The outer decks of the Citadel were great hives of activity. Shuttles and gunboats of all shapes and sizes huddled close in the hangars, disgorging passengers into the great mass of traders and lowlifes, all of which thought themselves so very superior to everyone around them.
Almost everyone, Rothus noted with what he understood to once have been satisfaction.
Now it was merely not an annoyance, a matter as natural as the weapons drills.
Only few Astartes showed themselves here, the armoured bulk of the Iron Mask towered above the gathered pirates, corsairs and slavers. There was no need to be on guard, yet it was only natural to be alert, tiringly alert to attacks that would not come. His hand rested on the hilt of his blade, that great sword he had once taken from a hated son of Dorn, a thin-blooded offspring of that Legion, clad in black ceramite. Usually the thought would have brought a sense of righteousness to his mind, but now it merely brought to the fore a lack of emotion he found irritating in the extreme.
A group of disheveled slaves stumbled out of his way, hurried along by a grey clad Mancatcher. The scrawny, greasy-haired mortal quickly bowed before Rothus.
A member of the Suppliers, Rothus recognized. Well-mannered enough, as to be expected from his business-minded ilk.
Mortals selling mortals. A grim reminder of the nature of man, and useful.
The Champion eventually left the bustling, open places of trade, entering a sectioned-off area of the Citadel of the Dominum. His coming attracted many stern eyes, and about as many weapon-muzzles.
“The famous Iron Mask, I believe?” Spoke a warrior in the armour of the Dark Angels. Aphrael.
Rothus only curtly nodded. In truth he found Aphrael rather tasteless, and had on several occasions demanded that Holreck allow him to cut off the snake’s head.
“Good, now that everyone is in attendance I believe you can show me what was promised, and we can conclude our deal!” Aphrael prattled on.
Rothus had a look around the dark chamber. The Warsmith was here, helmeted and fully armoured. His hands rested on the head of his great axe, ready for anything. Still, Aphrael didn’t seem to mind. Behind his Lord, Rothus spotted Derrus, and at his feet the bound Librarian.
The witch was covered in heavy silvered chains, their links gleaming with sigils that hurt even Rothus’ artificial eyes.
The Iron Mask took his place next to the last other Crucible Guard Ertos.
Their opponents were Aphrael and four of his Brothers. From his knowledge, that consisted more than half of what the Dark Angel called his ‘Order’.
Boltguns. Armour on the verge of breaking.
This did bring a spark of joy. Existence in the shadows had its price, after all.
The Librarian stumbled forward, guided by Derrus. The priest’s bald head was covered in the strange symbols of Colchis, a world Rothus had never seen.
The Warsmith’s deep bass snarled at Aphrael.
“I have what you wanted.” There was a pause, and Aphrael’s gaunt features betrayed that he knew what was coming.
“You didn’t tell me of the daemon these thinbloods had bound on their ship.” The Dark Angel smiled almost smugly. The atmosphere of the room took on a sharp, edged character. A silent signal appeared in Rothus’ vision. Ready for combat.
“A daemon you say? How most uncharacteristic!”
Aphrael played coy. There were nervous looks between two of his guards. It seemed only their leader was unaware of the dangerous game he was playing.
The Warsmith’s helmet betrayed nothing at a glance, the armoured war-god showing naught but the usual amount of belligerence.
“The coordinates, Aphrael. Give them to me now or I may forget our accord.”
Silence again, as the Dark Angel seemed almost insulted, thin lips showing what seemed like a pout and a snarl at once. The leader of the Order eventually gestured for one of his guards. The Astartes moved forward, with a scroll in his hand, offering it to the Warsmith.
The tyrant took the paper, before gesturing for Derrus to hand over the Librarian.
“I would suggest you should not open it, as it can only be understood by the psychically inclined, but you probably already know that.” Aphrael chimed, watching his man return the Librarian to their line with keen interest.
“Now, I believe our… business to be concluded, good Lord Kethral.”
