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The Pyre raised their weapons threateningly, aimed squarely at the palsied, carrion shape that stood before them. Ignition-hammers locked, fuel lines guzzled and energy coils whined as the gathered warriors prepared to fight the great, undead monarch. He’stan hefted his spear over his shoulder, ready to hurl it at the central mass of the blackened wraith. The air was charged, violence threatening to erupt at the slightest spark, but great Vulkan, calm and stoic, raised his hand to halt his son’s murderous impulses. He stared the Dead King directly in its shadowed face, and in a measured voice spoke to it as an equal.

“Greetings Lord of the Dead Spaces. Indeed I have returned.”

The wraith tensed its metallic claws, their edges scraping and tapping spasmodically in a lunatic rhythm. A deep chuckle escaped its heavy robes, or as close an approximation as the xenos monster was capable of. When it spoke, it was melt water running down metallic walls, a cold whisper in an iron necropolis.

“Ha! You are most welcome then, come sup upon the fine fruit of my bounteous kingdom.”

The monstrous shade lifted its head and gazed around randomly, seeing a time and place that was not concurrent with the dark tomb they were in.

“Where are my shabti? My Ubshul? Where is my court?”

He’stan stood uneasily behind his master, his grip tightening on his weapons. He could see his comrades were as uneasy as him: the monstrous xenos was clearly mad. Vulkan spoke again, no hint of aggression in his voice, only easy power and respect.

“My friend, I have no need of sustenance or finery, although the runnels of your kingdom are the finest I have yet seen in my long years. No finer kingdom exists under the Living Sky or the Death Below.”

The monstrous hood swung round to Vulkan, hanging inches I front of his noble face. The pale, glowing eyes considered him coldly, before a cackle shook the monstrous body of the Dead King. His wings fanned out wide, their swallowing mass easily the length of a Thunderhawk, maybe more. He rose to his full height again, and cocked his head like a curious bird.

“Then why do you return here, Princeling of the Small God? I had not expected you to return to my Empire for another millennia or more? Have you come to give fealty to me?” another cackle, revelling in some joke only the Dead King was privy to, “or do you come to ask for my boon and favour? My court may glitter, but my resources are stretched feeding such a broad populace”

It gestured wide around the chamber, again pointing at things that were not there. The Astartes followed its gaze around the room: it was a barren, dead place, its subjects were cold, dead machines. Was it too locked in another time? A better time? Vulkan spoke again, seizing the monsters attention from its reverie.

“No my lord, I come to ask you to return what I entrusted to you. The world beyond has gone mad, the laws of nature and neutrality have been usurped and I need you to return that which you have kept safe all these years.”

The wraith paused, its body becoming very still.

“I need my wings back, Lord of the Dead Spaces”

The Dead King hunched forward, bringing its monstrous head in line with Vulkan. The Primarch did not shirk or shrink from the dark gaze, and stood solid, his face stoic and set. The random shudders and twitches that rocked its colossal form abated, and it became frighteningly still and focussed. Suddenly it was with them in their time, its fanciful haze lifting immediately.

“We agreed, Emperor’s Son, the wings would remain here, till such a time as the heavens were ending and the universe is in ruin. I see no such change. You should not have come here.”

The wings of the beast rose threateningly, a great shadow covering the gathered Pyre. Some took a step back, bracing themselves for combat. But again, Vulkan was unmoved. He spoke again, no challenge in his voice, but a slight hint of sorrow evident.

“Tell me, King of the Dead Spaces, how would you know? What event would occur to tell you that the Universe had gone mad? How would you know our Epoch was ending?”

“Ha! How would I know? I am the King of the Dead Spaces! I would know intimately!”

“But how? What event would need to occur for you to know?”

The hood twitched, the dead mind behind it considering the question. Aeons of madness warred with the horrific truth of the modern times, and once again age old comfort rose to the fore. Old beliefs lapped against the shore of its psyche and the Dead King fell back upon ancient routine.

“The Gods would fall and the Kingdoms and Empires would crumble. I would know because of this”

Vulkan breathed in deeply, his next words mountainous and heavy. His eyes glistened slightly, and when he spoke it was like a blade driving through He’stan’s gut.

“My Father is dead…the God of mankind has fallen. The Empire of Man lies in ruin after his death. The times of Ending have arrived. For my people, and I fear yours also”

He’stan staggered, his mind reeling. His brothers around him gasped and wept softly. If any other had voiced those words, the Forgefather would have refuted them with every fibre of his being. But his Father had said it, and with such conviction that it could only be true. He’stan went to his knees in despair, wrenching his helm from his head. He breathed in the dusty, funerary air, tears spilling across his scarred cheeks. His comrades were similarly disarmed. Only Vulkan seemed unaffected.

The Dead King drew a long, heavy stare across the mourning warriors, taken aback by the sudden emotion. Its wings vibrated, shaking out in confusion before it turned its monstrous gaze upward, through the ceiling of the vast chamber. It stood motionless for moments, the time dragging. The Astartes did not react to its sudden stillness, too lost in their pain and sorrow. Vulkan stood as ever, stoic, strong, immovable. He focused his attention upon the Dead King, patiently waiting for its response.

The Monarchs mind spread out to its augurs and scryers, all linked by millennia-old code and neural networking. Dust-covered scopes and arrays cast signals into the dark, challenge and response protocols older than most stars fleeing across the black vastness of space. From crumbling necron warrior to victorious nemesor, from maddened cryptarch to the sleepless sentinels of the old Nectrontyr Empire the information flowed like water and lightning, jumping from perception to perception, until at last the truth was revealed. The God-King of Man was dead, the denizens of the other-space would soon be free.

And worse still.

The Dragon would rise, hungry and vengeful. The last of the Star Gods would rise from his tomb, unshackled by the death of Mankind’s Emperor. He would come for the Dead King’s kingdom. He would come for the Dead King.

All the Necrontyr had sought to build would be as ash and glass upon the crags of time.

The Dead Kings perception returned to the here and now, or at least as much as it was possible for the half-mad machine to inhabit the present. It stared at the Lord of Drakes and the Lord of Drakes back at it. An understanding passed between them, the Lord of the Living and the Lord of the Dead. Finally, after moments of silence, the Dead King spoke.

“The Wings are yours once more…under one condition. Use them to strike at the Dragon, find the Beast of your Red World and lay him low. It is the ruin of us all, Emperor’s Son, more than you know…”

And with a gasping of sepulchral winds the Dead King was gone.

The vox suddenly erupted in the helms of the Pyre, a myriad of voices from above calling for status reports and the location of He’stan and his men. Something was happening in orbit: some mass was pulling itself into the relative orbit around the Smaragdus, something big and something dense. The crew of the ship were at high alert and were calling for the Astartes to return. He’stan looked at his discarded helm, his need to move warring with his desire to cease when a gentle hand fell upon his shoulder. He turned and looked up with tear-stained eyes as his Father stood above him, a weary smile on the Lord of Drake’s face. When he spoke it was with a softness belying his warrior’s visage.

“Come my son, the time for grief is later, now we return to the stars

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quo’Ertaa bellowed from her command dais for updates and order, the bridge shaking furiously as some unseen mass pushed upon the gravity around the ship. Her crew, panicked but professional, checked and rechecked feeds and attempted to correct pressure and data flow. Crewmen and women miles below in the lower decks struggled against the kicking of their vessel, the sweat and strain of their muscles pulling against gravities heartless whims. Quo’Ertaa signalled her helmsman again, ordering him to relay the recall message to the surface again: they had to get the Astartes back to the ship, they had to get away from whatever was forcing its way into the universe from this point. The ship shuddered violently, hurling the captain to the deck. Several crew members collided with their consoles, one unfortunate soul hammered his face straight into the edge of his equipment shattering his nose and cracking his teeth.

In her seclusion sphere, Navis Verata closed her eyes and prayed to the God-Emperor for deliverance, her grav-cradle straining to maintain some semblance of calm as her chamber rumbled and cracked. She screamed as a deafening drone erupted in the ship, the sound of a monstrous will pushing into reality, usurping the natural order.
And then it was over, and all was silence.

