I am in a field and the wind blows ripples on the tops of the tall grass, the stalks moving like waves in the ocean.

A veritable sea of green.

I hear a voice and my name… “Arcastus” in the wind. My father is calling me.

I turn, looking back towards the villa.

White washed walls and red tile roof standing out against the green fields and cobalt blue sky of the midday sun.

My father is in the wide archway that leads to the courtyard at the centre of the large square complex.

It is our villa. We are descendents from a long line of farmers, working this land for as long as anyone alive can recall.

“Arcastus” he calls. I can see him waving and I jog towards the villa.

I feel the grass, the spikes on the heads of wheat pricking and scratching me as I run.

I feel the loamy soil under foot and between my toes as I move through the field.

I am with my father and he is telling me that I have been accepted.

That I will be going to the capital.

That I will be able to study and rise above our station. 

There is a great feast, and many come from all around to join the celebration.

I speak with my long time friend Thaddeus, he has also been accepted.

We talk all night about what might happen.

My mother and father give a speech.

They are proud beyond measure.

“Don’t look back, don’t look back...be brave, be brave. Don’t be afraid” they whisper to me when we embrace. My things are loaded and I look at my parents one last time and nod.

We are in a carriage, myself and Thaddeus. There are others whom I have never met.

My name, “Arcastus” reaches me and in a moment of weakness I look back.

I look back at my mother and father… and for the briefest second I can't see their faces.

They have no faces…They stand and wave like the scarecrow in our fields…I rub my eyes to look again and by the time they are clear… We are too far away and I can just make out their bodies in the distance.

The white washed walls and red tiled roof stand out against the green fields and the cobalt blue sky.

On the ride in the stuffed carriage we talk. Thaddeus and I. The others, dressed cleaner, avert their eyes and speak in hushed tones. Backs turned.

The city is beyond measure. We have never seen the like.

Grey, slab sided buildings…drab and dreary.

Grime streaks from cracked pipes and rust stains from exposed beams and steel bars.

The rain stings the eyes and has a chemical taste.

I can not feel the grass or pricks or scratches from the fields.

I can not feel the soil, loamy and rich between my toes.

The sky is…the sky is cobalt blue…even against the belching smokestacks of the factories.

The great hall, so many. In every direction an upturned awestruck face, on and on and on.

There is no end to them, in every direction.

Thaddeus grabs my wrist and gives me a shove. He’s grinning.

A scratchy speaker calls out and I swear I hear it say my name 

“Arcastus”

I frown and turn my head to ask Thaddeus. He is at his desk furiously penning away at his studies.

The small desk lamp is like an island of light floating in a dark cold void.

He stops and looks at me with an eyebrow raised in question.

His mouth moves but no sound comes out.

I squint at him in the darkness, I put my fingers in my ears and twist them round.

I am tired. 

I rub my face and when I open my eyes.

We are at attention. The young man in front of me, in full dress.

I feel the stiff pressed uniform against my skin, the scratch of the cap on my shaven head.

Someone is speaking about how we have achieved. How we, above all others, have risen up and become the best of the best.

We are the best and brightest, the academy elite.

I risk a glance, only my eyes. I see Thaddeus. He’s in front to my right.

There is a mighty roar of engines overhead. Caps are blown off, dust blasts the parade ground in all directions.

Against all my will, I break and I look up.

Cobalt blue against the Cobalt blue sky of the midday sun.

The hallway of the common building is crowded. The whole academy has gathered.

We are leaving, our things packed and being moved.

Thaddeus punches my arm and I drop my dress cap.

I bend to pick it up, standing I dust off the cap.

“Arcastus”...my name.

I look up and see Thaddeus. He is in a rage, he’s shouting over and over “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!”

I shield my eyes against the midday sun. A procession of students board a ship. Men and women in riot armour, their faces behind helmets, oversee the line.

“Arcastus”... a giant cobalt blue hand rests on my shoulder and pushes me towards the ship.

I can smell sweat, vomit and human excrement.

I can see faces, they blink in and out with the pulsing of red lights.

I can see faces, broken, hollow and indifferent. 

I can see Thaddeus, a gaunt…pale…wraith. His head hung low.

I turn and look out the viewing port, my world. Cobalt blue against the endless void.

I turn back and look over my cell. A bed, table, chair, lamp and foot locker.

It’s mine. I close my eyes and breathe deep. The sterile chemical smell that only comes from deep, deep cleaning. Methodical scouring of everything. I feel it on my skin, in my lungs, I can taste it on my tongue. And…frozen, I feel it penetrating my brain.

