the First Legion" seemed wrong too. Eventually, the name of Fallen came into existence, though there were several interpretations of its meaning. Some thought it was in reference to the whole Imperium's fall from grace, now that the ideals of the Great Crusade had been shattered by the Arch-Traitor.
Others thought it a challenge to their treacherous brethren, a bold statement that they would rather die in the mud, as was their duties as Legiones Astartes, than join them as the ascended rulers of their new daemon-worshipping kingdom. A few believed it was a curse cast upon them by their enemies, a prediction of future torment to punish them for refusing to follow their Primarch, and one that they embraced willingly as a symbol of defiance. Whatever the reason, the knights of Caliban soon renamed themselves the Fallen, obscuring the iconography of the Dark Angels on their armor as they went into battle.
The cultists and their Possessed Dark Angels masters could not match the prowess of the Space Marines, but those who survived the first days of the war were cunning, and they used ever more devious and debased methods. They gathered scraps of sorcerous lore from half-forgotten rituals and the hellish whispers tormenting their demented souls, and set to work bringing Hell to Caliban.
On the bridge that crossed the Theriosan Ravine, they chained five thousand people in the path of the Space Marines' tanks, and the time it took Captain Baalakai's men to free them allowed the renegade Imperial Army units to escape. When Baalakai returned to Aldurukh expecting to face penance for his actions, he was called into Luther's own chambers, and emerged with tears in his eyes and a burning determination to continue protecting Caliban's people in his heart. The Captain then led the hunt for the missing Imperial Army forces, eventually destroying them. Weeks later, the very people he had saved help hold the gates of three refugee camps against a horde of warped monsters emerging from the woods, saving the lives of tens of thousands more.
When Captain Zeriah led his 14th Assault Company toward the ruins of the Knights of Lupus' stronghold (an old enemy defeated by the Order before the coming of the Emperor), his warriors were met by hundreds of bestial madmen, possessed by lesser spirits drawn from the Empyrean by the Secondborn's call. Twisted into humanoid monsters, these creatures hurled themselves at the armored forms of the Space Marines, who spilled their unclean blood upon the ancient stones of the destroyed fortress. This sacrifice of blood and souls was used by the traitors to summon a daemon from one of Caliban's ancient legends – though whether the Neverborn had spawned the legend or been spawned by it will never be known. Ultimately, Zeriah defeated the daemon, though half his Company perished in the battle.
All over Caliban, this pattern repeated itself. The traitors sunk deeper and deeper, trying to drown the planet in horror, to break the loyalists' will and morale. In truth, the Secondborn themselves did not know why they acted as they did – their orders had been to seize Caliban's military assets for the Lion's use, not wantonly destroy them. But the Possessed Marines no longer followed their Primarch's commands – they listened only to the ancient voice whispering into their darkling souls, coming from the tainted heart of Caliban itself.
Yet despite all of this, the Fallen were still winning the war, cleansing Caliban of the infestation with fire and blade, one city at a time. Then the northern arcology went dark. The last message sent from the Imperial Army forces stationed there were confused, garbled, and mixed with screams both human and most definitely not. At the same time, the Librarians of the Fallen reported a great disturbance in the Warp, centred onto the arcology. Something terrible had happened there, Zahariel told Astelan, something far greater in scope than what Cypher had done in Aldurukh.
Heeding these warnings, Astelan called back the scattered Imperial forces and prepared to face whatever horrors would pour out of the arcology. But weeks passed, and no attack came. Yet the Librarians could still sense the disturbance : worse, they could feel it intensifying. A great power was awakening, growing stronger and stronger – a terrible presence that, when it manifested fully, none would be able to defeat. Yet according to the Librarians, a direct attack on the area could very well be exactly what their enemy hoped for : as had been witnessed by Captain Zeriah, the spilling of blood could be used to assist in the foe's blasphemous rituals.
At the same time, Luther slipped into an uneasy coma from which the Apothecaries could not wake him. Servants, soldiers – and even Space Marines – began to whisper that the lord was being afflicted by the same curse that had befallen Caliban : that, as the land suffered, so did he.
Eventually, Astelan (about whom dark rumors were beginning to spread, telling that maybe he was responsible for Luther's deteriorating condition so that he could hold onto command of the Legion) came up with a plan. Chief Librarian Zahariel was given command of a small team of elite warriors, including some of his most powerful Librarians, and went to the arcology by gunship, to discover what had happened and, if possible, deal with the threat.
Apart from the increasing psychic pressure as they approached the arcology, the strike team didn't encounter any resistance. Shielded from the worst of the dark presence by Zahariel and the other Librarians, the team began to explore the city, finding it eerily abandoned, with no sign of its population, nor of any violence. It was as if the entire population of the arcology – last counted by the Administratum to be around seven millions – had vanished into thin air.
Under the Chief Librarian's command, the team descended into the underground sections of the arcology, seeking to identify the source of the psychic pressure. By that point, the psykers were straining to maintain the shield, but they had trained all of their lives, and were confident that they could continue. The tunnels, first dug to mine ores and set the foundations of the arcology, had been expanded, using crude tools and methods far inferior to the professionalism employed by the Imperium's excavation and mining teams. It was there that the squad found the first traces of the arcology's inhabitants : broken bones, laying amidst tunnels that seemed to have been dug out with bare hands. These bones bore teeth markings, and had been broken apart, their marrow sucked out.
Though primitive, the tunnels were large enough for a Space Marine to wander through, which rose many questions as to their purpose. Fully aware that this was probably a trap, but with no other choice but to go on, Zahariel sent a single warrior back to the surface to inform Aldurukh of what they had discovered so far – vox-communication didn't work in the tunnels, even though the Legionaries' equipment should have perfectly been able to pierce through the rock and reach the gunship's own transmitters. The psychic presence, which was almost unbearable now, was also interfering with the machine-spirits of the squad's equipment.
No sooner had that lone warrior made it to the surface that a major quake shook the entire arcology, tumbling spires to the ground and burying every access to the underground tunnels. The messenger barely reached the gunship it time for it to take off before being destroyed as well.
Meanwhile, dozens of meters underground, Zahariel and his warriors fought against an onslaught of monstrous worms. Hundreds, thousands of these abominations burst from the earth, each bigger than a mortal man, with mouths filled with row upon row of razor-sharp teeth that could bite through ceramite. One by one, Zahariel's brothers fell, until only the Chief Librarian remained.
At that moment, the psykers of Aldurukh felt a great weight lift off their shoulders, as the dark presence beneath the surface of Caliban turned the whole of its monstrous attention upon Zahariel, trapped within its domain. In the years to come, Zahariel would not know whether he screamed as he felt the hideous power of Caliban's nightmare pressing upon him. For a few seconds, he held it at bay – then his shields broke, one after the other, and his soul was laid bare before the presence. The worms swarmed over him, and dragged him deeper into the earth, closer and closer to the great abomination that had spawned them – straight into its baleful heart, which its unwitting slaves had dug to in the throes of their madness before being devoured by that which they had unleashed.
Before passing out of consciousness and into true torment, the Chief Librarian heard a name :
Ouroboros.
The Webway, 999.M41
Though the Webway is a broken and crumbling remnant of its former glory, there remain hundreds of Gates leading to it open, even within the Eye of Terror, where the birth of the Dark God Slaanesh shattered the heart of the Eldar's galaxy-spanning empire. For millennia, the Dark Angels had searched for these gates, cataloguing them and mapping where they led. Scholars of the dark and forbidden had learned how to warp and twist these gates to their own purposes, and now, that lore was being put to use. On the homeworld of the First Legion, known to the Imperium only as the World of Mists and Shadows, but called Cysgorog by the sons of Lion El'Jonson, one such gate had been bound to the will of the Dark Angels. Through that gate walked a host such as the galaxy had rarely seen, under the leadership of Grand Master Belial, the Lord of Whispers.
Belial, the Lord of Whispers
Like all Grand Masters of the Dark Angels, Belial's past is shrouded in mystery even to his own brothers. It is believed by most that he is a veteran of the Roboutian Heresy, and whispered by some that he stood at the side of the Lion during the ill-fated battle of Caliban. All of this is lies : the Dark Angel who would come to be known as Belial was a mere battle-brother during the Heresy, one warriors of thousands who blindly followed their lord into damnation.
The true beginning of Belial's legend occurred after the Legion's exile to the Eye of Terror, when the Traitor Legions, unable to express their hatred upon the Imperium they had helped to build, turned on each other instead. As the Blood Angels and the Imperial Fists tore the Eye of Terror apart in their war, Belial's warband got caught in the path of a Blood Angels armada. The warband was all but annihilated, the blood of the sons of the Lion spilled to sustain the hideous thirst of Sanguinius' warriors, to fuel their strength for the War of Woe. In revenge, one of the survivors led the tattered remains of his warband deep within the Ninth Legion's territory, and burned the sixty-six Choirs of the Silver Moon with the fire of a thousand Flamers of Tzeentch. He personally cut the throats of each choir leader, leaving them alive and mute amidst the burned ruination of their wondrous palaces, before escaping the Blood Angels' retribution. For this act, the daemons of the Dark Prince called him Belial, the Great Beast, and the warlord embraced that title, renaming himself Belial and casting aside his previous identity. Whether the children of Slaanesh knew of the Ork Warboss that would bring ruin to the galaxy and also bore that title is unknown – certainly it would not be strange for the scions of the Dark Prince to insult their enemy in such a way.
After that, Belial became a champion of the Legion Wars, leading raids deep within enemy territory and helping secure the Dark Angels' place in the Eye of Terror. Many champions of Slaanesh have sought to prove their worth by killing him, only to be slain instead, their souls dedicated to Tzeentch and increasing Belial's standing. He has rarely left the Eye since the Heresy, yet his shadow looms over many worlds as daemons whisper his name into the ears of the weak-willed and the deluded. The name of Belial is worshipped in secret temples by cabals that dedicate themselves to engineering the downfall of the cults of the other Dark Gods rather than increase their own influence. They see themselves as warriors of the Great Game, rather than disposable pawns.
As one of the Grand Masters of the First Legion, Belial wields the Sword of Silence, a potent runeblade first forged on Caliban itself. Since then, the Sword has been imbued with infernal power in the daemonic forges of Cysgorog, the First Legion's daemon homeworld in the Eye of Terror. The sword's power protects Belial from any psychic attack by generating an invisible field in his immediate vicinity that nullify all such assaults.
Something had happened. Every warrior in the host knew it, but Belial was confident he alone knew what. The truth was that, after Asmodai had failed in his task, the ninety-nine Seers of Cysgorog had gone blind. They could no longer see the future past the moment the arch-renegade Cypher completed his millennia-long journey and reached Terra. Their sight, which had guided the First Legion through the entire Long War, was blocked beyond that point.
No two of them could agree on the significance of that sudden blindness, but they were all in accord on one thing : Cypher had to be stopped, now, before he reached Terra. And the Lion obviously agreed with them – though since the muster on Cysgorog had begun long before Asmodai's failure, Belial believed his Primarch had known about the danger beforehand. Another sign of his divine clairvoyance.
Of course, in the infinitely branching paths of Tzeentch's Great Design, Asmodai's success had still been possible : in that case, there would have been many other purposes to which such a glorious host could have been deployed. But Belial was fairly confident that, when his master had called him, he had already known Asmodai would fail.
Belial remembered …
Belial had been summoned. He had been reading reports from his subordinates and spies – for all the mystic associated with the rank of Grand Master, the position still involved a lot of paperwork – when the voice of his master had boomed into his skull, demanding that he attends him at once.
The Lord of Whispers had immediately obeyed, of course. A transport had brought him to the feet of Lion El'Jonson's great tower, and he had climbed its circular stairway. The Primarch must have been impatient to see him, for it had only taken him a few hours to reach the top – he knew there had been cases where Grand Masters who had displeased the Lion had spent years trapped in the tower before being allowed to meet the Primarch and atone for whatever sin they had committed.
At the top of the tower, on a wind-scoured platform, Belial had stood before the throne of the Lion, who had loomed over him, tall and terrible, the infernal fires of Tzeentch burning in his eyes. So powerful was the weight of that gaze that Belial hadn't been able to look upon his Primarch for long, and he had turned his gaze aside, toward the ritual circle that had been inscribed onto the surface of the platform. Then the Lion had begun to speak …
'On the first day, there was nothing. And from that nothing came a spark, and from that spark came the inferno that ignited the universe. From the burning heart of all things were born the laws and patterns that rule all, and so Tzeentch was born, first of all beings, as it must be.'
'On the second day, Tzeentch looked upon the infinite fire of the universe, and thought it good. Yet he knew that unchecked fire would burn itself out eventually. And so he gathered the flames of the Beginning, and from them he fashioned stars and galaxies, with the void between them.'
'On the third day, matter was forged in the stars, and Tzeentch commanded that it gather to form molecules, cosmic dust, rocks, and then worlds of fire and smoke, turning around the stars because of the Architect's decree, which is called gravity. And so it was done, and it was good.'
'On the fourth day, Tzeentch breathed on his chosen worlds, cooling their raging fires, and water rained upon the smouldering stones. It rose again as smoke, and fell again, and Tzeentch saw in this dance the mark of things to come, and he found it good, for each drop furthered his plan.'
'On the fifth day, life was born in the lightless depths. And Tzeentch smiled, for life is order born of Chaos that creates more Chaos, and this is most pleasing to him. The Great Mutator touched this new life, and for an Age that was a day it grew and multiplied, ever changing, ever evolving.'
'On the sixth day, the first sentient beings arose, and Tzeentch whispered a secret in their minds. They looked up at a thousand thousand skies, and they knew wonder. Thus was born the Empyrean, as the souls of mortals came to be, and Tzeentch claimed it as his domain.'
'And it was good.'
'On the seventh day, the first of the dead came to the Realm of Chaos, a soul untethered to flesh but born of it and marked by it. And when it saw the power of Tzeentch, it sought to take it, and its meddling set the majesty of the Spheres awry, and thus were born disease, decay, and Nurgle.'
'On the eighth day, Tzeentch and Nurgle fought, and from their wounds came first the greater daemons of their courts. Then, as their conflict shook the universe to its roots, Khorne arose from the Great Sea, and gifted murder to the mortal races. And so began the Great Game.'
'On the ninth day, the Aeldari fell. As the greatest obstacle to Tzeentch's designs was destroyed, he knew what he must do. He broke his staff, and planted the pieces within the soul of Mankind, that it may grow mighty and conquer all, to usher in the union of the two realms.'
'For through this union, this fusing of the Materium and the Immaterium, of spirit and matter, the fires of the universe shall become self-sustaining, and burn bright for all eternity. Such is the will of Tzeentch, and so it shall be.'
'Come, Oracle, who sees as Tzeentch saw on the ninth day, when he chose Mankind as the instrument of his final victory ! Come, agent of Chaos, who led me on my appointed path, though I was too blind to see it at the time. An age has passed since last we met. I have been humbled, stripped of my hubris, and have accepted my place within the Great Plan. The hand of Fate, which is that of Tzeentch, has tempered my soul. In his name, I call you ! KAIROS !'
And there he was. There had been no fanfare, no fiery pyrotechnic display, no smoke, no great tear in the universe through which he who was said to be Tzeentch's mightiest servant manifested. He was simply … there, as if he had always been, and all that the Lion's ritual had accomplished was enable them to see him. And perhaps that was indeed the case.
Belial knew of Kairos Fateweaver, of course. Every Dark Angel did, for all that ten thousand years had passed since the last time the Oracle of Tzeentch had openly played a part in the Legion's destiny. He knew it had been Kairos' voice that had guided the Lion from infancy, allowing him to survive in the forests of Caliban. He knew it had been Kairos who had called the Lion and the First Legion to the Ghoul Stars, after Horus had been named Warmaster over the Lion. He had seen the vision shown to the Dark Angels, the terrible future they had rebelled to prevent. He knew Kairos had been bound within the sword of the Lion, which had been broken in the battle of Caliban.
And, like every Dark Angel who had been alive at the time, Belial had heard the two-voiced laughter of the Lord of Change in his dreams when the First Legion had fled to the Eye of Terror after the defeat of the rebel Legions at Terra. The laughter of the engineer of the Dark Angels' damnation and ascension, their greatest failure and their greatest revelation.
He loathed the daemon. He despised it. He had wanted to fall on his knees and pray to it. But he had done nothing, for Kairos had been summoned by the Lion. He merely stood, and bore witness.
'You have called, Lion El'Jonson,' had said one head in a calm and gentle voice, 'and by your power I have come. Let all grudges be laid to rest, in this most auspicious of hours.'
'You have called, son of the Anathema,' had hissed the other head in a tone full of hatred, 'son of Luther, son of Tzeentch, and by the names of your fathers three I am compelled to answer, in spite of the hatred I feel for you and your spawn.'
'Our seers are blind to Tzeentch's design,' the Lion had said, taking the insults of the Greater Daemon in stride. 'They cannot see past the arrival of Cypher, my accursed son, onto the Anathema's world. What does this mean, Oracle ? What does Tzeentch will us to do ?'
'Cypher must be stopped,' one head had said. 'But it cannot be done,' had said the other.
It was all Kairos had said, before disappearing as suddenly as he had appeared. For a long moment, the Primarch had remained silent, and Belial had wondered if he was failing some test – if he was supposed to say something. But before he could come to any decision, the Lion had turned his burning gaze upon him, and spoken his will :
'You shall take command of the host mustering on this world, my son. You shall hunt Cypher in the Labyrinthine Dimension for me. We shall not fail in our purpose again.'
And Belial had bowed his head, and sworn that it would be so.
Belial did not know why he had been chosen for that duty rather than his peer, Grand Master Sammael. The Lord of the Hunt hadn't been seen on Cysgorog for some time, and there were whispers that the Primarch had sent him after prey even more elusive than the arch-renegade. Each of the Grand Masters had a task to accomplish in the coming days, for these were the Times of Ending, long awaited by the Legions. Even as the seers were blinded, they could still see that much.
Azrael had been sent to Terathalion, to join the Black Crusade of the mighty Sarthorael and break the might of the Thousand Sons, to punish them for their ancient defiance of the Architect of Fate. He had failed, as Tzeentch must have willed it, and now Magnus the Red walked the galaxy once more, while his dead sons fought against the broken remnants of Sarthorael's crusade. In the Ruinstorm, the once-great Ultramarines were torn apart by civil war as the greatest among them, Marius Gage, led a Black Crusade on Maccrage itself. And at the gates of the Eye, the Black Legion gathered, raising high the banner of freedom and drawing more and more warbands to its side while it waited for some unknown signal from its distant master.
These signs and many others all meant the same thing : that the Long War was entering its final phase. Now, at long last, was the time to break apart the rotting Imperium, to burn its fat and use the fire to forge something new, something pure. All according to Tzeentch's great design.
The Lord of Whispers knew of other armies being gathered under the banner of the Dark Angels. Yet while he did not know about all of these armies, his divinations had revealed to him that they numbered less than nine, leaving him to wonder about the nature of the missions that would be assigned to the remaining Grand Masters.
But as he waited for the last of his host to enter the Webway and set off in pursuit of Cypher, Belial watched the forces arrayed under his command, and knew that there were none would could defeat them. The First Legion was going to war, and none in the galaxy truly knew what that meant.
But they would. Soon, very soon, they would.
The Host of Belial
The Archdukes of Cysgorog
Dark Angels who ascend to the status of Daemon Prince are granted the title of Archduke by Lion El'Jonson. For all their power and immortality, these daemons are still bound to the will of their Primarch, who remains higher in Tzeentch's favor. Each of them is a terrible creature, a reflection of the legends of infernal angels imagined in the monotheistic faiths of Old Earth. From their dominions on the First Legion's homeworld, they plot and scheme, spreading their influence through the galaxy by whispering into the ears of cultists and ambitious generals. The Archdukes can communicate with any mortal whose name they know, and they have used this ability to bring about a number of rebellions within the Imperium. Yet their warrior origins remain : each Archduke is a force to reckon with on the battlefield, flying above the melee and dropping down to strike where his presence will have the greatest effect. They are both master bladesmen and sorcerers, and each commands the loyalty of thousands of souls, living and daemonic. Where they walk, the veil between reality and the Warp is in tatters, and a host of Neverborn follows in their wake.
In the convoluted hierarchy of the First Legion, the Archdukes occupy a unique place : while their power is immense, they are still technically subordinate to the Grand Masters, all of which remain mortal Astartes. None of them may ever have more than an arbitrary number of Dark Angels under their direct command, decided by the Lion and subject to change (the greatest such number ever reached was ninety-nine). The Archdukes are expected to do their part to bring all souls under Tzeentch's aegis, rather than manipulate those who already embrace their rightful place in the Great Scheme. The Dark Angels they are permitted to command serve them as heralds and bodyguards for the leaders of cults created by the Archduke, as well as bearers of the knowledge required to perform the summoning of the Archduke once his cults have reached a critical mass. It is considered a great honor among the sons of the Lion to be chosen to serve one of the Archduke – although as with all things where the First Legion is concerned, that honor is a double-edged one.