Quo’Ertaa gripped the side of her command throne and stood unsteadily, like a dear new-born and unfamiliar with the waking world. She grasped her head, a thick bloody bruise marring her forehead, and sucked air between her teeth in pain. She’d had worse, and was simply thankful to be alive. She called out to the bridge crew, who replied in kind: no casualties in the command crew. Information funnelled up from the lower decks and the engineerium, apart from some injuries and concussion, the majority of the crew were alive and well, if a little shaken. The Captain breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately opened a channel to the Navigation Sphere, needing to know if they were still flight capable. The channel hissed and pinged mechanically and Quo’Ertaa spoke quickly.

“Verata? Verata, are you there. Respond, are you injured.”

A whisper answered her, the Navigator lost in emotion, and her voice cracked in what could only be described as awe.
“Captain…can you see? It’s…it’s so beautiful”

The Captains attention was pulled away by a gentle touch on her arm, her Helmsman gesturing to the viewpoint. She turned her crimson eyes to the grand ocular port and her breath was stolen.

Before them, in a synchronous orbit with them was a ship, a grand vessel gilded in emerald and gold whose beauty and perfect form brought tears to the Captains eyes. Easily dwarfing their vessel, it hung like a continent set to ply the stars, its body crenulated and ornate. Tapering toward the front, the prow was shaped like a silvered dragons head, its scales sharp and perfectly symmetrical. Its body was the colour of the forests of ancient terra and widened out to a bulky, powerful drive section. Colossal engines squatted at the rear of the colossal vessel, silent and dark now but even from the size Quo’Ertaa could imagine their god-like power. Great wings hung from its midsection and spread out in mighty golden pinions, each heavy with docking cradles and weaponry of world-ending proportions. Their ship, and dozens like her, could easily dock with this immense vessel at once and still have room for more. It dwarfed even the Grand Cruisers of the Jupitan Defence Fleets.

And dominating the structure, just below the central bridge towers was a mountainous series of interlinking rings, four in number, rotating in an immense sphere, each inscribed with mile-long symbols and numerals. The rotations passed by each other, forming an immense cage of gold and metal. At the heart of the rotating rings was a sphere of pale energy, a furious ball of plasma held in place by the concentric iron around it. A newborn sun, blue and powerful radiated at the heart of the intricate structure. This ship, this world-protector was perhaps the most perfect creation that Quo’Ertaa had ever seen.

The crew were shaken from their reverie by the sudden awakening of the vox network, every speaker and transmitter on the ship playing the same message. A voice spoke to them, deep, measured and compassionate and to hear it was to be at peace with one’s self and the universe. The voice came from the glorious ship, and it brought with it safety and security:

“Smaragdus, this is Vulkan of The Song of Entropy. Your Lord He’stan and his men are safely aboard. It is good to meet you.”

I think this is my favourite piece of the entire story. It's marvelous

Amazing as always.

Gunfire and energy discharge scorched the air above the muddy trenches, vapour and abused air molecules sizzling in the wake of the furious torrent. Detonations of bullet and bomb erupted amidst the chitenous, alien swarms that hurled themselves at the Imperial Lines, greasy ichor dripping to mingle with the blood and mud at their clawed feet. They came as a relentless wave, billions of fangs lining millions of rabid mouths, alien eyes locked on their prey like fireflies in the night. They screeched and roared, the sonic assault as traumatic as the physical, the sounds of massed alien bodies rushing onward like filthy rain. Tyranids, creatures designed purely to kill and consume in a drove of unremitting, biological fury. They came in a swarm numbering in the millions covering the ground in a dense carpet of chiton and muscle and the horizon in silhouettes of heinous monstrousness.

Giant warriors in armour daubed in sunlight yellow or midnight black poured firepower into the beasts from the shallow trenches, the staccato fury of bolter fire and artillery rising to meet the alien din head-on. From the alien swarms rose great beasts of darkened bone and armoured plate, the heads split with hideous toothy grins behind which malign minds ushered forward their smaller kin. The horrors poured into the trenches, their forms myriad and terrible to behold, skittering like vermin into the human defenders, who cast aside their firearms and met the oncoming host with blade and fist and maul.

Skulls shattered as heavy iron met xenos flesh, swords slashed into throats spilling black, filthy liquids into the mire-like ground. Open braying mouths clamped onto armoured limbs, tearing and pulling the giant warriors into the quagmire of alien bodies. Talons tore and sliced, claws punched and gored and above it all alien colossi fired spewing founts of killing acid into their enemy. Plasteel and Iron plate melted under the liquid assault, throats liquefying even as their own screams tore them apart. The air was thick with bloody vapour, and sinew and alien muscle lined the trench ways, and still the fighting roared on.

Arron Polox slammed his powerfist into the leering face of yet another foe, the monstrous device discharging seismic force outward, liquefying the alien’s head in as little time as it took to blink. The headless body jerked spasmodically, teetering to and fro before collapsing messily on the sodden ground. It was soon trampled by several of its kin who charged forward, heedless of its death or the danger ahead. Arron swung his fist into a defensive stance and brought up his sidearm which he held in his left hand. An ancient and ornate plasma pistol, the weapon hummed loudly as it charged, the miniature fusion reactor within pouring plasma derivative into the magnetic core, forcing the furious energy into a physical form. With a scream of released pressure the weapon fired, a spray of incandescent starfire erupting in a shocking blast, liquefying alien armour and flesh, blistering the creatures as they charged onward. The weapons left a trail of smoking discharge as Arron spun on the spot, bringing his gauntlet to bear again. He punched and tore and fired upon the driving monsters, his movements furiously mechanical.

Behind him were his brothers, Temeret Squad, four Astartes warriors oathed to hold back the alien swarm alongside him. Like him they were clad in armour of heavy gold and brilliant yellow, their heraldry marked in black iron and ivory. Upon the shoulders was a glorious icon of white and black, a clenched fist on a field of purest white: the sign of the Imperial Fists of Inwit, the praetorians of Terra itself, the sons of Rogal Dorn. In their mailed fists they carried Bolters: furious, fully automatic weapons, loaded with shells closer to missiles than actual bullets. They raked the lines of alien horrors in broad, explosive waves, the aliens so tightly packed that it was impossible to miss. The gathered behind Polox, covering each other, ensuring that the xenos filth were given no quarter. Clipped words of battle commands droned between their helms, just beyond hearing above the screeching lunatic hordes that poured into them. The horror was ceaseless and relentless, and yet they held like mountains in a furious ocean.

And yet the aliens came on.

Further along the trench, to the back of Arron and his squad were more Astartes holding the bottleneck of the trench network against another swarm, and whilst they too were sons of Dorn, they wore not the glorious golden yellow of the fists, but were clad in black and iron, their image evoking medieval horror and torture. They were a larger group, but seemed less uniform and watertight than Temeret Squad, and whilst the Fists were drilled and efficient, the other Astartes seemed driven by rage and furious contempt. They struck out with heavy blades and shields, some with flamers and gouting fire-pikes, and all under a bellow of sheer religious fervour and fury. They were Black Templars, crusaders and zealots to a man, brothers and kin to the fists but utterly different in mind and mien. Led by a particularly venomous captain by the name of Gerrus, the Black Templars tore into the xenos swarm with a relentless, dangerous drive.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tyranid swarm had descended upon the world of SV63-19 with their characteristic ravenousness and bile, and the Imperium had mounted an immediate defence. The world was a bulwark world, a bastion that guarded the sectors beyond, thanks in part to the world’s incredible size (over 90,000 miles in diameter) and its abundant, frosty ring system that hazed it. Miles of rock and ice spread out in equal plates around the world, and the Imperium had nested the vast expanse with gun emplacements, mines and laser grids. Above this squatted dense orbital platforms, autonomous broadside bases and a sub-fleet of fourteen defence vessels girded the world below. The high level of defence was down to the abundant resources on SV63-19, the world was heavy with metals, gases and a rare sub-plasma conduit known as Immortium. The population was sparse, mainly mining colonists and Mechanicum Frontiersmen, however the sheer resource wealth meant the Imperium was loathe to leave the planet to the whims of voracious aliens. An immediate request for intervention was issued to all Imperial Forces within the surrounding eight systems.

