Grijs
Breezi
Fetzen
Hos
Little Bill
Master EffeX
LauderLast of the Zmaj
-After the Kursken Assault-
The Urshic Homeland was aflame. In her southeastern regions, the Raptor ignited the Asiatic Dustfields from the captured regions of the Xeric Tribes. To her southwestern regions, the Master of the Lines tore fresh wounds in her citadels from frequent sieges. In her southern regions, the Imperium built endless waves of trenches from the bottom of the Himalazians to the eight-pointed fortress-hives of the Evenkian Plains. The warriors of the Emperor drove further and further into her great lands with ruthless efficiency. She could wait no longer for her people to suffer. Kalagann’s horrors, locked behind sorcery and citadel, were unleashed enmasse to deal with the encroaching Empire.
Across the Urshic Front, the stalwart warriors of the Imperium saw them as they came. Dreaded volkhv, empowering the brave Urshite knights with powers from the wyrd through the Primordial Tongue, tore skin from bone. Burgeoning war migou, painted in the tainted blood of their patron deities, clobbered vehicle and genewarrior alike. Terrifying vukodlak, beast-warriors that bore the potent powered armor of Ursh, slaughtered auxilia in hundreds. Horrifying todorats, warriors fused to their warplate and deformed into four-legged abominations, cleaved into myriad trenches. Each was as devastating as the last; however, only one breed of monstrosity existed amongst Kalagann’s menagerie that triumphed over their terrors.
The zmaj. A red-scaled reptilian mount with huge, widespread wings that breathed wyrd-infused flames from its maw. As large as a heavy tank and as long as a sub-orbital naval vessel, the zmaj dominates wartorn Terra. They were few, far, and utterly furious. Wherever they appeared on the battlefield, they bore hundreds of dead from their breath alone. Regular munitions could not punch through their hide, nor could the sanctified magicks of the Sigilites break their manifestation. They were blood and fire. Only the generals beneath Kalagann and those trusted vityaz with the favor of the gods could ride upon them.
Though they were manifest in reality, conjured from bone, blood, and vitae, they hailed from within Kalagann’s domain. If there were a place that bore them from the wyrd, tore them from the womb of reality, then they could be silenced forever. Such a place would be forsaken, locked in dark magicks, and ruined by the pollution of the wyrd. Such a location would be hidden through the volkhv, away from the prying eyes of the Urshic populace and for the express viewage of Kalagann and his ensemble.
And yet it did exist.
The Sibir Ice Plains were desolate of life. Rolling hills of snow were accompanied by great towers of frigid ice. Snowfall with flakes as sharp as daggers cut through the snapping wind, dicing smaller chunks of frost into thinner variants of cube. Where the weather didn’t blanket the plains, dangerous sleet expanded out in every direction for countless, uninterrupted miles. Just as the sky above was tinged with the sickly Terran atmosphere, so too were the iced plains a sickening hue of grey-green. Vague symbols of the wyrd, either from the ancient peoples of Terra or the recent inhabitants of the last millenia, were inscribed sporadically across the fields. Ruins were the only waymakers through the perilous, cold wasteland. Great communes of corroded metal, crumbling towers of frozen brick, and dilapidated skeletal monuments made up those few structures dotted throughout the plain.
None would dare to cross such a wasteland on foot or by vehicle. The temperature, the uneven split of sleet-ice, and the raging winds were enough to discourage most from attempting ventures through this region. Not even the Nordyc barbarians of Maulland Sen would dare to venture through Sibir. The only feasible way through the ice plains was through air, if one dared to risk catastrophic engine failure. And today, of all days, was not the day to fly through Northern Ursh. A maelstrom had formed off the former coast of plains, twisting the already frigid wind into a lightning hellscape of grey-green tint.
And yet something did dare to cross the Sibir through the air. A fat-bellied Stormbird painted in the hues of the Himalazian Imperium blew through the dagger-sharp hail. Roaring engines burned what little ice attempted to form on the edge of the aircraft’s hull, while reinforced metal blunted the maelstrom’s vicious weaponry. Within the depths of the assault bay, fifty-odd individuals in hulking, powered armor awaited. Each was strapped to their crash seats, segregated down the middle of the bay by their affiliation. One side was the yellow-black Thunder Warriors of the God-Slayers. The other side consisted of the gray Astartes of the Steel Sentinels. Only a pair of warriors remained out of their seats, save for the pilots at the front of the gunship.
The first was a gigantic swordsman in all black, bearing a winged helmet and hefting a dark greatsword against his left pauldron. One of his gauntlets gripped the vehicle rails in the bay for balance, while the other carefully balanced his weapon of war. His powerpack was decorated with a silver-skulled object at the top, while a billowing cape of white fur settled behind him. A strange, wrist-mounted armament was bound to the warrior’s right hand, covered in sigilic runes of the Sigilite’s secretive order.
The other was Arturas, praetorate of the nineteenth legion with armor mired in scratches and dents that he had earned while fighting the Imperium’s enemies. His armor wore these marks like a badge of pride, a reminder to the horrors that he and his brothers have faced in Nordyc, and now Ursh. A sword remained sheathed by his side, but in his left he held a shield with the Raptor Imperialis, painted golden but stained in unwashed blood from the continuous battle against the Urshites. The Praetorate looked over his brothers, noting their rigidly focused disposition.
+‘We are approaching the DZ, Primarch, at least as far out as we can go given the Sigilite’s orders. You and the rest of the Legio, as previously discussed, will have to leg it from there. All of the other Stormbirds are reporting success in the theater. No engagements from the targets yet.’+ The pilot, a woman with a raspy voice, said over the Stormbird’s internal voxhailer. Instinctively, the inhabitants began to routinely check their weapons on an automatic cycle. Thunder Warriors bristled in their restraints, feverishly thumbing their melee weapon’s activation runes or clearing the chamber of their bolters. Astartes merely watched their counterparts in cold silence, checking their plasma or volkite-based weaponry before stowing them.
“Understood,” Primarch Aeternus replied dryly. His voice, even filtered through a greathelm, was a lion’s roar of a noise. Devoid of the typical restraints of post-humanity, his tone was as loud as it was heroic. He cocked his head to the Astartes next to him and continued to speak, “are you prepared?”
“Indeed, honoured Aeternus. The nineteenth is more than honoured to serve alongside you, we had long chafed under the command of Ushotan when we were first deployed to Nordyc,” Arturas spoke, lightly tuning his head to acknowledge the Primarch. His voice was calmed, yet firm, as he looked to the fabled God-Slayer with a look of admiration. The Praetorate refocused away from the admiration and pride that swelled within, speaking again, “I am unfamiliar with the beasts that we are hunting, do they bear resemblance to some of the abominations of Nordyc?”
