Nurgle Predator Driver with an Infestation
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It was morning in the badlands. An Imperial trench network lay in destitution. Guardsmen were mangled and left about to rot in the sun's gaze, barley able to penetrate the war smog. A toppled heavy bolter position lay here, its operators crushed beneath it. A flaming pillbox there. An obscenely scrawled flag raised in a seemingly random location. The facility sat on what was once farmlands, but had since been reduced to a gray death field. Before the trench line in ditches, and craters, and razor wire lay hundreds of bodies that had once heeded chaos' call.
There was no life to speak of in the general vicinity of last night's battle, save one low agent of chaos. He sat atop a small mound of heads, not as a victor, but rather as a thrall. Brackish ooz seeped from between the folds in his vox grill. Blind eyes did not see, but stared at a cylindrical object in his hand. Both arms were cut, but did not bleed. They did not bleed, yet scabs covered the entirety of the skin there. He continually punctured his arm in a protracted manor.
His essence may have left, but a fragment of what he was remained.'The needle goes into the vain. The scab is punctured. The vain is dead. The needle goes into the vain. The scab is punctured, the vain is dead. The needle goes into the vain, the scab is punctured. The vain is dead.'
HOURS EALIER
'THE NEEDLE GOES into the vein. The scab is punctured. The vein is Dead! The needle goes into the vein. The scab is punctured. The vain is dead! The needle goes into the vein. The scab is punctured. Sweet release!' The smell of gun smoke flares through my grille and I gasp for more, such a delicious melody. Distant shell fire, miles away swims through my riveted ears, around my mind like a playful tumor. My tattoos dance across my arm; the tentacles of a void kraken. Every color of the night has transfigured into the most blissful arrays of the light spectrum, ever shifting, perpetually the waves of a toxic sea.
My hand stops shaking and I raise my head above Kedrik's corpse and immerse myself in the landscape above the ditch; a rolling pleasure field of neurotic atrocity. Smoke hovers as pillars of carrier swarms. Detonations cross the horizon as a hundred welcome sunrises.
"Many thanks Kedrik. Better luck next time," my own words almost send me into a fit of humor, but I stifle my laughter; despite the immense temptation.
Crawling about, even the rocks caress me through leather greaves and plated jacket. I stay low, partly to avoid ending up like Kedrik, and mostly to savor the sublimity of the occasional rupture of my skin.
I cover distance with eager precariousness. I reach five meters. I reach seven meters. I reach thirteen meters. Nysolot is some distance behind me, making quite the ruckus. I imagine I can hear his three fingered hand, sifting around Kedrik's waist pouch, buttoning and unbuttoning the flap, hoping that with enough repetitions, he will find the very prize that I now indulge upon. My greedy chuckle is on the brink of escape. Yet again I find myself denying humor from claiming me.
A terrible star erupts above me and I writhe and bury my face in the gravel. 'Or the meadow, yes the meadow. We're all in a meadow.'
After images burrow through my retina. Despite the sensory overload, I lay and I listen. Nysolot howls both in withdrawal-frustration and panic. His bare feet crunch past me. His elongated tongue sweeps through the air aiming to shout words that he long ago lost the capability to. His rampage was suddenly halted as something barked back at him. Nysolot's direction was immediately reversed and he landed beside me. Fools all around me seemed to be flung about by a childish nightmare.
I cannot say that much remains of poor Nysolot, but he retained enough of his body to reach out at me. The tongue that could not be contained within his mouth scooped up piles of incandescent magma, 'No, not magma it was a puddle of fabric'.
No one could understand old Nysolot, but you always knew what he wanted; there were not too many possibilities considering his nature. I pick up the used syringe of Halatax and play a taunting rhythm across its length with my nails. He reaches with such effort that his arm stretches past any possible extent. Three fingers hook around the spent needle. With a force that the dying seldom exhibit, he thrusts what he thinks to be Hala, and instead injects an empty chamber into his shoulder. Accusing eyes grey out and he sumps into the radiant sand.
This ordeal is simply too much, and I give way to the tidal wave of giggles that wracks my body into involuntary movements. Laughter soon follows, bouncing through my grille and soon my own echoes join me in my splendor. Barking ensues and Nysoto looses his last three fingers and just about everything else.
The "star" fizzles out and dispenses shards of its majesty across the tundra. I finally get a grip and inch closer again, this time with less patience. The Barking Machine is in view now; a boxy device with a mewling parasite to either side of its frame. A troupe of parasites are writhing behind it sulking about like fleshworms beneath bark.
I crawl even closer, Sramf's sling is wrapped around my non-firing hand. The parasites feebly shine beams of light, in an attempt to do unto me what has happened to many of my Host. Their language is a timid one, full of laboring chunks. They move so sluggishly, they could have been mistaken for bovine as the they fretfully peek from their hive. Each of them looks to be cut from the same dull material. A beam of light hovers over me and I simply lay, clutching my pendant till its eight points are imbedded in my hand. Laying as far into the causeway as possible I think out my moves while simultaneously begging the favor of any patron that may hear me. The light passes and still breathe is exchanged through my grille. How they could not hear me, is testament to their folly. The heartbeats and creeping of at least twenty of my Host tell me that many of those that praise the Way of the Four and the Eight have made it to the target location.
Close enough to see the parasites' breath emerge in plumes of fear, I grab a stone. I toss the ice chunk at Ilvaot and she replies with a startled wail. In 5 seconds the machine barks more than I can count. Ilvaot was scattered across the prairie like confetti. Every beam of light converged on her remains as if the spectacle was too good to pass up. This is when we emerge, closing the last stretch from our victims. Red zips of light turn Host members into red stains of failure. This is the point where the Gods choose who is champion and who is without favor. The clouds rush through the sky surging with turmoil. My boots crunch upon a landscape which twirls and reforms with every step.