The call was answered by a staggering array of the Imperium’s military might: two regiments of Jezzari Shocktroopers on refit and resupply from the nearby Dolmius Cluster and six armoured battalions from the Venzolo Guard boasting hundreds of fighting vehicles and artillery. There came the Almeda Sky Burners, an elite squadron of a thousand fighter craft linked to the Cadian XVVI who coasted into the system in their heavy, ponderous bulk carrier. The Cadian’s were particularly numerous in their response: over 450,000 fighting men and women descended to the planet, with a host of Leman Russ armour killers and 7,000 massed missile batteries. Behind them came the glorious squadrons of House Perlius, twenty four noble knights and their attendants and the cloaked, mechanical hosts of the Hu’Lund Skitarri Legions. And dominating them all was the maddening forms of two Warlord Titans, the Geneviève and the Lament of Brochus, veterans God-Machines of the Holstoth Pacification - The Mechanicum were clearly keen to maintain its stake on the world.

The reinforcements were bolstered by contingents from no less than two chapters of the noble Astartes: a force of 300 Imperial Fists led by Captain Gauiss Menxx, returning to the central Imperium from a peace-keeping tour on the border-provinces of the Golgon sub-sector. Having left High Warp to allow fleet reformation, the Fists had receive the request for aid almost immediately upon leaving the Ether. Menxx, a man of great honour, was loathe to leave innocents to the harm of the oncoming alien tide and immediately set course for SV63-19, his small fleet of twelve vessels bolstering the ranks arrayed in the defence.

Shortly after Menxx had joined the command staff of the defenders, another Astartes fleet was detected, albeit one of considerably larger size and strength. Boasting twenty vessels, and led by a monstrous Grand Cruiser named the Affinity of Faith, a crusader host of four hundred and sixty Black Templars translated in-system in direct summons to the reinforcement’s request. Led by a Marshall Hugo Smight, a humourless and stern man even by the intimidating standards of his Legion, he led his forces to the surface and immediately was at logger–heads with his counterpart from the Imperial Fists.

Long ago, in the mists of time, all Astartes belonged to one of twenty Legions. Colossal military bodies, they each boasted tens of thousands of warriors, enough to destroy worlds and defend systems. Each was a law unto itself, and they were the greatest military forces mankind had ever seen. Then the Great Heresy came and the Legions turned on their own spurned by the Arch-Heretic Horus, the Emperor’s most precious son and greatest disappointment. The Imperium won the ensuing war, barely, and had to take steps to ensure such an event could never occur again. To this ends, the remaining loyalist Legions were shattered, split into smaller fighting forces that could never threaten the Imperium again. The Imperial Fists, the VII Legion, followed suit and split into three smaller fighting forces: One kept the name and heraldry of their former Legion, another became the Crimson Fists, who we will discuss at a future time, and the Black Templars.

Three forces joined by blood and origin, but split in mind and heart. The Templars were venomous were the Fists were reserved, unflinchingly cold were the Fists were stoic and fervent to the cause whereas the Fist were quietly loyal. The Fists were resolutely a Codex Chapter, and obeyed the tenants set out in Codex Astartes ages ago, whilst the Templars scorned upon it, swelling their ranks vastly over the prescribed limits. The Templars were a furious hammer to the Fists measured shield. And although they shared ancestry and bloodline as cousins, the two could not be described as close.

Upon planet fall, Smight had criticised much about the Imperial Defence as too static and too reactive, highlighting the pitfalls they would face against the Tyranid menace. He stated that the Imperials should define the flow of battle, and should immediately counter attack against the alien hordes before they could gain any foothold upon the world. Menxx, calmly and without the bluster of his cousin, stated a static defence across a broad trench network gave the best chance of success. The Astartes would take point on the defence, and flow back through the trench system as the battle dictated. Menxx highlighted he had fought the Tyranids numerous times, and this defensive method had quelled them each time.

Smight implied that Menxx was a coward, afraid to sally forth and meet the foe head on.

Menxx implied Smight was unfit for command.

Smight demanded the Fists leave the defence to the Templars, and run back to the home fires were the clearly belonged.

Menxx stated that Smight and all like him were a disappointment in the eyes of the Gene-Father.

Tensions flared, harsh words were voiced, and only the calming voice of the overall theatre commander, Lord General Tantalus Oswald halted the debate before it came to blows. He pointed out that they were all here for one cause, and that cause was right on their doorstep. He deferred to Menxx, his legions of Imperial Guard and armour being favoured to static defence. Smight stalked from the command tent bilious and off-humour, but his warriors followed the grand scheme also.

Over Four Hundred and Sixty thousand men, women and military assets were stationed for the defence, the horrific fury of mankind’s military might on display for all to see. It was a force that could conquer planets, systems, even galaxies. It was rested and ready, its attention on a knife-edge ready for the coming war. They had faith in their weapons and in the God-Emperor on old Earth. They were the shocking face of modern war.

They would stand no chance at all…

Tyranids. What happens to our defenders

I do not envy the man who must stand between two Space Marines in an argument.

Hey guys, super sorry I've not updated this in forever. New Job, external writing and not being in the country have all gotten in the way of my favourite place on the internet.

I'm pretty busy until christmas, however the next part has a rough skeleton and I'm hoping to pick this back up in January and hopefully update more regularly.

Thanks folks!

No problem, we can understand you being busy. Thanks for the update, and I guess we'll be seeing you around January then.

We forgive you,

We forgive you because we love you,

And we love you, TO DEATH.

In all seriousness, good luck with the challenges and opportunities life has chucked your way. We look forward to more.

Hey, no worries! Looking forward to when you can settle back down!

I just assumed the story had finished. Maybe the death of the Emperor had caused a cataclysmic galactic event such as the Galaxy imploding and as there was no Galaxy you couldn't write about it....sort of like ending a film half way through a sentence.

But in all seriousness best of luck with your new job and hope you get back to writing soon

Is there anyway we can get a collected, up-to-date version of the most excellent story contained within this thread?

Please?

Sorry for a bit of a non-update guys, I've not forgotten about you all. I've removed the Blood Angels sections as I'm reworking them into my new entry into Black Library's latest open submission.

I have them saved though so don't panic

The world was burning.

It smouldered silently in the depthless black, a glowing orb of fury and extinction. The skeletal remains of orbital docks and orbiting stations added to the conflagration, and swollen, obese shapes skulked in the ruin vomiting hordes of chittering, alien offspring onto the fiery globe below. The ships of their enemies had long ago been sundered into flotsam, with many dead and fewer limping away from, their engines flaring weakly in retreat.

The atmosphere protested at the violence, rain and ruin billowing in mad tangents, whipping the punished air into a maddened frenzy. Dark, gory shapes screamed from the inky blackness above, trailing runnels of umbilical fluids and alien ichor in haphazard spirals. Metallic fury roared up to meet them: clouds of shrapnel and flak scattering death-dealing debris into the air, tracer rounds the length of a man’s arm screeching in veering lines of explosive fury. Winged horrors, dredged seemingly from the terrified dreams of lunatics, flitted to and fro between the killing pulses, screeching their alien, carrion call to the tortured skies. Man-made craft, all angles and hard lines, blitzed in wide arcs, their wings and noses alive with flashes of automated gunfire. The sky brimmed with death and madness, the sheer scale of the slaughter enough to steal the breath of the hardiest warrior and most demented of butchers.

But it was nothing compared to the slaughter below.

The broad landscapes of SV63-19 seemed to pulse and teem as if the planet itself shivered and quaked in a morbid impersonation of life as trillions of glossy, beetle bodies flowed like organic rivers toward the warmth of their prey. A solid mass of xenos horror crawled across the world, encircling and swallowing the planet and its defenders in an endless tide of brutal, alien bodies. The sounds of bone scraping and thrumming, alien screeches and dry alien bodies would have driven a man insane had it not been for the near relentless gunfire drowning out all other sound.

The orbital defences had failed, and the small fleet, enough to pacify whole systems of more civilised foes, had been smashed into obscurity by the encroaching Tyranid swarm. The swollen alien hive ships had destroyed the world’s defences with mammoth beaks and talons, tentacles and fleshy growths the span of continents, with hails of digestive mist and solid, bony flack. They then descended upon SV63-19 with all the starving fury the universe had bred into them.

