ECHOES OF THE MONT'AU
excerpt from the Book of War, memoirs of Fire Warrior Commander Shas’o Sa’cea Tsua’m, a true and glorious account of the noble actions of the Fire Warriors from the Kais-shi academy on Sa’cea. Being the telling of events pursuant to the invasion of Ke’lshan by the forces of the Mont ’au.

“Listen well to this, my warriors, and learn of the method of war of those who care not for the furtherance of any common goal, and fight for the sheer pleasure of violence, the vicarious thrill of defiling those they defeat. It is a cautionary tale, yet one that will inspire others and provides a salutary warning against turning from the Tau’va, the Greater Good.

The world of Ke’lshan is a place of turbulent climate and uncertain peace. All manner of foes call the nearby Perdus Rift home: aliens, pirates and beings too terrible to name. It is a region of treacherous space, shunned by all pilots of good standing and many among the Kor whisper that it may be haunted. Haunted by what, they do not say and until the battle of Mont’au, I felt sure that such tales were mere apocryphal whimsy. Now I am not so sure.

The depredations of those that venture from the Perdus Rift are well known, all seek to plunder and kill with no thought for what they do. Though of course, I myself do not hold with O’shova’s methods and do not condone what he has done, I cannot now bring myself to condemn him totally. The things I have seen out here on the frontier have given me the clarity to at least understand what he talks of and this was never more true than after the events on Ke’lshan which I shall now relate.

Many times had those schooled at Kais-shi led expeditions to fight to protect our brethren of the other castes and every time had they been victorious. When I received orders from the Shas’ar’tol to lead six cadres to Ke’lshan, I was naturally honoured by the command, eager to defeat whatever threat had emerged from the Rift.

En route we were joined by a Kroot warsphere and, though I was glad of their assistance, I had not been aware of any warspheres in this region of the empire. Upon reaching Ke’lshan, it became immediately apparent that what had occurred on this world was unnatural. Whole outposts and towns had been razed to the ground; the bodies of the Tau dead violated in the most unimaginable ways possible. It seemed unlikely that piracy was the motive for the attack, as nothing had been taken, the storehouses were still full and the machine shops were untouched. There was no purpose to the slaughter, save the wanton horror of destruction and mutilation.

But there was worse to come. Pathfinders reported sighting ominous pillars of black smoke over the horizon and we made best speed towards the fires. We arrived at a colony I later learned had been named Fio’kai and discovered a portion of the invaders’ army still encamped in the smoking ruins. Though superficially each bore a resemblance of form to Gue’la, there was among them a riot of anatomies and form I had never before seen and could barely believe drew breath. Each creature bore distended limbs, twisted organs and gibbering mouths, each giving voice to vile exhortations in the name of indulgence.

We fell upon them and killed all save one, who seemed to revel in the pain our weapons had inflicted upon him. His form was twisted and warped beyond any physical norms and he spat and swore such vile things at us that I was forced to order my Shas’el to stand down, for fear that he execute the prisoner there and then.

I myself spoke to our captive at length and was to learn many things, which I will spare you the full horror of. It is enough to say that he claimed to serve a dark master, a being known as Slaanesh, a being who is the antithesis of all the Tau believe in. It appears that his servants are actively encouraged to pursue hedonistic pursuits and that the concept of a Greater Good is abhorrent to them. Such a creature will never submit to the Tau empire and must be destroyed lest his subversive dogma be allowed to spread. It appears that this being is one of some considerable power as it was he (or she – the subject claimed both genders for its master) who had claimed Ke’lshan as his own. I brought the distasteful questioning to an end as the prisoner appeared to take an unhealthy pleasure in the interrogation techniques I was forced to employ. Before terminating the captive, I was able to extract the location of the main force of this Slaanesh and formed up my forces, ready to engage this depraved foe.

As I ventured outside I was confronted with the sight of some Kroot carnivores devouring the bodies of those we had killed in battle. Though distasteful, I was not surprised by this and paid no more mind to their feasting than I had on previous occasions. Later events would show how costly an oversight this was to be.

