The Consuption of Galasparby Jeffrey ArpBeing in main, a multi-faceted narrative of the terrible deeds and horrendous events wrought upon those servants of the Emperor who served during the Battle of Galaspar in 8427989.M41 against the Fell armies of Darkness known as the Astartes-Tratidores of the Word Bearer Legion. ***Die knowing your work is complete*** Section 1: Slaves to Darkness The Traitor Legionnaires watched corrupted glee as the two Chaplains came forth from their midst with the prepared sacrifice. His armour now a purplish hue of fresh blood intermixed with the blue pigments of his Ultramarine heraldry, Veteran-Brother Sejanus watched the electric flares of pain that escaped his skull as the danced across his blurred field of vision. As his captors dragged him forth, dark shadows melted into the arcane red armour of the Word Bearers, metallic trimminings interlaced with blasphemous parchments announcing their black faith in the Undivided Pantheon of Chaos. Sejanus was hoisted up, and then brutally slammed back down into the stone altar which stood at the very center of the dimly lit chamber. He realized that what he had been dragged across was the descending staircase of an auditorium, with its center a shallow pit encircled with shallow marble rings from which the Heretics meant to watch the daemonic ritual about to begin unfold before them. The venerating bloodlust of the Legionnaires was palpable as it washed over the battered Loyalist as he was strapped down to the obsidian shaft which would serve as his death bed. Dried blood smeared on the floor around it betrayed it as an altar to the Dark Gods, but the obsidian itself was clean and held no trace of the foul rituals that had occurred atop it. Its very blackness obscurred its shape, and to Sejanus it seemed as if he were being strapped down atop a black hole, a mass of nothingness. Sejanus' hatred of his captors flowed like nausea from his gut, and he began whispering to himself the death litanies of his brethren when his captors went silent. A metallic hiss betrayed the opening of an immense bronze entrance-way, and with much difficulty Sejanus was able to make out the walls on either side of the entrance. The ancient walls were made of marble interlaced with icy veins of lightning, and were covered in brass etchings depicting the siege of Terra and the broken body of a gold lion - the Emperor - tangled in the coils of a galaxy-spanning serpent whose body was made of uncut diamond, and its jeweled eyes pulsating a deep red so radiant that the crystal body refracted it into every hue of color known to man. The entire mural seemed to stretch infinitely towards the impenetrable shadows of the ceiling, and as Sejanus could best tell was thirty times the height of a Marine such as himself, and perhaps more. His back seeping with coldness from the obsidian altar, Sejanus turned his eyes towards the red figure that walked purposefully towards him. Sejanus realized who the Heretic was immediately, for he had heard the hideous descriptions of the fell Chaos Lord from those Brother-Ultramarines who had fought against him in innumerable battles throughout the Long War. He was the Bearer of Woe, Lord Tubal-Kahn, the Master of a large and dangerous Host of Word Bearers, and a Heretic who fought against the righteous armies of the Imperium with such vigour and bloodshed that he was known as the Abomination of Desolation. He was a high-priest of Chaos Undivided, a man whom in the Word Bearers' ancient and indecipherable tongue was known by the title *Sennakherib*, an Angel of Darkness who led them both in their rites of war as well as in their rites of faith. Sejanus could remember nothing of the battle nor anything of the events that had led to his capture, but he now knew that he was aboard the massive space hulk known to the Imperium as *The Dead Hand of Authority*, and that he was to be sacrificed to the Dark Gods of Chaos. He prayed that his soul would be delivered unto the Emperor, and not be bound for eternity to the dark machinations of Lord Tubal-Kahn and his kind. ************ Rachelle looked out upon the glistening prairie stretching out before her and her fellow Sisters. As befitting her rank as Cannoness, Rachelle stood at the fore of her Order, which was the Order of the Verdant Shroud. Before them all was the massive plains of lush vegetation known locally as the Fields of Athenry. It was a paradise set amidst a greater hell. They were on the Imperial planet Galaspar, whose twin suns poured the bleaching heat of the desert upon the planet's surface. The Fields of Athenry were the only livable stretch of land on the entire planet, and its abundancy of plant and animal life were held within strict natural boundaries. To the south was a small bay leading out to the Hanging Sea, so named for its unnatural shallowness, which gave the appearance of the entire body of water being uplifted, as if it were on a table or cargo-lift. To the north were the Beheruuhk Mounts, their scaly hides scraping the far off horizon. The most important boundaries, however, were the eastern and western ones. Eastward was the River Eubulides, and to the west was the River Legion, which was the larger of the two life-sustaining rivers, and whose name originated in now forgotten myths and prophecies of the regions ancient past. Life on Galaspar, Rachelle noted, was for the most part pastoral and agricultural in nature, its economy chiefly based on trade with the small colonies which laid nearby. In exchange for its excellent, but limited, surplus of foodstuffs, Galaspar received raw metals and crafted machines with which it built and repaired the small human settlements scattered throughout the Fields of Athenry. At their widest, the Fields ranged some seventy kliks, but more often than not the average width was in the forties and fifties. They measured nearly four hundred kliks north to south, and the southern fields bottle-necked as the Eubulides and Legion ran closer and closer together as they neared and then emptied into the Hanging Sea. At the mouth of this bottleneck was Galaspar's one and only Hive, which also served as Galaspar's only spaceport. Hive Apodeixis was also the location of Galaspar's main church of the Imperial Cult. Days before, the Sisters of the Verdant Shroud had contacted the church upon arriving at Galaspar, and had been filled in on the local situation by the priest-adepts, whose eyes betrayed their fear. In the northern section of the Fields, on each river as it left the Beheruuhk Mounts, was a complex housing both a Generatium and a Purifactory, respectively generating power for Hive Apodeixis and cleansing the riverwaters, which served not only for irrigation purposes but also as the only sources of drinking water for the entire human civilization on Galaspar. Heretical forces from the rural northern sections of the Fields had risen up, and formed a debased cult centered on the worship of two water deities, a male known as Issachar and a female known as Mispar, who they believed could be enticed to send down a deluge from heaven by which the entire planet could be nourished and then cultivated for human settlement. Rachelle knew that while the cult had noble means on the outside, that in fact the true reason for revolt was the northern sections' hatred of the Hivers and its economy, which took their foodstocks for the Hive's own benefit. Imperial law dicated the Power and the Right of Authority, and that the northerners had no choice but to return to their roles within the greater scheme. Abandoning Imperial control would mean the almost certain doom of Hive Apodeixis and even the whole population of Galaspar itself. And now the northerners had turned the Generatiums and Purifactories into decadent temples of worship to their imagined deities. Rachelle and her Sisters had been sent as the advance wave to suppress the cultists before their deranged beliefs threatened the power sources and water purifyers. Hive Apodeixis teetered on the edge of destruction, and it was up to the Order of the Verdant Shroud to protect the Hive, and vanquish the northern revolt. ************ Sejanus saw the Chaos Lord tower above him. The Heretic's power armour cast a slick red glow as if it were made from liquid blood itself. Skulls adorning the armour stared blankly at the lone Ultramarine, foul words and blasphemous deeds etched into their crumbling foreheads. Dried skins and torn parchments hung from numerous locations about Lord Tubal-Kahn's body, and each bore a heretical passage of his captors' fallen scripture. He could hear Lord Tubal-Kahn's voice carry across the room, and looking upwards Sejanus could see the words flow forth from the twisted face of the Word Bearer Lord, his gnarled mouth working non-stop beneath the intricate, multi-horned skull which served as Lord Tubal-Kahn's headpiece. The Chaos Lord's left arm held forth a book of his heretical scripture, and the sinuous lightning cloaw on his right hand glimmered with malevolent energy, as his decadent speech reached toppling heights of madness and power... ************ Rachelle and her Order had reached the generatorium and purifactory complex of the River Eubulides. Following the river from its mouth near Hive Apodeixis, it had taken the sisters four days to