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The creature which had once been Hraavack loped ahead of his legion, tireless and ever-hungry. His lower torso, the monstrous Juggernaught, swayed slightly as it devoured the miles, crushing stone beneath great brass hooves. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, the helmet he gazed from fused to his skull. His ax swung in great, idle arcs, decapitating phantom foes from sheer, thwarted bloodlust. He was tasked almost beyond endurance by the ordeal demanded of him.

He must travel, hiking mile after mile through this land, without dawdling to slay. He yearned to slash down the trees which filled this land, to run down the animals which fled his army's approach. He craved the battle he would find, should he turn about and assault that self-same army. To refrain from slaughter, holding back his wrath until he found the enemy, was a trial almost beyond his ability to bear. It took every inch of the Space Marine who had once been Hraavack to hold back his Daemon half from its crimson desires.

He could never have succeeded without the aid of his God, but that aid was forthcoming. Khorne's bellows reached him through the warp, aligning him with the other Khornate worshippers, his fellow berserkers and the War People, against the servants of the other Gods. To measure his Lord against his jealous peers, and smash their champions, was the greatest desire of the melded being, and if he must withhold his wrath from the beings which surrounded him as they traveled, what of it? Pleasures withheld were all the sweeter in the end.

Within the darkened Vault's last resort room, Yon waited for the end.

He'd heard the screams, known the men who made them. They'd started from the entry room....then spread with the counterattack down the hallway to the security hole, to the armory and back to the entry room as reinforcements arrived. They tracked, with ruthless precision, the passage of the fiend who had invaded the building.

He should have joined with his brethren, but he'd discovered...at the last, that he was lacking something. it wasn't bravery, he'd shown through the hard times that he was plenty brave. It wasn't training, no New Codexian Arbite had more hours logged in the instruction rooms than he. It wasn't even experience, he'd fought in the last engagement of the Trade Wars as part of the BigMountain detachment. Perhaps it was faith.

He had no faith that he could prevail over the Archenemy. He'd never seen the Emperor take a hand in a fight, not no matter how hard a fellow besought him. Without the Emperor's aid, it was just man on man, and so far as he knew, nobody could beat a Space Marine, even (or especially) a Traitorous one. He wasn't about to match his lasgun with its bolter, not to mention its blasphemous powers.

So he ought to run away...but he couldn't bring himself to do that either. He'd taken the boss's credits for a good long time, seemed he owed them more than a quick exit and a by-your-pardon. Running would put the lie to the time he'd served, it'd make him into a heretic himself. In a way, it'd be suicide, as Arbite Yon would die the instant he turned heel, no matter that he might breathe for another dozen years.

It was in this attitude, unable to fight or to fly, that Dhuurock came upon him, and eternity embraced him.

The captain of the Blazer reveled in the battle.

His tank shuddered and jolted as its tanks emptied, prometheum flowing burning over the wretched masses which surged from the forest's edge. The clean, acrid smell of charred meat overcame the odor of their plagues and illnesses, driving it from the air and from the nostrils of the Remedy task force.

To be truthful, the captain had wanted to burn down the forest and incinerate its inhabitants for years. His wife got sick and got sent there, and that hadn't been his fault. The filthy denizens had poisoned her, she died right quick, and that hadn't been his fault either. For a decade he'd withheld the fire, but now, at last, the Swampers had shown their true colors, filthy plague-yellow.

His gunner shared his sentiments. Several times he'd altered the blasts trajectories at the last second, scorching and setting alight mobs of the Lost and the Damned rather than incinerating them instantly, savoring the screams and watching the fleeing, burning scum. He'd "missed" a few and blasted the forest instead, and the treeline was even now going up like a torch. The bosses might yell him out for that sort of thing, but he knew that they wanted the same, deep down.