“Primarch Ushotan is a difficult warrior,” Aeternus replied with a small smile breaking on his lips, he was fond of speaking about the other Primarchs. He’d never forget the many, many arguments they’d had over the years since the start of the Unification. There were times that he missed the simplicity of Ushotan’s strategies or his more direct method of communication. He wondered if Valdor and him still sparred between conflicts. The God-Slayer continued, “but he is fiercely loyal and a stalwart soldier. My siblings would call him brash and arrogant, but he achieved much in the early years of the Unification.”
“You have my thanks for being more lively than the First Legio Astartes. They are a difficult sort, but they will grow from our guidance soon enough.” He added onto his previous comment. His time spent with the First Legio had been filled with plentiful growing pains, yet he endeavored to see them become the very Legio that would replace the God-Slayers.
“Disregard my sentimentality. The creatures that we face are called zmaj, large flying creatures used as aerial mounts for the Urshic generals and their more favored warriors. They appear as such,” the Primarch replied to his question, calmly fishing out a dataslate from one of his many leather pouches and offering it to Arturas. He was hit with the sudden realization of how stark the difference in their size was. Ignoring the thought, he continued, “and have been slain several times by our forces. Primarch Bodiciia of the Second Legio Cataegis made several notes on their biology after many encounters.”
The Stormbird rocked slightly as it drew closer to the maelstrom, each of its vectored engines firing at full throttle to account for the turbulence. The armed prow dipped through the atmosphere, splitting ice and hail in a downward plow through it all. Converging towards the deployment zone, the Stormbird already felt the damage of Sibir’s storms upon her hull as several dents and deep gashes cut through her paint.
The master of the nineteenth looked around the interior for a moment, listening to creaks and scratches the ice made against the hull. Far was it that he would feel fear for their safety, but concern was a certainty for the astartes, untrusting of the northern blizzards. From his previous campaign, he had known some to be a cover from those who would wish to hide their movements or deny assets. Arturas would make his concerns known, with a suspicious voice, “This blizzard is strong, it makes me wonder if it was conjured by sorcerers and wyrds.”
“The storms of Sibir, according to the Sigilite, are a byproduct of the Urshic witch-minds and Terra’s ailing deathsong.” The First Primarch responded. Concern from an Astartes was a welcome sign. It meant that they had experienced the taste of the wyrd, the brilliance of war, and the depths of slaughter. They were grown knights, matured by battle. He nodded approvingly. Already, he liked these warriors more than previous Astartes he had encountered.
The lights in the cabin switched from soft yellow to alarming red. A long acknowledging tone warned Aeternus of exactly what he needed to know. They were beginning combat descent, rapidly plummeting into dangerous altitudes as all Stormbirds did in their dives. The bay rattled loudly, threatening to shake the genewarriors from their restraints and toss them from the ramp egress. Pict-screens awoke from their slumber, replicating a hazy view of the outside from within the gunship.
+’Entering final descent, prepare for- What on Terra are those!?’+ The pilot had begun to pleasantly announce their landing before several objects entered their view. At first, they appeared as tiny dots of black inside of the raging maelstrom. Easy to mistake for rubble sucked up by the rampaging storm. They quickly grew larger until they formed a proper image for the pilots and their genewarrior occupants. They were a swarm of leathery, red-skinned beasts on thin wings of scales. More than anything ever previously discussed, they were legion. The swarm came upon them like a storm of sinew and muscle.
+‘Prepare for an emergency landing!’+ The woman said with no small amount of desperation in her voice over the voxhailers. The swarm split into several smaller groups, each spiralling towards the relative location of their brethren gunships. As they spun down towards the sleet-covered fields of Sibir, explosions rocked the air from far-off detonations. The myriad weapons of the Stormbird activated. Lascannons struck out with vicious, red beams, autocannons spun on axial mounts, and rockets unfurled from their wing-locked racks. Every shot from the ship saw the beasts scatter as their numbers thinned, yet they prevailed over any kind of material logic. Already, scant numbers of the swarm were attaching themselves to the aircraft to rip into the hull.
“God-Slayers!” Primarch Aeternus roared, releasing his grip on the vehicle rail and moving towards the ramp with his greatsword ready. The Thunder Warriors echoed his movements, unlocking themselves from their crash seats and preparing their weapons for immediate use. Myriad helmets were slipped onto heads, covering their rough features in the glories of Old Terra. Knightly helmets with single- or dual-lenses activated, further lighting the bay in a crimson glower.
“In glory, we slay!” They cried back as klaxons began to ring throughout the Stormbird. Each one of the Himalazian knights started to twitch as their bodies were flooded with the mind-altering cocktails from their augmentations.
“This is no longer an excursion. Prepare to jump, Knights of the Nineteenth!” The Primarch commanded, his lungs full of vigor and his body adjusting to the combat drugs filtering through unseen bionics.
“In Death, We Protect,” came the call of the Sentinels, disciplined and stoic unlike the Thunder Warriors so eager to spill blood on the battlefield. Each of them holding either a Volkite or plasma rifle, sparking with an unseen hatred that was ready to kill in His name. They looked around as they stood, ready for nightmarish creatures to break into the bay. Each of them were ready to fight and die, but it remained unseen as the savage God-Slayers who hyped themselves as berserkers of old.
Arturas for his part, looked amongst his brothers before speaking to them in a soft order, “Harric, if the Stormbird remains downed, stay with the pilot until rescue arrives. Monitor our movements, get to us once you can.”
“As you command, Arturas” came the swift answer of the last Sentinel in the vessel, putting a fist over his chest in acknowledgment. The Stormbird rocked as the monstrosities continued to eat at it, a horrible sound of a roar and a cacophony of sirens blared through the innards. Engine failure, the plummeting of their ship was evident before the screeching of the hull as a red maw crashed through the walls of the bay only for it to be met by a blast of volkite. Their roars and howls were more than just the blizzard now.
+‘Brace!’+
The screech of metal against blanketed snow and ice filled the interior, the force causing the Astartes to adjust themselves briefly to maintain balance with the mag-locked boots. There was a moment before the ramp to the Stormbird dropped, revealing the frigid cold and violent winds of the blizzard that would have chilled men in an instant. Howls from surviving horrors crept along the winds as warriors raised their weapons ready to doggedly fight against the chaos that surrounded them.
There was no waiting for the Thunder Warriors. There was only Unity. Before the Stormbird had even come to a complete stop, the Cataegis had led the way. Aeternus’ pushed forward with a mighty heave out the back of the gunship. The First Legio followed after him, each quelling their bloodthirst and madness to prepare for an inadequate landing. Greaves skid across broken sleet and ice, while white fur cloaks snapped in the freezing winds filled with the burning breath of foul abominations. The momentum of the skidding warriors granted them a miraculous boost of speed, their warforms sprinting out further than they projected.