reach the complex, which was located some four hundred kliks upriver. The Rhinos had managed the gentle curves of the Fields of Athenry without failure or difficulty, and in all the Order of the Verdant Shroud was poised to attack. Rachelle, as Cannonness and supreme commander of the small Ecclesiarchial force which consisted of nearly forty Sororitas and half a dozen preachers with a few handfuls of Frateris militia, decided against a rash attack, as the northern heretics could possibly panic and do something very unwise with the generators and purification equipment located inside their newly dedicated "temples." The cultists had used simple graffitti to draw rather blunt and graphic murals of their false deities on the Imperial buildings, and by the overwhelmingly male god painted onto the purifactory's slanted roof, Rachelle deduced that this "temple" was of the heretical male deity referred to as Issachar. It was her job to clear out the cultists, to make them respect, and this time *fear*, the might of the Imperium's will. The twin suns of Galaspar began to set in the northern sky, the black peaks of the Beheruuhk Mounts contrasting sharply with the red sky of dusk. ************ Tubal-Kahn felt the glory of Chaos enter his being. In his mind replayed the dim memories of Antiuk, and of what had been lost in his quest for the Fallen. Like precious jewels he had saved some memories, casting away those that met with disproval. The Blood Angels had robbed him of the Fallen during the war of attrition that had spread across and devastated the populations of Antiuk. But now, now before him stood anew the dark secrets he knew existed, and his ancient mind once again formed the machinations of thoughts and promises that his prize offered. He had searched the galaxy, he had succoured the gods with endless sacrifice, and now he had found his reward. For below his hulk, *The Dead Hand of Authority*, the Imperial world of Galaspar awaited as a ripe fruit amidst the covering shadows of the vacuum. And while it was true that Adeptus Astartes, the cursed Loyalist Legions, were nearby, he did not fear them. Even the small force led by Imperial Sororitas Sisters caused him no anxiety or thought. His mind's eye searched deep into the caverns that lined the belly of the space hulk, and amidst giant plasma turbines, the slave galleys, and the endless Great Hall where Arpachshad the dreadnaught and his kin were barely restrained in their cells, he saw the motionless form of his own Cannonness. She had been perfect in all ways, down to the very last corruption of thought that he had dripped into her tortured mind. Cassandra of the Order of the Bloody Rose remained still as Tubal-Kahn's eye probed every inch of her muscled features. Countless wires and tubes fed into her, as the ritual he had begun long ago was still in progress. But one element remained, and it was located beneath his feet. For on the planet of Galaspar was a tiny agri-town called Cleopas. And in Cleopas, in a delicate shrine lying in stasis, was a member of the Fallen. Mistaken for a Dark Angel recruited from Galaspar, the Fallen Angel was perched upon a steel throne, and it served as a surprisingly unknown Shrine of Galaspar's Imperial Cult. The Angel was neither alive nor dead, but that did not matter, as Tubal-Kahn cared only what was buried deep within his frozen corpse. ************ The Sisters of the Verdant Shroud entered the Temple of Issachar as silent as immortal ghosts. Debauchery and decadent worship had tired the few remaining cultists left in the complex, with many lying wherever they had passed out. Drawing their knives, each Sister stalked their way forward into the heart of the Temple, slicing the throat of any cultist they came across, many reeking of the drugged indulgences they had enjoyed only hours earlier. Once Rachelle was sure that the Temple was fully in their hands, they began the preparations necessary to defend any possible counterattack that might occur in the morning when the presence of the Sororitas was found out. She wished upon the Emperor that his Adeptus Astartes arrived ahead of schedule, for she feared that her small detachment was in danger of being overrun if they stayed too long inside the walls of the Temple of Issachar. As she recited her litanies of faith, she could pick out the soft whispers of her Order as they did the same. ************ Sejanus felt his chest ready to give in, to stop expanding, to refuse any more of the pain caused by his wracked lungs as they sucked in air. Incisions had been made into his chest, now stripped of his power armour and black carapace. He did not fully understand what was to happen, but in his mind he knew that the foul Word Bearer lord was planning to pull out the Ultramarine's organs, one by one if necessary, in order to please the Dark Gods of Chaos. ************ Tubal-Kahn returned from his drifting memories to the present, and as he finished his long proclamation of faith and the attendant rites spoken with it, he turned towards the weak Ultramarine spread before him. His chaplains had prepared the Loyalist for the ritual, and the incisions marking the eight-pointed star of their faith had been made into his chest and skull. Tubal-Kahn stared into the Marine's eyes, and was satisfied when he saw the reflection of awareness cast by them. The gods would be very please, Tubal-Kahn thought, knowing that this sacrifice would realize his own death in their name. Tubal-Kahn raised his voice, and with the ritual blade in his left hand, began the chanting that marked the final, and most violent, phase of the ritual, the annointing of his Host, and the defamation of the Loyalist's broken body. ************ Sejanus looked upon the glittering star, alone amongst the bleak nothingness of the void. It glimmered with serrated beams of light cast off from its unflickering mithril core. It seemed to sway as the nausea and pain roared like freight-ships across his head and body. Sejanus did not feel the sensation of spinning, or of dizzines, but nonetheless it seemed as though everything in his view was upside-down, then rightside-up, then upside-down again. Strobing flashes of consciousness were all he had left to live on, as he could feel stifling hot air as it eddied and pooled within his stomach cavity. His organs were gone, he was sure of it as he could possibly be, not having witnessed or felt their removal himself. But he knew his captors, and of their degenerate rituals by which they tried to garner the promises of the False Gods. He was incapable of physically showing it, as tired as he was, but in his mind there spread a wicked grin of satisfaction, as he knew the Traitors would not gain anything through his death. Indeed, Sejanus thought, they will only succeed in sending another soul to the Emperor, another staunch warrior-spirit that will support the Emperor is his never ending battle against the Floodwaters of Chaos The star began to sparkle and elongate. Sejanus became enraptured by the event, as a baby is to a simple toy or sleight of hand. Sejanus wondered how a star could elongate itself. He had heard of such things occuring in the realms of Chaos, and he wondered if the Word Bearers had returned to the Eye of Terror. It was then, as if it were a wrathful heavenly body piercing through the veils of a planet's atmosphere before violently smashing into its fragile sides, that the star began falling towards Sejanus. Its light cracked a million rays times a million directions, and like laser beams the star's blurry definition became stark, and its serrated edges cleaved into Sejanus' mind, between and slightly above his eyes, as if the Emperor himself had reached forth his hand to touch his loyal servant. ************ Tarsus arose from his seat to look out towards Galaspar through the viewportals that ringed the control room. As Commander of the Genesis Chapter, he would lead a small detachment of Marines on-planet as they assisted the Order of the Verdant Shroud in destroying a local heresy. Time was of the essence, as his men were preparing to join Lord Calgar's Balur Crusade. As it were, Tarsus thought to himself, we have already lost precious time to cleansing this backwater world. I shall not lose any additional time wasting the combat readiness of my men on this Emperor-forsaken scrap of dirt... ************ Lord Tubal-Kahn grinned as he watched his ceremonial blade pull cleanly out of the dead Ultramarine's head. An omen to his Word Bearers as they gleefully watched the knife draw up torrents of blood from deep inside the Loyalist's head as it was removed, the non-resistance it met, the failure of the Marine's flesh to cling on to the serrated shortsword as it continued to be slowly pulled out, meant that similarly, in battle, they would encounter no resistance from the Loyalists who would oppose their Lord's will. After consecrating most of the internal organs to the Pantheon, the Chaplains cut out Sejanus' heart, and after divining several prayers upon the still-warm muscle, handed it over to the Chaos Lord, whose beastly mouth sucked it dry of all its blood within a matter of minutes. The empty vessel was returned to his Chaplains, who with ritualized precision cut the organ into pieces of equal size, enough for each Chaplain to receive a