His greatest fear was that the flood of victims might slacken. Between the lasguns of the Remedy troopers and the flames of the Blazer they were dying in droves, a bit more of this and they might flee, and that meant the bosses would direct him to put the fires out. He didn't want the fires to go out. Flames were his friends, they helped him forget. Ever since New Codexia had been invaded by the archenemy he'd taken to lighting them at night and sleeping surrounded by them, they'd keep the Chaos at bay.

A shudder ran through the Blazer, pulling his attention away from his musings. That hadn't been a lasgun shot, too powerful, and the burn-path it left through the air made him remember drilling with House Bulsome and their plasma cannons. he scanned the forest's edge carefully, searching for the heavy weapon wielder.

He found them almost instantly. The Terrible Ten, though Ten no more, were not skulking. Advancing behind a protective screen of ex-Swampers and Night Talkers they charged directly towards the Blazer, leading with plasma fire from ancient blasters. The Remedy troopers recoiled as a body, taking a collective pace back from the notorious villains and their horrifying banner.

The Captain smiled. At last, a challenge.

Gon and Chaak realized that something was wrong much more swiftly than most Space Marines would have. Their perceptions and reflexes were many times even the augmented profiles that most Space Marines could boast. They were almost fast enough.

As they entered the House Bulsome briefing room, they noted the heightened tension on the House officer's face. That tension had been absent since the House's conversion, but it was familiar enough to the Chaos Space Marines regardless, it was the tension of a human controlling mortal dread. They'd seen it a trillion times.

Further, the room bore the faintest stench of plasteel and ceramite, but their battle brothers were still on maneuvers, and wouldn't return for some time. The whiff of bolter propellant was confirmation that Space Marines were about.

These disquieting sensations might have been dismissed, save for the fact that Chaak's psyk-sensations screamed a warning to him. The Warp roared in his sensorium, ravenous and raging. It roared it's anticipation, that soon his jaded soul would fly free of his flesh.

In the milliseconds after realizing the incipient ambush Chaak psyked Gon, sharing his alertness, and both moved to ready their wargear. They had their weapons freed and traversing crucial instants before the Space Wolf burst through the side door.

Clad in the chapter's characteristic mix of savage finery and Mk IV Astartes plate, the Space Wolf hurtled at the Flawless Host's soldiers, hurling an axe and roaring his hate. Another pair of Loyalist Astartes followed him, chainswords spinning to life and bolt pistols already tracking targets. The loss of surprise, however, cost them the easy kills they'd been hoping for.

The incoming axe was hurled aside by the Gon's sonic blaster's blast wave. Set to wide angle, the roaring wave would have tossed a phalanx of New Codexian soldiers on their backsides, or diverted a stampede of grox. It barely staggered the Space Wolves.

These were Blood Claws, most reckless and savage of the Fenrisian chapter, and they powered through the volume wave. The foremost engaged Chaak in combat, weapons rising and falling almost too fast for the eye to follow.

Chaak, however, was an exceptional member of the Flawless host. He'd been considered for the Librarium prior to the unit's defection, and his aptitude with the blade was considered top notch. These exceptional competencies had been noted by his unit, and he'd been gifted with the squad's power sword. Consequently, when the roaring blood claw rushed into his blade range he got more than he bargained for.

His body flooded by adrenalints, Chaak stole the momentum from the Space Wolf with a series of pinpoint thrusts that targeted the raging warrior's upper body and forced him to dive aside, blocking his comrade's optimal firing trajectories. They readjusted immediately, but it took a few more beats, and the Flawless Host seized their opportunity with both hands.

Faced with a trio of Space Marines on ground of their enemy's preparing the Chaos Space Marines knew that their lives were measured in heartbeats. An unspoken thought flashed through their minds, and Chaak exploded into the middle of the loyalist astartes, power sword flashing in every direction. His aim was to engage them and keep their bolters shipped for the crucial moments. Meanwhile, Gon rushed furiously for the door.