In the ocean-laden Northern Hemisphere, a great sea battle raged as the planet’s naval defences battered at the oncoming swarm, their hydra batteries and mighty cannons duelling with the skyborne threat. Colossal meteors of bone and gristle plummeted into the icy waves, before great tentacle-heavy leviathans rose up in anguished birth-fury, beady blackened eyes set on the crafts of mankind. Winged behemoths skulked in the sky and pulled the defences of the Imperium to the ocean below, their chattering din adding to the lunatic crescendo building around them. The fighter screens deployed to provide cover and support for their ocean-bound comrades burned and spiralled out the skies, their engines clogged with sticky, fleshy matter. Clouds of alien spores, near-microscopic in size, coated engines, vents and rebreathers and tore down entire squadrons. Pilots tore off their masks screaming as flesh-eating microbes tore through them, coughing blood and liquefied organs onto their controls. What the microbial horrors didn’t kill was torn down by ghoulish winged beasts of talon and flail, and soon the Northern skies belonged to the xenos.

In the cold, icy tracts of the western planet, a ground war of dizzying scale was entering its final, painful moments. A full half of the relief force’s military might had been stationed there, protecting the mining stations and research colony established many years before. Above the glorious display of mankind’s military might stood the Lament of Brochus, a Warlord Titan, its staggering scale matched only by its capacity for destruction. Pale blue banners traced in gold hung from its noble arms, and its sonorous war horn blared in challenge to the rushing hordes of monsters that stampeded toward the human lines.

When the Imperial forces opened fire, it was with the sound of the world ending. Millions of weapons fired as one and the spectacle would steal the breath of even the hardiest malcontent: the relentless din of automated fire, the proud shouts and battle cries of thousands of throats singing as one, the whip crack of tanks and war machines pushing on their stabilisers as they hurled rounds above the battlefield and most regal and terrifying of all, the Lament unleashing absolute destruction from its godlike fists, its mournful song piercing the veil in its mechanical majesty. The wall of alien flesh buckled and ruptured in the face of mankind’s retribution, and yet on they came. Clambering over the bodies of the fallen, bristling with organic armour and talons, the aliens came on and soon they replied in kind with their own firepower. They vomited acidic bile into the ranks of humans, serrated spines of poisoned bone and shrapnel flew from muscled pores, greenish hails of lightning and sensory overload discharged in arcing explosions. The Imperial lines faltered, and men and women fled. And as the Imperial Line disintegrated, a counterattack pushed from the reserve.

From the fleeing human masses came regal giants, shining in plates of emerald green and crimson, moving with a grace belying their great size and warlike nature. With a clarion call they charged, huge pistons and monstrous engines driving the mechanical comets forward. Lances the length of trees lowered, energy fields sparked into life and great shields lowered in front of grim, engraved canopies. The Knights of House Perlius cannoned out of the human battle-lines, their weapons barking and screaming into the oncoming tide of monstrous flesh. Where their weapons struck, ruin and destruction followed, and scores of Tyranids fell dead beneath their relentless kin. The monstrous mass reared in fury at this new challenge and plunged ever onward into the noble machines.

With the sound of waves smashing against a cliff face the Knights and Tyranids met in a tangled melee of scything talon, piston and flame. A brutal circle of slaughter opened up around each of the towering machine-warriors, their pilots calm and precise despite the chaos unfolding. The tide of aliens halted against the mechanised bulwark and a shudder ran through their lines, and the human warriors cheered and entered the fray once more. The Lament of Brochus saluted its smaller kin with a blast of its great horn, before once again puncturing the alien swarms with calculated laser fire, and the battle seemed to sway in the Imperium’s favour.

And then a shadow fell across the human lines.

All human eyes turned upward as something immense and horrific moved out of haze and smoke of the horizon. At first it seemed as if a mountain had uprooted itself from the strata of the planet and was now moving inexorably toward them. The alien masses unleashed a keening wail as a great and terrible shape came into view. A continent of alien flesh and armour strode through the smoke, dragging its maddening bulk across the plains on eight monstrous legs, each footfall cracking the earth and sending seismic walls of force in all directions. Great spines and pillars of bone ran across the monstrosities back, and it was dotted with tens of thousands of giant, slime-filled pores. From each pore chittered billions of aliens, cavorting and waiting upon the back of their great sibling. A great swaying tail balanced the creature, and as it swung overhead it blackened the earth below as if the sun had never been.

And hung low under its frontal arms was a maddening visage, a face of horror and alien monstrousness. A great maw of unfathomable size grinned at the world, lined with razor sharp fangs each the length of one of the duelling knights below. Yellowed and stained, the dripped viscous fluids in great runnels down the ground many miles below. Spines and armoured chiton covered its ruddy flesh, and sixteen malicious, black eyes stared out of its horrific face. Great mandibles and antennae waved about its head and under its great jaw hung a bulbous, cancerous growth of tumour and bone. It stomped from the smoke cover and paused above the hordes of smaller xenos. It seemed to consider the Imperials arrayed before it for a silent minute and then bellowed a roar that deafened the entire frontline of the Imperial forces. If any of them were to survive this encounter, they would be irreversibly deafened for the rest of their lives.

But none would survive. No one could survive this.

The monstrous goliath seemed to heave and choke, before an unending stream of steaming mucus burst from its gullet. A tidal wave of sticky matter shadowed the ground and struck with the force of a comet. Where the vile fluid touched human flesh, it seared and burned like the most potent acid. Where it touched the Mechanicum-blessed steel and metal of the Knights, it smoked and blistered, eating through the molecules as if they were so much swill. The Imperial Line, or at least those not caught in the murderous deluge, broke in a frenzy, clawing at each other to get away from the unholy mountain of flesh. Melted and sticky limbs rose from a bloody quagmire, begging for mercy and help as their bodies dissolved into a swamp of human matter.

Above the fleeing armies stood the Lament of Brochus, who would not see this slight to her allies go unpunished. The mighty Warlord braced its colossal form and fired with every weapon it could bear. The Volcano Cannons mounted on its arms blazed with a blinding light, a stream of killing flame blitzing across the air. Its shoulder-mounted laser blasters stuttered into life, stabbing the bio-titan with crimson spears of killing energy. On its carapace, missile pods opened and bombarded the enemy lines with corkscrewing missiles and flak, eliciting great explosions of dirt and alien bodies. Warhorns bellowed in righteous fury as thousands of aliens died in holy fire.

The bio-titan screeched as blobs of flesh and steaming chiton exploded from its hide under the assault. Great streams of gore showered the field below, the stench beyond words. Wounded, the beast focused its myriad eyes on its attacker and lunged forward. Its pace was breath-taking, stunning for something so maddeningly huge. Its talons scraped runnels of rock and dirt in great waves, broken bodies of both xenos and man flying behind it in its flight.

On like a juggernaut it came, the very air protesting at the passing of such a colossal form. The Warlord boomed its horns in response and unloaded yet more fury into the oncoming beast. The ground vanished between the colossi, and with world-ending force the alien monster impacted the Imperial Titan.

A wave of invisible force exploded outward from them, dust, debris and corpses hurled violently through the air from the impact. Alien flesh met Imperial steel as they smote each other with fire and claw. Defence turrets and flak-arrays raked the hide of the alien terror, weapons designed to fell boarders and enemy titans doing little but enraging the great beast. It's monstrous claws swung out and flared as they impacted advanced shielding and void-arrays. The Lament, not designed for such close-quarters battles, swung ponderously to the side before slamming its right cannon arm into the xenos titan's side. Energy exploded from the colossal barrel and a smoking gory wound opened like a rent in the earth. With a scream of pain and alien frustration the monster rose to its full, blasphemous height, and the cancerous growth hanging below its maw rippled obscenely

With a sickening tear of sodden flesh heard many miles away, it burst open, revealing stinging tentacles and a colossal lamprey mouth lined with deadly fangs. The fleshy horror fell upon its prey, both mouths working obscenely on the head and shoulders of its enemy. The Princeps and her noble crew screamed as the alien horror chewed and digested them alive. Great teeth cut through adamantium, gears and pistons whined under the weight and in a moment of utter panic the Princeps uncoupled the safety protocols on her steed’s core.

A rumble shook the Lament of Brochus, as it stood savaged and mute, before it blossomed into a great cloud of atomic fury. The power of a raging sun expanded across the battlefield, vaporising any unlucky enough to survive the battle. The great bio-titan fell, its insides scoured by killing fire and its body blackened to a peeling crisp.

The shockwave rumbled voraciously across the killing fields, coating all in its path in corpse-ash and dust.

When the dust settled many hours later, and the weak sunlight finally pierced the murky skies, no living thing was left on the Western Front of SV63-19…

Glad to see this back, and with what an entrance!