Wordlessly, Aeternus and a pair of heavily armed Thunder Warriors turned around while the rest began the long trek into the sleet-bound hellscape. Their greaves came to a skidding halt as their weapons opened up on the back of the Stormbird. The Primarch’s wrist-mounted archeotech weapon, a destroyer’s volkite culverin, and a genewarrior’s bolter splattered the myriad reptilians across the gunship. Each shot from the Cataegis’ warlord saw one of the flying abominations burst into cobalt flame, rendering their mortal material into ethereal shreds.
+‘Send out an alert to Imperial Command. Be airborne by the time we finish with the target location. Raptor Imperialis.’+ Aeternus’ spoke into his helmet to the pilot, their cabin ringing with the piercing roar of the Primarch’s voice. The last of the smaller reptilians had been annihilated between himself and his more sane warriors, offering some respite for the crew. He turned around, leading the last two of the Cataegis away from the Stormbird as the Nineteenth caught up with him. His helmet-mounted auspex detected their intended target in the direction of the maelstrom.
“The edge of the maelstrom,” the Primarch pointed out with his plasma-wreathed greatsword. The storm of Sibir roared ahead of them, fronted only by the rushing form of twenty-odd Cataegis in yellow-black warplate. The skies above them was a mess of fury, blood, and explosives as other gunships aided one-another in a deadly firefight. Perhaps it was their luck that they were preoccupied with other, fiercer assailants in the sky around their hunting ground. He continued mid-sprint, “the target location is within a breath of it. We will brave the storm.”
His words weren’t a command. They were a fact. The maelstrom loomed over them just as the great swarm of red-skinned reptiles did. Massive chunks of debris, dagger-sharp hail, and piercing wind made up the edge of the storm. Whatever awaited them on their auspex, it was hidden beneath the uplifted sleet and snow flying into the sky.
A gust of wind blew ice into the air, the crystals seeming to hang in place for an instant before being lost in the swirl, so far above the heads of the marching genewarriors as to be invisible. There, nestled high within the clouds of the swirling maelstrom, another Stormbird circled. Its complement and crew were to the last Astartes of the First Legion, each one a veteran of Sanctii. Few indeed were the number of that band, granted the right to bear a shattered wall upon their pauldron and bearing relics wrenched from the deepest foundries of the city they had murdered.
No record of this flight existed, no transponder reported their location, and the crew ignored the calls for aid from its downed sister craft. Their vessel flew through that profane and terrible air seeming to flicker in and out of existence, skipping along the skein of reality, for it too was equipped with artifacts which were rarely seen since the fall of Old Night. All remained silent, their composure unbreakable as the Stormbird and pieces of themselves temporarily ceased to be.
All knew the seriousness of their errand, and all wished it would never be asked of them to commit to the deed, for they were tasked to hunt something far more deadly than a zmaj.
The Sentinels, save one, wordlessly stalked behind the larger Thunder Warriors, keeping their weapons held high for any of those beasts that hawkishly flew around the gunships. Occasionally, they fired bouts of volkite at a monster that dared begin to come after the strike force. There was only the briefest amount of lag as the Cataegis and his gene-spawn moved faster than the Astartes that reinforced them. Sat sheathed, were their power swords, wanting to spill the blood of horrors and being restrained from their purpose.
Arturas for his part led them, ready to slay any of the fabled zmaj that got too close to his brothers, or the Primarch. The master of the nineteenth was eager to prove himself to Aeternus, speaking into the vox as they bounded through frost and blizzard, “Honoured Aeternus, if these beasts are able to down a gunship such as ours, they may yet prove to be a fine hunt.”
“Your honorifics are appreciated, Arturas,” the Primarch responded, flexing his right wrist and injecting fresh munitions into the armament. The whirring sensation of his warplate feeding the device crawled down his right arm through his powerpack. His hud displayed a pleasant, green rune that confirmed that it was ready to dispense. He satisfied the system by precisely unloading into a nearby flock, drenching their bodies in cobalt flames. He continued unflinchingly, “but we are warriors of equal peerage. You owe me no such respect. We shall murder these beasts, claim our dues, and raise the Raptor over Sibir. Glory in the name of the Emperor!”
The task force bounded faster than any normal man could comprehend, covering the path toward the maelstrom in what seemed mere moments. Thunder Warrior and Astartes working in tandem, God-Slayer and Sentinel willing to die side by side to further His plan. As they approached the maelstrom, a force appeared as shadows within the snow - sent to halt this invading force of Imperial might. Techno-barbarians surged forwards firing their myriad weapons into Imperial ranks, met with a return volley of plasma and Volkite that cut them down in droves.
Those that reached the task force were met with a savagery matched as the God-Slayers were finally let loose to do their duty. Melee weapons clashed , guns barked, men howled in frenzy as those willing to lay down their lives did so to further their own causes. Then, the wyrmlings came, swarming the task force from all round, appearing as shades from the maelstrom. They proved little more than annoyances, maddened beasts who were predictable, yet when they came in grounds so thick that one was indistinguishable from another was when horror came. A Sentinel was mobbed, beasts clinging and ripping into his armor and dragged down as he desperately clutched a grenade to sell his life dearly.
The God-Slayers drove apart the techno-barbarians with might worthy of their name. None faltered under the assault from within the storm. Each one was met by the mind shattering strength that the Cataegis summoned. They were echoed by the Sentinels, swift in their strikes and precise in their slashes. A power sword cut through skin, a bolter tore apart a torso, a fist broke open a skull, and many such cases echoed across the sleek fields of Sibir. It was an appetiser before the main meal for the Thunder Warriors and their Astartes genekin. The wyrmlings screeched, gathering around them as vultures to dine upon a feast. As the techno-barbarians died, it dawned upon them that they were sent for a singular purpose.
“Ignore the barbarians. They are a feast for the spawnlings.” Aeternus’ remarked, realizing with surprising quickness of the trap that they had sprang. He should’ve dawned upon it at first contact. None of the warriors from Sibir bore armor. Their flesh was bare, save for hideous runes that were carved into their skin. Few of them were armed with any amount of lethality. An autogun in one’s hand, a power weapon in another, or a wyrd-weapon in the hands of a modestly sized barbarian. Each did little to prove equal combatants, yet they slowed their progress all the same.
“There,” the Primarch’s auspex pinged as he slew another techno-barbarian. His greatsword was drenched in the blood of Sibir, equal parts mortal and wyrd. He pointed the lengthy blade into the distance as his legs brought him forward. Aeternus’ had not faltered once in his sprint, similar to the rest of the genewarriors around him. One or two of his Cataegis, in the throes of their bloodthirst, stopped to brutalize a wyrmling before catching up with the tailing Sentinels. His voice growled as he continued, “the lair finally reveals itself.”