This was not base betrayal, intriguing as that sensation would have been. The Codex Astartes dictated the proper manner of an ambush, and a troop entrapment with 150% force superiority confirmed that the Space Wolves were following it to the letter. As a consequence, Gon knew that the commander of the Space Wolves would be located in one of several possible locations, in a position to supervise the action and lend his strength wherever it might be needed. Gon's knowledge of the local terrain allowed him to narrow down the enemy commander's position, and it was towards this point that he sprinted.

Faced with obliteration his answer was to spit in its face. Chaak had bought him time to get beyond the initial jaws of the trap, and Gon resolved to seize what victory he could from his last moments. While escape was certainly beyond him, he'd take his shot at the Space Wolf's central command authority, and strike a mighty blow as he passed to the warp.

Ordinarily it would be vanity and folly for a Space Marine to expect to overpower the leader of an enemy Astartes detachment without specialized equipment. Captains and other officers had the very best and most ancient wargear, and frequently had received specialized training. Gon, however, had an equalizer.

The torture serums he was such an expert with had a battlefield application, and his blades were constantly coated with them. A mere scratch could bring such agony that even a survivor of his attacks would long for oblivion. After a long sojourn in the warp, Gon's blades bore such venoms as as the Materium could never birth.

With the fanatic intensity for which his warband was known he closed on his target, rehearsing in his mind a trillion times the fatal plunge. When he rounded the corner and beheld the Ironpelt his most prominent emotion wasn't fear or shame at his failure, but a poignant disappointment that his destruction would be so artless, so effectless.

His envenomed blade didn't even reach the Dreadnought's hull, as the flames of the Ironpelt's ancient prometheum thrower engulfed him. The speaker's blared Gargan's warcry, but even a Noise Marine can't hear after he's been incinerated.

Xull closed in on the elusive Brother-Sorcerer.

Followed closely by his Obliterators, the hulking Warsmith crushed his way into the building known as the Vault. He'd long since discarded the emotions which would have permitted him to relish the destruction, and consequently his subordinates were the only ones enjoying themselves. Xull was merely impatient.

The plan had called for Dhuurock to launch a preliminary assault on the target site before the teleport force had arrived. This would have had the twin effects of diluting the defender's force concentration and providing a homing Icon for the warp transit. Further, the Thousand Son might have lost some squad members raiding the city, which would have weakened his position somewhat.

Instead, the tables had been turned. Xull's Terminator cadre had become the primary assault, and borne the brunt of the defenses, with the Rubric squad arriving only after the outcome had already been apparent. Further, the Terminators had borne the risk of a mis-jump, and in a city as crowded as this one that was a not-insubstantial risk. Xull hadn't risen to the position of Second in Command of an entire Warband by ignoring such slights, and he fully intended to exact recompense, and was in a position to do so.

His forces were more numerous and individually more powerful than the Sorcerer's, and he was a power in his own right, while Dhuurock was a mere squad leader. Further, his Daemons whispered to him that the Inferno Bolts, of which Dhuurock was so proud, would be unable to penetrate Terminator armor, or the steel exocasings of his Obliterators.

So why, if his position was so superior, did he have the nagging suspicion that he was walking into a suboptimal escarpment? He had the same nagging feeling that he'd had before the disaster at Olus IV, or the botched assassination of Vilus. It was an instinct he'd honed in the Iron Warriors, and during his time with the Black Legion during the Crusades. The Warp whispered to him, warning him that things weren't precisely as they appeared. He resolved to approach the situation with all due caution.

Ahead, Obliterator Primus signalled with a wave of its cutting beam, they'd found the Thousand Sons.

The Warsmith stormed into the narrow chamber, followed closely by his shuffling Obliterators. The targetter in his visor chimed a query to his consciousness, seeking a designation for Brother-Sorcerer Dhuurock. He settled for "Primary Target".