An entire library on Titan is dedicated to recording the known manifestations of the Archdukes, in the hope of detecting a pattern to their activities that may help the Grey Knights prevent more such incursions. Entire cabals of Inquisitors throughout the Imperium's history have been formed for the sole purpose of uncovering cults founded by the Archdukes' whispers. There are even stories of Archdukes who were summoned, but took a mortal host, and spent years moving unseen among the population, spreading the seeds of a thousand more heresies before finally revealing themselves.
It isn't uncommon for an Archduke to seek to overthrow the Lion and replace him at the head of the First Legion. Only one ever dared to actually make an attempt : Corswain, once a champion of the Dark Angels during the Great Crusade and the Heresy. After centuries of carefully gathering sorcerous knowledge, Corswain believed that he had discovered Lion El'Jonson's True Name, and attempted to secretly bind the Daemon Primarch to his will. However, what he had discovered was not the Name of the Lion but that of one of the Empyrean's oldest creatures, a nightmare spawned aeons ago. The beast devoured Corswain's entire domain before disappearing, and the land remains scoured of all life to this day – a silent testament to the dangers of overreaching ambition. If Lion El'Jonson knows what has become of Corswain's soul, he hasn't said – indeed, the Daemon Primarch has never even mentioned his fallen lieutenant since that day.
When Belial was tasked by the Lion to gather his Host, he was given the True Names of five of the Archdukes, and commanded to go to their towers and drag them from their plots to join his army. None of the Daemon Princes were pleased to have a mere mortal be given such power over them; in fact, so great was their displeasure that each of them attacked Belial, before being compelled by the power of their name and the Sword of Silence to kneel before the Grand Master.
The Manticore Knights
Few remember the great beasts of Caliban. As Lion El'Jonson unified the knight orders of his homeworld and led his crusade across the world, the ancient monsters that had haunted the woods for thousands of years were exterminated. But unknown to his foster father Luther, Lion El'Jonson preserved a few of the beasts' corpses rather than burn them or dismantle them for weapon materials, as the knights had done for centuries. He hid them in deep, cold caves, and it is possible that at the time, even the Primarch did not know why he did so.
Years later, using that preserved genetic material, the first manticores were bred in the Ghoul Stars, intended to be used as living weapons in the rebellion against the Emperor. Manticores are massive creatures, large enough to be mounted by a Space Marine in full armor. Their bodies are an unholy chimera, combining the body of a lion with a scorpion tail and bat-like wings that, while not allowing true flight, are enough for the beasts to plunge onto unsuspecting prey from on high. The gene-wrights of the First Legion bred many of these monsters, but during the Thramas Crusade, the Night Lords attacked the breeding pens and slaughtered hundreds of the creatures. Only a single breeding pair survived the raid, and that only by accident – though of course the Dark Angels would later claim it was no accident at all, but the hand of Tzeentch at work.
The animals were put into stasis as the First Legion moved to attack Terra, and were later released on the World of Mist and Shadows. The dark energies of Cysgorog revitalized them – for they had been torpid ever since the destruction of Caliban and the disappearance of the fell power that had spawned their ancestors. They started to breed, preying upon the wild beasts and mutant tribes, and are now one of the primary dangers of the daemon world. Manticores are, by nature, solitary creatures, meeting with one another only to fight or mate, and their progeny is chased from the nest mere weeks after the mother has given birth. Few cubs survive to adulthood, but those who do are as vicious and cunning as is required to survive on Cysgorog, a world populated by shadowy nightmares from the dark kingdoms of every human legend.
Manticore Knights are Dark Angels who manage to tame one of the creatures and ride them as mounts into battle, striding forth ahead of the main host with long spears in their hands, a dark parody of the old knight orders of Caliban. To do so, each would-be knight must venture into the territory of a manticore, alone and without weapons – though they keep their armor, as survival on Cysgorog's plains without it is all but impossible. He must then hunt the beast, pitting his own cunning against that its own, and successfully manage to bring it at his mercy. Then, the two will exchange a blood oath, and be bound until the death of one of them. Once that oath is exchanged, manticores are surprisingly loyal companions, ready to fight and die for their master. There are accounts of mounts fighting long after their master's demise, laying down their lives to protect his body. As the Dark Angels need to recover the gene-seed of their dead brothers, such manticores are often shot from a distance before the Apothecaries do their work.
Today, the manticores are a bitter reminder of the lesson the Heresy taught to the Dark Angels : fate cannot be changed, and all their efforts to do so were merely playing into the hand of Tzeentch. The sons of the Lion sought to harness the power of Caliban's monsters in order to help them prevent the vision of the future that drove their Primarch to rebellion, yet in the end, it changed nothing.
From among the warbands that answered Belial's call came dozens of Manticore Knights. Only the will of the Great Beast kept the Manticores from turning on each other. But even so, as they flew into the Webway, the creatures were made uneasy by the alien nature of that environment.
The Abominable Failures
Since the end of the Heresy and the exile of the renegades into the Eye of Terror, the Traitor Legions have been forced to resort to new methods of replenishing their ranks. In the case of the Dark Angels, the power of Tzeentch saturates their gene-seed, and the Aspirants implanted with the progenoid glands of dead Dark Angels must hold onto their physical form while mutagenic power courses through their veins. Those who survive and manage to maintain a humanoid form become new Dark Angels (though none are truly free of mutation). Those who fail are imprisoned, locked away in lightless gaols for all eternity – or so it was for ten thousand years.
As the Times of Ending approach and the last war for the galaxy grows on the horizon of fate, Lion El'Jonson has ordered the Abomination Vaults be opened and the failed sons within unleashed once more. Thousands of malformed creatures emerged, driven mad by the power of Chaos and ages of isolation. They were masses of bloated flesh and sharpened bones the size of a tank, whose howls upon their skin being touched by the pale light of Cysgorog's sun shook the very foundations of Lion El'Jonson's tower. By order of the Daemon Primarch, the Dark Angels bent to the task of harnessing the strength of these monsters (who aren't Chaos Spawns, for they still possess their minds, however broken they might be). The process was long and painful, but eventually the Dark Angels figured out how to establish contact and control over the creatures.
Each pack (somewhere between six or twelve depending on the handler's skill) of Abominable Failures must be led by a Dark Angel, who controls the creatures with a staff that is connected to spikes of black metal piercing into the monsters' flesh. Within the staff is bound the essence of a minor daemon that communicates the commands of the Dark Angel to the spikes. It requires a constant effort of will on the Dark Angel's part to prevent the bound Neverborn from twisting his commands, and while the Abominable Failures obey without question, their lack of intelligence means that they will obey an order to rip off their handler's head just as easily as any other.
These handlers are selected from the Legion seemingly at random, and include Captains as well as warriors who have only recently undergone Ascension, avoiding becoming Failures themselves and now tasked with leading creatures that were once their comrades. If there is a pattern in the Grand Masters' selection, none of the First Legion's scholars have discovered it yet – or, if they have, they aren't talking. Being chosen as a handler is seen as a mixed blessing within the Legion : on the one hand, those selected are marked by the Grand Masters themselves, and made part of the Dark Angels' newest evolution in the Long War, masters of a new weapon to wield against the unbelievers and the slaves of the Corpse-Emperor. On the other hand, the Abominable Failures make for poor conversationalists, and there is little plotting to be done within their ranks.
Still, the will of the Grand Masters cannot be defied, and the handlers are determined to make the best use of their charges, proving their devotion to Tzeentch by turning those marked as failures into useful tools. Certainly their numbers will grow in the coming days, for ten millennia of recruitment, even at a much slower rate than during the Great Crusade, mean that the Vaults contain thousands of failed Aspirants. As the Host of Belial gathered, not all of them had been processed yet, but several hundreds were added to the Host, to test their utility in actual battle. Never before have the Abominable Failures fought anywhere other than the plains of Cysgorog, where the Dark Angels assembled armies of slaves for them to butcher. So far, the results have been most satisfying.
The Altars of Expiation
To be captured alive by the Dark Angels is a fate worse than death. That much is known by any Imperial soldier that has seen the Broken forms of his erstwhile comrades on the battlefield, their spirit and defiance tortured out of them by the Interrogator-Chaplains. But not all souls break under the ministrations of Lion El'Jonson's progeny. Some, whether by chance, sloppiness on their tormentor's part, or stubborn resistance, manage to die before they Break. But even that is no escape. The flesh may die, but the spirit endures, and the Sorcerers of the Dark Angels have woven spells into the Legion's torture chambers that capture such wraiths right after their demise.
These ghosts are bound within the Altars, monuments of pale stone and barbed chains that hover three meters above the ground, held aloft by the torment of the captive spirits while a Dark Angel Sorcerer stands atop it, unleashing his powers upon his foes. Slowly, over the course of many years, they are drained of their will, their memories, their very identity, until nothing remain but a soul shrieking in constant agony, its defiance of Tzeentch utterly erased, begging the Sorcerer holding its chains to grant it the mercy of oblivion. Once a spirit has been reduced to this sorry state, the Sorcerer can consume it to fuel a powerful evocation. Storms of mutating lightning, floods of blue fire that melt the flesh like wax, infernal whispers that drive all who hear them insane : all of these and more are possible when a Sorcerer of the First Legion wields the power of an Altar.
But more than the destructive power they grant to the Sorcerers, the true danger of the Altars of Expiation lie in their devastating psychological effect. Regiments of Imperial Guards who had held their ground against Chaos Spawns and daemon hordes have broken when confronted with the sight of an Altar of Expiation, their courage crushed by the sight of such torment Faith in the God-Emperor's protection plays a big part in the morale of the Imperial Guard, who face the horrors of total war every day of their service to the Throne, with only the prayers on their lips and the looming presence of the Commissars behind them to drive them forward. Being confronted with irrefutable proof that the Master of Mankind does not protect the souls of all His servants is something few soldiers can withstand, and why the Inquisition has, all too often, been left with no choice but to execute entire Regiments to keep the existence of the Altars a secret.
The secrets of creating the Altars were discovered after the Dark Angels' exile in the Eye of Terror, when the Traitor Legions lost the last of their grace to the Ruinous Powers. As the First Legion was forced by the might of Imperial retribution to retreat into the Eye, the holds of its ships contained many captives taken from the battlefields of the Heresy and the subsequent Scouring. When the Legion Wars ignited, the Dark Angels sought any advantage they could to keep control of their territories, and the Altars were the result of refusing to waste even one prisoner. It is said that the Sorcerer who codified the rites of creations for the Altars of Expiation was rewarded with daemonhood, rising to become one of the first Archdukes of Cysgorog. That legend is true, though like all other tales spread by and among the First Legion, it does not tell the full truth. The Sorcerer was indeed granted immortality, his mortal body shed as he ascended to daemonhood – and then his infernal spirit was caught and bound within the altar of Lion El'Jonson himself, atop his dark tower, from where the Daemon Primarch watches over his servants, arranges the damnation of worlds and performs unholy rites that bent the fabric of the cosmos to the will of his Dark God.
Less than one in ten thousand captives of the Dark Angels manages to resist being Broken. Yet there is never any shortage of souls to bind within the Altars, for the First Legion's evil is vast indeed. Still, the Altars themselves are relatively rare, and only a dozen were added to Belial's Host.
The Izuralith Walkers
While all mutants are repugnant to a faithful Imperial citizen, the Izuraliths are especially horrible to behold. These monsters look like enormous spiders, the smallest two meters wide, the larger and oldest nearly ten, with two additional features to compound what would already be a quite nightmarish aspect. The first is subtle, and easily overlooked : the Izuralith have nine legs instead of the eight typically seen on spiders. The additional limb is identical to the others, and can be on either side of the creature. The second feature, however, is far more disturbing. Like parodies of the centaurs of old legends, the Izuraliths have a human torso protruding from their body, complete with functioning arms and a head. Sometimes these bodies are beautiful, sometimes grotesque.
Whether the Izuraliths are descended from spider-like creatures or a stable strand of abhuman mutants is unknown. They were first encountered during the Great Crusade, and after they wiped out the first Expeditionary Fleet that made contact with them, the Dark Angels were assigned to their extermination. This was soon after the Lion had taken control of the Legion, but after he had sent Luther back to Caliban. According to the archives of the Great Crusade, after a few initial setbacks, the war proceeded well, and the Izuraliths were exterminated to the last. But in truth, Lion El'Jonson had preserved some of them, holding them into stasis, telling the magos responsible for maintaining them that this was to dissect them for later study.
Years later, in the Ghoul Stars, the Dark Angels unfroze the Izuraliths and experimented on them. Eventually they managed to tame them and train them to use weapons with their human parts, long spears and ranged weapons to complement the venom-dripping fangs and claws of their spider bodies. In pits lit only by chemical torches, the Izuraliths bred in the thousands, then millions – an army of monsters to unleash upon the worlds of the Imperium, to drown them in a tide of chitinous nightmares. But before that could happen, the Thramas Crusade reached their breeding pits.
The Night Lords were horrified by what the Dark Angels had wrought, and they were determined to destroy the Izuraliths. For several months they fought the spiders in the underground tunnels of a nameless world, until Fel Zharost, Chief Librarian of the Eighth Legion, confronted their queens in the deepest chambers and collapsed the entire network on itself in a great feat of telekine power that he barely survived. The Chief Librarian never truly recovered, and scholars of the Eighth Legion's past believe that this weakness played a part into his eventual horrific demise at Vulkan's hands later during the Heresy. As for the Izuraliths, only a few of the monsters survived, recovered by the Dark Angels and brought to Cysgorog after the defeat of the Heresy at Terra.
No one knows whether the Izuraliths are truly sentient. They can communicate with each other, and can be taught to speak human languages through their human extremities. But there is no brain in their false heads, just as their torsos don't contain any of the organs one would expect in a human body. Furthermore, their thoughts are impossible for telepaths to understand – they are simply too alien to read. It is therefore entirely possible that every time a Dark Angel speaks with an Izuralith, the monster is simply responding to stimuli, following the pattern of conversation like a machine or a well-trained animal.
Thankfully for the Imperium, the Izuraliths are rarely seen outside of the Eye of Terror. They thrive in the baleful energies of that realm, and have fought alongside the Dark Angels in many of the endless battles that oppose the sons of Lion El'Jonson to the other Traitor Legions. On Cysgorog, they have built immense hives, centred around queens the size of Baneblades that spawn hundreds of progeny with each turn on the world around its dark star. The armies that pour out of these cavernous cities have fought across hundreds of daemon worlds, and are used to battling all manners of foes in all manners of impossible environments. That is why, when Belial gathered his Host, he sent envoys to the cities of the Walkers, calling upon the ancient oaths of fealty. Thousands of them were sent in response, crawling from their hives and across the plains like a tide of vermin.
Yet the question remains : are the Izuraliths humans who have degenerated into monsters, or monsters who have learned how to mimic humans ? And, more disturbingly, is there a difference ?
The Paladins of the Nine Gates
There are nine gates on Cysgorog, hidden and ever moving from one location to the next. These gates lead to the stronghold of the Paladins of the Nine Gates, an order of Dark Angels that dedicate themselves to reaching their full potential as instruments of Tzeentch through martial prowess. Where the stronghold is located on Cysgorog – or indeed, whether it is located on the world of mists and shadows at all – is unknown, and there are no window or any way to look outside once inside, and no exit save for the gates. Within that stronghold, the Paladins (who were once known as the Deathwing, the elite of the First Legion, said to have been punished for their failure during the Heresy with being forced to abandon their adaptability and wide arsenal of weaponry) train into one of the Ninefold Paths, mastering the use of weapons rarely used by the warriors of Chaos, in order to gain the advantage against enemies used to fighting more traditionally armed foes.
Any Dark Angel may attempt to join the Paladins, though only those guided by Tzeentch can find one of the gate (although that guidance can take many forms, from the whispers of a slain enemy's ghost to patterns in the mists or seemingly random luck). None can choose which gate they pass through, which is the will of Tzeentch and determines which of the nine Paths they will follow.
Once assigned to a Path, a Dark Angel will train day and night, under the tutelage of the spirits of dead members of the order, who are all dragged from whatever corner of the Warp their soul ended up to in order to perform that duty. Paladins are supposed to renounce their oaths of allegiance and dedicate themselves to the order, which assigns them to warbands based on obscure criteria and the interpretations of the Changing God's will. In practice, of course, this isn't the case. Paladins still belong to the First Legion's countless secret societies, and their assignments are decided by politics and favors (through some argue that this is the manifestation of Tzeentch's will).
The first eight schools of the Nine Gates are relatively mundane, teaching the use of weapons that were invented by Mankind at some point during the species' long and bloody history. The whip-like urumi; the oversized blade of the nagamaki; the double-bladed swords that only madmen and true geniuses used before the foundation of the Paladins; the bladed whip whose wielding requires initiation into the calculations of the Court of Change; the art of dual-wielding the curved blades of the shotels; the bladed discs once known as the feng huo lun by the people of Old Earth; the morningstar, with every spike anointed in daemonic blood and the hilt engraved with sorcerous runes; and the spiked gauntlets forged from the living metal mined in the depths of the stronghold. These are the weapons used by the Paladins of the first Eight Paths, and those who survive the training emerge from the stronghold as some of the greatest fighters of the Traitor Legions, used as champions by many Dark Angels warlords.
Rarest and most revered of all are the Paladins of the Ninth Path, who fight with no weapon save the Names of Tzeentch. Each of them spends decades (sometimes centuries) within the stronghold, learning the infinitely complex meanings of one of the Changing God's nine hundred and ninety-nine names. When they enter the battlefield, they do so wearing simple robes devoid of any markings, and the tides of conflict surge around them, leaving them untouched. They may fight for a while with the weapons given to them by Lion El'Jonson's gene-seed, using their transhuman strength while made immune to harm by the power of the Name, but eventually they will speak the Name, and it will destroy them along with everything around them. In that way, the Paladins of the Ninth Path are living bombs, though each Name has a different effect. Some unleash the pure fire of destruction, while others transform all within the effected area to crystal or stone – and one, it is said, turns the loyalty of all who hear it to the Architect of Fate, no matter how strong their will. But no matter the effect, the Paladin cannot survive speaking the Name of a Dark God. Due to their rarity and exceptional power, these unholy champions rarely depart the stronghold of the order. The first member of the Ninth Path is said to be none other than Holguin, once Captain of the Deathwing, who was sentenced to abandon all weapons for his part in the failure to bring the Eighth Legion to heel during the Thramas Crusade. Others Dark Angels, who fought in the Crusade under Captain Ajalos' command, claim that they don't remember Holguin and his forces ever taking part in the war against the sons of Curze, and wonder at what the truth may be.
No member of the Ninth Path joined Belial's host, but more than three hundred warriors from all others did, each eager to prove the superiority of their Path by being the one to capture Cypher.
The Nephilim Engines
Across the galaxy, Knight Households and Titan Legions exchange stories of the Nephilim Engines, one of the greatest blasphemies against the Machine-God. They were first designed in the Ghoul Stars, amidst the unholy laboratories of the Dark Angels, far from the rest of the Imperium. For decades, heretical scientists and magos worked together, seeking to harvest the power of the human soul into their machines. Yet for all their efforts, their work only really took off when the First Legion delivered the survivors of an entire Knight Household to them, theirs to experiment upon as they willed. The Heresy had just begun then, and the Knights had refused to join Guilliman's rebellion. What the magos did to the Knights within their laboratories is unknown, but when the Night Lords came to burn it all, the gates burst open and the Nephilim Engines emerged, terrible and already drenched in the blood of their creators. Sevatar's warriors managed to destroy the Nephilims, but they could not prevent the Dark Angels from recovering the remains.
No more Nephilim Engines were sighted during the Roboutian Heresy, but the First Legion hadn't forgotten them. On Cysgorog, the Warpsmiths of the Dark Angels worked to decipher the work of the dead dark magos, going as far as pulling their spirits out of the Warp to interrogate them before banishing them back to their well-earned torments. Eventually, they succeeded, and the Nephilim Engines walked once more, under the banner of Lion El'Jonson. It took time before the Imperium learned of this new addition to the ranks of Chaos' armies, not because the Dark Angels were unwilling to use them in the Long War, but because they left no survivors in their wake.
Each Nephilim Engine is built around the disembodied brain of a mutant psyker, cloned from gene-spliced material extracted from alpha-plus psykers and ancient Knight bloodlines. The mind of that psyker serves as a conduit for Warp energy, animating the Dark Mechanicum construct around its sustaining tank. All Nephilims have different designs, born of the twisted imagination of the Warpsmiths. Some are brutes that can withstand incredible punishment, others are more agile, dodging the blows of similar-sized opponents and moving with incredible speed.