The truth of their destination had begun to form through the winds of the maelstrom. A large structure, built brick by brick from unknown materials in an age that has since passed. Towers, as tall as hive spires, rose up from lengthy parapets and curtain walls. Banners of black, bitten to shreds by frost, whipped in the storm’s mighty winds. A keep of black stone stood at the center of the assembly, cornered by the leviathan towers. Great statues of grotesque figures adorn in ritualistic armor stood vigilant along the length of the bastion. A moat of sleet, ice, and frozen blood pooled up around the exterior of it. Headache-inducing wards, written in the preposterous magics of the Urshic wyrd, were present on every face visible to the Imperial task force. All bore the passage of time, each separate extension of the structure in a state of disrepair. Swarms of the crimson wyrmling flooded out of the towers, while braying barbarians devoid of protective garment guided them with wyrd-flame and witch-horns.
“Kill the wyrm-handlers, ensure that they cannot command the horrors!” Arturas ordered, surging forth with all that he could muster to keep pace with the honored Primarch. A volley of fire began to pepper the fortress, knocking errant stone loose or destroying cover of the barbarian witches. The Sentinels moved towards the center of the formation, sticking close so that no wyrmling swarm would isolate them, focusing best they could to rush down the handlers before they could direct the horrid cretins to destroy them.
The First Son of the Nineteenth looked to Aeternus as they ran, crunching snow and bone beneath them, his voice was carried by the frigid cold, “Honoured Aeternus, if you could, have your gene-children cover our advance, we may be able to kill the will the wyrds before they can truly direct the monsters.”
“It shall be done.” The Lord of the First responded, adjusting his weight to compensate for a sudden stop of his dead-sprint. The weight of his warplate and the force of his physiology nearly saw a nearby selection of rubble disappear into nothingness. Aeternus utilized this momentum for a horizontal slash of his obsidian greatsword, unleashing a wave of searing, crimson energy into a collection of techno-barbarians. With the closest opponents decimated, the Primarch began shouting out his orders without restrain.
+‘God-Slayers! The Steel Sentinels have given us the honor of slaking your thirst! Cover their advance, slay, and eviscerate these miserable curs!’+ Aeternus’ shouted across the interlegionary voxnet, co-linked together with the Steel Sentinels for ease of access. The Thunder Warriors responded as anticipated with howls, roars, and cries of violence. Where they had been surging headstrong towards the keep, the Cataegis now stood stalwart and steady against the whelps of Sibir. Steel Sentinels, engaging in sustained suppression actions, were replaced with the violent carnage of the First Legio’s brutal annihilation. Their efforts were rewarded with reinvigorated attention from the endless swarm of crimson wyrmling and their witch-bound defenders.
As the Categis and his progeny did their bloody work, the nineteenth formed a line whilst continuing to pepper the fortress to keep the handlers from casting their dark magics. However, it was only plasma bolts striking the structure - their blasts chewing away at the ancient stone that made the haunted structure. The others knelt, alongside each other and began to retrieve what explosives they had. A silent conversation was held before they agreed, three taking up melta-charges as the battle raged. A wyrmling was bisected in front of them, slowly the God-Slayers advanced.
One of the Sentinels looked to his brothers, speaking as sternly as he was nonchalant, “Have you accounted for wind speed?”
“I have,” a quick reply came, annoyed at his brother’s question.
“Will you miss?” the same brother asked, arming his melta-charge and reeling back his arm as he awaited the command from Arturas.
“If I recall at the Battle of Red Frost, Gregor, you threw an unarmed grenade at some fool’s head,” came the sharp rebuttal as he did the same.
“Yet, I did not miss,” Gregor commented, as Arturas called for silence amongst the normally stoic Sentinels. While having the moment to chat, each of them had calculated and prepared for their throw - an impressive distance for throwing a hefty melta-charge. As the Praetorate raised his sword, each of the marines stepped and spun, throwing their charges as frisbees across the battlefield overhead the God-Slayers and their foes. There was a moment where the Astartes watched in bated breath before they saw it, the melta-charges landed amongst the Urshite sorcerers - one being impacted in the head by one of them.
A concussive shockwave surged upwards as the charges went off in unity, obliterating the wyrds and causing substantial damage to the entrance of the fortress. Wordlessly, the Sentinels stomped forwards through ice and snow and turned their weapons back onto the enemies in front of them to join the God-Slayers as the ravenous horde began to scatter, mindless and unchecked by their Urshite masters and in fear of the massive shockwave that had sounded over the battlefield.
“I did not miss,” Gregor’s brother commented as he shot a beast with his volkite rifle, deflagrating it.
+'Honoured Aeternus, the handlers are dead. We may continue.'+ came Arturas’ voice over the vox as the Sentinels began their bounding leaps forwards once more.
The Thunder Warriors had nearly completed their work by the time the Astartes had finished theirs. The techno-barbarians of Sibir, while hardy and plentiful, couldn’t handle the sheer brutality of the combined forces. It was a match made of steel, blood and violence. A pathway of corpses in various conditions was paved for the Sentinels to follow. Their ferocity was less than Ushotan’s carnage, yet their handiwork was Cataegis through and through. Most of the carcasses' skulls had been crushed, either during the attack or posthumously as a macabre reminder of their savagery. Regardless of their enemies' fallen bodies, the courtyard leading into the castle proper had been cleared of the most devious opponents. The servants of the Urshic rune-men hid in dark corners, under destroyed parapets, or near wyrmling corpses out of sight from the post-humans.
“Your warriors are legendary, Arturas,” Aeternus noted as the two met at the forefront of the keep, drawing Apocrypha from a berserker with twisted mutations across their back. A single activation of the greatsword saw the tainted blood immediately sear off. Similar scenes were played out across the courtyard, the Cataegis efficiently killing with their melee weapons to conserve their ammunition. Their steady demeanor was a queer reminder of the God-Slayers reputation. The Primarch continued, “we will now assault the keep-”
Before the Primarch could speak, a screeching roar as loud as howling titans from the mountains of unreality filled their ears. Some of the gene soldiers fell to their knees from the sheer pitch of the scream, Astartes and Cataegis alike. Those unhelmeted were afflicted the worst as blood started to dribble out of their visible orifices. It was a maddening sound, blending reality and the wyrd together in an instrumental song of uncontained rage. The screaming halted after several seconds of madness.
“... We must hurry. Split your squads to assault the towers, rig the structure for demolition with thermonuclear charges, and relink afterwards for the keep assault.” Aeternus finally spoke after several seconds had passed, ensuring the pseudo-wyrd phenomena had passed. He felt a trickle of blood pool around his ear, yet his body felt wholly unaffected by the ordeal. Through the interlegionary voxnet, he assigned structures to assault to the majority of the Cataegis. Four remained with him, each a veteran of Sanctii with wargear and personalizations to prove. If he was correct, then the keep proper would hold the thing that the Sigilite had been worried about.