Dhuurock turned to greet his expected guests, the front of his helmet warping aside to reveal a broadly smiling countenance. It was, he believed, the first time his face had been exposed in perhaps 3 millennia. He regretted the necessity, but his visions had been adamant, and to defy their course would render the outcome of this encounter uncertain. Dhuurock hated uncertainty.

Xull didn't reciprocate, letting his armor remain entirely intact. No Iron Warrior would ever permit himself an unguarded vulnerability, and he had scant regard for one who would lower themselves so far as to reveal their visage. Then again, perhaps Dhuurock was merely acknowledging the insufficiency of his Power Armor, realizing that before the Daemonchains he might as well have been wearing the robes of a serf.

With a thought Xull prodded the Daemonchains into action, and they snaked across the floor and surrounded the Thousand Son. They slithered lightly over the Sorcerer's feet, wrapped gently around his ankles and snarled themselves in his cape. Xull intended to start this parley from a position of strength.

Showing no distress, Dhuurock sketched a florid bow.

Seeing his foe bow, Xull sneered.

"Gaze upon me, worm", he boomed through his amplifiers, "and explain your treachery." As he made the bald demand he raised his combi-bolters, fully prepared to enter combat immediately, and fully confident in the outcome. His targetter tinged seconds away from a target lock.

"My my", temporized the Sorcerer, "are you perhaps unsatisfied with the outcome of our partnership, Dread Lord?". As he spoke he rose from his bow to parade rest, hands loose and unconcerned, face relaxed into a broad grin.

The contrast between their visages could not have been more extreme. Xull's helmet had the face of a diabolic icon, a visage appropriate to a savage temple, where it would glower down unseeing upon eons of sacrifice. Dhuurock had the unlined, forthright face of a heroic Space Marine. He looked in every respect the wholesome defender of Imperial values that he once had been. It irked Xull, as did the Brother-Sorcerer's obvious lack of fear, and he decided that they'd spoken enough.

With a thought and a concentrated command phrase he ordered the Daemonchains to seize the Thousand Son and bind him helpless. At the same time he raised both combi bolters, his Tactical Dreadnought armor snapping them automatically to a firing position. The only thing that kept him from firing instantly was that the targetters were still obstinately refusing to resolve a target lock. That, and the behavior of the Daemonchains.

Far from grappling with Dhuurock, they'd snapped to and immediately began to writhe about his feet. To his horror, one of them had clipped a melta-bomb from his collection, and was struggling with a pair of the others to attach it to his armor.

Reacting swiftly, he let fall one of his combi bolters and plucked the offending bomb from the chain's grasp, deactivating it with a command from his armor. In the process, however, the chain got a hold on his arm, and the others writhed around the offended limb in a feverish attempt to get it off. He swore and attempted to point the other bolter at it, but combi-bolters were cumbersome things, not designed for shooting a grappler off one's limb. He was considering his options when Dhuurock spoke.

"You appear to be encountering difficulties, Dread Lord", said the Brother-Sorcerer, smiling slightly. "Would it perhaps relate to your rather unique wargear?"

"Warp rot you," snarled Xull, furiously aware of his lack of dignity, "what did you do to my chains?!" He couldn't imagine what the answer could be, he'd warded the chains from other sorcerers as soon as he acquired them, no one other than he could command the daemons within, for their ears were closed by the Fourfold Seal.

"Why...nothing at all", remarked Dhuurock. "But at one time...oh, two hundred years or so before you became an astartes or were, for that matter, born, I seem to recall exorting an unbreakable oath from a pair of Daemons. I take the long view where my survival is concerned".

"But...how could..." Xull trailed off, remembering the Thousand Son's reputation for prescience. He'd never imagined that it could be this exact. Dhuurock had thwarted his attack, before he'd even been conceived. "The long view, indeed" he remarked, relaxing his warlike efforts and watching without surprise as his chains relaxed about him.