The Sorcerers and Warpsmiths of the First Legion have found a way to capture the twisted souls of the brains when they are destroyed, and implant them in new ones, to avoid the loss of battle experience. These souls are utterly demented as a result of their nightmarish existence and succeeding traumatic "resurrections". Those psykers who have managed to pierce through the hatred and torment have told of simple, child-like minds without any idea of what they truly are.
But the Warpsmiths have concealed two facts from the rest of the Legion. The first is that, throughout the Long War and no matter how many resources were invested in their construction, there have never been more than three hundred and thirty-two Nephilim Engines active at the same time. The second is that, when the remains of a slain Nephilim were captured by the Imperium in 429M36, the analysis performed on the biological matter contained within its core was estimated to have been dead for years before the war-machine's destruction.
Scattered across the Eye and the galaxy as they are, and with their limited numbers, there were only seventeen Nephilim Engines available on Cysgorog when Belial called – and of these, only ten were able to pass through the portals leading to the Webway.
The Ravening Ones
While becoming a Dreadnought is seen as an honor within the Loyal Legions, for those who have broken their oath to the Emperor, imprisonment within one of these venerable warmachines is considered one of the most terrible and cruel punishments. That is because, while a loyal Space Marine is sustained beyond death by the knowledge of his duty, a Traitor has no such faith to hold onto his identity, leaving him easy prey to madness. Those few Chaos Dreadnoughts that aren't mindless machines of destruction are among the most dangerous servants of Ruin, for their will has proven strong enough to withstand the near-complete separation from their senses.
Yet even among the Chaos Dreadnoughts, the Ravening Ones are especially damned. These tormented machines are a symbol of the Dark Angels' twisted beliefs rendered into warped adamantium. Since the defeat of the Traitor Legions at Terra, the Dark Angels have willingly abandoned their freedom of choice, ascribing all of their actions to the will of the Chaos God Tzeentch. In order to absolve themselves of responsibility for the fact that it was their own treachery that brought about the future they sought to avert, they have embraced the belief that free will is an illusion, and there is only the path dictated by the Architect of Fate. Yet such beliefs raise the question : how can the First Legion punish those within it who fail at their appointed tasks, since such failure must, according to their own scriptures, also be the will of Tzeentch ?
It is to answer that quandary that those who fail the First Legion are given to the Interrogator-Chaplains, who will bring their victim to the very edge of death and sanity. Then and only then will the tortured soul be trapped within the Dreadnought, where dark enchantments and the arts of the Warpsmiths will keep him in that state of mental distress and physical agony constantly, until he is relieved by death on the battlefield, his spirit sent shrieking to the Warp to face judgment before the Court of Change. As a result of this ceaseless torment, all Ravening Ones alternate between periods of absolute madness and threadbare sanity, as the strength of their mind waxes and wanes according to the whims of the Changing God.
But even in the throes of madness, the Ravening Ones are terrible figures to behold, equipped with dread weaponry crafted in the forges of Cysgorog. Most Ravening Ones are outfitted for melee combat only, in order to make it harder for the Dark Angels within to turn their weapons upon their own brothers. Kept in chains between battles, they are unleashed upon the foes of the Legion in the first wave, to break the lines of enemy armor and shatter their walls. Most warbands of the First Legion will have at least one Ravening One somewhere aboard their ships. Empty sarcophagi are kept on Cysgorog, which is the only known location where the rituals can be performed.
The first of the Ravening Ones was the Captain of the Ninth Order, Alajos, who is said to have been the one to give the order to fire to the Dark Angels on Isstvan V. Alajos earned his Primarch's ire when he failed to stop the Night Lords in the Thramas Crusade, resulting in the devastation of the First Legion's long-hidden strongholds in the Ghoul Stars while Lion El'Jonson pursued daemonhood with Leman Russ at his side. In his wrath, the newly ascended Daemon Primarch tore his Captain limb from limb, before using his powers to preserve the life of the commander's head and implanting it within a Dreadnought chassis.
When the Host of Belial gathered on Cysgorog, the dungeons where the Ravening Ones are kept between battles were opened. Yet of Alajos himself, there was no sign.
The Spurned Cohorts
Since the days of the Heresy and the fall of nine Legions to Chaos, the Dark Gods have not ceased their attempts to bring more of the Emperor's Angels of Death into their clutches. Despite the best efforts of commanders and Chaplains, individuals of the Loyalist Legions do still succumb to the whispers of Ruin. Their paths to damnation are manifold, for the Ruinous Powers are ever inventive in their methods to tempt righteous souls into infernal servitude.
The Spurned Cohorts are composed of such warriors, who embraced Tzeentch and came into the ranks of the First Legion. Nine such warbands exist, each composed solely of warriors of a specific gene-line. Each is also afflicted with a specific curse from the Lion, as atonement for their former loyalties and punishment for their ancestors' sins against Tzeentch.
Before sending the Cohorts to Belial, Lion El'Jonson promised that the Cohort to capture Cypher will be freed from their curse – but only that Cohort. Thus do the forces of Chaos continue to prove that they are their own greatest enemy, for treachery runs in the very souls of the Cohorts' warriors.
Emperor's Children : the Tormented sons of Fulgrim who join Tzeentch are cursed with suffering. Every time they strike at an enemy, they feel the pain they inflict upon that being. Under their armor, their bodies bear the psychosomatic scars of their battles, each phantom wound a mark of their atonement toward their Dark God. The Tormented close their minds to their own suffering, and in doing so become utterly uncaring for that which they inflict upon others. As they do not care for their own lives, the Tormented serve as the Lion's agents on those missions where it is obvious that survival isn't an option. As a result of that and of the fact that the Third Legion never was very numerous, very few Tormented gathered on Cysgorog when Belial's host was assembled.
Iron Warriors : the bodies of the Fleshless are remade into constructs of gleaming metal and infernal glass, their souls burning within to power the mechanisms of their physical form. Reborn as architects of Ruin, their minds work in cold and alien ways, all empathy is removed from them, replaced by incomprehensible desires and emotions. But they keep all the memories of the flesh, and that drives them mad, for they long to know these sensations again – and the impossibility of that pushes them to ever-greater cruelties, to the amusement of Tzeentch. The Fleshless are both revered and dreaded by the Dark Mechanicum, for while they appear to have achieved a perfect union of the soul and the machine, transcending base flesh, they have done so through the intervention of a Dark God rather than their own efforts. The terrible anima of their engines makes them very difficult to slay, and nigh three hundreds of them joined Belial's great hunt.
Night Lords : the sons of Konrad Curze who abandon the pursuit of justice in order to pursue their own ambitions are welcomed into the fold of Tzeentch with open arms, but that welcome is a deception. The curse of the Unaligned manifests itself slowly, and grows worse with time. The precognitive ability dormant within the gene-line of the King of the Night is triggered by the touch of the Great Mutator, making their perceptions of their surroundings slowly more and more unsynchronized. They see the past and the future instead of the present, caught in flickering visions that seem to them that they last for seconds, minutes or even hours before their awareness snaps back to the present, less than a millisecond having passed. The advantage granted by these visions is barely enough to compensate for the jarring sensation caused by the displacement, and many of the Unaligned go mad as their ability to hold onto what's real and what's a vision diminishes. Insane seers with a tenuous grasp on reality, the Unaligned are terrifying foes.
World Eaters : all that is known of the sons of Angron who came to the service of Tzeentch is that they are called the Nameless. The exact nature of the curse bestowed upon them is unclear, and none of them have ever been seen again after reaching Cysgorog and kneeling before the throne of Lion El'Jonson. It is thought by the Grand Masters that they are given a specific task, one of such importance that even as Belial's Host gathered, none of the Nameless answered his call.
Death Guard : those of the Death Guard who, their will broken by guilt over an eternity of genocide, seek to relinquish responsibility for their own actions by turning to the Architect of Fate are known as the Doomed. To Lion El'Jonson, the sons of Mortarion's efforts to prevent the deaths of humans are an affront to Tzeentch's grand plan, for it is supreme arrogance to believe one's actions can change another's fate. And so the Daemon Primarch bestows upon them a brand that gives them perfect knowledge of when they shall die. Until that appointed time is reached, nothing can kill them, but once it arrives, death is inevitable. The Doomed are prevented from every speaking of how much longer they know they have left, but the Host of Belial gathered, they came to join it with grim fatality on many faces.
Thousand Sons : smallest of all the Cohorts, the few sons of Magnus who have broken their sacred vows and given in to Tzeentch's temptations are known as the Eyeless. The Changing God's hatred and desire for the psychic might of the Fifteenth Legion is well-known, and those who do bend the knee are rewarded and punished in typically Tzeentchian fashion. As their name indicate, the Eyeless are blind, their eyes (or cybernetic replacements) ritually torn from their sockets and their helmets reforged to remove the eye-lenses. In return, they are granted monstrous knowledge, taught to them by the Lords of Change in the mist-shrouded towers of Cysgorog. The Thousand Sons know of only nine such abominations whom they haven't killed yet, and all of them were sent to assist Belial, along with their entourages of cultists and witches.
Sons of Horus : these sons of the First Primarch can never know joy or satisfaction : their brains are rewired by the touch of the Great Mutator to remove the hormones responsible for these feelings. The Uncaring are driven by bitterness and hatred, consumed by what they perceive as the universe's great injustice against them. In their mind, no matter how hard the Sixteenth Legion fights, no matter how much it accomplishes, all that effort amounts to nothing, for the Imperium is still falling apart, decade after decade. With their minds reforged by the God of Lies, the Uncaring are utterly without conscience, and are responsible for some of the greatest atrocities and genocides perpetrated by the followers of Tzeentch. They are the only Spurned Cohort that cares naught for the promise of the curse's lifting – all they want is to see Cypher, who has defied Chaos for ten thousand years, be brought down to their level.
Word Bearers : the sons of Lorgar who abandon truth for Tzeentch's lies are known as the Unspeaking, never again to shout their defiance of Chaos into the galaxy. The hands of Tzeentch's daemons have reforged their armor into baroque constructs of bronze and silver, shaping them into icons of pagan gods, each of which is a visage of the God of Magic. Each of the Unspeaking is given a daemon weapon containing the essence of a false god banished to the Empyrean by the Seventeenth Legion in ages past, and must wage a constant battle for control with the Neverborn. Communicating through vox-clicks and hand signals, the Unspeaking are dark paladins of Tzeentch, scouring the Eye of Terror for Chaos relics and dark artefacts to bring back to Cysgorog.
Alpha Legion : cursed with being Hollowed, the warriors of the Twentieth who grow to revel into intrigue and conspiracies for their own sake cannot remember anything of their lives before they made the conscious decision to break their oaths and follow Tzeentch's path. This loss of memory occurs when they pledge themselves to the Dark Angels. The Hollowed seek an end to the curse, not because they long for their lost past, but because the knowledge that was stripped from them (knowledge of the Alpha Legion's methods, of their hidden strongholds and infiltrators) would be very useful to them to rise among the ranks of the Architect of Fate's servants. Masters of deception and adaptability, a hundred Hollowed warriors answered Belial's call to arms.
Your defiance is futile. You were mine once, puppet, and you shall be again !
Caliban, Segmentum Obscurus, 007.M31
For months, Zahariel suffered in the depths of Caliban, his mind and soul slowly torn apart and rebuilt by the Ouroboros. As this proceeded, the remaining rebel forces across Caliban went north, finding refuge in the vast forests that the Imperium had yet to process. They left behind cities filled with traps and unbound daemonhosts, forcing the Fallen to use their assets to cleanse the reclaimed territories rather than move north to strike at the heart of the infection with their full strength.
By that point, the Chief Librarian was presumed death, and his second-in-command, Vassago, had taken over his duties as leader of the Fallen's psychic forces and advisor to Astelan (Luther had awakened from his coma at the moment of Zahariel's disappearance, but had yet to fully recover).
But Zahariel wasn't dead. Called by the Ouroboros, the remaining Secondborn and their cultist hordes gathered in the ruins of the arcology where he had fallen, not knowing what they were waiting for. Then the earth split open, and Zahariel emerged from the depths, reborn as the champion of the Ouroboros, vessel of its monstrous power into the material world. Driven mad by the Great Serpent and invested with its terrible might, Zahariel's laughter upon being released sent fear even into the hearts of the Possessed, who recoiled from his presence.
Behind Zahariel came the dead of the arcology, hundreds of thousands of them. Smaller worm-spawns of the Ouroboros had burrowed into the corpses, reanimating them in a grotesque parody of life. Men, women and children, all of them had been turned into bolter fodder for the Ouroboros.
In his hands, Zahariel held the sword he had carried with him into the depths, forged from the fang of the great beast he had killed as an apprentice knight – a feat equalled only by the Lion himself. His power staff had been broken, as had his psychic hood and his other weapons, but the blade remained. However, like its wielder, the sword had been changed by the Ouroboros. It was swathed in darkness, and hungered for blood and souls. Zahariel held it aloft, and at his command, the horde that had gathered in the ruins marched southward, on a direct path to Aldurukh. The observers Astelan had dispatched to keep an eye on the ruins retreated, carrying word to the fortresses that stood in the path of the army of the sudden advance of what they had thought to be a defeated foe.
They also carried word of the figure at the head of that army, wreathed in unholy power and carrying a sword that all warriors of the Fallen recognized.
The first battle fought by the united hordes of Chaos was against an outpost of the Imperial Army that had been transformed into the main fortress guarding the northern front. At the command of Zahariel, the undead horde ran toward the walls, making ramps out of their bodies and overrunning the ramparts. Within moments, the defenders of the stronghold were slaughtered – except for one.
Marbas the Unforgiven, a Fallen who had taken his title as a sign of penance for his Legion's treachery, stood against the hordes of the Ouroboros as the last survivor of his Company. For seven hours, he held the line against the worm-ridden walking corpses, fighting with his armoured fists after his bolter had run out of ammunition and his chainsword had broken. In the end, it was Zahariel himself who killed him, rending him limb from limb with his Ouroboros-amplified powers before beheading him with his daemonic sword, sending his soul to the Ouroboros. Yet Marbas' sacrifice gave time for the survivors to reach Aldurukh and warn Luther of his lieutenant's fate.
When he heard that Zahariel had succumbed to Chaos (for he now knew this was the name of the evil that had befallen Caliban), Luther nearly despaired. He knew better than anyone else on the planet just how powerful the Librarian had been, having fought alongside him against the great abominations of Saroshi. With Israfael dead and the rest of the Librarians struggling to retain their sanity as Caliban's very soul slipped ever further into madness, Luther feared the worst. For all their strength, for all their training and transhuman skills, the Fallen were still mortals. What could they do, in the face of such evil, save to stand and die without ever surrendering ?
It was then that a visitor came to Aldurukh. A single woman, who did not appear to be more than twenty years of age, carrying a wooden staff and wearing nondescript civilian clothing. She was on foot, and she presented herself at the fortress' gates with none of the Imperial Army troops tasked with securing the surrounding area having any idea how she had made it through their lines. The Fallen on guard duty were understandably wary, but the words she spoke shook them.
'I am Morgana, daughter of Luther, and I have come to speak with my father.'
Nearly a century ago, mere months before Luther would find the young feral boy he would name Lion El'Jonson, Luther's wife Fyora had died giving birth to a daughter. To the shock and despair of the grieving husband, the child had displayed supernatural powers, despite being no more than a handful of days old. By Calibanite custom, Luther should have killed her – but he could not bring himself to do it. He had taken his daughter and left his kinsmen, wandering deep into the forests, until he had found one of Caliban's hermits. The hermits were mysterious figures, men and women who were said to possess strange abilities. Luther begged the one he found to take care of his daughter for him, for he knew that she would not survive in Caliban's mundane society, and that he could not help her master her powers. The hermit accepted, and Luther left his daughter behind, returning to his life with his heart broken, his kinsmen assuming he had done what needed to be done. Perhaps it was that loss that led him to spare the feral child he encountered months later.
Luther had left two things with his daughter : a pendant that had belonged to her mother, and a name : Morgana. Now the child, who had become a young woman despite a mortal lifetime having passed since her birth, had come to Aldurukh in her father's darkest hour. When Luther was informed of her arrival, he commanded that she be let through immediately. Astelan insisted that she at least submit to a gene-test, to ensure she was who she claimed to be. She let the Apothecaries take a sample of her blood, and not only did the results confirm she was indeed Luther's daughter, they also showed that her psychic potential was immense.
Morgana met her father in his study – Luther was strong enough to stand now – with Astelan in attendance. She told her father the truth of the Ouroboros, which had been passed on from one generation to the next by the hermits of Caliban. The Great Serpent was a Warp entity of immense, god-like power, bound into the heart of the world in ages past to protect the galaxy from it. The Watchers in the Dark, a diminutive breed of xenos who figured in many Calibanite legends, had been created for the sole purpose of keeping watch over the Ouroboros' bindings. Back then, Caliban had been devoid of life, but even caged, the Ouroboros had been able to influence the material world. It had reached out and pulled asteroids carrying bacterial life down onto Caliban, and had accelerated the growth of an ecosystem into which its corruption could seep. This had created the great beasts, and when Mankind had arrived on Caliban the Watchers had encouraged the foundation of the knightly orders to help curtail the monsters' numbers.
When the Lion had brought the great beasts to extinction, the Ouroboros had bid its time. And now, with the collective soul of the entire galaxy shaking from the Heresy's countless horrors and atrocities, the Ouroboros' chains had loosened enough that it could exert its influence onto Caliban in a much more overt manner. Yet even though it could drive humans to madness and command the obedience of the Possessed Marines, it still needed a vessel of considerable psychic power to manifest itself freely – for despite its horrendous power and unique nature, it was still bound by the same rules that all daemons must abide by.
'And that vessel is Zahariel,' said Luther.
'No,' answered Morgana, shaking her head. 'He has been broken, brainwashed and made to serve, but the Ouroboros cannot truly incarnate itself. That is the most cunning part of its prison's design : the Great Serpent is already incarnate into the Materium. But it can channel its power through him. And with an empowered champion like him, it can crush all resistance to its influence on Caliban. If it accomplish this – if the only souls left on this world are those of its followers – then this entire planet will become its body, a daemon world unlike any others. When Mankind came to Caliban, the Watchers were forced to modify the cage of the Ouroboros to take into account the changes in the psychic landscape caused by the new arrivals. They made a deal with the first colonists. The details of that deal are lost, or beyond our ability to comprehend anyway. What matters to us now is that if the Ouroboros wins this war, its chains will break, and it will be freed, bursting from this world like a chick from an egg. Everyone left alive on Caliban will die, though by that point, their demise will be a mercy.'
'This … this is madness,' whispered Astelan, holding his head in his hands. The Chapter Master, who had witnessed the end of the Unification Wars, the Great Crusade, and the rebellion without ever losing his calm, was actually shaken. 'This isn't the kind of war we were made to fight, Luther ! Blood of the Emperor, this isn't a war at all, it is … it is ...'
Words failed the Chapter Master. He was stammering now, the pressure of leading the Fallen for months while under growing suspicion himself, combined with the Ouroboros' presence, was getting to him. Then Luther put a hand on his shoulder.
Unlike Luther, Astelan was a full-fledged Space Marine, and he wore his full set of armor, while Luther was clad in a simple monastic robe. Yet Luther's grip was enough to stop Astelan from trembling. The Terran warlord looked into the eyes of the Calibanite Knight, and the pressure on his soul lessened just enough for him to recompose himself.
Luther didn't say anything : he merely nodded, seeing that Astelan was himself once more, and turned back to his daughter. He was smiling – a small, determined grin, but a smile nonetheless.
'You did not come here to tell us that all is lost,' he said. 'What do you need us to do ?'
Morgana smiled as well, and suddenly Astelan could see the family resemblance between the two.
'Killing El'Zurias won't solve anything in the long run,' she began. 'In the worst case scenario, it would allow the Ouroboros to manifest an avatar of itself on the surface to replace him. Yet while the Great Serpent can make use of him to bring about Caliban's end, he may also be the key we need to defeat the abomination once and for all. But to do that … we will need help.'
Suddenly, Luther and Astelan turned, each facing an opposite side of the room. In one fluid motion, Astelan drew his sword, while Luther took a knife that had been laying on his desk – a ceremonial tool, yet one which looked perfectly deadly in his grasp.
The cause for their sudden alarm was the dozen of small hooded figures that had suddenly appeared in the room with them. The Watchers in the Dark remained utterly immobile.
Morgana sighed.
'This is the help I was talking about, father.'