The Warsmith hefted up his axe, stepping forward two paces.
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
***
His hands looked like before. Unremarkable. Pristine. Muscles and sinew were clearly visible, the fingers and palms were rough, made so by a long time of uninterrupted war.
They hadn’t looked quite like this, ever.
Not since...no. No memories.
The thought brought the tang of bile to his tongue.
He shouldn’t be alive. He had died, yet something kept him here, replacing sundered flesh.
The Astartes’ hands trembled, the hands clasping one another, fingers interlocking, tying the shaking arms together.
What manner of horror sat within his flesh? Why wasn’t he dead?
He wouldn’t find an answer. He had contemplated his unlikely survival for what seemed like an eternity, even forfeiting sleep, eyes wide, lips voiceless, unmoving like a statue.
“So it’s true…” a known yet foreign voice. The familiar tones rousd something deep within his chest, wild eyes shot upwards, half in threat, half in disbelief.
“Orros…” he mumbled to himself. There was a short hesitation, while the young Astartes stared at him, with an expression so untypical of his brethren. Awe. Open, delirious awe.
“I...didn’t believe the rumours at first, but…” Orros licked his lips, cracked. He bore an ugly suture mark over his left temple, disfiguring the burn mark that had been given on the day of his initiation. His eyes seemed to lie deep in their sockets. His stature seemed slighter now, even with the cobbled together new suit of armour he now bore. Some of the parts still bore green flakes of paint, the others were bare ceramite. Unscoured, as the brethren said.
“They said that you lived, that they retrieved you alive. I am shamed by my lack of faith.”
Orros’ humble and sombre repentance was met by a snort of derision from his lupine brother.
“Faith…” he wheezed from a parched throat, rising stiffly. The mock-hearts in his chest began to beat in anger. Orros instinctively took a step back, toward the door again, before catching himself and standing his ground.
“Faith in your dark things. Faith in the things that would curse me to…” his hands trembled, his breath rattled, his eyes were watery. Impotent rage was set ablaze again.
Orros slowly stretched out a hand. A rare showing of brotherhood, but one Brylla was half-blind to.
“Brother, the Gods have giv-”
He hadn’t spoken much further than that, when the death glare of the insane silenced him, canines glittering in the half-light.
“I was dead! Dead! I was ready, damn you!” he spat out, droplets of froth splattering all over Orros’ features. The young marine seemed unphased by this, but his expression spoke of confusion.
“You have been granted another chance, Brother!” he tried to reason, but it was to no avail. Brylla would not be stopped now, for his tirade had only started.
“I have betrayed everything I once stood for, the Allfather has abandoned me! I saw Fenris then! My very home spat me out! My kin wouldn’t have me! I am damned, Lost and Damned, like you!
You be quiet, you don’t tell me about your gods, your masters, these, these monsters that wouldn’t let me go home in Death!”
There was a long pause, the Space Wolf’s anger burning impotently.
Orros showed the hint of a frown before turning to leave. This crisis of faith required more delicate care than he would ever be able to muster.
***
The fight broke out swiftly and with little hesitation on the side of the Brethren. With little elaborate tactic outside of simple killer-instincts they set about the slaughter of the so called Order, two of their foes falling without ever firing a single shot, their chests torn open by boltrounds, the others already falling to precise sword strikes from Rothus or the battering of the crozius, the weapon Derrus swung with brutality that belied his more gentile behaviour.
Holreck himself had only one goal, to catch Aphrael, and to make him pay very keenly for his callousness. Too long had his kind been mistreated, taken for fools! Used, abused, and mocked. He’d thought Aphrael smarter than this.
The Warsmith closed the distance in stride, raising his great axe like a barbarian of terran myth. The power field cracked into life as the great blade came falling, like so many times, a strike at Aphrael’s head, quick and savage, but ultimately evaded, as the axe buried itself deeply in the Fallen’s vambrace, taking off the entirety of the lower arm in a shower of blood and mucus. The Fallen didn’t seem to realize any pain, instead smiling arrogantly.