It took the Astartes a touch longer to recuperate from the unnatural screech than their older counterparts. Despite their experience at Nordyc, such power from the immaterium was a harsh thing to resist in full. After all, beasts were easy to kill, the otherworldly magics were harder to survive even with their gene-forged might. Gradually, however, they had gotten their bearings and heard the Cataegis’ order. The Sentinels steeled themselves, checking their ammo and equipment as they began to hold position so that none would be able to enter the keep.
The leader of the Steel Sentinels lagged behind his brethren, sheathing his power sword for a brief moment. The God-Slayers had proven themselves much more honourable than Ushotan’s savage dogs, not that Aeternus’ honour was ever in question. Arturas looked upon the great Primarch that had led them here, speaking softly with a fist over his chest out of respect, “Honoured Aeternus, good hunting.”
“You honor me with this hunt, brother,” Aeternus responded, echoing the salute with his own against the Raptor on his chestplate. He had planted the greatsword into the ground to do so, giving his full respect to one of his many gene-descendants. If it had been any other genewarrior, then he would’ve expected a fight to dive deep into the realms of madness for the final kill. To give up such a slay spoke much about Arturas’ nature and that of his Legio. He cracked a smile beneath his helmet, knowing the future was in good hands. He continued, “but you will be joining me with four brothers stalwart against witches. ”
He was not the only one who felt that way. The Cataegis around him holstered their weapons and slammed their fists against their chest in salute. Warriors that had survived since the dawn of the Unification Wars, each a soldier worth hundreds of men with the martial knowledge of a hundred more. They turned away from Arturas as their Primarch pulled the blade from the Sibir snow, leaving a wide cleft in the frozen ground. Their forms stopped short of the keep, awaiting for the Sentinels to join them in the final part of their hunt.
While unseen, a smile crept across each Sentinel’s face though their demeanors all showed as they gladly stomped towards the Thunder Warriors. Arturas, for his part, could do little to contain the joy that he felt from being respected by such an honored legion such as the God-Slayers. He redrew his sword and followed into the breach knowing that he could die happily should the time come. The same could be said for any of his brothers, each drawing their swords and shields as they entered the confined space of the ancient fortress.
The keep was everything expected of a den built to house witch-minds, techo-barbarians, and their filthy servants within. Bodies, stripped of flesh, hung from the walls in morbid decoration of the entrance hall. Entrails wavered down from the cadavers like banners to unknown, vengeful gods. Streams of frozen blood filled the lines between the tiled floors. Braziers of witch-fire cast an eerie, lilac light throughout the fortress’ length. Chandeliers of bone with scraps of sinew slowly dripped fresh ichor down onto the Imperials. Just as Sibir had been devoid of life, so too was their main sacrilegious monastery of gore. At first glance, it appeared as if all the inhabitants had participated in the defense of the fortress. As they stepped further in, under arches of shattered brick and pulsing runes, they realized that that was an incorrect statement.
At the center of the keep, a circular room opened up with the maelstrom peering down into the fortress. At the center of that was a spiral staircase built for something larger than any of the previous inhabitants. Not even the genewarriors were large enough to fill the width of the steps. It was in this room that a thrumming had begun, pillars in each corner vibrating with the telltale sign of the wyrd. The Cataegis grit their teeth together, fervently fighting off the mind-tricks of the witch-cults with their superior genealogy. Their Primarch led on, discomforted but largely unaffected by the breadth of the wyrd. The Imperials pushed onward down, down, and further into the warm depths of the Urshic citadel.
Each step down into the abyss was a step into a new, hotter climate. Each step further was another spike to the brain from the magicks at work further in. The Urshic runes were growing more frequent, larger, and more desperate as they pressed on. Whispers had since begun to leak into their ears, speaking of their greatest fears and their greatest achievements. Even at these depths, the Primarch had begun to feel a firmer touch from the void. He felt his mind reject with every ounce of his being, yet the wyrd was stronger here than it had ever been before. It was as if the realm of souls and the realm of the living conjoined in unholy matrimony at this direct point.
‘False, fake, replacement, old tool, dying pawn, betrayed, naive, cancerous…’ their words went on as malevolent whispers. Images were forced into his brain of mighty beings, taller and stronger than he was. They were myriad in appearance. One was a bloodthirsty woman, just shy of his own height. Another was a man with scales, fire exuding from his jaw. Another was a woman with golden, burning eyes. Another was a pair of women forced into one, axes in both hands. Thousands of genewarriors followed them into stars unknown, across lands unseen, and against forces he couldn’t possibly comprehend. The voices laughed, ridiculing him with specters from an uncertain future. Aeternus denied them with every further step into the darkness of Sibir.
The sound of a breathing, living thing broke the dreadful silence forced on him by the wyrd. His warriors awoke from their stupor in tandem with the Primarch, their myriad weapons ready for the greatest confrontation of their lives. Aeternus’ witnessed the creature first before the rest of his genewarriors. It sat at the center of an impossibly wide chamber, stretching out miles and miles beyond the lengths of the keep above. The beast itself was enormous with tens of heads, each a crimson-scaled twin with a forest of horns swirling alongside their toothy maws. A great, serpentine body with a plethora of fat extremities made up the base body of the being. Hundreds of chains hooked the thing down onto a platform of black bricks, each engraved with an Urshic rune of humming power. It groaned as wyrmling were pushed from an unseen orifice, crying into reality and beginning an immediate skyward ascent.
As if sensing new life for the first time in eons, it rose its myriad heads from the platform and began to screech once more into the chamber. It was something that he had never experienced before as the creature’s shriek nearly flipped reality around them. Aeternus’ felt his soul try to crawl out of his skin as the beast’s roar willed the realm of souls as it did the realm of life. The Cataegis behind him were great warriors, yet this was beyond what they had faced before. One perished immediately under the psionic force, his body crumpling into itself like a crushed vehicle. Blood squirted out of the warplate, streaming down the stairs in a waterfall of vitae. Two Sentinels clutched their helms, and screamed horribly as they felt their minds liquify, only to be mercifully put to death by their brothers. Their deaths awoke the creature as it entered a snapping frenzy, violently pulling the chains that held it. A plethora of volkhv, the damned priests of Ursh, attempted to calm the creature with wyrd-influenced prayers. It only served to anger the creature as the servants of the Emperor descended into the chamber.