The route of march our prisoner had furnished me with enabled us to deploy rapidly into an ambush position ahead of Slaanesh’s forces and I chose to employ the Kauyon strategy. With Kroot positioned in the centre as the lure, I stationed myself, the Crisis teams and a pair of Hammerheads in some dead ground behind a hill on my right flank with a Broadside team on the left of the Kroot. With Stealth Battlesuits, Fire Warriors and yet more Kroot guarding my far left flank, I considered my plan to be as tactically sound as I could make it. Within the hour, forward Pathfinders reported engaging the vanguard of Slaanesh’s army. I instructed the bulk of my army to remain in cover while the Kroot to be used as the lure advanced cautiously in plain sight as the Pathfinders’ Devilfish came into view, the enemy snapping at their heels. If the sights I had seen at Fio’kai had appalled me, what I now saw before me sickened me to my very soul.

A horde of fierce-looking warriors in armour emblazoned with shimmering colours and surrounded by a cacophony of discordant noise, bearing icons and sigils of wanton indulgence was approaching. On the flanks came snapping creatures of disturbing appearance, hideously genderless and garbed in fine silks and ermine trimmed armour. Where one would expect to see hands, these creatures were equipped with sensuous claws and darting, barbed tongues whipped from their jaws. Shambling horrors of thrashing pseudopod, claw and fang were driven before the army by grotesque, beast-headed monsters armed with crackling energy prods. At the centre of the horde stood a giant in electric blue armour, edged in gold and pink. I took this to be none other than Slaanesh him or herself and vowed to personally defeat this vile creature. The sensors of my battlesuit detected unknown chemical pollutants suffusing the air around the advancing troops, but could not discern its nature. As the first elements of Slaanesh’s army rushed towards the lure, I noticed a curious thing; many of the Kroot appeared entranced by the sight of such a garishly coloured horde and had lowered their weapons, sniffing the air with bemused looks upon their faces.

As Slaanesh’s army approached our allies, horrifying changes began rippling through the Kroot and they began convulsing, screeching horribly as their flesh erupted in mutation. At this point I realised that these were the Kroot who had feasted on the flesh of the enemy dead at Fio’kai. Slaanesh’s main thrust suddenly altered direction and, instead of charging the Kroot, began heading towards my position. Worse still, the Kroot I had stationed in front as the lure, began advancing alongside Slaanesh’s forces with murder in their eyes! I immediately ordered the forces on my left to advance, engage the flank of Slaanesh’s army and link with my Crisis team. The Broadsides fired salvos of rockets into the masses before them, each blast killing dozens of the enemy. Yet they paid little heed to the carnage being wrought within their ranks. Indeed, many appeared to take perverse pleasure in their wounding. My Hammerheads moved around the opposite flank of Slaanesh’s army and began pounding them with hyper-velocity submunitions from their railguns. Yet still they came on.

The firepower we laid down was above and beyond what the academy at Kais-shi teaches us would be sufficient to break a foe of such numbers, yet Slaanesh’s troops did not falter. Truly were these warriors brave! The slaughter continued, with my warriors falling back and firing into the charging mass. No matter how many we killed, there were more to take their place and I feared we might not have the firepower to deal with these numbers. But then my left hammered into the flank of Slaanesh’s army, throwing it into confusion as the untainted Kroot warriors carved a path through their ranks and a swirling mêlée erupted as these warriors fell upon their corrupted kin. In the confusion, I launched a counter-attack of my own.

Together with my escorting Shas’vre, I fought through the centre of the horde and linked with the bloodstained Kroot to surround Slaanesh. Now, as any student of mine from Kais-shi will tell you, I am a Tau little given to flights of fancy or romantic notions of beauty, but as I faced this being in shocking pinks and blues, I was very nearly entranced by the colours and heady musks that seemed somehow to permeate my battlesuit. I quickly threw off such notions and dispatched the villain with a shot from my fusion blaster. His death seemed to throw his minions into disarray and within minutes they were a broken mob, fleeing in utter panic. I knew I could not allow such a foe to escape, ordering a full pursuit, and by nightfall we had destroyed every last remnant of Slaanesh’s army. As I returned to our original ambush site, I found the Kroot dispatching their sickly comrades and pitching them atop a vast pyre. I have seen that is the normal custom of the Kroot to feast on the bodies of their fallen kin, but after what had happened in the battle, I could not blame them for their caution. The Kroot would not leave until the pyre had burned to ashes and the remains scattered to the wind. When the fire burned out, we collected our dead and left Ke’lshan.

I shudder to think of what might have happened had Slaanesh been allowed to claim Ke’lshan as his own and I offer thanks to the Ethereals that their prescience led my warriors and I to that world. To allow such a debased echo of our former selves to exist would have dishonoured all those who have fought and died for the Greater Good.”