single piece, which was then swallowed whole by the heretical warrior-priests. They, in turn, removed the spinal cord, slicing off each vertebrae as it was freed from the dead body of the Ultramarine. Each vertebrae was given to a veteran Word Bearer, who uttered the appropriate prayers and hymms to the Dark Gods before swallowing whole his precious morsel. As they did this, the Chaplains continued on Sejanus' now rapidly vanishing corpse, stripping off small pieces of flesh for ritual consumption by the entire detachment that awaited to board the drop ships for the planet below. Once every Word Bearer was given his piece, the Chaplains quartered the body, and used the remaining flesh and blood to consecrate the equipment, vehicles, and weaponry that would accompany the strike force. By the end, only the Loyalist's skull remained, and it was collected by one of the Chaplains, who would personally turn the empty skull into either a *Graalech*, a ritual grail that was used on such occassions as the Mass of Abominations, the war ritual that they had just underwent, or a *Graahk'rh*, a "war grail" carried into battle by their Chaplains, used to carry back the gene-seed of both fallen Word Bearers as well as fallen Loyalists or even other Traitors. The Word Bearer gene-seeds, as well as the un-marked Traitor gene-seeds, would be used in the makings of new Word Bearers, whilst the rest was saved for debased acts of corruption as well as trophies on Word Bearer totem poles, meant to (and often succeeding in) provoking Loyalist forces into righteous indignation at their abominable desecration of such sacred flesh. As Lord Tubal-Kahn gave the order, the Word Bearers climbed into the drop pods, as the more heavily armoured dropships took aboard the last remaining Dreadnaughts and tanks assigned to the detachment. As the locks were opened, and the now empty Inner Chamber depressurized, inside the heretics' spacecraft could be heard the drumlike chanting of one final blasphemous war psalm consecrated towards the Dark Gods: We are the worm that burrows into the base, We are the Astartes Traditores, Our bodies? Mortal. Every lamb shall be slaughtered, For those who seek our succour, We are the Shabbethai, Our wills? Inseperable. We shall consecrate with victory Sprung forth from the Womb of Chaos, Our Time has come. ************ The Sisters of Battle where stunned when they saw the cultists surrounding the generatium and purifactory retreat, not only from the armed Sisters but also from the surrounding buildings that made up the outer ring of the Imperial complex, which had been turned into a heretical Temple of decadent worship. The warriors of the Order of the Verdant Shroud watched as the cultists fled into the Beheruuhk Mounts, the broad flowing bases of which were located only a short distance away. While the temptation was to hunt them down, or to move on to the liberation of Temple Mispar from the northern heretics entrenched there, Rachelle hesitated, and decided to wait for the promised support of the Genesis Chapter to arrive. She did not trust the cultists fleeing so quickly, and worried that they had set a trap waiting to be sprung. Instead, Rachelle set her Order to the task of cleansing the Temple Issachar of the heretical filth that still remained. With grim efficiency and determination, every floor, every wall, every part of the Imperial complex was cleansed until nothing remained of the insurrection. Graffitti was erased, dried blood removed, blasphemous idols smashed and swept away. To some it may have appeared as work too menial for such highly trained warriors as the Adeptus Sororitas, but to Rachelle, the work was important, as it reminded her Order of their true cause, which was utter devotion to the Emperor, no matter how glorious or humbling the work may be. And once the complex was finished, and no longer contained any remnant of the heretical Temple Issachar, the Cannonness felt her heart near ly beat through her chest, as it swelled with the pride of serving the Emperor with such unyielding faith as her Order had just shown. It was now night, the ending of their third day at the Imperial complex, and the Sisters fell to sleep knowing that the River Eubulides once again flowed undisturbed to Hive Apodeixis. ************ "Lord Tarsus, where shall we land?" Brother-Navigator Lauvus' voice was matter-of-fact, its tone betraying his long service to the Emperor. "Land at Hive Apodeixis. The Imperial Church is there, and no doubt the Adeptus Sororitas Order is as well." Tarsus' response was terse, for he was growing more annoyed by this side-mission as time wore on. ************ Rachelle awoke with a start. Her hair was slightly damp, as was the makeshift bed she was on. It took her awhile to realize that she had been sweating heavily, and she noticed the barely audible hum of her armour's a/c unit as it circulated cold air through the suit, automatically adjusting as it tried to keep her body temp stabilized at all times. By the feel of the cold metal plates, Rachelle could tell that the a/c must have been on for quite awhile, and by that figured she must have been sweating for quite some time. She wondered what the cause could have been, as the temperature of the room that she was in was neither hot nor cold. She looked at the timepiece connected to her belt. It was getting into the early hours of the morning, but she knew the twin suns of Galaspar would not rise over them soon. She settled back into bed, unsure as to whether to attempt to go back to sleep, for she still felt tired from the cleansing of the complex, as well as the few hours she had slept inbetween the night patrols she assigned herself, or to take her abrupt awakening as a warning from the Emperor to be ready. Rachelle cleared her mind in an attempt to think clearly, and it was then, when all her thoughts had been drained into the night, that she first heard the strange sounds arising from outside. Her brief attempt at meditation halted, as she became fixated on the sound. At first she thought she was hearing an advancing insect horde, for the sounds were very reminiscent of the swamphoppers of her native agri-world of Mordiken, who would fill the long nights of Mordiken's summers with their repititous chirping. But as the sounds grew more intense, she could make out a distinct metallic tint to the sounds, something unnaturally constant in the pulsating beats of the oncoming horde. It couldn't be the Marines, she argued to herself, for no Imperial craft she was aware of emitted such a sound. Rachelle arose to investigate, and as she lifted herself off the floormat her bodyguard did the same, readying their weapons as they communicated their concerns to their Cannonness as her gaze was briefly met by each of them. Rachelle readied her powersword as she moved towards the door. The sound was not almost unbearable, and seemed to be coming from all directions. It was as if innumerable metallic insects were inside the room itself, their now unified syncopating chirps echoing throughout the complex. ************ Tarsus growled as the half-asleep preacher stumbled over his retelling of events. The Sisters had not waited, but had went ahead to fight the northern heretics over a week ago. It was one thing, the Master of the Genesis Chapter thought to himself, to be given such a pitiful assignment as this, but to have whatever glory achievable stolen from the impetuous Order made his blood boil with rage. He snapped at the bumbling human, which immediately shut him up, and then ordered his men back to the Thunderhawks, giving Lauvus the command to head immediately for the Imperial complex on the River Legion, which was now known to the locals as Temple Mispar. He would not stand to have the Sisters claim *all* of the victory themselves. ************ The oak door shuddered as slivers of brass and steel tore through its ancient frame with hungry abandon. Rachelle froze in her tracks as an archaic weapon sliced through the door, nearly cutting her head off. Her bodyguard hastily rushed forward, which only sealed their fate. The door did not last long, and before the Sisters could act, Chaos Space Marines of the Word Bearer legion crashed into the room. Rachelle had never seen one in person before, and she felt humbled before their overwhelming size. They were even bigger than the heavily armoured Space Marines of the Emperor, as ancient tubes, coils, and intricate metal trimming all served to enhance the size and ferocity of the armour's wearer. She noticed that these warriors wore baroque and quite archaic jumppacks. Attached to the packs were rusting speakers, which Rachelle realized to be the source of the now piercing metallic chirps. She did not understand the full purpose of the heretics announcing their presence so forcibly with the noise, but she knew that it was having the desired effect upon their enemies. As the Traitor Marines moved forward, both her and her Sisters were unable to move, so paralyzing and disorientating were the metallic waves of sounds. Off in the distance, Rachelle somehow managed to hear the screams and cries that rung throughout the complex as the heretics sliced their way through her Order. Her own bodyguards were cut down with brutal satisfaction on the part of the Heretics. But the