Dhuurock nodded. "And the remainder of the war is no more or less in doubt. Know this, Warsmith, I walk ground long prepared. My path leads back to prospero, it leads to the ruin of the Rubric of Ahriman and once more into the company of my restored Battle-Brothers. For this purpose, I shall reveal to you the shape of things to come."

Dhuurock's voice changed as he spoke, repeating the words the Warp had whispered to him so long ago.

"On a place of peace in a time of War, the clash shall come betwixt the Four. When Rot fights Wolf in mire damp, then shall prevail the dead man's camp. To take your head shall Warsmith crave, to thwart him turn his Daemon slave. Your end you'll find at Khornate hands, unless the fang twice-promised lands. From air your peril lashes fast, to make amends the Furies cast. The fourfold foe shall face you last, cleave to your strength and travel past. Return to glories, always yearned for and glory long the Changer's earned war."

"This I heard from the lips of the Fateweaver, while alongside it a series of hissing falsehoods spilled forth". Dhuurock's voice returned to normal as he finished the Warp recitation. His eyes lost the milky white they'd briefly gained. "It took centuries to determine that this was the true path, and millennia more to gain the context necessary to wrest meaning from this doggerel."

"How-" asked Xull, but he was cut off by the Brother-Sorcerer "I tracked down Narl, the Fateweaver's errant spawn, and forced it to parse it's parents blather. It resisted, and only the blandishments of Slaanesh would force its tongue, but ultimately I was able to procure those favors from a planet in the Eye of Terror, at a price I cannot clearly enunciate." Dhuurock recited, clearly repelled and relishing the memory at once. "Ultimately I was able to learn the truth of events yet to come in plain terms, and those too I shall reveal to you."

Unseen by Dhuurock, hidden by Xull's bulk, a mechanical arm emerged from his armor. The Iron Warriors were ever known for their techno sorcery, and a servitor limb was practically standard operating procedure among that fearsome cadre. As he stalled for time and listened to the Sorcerer's monolog the Terminator furiously worked the manipulator, clipping the Daemonchains and binding those which had risen against him in rebellion. This done, the snipping mandible unhinged, revealing the twin-barrels of a deadly multimelta. Xull carefully began to compute the equations necessary to snap the arm to front-aim position, and melt the Brother-Sorcerer's smug, exposed, smiling face.

Unaware of the mechanical limb's manipulations Dhuurock spoke on. "The prophecy clearly referenced this very world, this obtuse quest for supremacy in Gribbly's legion. We were, all of us, destined for this place and this battle."

No Warp Echo clouded Dhuurocks voice as he spoke his findings aloud. He'd come by this knowledge with great difficulty, and divulging it seemed somehow to solidify it, to make real to his audiences the track ahead. "As foretold, the followers of the Plague Lord have come to battle in the swamps of this place, and even now are hunted by the Space Wolves, who have foregone the pleasure of a reckoning with me to protect this world's food production capability, and the corpse-worshipping inhabitants. I can't precisely see the end of the battle between them, but it will come down a mortal's choice between hope and despair, and the forces of Nurgle will prove victorious."

Across from him, Xull frowned in concentration, the same difficulty he'd had earlier in locking onto Dhuurock persisted, his armor wouldn't verify the shot, and he only had sufficient ammo for one blast. It reminded him of something, an area of the Villainy Victorious where a warp entity of great power was bound.

Disregarding the considerations of the Warsmith, or unaware of them, Dhuurock continued. "At the same time, my true foe has emerged to the East, where the young Berserker Hraavack has found his destiny, and even now falls deeper and deeper into the Blood God's thrall. In truth, he has a chance to thwart my destiny, save that great Tzeentch has shown that chance to me, and I've taken precautions."

"Hraavack is fated to die in a salvo of Inferno bolts in the instant before he reaches my squad, after emerging from his screen of warp beasts in the thick of our battle. Khorne is too mighty, however, to permit one of his chosen to be so ignominiously entrapped, and has dispatched a quest to one of his followers, to reach and retrieve an artifact of the Blood God's. With a Berserker Glaive in his hands, he would be able to reach our ranks before we could react, and the omens are certain that my heart will beat but twice if I stand within his reach." Dhuurock looked remarkably untroubled as he explained the how's of his own destruction.