The Webway, 999.M41
Having left the dead behind, Cypher and his allies encountered the rotten next. They were moving faster now, discarding caution for speed. They could sense their pursuers behind them, a dark wave spewed forth from the mouth of Hell, and knew only speed could save them now. Under his helmet, Ahrimal was bleeding, crimson tears falling from his eyes. His mind and soul were straining under the power of the Atlas Infernal. The book was helping the Fallen, showing them quicker paths that their hunters would find harder to navigate, but the process was harsh on Ahrimal.
The first sign of what laid ahead was the buzzing of flies, millions and millions of flies. Insects could not survive in this section of the Webway, where the natural processes of life were stopped or slowed to a crawl (a fact of which the Fallen were taking full advantage, marching on without food or rest). Yet the noise was unmistakable. Then came the stench, the potent reek of rotten meet and diseased bile. It was the scent of abject despair, of overcrowded cities struck by plague, when bodies are piled in the streets and people cower in their boarded-up homes, maddened by fear, prayer their only recourse. Despite the rarefied air and the rebreathers the Fallen wore (Cypher had pulled one on his mouth immediately after they had started to hear the distant buzzing), the reek of hopelessness and corruption still found its way into their lungs.
Finally, they emerged from a long, jagged tunnel whose walls seemed to reach out and try to drag them into them. There, arrayed in front of the Fallen on an immense plain covered in the ruins of what must have once been a great and wondrous city, stood a Plague Legion. Thousands of Plaguebearers in sevenfold groups, led by Heralds sat atop hideous beasts, their wings slowly twitching. Bells of corroded iron hung over chariots built from rotten wood. All of them rang once, in perfect synchronisation, as Cypher came into view of the daemonic army.
As the Fallen reeled from the unholy sound, the leaders of the infernal host came forth. There were four of them : two were immense and bloated with monstrous power and Nurgle's favor; the other two were human-sized and human-seeming, but there was no hiding their true nature. They were shaped like a man and a woman, naked and holding hands, walking as if they were a joyous couple strolling through a pleasant garden. But they each had a halo of flies over their bald heads, and their teeth were as black as the orbs in their eye sockets. A swarm of Nurglings followed them like a living carpet, the diminutive daemons fighting to be trampled by the two creatures. Cypher had met one such being before, and he had hoped that hateful fiend had been the only one of its kind. He should have known better : the hopes of the Lord of the Fallen rarely came to pass.
These were Methuselahs, exalted among all servants of Nurgle. And that two of them were here together was a terrifying testament to just how much trouble they were in.
The Methuselahs
Those infected by Nurgle's Rot are doomed, upon death, to be transformed into a Plaguebearer, another footman in the Plague God's unending legions. The longer they resist the disease, the higher in the hierarchy they will stand. But there is a truth that Nurgle has concealed from his own followers : the Rot cannot actually kill. Even as flesh and mind decay, the soul is left untouched, fettered into its body. Only when the infected accepts his death – when he cannot believe that he is still alive, when he is convinced that he should be dead – does he finally perishes.
It is therefore possible for those infected with Nurgle's Rot to survive indefinitely, the disease putting them beyond the reach of ageing or the need for sustenance, trapped in ceaseless torment and the constant knowledge that they could end it all if they just surrendered to it. Nearly all infected do not last more than a few months at the very, very best (or, more appropriately considering the nightmarish symptoms of the Rot, at the very, very worst).
But all rules have their exceptions, and the Methuselahs are those souls who, for one reason or another, managed to endure the Rot for hundreds of years. A thousand years is the average among this unique group, though the actual number needed is seven hundred and seventy-seven years (or at least, that's what a human soul would read in the Great Book of Nurgle, in his Manse at the Garden's heart). Methuselahs are far, far rarer than even Daemon Princes of Nurgle, and regarded with religious awe among the daemonic hosts of the Plague God. Unlike Daemon Princes, who are looked down upon by "true" daemons, the Methuselahs are regarded as superior to even those Neverborn spawned from Nurgle's own essence. They are the dark Saints of Nurgle, the harbingers of unholy pestilence, blessed among the blessed – the worthiest of all of Grandfather's beloved children. Even among the cultists of Nurgle, they are a little-known legend, considered a myth by most who have even heard the name. But those who encounter one are forever changed, their devotion to Nurgle forged anew by that glimpse of putrescent perfection.
Every Methuselah goes far beyond sanity and madness during his age-long torment. The agonies of the Rot break their mind a hundred times over, leaving something that can only be comprehended by the most warped intellects. They are hideously powerful, each a vessel for the Rot, able to spread it at will. Reality itself distorts in their presence, unable to bear the strain of their inhuman will. They willingly embrace Nurgle, their mortal existence a distant memory, as they have "lived" with Nurgle's Rot far longer than without. But unlike all other afflicted, the Methuselahs never actually die from the disease. They remain within their mortal bodies, creatures of flesh and blood and bile. Their biology is reforged into an incomprehensible fusion of natural life and Warp-born pathologies existing in a precarious balance imposed by the indomitable will of the Methuselah. As such, they almost cannot be killed : their soul is infused within every cell of their bodies, and as long as a single scrap of their essence remains, they will regenerate. Only being thrown into a star or a plasma reactor can truly kill a Methuselah, and they are rare enough that no one knows what happens to their soul when they are truly slain. Even the daemons of Nurgle can only guess.
'Emperor's bones,' grunted Urazel. 'I think we may be in trouble now, sir.'
'Hold your fire,' commanded Cypher to the Fallen, speaking softly. 'We don't want to start anything unless we absolutely have to. Stay where you are and let me handle this.'
The younger warriors looked at him incredulously, but they obeyed his command, though they kept their weapons at the ready. Slowly, his hands near his guns but not drawing them, Cypher approached the four leaders of the Plague Legion, stopping when their collective stench was almost too strong for him to bear, even with his mask filtering the air. He needed to be able to talk for this, and that meant he needed to breathe.
Up close, the presence of the four champions of Chaos was almost unbearable. It weighted on his soul like a physical pull, trying to drown him into the depths of Chaos.
'I am Adamant,' said the male-looking Methuselah.
'I am Everlasting,' said the female-shaped one.
Their voices were, on the surface, entirely human, but Cypher could hear the subtle rhythms hidden within every breath, seeking to burrow into the soul of the listeners and plant terrible seeds. However, such tricks were useless against him. His mind was proof against far more potent moral threats than this – though, unfortunately, not proof against the one that mattered most.
The Lord of the Fallen turned his gaze to the two larger daemons, studying each of them in turn. He recognized one of them, an obese and enormous figure with tattered wings and rolls of rotting fat protruding between plates of rusted ceramite. He had fought him a thousand years ago, amidst the pristine towers of an Adeptus Mechanicus forge-city, to prevent him from claiming one of the nigh-mythical Keys of Hel, these forbidden techno-relics that had been locked away by the Tenth Legion during the Great Crusade. Most Keys had already been unleashed by the Iron Hands, but there were still some kept secured by faithful servants of the Throne, and Cypher knew very well the potential damage the one secured on that world could have caused if it had been turned.
'Hello, Kastigan,' Cypher called out, filling the words with as much sarcasm as he could. 'It has been a long time since we last met. How is the head ? Plasma shot seems to agree with you.'
Kastigan Ulok had once been a commander of the Iron Hands – an Iron Father, respected for his skills and tactical insight. But after the Tenth Legion's fall to Chaos, he had become a Rust Master, and through many unholy acts had been granted the gift of daemonhood. There was no trace of the noble warrior he had once been left in him now, only a hollowed, soulless monster.
The last time they had met, Cypher had shot him in the head with his plasma pistol, repeatedly, until there had been nothing left but a steaming stump and his body had dissipated into raw Warp matter, his infernal essence cast back into the Empyrean. But it seemed a thousand years were enough for a Neverborn to be able to return even from such a thorough destruction.
'I will make you suffer for what you did,' promised the Daemon Prince. 'Six times I killed you, at the battle of the Silver Gates, and six times you rose, before treacherously striking me down. You do not die, nor do you live. Your very existence is an affront to the God of Decay.'
Cypher simply shook his head, smiling ever so slightly, before turning his attention on the daemon that stood between Kastigan and the two humanoids. It was a Great Unclean One, towering above the Lord of the Fallen and holding a great, rusted sword lazily in one hand.
'I don't recognize you,' he said to the Greater Daemon. 'Who are you ?'
'I am Lurgon,' boomed the creature, its voice like broken nails on chalkboard.
'You are far from your master's Garden, daemon. How did you get here ?'
'With considerable effort. Grandfather Nurgle really does not want you to fall into the hands of Tzeentch, little one. He sent us here to invite you to visit him in his garden.'
+++Inquisitorial report 2827295 – Classification Level : Black+++
+++Checking clearance level ...+++
+++ Authorization confirmed+++
+++Access granted+++
+++Subject : Hive-World Absolom Reach – Segmentum Solar+++
+++Thought for the day : Ignorance is Bliss. But Loyalty is its own Reward.+++
The following document is an estimated timeline of the events on the hive-world Absolom Reach, reconstituted by the data-savants of the Inquisition. While the data-savants had access to several centuries of research and investigation, they were still forced to speculate in order to fill in the gaps, and the mysterious events that occurred at the end of this centuries-long crisis have raised many questions. Their theories about these events can be found at the end of the document.
537.M41
The System Defence Forces (SDF) of Absolom Reach took down the transport ship Carrier of Last Light, which was transporting refugees from the quarantined Gerion System. Gerion had been struck by plague, with a horrific casualty rate. In order to prevent the contagion from spreading to Absolom Reach, the SDF opened fire on the transport, which still managed to make it to the planet, crashing in the wasteland between hives in an explosion that shook the nearby cities. The Governor ordered the entire area to be isolated and then bombarded from orbit until all signs of life had been wiped out. Reports from the local forces indicate that these orders were followed to the letter, but by analysing the data on the Gerion pandemic, it is easy to point to this crash as the starting point of the cultist infiltration of Absolom Reach.
622.M41
A trade war between two of Absolom Reach's prominent noble Houses, House Kelharcht and House Petrovkov, escalated, causing an economic crisis that ravaged the planet. Tens of millions of workers were unceremoniously fired as entire Manufactoriums were closed down, since their product could no longer be exported off-world due to the termination of several trade arrangements. Revolts sprung across the hive-cities, and the Administratum stepped in to restore order (and, more importantly, the flow of Imperial tithes). As the Adeptus Arbites put down the riots and purged the Houses responsible for the crisis, the Inquisition followed, searching for traces of any cause to the situation beyond the greed and hubris of Imperial aristocracy. It was then that the first signs of Chaos presence on Absolom Reach were discovered. Taking advantage of the economic crisis, cults of the Dark God Nurgle were forming among the under-classes.
625.M41-987.M41
In the aftermath of the collapse of Absolom Reach's economy, the agents of the Ordo Hereticus spent several decades battling the cults of Nurgle, while the Administratum rebuilt the societal order. For more than three hundred years, a secret war raged on Absolom Reach, hidden in the shadows of the underhives and the corridors of the halls of power. Dozens of cult leaders were taken down by Acolytes, and many plans that would have brought ruin to the world were foiled, but always the cults of Nurgle reappeared. Some of them formed in the upper echelons of Imperial society, centred around a more "spiritual" approach to their unholy worship. Less afflicted by physical corruption but with their souls blackened all the same, these cultists sought to spread despair and erode faith in the Imperial Creed. By encouraging relentless exploitation of the population among the Imperial elite, they broke the spirits of the lower classes, making them easy prey for cult recruiters who offered food, protection and purpose to the destitute.
As is the case in most Chaos cults, these new recruits weren't introduced to the full blasphemous truth of their new faith immediately : most of the lower tiers still believed in the God-Emperor, though the sermons of the preachers were subtly altered. Only those who showed susceptibility to the whispers of Nurgle were induced into the higher ranks, with more and more of the hideous truths being revealed with each step upward in the hierarchy.
It is during that period that the Ordos learned of the "Father" and the "Mother" from captured cultists. These two figures were central to the beliefs of the cults, and seemed to be responsible for the exceptional rate at which new cults formed to replace the ones destroyed by the Inquisition. The Cabal of Inquisitors present on Absolom Reach tried many times to obtain more information in order to eliminate these individuals, but if the whole squads of Acolytes assigned to the task found anything, they took that information with them in their graves, as they systematically disappeared.
987.M41-997.M41
More than thirty-five decades after the great economic collapse, the final war for Absolom Reach began in earnest. As the nobles attended a grand, self-aggrandizing tournament, the cults of Nurgle made their move. One of their own had infiltrated the tournament, and, thanks to the unholy endurance bestowed upon him by his patron god, made it all the way to the finals, where he faced off against the Governor's very own champion, a swordsman named Torias Flint. As Torias managed to strike and behead his opponent, the trap of the cults was revealed : their champion exploded, spreading contagion all over the arena and opening a Warp Gate through which a host of daemons launched an assault at the very heart of Imperial power on Absolom Reach.
Vade Pince, the Imperial Governor, perished in the first moments of this attack, torn to pieces by a crowd of Nurglings. Few nobles present managed to escape, but thankfully, the daemons were unable to maintain their presence in the Materium for long. However, this had been the signal the cults had been waiting for, and all at once, they rose. Cultists who had had no idea of the true nature of their hidden masters were forcefully conscripted, their minds seared by hideous revelations and sorcerous energies. Only through the sacrifice of several Inquisitorial agents was a plot to transform all of the Absolom Reach into a daemon world averted. Instead, the cults turned into an army, and the war for Absolom Reach began. For ten years, the Imperium fought for control of the hive-cities, with new Imperial Guard Regiments called in from all across the Sector and beyond.
997.M41
Ten years after the death of the Governor, the war of Absolom Reach arrived to its climax. For almost a decade, the unified Cult of Nurgle had been summoning daemons, beginning with the weakest ones, those who could easily be sustained by the bloodshed of the war. As the scale of the conflict intensified and the numbers of daemons increased, such summonings became easier and easier, and the magi of the cult called forth more and more powerful Warp-spawns.
After it was determined that Absolom Reach could no longer be saved, several squads of Grey Knights were called in. They arrived just as a massive spike of psychic activity was detected from the depths of one of the contested hives. Divinations determined that the cultists were attempting to summon mighty Daemon Lords, creatures of such power that they could turn the tide of the war on their own. An assault was planned, with the Grey Knights spearheading it. But despite all the might of the Imperium, and the strange absence of daemons on the frontline, the sheer number of cultists who threw themselves in the way of their advance allowed the ritual to reach completion. The Knights prepared themselves for a very difficult battle, for they had sensed the arrival of not just one, but two Daemon Lords onto Absolom Reach – and then both infernal presences vanished.
The headquarters of the cult were found vacant, and from that point onward not a single daemon was seen on Absolom Reach, save for a few unaligned monsters drawn to the abundance of carnage and suffering. It appeared that the cultists had been abandoned by their daemonic sponsors, and they took it very poorly, throwing their lives away in suicidal assaults or simply ending themselves.
In the end, Absolom Reach was found too tainted to be reclaimed, and subjugated to Exterminatus. The armed forces that had participated in the conflict but hadn't fought at the side of the Grey Knights were withdrawn and sent to fight for the Emperor elsewhere, while those who had witnessed the might of Titan's Knights were quietly purged, as per standard protocol. Few enough had survived the final battle against the cult that eliminating the survivors wasn't difficult.
Additional Analysis
It is now believed by our scholars that the war for Absolom Reach was fought for a complete different purpose than the one we believed our enemy sought. The rank-and-file cultists, as well as many of their superiors, believed that the purpose of the war was to free the planet from Imperial rule and under the rule of the Chaos God Nurgle. But the complete and sudden disappearance of the daemonic legion summoned in the last days of the war indicate otherwise. The alien relic discovered at the bottom of the hive-city where the final battle was fought is believed to be one of the fabled Webway Gates, a portal leading to that mysterious Eldar realm. Knowing this, it seems likely that the sole purpose of the entire calamity that befell Absolom Reach was simply to bring forth a host of daemons from the Warp and allow them entrance into the Webway. The billions of lives lost in the war for the planet and its subsequent destruction were inconsequential to our adversaries. Now, an army of incorporated daemons stalk the Webway, ready to emerge through any number of gates left behind by the Eldars when their empire collapsed.
+++End of the report+++
+++Praise be to the God-Emperor+++
[See Nemris' illustration titled : Deal with a Daemon]
'I am flattered you went so far just for me. Though I have to confess I had never heard of you until now … and I thought I had heard of every daemon that mattered in the Realms of Chaos by now.'
Lurgon laughed, and the sound of it made the Fallen gnash their teeth.
'Oh, but I know you, little soul,' it said, and suddenly all humor was gone from its voice. 'We all know you in the Realm of the Gods. We know what it is you carry. There are a thousand thousand flowers in the Garden that weep endlessly for all the beauty it has destroyed.'
'Will you make Nurgle plant another million to commemorate you ?' asked Cypher. 'If you truly know what it is I carry … then you know what I could do, do you not ? If I were pushed to it ?'
Silence fell, and the daemon's cataract-filled eyes narrowed as it glared down at Cypher.
'You would not survive this,' it growled. 'It would destroy you, and all you have done would be in vain. You will not do it. You will not risk your existence, not after enduring for so long.'
'Are you so certain about that ?' said Cypher, holding the gaze of the Great Unclean One. Behind him, the Fallen held their breath, captivated by the confrontation. Lurgon stirred, and there was unease in its aura for the first time since it had appeared.
'You were sent to stop me from falling into the hands of Tzeentch's servants, weren't you ?'
Without breaking eye contact with the Great Unclean One, Cypher pointed down the way the Fallen had come. The Greater Daemon smiled, revealing blackened teeth and suppurating gums. It chuckled, then started to laugh. Its laughter grew and grew, shaking the very earth, but Cypher stood his ground, and continued speaking, his voice rising high and clear even amidst the dim :
'The Great Beast himself is hunting me. One of Tzeentch's greatest champions – and a sworn enemy of the Dark Prince. What rewards would your master bestow upon you for his head, I wonder ?'
It sighed, and a cloud of flies flew out between its rotten teeth, joining the cloud hovering above the four Lords of Chaos.
'You are cunning, Fallen One. My master warned me about you … but my orders are clear. You are not to be captured by the servants of the Changing One. Everything else … is secondary.'
'NO !' roared Kastigan, taking a step forward, raising his weapon – an immense chain-axe, dripping with corruption. 'I will not let him escape from me this time !'
'Hush, child,' said Lurgon, lifting its greatsword to bar the advance of the Daemon Prince. 'This is more important than your petty grudge.' The Greater Daemon turned its gaze back to Cypher. 'So be it, then. We shall fight your dark brethren for you, little lord, and earn what glory we can in offering their sterile souls to the Grandfather. As for you, scurry away and finish your mission, Sword-bearer. The God of Decay looks forward to what shall come of it ...'
On these ominous words, Lurgon raised its sword, and the Plague Legion began to march. It walked straight pass the Fallen, and into the tunnels of the Webway, right toward the Dark Angels army. Everlasting and Adamant went with them, smiling one last time at Cypher before vanishing from view. Kastigan had to be almost dragged by Lurgon, but the Daemon Prince eventually relented, though he did not leave without swearing another oath to Cypher that he would kill him for good one day.
'I thought we were dead for sure,' admitted Lycaon, walking to Cypher's side.
'To be honest,' breathed Cypher, 'for a moment, so did I.'
The Neverborn know your true nature, puppet. You cannot hide your heart from Hell …
Caliban, Segmentum Obscurus, 007.M31
As the Ouroboros' forces, led by the corrupted Chief Librarian, closed in on Aldurukh, Luther and Morgana finally completed their preparations. With the help of the Watchers and after consulting the most forbidden of the esoteric texts contained within the Order's library, Morgana had imbued her father's greatsword with immense power. It had taken weeks for Luther to master these energies, using all the mental discipline years of knightly training had ingrained into him as well as help from the remaining Librarians.
The Imperial forces would face their foe at the gates of Aldurukh's surrounding city, where millions of refugees sought shelter from the horrors plaguing the world in the fortress' shadow. The Fallen could have holed up within their stronghold : the walls of Aldurukh were mighty enough that they could have held the horde at bay for years. But to do so would have left the people of Caliban at the mercy of the beasts, and that was something Luther could never do. Whether morality alone or the knowledge that further breaking of the people's spirit would only strengthen the Ouroboros decided his course, the Master of the Order commanded all troops under his command to march out.
New and terrible horrors walked among the Ouroboros' host. With Zahariel to act as a vessel for its power, the Great Serpent had experimented upon its servants. Grotesque hybrids of beast and man, mutants bloated with eldritch power, Secondborn reshaped into approximations of the true form of the daemon within, and enormous worms with dozens of screaming human faces on their hide : these and more marched and slithered within the abominable horde. For centuries to come, the Fallen would suffer nightmares of what they saw in that great battle – and of what they were forced to do. But even in the darkest of these dreams, they would not lose themselves to madness, for on that battlefield was also a light not seen in the galaxy in many thousands of years.