Pleasure to have you back. And good luck with BL.

With a scream of tortured metal and splitting air, another dropship sprang upward into the wet air, its nose rising steeply as it tore its way into the atmosphere. Dozens of similar vessels did likewise, rising on retro-thrusters and launch-pods, corkscrewing aggressively into flight. Smoke and fire concealed most of the skies, but what patches of blue could be made out in the maelstrom was thick with heavy craft fleeing the dying world below. Some made it to the relative safety of the darkness above, others were sundered by flak of bone and gristle, their stricken hulls belching fumes and murdered bodies as they span toward the ground. Already, pyres of destroyed vessels dotted the landscape, their smoke and detritus adding to the grim air.

Rain lashed the spaceport and iron corpses, a furious hierophant of the elements, its diluted cracking smashing into the blocky permacrete buildings. The sheer volume of objects streaking through the skies and the introduction of alien microbes causing a tsunami of poison rain. It drove down in a wall of grey water, muddying the round into a sick, gooey soup. SV63-19 was dying, its body smothered in a watery grave, and what remained of its populace swam for the blackness of the void.

Around the squatting spaceport came tides of alien madness, a Tyranid swarm of staggering numbers poured toward the last bastion of the humanity on the world, their eyes and drooling mouths fixed on snuffing out what lives remained. The rest of the planet was dead, its defenders consumed and their weapons smashed to tinder. It was a horde of utter lunacy and inhuman hunger, and its ending of the world was entering its final, agonising moments.
The death blow was struggling to fall however: around the grey, ugly buildings of the last human outpost ran a thin line of gold and black figures, standing shoulder to shoulder, blazing away with weapons of righteous fire, deep trenches and defence networks slowing the oncoming tide. The giants roared with gunfire and fury into the alien masses, their anger matched by their furious drive to save the people fleeing the world. Astartes, defenders of the Imperium, standing against the dark tide as they always have and as they always would. High above their heads, the automated defences of the spaceport chattered and roared in a similar blaze, their overwhelming fire rending chitenous bodies in twain in a staccato drumbeat of fiery fury.

Tanks vomited shells into the hordes, plumes of fire and viscera blossoming in the unending press of bodies. Laser fire and plasma flare devoured the beasts in a gluttonous, pyrotechnic display. Where the lines became too close, chainswords and wicked blades licked out to cut heads from twisted bodies and gouge eyes from hateful skulls. The glorious Imperial Fists and wrathful Black Templars stood against the enemies of man, hurling their fury unto the backs of the black-hearted.

And yet the monsters came on.

Captain Gaiuss Menxx was not one to dwell on fatalism, but even he could see that his defence was breaking. The commander of the Imperial Fists stood with his men on the frontline, the twin barrels of his Storm-Bolter white hot through use, his voice hoarse from bellowing orders and extolling his men onto further glory. His Astartes, the men he had commanded for decades did him proud, never shirking, never stopping, never surrendering to the black mass of instectile madness that descended upon them. The aliens roared and screeched and chattered, a living wall of men’s deepest nightmares made flesh, and pulled and rent and clawed at the brave men of the Auld VII.
Thousands of the beasts died as the battle raged, their lurid, glaring eyes dimming as rounds tore out their throats or burst within their sickening, fruit-rot bodies. But they wouldn’t die alone, and many of Menxx’s brothers lay torn and smashed on the blood-thickened mud below. The ring of Astartes grew tighter and tighter as the aliens gained ground, and Menxx knew this battle would soon be lost. He fired pinpoint shots into swollen, distended skulls with a calm belying the raging battle and his command squad, marines of highest honour and talent fought alongside him. Stretching off around him was trench network of golden armour dozens of his warriors arrayed in a think, immovable line of righteous vengeance, the Imperial Fists making the Tyranids pay in blood and bodies for every inch they claimed.

This world is lost, he thought, and my brothers will be lost with it…

The decision to withdraw is never an easy one for an Astartes to make. The implications of cowardice and self-preservation would balk most warriors of high honour, but for an Astartes it is almost a reflex action. Retreat is simply not an option for most Space Marines because it is unnatural to them. Death or Victory, as the battle cries often went, only in Death Does Duty End. But as Menxx stared out at the masses of seething beasts and alien horror, he knew that to die here would be a dishonour to both his men and his Imperium. A tactical withdrawal, taking as much from the spaceport as possible, a calculated relocation to the next location in the Hive Fleets path was the most logical course of action.
It was not retreat if you moved form a place of weakness to a place of strength.

Menxx blink-clicked his retinal UI, opening a channel to his counterpart in the Black Templars who warred on the opposite side of the Spaceport. The vox link blared to the sound of distorted gunfire and bellowing voices, all smothered in distortion and over-gain. He winced at the sudden noise, which roared even over the actual firefight around him. Several seconds of the discordant din passed before a gruff, wrathful voice, laden with disrespect cut through the feedback.

“What is it Menxx? If you haven’t noticed I have a war to fight here!”

Menxx scowled within his helm, loosing another buzz of rounds into a tall, spindly form that wavered too close to the line. He spoke in a level, deliberate tone, partly because of the strains of combat, mainly because he loathed speaking to Smight, Marshall of the Black Templars stationed on SV63-19.

“Our position is close to overrun Smight, our forces should fall back to the cover of the Spaceport and we should signal for withdrawal from the surface.”

More static, more gunfire. Menxx drove his fist into the face of a screeching mouth of fangs and venom, wrenching the spine of the beast through its drooling dead mouth. His veterans gave him support, their swords and hammers smashing aside the brood that threatened their position. Smight spat down the connection.

“Scared are we Imperial Fist? We are the Sons of Dorn, we do not retreat! We know no Fear! Or have you forgotten that?”

More gunfire, more alien screaming, more frustration.

“Look past your pride Brother, most of our charges are in orbit, we should join them. The battle here is lost, but the battle elsewhere can still be won”

“No! We do not retreat. Glory and Death! We stay here till the last man Menxx, you cower away if you want, but we are the Black Templars, we do not turn our backs!”

Menxx cursed internally.

“Smight, Listen to me! Do not waste the lives of your men. We can strike back at the xenos elsewhere. SV63-16 is lost! Order your men to fall back with and we can strike back before…”

The line cut in sudden silence, deactivated.

Menxx stared in stunned frustration at the vox icon, which blinked a steady red, its steady pulse mocking him.

His reverie was broken as a colossal detonation erupted behind him. Several Fists flew into the air, their bodies broken and twisted into painful contortions. Smoke and dust rained down upon the lines, small slivers of stone pattering off the Commander’s golden armour. The onslaught continued, with even greater and more loathsome shadows moving amongst the Tyranid lines. Far in the distance, great lumpen shapes the size of mountains moved in the haze, their ponderous march in line with their smaller kin. Jets of acid and solid lumps of bone-shrapnel the size of men flew overhead as the alien’s specialist forms prowled closer.

The end was coming quickly upon clawed feet and rabid hunger.

Menxx activated the vox once more, reloading his weapon in an almost subconscious gesture, the frustration buried underneath his combat instincts. A golden symbol representing Sergeant Polox opened. Polox was one of Menxx’s veterans, a brother whom Menxx himself was grooming for command: a strong, taciturn warrior every inch the noble Son of Dorn. His squad, Temeret, were far to the west of Menxx’s position, defending the western loading docks of the port. His brother’s voice came through, noise and eruptions blaring in the background.

“My Lord?”

“Polox, this position is overrun. I want you and Temeret Squad to link up with Squads Ganymede, Dolomite and Harbinger and effect a sweeping fall back to the facility. Overlapping fire patterns. Relay to the wider line also. We are to effect a fighting withdrawal from the Spaceport”

Seconds of static-laden noise washed down the line, as Polox and his men fought the oncoming storm of flesh and bone. Menxx squeezed the trigger of his weapon, a blaze of tracer rounds whipping into the xenos lines, cutting down three more foes. Their bodies were soon mulched under the oncoming rush of monsters.

“Aye Lord, your will be done! Effecting withdrawal now…My Lord, where will you be?”

Menxx nodded to the marines next to him, who dutifully took his place in the line. Shouldering his way through the trench line at a run, Menxx's eyes were set on the other side of the facility. His cloak whipped behind him in the rain-soaked wind, and his boots left deep, sticky footprints in the churned mud.