All around, the Host dashes toward our blasted foe. Far fewer of our number had endured the crawl than had started. But slaves tend to be bereft of worth in pitched battle, so it is only fitting that most of our losses were absorbed by the impressed auxilia. Crixous and I are racing toward the vile machine weapon. He gains speed on me and appears to be in line for earning first blood. His pace falters only slightly as he rips off the pin of a detonator. While in the motion of a throw, his wrist is blown off by a ray of red light. He clutches his stump and watches as the device is projected through the air, his death-gripped hand sailing along too.
My hysteria at the sight is far too much to bear. Frenzied bellows of comicality blast from my mouth's remnants, joining the war cries of my fellows. I haul Crixois by his dreadlocks and prompt him forward with a swift kick in the arse.
"Eat filth Nassir!" He raises his stump at me, most likely forgetting that he could no longer display certain gestures.
The detonator does what it's name would suggest, and the boxy weapon stops firing. We reach the lip of the parasite's burrows and jump amongst them. Two of the fools are pinned beneath the barking monstrosity. If I had the capacity, I would spit on them. A corridor as deep and wide as a man runs down either side of me in length. My fighters began the delightful task of slaughter. It is said that the corpse worshipers covet martyrs; Crixios raises a machine pistol and obliges them.I jam Sramf between a weakling's armor and underclothes. It attempts to turn around. After dodging an awkwardly thrown bayonet swipe, I pull the trigger, just to see the fool's face before his soul is consumed by They. The terror in its fathomless eyes was enough to risk it all over again. Luckily for me I won't need too.
I eject a shell and murder more of the parasites as their backs are turned. The creatures swimming about the walls tell me that this is no sport. They lick at my victims' blood and declare that it has no flavor.
I scream at the wall creatures "Forsake me further and I will have your spines littered across the void!".
Many slither away but very few stay and look directly behind me with a thousand glittering eyes. A mechanical growl screams toward me. With Sramf held before me, I pivot on the spot. The serrated teeth of the parasite champion's sword saws through my beloved scattergun's barrel in a downward swing. The fool had obviously bested his own kin in single combat to earn such a weapon. However, to call me amongst his kin would be a travesty most supreme; I drop to the lush flakbloard as the champion goes to thrust. Another pull of Sramf's trigger and the parasite leader topples forward. Its victorious grin is replaced with a lack of anything, save bone fragments and lead. The screaming blade comes down on one of the enemy beneath the once-barking gun. Around me the wall creatures rejoice and endow me with favor. They squabble and tear to get closest to my most recent foe's corpse. These things cannot be bothered with.
Their hives were being swept clean. Deeper into the ground they went, but there was no need to venture into such treacherous depths. Collapsing the entrances to these tunnels is an easy enough job. I sit on one such pile of rubble, relishing the screams of those trapped on the other side as they suffocate. It helps with the fact that the Halatax has worn off. Before me are the severed heads of the conquered arranged in an audience so that I may discus with them their folly. The world is far less interesting now. If only I could go back. Prisoners are heard being rounded up. Soon the Host will have more gunfodder at its disposal and we shall strike again.
Crixios approaches and faces my throne, "Most vaunted Nassir, we have succeed over the corpse fearers. This was in no small part due to your benevolent leadership."
I look at my would be pet with contempt, his wounded arm was dripping with a sickly pus, "Crixious, handle prisoners. If you linger any longer you shall become a member of my audience,".
His snake tongue and angular nose dart with cunning "Pardon me, good Nassir, but I was told that you had acquired a certain taste for say, Halatax?" He produced a pointed vial and twirled it about his dexterous fingers.
Every sense that I owned fixated on that singular object. I had it in my hand before Crixios realized that I broke his. I pump it into my good arm vain.
'This is not right. This is not right. This is not right,' my mind reels as I plummet to the ground to be level with my audience.
"You fool! The gods favor you no more than the saps we put to death. You are a tool. The Host will now march under my banner and you are helpless against it. Enjoy this gravesite, you will lay amongst the Imperial filth until scavengers come to pick you clean!"
So much spite seethes within me. It is the only thing I feel. My sensorium is becoming dark. I cannot close my eyes but soon I do not see through them. The only thing to permeate the darkness were jaws, crimson as can be.
And the laughter. The laughter, I realize, was never my own. I never laughed. It was something else that luaghed. How it laughed now. How it laughed with me between those cruel teeth.
It was morning in the badlands. An Imperial trench network lay in destitution. Guardsmen were mangled and left about to rot in the sun's gaze, barley able to penetrate the war smog. A toppled heavy bolter position lay here, its operators crushed beneath it. A flaming pillbox there. An obscenely scrawled flag raised in a seemingly random location. The facility sat on what was once farmlands, but had since been reduced to a gray death field. Before the trench line in ditches, and craters, and razor wire lay hundreds of bodies that had once heeded chaos' call.
There was no life to speak of in the general vicinity of last night's battle, save one low agent of chaos. He sat atop a small mound of heads, not as a victor, but rather as a thrall. Brackish ooz seeped from between the folds in his vox grill. Blind eyes did not see, but stared at a cylindrical object in his hand. Both arms were cut, but did not bleed. They did not bleed, yet scabs covered the entirety of the skin there. He continually punctured his arm in a protracted manor.
His essence may have left, but a fragment of what he was remained.'The needle goes into the vain. The scab is punctured. The vain is dead. The needle goes into the vain. The scab is punctured, the vain is dead. The needle goes into the vain, the scab is punctured. The vain is dead.'
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