As the sun fell and darkness crept out of the woods, the two armies charged. The Battle of Unmaking, as the Fallen would call it in the ages to come, had begun.
The Fallen stood at the forefront of the Imperial host, a bulwark standing against a tide of abominations. Rank upon rank of Astartes, thousands of them, arranged in perfect formation. Luther had called all of his remaining warriors for this. Veterans of the Unification Wars stood shoulder to shoulder with Legionaries who had only been implanted with gene-seed a few years before, but whose eyes were as hard as those of any of their elders.
Behind the Space Marines, several Regiments' worth of artillery opened fire, raining death upon the horde. The entire fledgling industry of Caliban had been reconverted to wartime production in the course of the war, and the Imperial Army commanders spent shells and ammunition with reckless abandon. A deluge of iron and fire fell upon the Chaos horde, following a precise pattern calculated by Astelan in order to leave a direct corridor open – a path the monsters could use to reach the Imperials, lest they scatter through the woods (or, worse, the champion of the Ouroboros be driven to call upon the fullness of his monstrous power before the appointed time).
Bolts of eldritch lightning fell from the darkened skies, striking seemingly at random – but the Librarians could sense the malevolent intelligence directing the blows. Batteries were obliterated and holes formed in the Imperial lines where these bolts fell, though the Ouroboros' horde wasn't fully spared the wrath of its monstrous master. As the horde charged, a torrential rain began to fall, and the soldiers caught in the deluge unprotected tasted vileness and insanity on their lips.
The horde charged in the confusion, the few within it still able to carry weapon firing wildly at the Space Marines, who replied with volley after disciplined volley of bolt shells. Thousands of cultists and monsters perished, but the rest of the horde went on, running over the broken bodies of their slain kindred. Finally, the two armies clashed, and the battle began in earnest. Blades pierced through hide and claws tore through armor, and the battle-cries of the Fallen mixed with the inhuman roars of beasts and cultists alike.
And all the while, the blood of the dead seeped into the earth, going deeper and deeper, feeding the endless hunger of the Ouroboros.
Luther fought at the center of the melee, his sword cutting down any monster that drew too close. Like a king of old legend, he stood against the nightmares come to drag his people into darkness, and his sword shone with a light that made the corrupted flinch and recoil as it burned them. The Fallen who fought nearest him were inspired by the sight, driven to new heights of heroism and sacrifice. The doubts and secret fears they had harboured in their hearts of hearts – and who among them did not, as the galaxy burned and their own Primarch turned against his father – vanished.
The Master of the Order sought Zahariel, for the horde could only be broken by removing the head through which the Ouroboros controlled it. The corrupted psyker walked among the slaughter without care, smiling cruelly as his brothers and his slaves alike perished in droves around him. The Serpent Blade, his corrupted sword, sang viciously in his hands. The accursed weapon's legend had grown as dark as its wielder's in recent times, and its new name had been bestowed upon it by traumatized Imperial soldiers fleeing from the Ouroboros' horde, speaking in broken voices of the malevolence even non-psykers could sense within it. Fuelled by the Great Serpent's power catalysed through the prism of Zahariel's unique gifts, its edge passed through armor and flesh like a ghost, tearing organs asunder without leaving a scratch on ceramite armor.
The Sorcerer was bare-faced, and the rain made it seem as if he were weeping when the lightning illuminated him from the right angle. Eventually, amidst the carnage, the Master of the Order and the corrupted Chief Librarian came face to face. The battle around them slowed, as all turned an eye on this confrontation – even the mindless beasts of the Ouroboros' horde could sense the power of these two figures, and knew the import of what was about to transpire.
'Chief Librarian Zahariel !' roared Luther, raising his shining sword in challenge. 'You have broken the Emperor's decree ! You have ignored the laws of Nikaea ! You have turned your back on your duty and spat on your oaths ! Come now, and face your judgement !'
The possessed psyker laughed, a broken, cruel and mad sound that made even the Secondborn recoil in abject dread. Yet Luther held his ground, ready to meet his corrupted brother in battle.
'You have been deceived, Luther,' laughed Zahariel. 'That is the story of your life, is it not ? Deceived by the Lion, deceived by the Emperor, and now by the Watchers. They are the jailers of Caliban's true spirit. They are the ones preventing this world from reaching its full potential !'
'It is you who has been lied to, brother,' replied Luther, his voice firm and strong, raising above the dim of battle. 'I swear to you : one way or another, your slavery to that abomination ends today !'
'This is no slavery – it is power ! It is truth ! It is ascension !'
'It is evil, and nothing more.'
Zahariel charged Luther. Before he could reach him, a spear of light leapt from behind the lines of Space Marines – there stood Morgana, atop a burned-out tank, holding her staff in her hand, surrounded by the power she was drawing from the Empyrean. Zahariel swatted aside the attack with a careless blow, but his gaze had moved from Luther.
'I see you, witch,' growled something monstrous using Zahariel's vocal cords. He extended his left hand, and black lightning poured forth from his fingers, ready to incinerate the mortal.
'You will not. Hurt. My daughter !' roared Luther, placing himself between the sorcerer and Morgana, absorbing the onslaught of Warp energy rather than let it harm his child.
'Fool,' said the creature that was using the Chief Librarian's body like a puppet. 'You should have let her die. That was your one chance at killing this vessel, little knight. Now you will die in vain, and your spawn will follow you soon after.'
'Wrong,' Luther managed to say between gritted teeth, struggling to remain standing as his flesh smoked under the sorcerous assault. 'Everything is proceeding … as … planned.'
Morgana spoke words in a language that had been conceived millions of years before the first fish had crawled out of Old Earth's long-lost oceans. Amidst the chaos of the battle, three dozens of Watchers in the Dark suddenly appeared, walking out of the shadows of the combatants. The clouds above the battlefield parted, and a ray of sunlight fell briefly on the scene where Luther and Zahariel faced each other. The Ouroboros sensed that something was happening, but it did not understand what – not until it was too late to stop it from finishing its course.
Power flared through ritual circles set in place days before, drawn in buried lines of powder made of the pulverized blades of weapons that had been used by generations of knights. As one, the Watchers raised daggers and cut their own wrists, letting their alien blood bubble and fall onto the earth, mixing with the vitae that the Great Serpent was so greedily consuming. The wound broke the glamour that had hidden them from the sight of the Ouroboros' minions, and they were torn apart within seconds – but that only meant more of their ancient blood was spilled.
The words of the spell, spoken in the tongue of the Old Ones; the dust of weapons that had only ever be wielded to protect the weak; and the blood of those born to keep the universe safe from the Great Serpent's evil. These three things mixed with the will of Morgana and the power she had imbued into her father's weapon.
Zahariel screamed, first with the Ouroboros' voice, then with his own, as his connection to the Great Serpent was shaken by Morgana's spell. He stumbled, waving his sword blindly in front of him, his warrior instincts trying to strike at the source of his pain, while his other hand reached for his head. The attack on Luther stopped, and the Master of the Order immediately charged forward, heedless of the terrible agony wrecking his every muscle. Holding his greatsword in two hands, he struck, a single, horizontal blow, into which he poured all of the energy he could draw from the Sword. With a mighty shout, the blow struck true.
And Zahariel's blade, which had claimed the lives of dozens of Fallen without ever clashing against metal, shattered against the power of the Sword of Luther.
The Shards of the Serpent Blade
Centuries after the end of the Roboutian Heresy, daemons that had taken part in the war of Caliban reformed within the Eye of Terror. As the Sorcerers of the First Legion sought to learn what had transpired on their lost homeworld in their absence, these Neverborn were summoned to Cysgorog, where they were interrogated. Even the favored servants of Tzeentch had difficulties extracting the truth from the daemons, but eventually a picture of what had happened was formed. Lion El'Jonson forbade such knowledge from being shared within the First Legion, with the sole exception that any piece of lore related to Caliban's past was to be brought to the Grand Masters immediately. Claiming to have gained such knowledge is one of the few means by which any Dark Angel, no matter his rank in the First Legion's labyrinthine hierarchy, can gain an audience with one of its great lords. Lying about such knowledge, however, is certain to earn a death sentence … if one is caught. For unknown reasons, the methods generally employed by the Grand Masters to detect deception are entirely useless when Caliban's past is concerned. It is therefore unknown just how much of the First Legion's elite truly knows about Luther's war against the Ouroboros.
To complicate matters even further, the half-truths and metaphors employed by daemons that had never truly understood what was happening around them are not enough for the Dark Angels to learn the full truth of Caliban's tale. But they have learned of the corruption of Zahariel El'Zurias. More importantly, they have learned of his sword, and of its destruction by Luther at the battle where Zahariel died. With Caliban destroyed, some within the Dark Angels have come to believe that the fragments of the sword the corrupted Librarian wielded in service to the primordial daemon hold the last traces of the Great Serpent's power.
When the Serpent Blade was shattered by Luther's own sword, some of the shards were carried away by the Ouroboros' minions – either they picked them up, or the shards embedded themselves into their flesh, propelled by the strength of the Blade's destruction. Others were buried deep into the earth, and burrowed deeper, toward the Ouroboros' main "body", like calling to like. Those few shards seized by the Fallen were locked within the most secure vaults of Aldurukh. What became of them in the last days of Caliban is known only to the highest-ranking Fallen, and many a follower of Luther has been tortured by the Dark Angels before being handed over to the Interrogator-Chaplains in the hope of gaining more information about the Shards' whereabouts.
For many among the Dark Angels believe that, should all the Shards be gathered, the Serpent Blade could be reforged, and the might of the Ouroboros – which Lion El'Jonson himself coveted, even after having been bestowed the immense power of a Daemon Primarch – restored and claimed. Certainly those Shards that have been discovered are potent sorcerous relics, capable of amplifying the effects of ill-intended rituals. When Caliban broke, most of the Shards fell through the Warp, landing on worlds all across the galaxy. Entire religions were built by human and xenos tribes around them, as psykers sensed the power latent within them – a pale echo of the Ouroboros' true power, but more than enough to enthral the weak-willed.
It is said that Corswain, first of the Archdukes of Cysgorog, had gathered several of the Shards by the time he attempted his ritual of binding upon the Daemon Primarch. But whether these relics would have helped him accomplish his ambitions if he had managed to obtain more, or whether they are the cause of the attempt's disastrous fallout, none but Tzeentch know.
The symbolic significance of that act – the breaking of a warrior's blade – created an opening in Zahariel's aura, and Morgana took advantage of it immediately. At the witch's command, the Sword of Luther's purifying energies poured into the Chief Librarian's body, burning away the taint of the Great Serpent. Zahariel screamed in agony, his very soul scorched by the terrible power. For several seconds, Luther and Zahariel remained face to face, a pillar of bright flames rising around them. Then the flames faded, and Zahariel fell onto the blackened rock.
As soon as its leader fell, the horde of the Ouroboros' minions broke. Without Zahariel to serve as a catalyst for the Great Serpent's influence, their natural instincts were taking over – and, faced with the might of the Fallen and the burning light of Luther's sword, these instincts were telling the horde of monsters and madmen to flee as fast as they could. The Imperial forces killed thousands of their fleeing foes – they were way past the point of caring about whether such an action was honorable – but tens of thousands still managed to escape.
'Kill me,' begged the broken psyker laying at Luther's feet. He was weeping, hot, burning tears of shame and sorrow. With the hold of the Ouroboros broken, Zahariel was forced to confront the full extent of the evil he had committed, and it was more than he could bear. 'Please, brother. Kill me.'
'No,' panted Luther, breathless after the exhaustion of the ritual, and that single word seemed to strike Zahariel harder than anything else. 'Zahariel El'Zurias is dead,' continued the knight. 'He fell in battle against the Ouroboros. From now on and forevermore, you shall be known only as the Lord Cypher, Keeper of the Order. Do you accept this role, and all the oaths that come with it ?'
On the ground, the warrior whose soul had been clawed back from the abyss lowered his head in acceptance of his fate. Luther raised his sword, its tip touching the exposed throat of the newly named Lord Cypher. He spoke the old words, the oaths that had been spoken by generations of knights, and he who was now Cypher repeated them, binding what remained of his tattered soul and honor back together with the ancient vows.
The Battle of Unmaking was over.
The Webway, 999.M41
It is one of the saving graces of the Imperium that there is no unity among the Damned, no common cause so great that it can make them forget the hatred they bore for one another. Those who have betrayed their oaths to the God-Emperor rarely keep those they make to one another, and the Ruinous Powers themselves are cursed, by their very nature, to ever work against each other. Few dare say so out loud within the hallowed halls of the Inquisition, but should the forces of Chaos ever truly unite, there would be almost no hope of defeating them.
But even at the height of the Roboutian Heresy, when the Chaos Gods had seemingly put aside their differences and invested their power in their champion, the Arch-Traitor, there had still been divides – power plays and intrigues, plots and schemes to gain the upper hand. If Guilliman had been able to control all the forces nominally on his side, Terra would doubtlessly have fallen in the end. Instead, with several of the traitor Primarchs pursuing their own ends, the rebellion's advance toward the Throneworld had taken years. It had given time for the Iron Warriors to build up the defenses of the Imperial Palace, time for Horus to gather the disparate pieces of the Imperium's shattered strength – and time for the lost loyal Legions to escape the traps put into their path by the Traitors and rush toward the Throneworld, forcing the renegades into desperate acts.
And now, once again, the self-destructive nature of Chaos was helping those loyal to the Golden Throne overcome a seemingly hopeless situation. The Host of Belial was gaining ground on its prey, its leader uncaring about the fact he was losing many warriors to the perils of the Webway. All that mattered to the Great Beast was Cypher's capture, and the fulfillment of his Primarch-given duty. Then the first report came in of Nurglite daemons being sighted, and the Lord of Whispers felt as if the God of Change were laughing at him from atop His throne. He gave orders to prepare for battle, and moments later, the full strength of a Plague Legion clashed with the armies of Cysgorog.
Plague bells rung, drums of bone and flayed skin were struck, and horns forged of silver infused with the souls of betrayed monarchs were blown. Across dozens of corridors of the Labyrinthine Dimension, the Slaves to Ruin made war upon one another. Rotting guts were cut to pieces by glistening blades, and Warp-fire was doused in streams of pox-ridden vomit. Plaguebearers marched on in ordered formation, uncaring that many of them were struck down by spell and bolter. Handlers of the Abominable Failures launched charges to reinforce the weakest points of the line of battle, while the Ravening Ones rampaged within the Plague Legion, before being surrounded and torn to pieces. In the air, Manticore Knights duelled with Plague Drones, the bodies of the losers falling to the ground, where they were pulped by the boots and hooves of the two warring armies. The Nephilim Engines strode forth, their warded structures proof against the decaying powers of the Plage Legion, and their cruel minds revelled in the slaughter of weak prey – but though they were mighty, there were too few of them, and the Plague Legion simply absorbed the losses.
The Spurned Cohorts held their ground. When their lines were broken by a charge of Plaguebearers led by a fly-shrouded Daemon Lord, the Doomed did not attempt to fall back. By the curse laid upon them, all of them knew that they would die this day, and the traitorous sons of Mortarion faced their death with stoicism. The nine Eyeless unleashed spell after spell from behind their horde of cultists, before being locked in a sorcerous duel with a circle of Chaos-tainted psykers that had been dragged into the Webway with the Plague Legion from Absolom Reach. The Unaligned and the Unspeaking fought alongside the Uncaring, their Cohorts united in the face of Nurgle's army – until one of the Uncaring stabbed a son of Lorgar in the back as repayment of a betrayal seven centuries prior, and the three Cohorts were overwhelmed.
The Tormented joined the Fleshless, whose metal bodies were proof against the contagions of the Plague God. To the Tormented, battling the spawn of Nurgle was a rare pleasure – so degenerated was the daemons' sense of pain that they could actually fight without feeling the torment of their victims. They laughed as the fought, even as they were torn to pieces, and the Fleshless left them to die, their cold minds focused on grinding down the Plague Legion with slow, inevitable attrition.
Kastigan and the two Methuselahs stood against the five Archdukes, Adamant and Everlasting infusing the ascended Iron Hand with power enough to hold his ground against three of the Tzeentchian Daemon Princes while they themselves each took on one themselves. The sight of their tiny figures battling the immense Archdukes bare-handed should have been ridiculous, yet somehow, the Methuselahs gave as good as they got. They flew in the air, walking on swarms of flies, and their seemingly frail bodies held strength enough to damage even the Archdukes.
The battle lasted for hours. Both sides unleashed terrible sorceries, their energies utterly inimical to the very fabric of the Webway. Passages that had existed for millions of years collapsed or were breached, letting in things from the beyond that the servants of Tzeentch and Nurgle alike fled from, destroying the corridors behind them to seal off the breach. Though the Eldars had expanded the Webway in the days of their Empire, its foundations had been laid down by the Old Ones themselves, and even daemons feared what laid on the other side. That was why, in most cases when sections of the Labyrinthine Dimension succumbed to Warp corruption, they could eventually be reclaimed – though only at great cost. But now, with the prize that was Cypher's capture so close, neither side was willing to hold anything back, no matter the risk. Still, those who fled from the ruptured sections, whether they were Neverborn or Astartes, knew fear.
The Grand Master fought with the Sword of Silence, the swarms of black flies falling dead the moment they strayed too close to the weapon's Warp-nullifying aura. The Great Beast was a veteran at killing daemons, especially those hailing from the court directly opposing his own divine master. In the Eye of Terror, he had fought on war zones where daemon armies whose numbers reached the billion fought across continent-sized battlefields – this was but a skirmish compared to those battles, though the prize at stake was greater than anything he had ever fought for.
Belial recognized the Great Unclean One leading the Plague Legion. Lurgon was an ancient enemy of the First Legion, and had fought against the Lord of Change Ix'thar'ganix, one of the Dark Angels' great allies within the daemonic choirs, before the latter had been banished by Cypher himself. During the millennia of the Long War, it had led the daemonic hordes of the Plague God in battle across the Eye of Terror. Again and again Ix'thar'ganix and Lurgon had clashed, until the Slayer of Destinies had been defeated by the Lord of the Fallen in the Decimalus System.
It could be no coincidence that Lurgon was here now, Belial knew. Surely this was a sign that the Arch-Renegade had allied himself with the enemies of the First Legion, throwing his soul away to the Plague God. How low would Cypher sink, wondered the Great Beast, in his futile defiance of Tzeentch ? No matter. The Host would crush the Plague Legion. Cypher would not escape.
Surrounded by an elite guard of Chaos Terminators, Belial cut down one daemon of Nurgle after another, all the while receiving reports of the wider battle through his Dark Mechanicum-enhanced helm. His mind was directing the Host at the same time he was fighting, issuing terse commands to his sub-commanders in the battle cant of the First Legion.
The Grand Master and the Greater Daemon of Nurgle came together, the Sword of Silence smashing against the far larger cleaver wielded by Lurgon. By all rights, Belial should have been sent flying, but his own strength was augmented by the gifts of the Great Mutator, and his skill had allowed him to deflect most of the blow's impact.
'You have no idea what it is you are interfering with, spawn of Decay !' shouted Belial. 'Cypher cannot be allowed to reach Terra ! Do you think we will be the only ones to suffer if he succeed ?!'
Lurgon laughed.
'Do you really think your words will turn me from my course, little beast ? That I will lay low my sword, command my brethren to stand down, and apologize for that dreadful mistake ? Do you ?'
'… So be it,' spat the Grand Master. 'Die, then.'
With blade and sorcery, the Great Beast of Cysgorog fought the Great Unclean One. Two of the Dark Gods turned their gaze upon their champions as they battled, just as the Ruinous Powers watch all battles between all their champions, for the Great Game hasn't stopped since it was first begun, countless aeons before Roboute Guilliman first heard the whispers of Be'lakor in his ears. They watched, and if either of them truly cared about the outcome, it is known to them alone.
As the two Lords of Chaos fought, both of them continued to direct the battle raging around them. Lurgon had been given command of the Plague Legion by Nurgle himself, and its will was bound to all who had joined his army. And Belial was fed intel on the battle by his armor directly into his brain, thanks to the Dark Tech embedded within his helmet. With a mere thought, the Grand Master's fragmented awareness could move the forces of the Host like pieces on a game board.
Belial prevailed in the end, his transhuman might proving greater than the power of one of Nurgle's many cast-off shards. He buried the Sword of Silence into Lurgon's black, rotting heart and cut it out, ripping it from the daemon's cancerous entrails with his broken left arm and crushing it in a flame-wreathed fist.