“I am going to save our Brothers from themselves”

Two more posts, and both of them spectacular. The tyranids are definitely a good conduit for the horrors that are happening, welcome back, Seanron.

I hope you get to,do this full time with copy rights. Amazing.

The defence lines drawn up by the Black Templars were drowning in fire, cascading walls of flame burning as far as the eye could see. Menxx’s armour filtered out the worst of the smoke and air-contaminants, but it didn’t protect him entirely from the areas acrid taste. His throat ached with the taste of it.

It tasted of fire and brimstone.

Black Templars, their armour darkened and baroque fought amidst the flames, flamer units and meltas screaming and whooshing into the oncoming surge of Tyranids. Chanting filled the general vox, prayers of wrath and ruin being uttered by the black-armoured warriors. Banners and chains fluttered in the smoke-choked air, and braziers dotted the landscape, burning tinder of alien skulls. On a stanchion of twisted rubble stood a bronze-armoured chaplain, his cataprachi armour beyond ornate and laden with prayer-scrolls and symbology, screaming vehemence at the alien hordes, almost threatening his brothers below into greater acts of suicidal valour.

The Templars fought as men possessed, a wild, hateful fury compared to the composed icy temperament of the Fists. They hacked and burned anything that came within range, the solid wall of seething aliens burning and breaking before them. The trenches were lined with alien bodies and slain Astartes, and the air stank of promethium exposure. Hordes of aliens poured from the rising plateaus beyond the defensive line, equally as fathomless and driven as those his Imperial Fists had been fighting. But the feeling here felt different.

This was not war, this wasn’t even a defiance.

This was Hell, in its most archaic form.

Many gave Menxx sideways glances as he stormed into their trench line, his golden-yellow already darkened by soot and filthy rain, but still glaringly different from the black armoured marines around him. One or two who went without helm even sneered at the Captain. Such slights were of no concern, not when the lives of so many depended on so little. He shouted over the din of gunfire and flamers, his suits grille lending gain-based volume to his words.

“You men, Where is Marshall Smight?”

Many of the Templars ignored him, too busy with the business of the battle to respond. A young Neophyte turned to Menxx, his eyes and face young but ingrained with the same fury common of all the Templars. His hair was a pale blonde and his eyes were a piercing blue. A thin scar ran down his left cheek, which did nothing to counter his youthful aspect. He shouted over the din, lowering his bolter to speak.

“Further up the line, My Lord. In the thick of it…”

Menxx again ignored the sour tone the Neophyte attached to his title, and gestured down the trench.

“Show me boy”

“My Lord, I have orders to…”

“SHOW ME!”

Menxx’s frustration with the Templars broke momentarily and he seized the gorget of the Neophytes armour, the young Astartes clearly taken aback by the lunging grasp. A few of the Templars turned their heads at the sudden movement, then returned their attention to the furious battle. Shrapnel flew over their heads and a great screeching shadow crashed far behind them, a great carrion-beast brought low by automated fire. More flames burst from the enemy lines, more smoke and charnel stink to choke the senses.

The Neophyte stared harshly and then finally relented, nodding his head sullenly and breaking into a jog down the trench, followed by Menxx.

They jogged for a mile, swallowing the distance in the loping gate that all Astartes are known for. The whole line showed similar signs of fervent battle, walls of Black Templars on fire steps pouring ammunition into the hooting waves of monsters. Some had removed their helms, relishing in the scalding fury, striking at the aliens with heavy broadswords and shields. Others stood like dark devils, curving looping gouts of burning promethium from heavy flamer units held in dark gauntlets. Great banners dotted the line, some of blackened silk and heavy fabric that burned in turmoil, others were grim crucifixes to the skeletal remains of heretics and foes the Templars had slain in their crusades.

And everywhere was the relentless shouting, praying and snarling that were common to his cousins, adding a desperate fervour to the battle.

How different we are, thought Menxx, how did we become so distant?

As the thought dawned, the din of the battle faded and eventually became silent. Menxx paused in his advance, startling in its suddenness. He gazed around, the scene seeming to slow in his mind. He saw his cousins engaged in brutal combat, their weapons blazing in swampy slowness. He could see the tracers of scarlet their rounds left in the tortured air. He witness the roaring, grinning maws of the alien enemy, spittle and viscera drooling from between needle teeth. He could see their bunched musculature in finite detail now that they were slowed to perceptible levels. He saw the alien madness that bled form their eyes in horrific bale-fire and the cold, hungry intellect behind them.
The air hung like a breath before release, the blood, bullets and horror hanging in a silent pause.

Then he saw it.

Approaching slowly down the trench, smoke and mist clinging to it like a ragged cloak. The eyes burned like red coals, furious crimson slits from an iron skull-helm, blacker than even the night above. Its armour was baroque to a monstrous degree, the plates carved in leaping flames and jeering revenants, the armour as much a symbol of potent horror as it was a defence. Flames flowed freely about it, and smoke and sparks rose lazily from joints in its form. In one hand it carried a great shield, a twisted screaming human skeleton fused to the broad face, and in the other it wielded a mace of blackest metal, chains and flames dripping from its heavy length, the head festooned with spikes the length of Menxx’s forearm. This was a dark mirror, an image of an Astartes born in the deepest recesses of The Pit.

Behind it came others alike to it, armoured warriors bathed in flame and smoke, their armour black as pitch. The smouldered in the haze, their blackened plates emblazoned with flames and writhing spectres. In their hands they carried weapons of grim promise, great scythes and spears, shields of burnished bone, harpoons that could slay the mightiest beats, great chain glaives the height of men and bolters carved from the bones of deceased lunatics. They drifted ethereally forward, their footsteps disturbing nothing in their path, approaching Menxx with the inevitability of slow, cold death. A Legion of damned warriors, drifting form the mist to bring death.

You will all die here. You will be damned if you do not flee.

A sepulchral whisper on the wind, chilling to hear and even more terrifying to understand gripped to Menxx’s soul and he knew it came from the lead warrior. Their march ceased several paces before Menxx, the leader raising his monstrous mace to point directly at the Captain’s chest.

You will be damned!

Menxx blinked and they were gone. The madness of the battle reasserted itself and time took its regular flight once more. He shook his head, blinking quickly at the vision that had just assailed him. The Neophyte stood before him shouting.

“Captain? Captain are you well?”

“I am fine boy…momentary lapse, nothing more. Where is Smight?”

The Neophyte seemed less than convinced.

“Just over the next rise sir, but word has just come down the vox. My Lord’s position is under heavier assault.”

Menxx nodded.

“Then lead on…time is of the essence”

They ran again through the trench, bullets and bone exploding over their heads while from the shadows of the smoke a set of red eye lenses considered them coldly.

They found Smight exactly where the neophyte had said: in the thick of a brutal melee, breath-taking in its viciousness. They paused at the crest of an earthen bulwark, taking in the sheer scale of the combat below. The aliens swept as far back as the eye could see, a living carpet of brutal intent, and all held back by a thin line of black armoured warriors. And at their head was Smight, a furious golem of bronze and black, calling to his brothers to strike back at the hated foe and to give their lives for the Emperor.

Smight was a daemon forged form flesh and iron, his every move brutal and calculated to inflict the most harm, his every utterance were words of roaring hate. His heavy fur cloak, likely shorn from the back of some great alpha predator, swirled about his shoulders like a revenant, its formerly white coat stained with ash and blood. His terminator armour was dark iron and heavy bronze, and it clattered with chains and devotional tokens, a monastery formed from armoured plates and stained with the viscera of his foes. In his right hand he wielded a colossal broadsword, easily the height of an unaugmented man, its length shimmering and diamond-cold, a steaming and hissing power field flash-condensing any liquids or flesh it touched. His left fist was locked within a monstrous power-fist, a lumpen, brutish mimicry of his own hand laden with killing energies and dense plating. He swung both in violent loops, whatever wasn’t smashed into a gory paste was sliced in twain by a whistling razors edge. Smight went without helm, his pale skin darkened with alien blood and soot. Only his eyes were left undimmed, wild and alight with the fury of combat.

Around him stomped the massive forms of Black Templars veterans, all encased in equally threatening terminator plate and all giants of unrelenting war. They blazed away with flamers and buzzing chainfists, hacking and beating the wall of alien combatants into submission. They formed a heavy, unmoving wedge against the tide of monstrous flesh battering against them and the site would stir the soul of any loyal child of the Imperium.