I feel it bleaching the red tiles, draining the colour from the green fields. I feel it leeching the laughter and faces from my years at the academy.

But the sky…the cobalt blue sky is like an oasis.

“Arcastus”...from somewhere far far away.

He shouts, I spin on my heel in time to catch the blade on my blade.

Pushing up hard against the force and then ripping round and down. In the same motion my free hand flashing forward to grab his uniform and pull him with all my might towards me.

The crunching of my head into his face as it pulverises with all my might, and on I run.

Through the muddy trenches, searching I go.

Looking I go.

Hunting I go.

I find the door and throw it open. I see Thaddeus slumped against the wall caked in filth and blood. I see the table with a single blade, thrust point down into the surface.

The blade is his.

I hear that low hum, that reverberating hum, that grinding of your teeth hum.

That sound that precedes death, and I look up.

The shadows, barely shadows. The impossible nature that such a thing could be there and not be noticed.

That cobalt blue death.

I look directly at it and slam my blade point first into the table.

Days. Where there were over one hundred, there are now only thirty.

Then fifteen, then eight, now there is only me and Thaddeus.

Thaddeus, I and the cobalt blue death.

I know the rights. I have read the doctrine. I have developed a mind for the theoretical and a stomach for the practical.

I have exchanged the plough and shears for a gun and combat blade.

I have swapped the cycle of seasons and rotation of crops for theoretical combat situations and the practical executions of them.

I am in the mud, I am in the sand. A jungle.

There are others, they come and go only in death. I try to stop and focus on them but they blur and run like melted wax.

Thaddeus remains. On and on and on.

I look at his face, it looks worn out and scarred. I hold out my hands and look at them.

I was a boy, but these are the hands of a man. Thick and calloused.

On the humid jungle breeze I hear a whisper, “Arcastus” I slowly look up.

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I am naked standing in a chamber, burning hot water, scolding steam, air.

I am laying on the steel slab table. Bright white lights, that all-too-clean chemical smell permeates everything.

I turn my head, a man. But too much a man. A Hulking giant of a man.

Split and broken. Eyes closed on a craggy face. Dead.

Straps, buckles. Wrists, ankles, head, chest. Needles and tubes puncturing. Pumping and draining. The world spins and melts.

They are unmaking me, bit by bit. They are taking here and adding there.

I study in great libraries and work in cages with weapons.

I spar with Thaddeus, words and weapons.

And slowly they reforge my flesh.

I silence the coms feed in my helmet and focus, “Arcastus” the pop and crackle of distortion bubbles over the line…My name.

We have broken the back of the world across our knees.

And now we wait. Me and my brothers in cobalt blue death.

War, conflict, resolution. Violence, absolute annihilation. They are but wheat before the farmer's scythe.  And we are both.

“Arcastus”

How many years, how many decades, how many centuries.

And Brother Thaddeus. The punctuation marks along the road.

Pain, indescribable pain.

The renting of armour and ripping of flesh.

Screaming, roaring.

Clutching at my helmet catches and ripping it off, post-human muscles rippling with combat stims and adrenaline. Hearts pumping furiously…and the pain.

The white hot lance of pain burning up my torso…shredded nerve endings firing off in spasms.

The involuntary jerking of my body in its death throes. 

And Thaddeus.

His blasted corpse, helmet dashed open like a cracked egg.

His single remaining eye, that blood filled orb looking at me.  

The pop and crackle of coms, the icon of Thaddeus on the HUD, bright.

“Don’t look back, be brave. Don’t be afraid.” then the long slow exhalation which seemed to stretch on forever. His icon slowly going cold…and winking out.

I can’t roll over, I can’t move. The stims, the suppressants, the suit, my flesh, all slowly dying.

And the sky.

There’s no cobalt blue sky. No midday sun.

“Arcastus”

I am in my cell. I am on my bed. My body is heavy and unresponsive.

I can’t move my head and out of the corner of my eye I see a brother.

His face shifts between that death mask of Thaddeus, face split like a melon and one I don’t recognise.

I close my eyes and take a breath…I look again. He is standing. We, we are standing.

The room is empty, and I can smell nothing. Hear nothing, I can feel…nothing.

His mouth is moving but I hear no words. He frowns and takes a step back.

He is not Thaddeus. I don’t know this one. But there had been so many.

So many dead over the years, so many battlefields. So much blood.

I begin to see Thaddeus again, see all the dead, their bodies broken and smashed while I, Arcastus remain. While I, Arcastus endure.

Something alien to me, a feeling of helplessness, despair, sorrow. A hollowing…I am falling.