peaking crescendo of the metallic chirps finally overwhelmed her, and would serve to be the final images and sounds in her mind before everything went silent and black in the Cannonness' world. ************ Following the orders of Lord Tubal-Kahn, the Chaplains of the Word Bearers detachment on Galaspar began cutting open the still-warm veins and arteries of the dead Sisters. Each one, save the Cannonness, who was now in the process of being imprisoned in the dark caverns built into the stomach of *The Dead Hand of Authority*. Tubal-Kahn had deemed her fate to fall to a more...worthier...time. As the Chaplains emptied each individual Sister, her blood was gathered into small containers which were then carried over to where other Chaplains had set up the *Saalemechum*, the "ritual cauldrons" whereupon the Word Bearers conducted their battlefield rites. As each container arrived, it was handed to one of the senior Chaplains manning the ancient cauldrons, who in turn poured the blood into the growing mass of red contained in each *Saalemech*. After the blood was drained, the Chaplains proceeded to cut out the hearts with their ritual blades, stuffing the freshly severed organ back into its master's open mouth, deep enough so that the mouth could be closed without trace of the bloody act that had just occurred. Then, while uttering the correct sacrificial words, the Chaplains began rubbing into the leftover wounds handfuls of salt consecrated for just this ritual. The true purpose behind the practice had been long lost, but the Chaplains remained steadfast to the tradition, which had been practiced by their ancestors before the Emperor had been declared Apostate. Upon completion of this step, Tubal-Kahn made his way through the piles of dead Sisters, choosing the random body here or there, twelve in all. These were given up to the senior Chaplains, who as with Sejanus began carving up the Sisters for the Desecration Mass. Meanwhile, the younger Chaplains, with the help of the veteran Word Bearers, began moving the rest of the bodies to the purifactory's large screening pool, which was the exact location of the building's most complex and intricate machinery, and where the exact process of filtering the River Eubulides took place. The bodies were then unceremoniusly dumped into the screening pool, without a single utterance from any of their killers. Almost as fast as the bodies plunged under water, the small lictorfish used by the purifactory in removing biological impurities from the river began feeding upon the dead Sororitas bodies with an unnaturally bred bloodlust. But as vicious and as sturdy as lictorfish are, they had never encountered such high concentrations of salt as found in the bodies of the Sisters. So while some of the lictorfish continued, without hesitiation, to nibble and tear and chew away at the palatable heads, with the warm delicacies inside each one, many began drowning, a few even exploding, as the overloading of salt began freezing up their muscles, eating holes into their stomachs, and tearing up the delicate nervous system of the cannibalistic fish. Before long, many of the lictorfish were floating upon the surface, while the remaining few continued steadfast in their missions as they stripped clean, piece by piece, the skulls of the dead loyalists. ************ "Lord Saleb, your mission is clear to you then?" The Captain of the 6th Company nodded solemnly that it, indeed, was. "Good," replied the Deathwing Commander, "do not be fooled by Galaspar's location or size. The Fallen will hide under any rock it finds. You must find this Mark of Shame, so that our Chaplains may once more bind his soul to the will of the Emperor's. You have been given your commands, proceed." "By the Emperor, His will be done." "By the Emperor, Amen." ************ Lord Tubal-Kahn watched with dark glee as his Chaplains re-emerged from the Imperial complex. After all of the Sisters' blood had been collected, untold gallons of the sacrificial fuel had been mixed in with it. Their ritual *graalech* cups filled with the noxious substance, they had entered the complex, leaving only when their grails were empty, and when every last drop of the "holy oil", as they called it, was smeared across some portion of the complex. It was now well into the night, and when the Chaplains re-took their place at Lord Tubal-Kahn's side, he stood upon the small platform in front of him, and spoke to his men. "My glorious serpents of Chaos, we have descended upon this planet to eclaim for us our lost heritage, which was cast upon the violent floods of time by the False Idol, the Emperor himself." Tubal-Kahn could feel the animosity his men still held for the Emperor's treachery and betrayal of Lorgar, of themselves, when he commanded the destruction of the sacred temples they had lovingly built in his name. Good, thought the Chaos Lord, they still carry our Legion's most sacred grievance of blind revenge against the Imperials. "Now, now we have found anew the tool needed to restore the past glory of our brethren. And it lies not far away, in a small, pathetic, agri-town only a few kliks south of here. It is a town by the name of Cleopas, and by tomorrow night, our power shall once again rain terror across the meek face of the Imperial Eagle, and we, the serpents, the believers, those who have borne the true faith into battles innumerable, shall reign glorious from this point forth!" The Chaos Marines swayed to the words of their Lord. Tubal-Kahn was a master of oratory, and a man, if he could still be called such, of deep faith in the Pantheons of Chaos. He was a Word Bearer, a Marine who held sacred every oath, ritual, and tradition of the Dark Gods of Chaos. And to the Word Bearers around him, Tubal-Kahn was nothing short of a messianic prophet, who would lead them to a promised land of untold power and darkness, a land where every human knee bowed to the will of the gods, a land where every back broke under the weight of the pantheon, a land where every face melted away before the unstoppable power of the Unknowable Ones. Theirs, he had told them, was Destiny itself, and none would deny them. "But if we are to succeed, we must, for now, separate. Because even as we end this Desecration Mass, our Imperial..."brethren"...now race for the Imperial complex on the River Legion, to our west. They may keep the complex, but they must not be allowed to break out of it, for within the far recesses of the warp, an even deadlier Beast is about to descend upon us. This second Beast, my brethren, I and my personal retinue shall deal with ourselves, but half of you shall be sent to deny the first Beast any involvement in our plans. "Namech, my Champion, it is you who I give command of this secondary force. Do not fail, and you shall be blessed by your Lord. And if you fail, then your bones shall rot upon the Fields of Athenry for one hundred and one thousand millenia. Understood?" "Yes, Lord Tubal-Kahn. I obey without question, I will fight without failure." "Good. That is good, my Champion, and for that the Dark Gods shall look with favour upon you." ************ "Lord Tarsus, the Adeptus Sororitas Order is not responding to our hails. Brother-Captain Adonis seeks permission to break off his Thunderhawk for the Sister's location. What is your answer, my Lord?" "Tell him 'no', we shall not waste time with the Ecclesiarchy, no more than is necessary." "Yes, my Lord. I shall relay the message." ************ Upon finishing his words, Tubal-Kahn raised his plasma pistol towards the main entranceway to the Imperial complex, left open by the Chaplains once their duties had been completed. Muttering dark promises to the gods of Chaos, the ancient weapon breathed to life once again, exhaling a compact mass of boiling plasma into the generatium. The super-heated plasma instantly ignited the toxic fumes that the smeared blood-fuel was giving off, and within microseconds a huge explosion tore through both the generatium and the purifactory, glass shattering instantaneously as violent bursts of energy tore through the windowed walkways that connected the buildings. The sound of the destruction was of one long hum, as if only one explosion tore through the entire complex, so deafening was the earthshaking explosion of the generatium's fuel-reserves. A massive heat wave slammed into the Chaos horde which stood in the flickering shadows of the now-raging inferno, sending a few of the heretical Marines almost to their knees as they braced themselves against the blast. Tubal-Kahn watched with grim satisfaction. The Loyalist Sororitas had been dealt with, the correct rituals had been performed, and even now he could see the slick entrails and greasy blood of the mutilated Sisters snaking downstream from the purifactory's screening pond. Within hours disease and thirst would hit Hive Apodeixis, and even though the compact Imperial settlement wasn't his destination, he relished in the misery and suffering that his hand would soon cast upon it. After the Desecration Mass was finally complete, Namech headed west with his detachment, intent on destroying Temple Mispar and any Loyalist foolish enough to defend it. Tubal-Kahn then led his personal detachment south, into the heart of the Fields of Athenry, towards the small agri-town of Cleopas, and