“You think to kill me so easily? Me?!” His face seemed molten, and rippled like water, his smile fading into a rictus grin, a chasm, the vale between two waves, losing consistency.
Whatever this was, Holreck wouldn’t be evaded, as he brought the head of his axe forward, thrusting it into the enemy’s abdomen like a short spear, finding a surprising lack of resistance as it pushed through less and less ceramite, and more and more gory mucus.
“You can’t even hurt me, you filth-crusted worm!” The Aphrael-thing blurted, falling away entirely, slithering backwards, a film of chunky morass retreating away from his enemies while his brothers died to the blades and bolts of his assailants.
Within a heartbeat Holreck had unclamped the combi-weapon from his thigh, raising the twin barrels toward the escaping sludge. Twin triggers moved backwards, a pin struck, a nozzle opened, a bolt spun through its barrel, before hurtling toward Aphrael, eventually igniting the small propulsion system at its back, running hot as the melta-part of the venerable weapon spat out a beam of searing hotness, beyond any mere flamethrower.
Holreck felt the kick keenly as the weapon spat more munitions toward the fleeing mass. A high-pitched scream was his reward, as his visor turned the world black in an attempt to lessen the brightness of the melta-beam. Physical pain may not be a factor for Aphrael, but ceramite-shearing heat had seemingly done the trick.
The fighting quietened, the struggle over, short and brutal, just as the Warsmith liked it.
Much to his disappointment, there was no trace of the Fallen leader, only melted flooring and wall.
His mood darkened.
“Rothus, instruct the Eternal Usurper. I want that slimy cur blown into the void.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
***
In the orbit of the Citadel of the Dominum, a sole Nova Class frigate detached herself from the shade of the station. The small vessel turned tail, sleeping generatoriums roused to full activity in panic, engines flaring as fuel was ignited.
While the Aphrael’s Shade, covered in the mocking paraphernalia of the Ist Legion, slowly drew into the sick light of the nearby star, she was already being monitored by keen sensor-arrays. The dagger-shape of a Murder class cruiser was on her, broadside trained on her aft. Plasma cannons wound up, misshapen crew praying to whatever deity would hear them, that the ship’s armaments would fulfill their function. Cold Molten Brethren overseers watched the weapons with cold glee, thirsty for their discharge, a searing load of plasma, hurled with the power to take apart even greater ships than a mere cruiser.
The Eternal Usurper was a presence of her own, a ferocious hunter, with a thirst for hard fought battle. Many of the older Molten Brethren knew her, delving into her via Mind Impulse Units, or other, more primitive interface-augments. Few outside of the Warsmith himself, however, knew her as intimately as Gaster Volonx, the skeletal machine-man that tended the cruiser with his many underlings.
Few aboard knew the black-robed “Adept” personally. He was seldom seen at the war-councils in the Crucible, and the daemonic mass of Derrus held little fascination for him.
Indeed, the ghastly wire-figure wasn’t fascinated by anything outside of his purpose, the tending of the Eternal Usurper herself, and the nurture of her more...independent soul.
She was irritated by the demand to blast this puny vessel apart, an annoyed youth.
While all held their breath, hoping for her good will, or rejoicing at the great thump of her weapons, Gaster Volonx felt her half-heartedness, the laziness of just wanting the act over with.
The streams of data to the bridge confirmed what he already knew. The salvo had been effective, the enemy vessel had been torn apart from behind.
The vox-chatter between the bridge-crew and the Warsmith confirmed what he had only suspected. There’d be no boarding. Roughly three point four minutes later the great plasma cannons had focussed again, belching blue, fiery death at the wreck of the Aphrael’s Shade.
The Adept, while long having lost the ability to smile, placed an apologetic hand on the cogitator-assortment he had worked on prior to the sudden attack order.