"It's for this reason that I brought you down to the surface. The Changers will be dispatched, prior to the battle, to intercept and slay the Berserker who bears the glaive. This thread of the future will be snipped simply and directly".

Xull's eyes widened slightly as he finally realized what was blocking his target resolution. Dhuurock must have made use of the captured Icon already, and stood shielded behind his Patron, the Lord of Change known as Narl. The Daemonchains had spoken of this being before, and Xull made a split second decision to abandon his assassination attempt, furiously spinning plans to take revenge for this slight.

"Another matter of interest in this battle is poor Sylvester. He's lost control of his forces by now, a victim of an unfortunate coincidence" Dhuurock's lips twitched in a slight smile, " and realizes that his only possible route to victory is to take control of Hraavack's or my own Warband. He'll fly over our battlefield in some manner of vehicle, desperate to slay a stronger God's champion and get back into the battle. He's a psyker of limited skill, himself, and he's seen his fate should Glubbulous prevail. To thwart him the Warp directs me to unleash the Furies. My visions indicate that he could prevail over 4, and that I should send 6. I've a great respect for the Flawless Legion, however, and consequently I've contracted with Narl for 20 to be sent to rend him."

Xull remained silent, absorbing the information. He knew Dhuurock was attempting to manipulate him by revealing his foreknowledge, but advance info was advance info, and he silently vowed he'd use it to make the smug Brother-Sorcerer rue humiliating a Warsmith.

"The remainder of the campaign is comparatively uninteresting. I'll smite Glubbulous or Gargan on Mount Tsieven, when the flames burst forth from its frozen heart. I'll face down Gribbly with a Daemon planet behind me, and he'll bend his knee. He lacks the courage or conviction, you see, to oppose a chosen Lord of one of the Ruinous Powers. With the last champion vanquished the Warp will gift me with my heart's desire."

Xull waited expectantly, but Dhuurock didn't elaborate.

The burning Prometheum gouted over the Ten, scorching ancient ceramite and evaporating the rust and rot which clung to them.

Even Plague Marines could not handle a protracted blast from an Inferno cannon, and under the Blazer's volley they were forced to spread out and dive for cover, an undignified scramble away from extinction. They abandoned their pride, their aura of inevetability and unstoppability, in taking cover, but they preserved their squad's effectiveness. Not one of them fell burning and did not rise.

The same could not be said for their retinue. The refugees of the Camps, diseased and feral, had evaporated like morning mist before the Blazer's volley. Cares surrendered to the flames they stumbled and toppled without complaint or scream, disintegrating into noisesome stenches and charred remains. It was, no doubt, a mercy.

From their position on the turf one of the Ten fired a plasma blast, but it ricocheted from the hull of the Hellhound. Perhaps the heat had sucked the energy from the beam, or perhaps the Plague Marine's weapon's great age had robbed it of its full power, but for whatever reason the beam had no impact upon the venerable tank.

The other plasma gunner crawled rapidly forward, seeking rapid fire range. He'd just about made it when a squad of Quarantine troopers fell on him, bayonets flashing and autopistols firing. They'd rushed along in the wake of the wash of flame, gambling that the Dark Tusks would be distracted by the tank. Their gamble had payed off, and they stabbed down at their blasphemous foe, seeking and finding openings in his armor of rot and ancient wargear.

Being impaled was no great impediment to the Plague Marine, and he made the split second decision to disregard their assault and fire on the tank, trusting to his squad to blast his assailants to their Corpse-God's embrace. He aimed his bolt at the area already weakened by the previous plasma blast and pulled twice on the trigger. Unknown to him, however, one of the furious PDF soldier's attacks had struck his weapon, damaging its volatile internal workings. As a result, the weapon exploded, a plasma concussion rippling out into the Plague Marine and his assailants, consuming them all in one bright flash of annihilation.