the trophy that awaited within. ************ "Lord Tarsus, my scopes are picking up a massive explosion one hundred klicks northeast. Brother-Navigator Lauvus' holo-maps show this to be the location of the Imperial complex where the Sororitas Order is. Brother-Captain Adonis wishes to speak personally with you. Sir, your orders?" "Patch him into my command-link, Selessius. I will speak with him." "As you command, Lord Tarsus." The Master of the Genesis Chapter lowered the vidscreen of his command-link. Within seconds Adonis' heavily-set eyes burned through the greenish static of the vidscreen. Tarsus saw Adonis' growing frustration at not being allowed to check upon the Sisters of Battle. "Lord Tarsus, may I inquire as to-" "No, you may not." Adonis' voice stopped abruptly as his Lord cut in. Tarsus knew Adonis to be trustworthy, and that no matter the order, Adonis would without fail carry it out. "We have been given a mission more fit for the likes of the Ecclesiarchy. By for the Emperor we shall carry out our orders. And while we shall prove to be the nightmares of these primitive folk, we will not waste precious time nor energy in helping the Sororitas in a job which they should have had no need of support to accomplish. We shall purge the complex on the River Legion, and then return to our planned task, which is the Crusade on Balur alongside our glorius Astartes brethren. That is all, Adonis; do not fall victim to concern for such mere...humans." "Yes, Lord Tarsus, I bow before your authority." The screen returned to its unending sea of green static as Tarsus brushed the vidscreen to one side, as he contemplated just how much of the Emperor's Love he would deny the pathetic humans who were costing him so much time. Treachery garners no reward, the Chapter Master thought to himself, so I shall bestow none upon this wretched cult. ************ Captain Saleb cursed under his breath as he saw the raging battle below. They had just arrived at the small agri-town of Cleopas in their majestic Thunderhawk ships when they first saw the expressions of misery and terror upon the countenances of the local populace. The tears of women flowed like river currents in the unpaved streets. The bodies of men, young and old, son and father, lay shattered wherever they had been found by the heretical Space Marines. The waters of the simple plasticrete fountain in Cleopas' gentle park boiled red in the bleeding sky of dusk. They had reached the system earlier, in what would have been the dawning hours of the day over Cleopas. Galaspar was an inner planet in a unusually large system, even for a binary one. The system numbered twenty-three planets of all shapes and hues, and Galaspar floated through space in the second orbit around its suns. It had taken long hours to reach Galaspar, and when the loaded Thunderhawks began to slice through the upper layers of the atmosphere, the creeping shadows of night were already visible across the entire eastern horizon. Saleb did not want a night-fight against the murderous traitors, but he had no choice. He did not know if the truth behind the stasised Marine in the Shrine of Cleopas, who locally was thought to be a heroic Dark Angel had been revealed to the heretics, but he could take no chance, and he did not believe in coincidence. But what he saw caused his devotion to nearly waver. Although they were strangers, pitiful and weak compared to his own superhuman strength and that of his brethren, Saleb could not help but feel an attachment for the beleagured citizens of Galaspar. Did not the Emperor love these wretched creaters? Did not the Emperor die for them as well? The questions were rhetorical; Saleb already knew the answers, and he could see the confirmation of them in the eyes of the terrified populace. The Thunderhawks drifted slowly down what appeared to be Cleopas' main street, and with his improved vision he could discern the individual suffering etched across each person's face. The stench of death was noticeable even from inside the Thunderhawks, and the Captain could feel his hatred for corruption lash out from his gut once again. Gouts of fire and slicing beams of energy marked out where the heretical Marines had cornered panicking civilians, cutting them down without remorse. Saleb wished he had more men to combat them, but he knew that what he did have had to be saved for the main assault on the Shrine. He feared that the traitor Marines had already located the Shrine. His fears would prove correct. ************ Lord Tarsus put his hand on the vidscreen, and with a sweep of his armoured thumb touched the rune activating the device. He was about to order a secure channel to Captain Adonis, to talk more on the events that had transpired since they had arrived on Galaspar, when he heard what he thought to be the sound of violently played stringed instruments whisper into the quiet command section of the Thunderhawk. At times, the strange sound seemed to roll over into what he could only describe as a 'metallic waterfall.' And then, abruptly, it would seem to thin out and disappear, leaving only a few sonorous notes to the wind, as if some great composer was orchestrating the death scene of a hero. He was about to clear the strange incident from his mind when the sound took on a much louder, and much more aggressive tone. ************ Tubal-Kahn stood before the empty solitude of the Shrine of Galaspar. In front, inside a glassamite shield, and sitting upon a simple brass throne, was the timeless Fallen Angel. Still bearing the ancient markings and technology of the Great Crusade, the motionless warrior instilled within Tubal-Kahn the key to dim memories he had not known since the time of Horus, and the time of Nothing. Trapped within the Eye, descending anarchy encompassing all of the traitor legions, Tubal-Kahn had walked amongst the Fallen such as this man was. 'But at that time,' thought the Chaos Lord to himself, 'I did not dream of such power as they hold for me now.' The surrounding inner room in which the stasised Fallen Angel was enshrined looked much like a museum. Even though many people of Galaspar visited the shrine on annual pilgrimages, thinking it to be a heroic Dark Angel trapped within, their reverence for the past, and their fear of disturbing technology they knew nothing about, had long ago allowed the dust of time to settle upon the room's features. It was not dirty, and the closest word one could come to use is 'tired,' for the room had housed a terrible strain for an untold number of years and centuries. Tubal-Kahn saw the red lights of the stasis field's monitoring and control panel, and thought upon how long those lights, unwavering and unyielding to the march of time, had burned in the dark winters of Galaspar. He looked back upon the Fallen Angel, resting on his throne. There were no injuries noticeable to the Chaos Lord, but from the Fallen's almost-slumped form, Tubal-Kahn surmised that the warrior had been unconscious when placed inside the shrine, and that no doubt he would still be so upon re-animating. Tubal-Kahn longed to reach for the controls, and with the instincts that would bubble to the surface from many dormant millenias, key the correct runes that would unlock the past. But he knew, without no need for technical devices, that he would receive the enemy that hunted for him beforehand. Sweeping his hand over the cold, motionless rune centered on his chest, he silently gave the order to his Word Bearers to fall back towards the Shrine, and to dive into the shadows as a murderer's knife relishes the flesh of the helpless. He would stand before the Fallen Angel, and wait; wait for the first dropping of the gauntlet from his would-be challenger. Lord Tubal-Kahn knew that no would succeed in denying him his prize. ************ Tarsus turned to face Brother-Adept Hippolytae as the Techmarine's gaze simultaneously bore upon his Lord's. Tarsus knew all he needed to from Hippolytae's blackened, pupil-less eyes. Hippolytae rose to connect the appropriate hoses and devices that would allow him to monitor and direct the auto-repair systems of the Thunderhawk. The sounds of violence shattered the craft's reinforced hull to the Adept's left, and an ancient sword, more like a stalagtite in appearance than a crafted weapon, hissed through Hippolytae's exposed cabling and into the remnant flesh of his lower torso, most of which had been longed replaced by steel and iron. The Raptors had brought death once again to the skies, and they and their kin upon the ground began the fatal task of bringing down the Thunderhawks of the Genesis Chapter as they sped over the River Legion. ************ Veteran Sergeant Antius felt the blast's shockwave ram his body forward into one of the Shrine's outer plastisteel columns. At first he believed an Imperial battlecannon had been turned upon him, for the raging violence behind him reminded him of the Imperial Guard's earthshaking barrages. But then he turned to face the source, his power armour crumpled by the unforgiving column, when he realized that what had hit him had not been the fell power of a battlecannon whose spirit was angered by war, but by far a much worse malediction loomed towards him, for what he had taken to be an exploding shell was in fact the bellowing warcry of