While the Murder class cruiser awaited the outcome of the developing diplomatic chaos between the Citadel, the Eternal Usurper and the other vessels gathered here, Gaster Volonx loved his work.
***
Varx was not aboard the Citadel. For fact, he hadn’t been on the Citadel of the Dominum for quite a while. By his own flawed reckoning it had been two years since his last stroll through the reeking, teeming decks of that haven for scum and those seeking their goods.
What could the local pirates and slavers have that he could possibly desire, that was not easily acquired on board already?
Test subjects were easy to come by in the few instances he had needed them, and he doubted anyone would be able to actually teach him much of the secrets of the warp.
He smiled haughtily, trying to ignore the bitter, stinging reminder that Derrus had so recently proven that what Varx had considered impossible was, in reality, merely beyond his grasp.
His hatred for Derrus had grown immensely since then, and though he knew it was just his hurt pride speaking, the thought of being thankful for what the priest had done seemed vile and repulsive, an affront to all his being.
It was clear Derrus had a plan, one he’d been following for a long time.
Varx’s eyes rested on the picture. The cool beauty was a cruel reminder of something greater at work. He’d realised it recently, that Derrus had been the one to place it in his reclusive quarters.
Ever since his studies of the object had begun anew.
Silly, very silly, and very blind. he thought, with a strange sense of presence.
He’d found his mind wandering more and more since his… loss of control aboard the Pride’s Persecution. He could only suspect that the experience had left as profound an impact on his subconscious as it had on his more active thinking.
The Sorcerer closed his eyes and stretched out his hands before him, pointed toward the painting once more. His breathing was controlled, long and deep.
In and out. In and out.
With little effort his primary heart was forced into lower activity, joining his secondary heart in a state of nigh suspension, bringing the gene-crafted form of the Astartes slowly and safely as close to stasis as it would ever be possible.
In. Out. A single heartbeat. In. Out.
Slowly, very slowly, Varx settled into his desired state, detaching himself from the flesh-coil that he held dear, letting his other, less manifest form walk freely, probing through the dark.
The dark was, he knew, a part of the warp, at least as he perceived it. His non-existent form could see all things according to their warp-born essence, that shade of an object that was born from both how it was perceived and the truth of its existence.
This time the darkness was not at all dark.
The painting, once merely a collection of atoms given subtext, now appeared very clearly more important. Had his own thoughts led to this change, or had he just found a new perspective of appreciation? It was more than a painting, it was a testament to something now, it radiated its own little aura of tragedy. This was, while relatively speaking not major as warp-phenomena went, still profoundly strange.
Just as prepared to go deeper, he felt a scathing presence approaching, something laden with the tainted energies of the world beyond the real.
Varx snapped back into reality, his body aching, whipping upwards like a mistreated puppet, his twin hearts painfully taking up productivity to get the flesh into a battle-ready state.
His blade had appeared from nowhere, he stood before the door, covered only in clammy robes, the shimmering point of the blade pointed so he could strike at the throat of whoever approached there.
He could see the presence, a malefic beacon shining through the plasteel door, hurting his eyes.
Much to his confusion, the door did not fly open.
Only a single knock could be heard.
***
Again the Iron Mask waded through the masses of unwashed humanity. This time he was not alone, though. Ertos had tagged along on this trip, while the Warsmith and Derrus were explaining the situation to the Dominum, trying to salvage the situation. Rothus had wanted to come with, but Kethral had been quite stern in his refutation. Not that the Iron Mask thought the situation all that complicated. Aphrael had not shown the respect for their resources they deserved, and he had paid the price.
In all due honesty, he wasn’t really sure what he was doing here, in the corridors of the Citadel, among the shy flocks of menials, the scrap-automatons and the filth-sodden pirates. There were the Suppliers, running their slave columns, peddling their unwilling goods to pirate captains, that in turn sold looted weapons to the Scythemen of Pen Carnoc, feral worlders that were professionals in breeding highly skilled warrior-slaves. These dark-haired, slab-browed men in their turn only too happily swore fealty to their new piratical owners, who then in turn would be subjugated, or talked into alliances in one of the many sinkholes where mortals drank their ill gotten gains away.