But it couldn’t last.

Bulbous headed alien horrors, with clawed limb and flicking tongues, pulled and dragged at the noble terminators, pulling them to the muddy ground. Armour came apart under acidic vomit and alien fangs, and for every victorious kill another brother would be pulled down. In the shadows stalked gargantuan, skeletal forms, like insectoid mantis’ given fuel through nightmarish growth. Great limbs of bone and sinew stabbed form above, seizing heads, arms and necks before pulling and hacking at the Marines below. Swollen floating creatures, malformed things of grinning teeth and sickly light, projected great beams of melting light into the Terminators, setting ablaze warriors and liquefying them in their own armour.

Already, dozens of dead brothers lined the battlefield, their ancient suits beyond any kind of repair or rescue.

Menxx had to end this. He charged into the melee, bringing his own weapon to bear, his bolter chattering and raking the enemy. He bludgeoned his way next to Smight, whose wild eyes beheld him for barely a moment. His voice was granite, all aggression and strain over the apocalyptic din.

“Come to join us Fist? We should feel blessed…”

Smight’s broadsword licked out and smote the head from a grinning horror before it could pounce upon him. Menxx blazed away with his bolter, hosing a giant, lurid worm-beast with explosive shells.

“You know why I’m here Smight! You need to pull back, now! The line is buckling and we need to relocate to mount a stronger defence”

A snarl left Smight’s lips as he pounded his swollen power fist into the chest of a four-armed gibbering serpent, blood and bone exploding out the creature’s back. He turned on Menxx with a furious glare.

“No! You do not come onto my field and tell ME the battle is lost!”

He gripped Menxx by his collar and shoved him back violently. His armour whined, and Menxx felt himself slide back, the terminator armour lending Smight lunatic strength. He gripped onto the Black Templar’s arm and struggled as he was pushed back. The battle was momentarily forgotten as all the ire the Marshall held for the Fists was finally vented. Spittle flew from between Smight’s teeth as he ranted.

“We are the Black Templars! WE DO NOT RUN FROM ANYTHING! Coward! You and your preening Fists, so pure and righteous, afraid to muddy yourself on the real battlefield”

Menxx could see a light in Smight’s eyes, a cold and relentless fury that would not see reason, and knew his words would fall on deaf ears. He struggled in the iron grip, all too aware of how close the battle was. Smight roared as he pushed Menxx farther back.

"WE ARE THE SONS OF DORN, YOU ARE A PRETENDER!"


I need to fight back - I need to end this, thought Menxx, but then what? How am I going to save these men?

It was a small mercy then that the choice was taken entirely from his hands. The smell of brimstone filled his nostrils, and smoke clouded his eyes and from the right a black gauntlet wreathed in images of flames and skeletal terrors reached between them and seized Smight’s head. The Marshall bellowed as the iron grip seized his face entirely.

The revenant from the Trenches stood beside them, smoke and flame billowing from its armour, its furious burning gaze boring into the thrashing figure of Smight. It leaned forward, dirty soot spilling from its mouth-grille and in a voice that was too many voices spoke one word.

SLEEP!

All I can say is... wow. I now want to collect and paint some fething Legion of the Damned!

SLEEP!

One word and Smight was down. An Astartes in full terminator plate is nigh-invulnerable, a walking, armoured mountain, a demi-god of battle. Only the strongest weapons can fell them, only the gravest blows could stop them. And here on this muddy battlefield, a spectre form the stuff of nightmares had toppled one with a word.

Smight toppled to the side, his transhuman bulk and armoured weight splashing messily into the muddy boards below, water splashing out around him. His head lolled, his mouth open and panting like some canine predator. His eyes rolled into the back of their sockets and he jerked spasmodically, his armour whining in sympathetic movements. Several Templars called out, a pair rushing to their stricken commander’s side. Someone called for an apothecary, another raised his weapon at the revenant. Chaos broke out within the defence line.

Menxx stood aghast, frozen to the spot, staring dumbly at the huge, prone form at his feet. The revenant stood alongside him, fumes and ash rising above it despite the torrential downpour. It stared down at its victim, its fist still held aloft, its gauntlet locked into a claw. It seemed not to care about the Templars threatening it, or the seething horde of aliens beyond. It simply stood, solid and unyielding, underneath the grey rain.

Menxx finally found his voice, disbelief and anger flaring his words.

“What did you do? Is he dead?”

The spectre turned its head slowly to regard him, its eyes like windows to some blood-choked realm. It slowly lowered its hand, and its voice that was too many voices sounded once more.

No, he shall live. At least he will if you and your kin leave this rock.

“What did you do?”

He would not listen to your reasoning, Captain Menxx, Fist of the Imperium. We took steps to ensure his survival.

Menxx stared dumbfounded at the armoured spectre. How had it known his name? How had it known what he was attempting to do? His mouth hung agape and his bolter fell from his fists, its heavy strap hanging against his waist. His reverie was interrupted by a harsh call from behind.

“YOU THERE! HEED ME!”

Behind them came heavy armoured footsteps, thumping metal treads muffled by the mud, and the spectre’s eyes rose above Menxx’s shoulder. A booming voice, one heightened by fury and vox-grille bellowed behind them:

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE MARSHALL?”

Menxx turned and beheld a group of Templars wielding flamers approaching them, led by a warrior in grim, brass-plated armour. His head was encased in a bleached skull-helm and a heavy brazier was set into his backpack, a white flame burning at its heart. Heavy robes of black and grey swathed his curved form, and a solid, chain-wrapped crozius sat in his fists. Menxx recognised him as Prahss, the Black Templar detachment’s head chaplain, and second in command to Smight. Menxx remembered he was just as furiously stubborn, if not more so, that Smight.

“I WILL HAVE YOUR ANSWER! THIS IS TREACHERY! YOU LAY LOW MY COMMANDER AND EXPECT TO LIVE?”

The chaplain radiated fury in his every movement, and Smight noticed the shivering tension in heavy crozius he carried. He was certain that one misplaced word and the Chaplain and his men would attack. He raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, his bolter slung at his hips.

“Peace Prahss, I can explain what has happened…”

The revenant stood forward and its myriad voices sounded again, wisps of ethereal detritus dripping from its mouth.

To me, Chaplain of the Templars in Black. Look to me and behold the answers.

Time seemed to slow again, a cold, queasy stone settling in Menxx’s stomach. The chaplain raised his crozius and stepped forward boldly only to freeze in place when his helm’s eyes met that of the revenant. They stood motionless, each gazing into the other, as the rain lashed overhead. Prahss’ men looked to their commander then the revenant then Menxx, their agitation evident by the twitching of their weapons. Several Templars from the rear of the gun line also turned at the commotion, their curiosity beckoning them.

What passed between the revenant and Prahss is unknown, the secrets locked behind the silent gaze. Prahss trembled, his body shaking as if under extreme cold. Slowly, but surely, his crozius dropped to his side and he lowered his head in exhaustion. Menxx heard the crackle of the chaplain’s vox-unit sound, a whisper.

“Very well…”

The revenant stood motionless as Chaplain Prahss turned to his men. His shoulders hung heavy, as if defeated, and though his voice boomed artificially from his helm, it couldn’t over the uncertainty tainting his voice.

“Templars of Black, my Brothers, this position is overrun! We are to execute a fighting retreat! Head for the centre of the complex, get to our landing craft. You men, gather up the commander and bring him with us. All units, fall back, now! For the Emperor!”

Astartes, as noted earlier, are loathe to retreat even in the face of overwhelming odds, however they are equally as adverse to disobedience. The Black Templars enacted their orders immediately, the frontline falling back in short order. Menxx felt himself pulled along with the flow. He turned to see the revenant, to offer some silent thanks but his voice was stolen from him yet again.

Out amongst the tides of aliens were figures in black, blacker than even the Templars, and the sheer fury and power they displayed was staggering. Warriors in burning armour struck out with weapons of grim portent, hacking apart aliens with consummate ease. Flames billowed from weapons and mouth grilles, consuming attackers and bathing the area in flame. From the skies fell armoured warriors, black as onyx, with great wings of bone and smouldering sinew, impacting the tides below with meteoric force. The wielded spears and swords, great maces and terrible claws. The struck at the alien tide, which quivered and turned on itself to fight the latest enemy. From the shadows came more and more warriors, each one a ghastly mirror of the Astartes they were defending.