a Chaos Dreadnaught. The daemonic machine set upon the Loyalist with bloodcurdling terror extruding from it. Antius could see that the dark machine had tasted blood only moments before, and now took to the realization that the monstrosity's bloodlust would not be satiated until Antius and his men were each rent into pieces, their bodies broken by the undying horror of the Warp. The whiplike fingers of serrated steel of the dreadnaught's left arm flashed every colour of the spectrum, each foreshadowing in its sparkle the Loyalist's fated doom, as it flew through the darkening air of Galaspar. Antius could not defend himself nor evade the dreadnaught's attack, and the scything metal claw ripped off most of Antius' front armour, along with much of the underlying skin and flesh. A piece of his black carapace was harpooned on one of the long sickly "fingers" of the power scourge, and attached to it Antius could see the progenoid gland formerly incubating within his chest. The precious organ was seemingly glued to the carapace by the Marine's own flesh, which dripped stickily between the two separate organs, forming and breaking away individual bonds of membrane and blood. The roaring dreadnaught blasted his warcry once again, as it stood triumphantly in front of the dying Loyalist. Only meters away this time, the amplified cry shattered the head of Antius, but not before he felt his eardrums peel from there moorings in burning anguish to the onrushing soundwaves. Finally, the Sergeant's head split above the nose, and his last visions were of the delicate plates of bone that made up the nasal region, as the violent cracking of his skull pushed the separated pieces of his face across his eyes, sending the Dark Angels' world into shadowy darkness, where only the instant flash of dancing light upon trickled blood announced that his killer had unleashed a torrent of plasma into the Marine's exposed chest cavity. Antius heard the beats of primal drums as the world failed around him, and his lifeless form burned up against the cold plastisteel column behind it, bits of flesh and pieces of metal melting and mixing, and running into the column's ancient grooves, racing towards the blackened earth below. ************ Saleb froze as he rounded the doorway and reached the inner Shrine. Before him stood the motionless Fallen Angel, and beyond, on the opposite side, he saw the sickening appearance of the Chaos Lord. He thought about reciting the Catachism of the Emperor's Vengeance to the heretic, but before he could think further, he heard a horrific cry pierce the air from a place seemingly far off into the horizon, but which his experienced ears told him to be no more than a hundred footfalls from his present location, muffled as it were by the building's thick walls. Knowing his men to be dying around him, Saleb wasted no time. He began his steady but commanding march towards the stasised Fallen Angel, unsheathing his powersword and unholstering his bolt pistol. He also readied a grenade hidden underneath the gun's holster, in case he held no choice but to close upon a reawakened member of the Fallen and annihilate them both in a cleansing purge of the Emperor's divine Justice. ************ Namech looked upon the dark sky with malicious joy. Missiles from the captured Imperial Whirlwinds jumped towards the heavens as they raced to intercept the oncoming Thunderhawks. To the champion of Lord Tubal-Kahn, it looked as if the reality of night and day had been reversed, and instead of burning trails of fire lighting up the blackness of the night, it seemed to Namech that it was the fire that was real, and that the darkness was only a false shadow cast by a false god, the Emperor perhaps, and that the fiery trails written into the sky by the missiles were actually tears in the fabric of this shadowy curtain. Namech knew that some of his men were aboard the Thunderhawks, having used their bulky jumppacks to scream into the heavens and then down upon the unsuspecting Loyalists, using the ancient runes and the dark knowledge of technology possesed by Lord Tubal-Kahn to remain hidden to their victims, whose pulse-screens would detect nothing until the teeth of the first chainaxes began to cleave into the hulls. Namech laughed a hoarse, wet laugh, as blood and spittle ran from the ancient hole in his throat used for his discarded helmet's respiratory filters. Broken Thunderhawks fell like dying stars over Namech and his Word Bearers, many of the shuddering metallic birds slamming into their own reflections as they plunged into the crystal waters of the River Legion, a raging pyre igniting as oil slicks wormed their way to the surface. Before long, dead bodies of Marines floated to the surface, many ripped in half, or broken into awkward positions as they drifted downstream towards Hive Apodeixis. He did not see any of his own men amidst the Imperial carnage, and he looked with satisfaction as the Raptors descended back to earth, each accounted for, their metallic chirps and shrills dying as their fervour subsided. His mission complete to his satisfaction, and what he was sure to be that of his Lord's, he embarked upon the second stage of his mission, which was to return to Lord Tubal-Kahn's position with the traitor legion's *own* fleet of Thunderhawks. Namech keyed the comm-runes that notified the massive hulk of his detachment's request for transport. In the cold, vacuous depths of space, ancient cargo bays opened to the desert world beneath them, vomiting forth ancient machines of the Horus Heresy, dark manifestations of technology meant for an earlier time. ************ Tubal-Kahn flexed the metal blades of his lightning claw, arcs of white heat with reddish outlines flared between the serrated fingers. Tubal-Kahn raised the weapon in a defiant gesture, his body coiling as if he was about to lunge towards the Dark Angel opposing him. The Loyalist read the manuever, and arched his body as he awaited the onslaught. But it was a ruse. The Chaos Lord saw the Loyalist's reaction betray his dim youth and foolishness, and giving the Marine no time to respond, Tubal-Kahn's plasma pistol drained its power cells, if but momentarily, as yards of superheated plasma uncoiled from the gun and flickered like a serpent's tongue towards the surprised Loyalist. The Dark Angel caught the blast with his right shoulder, and he felt the scarring pain of flesh melting as his enhanced armour was corroded by the molten streams of plasma glazing the shoulder pad, a gaping hole eating at the insides of his armour and his flesh, quickly devouring whatever it came into contact with. Tubal-Kahn stood motionless, and began to speak to his opponent as the din of war raged outside. "Foolish One, why have your Masters sent a slave to do the work of Angels?" The Chaos Lord's voice betrayed anger and animosity, yet it was still calm and measured in every other capacity. "Tell me, Astartes, by what means do you plan to stop what I have unfolded from the past, present, and future combined? You are weak, and you will suffer greatly as I descend upon your soul, as does the carrion bird upon Man when he dies alone amongst the nothingness of the desert. Feed me your power, Dark Angel, and become subsumed into the chorus of the Pantheon, and through me you shall live an eternity as the haunting of the Warp does upon Mankind, upon the False Emperor, upon the False Life of Man itself. Do you accept? Or shall I obliterate your memory upon where you now lie, broken, buying for time, that precious commodity you shall never own. Speak, Foolish One, and decide through which stream of time your funeral dirge shall come upon to pass." ************ Hive Apodeixis. Although a Hive in the Imperial sense of dense population and decaying infrastructure, Hive Apodeixis still offered the hope of a small agri-town, as in many ways it still was. Life for the most part was good, and there was very few if any that had been allowed to fall to the level of poverty quite common in the Imperium's larger worlds and hives. Apodeixis was for the most part peaceful and serene, and in turn so was its people, who feared nothing save the dim racial memory of the Great Thirst that had haunted their ancestors so long ago, before the Imperial purifactories had been manufactured to make sure that their only sources of water, the River Eubulides and the more important River Legion always ran, and always ran clean. It was with appropriate concern when they awoke one morning to discover the foulness that had spread across the Eubulides. Many could not bear to look at the greasy water as it flowed south into the Hanging Sea, nor could many bear to even be close, for the noontime heat stirred up the sickly stench of death, whipping it across the Fields of Athenry, into the houses and buildings of Apodeixis' lower levels, then creeping amongst the spires into the upper levels of the rich and well-off. All were sent into panic, and everyday there were those who appointed themselves as 'keepers of the Legion', and set upon the remaining usuable river with the abandon of a man of religious conviction, who believes his God, or gods, has struck the final hour of his race's existence. And with much the same reaction as the men of old, who tore at their hair, and rent their ashen clothes, in