Kastigan laid on the ground, his body dissolving, his essence returning to the Garden. Around him laid the three Archdukes he had been battling, equally broken. Only one of them stirred, the other two already dissolving. Slowly, he stood up, spreading wings made of black feathers in multicoloured eyes. Of the two Methuselahs and the Daemon Princes they had been fighting, there was no sign. So many Nurglite daemons had died, the air was filled with enough poison that the few surviving mortals who had accompanied the Host were collapsing, dead on their feet.
The Host of Belial had defeated the Plague Legion, but this was a pyrrhic victory. Not only had they suffered great losses in the battle, but the Great Unclean laughed as Belial's blade cut it down, for it knew that it had achieved its mission : Cypher was beyond the reach of Tzeentch's hunters. Nurgle's forces may have been defeated, but this round of the Great Game still went to the God of Life and Death … or so it seemed. For the schemes of the Changing God are not so easily thwarted.
As the Dark Angels took stock of their surroundings, the blood of their dead brothers began to flow, carrying pieces of flesh with it as if it were a deep river. It pooled at the center of the battlefield, forming a whirlpool whose current grew quicker and quicker. The meat of dead Chaos Marines started to melt and fuse into a grotesque mass of mutated flesh, until a clawed limb emerged from it, followed by the towering form of none other than Lion El'Jonson himself.
The meat burned to black ash and fell off, consumed by the infernal energy of the Daemon Primarch. He rose to his full height, towering above even the remaining Archduke. He was a thing of dark mists and darker shadows, and where his head should be, those who looked upon him saw a gaping abyss of darkness with one eye, and a shining, featureless mask with the other (those with more than two eyes, and there were many within the Host, saw other aspects of the Daemon Primarch's visage, each more terrible than the last). There was a tear of burning light on his chest, where he had been wounded thousands of years ago. The Host looked upon their liege lord's great injury, and they knew it not, for the will of the Lion made them unable to even acknowledge that it existed without the Daemon Primarch's special permission. Not even Belial saw anything else but the glorious majesty of the Dark Angels' lord as he looked upon his gene-sire.
He could do this to them, for he was Lion El'Jonson, first among all servants of Tzeentch, and the weaving of such lies was a small thing compared to the great deceits he had inflicted upon himself.
The Dark Angels and their allies fell to their knees before the Daemon Primarch. Even the Izuralith Walkers abased themselves, as did the Nephilim Engines, the Abominable Failures and the Ravening Ones, their madness temporarily dispelled by the Lion's terrible presence.
The Daemon Primarch gazed upon the remains of the Host, then turned his burning gaze on Belial, who too was kneeling, awaiting the wrath of his master that his failure must surely incur.
'Well done, my faithful son,' said Lion El'Jonson. 'You have all played your part as was ordained. Gather your Host and return to Cysgorog, then wait for me there. I will deal with Cypher myself.'
There is no escape from your fate ! No matter how much you struggle, or how long you resist !
Caliban, Segmentum Obscurus, 008.M31
For nearly a year, the Fallen battled the minions of the Ouroboros, fighting for every kilometer of Caliban's soil. Driven by the relentless will of Luther, their souls shielded from the Great Serpent's influence by the radiance of his sword, the Space Marines and their human allies fought on, toward the ruined arcology where Zahariel had fallen. The closer they approached, the more desperate the resistance thrown up by the remaining servants of the Ouroboros. Heroes died with grim smiles on their lips, giving their lives so that Caliban may be free at last.
At the head of the Imperial host were Luther and Cypher. Heavy chains hung from the belt and wrists of the latter, marks of his penance for his trespasses against the Order. He had also forsaken the right to wield a sword until he had atoned for his sins : instead, he fought with a pair of pistols, each having belonged to one of the Fallen who had died during Zahariel's rampage under the control of the Ouroboros.
After weeks of brutal fighting, the Fallen reached the ruined arcology where the Chief Librarian had been corrupted. Cypher's memories of his time under the influence of the Ouroboros were confused, but he was confident that he could guide Luther through the labyrinth of tunnels that spread beneath the ruins and toward the physical manifestation of the Ouroboros. But these tunnels were dangerous beyond the ken of mere mortals : sending an army would only bring more victims for the Great Serpent. Instead, Morgana laid down a powerful blessing upon her father and Cypher, before the two champions of the Fallen entered the tunnels, while the rest of the army continued to fight against the frenzied slaves of the Ouroboros.
Ancient and terrible things stirred in these lightless depths : the elder spawns of the Great Serpent, born ages before Humanity had first risen from Terra's mud. As the Space Marines ventured deeper and deeper, they began to encounter the traces of these awful beings. For aeons, they had slumbered, feeding off the infinite power of the Ouroboros. Now, disturbed by the intruders entering their realm, they awoke, and a great hunger consumed them. The earth trembled as they moved, and Cypher urged his lord forward, knowing that they were running out of time.
Deeper and deeper they went, to face the primeval evil that had shaped Caliban's entire history.
"How to describe what I saw in those depths ?
I was there, and nearly three thousand years later I am still not sure that anything I saw that day was real. I am not sure how much of what I remember actually happened, how much is the product of my human mind trying to make sense of something it was never meant to comprehend, and how much of it is the fruit of … something else. Reality was breaking down : the deeper we went, the more of my power it took to bolster Morgana's protections, preserving the fire of Luther's sword.
What I do remember is this : Luther and I fought against the ur-worms for what felt like days, but might as well been minutes or years. This deep beneath the surface, this close to the Ouroboros, time was dislocated. Sometimes we were exhausted and covered in wounds, and the next moment we were fresh and ready, our ammunition reserves full. There was no transition from one state to the next, and it never seemed strange to us – not then, at least. In a sense, it was like a dream, except we both knew that, if we stopped fighting, even for a moment, we would never wake again.
Sometimes, when I surrender myself to sleep, I wake up with the stench of these tunnels in my nostrils. Part of me feels as if I am still there – as if I am still fighting the worms, but without Luther at my side. After what seemed an eternity, we came into a cavern at the heart of the world. It was vast, impossibly so, and filled entirely by the grotesquely enormous form of the Ouroboros.
I remember a writhing ocean of flesh the color of spoiled milk, and black eyes the size of suns. I remember a gaping maw, filled with teeth the size of hive-spires. I remember spikes forged in the heart of stars piercing through its body, anchoring it, keeping it trapped in Caliban. I remember the blood that flowed from these great wounds, and the moans of the earth as it tainted her.
This was the Ouroboros' true form, or at least what it desired me to glimpse of it.
Since then, I have learned of the War in Heaven, that primordial conflict between the Old Ones and the C'tan and their Necron puppets. I have learned that it ended sixty million years ago, when the Necrons turned against their masters, killing and shattering their malevolent Star Gods before entering the Long Sleep, leaving the galaxy for the Eldar to conquer.
Of course, that isn't quite how the Children of Isha remember it, but for all their vaunted wisdom, the Eldar's memory can be as selective as ours. The details of the War, however, do not matter anymore. What matters is that Chaos, the Primordial Annihilator that dwells at the heart of the Warp and suffuses the entire psychic landscape of the galaxy, was created during the War.
When the C'tan and the Old Ones unleashed their god-like powers upon the stars, they broke the Immaterium. From that fracture rose Chaos, later shaped by the nightmares of the mortal races into the Ruinous Powers. A vast, all-consuming evil, hungering for nothing but the total absorption of all. A cancer of the galaxy's collective soul. The Emperor knew this, I believe, as did Magnus, who looked deeper into the Empyrean than any soul should ever have to.
And perhaps Corax knows it too. Over the years, I have tried to avoid the servants of the Ravenlord, for I dread what would happen if they were to capture me and what I carry.
But I also believe, with terrible certainty, that the Ouroboros is older than the War in Heaven. That the Old Ones created it, whether by accident or design, long before the Necrontyr rose to life on their radiation-blasted homeworld and looked up at the stars with eyes filled with bitter envy.
The Ouroboros is the first sin of the Old Ones. It may even be the first sin at all, the first crime that set the entire galaxy tumbling down toward damnation. It is possible that before it came to be, the stars were a kind and gentle place, devoid of hatred and madness.
How, then, did the Old Ones did it ? How did they mess things up so spectacularly ?
And, perhaps more important, certainly more terrifying : 'Why' ?
I do not want to believe that the Old Ones deliberately created the Ouroboros, but it defies reason that such a horror could come to pass by accident. It is too powerful, yet what motive could there possibly be for the Old Ones to create such an abomination, only to imprison it afterwards ?
Then again, how long passed between the Great Serpent's creation and its binding within the rock that would become Caliban ? Days ? Years ? Millennia ?
Aeons ?
I do not know. All I know is that the Ouroboros was created, and that maybe if it had not then not even the War in Heaven could have so disturbed the Empyrean that the Archenemy could form.
And yet I also believe that there is still hope.
After all, we killed the Ouroboros, Luther and I. We destroyed something very much like a god.
I held it in place, binding all of my power through the connection that still existed between us, burned clean by the radiance of the Sword. It took all of my strength, but I exposed its beating heart – not for long, for less than the blink of an eye. It was so powerful, and I was only mortal.
But it was enough. I peeled back the layers of its flesh, and revealed the cancerous growth at its heart. Luther seized the opening, and plunged the Sword into the Ouroboros' core. It screamed as it burned, as Luther spoke the words that amplified the light of the Sword a hundredfold, injecting its righteous fury directly into the Warp itself in order to purify it of the Great Serpent's evil.
To gaze into the Warp as any psyker of real power does is to lose any belief that the universe was crafted by a benevolent creator. But in that moment, I believed that we're not alone in our struggle.
I saw a light, golden and pure, and it made me weep in shame at how I had betrayed it.
We killed the Ouroboros and freed Caliban of its evil. But it cost both Luther and I terribly. My power was left broken by the effort it had taken to expose the beast's heart, and Luther didn't recover from his exhaustion in time to face the Lion with his full strength. If he had … if he had, then I believe that the galaxy would be a vastly different place today.
Ah, 'if'. I have yet to find a more cruel word in the many, many languages of Mankind."
Inquisitorial edit : Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and deception is necessary. And sometimes, only truth can save us. I do not regret what I did that day – but I do regret that I had to do it.
The Ouroboros didn't die. Not completely. I made sure of it, but it was Cypher who paid the price. Luther didn't have the full spell he needed to unmake the Great Serpent. Part of the Ouroboros survived. And Cypher knew this when he wrote these words – but the Lord of the Fallen has never been one to abstain from lying when it can serve a greater good. And keeping the secrets of the First Legion hidden for as long as possible certainly served his aims.
From the private writings of the loyalist Space Marine belonging to the First Legion known as "Cypher", recovered by the Inquisition in 822.M33 on Vermilac Prime in the aftermath of the Aeterius Insurrection. This document was last consulted and edited on 275.547.M39 by Inquisitor [REDACTED].
And so it was done. Luther and Cypher emerged from the rubble, the former wounded nigh unto death, carried to safety by Cypher – who in that action earned, if not forgiveness, then at least acceptance in the eyes of his brothers. As he carried Luther's unconscious form in his arms, Cypher also carried the sheathed Sword on his back. So it was that Cypher first received the title of Sword-bearer, bestowed upon him by those Fallen who saw him emerge from the underworld, hours after the slaves of the Ouroboros had either died, fled, or gone into shock.
The Fallen returned to Aldurukh, and took stock of the situation. The Ouroboros' death throes had shaken Caliban, causing earthquakes and spikes of madness planetwide. There was much to do – many who needed help. For a time, Imperial soldiers and Space Marines put down their weapons and went to work clearing debris and rescuing civilians. From Aldurukh, Astelan managed the operations all across the world, making sure that the chain of supplies and personnel flowed freely.
The death of the Ouroboros was felt all across Caliban. Whether they were descendants of those who had lived on the planet for generations or newly arrived Imperial colonists, all Calibanites felt a great relief, as if a burden they had never noticed was now lifted from their souls. The nightmares that had plagued them all in recent years stopped. The forests seemed less dark, less foreboding. For the first time in years, the laughter of children was heard again.
The rest of the galaxy burned, but for a time, Caliban was at peace. Yet even then, the Fallen knew that this could not last. Morgana was caring for her father, helping him recover from the effort of wielding the Sword, while Cypher hunted down the last remnants of the Chaos-touched horde that had scattered in the aftermath of the Ouroboros' destruction. It was during those days that he who would be called Lord of the Fallen began to earn his dreadful reputation among the Neverborn, for none of the monsters he fought could so much as touch him before he executed them.
The astropaths and Librarians who had survived the war against the Ouroboros told of a coming darkness, different from that of the Ouroboros but equally capable of destroying Caliban. Within the planning rooms of Aldurukh, the Fallen gathered, and knew what this portended :
The Dark Angels were returning, with Luther's adopted son leading them.
The Webway, 999.M41
For once, the Lion's attack was neither slow nor subtle – it was a psychic hammerblow that struck all the young Fallen at the same time. They twitched and stumbled, their minds suddenly overcome by the terrible will of Lion El'Jonson. Unlike the Fallen whose gene-seed had made them Space Marines, the five younglings had not stood on Caliban as it fell – they were not part of Luther's grand weaving, and were not immune to the Daemon Primarch's infernal power. Cypher immediately noticed something was wrong – but he was the keystone of the great spell, the last of the true Fallen, and any claim Lion El'Jonson may have on his loyalty had been severed long ago.
It only took a few seconds for Cypher to realize what was happening, to understand how Tzeentch had turned his clever trick of pitting the Plague Legion against the Host of Belial to his advantage. The Lord of the Fallen was well used to peering into the fractal mind and schemes of the Architect of Fate. He also knew what he had to do – but he hesitated. For all that he had done, for all that he had seen, Cypher was still a Space Marine, and to kill those who had fought at his side ran against the precepts he had sworn to follow thousands of years ago.
That moment of hesitation was enough. Urazel was the first to succumb to the Prince of Mists and Shadows' command, striking at Cypher with his sword in a two-handed strike aimed at his neck. He screamed as he attacked, a pained, desperate sound. Cypher dodged the attack easily – and, without thinking, riposted by firing a bolt shell directly into Urazel's head.
Parsival came next, and by then the Lion's hold onto the young Fallen's minds was strong enough that he didn't make the same mistakes as Urazel. Cypher leapt back to avoid the blow, then turned just in time for a shot by Hasmid to fly right before his eyes. He fired back with his plasma pistol, striking Hasmid right in the chest and obliterating half of his torso, killing him instantly. Parsival charged, thrusting his sword forward, and Cypher moved aside just enough for the blade to graze against his armor. The Lord of the Fallen caught Parsival while he was off-balance and turned him in place, using him as a human shield against Lycaon's fire. The sniper's bullet struck Parsival in the heart while Cypher shot back with his bolt pistol, the shell destroying the scope on Lycaon's sniper rifle before crashing through his right eye-lens and detonating in his skull.
Cypher dropped Parsival's body to the ground just in time for Ahrimal's sword to burst from his chest, having gone in through his back and his two hearts. The Lord of the Fallen looked down at the metal protruding from his body, before falling to the ground, his guns slipping from his dead hands. Ahrimal stood over the body of his lord, still holding his chainsword in his right hand, dripping with his blood. In the left, he clung to the Atlas Infernal, which seemed to writhe against his touch, trying to escape his grip.
Take his head, said the voice in the Dark Angel's head. Now.
'What ?' stammered Ahrimal. 'No. No, I won't !'
You will obey me. Cut his head off ! I command you !
'No,' said the Fallen, trembling at the effort of denying the strength of the Daemon Primarch's will. He knew he could not hold for long – knew that he must break in the end. Still, he resisted.
… How ? How do you defy me still ?
Maybe it was the Atlas Infernal, still granting him some protection from the baleful influence of the Lion. Maybe it was Cypher's training, which had specifically prepared him for resisting psychic influences. Maybe it was just pure stubbornness, something Astelan's recruiters had seen in him when he had only been a child. Maybe it was all of these things together, granting him the strength to spit in the face of a living god, even if only for a few seconds more.
OBEY. ME. TAKE. HIS. HEAD.
He trembled. Then he growled. Then he screamed, to try and silence the voice. In his left hand, the Atlas Infernal suddenly caught fire, burning with black flames that spread up his arm, inflicting terrible pain that helped hold his sanity against the bludgeon of the Lion's command. The mind within the grimoire – the un-soul of that poor, demented man who had given his life to create the Atlas and had endured for ten thousand years in the hope of serving his true master once more – bolstered his defenses with its Pariah essence to battle the Daemon Primarch's sorcery.
And it was enough. It wouldn't last long – the Lion's will was too powerful … but Ahrimal's defiance lasted long enough.
As the ashes of the Atlas Infernal dropped between Ahrimal's fingers, Cypher rose to his feet, the wound in his chest vanished. Even the rent in his armor was gone, as if time had been turned back for the Lord of the Fallen. He saw Ahrimal standing over him, saw him tremble, saw the crumbling remains of the Atlas Infernal, and knew what he must do.
This time, he did not hesitate. In one fluid motion, he grasped his bolt pistol, put it against Ahrimal's chestplate, and pulled the trigger. The shell detonated inside the Dark Angel's chest, obliterating his entrails and bursting his armor apart. Ahrimal fell, and Cypher caught him, laying down gently on the ground. In the distance, Lion El'Jonson screamed in thwarted rage.
The face of the Lord of the Fallen was a blank mask, but his eyes burned with a maelstrom of emotions. He reached for Ahrimal's throat and unlocked his helmet's seal, revealing the young Fallen's noble, pain-wracked visage.
'Hush,' he whispered to Ahrimal. 'It's alright, Ahrimal. It's over. You did well, Legionary.'
'He … he is coming for you ...' gasped Ahrimal, in between spurts of blood. 'He is coming in person, sir …'
'I know,' answered Cypher. 'It's okay, Ahrimal. You can rest now.'
'No … listen ...' whispered the younger Fallen, before telling Cypher a few last words and finally passing away. Cypher held the Ahrimal's body in his arms for a few seconds, before standing up and starting to run again, leaving behind him his comrades' broken bodies.
For Ahrimal had not wasted his last moments of life. Dutiful to the end, a true Space Marine no matter the gene-seed that had coursed through his veins : with his last breath, he had told the Lord of the Fallen how to cross the last section of the Webway between him and his destination.
The sound of Lion El'Jonson's screams grew louder as Cypher ran. It seemed that the end, at long last, was coming. So be it. Czevak had been right. After ten thousand years, Cypher was tired of running. At least even if he failed, he would get to face the architect of his torment one last time.
And once again, Lion El'Jonson would learn that Calibanites did not go down gently.
You are no protector, puppet. All that you touch turns to dust and ruin in your hands. Always !
… Liar.
Caliban, Segmentum Obscurus, 009.M31
The Dark Angels came to Caliban in the final hours of the Heresy, as the flames of galactic war flared up one last time. Guilliman was mustering the Traitor Legions under his banner for one final push on Terra. Lion El'Jonson, freshly returned from the Maelstrom, had been elevated by his patron god Tzeentch, transfigured into an immortal Daemon Prince. The Lord of the First Legion had heard the summons of the Arch-Traitor, but chose to make the detour to Caliban before joining the final advance. He first went to the Ghoul Stars, but what he found there displeased him greatly. The armies that were supposed to be prepared in the Ghoul Stars were nowhere to be found, Ajalos having failed to defend the hidden strongholds from the Night Lords.
The Lion had been bestowed terrible knowledge along with his inhuman new power, and this unholy lore had revealed to him just how powerful the entity he had always known, deep within himself, lurked on Caliban, really was. If he could harvest that power, then nothing the Emperor had would be able to stop the rebellion : the renegades' victory would be certain, and the nightmarish future that had driven the Primarch to rebel in the first place would be avoided.
Furthermore, the First Legion had taken great losses in the course of the Heresy thus far. The battles of Isstvan V, the Thramas Crusade, and the campaign within the Maelstrom itself had all taken their toll. The thousands of Dark Angels garrisoning Caliban, both veterans and newly Ascended Aspirants, would be welcome reinforcements. By now, surely the Lord Cypher had completed his task of making sure those left behind had been converted into the new ways of the First Legion – surely the Lion's agents had illuminated those he had been forced to leave behind. The fleet of the Dark Angels sailed toward Caliban convinced that a glorious return home and reunion with their brethren awaited them – soon, Luther himself would fight at the side of his adopted son once more, a true father helping the Primarch cast down the abomination that had usurped that title. Surely that must be the reason Tzeentch hadn't demanded that the Lion purge his Legion in the same way Guilliman, Dorn, Sanguinius and Manus had.
Did Lion El'Jonson know what truly awaited them at Caliban, or did the God of Change hide the truth from him until the very last moment ? Only the Daemon Primarch can answer that, and according to some legends, he hasn't spoken a single truth in ten thousand years.