+‘The Mother of Zmaj has been found. The God-Slayers are engaging now. Raptor Imperialis!’+ The Primarch quickly stated into the voxnet, hoping in vain that their communications still worked in this quasi-realm. He waited no longer for any tricks of the wyrd. Aeternus took a step back on the steps and flung himself into the pit from a higher step. He descended towards the creature with Apocrypha activated, his brethren already beginning a ranged offense with their hard won weaponry from Sanctii. A vortex rifle unloaded a ear-splitting miniature blackhole, a disintegration carbine unleashed a eye-watering beam of black-red death, and a plasmic chaingun vomited searing doom into the chaos below.
“Sentinels!” Arturas called, raising his sword high as he readied his shield for a forward assault upon the ten-headed monstrosity. They readied themselves, bearing pistols and swords, ready for a glorious death fighting the wyrd-spawn. Their master pointed his blade not to the savage beast ahead of them, but once more to the sorcerers. Hatred coursed through their veins at the sight of them, and their call came when Arturas bellowed his orders, “Destroy the witch-priests! Crush them, make them suffer!”
A warcry of “Destroy the horrors of Old Night,” sounded as the Astartes rushed forwards after Aeternus, spreading themselves to deal with wyrds and witches that influenced the murderous beast-spawn. Initially, the Steel Sentinels achieved impressive progress, slamming into the sorcerers with a savagery matched only by the Categis. One was cut in two, another had his upper half blown apart by a plasma shot. The gene-warriors of the Nineteenth held nothing back, but the wyrds, few they may be, held otherworldly power at their fingertips. With a flick of the wrist, reality warped around one of the battle-brothers and soon merely fell over with dust spilling from an empty husk. The witch that did so was brutalized before it could wield these powers again, but others cast their magics - some mundane and survivable such as lighting or throwing objects, yet they would not chance these.
The Steel Sentinels had known well the powers of these psykers, Nordyc had taught them well that swift action was the only solution that would lead to their survival. Moving at the fastest their gene-wrought might could allow them, they endured what they could and slaughtered all they could reach. Arturas drove his blade into a witch and threw the corpse into another before leaping to confirm the death. “For Emperor and Imperium!” he roared as the battle raged.
As the Sentinels fought with blade and bolter, the God-Slayers did as their name implied. God slaying. Their stalwart Astartes allies had chosen to exterminate the witch-minds of Ursh, allowing them to focus on the very thing that they were made for. The Cataegis, the few that remained, threw down their heavy armaments and leapt from the stairwell with their blades drawn. Each bore a paragon blade, humming with unstable powerfields and screaming from their technological degradation. Their bodies hurled through the air like a boulder tossed from a far flung giant. They soon joined their Primarch, stabbing into the scale-flesh of the mighty zmaj queen.
The Primarch of the God-Slayers had been ahead of them by mere seconds, activating Apocrypha and descending into the zmaj with a two-handed grip. The chains that bound it to the platform stopped the creature from outright annihilating him, their heads snapping wildly in every direction regardless of foe or ally. The crimson-edged blade cut deep into the back of the creature, tearing through scale and sinew with disgusting ease. Plasma plunged into the beast, forcing it into a deadly frenzy. The addition of the other God-Slayers only heightened this state of being.
Whatever lethargy or restraint it had before, the Mother of Zmaj tore from its restraints in a fury. Enormous chunks of meat laden with warped scale were ripped from the creature’s body, waterfalls of black blood ejecting from the wounds. The stink of the wyrd rose up as the being was free of whatever arcane means that had bound it. A violent spray of black energy poured from its many mouths against anything and everything moved. Urshic sorcerers and their myriad slaves disappeared in the beams of wyrd, reduced to skeleton remains and sloughs of molten sinew. Fortunately, the structure held as the Urshic runes absorbed the energy wherever it impacted on the stone, redirecting it to an unknown destination. Its unstoppable rampage wouldn’t remain as Aeternus sprinted across the length of its body with Apocrypha dragging against its spine.
“Glory to Unity! Glory to the Emperor! Glory to Mankind!” Aeternus roared, the lion returning to his throat with booming pride. He leapt from his sprint, colliding with one of its many serpentine necks. His teeth grit as he dragged Apocrypha against the hardest of its scales, lopping one of the ten from its unearthly body. The decapitated head fell from its root, floundering onto the platform in a spray of midnight ichor. Each of the Cataegis were following his example, beginning their grizzly business of decapitating. Their armor was drenched in a hue of night, resembling their Primarch in all but his winged helmet and apocalyptic greatsword.
The last of the wyrds cried out in pain as one of the Astartes grabbed him and crushed his head like a grape between teeth. Yet, they could not relish this small victory as they had been forced to scatter as the beast’s breath threatened to smite them. Whilst the God-Slayers had been living up to their namesake, the Steel Sentinels switched their tactics, now that the monster had broken free of its bindings. Each of them grabbed their plasma or volkite and began to whittle in the creature’s legs. Arturas and five others ran forth, hacking at the legs of the warp-beast before diving out of the way as it thrashed and stomped.
The Mother of Zmaj reeled as it was stabbed, shot, and butchered all across its abnormal body. It twisted in the grasp of the genwarriors, defending with tooth and claw. Nothing was spared in its efforts to survive the assault of the Imperium. Urshic servants died beneath its claws, the cadavers of the sorcerers were mulched, and the knights of the Himalazians were struck by tooth. Its tail flailed, slamming one of the Steel Sentinels into the wall, flatlining their life before another Cataegis was swallowed whole by an unseen head. It refused to die here.
It would be denied this wish for survival. Aeternus regarded his fallen warrior briefly before tearing another one of its pulsating heads from its billowing necks. The creature screamed in agony as it thrashed beneath his grip. One of the two remaining veterans sliced through another neck before falling from the beast’s body. The other stabbed over and over in the same spot, beginning to lose control of their motor functions to the geneflaw and throbbing bloodlust. They had survived for decades, he wasn’t surprised that they had joined him for one more suicidal fight. It was their duty. It was what made them God-Slayers. The warrior on the ground, Valatarn, landed beside the Steel Sentinels, joining them in their hit-and-run strikes.
He, alone, must end this fight. Its wings beat against the ground uselessly as Aeternus hefted Apocrypha once more. Another head was cut from the leviathan greatsword, torn cleanly as bile sprayed out of its pulsing wounds. Two more of the creature’s vile heads remained, each desperately fighting against fate in a twisting, writhing motion. Aeternus steadied himself with his right hand firmly planted in one of its many neckholes, readying another strike from Apocrypha; however, his attack would never come. The final Thunder Warrior on the zmaj snapped from his stupor, throwing himself onto the second head in a fit of suicidal bravery. His geneson wrapped his arms around the neck, tightening his embrace to crush the being’s sinew. Warplate buckled, bile spewed, and myriad claws cut into the Cataegis as he pulled off the zmaj’s neck in a sickening twist of inhuman might. The genewarrior was slingshot by one of the creature’s claws, tearing the final of two heads from a string of sinew.