response to whatever divine pain had been set upon them, the people of Hive Apodeixis went mad as the contagion of death and pollution slid downstream upon the River Legion. The elderly men recognized the dead Marines of the Genesis Chapter for who they were, the Emperor's sanctified Angels of Death, and cried upon the heavens the terrible meanings of what these superhuman warriors' deaths meant to the inhabitants of Hive Apodeixis. Many announced a new Dark Age of the Emperor had descended, and that Galaspar's crimes, whatever they could have been, were judged unredeemable, and therefore demanding of the Emperor's Holocaust. The poor, always the most devout in conviction, were the first to go. As the women of the upper Hive sung their own funeral dirges in preparation for what was next, the humbly clothed and bodied men of the underclasses threw themselves in the Legion. Then it was the turn of their widows, who swaddled their babies and wrapped their children up into their mother's wrenching bosom, and with the cold, finite grace of an Imperial Troupe dancer, walked into the remorseless waters of the river, whose murky depths cleared no distinction between warrior and servant, between man and woman, between the dead and the living. All were consumed in their turn, as the inhabitants of Hive Apodeixis sank their lives into the slippery abyss of the relentless waters that drove the River Legion forward to the Hanging Sea. Within hours, the cold rocks that glimmered beneath the shallow depths of the Legion's shoulders turned the red-hued tint visible in copper, or even iron. To any living observer, the soft color would have caressed the eye with promises of luxurious gems and delicate jewels, betraying the grisly wounds of their true origins. ************ Saleb had surprised the Chaos Lord with his will to fight. Saleb wondered if he looked worse than he felt, which was possible but unlikely, as the traitor seemed genuinely taken by Saleb's attempt at looking like he was near death. In truth he had felt close to it. The heretic had been bellowing at Saleb, who thought he was being ordered to do something, but ultimately the Chaos Lord's words proved incomprehensible to him, as his head swam with a million reports of pain in his barely held together arm, and a million reports from his conscious, demanding his body to complete the task given it by his Chapter. Saleb had crashed into the heretic, using his still good left shoulder to send the Word Bearer sprawling backwards. He wheeled about as the world went spinning from his considerable loss of blood, and it was only then that he realized the true extent of his right arm's injury. He discovered that the only reason his right arm was still attached, and why it was even mobile, was due to the remaining connections of metal plates and gears from his damaged power armour. 'Without them,' Saleb realized, 'the arm would have long since simply fallen off, completely useless, almost completely severed as it is from my body.' A few pulsating veins and twitching nerves were all that held the two pieces of flesh together. Saleb knew that he could waste no time on such insight, and began to work on the Chaos Lord, hoping to buy enough time to drop the stasis field and kill both himself and the Fallen Angel inside before the traitor could respond. To Saleb it seemed as if hours had dragged by, his battered mind unable to even comprehend the numbers reading across the inside of his helmet which would have told him the time of the mission, as well as his own vital stats, which across the board were beginning to drop rapidly. Saleb fought on, however, and in stubbornness refused to give up. They had been tangled in close combat, crashing from one wall to another, from one support column to another, across the entire inner room in all manners of position in their wrenching struggle for control over each other. At long last Saleb felt his life was on the verge of slipping, and in desperation lunged for the archaic control panel controlling the field. Under better circumstances, Saleb would have had the time to properly figure out how to deactivate it, but as such, he sent a prayer to the Emperor, and smashed a weak fist into a random section of the panel, hoping that the Emperor had guided his servant's hand, and would help Saleb in achieving his desparate goal. ************ Tarsus awoke to the bright light of pain, which seemed as focused and as whole as the lamp of the interrogator in the darkest room of guilt. He felt water lapping into the punctured holes of his Terminator armour, and realized that he was in a river, or a lake, or some unknown body of water. He could not remember what had brought him to this point, and he did not bother looking for answered. He flexed his aching right fist, half-realizing that his storm bolter was gone. He felt bones shudder and metal crack as he forced his right arm up and over to his fractured helmet, manually powering the commlink. He heard static buzz in his ear, and for some reason he could not discern, his mind filled with the shade of colour known as green. Not the green of the pleasant and verdant Fields of Athenry which he took to be nearby, but of an insidious, metallic green. A hateful green which filled his eyes with the metallic glint of innumerable blades coming at him, and filled his ears with a sound so hideous that he thought that he was under attack from a murderous host of horrific insects. Tarsus felt himself go mad in the brain, when the vision ceased abruptly as a distant voice boomed into his ear. "Lord Tarsus, we have homed in on your beacon. Your armour is not patching into our warpfield generators, so we cannot teleport you offplanet. We have sent a Thunderhawk to your present location; expected time of arrival is five minutes my Lord." Captain Telemach waited for a response. "We have lost all signs of your men or your attackers, my Lord." Again, no response. "Sir?" "Ssstop transss...s..missionnn...the Emperor....hass....come..." "Lord Tarsus, estimated time of arrival is four minutes. Brother-Apothecarion Relus stands by to attend to-" "Sstop trans..mission...*Lord*...Telemach...it is now...time...for our Chap...Chapter...." "Sir? Lord Tarsus, estimated time of-" "It is time...for the Genesiss...Chapter...to begin anew...take command....Lord Telemach...and do not fail...as..I...have... done...may my body return...to our ancestors...as my soul rests....with the Emperor." Telemach looked briefly in amazement at his men, momentarily frozen by his Lord's apparant death. Thoughts then struck of any possible hope of Tarsus surviving, but were quickly dashed. "Brother Relus, will you need any-" "Gone, my Cap...my Lord. Tarsus is gone, Lord Telemach; 'the Emperor hath doth reclaimed him, that glorious warrior of old', as the ancient dirge of our Chapter goes." Telemach listened to the static, knowing what Relus' next words were going to be. "I believe, my Lord, that tradition calls upon you to finish this dirge, so that our glorious ancestors may hear of it, and in doing so may seek out and call Tarsus's body back to their domain...as in the old ways, my Lord." Relus voice was full of the calm that one had after feeling death's head upon himself or a friend. "...as in the old ways, Brother Relus. You are indeed correct, once again we must pay tribute to those who came before, and respect their ways, the old ways...and now once again, *our* ways..." And with that, the new Lord of the Genesis Chapter awakened the memories of the ancient past with the burning dirge of remorse and grief, releasing all of the emotion that he, and through him the Chapter, felt for their fallen Lord. The body was recovered, as well as any remaining men still accessible in the River, before the Chapter returned to the heavens of deep space. At one point they may have felt the need to avenge their Lord's death, and would have without hesitation had they known that brethren of theirs, the Dark Angels, were upon the planet, and indeed in the very jaws of death itself. But as such they knew nothing of the greater battle that raged below, and in their silence vowed the simple oaths that would bind them for eternity: death to the traitor legions, whose godless warriors cut down their Lord from the unforgiving air of the deathworld Galaspar... ************ Ancient gears underneath the throne ground to a halt as the command to deactivate the stasis field was issued. Within a minute the field began to weaken in the dim light that crept through the sky-windows from the midnight sky above. The field, finally drained of all its energy, seemed to "trickle" out into the empty air around it, as water does in an overflowing container, except it went out in all directions, not just downward. Tubal-Kahn was momentarily stunned by the Loyalist's actions, and his vast mind realized instantly the suicidal instincts of the Dark Angel he was fighting. He glanced upon the Fallen Angel, who although free from the dead stasis field was still silent as an entombed corpse. He briefly wondered if the Fallen Angel had not survived the millenia in suspended animation, but he cleared his thoughts, and turned back towards the struggling enemy beneath him. "You are a pitiful creature, Foolish One, and now I shall deny you to the last. You have prayed to the Emperor for succour, do not deny this, and in the Rotting Death upon the Golden Throne you shall find no respite. I have searched countless systems, and fought a race's worth of battles, against both Imperial Angels and Fallen Daemons, to claim this goal, this destiny." Tubal-Kahn's voice seemed to still the air with its very utterance, and to Saleb the aging of centuries seemed to occur within the brief seconds of conscious he found himself in and out of. "These Fallen are more than you shall ever dream of in your darkest nightmares, Dark Angel. You may think upon their shame, but I have dissected their *past*. You have attempted to cover in the blood-smeared stains of your Chapter's robes what I am to bring out into the glorious light of the Pantheon, of Chaos in its pure and undivided form. This is a victory beyond all hope of redemption for your kind, Astartes, and yet your feeble mind grovels at my feet, praying to a dead corpse that the answers it seeks shall appear. "Your god is dead," spoke Tubal-Kahn, "and a new one...