There was no hiding the true allegiance of the Dark Angels fleet as it emerged from the Warp and crossed the last stretches of the void toward Caliban. The journey into the Maelstrom had stripped away the last remnants of their Imperial making, reshaping the vessels of the First into aspects more suited to the servants of the Changing God. There were towers of silver and shadow rising from prows, cannons shaped like the open maws of bird-faced daemons, iridescent veils of sorcery that confused all auspexes with conflicting readings. Kilometers-long butterfly wings trailed behind frigates whose crew were now part of the ship's living machinery, and a mist of tormented spirits clung to the fleet as it existed the Empyrean, moaning softly, whispering promises of retribution.
The Sorcerers among the Dark Angels immediately knew something was wrong. Most of them had either been born and trained on Caliban or had at least visited the system, and they sensed the absence of the Ouroboros more keenly than they had ever been able to sense its presence. Yet they could not explain the source of their unease, for Morgana and the other hermits of Caliban had come together and woven a great spell of confusion around the world, to keep the sight of those enslaved to Ruin from learning the truth before it was too late. Even the light of the Sword of Luther was hidden from view, contained by an enchanted scabbard forged for that single purpose.
Luther would have had the space fortresses open fire the moment the Dark Angels arrived in range. The Master of the Order had not recovered from his confrontation with the Ouroboros, but he had read the astropaths' reports of his foster son's deeds, and was enraged beyond measure at the scope of the Lion's betrayal. But Astelan's council prevailed. Instead, the fortresses answered the hails of the fleet with complete silence. Corswain, Senechal of the Dark Angels and second-in-command of the Lion, called again and again, demanding that Luther answer – to no avail. Closer and closer they came, the Lion sitting on his throne, silent as his homeworld grew in the occulus.
Then came fire and death. The Fallen opened fire first, with every weapon they had – and after years of preparing for this day, they had a great many weapons indeed. Cut off from the rest of the Imperium and forced to contend with the horrors stirred by the monster beneath its surface, Caliban had nonetheless grown mighty in the years since Guilliman's declaration of war. Dozens of space stations occupied its orbit, their guns manned by Fallen sharpshooters.
A fleet forged from the refugees of the Warp Storms ravaging the galaxy had gathered on Caliban, its captains swearing themselves to Luther's cause after a conversation with him. Scattered ships of the Imperial Army sailed alongside lost Mechanicum vessels, though the Fallen lacked Legion ships of their own – the Lion had taken them all when he had stripped Caliban of resources before his ill-fated journey into the Ghoul Stars. Repaired in the shipyards orbiting the planet and refitted with the most powerful weapons designed by the members of the Mechanicum who had made it to the planet – for Luther had managed to convince the Martian priests that now was not the time to cling to protocol and the hierarchy of secrets – these ships opened fire upon the Dark Angels in a coordinated assault. Their combined firepower overwhelmed the shields of the first line of the Dark Angels' fleet, obliterating several vessels at once – and bringing down the shields of the First Legion's flagship for a few, precious moments.
And just behind that onslaught came a single transmission – the only communication that would be sent between the Fallen and the Dark Angels. When he heard it, Lion El'Jonson was consumed by a terrible fury. He rose from his throne, and flew out, shattering the occulus of his flagship, briefly exposing the bridge to the void before the safeguards activated and the hole was closed. Like a winged disaster of ancient myth, the Daemon Primarch flew ahead of his fleet, toward Aldurukh – toward Luther, and the destiny that awaited the two of them.
But the Lion did not know, even as he raged and swore to inflict unspeakable torments upon the renegades, that his actions had been anticipated by the Fallen. That his fury had been deliberately provoked. For as Luther rested in Aldurukh, Morgana had come to his side once more, calling for his advisors Astelan and Cypher in order to reveal to them another of the Watchers' secrets.
Aboard the Invincible Reason, the Gloriana-class flagship of the First Legion, was a daemon engine of immense power. Known as the Tuchulcha, it was this engine that had allowed the Dark Angels to navigate the Maelstrom, as well as the Warp Storms unleashed upon the galaxy by Guilliman's betrayal. The Lion had found the Tuchulcha on the world of Perditus, claiming it from its Mechanicum caretakers with the help of Leman Russ, weaving a web of lies to hide the artefact's obvious infernal origins from the Wolf King.
The Lion had made a pact with the vile intelligence within the Engine, and with its help the First and Sixth Legions had been able to navigate the tides of the Maelstrom. Before that, it had been the Tuchulcha who had arranged for the seemingly random encounter between the Traitor fleet and the Night Lords, leading to the decimation of the Space Wolves' fleet and the need for their warriors to transfer to First Legion ships. Why the entity had done so was unclear. Perhaps it had known of the Lion's intent, even before the Primarch himself did, and sought to facilitate his betrayal of the Space Wolves. Or perhaps it knew what would happen to Holguin, Captain of the Deathwing, who the Lion told Russ he had tasked with hunting down the Night Lords, but of whom no trace exists in the Thramas Crusade's records. Perhaps it was all happenstance – perhaps it was Tzeentch's design.
The Watchers had told this to Morgana, before they had seemingly all perished in the Battle of Unmaking. They had known the Tuchulcha of old, and it could not be allowed to reach Caliban. As ever, their warnings had been cryptic, but from what Morgana had been able to understand, should the Tuchulcha Engine be brought to Caliban, it might be able to undo all that the Fallen had accomplished, and drag the Ouroboros from the moment of its destruction into the present. Caliban would not survive the process, but even worse, the power of the Great Serpent would be bound to the Dark Angels. The Lords of the Fallen agreed that this could not be allowed, and together they had hatched one more plan – the last the three of them would ever design together.
The Tuchulcha Engine must be destroyed, but the Fallen did not have the strength to launch an assault on the Invincible Reason. Cunning would have to suffice, and so Luther had goaded the Lion into leaving the flagship, while Astelan had arranged the first volley to bring down its shields just long enough for a small transport, covered in wards and equipped with the finest stealth technology available to the Imperials, to dock with the battleship.
Within that transport was Cypher, who could use his psychic powers to hide his presence even from the Sorcerers of the First Legion. Using the plans of the flagship contained in the archives of Aldurukh – for even though the Invincible Reason was much changed, its underlying structure remained the same – Cypher walked through the vessel. He could easily sense the location of the Tuchulcha Engine : the machine radiated power, as well as a crude malevolence. It reminded Cypher of the Ouroboros, for it was kin to that primordial evil, albeit of a different nature.
As the battleship's guns fired and the Dark Angels within it rushed to make planetfall and punish their loyalist brethren, Cypher moved like a shadow, unseen and deadly. Only the Lion could have detected him, and thanks to Luther's provocation, the Daemon Primarch was already half-way to Caliban, tearing apart the orbital defenses in his way.
The gate to the Tuchulcha Engine was guarded by Dark Angels Terminators. Two of them stood guard, each Possessed by a daemon of Tzeentch bound to let none but Lion El'Jonson pass.
Cypher walked right at them, and the veil of witchcraft that had concealed him thus far slipped from him. They charged, holding power spears that could have carved tanks, but Cypher rose his pistols, and shot each of them once – two perfect shots, right in the head. Both ball of plasma and bolt shell pierced through Warp-infused helmets, obliterating the brains of the Terminators. They kept going for a few more steps before the daemons within lost their hold onto the flesh of their hosts, which collapsed to the deck. Unopposed, Cypher laid his hands upon the gates, and willed them to open, pushing with the full measure of his tremendous psychic power as well as his armored transhuman strength. It took several long moments, his mind running across the gates, picking locks and deactivating alarms, but finally, he managed to push the high double-gate open.
There, before him, was the Tuchulcha Engine. It was like caged Warp lightning, confined within a wide sphere of translucent material. It raged and twisted, and it burned Cypher's eyes to look upon its infernal radiance. Immense machines surrounded it, connected to it with cables that ran into cogitators that smoke under the strain of processing eldritch input. One cable, however, was connected to the body of a servitor – a child, it seemed, though an exceptionally dirty one, whose body was in the same state one would expect from a corpse already buried in wet earth for a month. It was clad in dirty, blood-soaked rags, and its head turned slowly toward Cypher as he entered, empty eye sockets staring blindly. Its mouth opened, revealing yellowed teeth and rotten gums.
'… Is that you, Lion ? You haven't come visit in months, since that trip to the Maelstrom.'
The Fallen didn't answer the creature. He walked through the room, feeling the attention of the thing contained within the device turn on him – but it did so slowly, for it was used to thinking in terms of cosmic distances, and the mundane dimensions of the room were obstructing its view.
'Are you angry, Lion ? Why ? I only tried to help you. Everything I have done has been for you.'
Cypher holstered his guns and placed both hands against the sphere containing the Tuchulcha's essence. He shivered at the proximity with the unholy entity, but held fast.
'Lion ? What are you doing ?'
'I am not the Lion,' said Cypher, before casting the spell he had spent most of the last year mastering. At its core, it was a simple use of his psychic power – a generic hex used to interfere with technology, considered heretical by the tech-priests of Mars but widely used within the Legions all the same. That version, however, had been altered to affect Chaos-touched tech.
A wave of eldritch power spread from Cypher's hands. The moment it touched the machinery connected to the Tuchulcha's containment cell, it began to detonate. Errors cascaded within the complex programming of the Engine, causing the feedback to strike directly at the Tuchulcha's core. It shrieked as it twisted within its translucent prison, the trans-dimensional energies unravelling. Unlike the Ouroboros, the Tuchulcha had never been able to exist on its own – it had always required the care of mortals to maintain the Engine that allowed it to exert its influence upon the Materium. It struggled as it felt the Engine die, and the shock-waves of its destruction were felt across the entire space battle. Whole ships were torn apart by dimensional anomalies, and Caliban shook while its star flared uncontrollably. The servitor-puppet screamed :
'What are you doing ?! WhaT aRE yOu DoING ?!'
It was done. Now Cypher had to find a way back to Caliban – soon Luther would face the Lion, and if Cypher were not at his liege's side, then he would surely fall, though the traitor would pay a dear price for that victory.
'You … you are him.' Somehow, the servitor was managing to infuse into that word hatred enough to freeze the stars. 'The traitor. The one who helped kill my sibling.'
Cypher ignored the ramblings of the dying construct. He kept going toward the doors. Then, in one final act of spite before dissolution, the Tuchulcha spoke one last time :
'Do you know … what became … of your cousin ? He …' whispered the corpse-boy, before shutting down and falling to the ground, collapsing into rotten pieces instantly.
Cypher stopped.
Nemiel.
In the years before the coming of the Emperor to Caliban, Zahariel El'Zurias had had a cousin, who had been closer to a brother. They had been raised together, and they had shared the same dream : to become knights of the Order, and take part in the great war against the beasts. To free Caliban of the tyranny of the monsters that dwelled within the woods. They had trained together, fought and bled together. They had had their differences, as all brothers do, but theirs had been a true bond of brotherhood that had endured their eventual Ascension into Dark Angels and Zahariel's induction into the ranks of the Librarius. Then Zahariel had been exiled to Caliban alongside Luther and the first of the Dark Angels who would become the Fallen, and he had never seen his cousin again. After learning of the Dark Angels' betrayal, the man who had become Cypher had refused to think about his cousin's fate, knowing that there was no way of knowing the truth.
But he had thought about it. Not knowing what had become of Nemiel – whether he had died in the Great Crusade, had been killed for refusing to follow the Lion or – most bitter of all possibilities – had joined the Dark Angels in their treachery – had eaten away at him, and played no small part in allowing the Ouroboros to claim him as its vessel. And even the light of the Sword hadn't been able to banish that fear, for it had been born of brotherly love.
Hearing the Tuchulcha taunt him with knowledge of his cousin's fate was enough to bring all these repressed emotions back to the forefront of Cypher's psyche. Anger swelled within him – never a good thing in a psyker of the former Chief Librarian's power. The walls bent under the strength of his unchecked fury. Slaves across the decks wept in fear as they sensed his rage.
Perhaps Cypher could have controlled himself. Perhaps he could have used the discipline taught by the Librarius to contain his anger and return to his duties, reaching Caliban in time to play his part in the confrontation playing out there. But something within him stoked the flames of his wrath, blowing on the embers of resentment, fear and guilt.
Long after Caliban's doom, when the Invincible Reason sailed the tides of the Eye of Terror, there would still be stories shared among the crew of the daemon that had manifested within the ship at the height of that battle. Mutants and Dark Angels alike would speak of the monster who rampaged across decks, killing everything in its way, screaming one question, over and over : "Where is he ?"
By the time Cypher's rage abated, it was too late. He ran to the Invincible Reason's drop-pods, extracting the control codes from the mind of a Dark Angel and using his own authority credentials to prevent it from being shot down by Fallen artillery. Caliban's star was screaming down, sending waves of energy into the void, forcing ships on both sides to keep up their shields or be bathed in solar radiation. Entire arcologies were collapsing under the strain that the Tuchulcha's demise was inflicting upon reality. Morgana had told them that destroying the Engine would be bad – but she hadn't told Cypher just how bad it would be. Not that it would have changed anything.
Once on the surface, Cypher ran through Aldurukh, passing among the warring ranks of Fallen and Dark Angels, feeling the build-up of aetheric energies at the stronghold's top, where Luther and Lion El'Jonson were battling. Many tried to stop him – all failed, their bodies left in his wake. And still, it was too late.
Luther and his adoptive son stood among the ruins of Aldurukh's peak. The shards of the Lion Sword laid scattered amidst the rubble – stone, rockrete, and pieces of furniture and priceless, ruined books, the legacy of the Order strewn around like so much detritus.
Luther's armor was in ruins, and the warrior beneath wasn't in much better form. It was impossible to judge whether the Lion had suffered damage in return – it was difficult to even look upon his new form, though Cypher knew that the monster of shadow and flame was indeed his former Primarch. Before he could do anything, the Lion threw himself at his foster father.
The two warlords clashed one final time. The Sword of Luther pierced through the Lion's chest, bursting from his back just as the claws of the Daemon Primarch tore Luther open. The pain of his wound caused Lion to leap back, his wings elevating him above his stricken opponent while his hands moved to the gaping wound in his torso.
With the last of his strength, Luther raised the Sword to the war-torn sky. Cypher sensed the adamantium will of his lord pass through the holy weapon, through the blood that coated it, through the wound it had inflicted. He felt the power of the Sword course through the ties of loyalty that bonded the Fallen to Luther, and he knew in that moment what the Master of the Order had done.
And with that final spell cast, the last of Luther's life-force was exhausted. He fell backward, slowly, and his gaze found Cypher's during that fall – and all that could be found in his eyes was forgiveness. Then he hit the ground, and laid there, unmoving.
Cypher screamed then. He forced himself onward, before falling to his knees. He clung the body of Luther in his arms, even as reality, already weakened by the destruction of the Ouroboros, finally broke apart, unable to bear the combined strain of the Tuchulcha's demise and the mighty energies unleashed by the battle between Luther and Lion El'Jonson.
Darkness closed in …
He wakes. His entire body is in pain, a burning, all-consuming torment that threatens to drive him to madness. He does not perceive anything beyond that pain. He is …
Mine.
It is a pain he will learn to know in the ages to come, as he dies over and over, yet is returned each time. But pain means little to a Space Marine who has seen his commander die because of his failure. It is the voice that truly torments him, whispering to him from deep within his own soul.
You shall not die so easily, puppet.
And now he understands how damned he is. He has not died with his lord, and now he never will.
You gave into anger. You betrayed your master. You broke your oath. I could not touch you before, even as I hid within you – but now I can.
He feels the shard of the Ouroboros, the fragment of the Great Serpent that survived the confrontation with Luther by cutting itself from the whole. Like a lizard may shed its tail to survive – except this tail may grow back a full lizard, given time.
You will serve me again.
The pain diminishes, and he opens his eyes. He is laying on his back, and a metal ceiling is above him. He recognizes that he is on a ship – and, from the emblem painted in blood upon the ceiling, one belonging to the Dark Angels.
Your gene-sire will be most interested in how you survived.
But before despair overwhelms him, he sees something laying next to him. His hearts nearly stop at the sight. It is a sword – it is the Sword. In its scabbard, it looks like any other weapon – though a great and wondrous one, judging by the artistry of the scabbard, pommel and guard.
You will give me sacrifices, and I will be whole once more … What is it ? No. NO !
He reaches with a trembling hand, and touches the scabbard. He hears another voice then. A message, embedded into the Sword's scabbard. It is only one word, spoken in the voice of his liege's daughter. It says …
"Terra"
He stands. There are cries of alarm from the crew of the salvage craft that found him floating in the void. They raise weapons with trembling hands – transhuman dread washes over them as Cypher towers over them. What do they see when they look at him, he wonders ?
They are servants of the Dark Angels. Traitor scum. Feed me their souls.
He kills them with his bare hands, before recovering his pistols from where they were stashing them. He does not use his psychic powers, even though that would be far easier and quicker. He makes his way to the bridge, and through the occulus, he sees a field of rocks, tumbling in the blackness of space, and he knows that he is looking at what remains of Caliban. It hurts to see his homeworld like this – of course it does. How could it not ?
Good riddance.
He looks at the command panel of the ship. This is a small vessel, unable to perform Warp travel. He looks at the auspexes, and finds the closest Warp-capable ship that's small enough for him to run on his own. Now that he has an objective again, his mind is working again, absorbing information, considering possibilities. Planning.
Duty calls. He will not fail this time.
You will.
This he swears.
Your oath means nothing.
Even if it takes a hundred years, a thousand, ten thousand – he will bring the Sword to Terra.
The Webway, 999.M41
Cypher had learned many things during his long journey across the galaxy. He had gained many skills, some of them useful, some of them he had only had to employ once. But the one he was the most practiced at, to his undying shame, was running.
It only made sense. For all his power, for all that he was immortal, Cypher was still but one warrior pursued by an entire Legion of Traitor Marines, daemons and cultists. He could return from death, but if he were captured by the Dark Angels, then it was all over. Well, not quite : he had been caught three times, and had managed to escape each time, but these had been far too close for comfort. He had fought, of course – he had bled, and made the enemies of Humanity bleed. Across hundreds of worlds, Cypher had taken part in the wars of the Imperium, helping wherever he could.
But always, he had kept his primary goal in mind. When the situation was lost, or when the odds of him being captured were too high – he had fled, sometimes abandoning entire armies to their fate. He had never broken his word once given – but he had deserted forces he had previously helped from the shadows. The shame of it weighted heavily on his soul, but it had all been necessary. Over the years, he had pieced together the true purpose of his mission, and it was far too important to risk it, no matter how many lives were lost due to his cowardice.
And so he ran with all his strength, following Ahrimal's last instructions, toward the Webway Gate that the Atlas Infernal had showed led to the Sol System. Once, there would have been a Gate leading directly to the depths of the Imperial Palace itself. But that passage had long been closed, sealed after the Wolf King's attempt to kill Magnus the Red had ruined the Emperor's great work. He only had the vaguest idea of where in the Sol System the Gate he now sought would take him – but he had it on good authority that it would be survivable.
The Gate was in sight – less than a hundred meters before him – when disaster struck. The corridor's wall ahead of Cypher suddenly convulsed, as if a great pressure was exerted on it from the outside – then it broke, tearing apart with a sound like the death of sanity. From that hole emerged Lion El'Jonson, resplendent in his dark glory – though unlike the Dark Angels whose comrades' sacrifice had summoned the Daemon Primarch, Cypher could see the wound on his former lord's torso clearly. The Lord of the Fallen stopped in his tracks, and drew his weapons.
'Cypher,' whispered the Lion. 'I have been waiting to meet you for a long time.'
'You broke through the walls of the Webway,' said Cypher, incredulous. 'I knew you were mad, but this goes a step beyond that.'
'I am the favored scion of Tzeentch,' sneered the Daemon Primarch. 'I need not fear the wretches that dwell beyond the confines of this ancient realm. I walk through the Empyrean, and its power flows through me – carrying me from one location in this labyrinth to another.'
'You know,' sighed Cypher, 'the way you daemons speak is really annoying. Always trying to make yourselves sound intimidating by shrouding the facts in metaphors and exaggerations … is it because you are just pawns of your masters, dancing for their amusement ? You need to make yourself sound important to avoid thinking about your real position in the universe – slaves ?'
'I may be a slave,' admitted Lion El'Jonson, 'but I serve the Architect of all things. My every deed serves the Ultimate Purpose. While you ? You rage and struggle, trying to erase your failures, doomed to repeat them over and over, forever denied rest. You are no one. You are nothing.'
'I. Am. Cypher,' said the Lord of the Fallen, speaking softly, infusing strength into each word.