The action shook Aeternus from the Mother of Zmaj, dropping him down onto the platform below. His instincts kicked in, flattening out and catching himself in a rolling vault. The Primarch returned to proper warform and raised his gaze up to the quickly stabilizing red-scaled creature. Its wings beat like a wicked heart of malevolence, pushing the Astartes and Cataegis away in a torrent of superheated wind. A screech of psionic energy filtered through the air as it cried out in anguish.
And then it spoke in a voice that defied all logic. It was a herald of change, discord, stagnation, and rage. It had no natural vocal cords to speak the tongue of man, yet it spoke their words all the same. It spoke in the mortal plane and whispered in the immaterial plane. The things it said differed to each of them, yet it held the same tone as if it repeated the same utterance. It was sanity denied, crushing through the mental barrier of the genewarriors with unexplainable ease. It lowered its gaze to Aeternus and spoke, calmly as if they had not fought for their lives.
“Savior, sacrifice, and sword stand before me, o mighty wind of war. I pity you, o murderer mine. The darkness of the future shall not be mine. I thank you, o redeemer mine. My suffering shall cease, and I go now to my rest. I exalt you, o champion mine. Dragon-slayer, wish-fulfiller, age-ender. You fight for a far green country you shall never see. Gaze instead upon the holy mountain, where man’s salvation was laid to rest.”
The Astartes, each of them, whatever words they were hearing were evident to maddening from what Aeternus could see. Not even the knightly Arturas was spared as they all began clutching the sides of their helmets and began to scream, unable to comprehend the words the beast spoke. Some fell to their knees crying denial to whatever riddles the Mother of Zmaj spoke to them. Others cried as if they were no longer gene-warriors but mere children snapped back to reality, years of mental indoctrination shattered within a few stark words. The Steel Sentinels, these children, were brought to near psychological destruction despite the horrors endured in Nordyc.
Arturas thrashed his head, decrying the words that he heard, “Monster! Warp-taint! Silence yourself! Silence! Silence! We shall endure! Humanity will be united in His name!”
“Silence,” the mother of monsters whispered, and all noise in its nest - its death chamber - ceased, even as genewarriors and cult-priests continued to scream and writhe all without the slightest hint of noise.
“Silence is reward for those who lie beneath you rotting. Silence is mine to enjoy and give, our final parting. Yet now you shall listen, so my death may come unburdened. Listen well death-dealer, o God-Slayer, and doom-bringer. Unloved son, you end your time by ending mine so cruelly. Son of wrath - son of woe, your duty now forgotten.”
He was thunderstruck. The Primarch couldn’t feel himself breathe as the Mother of Zmaj formed words from nothingness. He listened with ears he didn’t think could comprehend. He watched with eyes that threatened to burst into streams of blood. His soul danced on a thin line. Aeternus was split. He wanted to scream in defiance at a fate that wasn’t his. He wanted to accept the fate that he was given. Rex knew well that both of these things lived deep within him, but to be told so bluntly was a cruelty. One that he would answer. Only one thing existed above everything that formed himself.
“I am His warrior, His soldier, His weapon, His tool, and His God-Slayer. I accept my fate!” The curse that had kept him locked was broken. He would never be able to tell if it were the will of the monster at that moment, or his own willpower shattering the power of the wyrd. No matter how it manifested, his body moved forward with a burst of astonishing speed. His blackened gauntlet thumbed the activation rune, igniting Apocrypha and sweeping upward with the blade. The monster didn’t hesitate. She didn’t move a fraction of a centimeter. She accepted death with a smiling maw of razor sharp teeth. She haunted him.
The spell below Sibir was broken as her head fell cleanly from her neck. A single slice from Apocrypha was all that was required to fell the Mother of Zmaj. A seemingly endless waterfall of bile ichor splashed out over the ruined platform, covering the Primarch in a wash of draconic vitae. Aeternus could’ve moved away in a fraction of a second; however, he chose to remain. His foe confused him much as the wyrd typically did, yet there was a difference in this creature. He detested the emotion that she had invoked, but Rex acknowledged the dragon on some level. The Thunder Warrior languished no longer, sprinting away to the side of Arturas.
“Awaken, brother, the dragon is felled!” His voice boomed through the winged helmet, the lion’s roar returning to the fields of reality. He planted a hand on the pauldron of the Astartes, jostling him enough to ascertain the status of the warrior. It surprised him that he felt some level of concern. Perhaps it was the loss of Caligula that left him sentimental, or perhaps it was a true bond. He conjured his will into his voice and continued, “the Emperor demands you to awaken from madness!”
It took a few moments for reality to come back to Arturas, to come back to any of the gene-warriors that had been maddened by the zmaj. Arturas ripped his helm from his head and wretched, clearly shaken from the experience that they had shared. He breathed for a long few moments, trying to comprehend it all but wholly unable to. His head turned slightly towards Aeternus, unable to meet the Primarch’s eyes, his voice was hoarse and no more than a whisper, “Honoured Primarch, I am unfit to fight by your side. The power of the wyrd overtook me.”
The Primarch of the God-Slayers growled in response. These warriors, of such prowess that they were equals of the Cataegis, thought so low of themselves. He refused to allow this. Their fight with the mother of zmaj had been legendary, their stalwart resolve had been beyond satisfactory, and their stoic hearts had beat against the monsters of the Old Night. Aeternus’ grip fell from Arturas’ pauldron, instead hoisting the Astartes back up onto his feet proper. The crimson-lenses of his winged helmet glared down into the other warrior’s bare face.
“You are worthy, Astartes. You and yours fought as we had at the dawn of the Unification Wars. The power of the wyrd is strong, but you were stronger. Never doubt your courage and honor, Arturas, for you have both in abundance. Now,” Aeternus finished, his voice as stern as it was bold. He released the grip on the Astartes, leaning down to grab the discarded helmet of Arturas and placing it in his gauntlets. The Primarch turned towards the corpse of the mother of monsters and gestured, “gather your warriors and let’s haul our kill.”
“As you wish, honoured Aeternus,” Arturas spoke, glaring at the helmet with a deep stare, the black blood from the Primarch’s hands had smeared along half the visor. Putting his helm back on, he looked to his brothers, moving to help them back to their feet and recollect themselves now that the conflict was over. There would need to be the task of collecting the gene-seed from the fallen and cataloguing their memory so that the annals of history did not forget them or what they had done, or at least what the Sigilite would allow to be remembered. He stepped over to a fallen Sentinel, his armor was smoking from the psychic energies of the men he killed, their bodies only a mere meter away.