There they plotted, Rothus knew, much like everyone here did. They plotted to carve out empires of their own, Kingdoms where the ambitious individuals at the top would be uncontested, and free to enjoy as they pleased. These plans, in part, were the lifeblood behind another group of interest, collectively called ‘the Handlers’. Cruel masters that commanded slave-regiments with bomb-collars and promises of rising through the ranks, mercenaries with an unsurprisingly loose sense of loyalty to each other and their disputed head, at this point in time the Handler Lord Molvorth, at least if Rothus’ knowledge was still accurate.
He let out a garbled grunt. He would’ve preferred to be with Kethral, doing his duty, instead of wandering around senselessly like this.
The click of his vox alerted him to the fact that Ertos had seemingly found something of interest. The marine nodded toward a nearby stall, erected before a scrap-hut, next to a large pen that held all manner of mistreated animals.
His sensors immediately knew what had caught Ertos’ attention.
The twisted, mangled thing that tended the stall seemed unimpressed with the two Molten Brethren, their towering shadows falling on its face, but doing nothing to rob the sheen from its eyes.
Rothus tore his attention away from the object of their desire, browsing the rest of the items on offer. Talismans, little, brittle stars and eyes. Engraved bullet casings.
And then...this.
He stretched out a gauntleted hand. He felt something then, a strange sensation of recognition. There lay a small badge, the iron skull of the IVth Legion. This particular piece was, however, a clasp, a brooch for a cape. His hands touched the skull, went over its lines, the inlay where once a large stone had sat.
Despite himself, Rothus glanced over at Ertos, who seemed as unsure as the Iron Mask.
He looked at the vendor again, who smiled wryly.
“No questions, son of Olympia.” the thing spoke softly, seemingly unconcerned. “It's yours.”
Rothus grasped the thing, inspecting it in the dingy light.
There was no doubt about it. The brooch had been their Primarch’s.
***
The figure that stood opposite to him was an enigma, at once showing significant scarring while his skin shone with the freshness of birth. His head was covered in patches of short, golden stubble, the rest of his skull showed swift-healing burn-marks that would lessen but never disappear.
The stranger had introduced himself as Brylla, as if that would mean anything to the Sorcerer.
He wore no armour, only covered in ragged furs, the epitome of the barbarian of popular myth, a wild man clad in dead beasts hides and brandishing bronzen blades.
Still, the most remarkable thing about the stranger was the fact that he was practically steeped in malign power, his very flesh seemed to fester with unknowable potential.
He’d not been ignorant of the rumours of a dead man walking, but he hadn’t expected most of them to be true. Brylla’s story seemed to explain it all relatively well, however. There was no denying the truth now.
“What exactly is it you would wish of me, Brylla? You seem in good health to me.” he finally asked when the warrior had ended his tale.
“I want you to tell me what happened to me. I want to know why, and how to avoid it.”
The warrior’s expression was grim, his eyes carried a glimmer of disturbance. Feral hope sat in that skull, Varx was sure, and there was a lot of reason to be worried.
He steadied himself, grasp around his blade tightening.
“I can tell you without a doubt that you are steeped in the warp. Still I cannot find much evidence for latent psychic talent.” It was true, there was little ascended intelligence there, the warrior’s thoughts remained relatively open for all to see, his form bristled with energy, yet there seemed to be no ability to guide this force. Maybe it was better that way. Had this oaf unleashed the power within him he’d likely have blown apart a good portion of wherever he was standing at the time.
“I can tell you nothing that isn’t apparent. This is far from natural.”
The warrior seemed to truly try hard to hide his anger, but his soul spoke more than a thousand words. He was desperate. Desperate and blind.