'A false name for a hollow man, carrying the broken shards of a vanquished hope. You have let yourself be enthralled by delusions. It is time for you to understand that there is no hope, no choice – only the will of Tzeentch, and the torment that befalls those who dare defy it !'
'No !' roared Cypher, and Lion El'Jonson actually paused at the sheer conviction in the Lord of the Fallen's voice. 'Luther saved me. He believed in me, long after I had lost faith in myself. He trusted me to do the right thing. It doesn't matter how desperate the situation, how terrible the foe. It does not matter that I stand alone against you, with a monster in my heart. I will not fail him again !'
[See Nemris' illustration titled : The Angels are Dark Still]
'And what can you do then, "Lord of the Fallen" ?' asked the Lion, curious.
'This,' replied Cypher, and he opened fire.
The moment Cypher pressed the trigger of his plasma pistol, the weapon malfunctioned in his hand, its delicate inner mechanisms thrown out of alignment by the Daemon Primarch's probability-warping presence. The Lord of the Fallen had just enough time to throw away the gun he had carried for a hundred centuries before it exploded in a ball of green star-fire.
Cypher's boltgun fired rapidly, every shot hitting the massive form of the Daemon Primarch – yet none did any damage. The Lion simply stood there, revelling in the impotence of his renegade son's weapon – until Cypher's gun ran dry. The Lion started to walk toward his prey as Cypher reloaded, and when the Space Marine opened fire again, the daemon started to laugh at the gesture's futility.
Then the shells exploded against his body, and for the first time in centuries, Lion El'Jonson knew pain other than that of the wound on his chest. He roared in shock more than in pain, and Cypher smiled, continuing to fire as he explained :
'Blessed ammunition, anointed by Sebastian Thor himself, back when he was just a priest. I have to admit that I was surprised to find out that it actually works on your kind. Been saving that clip for more than four thousand years, but it was worth it just for -'
With a grunt, the Lion swept one of his clawed hands. Psychic power rippled from the gesture – the simplest exercise of the Daemon Primarch's might – and converted into kinetic energy that tore the bolt pistol from Cypher's hand. The Lord of the Fallen fought to keep hold of his weapon, but it was in vain – both his physical strength and available psychic power were too weak. But his attempt to counter the Lion's sorcerous blow did not go unnoticed.
'I see,' mused the Lion, something like amusement in his monstrous voice. 'Your psychic power is diminished, a mere shadow of your old power. Yet still you struggle, to kindle the sparks of power that remain into something approaching your former strength. A worthy effort … but futile. The power I wield is beyond anything you ever had !'
'That's not the only trick I have left,' said Cypher.
Then he spoke a word, in a language whose true name, were it ever to be known and pronounced aloud, might very well spell the end of the universe. Enuncia, it was called by those few scholars that knew of it – though most of that select group believed it to be only a myth. The primordial language of creation, through which a mortal soul could reshape reality. The word struck Lion El'Jonson like a hammerblow, driving him backward a step and keeping him immobile for a while – until his daemonic nature corroded the reality around him enough that the binding Cypher had just placed upon him broke.
'Interesting,' mused the Lion. 'Where did you learn that trick ?'
'From one of Corax' monsters,' said Cypher amidst mouthfuls of blood. Speaking enuncia took a toll, for it had never been intended for human mouths. 'Molotch, I think his name was. I sent him fleeing back to his masters, and picked up the pieces of what he had been working on. A treatise of the language, if you can believe it – a functioning dictionary, if an incomplete one.'
'To expose yourself to such knowledge … You surprise me, Cypher. Pleasantly so. Perhaps I was wrong about you – perhaps you may still serve the Changer with more than your slow, agonizing demise.'
'An entire world burned for that knowledge to be uncovered,' said Cypher, trying to hide his unease at how easily the Lion had broken free of the enuncia spell. 'It felt wrong to just destroy it. I have always needed all the weapons I could use – and after all, enuncia doesn't belong to your master.'
'All knowledge belongs to Tzeentch,' said the Daemon Primarch with the utter certainty of a true fanatic – one who has gone too far, done too much, to even consider the possibility that his dogma may be in error. 'He is the source of all lore, all power. That trick won't save you, Cypher. Surrender now, and your torments will be delayed a little more.'
'He isn't the source of that power,' said Cypher, placing a hand upon the hilt of the Sword on his back. The Daemon Primarch paused. 'You remember it, don't you ? You remember what it has done to you. Whenever I felt despair in all those centuries, I thought of that wound Luther inflicted upon you – a mere mortal, wounding a prince of the Warp. And it gave me renewed hope.'
'You bear the Ouroboros' mark still,' sneered Lion El'Jonson hatefully. 'You are unfit to wield that sword, Cypher. Its power would destroy you as surely as any daemon.'
'I don't fear death, Lion,' said Cypher defiantly. 'What about you ?'
'You would fear death if you knew what awaits you once the Ouroboros tires of resurrecting you. I know your true name, "Zahariel". I know the names of every Fallen, and I know the names of all those my Legion has captured. Their souls are mine, and from them I have extracted the knowledge of what happened on Caliban. I know what you did … oath-breaker.'
'My name … is … Cypher !'
Screaming the last word, the Lord of the Fallen drew the Sword from its scabbard – or at least, he tried to. He managed to pull the first few centimeters out, and there was a flash of soul-searing light – then he fell to his hands and knees, paralysed by pain, while the Sword slammed back into its scabbard. He forced himself to look up, saw the Daemon Primarch tower over him, and knew despair. He had hoped to scare the Daemon Primarch, to make him flee from the light of the Sword. But Lion El'Jonson had called his bluff, and there was nothing he could do now.
'I told you,' said the Lion : 'you cannot wield that light. It hates you just as much as it hates me. But don't worry, my son. I will make sure it never hurts you again ...'
The Daemon Primarch reached down and seized Cypher in one of his claws, lifting up the Lord of the Fallen until the two of them were face-to-face. Cypher flailed uselessly against the grip holding him, but the Lion was too strong – and the claw he had placed upon the Lord of the Fallen's throat prevented him from using enuncia again.
'I am going to kill you again,' said the Lion. 'When you wake, it will be on Cysgorog, and I will break you myself. After all, we can't have you spread your lies among my loyal sons, can we ?'
The grip tightened, and Cypher felt his armor and bones start to crack. Then, suddenly, the pressure ceased to increase. Cypher opened his eyes, and saw that he and the Lion were now surrounded by a host of ethereal figures – hundreds of them, most so faded that they were little more than fog. But others could still be recognized as wearing power armor, and the emblem on their shoulder was that of Caliban's knights. Many bore traces of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Interrogator-Chaplains before their demise.
And there, among the ghosts of the Fallen, were Ahrimal and the others Cypher had saved from Port Imperial centuries ago. They clung to the Lion's body, and their spectral hands found purchase on his shadowy form, holding him back from killing Cypher. They wept and moaned as they struggled, but they did not give up. In death at least they were Fallen and not Dark Angels, their souls empowered for one last act of defiance by the glimmer of light Cypher had unleashed.
'You,' growled the Daemon Primarch, his voice full of unspeakable hate. 'Despicable spirits ! You dare to interfere again ?! You are dead ! Your souls are MINE ! You will not stop me !'
He roared, and the dark flames of his body erupted, consuming the wraiths that held him in place. The ghosts of the Fallen cried out as they burned, yet they still clung to the monster even as their very essence was subjected to abject torment. For several moments, the Daemon Primarch fought against the spirits of his loyalist sons, until at last, the power invested in him by the God of Lies prevailed. With a great cry, the Fallen souls lost their hold onto their enemy, and vanished. Perhaps they were banished back to the Crystal Labyrinth of Tzeentch, to suffer for their defiance – or perhaps they had dissolved entirely, released into serene oblivion. Or perhaps … perhaps they had gone somewhere else. In that moment, neither Cypher nor the Lion knew, and the latter didn't care.
'Now, Cypher … you are mine.'
Darkness closed in as the claw of Lion El'Jonson tightened around the throat of the Lord of the Fallen …
And then …
'Hands off my nephew, Lion,' said a voice.
There stood Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers, lost to the Realms of Chaos for the last ten thousand years. The Urizen bore the marks of all these years : his armor was cracked and scratched, and his face was covered in scars. Yet his eyes burned with the same fervor, the same conviction, the same power, as they had when he had confronted the four champions of the Dark Gods on Khur. Behind him was the tear in the Webway's walls through which the Lion had entered. It was closing, as if Lorgar's passing had healed whatever damage the Lion had inflicted.
'How ?' asked Lion El'Jonson, dropping Cypher to the ground as he stared at his brother in abject incomprehension. 'How can you be here ? You are lost. Trapped in the Gods' maze.'
'You know, I really am not sure,' considered Lorgar, cracking his neck. 'I was fighting … and then I heard someone call for help. Not for themselves, but for someone else. Never, in all my time battling Chaos, had I heard the daemons using that trick. I answered the call … and here I am.'
'… NO. No, this can't be it. These pathetic wraiths cannot have brought you here – cannot have broken the chains laid down upon your destiny ! You are lying, or mistaken. This cannot be … You must have been released ! One of the Four sent you there ! Was it Nurgle ?! Khorne ? Slaanesh ? Or … Has my lord Tzeentch sent you there to test me one final time ?!'
Lorgar shook his head, and there was genuine sadness in his eyes.
'You can't believe anything else, can you, brother ? You cannot accept anything that goes against what you have convinced yourself to be true. No Dark God brought me here.'
'You will not stop me, Lorgar. If you are to be my final trial to prove that I am worthy of my full power, then I shall finish what began on Khur and kill you myself !'
The Daemon Primarch leapt toward his golden brother, using the fullness of the power it could use for the first time in ages. His claws descended upon Lorgar's neck, who rose his crozius to block the onslaught. The clash echoed across the Webway, a confrontation that went beyond the mere physical – the Powers both Primarchs represented were clashing through them as well.
For a moment, the two appeared to be matched – but while Lion El'Jonson was weakened by his wound, Lorgar had fought in the Realms of Chaos for a timeless eternity. He was the first to tire, and as he did, Illuminarum, the weapon forged by Ferrus Manus in an earlier, better epoch, the weapon that had endured through the Roboutian Heresy and the ten thousand years of fighting the Neverborn within their own domain that had followed, broke. Lorgar stumbled backwards.
It is over.
NO !
Cypher saw the Lion tower above Lorgar, and knew then what he must do. He reached behind him with both hands, and, without pausing, drew the Sword of Luther fully from its rune-marked scabbard. And for the first time in a hundred centuries, the light that had been wrought into metal within the forges of Aldurukh, where the blades of generations of knights had been shaped, shone once more, unleashed within the confines of the Labyrinthine Dimension.
What are you doing ?! No ! NOOOOOO !
The Lord of the Fallen cried out as the radiance burned him. It pierced through his armor, his flesh, and into his very soul, consuming the darkness woven there by the Great Serpent. Never before had the immortal known such pain, but he forced himself to ignore it, and he threw the sword. The weapon flew, tumbling end over end …
… and landed directly into Lorgar's waiting palm.
Damn you, Cypher ! DAMN Y-
It ignited, the light intensifying from a candle to a burning sun as the Sword fed off Lorgar's power and flowed its own back into him. And in that moment, the Dark Gods on their thrones turned their gaze wholly upon the scene. Aboard his flagship, fighting against the daemonic intruders who sought to prevent him from reaching Terra, Magnus the Red smiled. Across a million worlds, sleeping men and women felt that something had shifted, and when they woke, it was with stars in their eyes and the determination to build, to be, something better.
And in the Ruinstorm, Roboute Guilliman shivered, and did not know why.
For the sword in Lorgar's hand was more than a blade. It had been wielded by Luther as he slew the primordial daemon known as the Ouroboros. It had been forged by a hero with the help of a sorceress, and had first been used to save a brother's lost soul. All of this made it something more than any other weapon in the galaxy, more than even the mightiest of rune blades forged by the infernal smiths of the Blood God's smouldering realm.
It was the Dream of Reason, of Might for Right. Of the strong protecting the weak, of knight-errants and heroes dedicating their lives to helping those who could not help themselves, simply because it was the right thing to do. A dream of a kind and just world, forged by the soul of Humanity. It was the innocence of children making vows to always be just and kind long before they learned the true nature of the universe, of a story that had probably never been real. And maybe it had not been – maybe it was nothing more than priests heaping their ideals onto the legacy of brutal warriors. Naught but the fantasies of children who could not accept the true nature of the universe. A foolish dream that had no place in the grim darkness that reigned among the stars …
But all things are real in the Warp that are believed in. And so that dream had become something more, coalescing around a legend none now remembered, but whose name had once echoed within every human heart. The hope of a light that would shine against the darkness, the hope that day would follow night, that there would always be those who would stand against the dark. The hope of a better future, of a day where the darkness would finally be banished once and for all.
It was the Sword That Was Promised, its true name long forgotten yet inscribed onto the very soul of Mankind, and evil could not bear its radiance. And it burned brighter within Lorgar's hand than it ever had, for his was a Primarch's soul, imbued with the might of the Emperor Himself.
Lion El'Jonson looked into his brother's eyes, where the light of the blade was reflected, and all he saw was the face of his old friend, his mentor, his father, looking at him on that hateful day when he had been made to confront the truth of his sins. His hand moved to his chest, where the wound he had suffered just before Caliban's end had never truly healed. The clawed hand came off spotted with blood, the old scar reopened by the closeness of the blade that had dealt it.
A single, impossibly human tear fell from the burning eyes of the Daemon Primarch.
Lorgar reached his left hand to his brother. Lion stared at it.
'Take my hand, brother,' urged the Urizen. 'You can still be saved, if you but choose to be. Take my hand, and let go of Chaos' lies. Look at you, Lion ! Look at what you have become ! It's not too late. I know what they told you, brother. I know all their lies now, and greatest among them is that they own you. They don't, Lion. They cannot. Our father's blood runs true. You can still be free !'
'You … you actually believe that, don't you ? You are a fool, Lorgar,' whispered the Lion. 'It seems the last ten thousand years have taught you nothing. There is no choice, no escaping our fate. We are all puppets dancing on the strings of Fate. The Gods cannot be defied. Not forever.'
'Brother,' begged Lorgar. 'Please.'
For one moment, Lion El'Jonson stared at his brother – at the expression on his face, at the light in his eyes and on his sword, on the open hand he was offering. And maybe, just maybe, the Daemon Primarch hesitated. Maybe, just for an instant, he considered reaching out and accepting that proffered hand. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on Lorgar's part.
But the moment passed, and without another word, Lion El'Jonson vanished. He fled from the Sword, fled from his brother and his last Fallen son, whom he had hunted for a hundred centuries.
The Daemon Primarch told himself that he was retreating because the Sword of Luther could, in Lorgar's hands, truly destroy him – not just wound him as it had before at Caliban's destruction, nor banish him to the deepest pits of the Warp, but truly destroy him, forever. And like all the best lies, this one was technically true, for the Sword That Was Promised could have ended the Daemon Primarch. But that was not the real reason why he fled. Perhaps he hid the truth from himself …
… and perhaps it was hidden from him by someone, something else. Who can tell ?
Lorgar watched his brother's shadow vanish, and sighed mournfully. He hadn't truly thought it would work … but he had hoped it would.
The Primarch turned back to the Space Marine. He laid on the ground, shuddering.
It was obvious to Lorgar's senses that Cypher was dying.
'I thought … I thought for sure that it would kill me,' whispered the Lord of the Fallen, looking at the sword with glazed eyes. 'I thought … no evil … could bear its light …'
'Then maybe,' gently told Lorgar, 'the taint you bore did not run as deeply as you feared.'
'… Ah. I never … thought of it that way …'
The Lord of the Fallen closed his eyes, and breathed no more. But this time, he died with a tranquil, peaceful smile on his face.
Lorgar waited. He knew Cypher of old – they had crossed paths once, before he had confronted the Dark Gods' champions on Khur. He knew the curse that had been laid upon him. And so he waited, until he was certain that the Lord of the Fallen was truly dead.
The Primarch placed the Sword on his back, where it clung to his armor's battered power pack. Gently, he picked up Cypher's body in his arms, stood up, and walked through the Webway Gate. The portal, already frail and weak, had been damaged by the battle nearby, and it collapsed as soon as Lorgar passed through it, unable to resist the strain of the power of the Sword and the Primarch.
There was no air on the other side, but that wouldn't be a problem for him, not for a while. The gravity was much lower, too. Grey dust rose from the ground at his feet, and he could sense human souls – billions and billions of them, a great light burning under the surface. But that fire paled in comparison to the beacon he could sense above him. Lorgar raised his head, and looked upon a sphere of corroded gold and polluted skies, that shone in his mind's eye with an incandescent light.
He was on Luna, and above him, glittering in the dark sky, was Holy Terra, shining full down upon him. He closed his eyes, and smiled as he basked in the radiance of the Throneworld.
Father, I am home.
[See Nemris' illustration titled One Minute to Midnight]
Her right hand shoots up to her chest, while she catches herself on the table with her left to stop herself from falling. She breathes, hard, silently reciting to herself the mantras she was taught by her master when the Imperium was young. Slowly, her heart and mind calm down.
She can feel it now, pulsing within her. The anchor of her father's last spell, the one that keeps the wound of her foster brother from healing, is in her now. Her father's last trick, one last precaution against what must have seemed inconceivable at the time.
She knows what that means, and despite everything – despite his betrayal, despite his failure – she still sheds a tear for the Lord Cypher.
A figure appears in front of her. She is the only one who can see it here, in the world of matter and reason, and she smiles softly as the wraith bows before her.
He is returned, says the ghost silently. The Golden One. And he has the Sword. The wraith smiles. It is as beautiful as I remember it. Then he fades from sight, though she knows he's still there.
There is a knock on her door. She sharply turns toward it, her face resuming the mask of dignity and cold intelligence she has worn for most of the last ten millennia.
'Lady Inquisitor Morgana ?' a muffled voice calls out politely. 'The Conclave is calling for you.'
She makes to answer – then she freezes. She looks up. She can hear the guard on the other side of the door reacting too – though he doesn't know to what.
She closes her eyes, and looks out with her second sight. Far away, yet close enough to touch, reaching down through the cold void of space, the thousands of defense platforms, and the countless wards woven into every brick of the Inquisitorial polar fortress, she can see the light.
The ghost was right.
It is more beautiful than ever.
AN : … Never again. I promise you that : I will never write another chapter that long. If in the future another chapter starts to grow to these lengths, I will find a way to split it in several parts. It wasn't supposed to be this long : when I began writing it, I worried that I wouldn't have enough to put in it, which would be a shame considering its importance. Ah ! What a fool I am, to believe this time and again …
A lot of research went into this chapter, from the structure of Necromunda's society to the names of some of the Fallen mentioned in the flashbacks. I wonder if anyone besides myself will ever know all the references put in that chapter.
Sources of inspiration for this chapter were, in no particular order : the tabletop RPGs Demon : The Fallen and Infernum, Arthurian mythology (though Luther did have a wife and daughter in canon, it's just that both died before he found the Lion), the comic book series Lucifer and Sandman, and the manga series My Hero Academia (yes, I swear - especially for the last two scenes).
If you think there are contradictions within the First Legion's dogma … well, you are right. That's the point. The Dark Angels' beliefs are nothing more than a glorified attempt at avoiding taking responsibility for their own actions and betrayal, after all.
Anyway, here we are. Cypher has fallen, but his duty has been completed, and he found redemption in the end. Lorgar has arrived in the Sol system, bearing the Sword of Luther, more powerful in his hands than it ever was before. And with Luther's spell now anchored within his daughter, the Lion's wound isn't healing, so what do you think he will believe happened after he left ? Fate isn't done playing with the First Legion, my friends.
Don't you love a happy ending ? It truly warms the heart, after the events of Chemos, and the short stories I wrote for Halloween.
Thanks as always to Nemris for going along with my requests and making the amazing artwork for this chapter. There is a bonus one, titled And the Darkest Fell Far, which show you another aspect of the Lion's face, if you are interested. All illustrations can be found on Nemris' profile on deviantart.
Thanks to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this. Her input was very useful in pointing out the bits of the story that could be fleshed out (and in reminding me to actually write some of it. Boy, that scene with Lorgar would have been perplexing otherwise).
So … that's it for now. I am going to focus on finishing The Fifteenth Ascendant now, before either returning to Warband of the Forsaken Sons or doing a short story. After three months spent on this chapter, I think I need to take a break from the Roboutian Heresy verse.
Thanks you all for reading this chapter. If you enjoyed it or have a question, please leave a review or contact me by PM. I will answer questions that are due to me badly explaining details, but I will keep secret the things that must remain so.
Wait … I think I am forgetting something … Something important … ah, right :
To be continued in
The Terran Crucible
Part Two : At Light's End
Oh.
… Frak.
… Zahariel out.