*many* new ones, although each is as old as time itself, shall emerge in his place. I will corrupt the Imperium, Dark Angel, and I shall topple the great Church of the Emperor. And when that is done, the Dark Gods of Chaos will spread across the Imperium of Man, and every human knee shall bow before them. There will be signs, and false divinations, and a billionfold pacts shall be signed between broken men and the Gods of Chaos, and the planets will know that the Final Act has begun to unfold, and their final breaths they even now are inhaling. The thousand upon a thousand year reign of corruption begins tonight, and it is upon your broken form that a New Era emerges. "Feel the blade, fallen Angel of Man, and feel your blood run out upon it as you lie shattered in your own failures..." And with that, Lord Tubal-Kahn sped down the ritual blade, the handcrafted shortsword from millenia ago. He watched with satisfaction as the Dark Angel fought to the end, the Loyalist sending his arms sprawling upwards at odd angles to attempt to block the oncoming blade. Tubal-Kahn felt the blade force its way through the Dark Angels armoured, but weak and misplaced, forearms, and sink its way through his armour, slicing through dense flesh and bone before striking the floor beneath. Tubal-Kahn straightened himself over the Dark Angel, leaving the blade still entrenched through the Loyalist and the floor beneath. He whispered the prayers that would send him to the Dark Pantheon of Chaos, and having drunk his fill of the dying Marine, started towards the enthroned Fallen Angel." ************ It seemed to Saleb that years had passed since Tubal-Kahn had driven the blade into his body, pinning him without respite to the cold floor beneath. He was now alone, and he knew that if not years, then at least several days had passed since the clash between him and the Chaos Lord had ended. It was now night, nearly pitch-black, as it had been during the final scene, and as before, the otherwise unlit inner room was visible from the small shaft of light that descended from the roof, falling gently to a spot somewhere above his head, where he believed the throne to be. He had not heard from any of his men, and so assumed the worse. But he did not falter in wake of realizing such knowledge, for he believed that their deaths had accomplished the mission set for them. Or did it? He could not tell the fate of Tubal-Kahn, or the fate of the Fallen Angel. Tubal-Kahn. He repeated the name in his head once more. He had not known it until the world had crashed and was torn asunder all around him. He remembered priming the plasma grenade, with the Chaos Lord, his eyes raging with incandescent fury, stood over him, bellowing the cries of his traitorous kind to Saleb's broken body beneath him. Saleb clearly remembered the Chaos Lord as he rose the shortsword into the air, and lunged it back down with unbelievable precision and speed. Saleb had been almost too mesmerized by the fluid movement to remember his mission; but he did, and as the shortsword raged towards him, Saleb threw the grenade back towards the throne, praying for the Emperor to guide his hand. Saleb had known beforehand, while still in the hall before entering the inner room, that the plasma grenade's timer was defective, and hoped that in the Chaos Lord's rage that he did not notice Saleb's desparate act, and thus would not neutralize the grenade until it would finally explode and destroy the Fallen Angel, who had remained silent on the throne even after the stasis field had been lifted. Tubal-Kahn. Saleb thought he had heard the name in a dream, where it mixed with a cry of anguish and the boiling sounds of a plasma explosion. He then realized that he was remembering the Chaos Lord's reaction to the explosion, and remembered seeing out of the corner of his eye the Chaos Lord being thrown back as the grenade detonated, surprising the confident Word Bearer Lord as he was approaching the throne. In and out of consciousness, apparantly left for dead, Saleb heard the booming voice, and then other voices, enter the room, shouting out the name "Tubal-Kahn," and then drawing back into the shadowy realms of his consciousness. When Saleb had finally regained some semblance of a permanent consciousness, he realized that the Chaos Lord was gone, disappeared, and deduced that his name must have been Tubal-Kahn, and that alive or dead, he had been retrieved by his kin. Saleb had been alone ever since, and while he believed that he had destroyed the Fallen Angel, he had not seen it with his own eyes, and had no way of verifying if the traitor had been consumed in the grenade's explosion, or if Tubal-Kahn and his heretics had succeeded in their quest, and in turn Saleb had failed his. He made one final attempt to turn his head far enough to view the throne, but again, the sword proved to deny any movement on the part of his body, and he could not reach around with his head far enough to catch any glimpse of the Fallen Angel's shrine. He wondered when the Emperor would come for his soul, and instinctively Saleb began to recite the litanies that would guarantee his passage through the Warp to the Emperor's side. It was at this time the Saleb heard the first drumbeats of destruction as they walked towards him from the distance. The Dark Angel knew that, in reality, it was his Chapter making sure nothing was ever known of the events upon Galaspar, as Chapter battleships sank round after round in the planetary bombardment of the agri-town of Cleopas, and the heretical shrine it was home to. Saleb knew this to be the truth, but he allowed his dying soul to believe that it was the Emperor, carried forward by the battledrums of his martyrs, thundering towards him to receive his servant into his realm. Saleb at first knew fear, and felt the tendrils of hostile forces as they attempted to claim him for their own, but the majesty of the undying Emperor was great, and Saleb cut loose the remaining ties that bound him to his already cold body, and allowed the Great Warrior of Mankind, the Emperor, to guide him home, to be one with his Master. ************ Tubal-Kahn cursed the night, and pitied the dark for its weak attempts to console him in his hour of wrath. His gaze fell upon the dark countenance of Galaspar, which slept amidst the waters of the void as does a newborn at its mother's side. Peace, he knew, had once again come to the planet, and his ancient mind began to wonder if once again he had been denied by the Angels of Death, the Astartes, the fell Space Marines of Man. He shifted his gaze towards the stars. 'I still have the remains,' he consoled himself, 'and they shall prove to be enough, no matter the cost...' He looked back towards Galaspar, and sank into the brass throne of his command room aboard *The Dead Hand of Authority*. From the corners of his eyes, he could see the dancing shadows of light cast by the baroque candles attached upon the huge marble columns that formed a ring around the circular command room. Shadows draped the ceiling, and skittered along the floor like terrestrial rats. In the velvety depths between the columns, he saw the sinuous figures of the fallen Sororitas emerge, her thin body seeming to hang in the rustic air of the room, as if she were a ghost one sees but never believes in. Tubal-Kahn looked upon Galaspar, and a satisfied grin slithered across his beastly face. "You have not finished with me, Imperium of Man," spoke Tubal-Kahn, his leathery voice dragging out the final syllable, "nor have you finished with my kind. I know of others who I shall capture, and of others I shall corrupt." He glanced back upon the Sororitas, walking with the commanding air of a Lord of Chaos herself, and continued his serpentine speech. "I have killed before in the names of my Gods, and I shall do so again. Wars mean nothing to those immortal within the Pantheon, my dear Imperium, and I shall return once again, to claim my birthright, to claim my heritage...to claim, dear Imperium....yourself." THE END.
Copyright 1998-1999 Jeffrey Arp. Individual copyrights of certain armies and trademarks held by Games Workshop. No challenge to these properties is being made by the author.
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