I feel myself going down, I hear the cries of brothers eviscerated. The Boom, Boom, Boom of bolter fire and the screaming of bombs as they fly overhead to detonate in blossoms of tortured earth.

I roar and the sound is more machine than man, the sound of some giant mechanical leviathan thunders about the room.

Forcefully now “Arcastus!” my name stabbing into my mind like a finger in the chest.

He is standing, arm outstretched and the other pressed to his head. I feel myself floating, hovering above an inky, black void. And I know this is despair, if I could cry…I would.

We are in a room, blinking lights. Flashing reds and strobing orange, the clinking of chains and the clacking of ratcheting gears. I am rising, up and up and up. 

A deep thrum, the firing of synapse and linking of protocols.

My arming chamber, but I can’t smell the sacred oils or feel the weight of my suit.

I close my eyes tight and when I open them, my vision is filled with scrolling data and ident tags.

I can hear the crackle of coms and the world around me springs to life in tactical overlay.

My brother before me seems small…and he is kneeling.

I can hear him speaking “Oh ancient one. Mighty Arcastus. I am sorry to have woken you but we are in dire need of your aid.”

Woken…Ancient one. I say nothing and raise my arms. I can’t feel them. But when they reach eye level, I see they are metal. Mighty power fists, powerful enough to crush a brother to death. All too big, even for my post-human body. I lean forward and look down.

The hiss of pistons and whirring of gears.

I can’t tilt my head to see my torso but I see legs, squat blocky things ending in huge wedge slabs. Oversized mimicry of the battle suit I used to wear, of the legs I used to have.

I died. And in death I was reborn.

“I remember” I say through synthesisers, a crude imitation of a voice I don't quite recall.

“I am Arcastus, battle brother of the long war. I died and by his grace I was remade.

I remember the long war, and the wrongs…I remember” I say.

Cables hiss and release, chains clatter to the floor and I step down from the loading platform. My giant body moving according to my every thought.

“Where is Augustus?” I say ”Why is Augustus not here, and Agrippa and Tullus and Gallus” I exclaim “Where are they… I don’t know you.”

He explains that Augustus and the others perished 100 years ago and it has been almost 150 years since they last called on me.

Gone...perished he said…while I remain, while I endure.

I turn slowly, examining the chamber. My eyes linger on the sepulchral cradle where my eternal sarcophagus rested while I slumbered.

It is festooned with strips of paper and candles. Brasiers burn, swirling wisps of scented smoke I cannot smell.

I stare into that now empty socket and the sleep beckons me, calls me back.

I can almost see the green fields rippling in the wind.

Those white washed walls and red tiled roofs against the cobalt blue sky of the midday sun.

I take an involuntary step back up the stairs of the arming chamber towards the pod.

My coms click, I see the ident rune of Thaddeus a ghost whisper over the vox

“Don’t look back, be brave. Don’t be afraid.”

Then all hell breaks loose.

Great whooping sirens wail, all the lights of the chamber go a savage red. And that voice, the same voice from across the great expanse of time.

Calling, calling all brothers to war.

I am falling, hurtling through the void like an asteroid.

My altimeter flicking away numbers till impact.

The atmosphere and anti aircraft fire buffets the pod.

I switch to external visuals and see my brothers in glorious free fall, streaking cobalt blue comets against the backdrop of the endless void.

Slamming into the earth like the fist of some vengeful god, my pod blows its doors.

The screams of the dying, the constant chatter of orders over the vox, staccato booming of bolter fire…the broken bodies of my cobalt blue brothers.

My hearts begins to race, combat stims sharpening my every move, my every thought to razors edge.

I clench my mighty powerfist and ignite the power field around it, the crack-snap of the ozone as it burns.

The click-clank of the munitions belt locking to my rotator cannon, the long satisfying whirring as it spools up.

I am Arcastus, for ten thousand years I have stalked the battlefields of mankind.

I am a bulwark and my brothers flock to me. 

I couldn’t save you Thaddeus, but I can save them.

I throw my fist high and roar “For the Emperor! For Guilliman and our fallen brothers!”

Click-clank and the belching blurt of my auto cannon drowns out their responses.

I look up into the sky and close my eyes.

I slowly turn about with my arms outstretched.

The tops of the wheat lightly brushing my fingers.

I feel the grass, the spikes pricking and scratching me.

I feel the loamy soil under foot and between my toes as I move.

My father is calling me. I hear a voice and my name… “Arcastus” in the wind.

I turn looking back towards the villa.

The white washed walls and red tile roof standing out against the green fields and cobalt blue sky of the midday sun.