Menxx had seen war, he had seen its face countless times and knew it well. He had seen cruelty and horror and butchery enough times to drown the souls of all mortal men. But this moment would stay with him for the rest of his life. For it was the silence the damned legion fought in that marked them as unnatural. There were no cries or shouts, no intonations or battle-roars, no painful laments or furious screams. Just a cold, fathomless fury, like the deep ocean. They were a leviathan thing from the deep, dredged up and let loose upon the world.

Menxx had seen many things in his long life, and would see many more in his long journey. But the site of the silent massacre, the quiet, abyssal rage of this damned legion would forever chill his soul. In the fleeing masses of the Templars, Menxx saw the Revenant and it saw him, and silently, glacially it nodded in recognition before turning slowly to the battle and vanishing into the chaos.

Took awhile to catch up…

The way you described the fight between the Imperator and Bio-Titan is worthy of a Godzilla movie! That, and the description of the Legion of the Damned is downright staggering in the way they slay Tyranids in absolute silence…

Just updated the initial post to include the latest chapter folks and some upkeep on the thread.

There's two more sections to this first part and then we're done with Movement One.

I'll then get it all together into a PDF with lots of fancy editing and design and put it all into a big article for you all. Then there will be a small break and then I'll fire into Movement Two.

Thanks for your continued reading and patience guys, I know I'm a bit up and down with updates

 Dark Lord Seanron wrote:
Just updated the initial post to include the latest chapter folks and some upkeep on the thread.

There's two more sections to this first part and then we're done with Movement One.

I'll then get it all together into a PDF with lots of fancy editing and design and put it all into a big article for you all. Then there will be a small break and then I'll fire into Movement Two.

Thanks for your continued reading and patience guys, I know I'm a bit up and down with updates

I love what you're doing here - and I love that you'll be PDFing it for us in a bit!

Then I'll have a sit down and proper read through, and I'm really looking forward to that!

Throughout the millennia of mankind's existence, those who have braved the challenge of striking from their homes to plunge into the inky black of the skies above have oft returned with stories akin to this of the Mariners of ancient earth.

They would speak of the waves and currents of the night sky as if they were the great blue oceans of the home world. They would wax lyrical upon the endless oceans of the void, the stellar winds like icy draughts, the stars and nebulae like the twinkling eyes and bodies of deep sea creatures.

They would tell their sons and daughters of the siren song of space, and it's clarion call to wonder and adventure. But they would also whisper after of the dangers of the void and its predators, it's fickle and capricious nature and its utter contempt to the existence of those who sail it's seas.

The battles fought and quests imparted in the airless expanse mirror this of seagoing vessels long ago, and to those who find themselves lost in its monstrous span there is nothing but the long, slow, suffocating death of the lonely sailor. In the depths of the blackness, no sound is there to comfort you, no air or heat to warm your soul, simply a crushing cold relentless in its killing fury.

And through its currents floats a predator, leviathan and quiet, it's form coasting the veil like a deep sea orca hungry for the kill. It's flanks are clothed not in meat and bone, but mile thick metal and steel armour.

Adamantium plates hang from it in a cloak of shimmering reptile scales, from its spine rise great spears of hollow metal and vanes of delicate crystalline equipment. It is dagger shaped and ribbed, widening toward its centre, with thrumming, monstrous engines at its back.

Its hull is darkened a deep blue, almost black amidst the swirling stellar winds, with tracers of silver and ivory carved into its flanks. Invisible radiation and burning matter drip from its hull as it cruises the quiet depths, the only indication of movement the occasional burst of energy form the leviathan's energy shields.

Micro-meteors and starlight flash from the iron monstrosity as it makes its ponderous way through the skies, its destination unclear and its future in flux. Its past however is grimly obvious from its hull: miles of chains and spikes line its upper skin, each word with the torn and frozen remains of a million corpses. Skulls blackened and cracked by frostbite, broad flags of tanned human hides stiffened and hanging like a canopy of rotten greenery, meters of viscera-heavy innards laid bear to uncaring cold of space. The macabre display is a scene from ancient hell.

Under the gross tableau is a great name, scarred into the plating in writing many miles high and stained in the blood of countless victims: The Sable Prince. It is a lone vessel, a warship of dizzying power and grim repute, and it carries a crew of the most horrific creatures imaginable. Murders, sadists and deviants stalk its halls, and together they scour the skies for new innocents to vent their insane fury upon. They were once legion, a force of true galaxy-slaying brutality but with the the death of their progenitor many millennia before, they are now nothing more than viscous pirates, opportunist of the lowest kind.

They are Night Lords, traitor Astartes, slaves to no one save their own brutal desires and they stalk the stars like the whalers of old.

Deep within the bowels of this Hell-ship, the horror is magnified. Its corridors dark and leaden with a copper-stink, corpses and slain foes nailed to very walls in a myriad range of scarred disarray. Slaves and human detritus stalk the halls, hoping to remain under the notice of their sadistic benefactors, squabbling and fighting over whatever their wretched minds deem valuable. The Astartes themselves spar in great iron cages, venting their endless desire for pain upon torture wracks and skinning-posts and rule the darkened miles of iron caves like warlords of antiquity. Their leader, a pale, twitching overlord by the name of Alvante sits upon a throne of bone and skinned flesh upon the craft's bridge, allowing the degradation and personal vendettas of his crew to run riot to stave off the boredom of his long existence. His lieutenants stalk the darkened halls and bulkheads, hungry for carnage and blood, slaking their whims upon the bodies of any they happen upon, even fellow Astartes.

To these revenants, brotherhood is nothing in the face of the dark desires in their hearts.

Two of the armoured monsters stalk toward the lower decks of the ship, neither speaking, both intent on what remains of the ships brig. Now more akin to a blood-caked dungeon, it now contains a sole occupant.

Chained at the centre of chamber, his muscular arms held above him in cuneiform by chains of dark iron and spikes. His body is over-developed and pale, a solid black mass stretching the skin of his chest and grey, greasy, blood-flecked hair hangs in heavy loops below his shoulder. His skin is white, almost to the point of albinism, and is broken up by broad, looping tattoos of blue. Depicting coiling serpents and looping canids, they crawl up his scarred back and end below his thick neck. His face is bruised and broken, and blood drips from his heavy lips down a long beard of silver and grey. His head hangs heavy, his body exhausted and beaten, and only a leather loincloth covers him. His breathing is shallow and panting, the air puffing in small clouds between long, sharpened incisors like those of a hound. He is a beaten animal, resigned to its fate and conserving its energy for the fatal blow.

The great doors open upon ancient gears, casting murky illumination into the cell and the bound warrior raises his head. He squints at the approaching pair of dark-armoured warriors, and a feral smile lines his beaten face. He recognises these ones, they have come to visit him before. One is a hulking, cloak-wrapped beast by the name of Ramsae, a grinning monster more keen to skin and flay than fight like a true Astartes. His belt is heavy with hooks and flensing knives, a symbol of his former legion sits screaming upon his breastplate.

The other is one that he has seen dozens of time, but has never laid hands or pain upon him. The second Astartes is slighter in build and always seems uneasy in the company of his brother. He hangs back slightly, letting Ramsae dominate the room. His name is Juda, and only his armour marks him as a Night Lord. He has always seemed almost contemptible at the pain that goes on within this room. The larger Night Lord approaches, his armoured get thumping loudly to a halt before the chained prisoner. His voice drips like poison from his helm, his burning crimson eye-slits burning into their potential victim.

"Greeting Little Wolf, it's time again. Time for you to sing for me"

The Wolf spits a wad of phlegmy blood at Ramsae's feet and when he speaks, it is with a cold, winter-cracked accent like the world he calls home, a world the Imperium calls Fenris.

"Ah, the bastard returns...I was worried you had forgotten about me"

Bit more upkeep on the thread: spellchecking, the contents updated, Intro Images added to parts XI and XII, and Part XIV: Redemption has started now - think you're all going to like this one in particular.

Is your PDF version ready?

Or if not, any estimate as to when?

Well this last bit should take a week or two I think, then I'll put it all together. Think maybe the end of the month if I'm able