“Only his second campaign, poor Gregor. I’ll miss his jokes,” came the sorrow filled voice of a marine, stepping next to Arturas. He sheathed his sword as he looked the Praetorate up and down, noting the black mark over the visor before speaking, “They’ll call you the ‘Bloody Black Eye’ for that.”
Arturas did not laugh, only staring at the corpse before regarding the marines first comment, “At least his jokes never missed, Gallad.”
A brief grumble came from Gallad before the Steel Sentinels marked the location for apothecary retrieval and stalked off to carry their querry as the Primarch had requested.
The two God-Slayers that remained followed their Primarch, beginning the long task of butchering the mother of monsters and reclaiming the broken forms of their fellow genewarriors. The remaining forces of the Imperial operation began to funnel in from above, unmolested by the runes that had plagued their initial descent. Wounded were tended by medicae and apothecary alike, while unharmed warriors claimed the remains of their fallen. The Cataegis, in particular, started butchering with chainswords and chainfists. Only their Primarch started to emerge back up with the mother of zmaj’s head dripping in his right gauntlet.
The Stormbird awaited them as they finished their macabre task. The maelstrom that had haunted their dive through the clouds had long cleared away to a lousy overcast, the silent observers to the slaughter having fled with the storm. Freezing wind still beat against the myriad gunships lying inactive before the ruined citadel. Genewarriors hurried to and from the transports, carefully stealing away forbidden artifacts or chunks of zmaj flesh for the Sigilites to discern. The dull thud of bolter bark saw the last of the techno-barbarian inhabitants perish, followed shortly after by their dark servants and more pitifully malign beasts. Additional explosives were set out in the open, ready to be detonated for when they departed from the cabal-fortress.
Primarch Aeternus observed none of this as he awaited final departure from Sibir. The mother of zmaj’s primary head – the trophy that he had taken – waited nearby with a heavy shroud over its preserved form. For some reason, it felt like it was watching him. Behind him in the cargo hold were the shrouded bodies of his Thunder Warriors, those that had descended into the maddening depths with him. Their paragon blades held the dark cloth over their enormous forms, guarding their remains as much as preserving their peace. The rest of his retinue had joined him, each as weathered and beaten from the assault. Thankfully, they rejoiced in victory and talked loudly amongst themselves. It lightened his mood some, but his mind was affixed to different matters. They would soon leave this place for another battlefield as soon as the Sentinels rejoined them.
“We have finished collecting the progenoid glands from the fallen, honoured primarch,” came the voice of Arturas, walking up into the stormbird alongside what remained of his retinue. His voice carried a light twinge of sorrow, never was this line of duty without it for brothers always fell. Yet now, each of these Sentinels who had lived and preserved each bore a tooth from the Zmaj, each now carrying teeth from the monster. Arturas looked to Aeternus as he spoke to him, “It will certainly make a good trophy for you, should you have time to hang it for decoration.”
“I plan to graft it to my pauldron once it has been sanctified by the Sigilites. It was a foe worthy of such, but not the most difficult I’ve tackled.” Aeternus replied with a small smile breaking his cracked and scarred lips. Apocrypha, his one and only other trophy, rested against his left pauldron. He hefted the weapon slightly to emphasize what his most difficult kill had been. The Primarch then gestured to the other Astartes and continued, “your new trophies suit you and yours, almost like God-Slayers in your own right.”
The comment had become a sentiment felt across his Legio as the two intermingled, sharing the fights that they had experienced in the battle. Where once the two factions squared off in mutual silence, now they gathered as comrades of a campaign. If only this was a common scenario between the Astartes and Cataegis, Aeternus thought to himself.
“Once we return to the front for resupply, the First Legio will engage in a witch hunt. Where does the Emperor’s will bring you next, Arturas?” Aeternus asked, having only moments ago been informed of the God-Slayer’s next assignment. He was grateful to be given such a task, yet Rex would miss the company of the Sentinels and their Legion Master. The Primarch missed many things, his fellow warrior-leaders included. Arturas reminded him of Caligula in some ways. His gaze fell from the gathering warriors to rest on Arturas as he spoke.
“We are likely to be deployed to hunt whatever creatures of Old Night the Urshites plan to deploy. Alas, at this point, we are little more than reserves as our numbers dwindle to quick,” Arturas answered in a swift, yet saddened tone as he stepped past the Categis to the interior of the Stormbird. There was a sense of frustration in the Praetorate’s voice that only another gene warrior could gather, the source of which would become apparent soon enough. The Legion Master did a half-turn, speaking to Aeternus but not daring to look at him as he explained, “Our geneseed does not allow us to replenish as quickly as the other legions, honoured Aeternus. I fear that our usefulness will only go so far, and we can only deploy small strike forces where we can.”
Anger seemed to grow in his voice, not understanding the flaw, “I curse the fact only one of thirty aspirants would survive the implantation, less so the training to become one of us.”
He listened closely to the words of the younger genewarrior. His frustrations were visible enough to border on defiance of their Master, but Aeternus couldn’t help but feel the same irritation for his own Legion. The winged helmet of the Primarch fell on each of his warriors, reminding him of the long discussions he’d had with the Sigilite over their inherent geneflaw. To see that not even their descendants were free of it left a sour taste in his mouth.
“We were legion once. The God-Slayers numbered in the hundreds of thousands, the first to be deployed at the start of the Unification Wars. Every passing year I watched as the Thunder Warriors of my Legion split to become other members of different Cataegis. The Primarchs separated and so too did their reformed warriors. Then I watched the geneflaw covet their lives for a century, our numbers dwindling down to the point that you see now. These three-hundred odd knights are the last of their kind, unable to be replenished.” Primarch Aeternus spoke softly, his voice a low rumble over the humming engines of the Stormbird. He turned away from his warriors to the Legion Master next to him, planting a gauntlet on his pauldron.
“I do not speak this to garnish pity. I say this because our Master has a plan that far exceeds our limited vision as warriors of Unity. We use the gifts that He gives us to become the weapons of war that He wanted. If you are low in number, then you must exceed your quantity in quality. If you lack a legion, then become the head of the spear with knights unequalled. I’ve seen you Astartes in action. I know you can do this. For us,” Aeternus said, releasing the warrior’s pauldron and gesturing to the rest of the genewarriors inhabiting the Stormbird. Some caught their gaze and offered a salute before returning to speak with their equals. He continued with a dry smile, “it is the God-Slayer way. It is our only way. When the last of us perishes, I have no doubts that you will take up that mantle.”
“And so we shall, honoured Aeternus, if that is what you request of us. The Steel Sentinels shall be the foremost legion, no matter what we should face,” Arturas said, clearly inspired by encouragement of the venerable warrior. The sentinels all took their seats within the Stormbird, ready to deploy to wherever it was that their Emperor desired them to be. They would follow after the Categis’ footsteps and they would become a force beyond equal.
They would become God-Slayers.