Another member of the Ten rushed the Blazer, with bayonet fixed and a crack grenade in his hand. He became the sole victim of the second stream of flame, hit straight on by the Inferno cannon's shot. Even one of Glubbulous' elite could not stand such a volley, and he toppled, burning with an odor like a cessation farm.

His sacrifice had freed his squad from their pinned down state, however, and Glubbulous waved them back into the swamp. The PDF had won this day, and the sacrifice of further pawns to no gain was not the Grandfather's way. With their retreat covered by the Lost and the Damned the Plague Marines forged their way back into the swamp in good order.

They'd fight another day, Glubbulous had not survived this far to throw his life away rushing a tank he had no way to defeat. The loss of the plasma gunners was a blow, but the Grandfather enabled one to absorb all such blows, all of life's vicissitudes. Yes, they'd return and-

Sergeant Sharnes, from his place on the standard, howled with derisive laughter.

Traak placed foot before foot endlessly, trudging across the wastes in pursuit of the warhost.

His armor was banged up and cracked, and in one place (his left arm), had been entirely peeled away. He left blood spots every dozen or so feet behind him, as even his enchanced metabolism was unable to completely mend the damage the Guardian had done. He dragged something heavy behind him, shrouded within the skin of a reptile he'd slain off hand on his way through the cave. The shrouding scales were already smoldering, and he knew that soon enough he'd need to replace it, as that which he bore devoured the carcass entire.

The struggle with the Guardian had been a protracted thing, entirely against the Berserker's taste. It had skulked through the cave, a presence of murder and smoke, more Khainite than Khornate. He'd had to offer it an easy shot at him to lure it out, and it had taken that bait a little more forcefully than he'd envisioned. His left arm had been flensed before he could so much as react, the flesh and cermite looking as though it had been pushed through a wire mesh. The pain had triggered his reactions, however, and the guardian had been unable to match the frenzy of a Berserker who abandoned himself entirely to his God. When he was done, it was in too many pieces to serve as the first sheathe for his treasure, but there'd been local wildlife which could serve the same purpose.

He hurried now in pursuit of the army, bearing the seed of calamity with him. Could he but combine the power of the treasure he'd found with the Juggernaught such a fury would be spawned that the Warp itself would whisper of it. He wasn't sure whether he would give the weapon to Hraavack, or hack him down with it and take the Juggernaught for himself, but it really mattered little. Victim or vessel, the Blood God would be pleased with him.

Moments later, he reached a decision on that matter. He'd hack down Hraavack, because hacking things down was his existence. Traavik didn't suspect that his decision was influenced by his burden, but wouldn't have cared if had noticed.

As always, Defender Narl and Big Defender Grun had a difference of opinion.

"Where are you getting this information?" demanded Barack Grun? "Two different warring factions of Chaos? Names of the commanders? Do you expect us to believe you scouted all this?"

Veenit looked over at Defender Narl, raising an eyebrow. He didn't really know anything about scouting himself, but it seemed like the grizzled veteran had a valid point. Narl's information was ridiculously precise, naming the enemy commanders and providing exact deployments of enemy forces.

Narl, for his part, looked sort of confused. "Wait, I thought you wanted to know this stuff?" he said. There was an oddly blank look on his face. "You wished for more information about the enemy forces, and I gathered it. I assure you, this information is accurate."

"Oh, I don't doubt that, you've been quite correct thus far" Grun said, "including when you slipped up and gave us tomorrow's report!".

Veenit furrowed his brow, nodding slowly. He remembered that argument. Grun had been incandescent with rage, as they looked at the report dated for the next date. He said that this proved that they couldn't trust Narl's scouting, especially as it had the Bucklers only covering half the distance they were expecting to. Veenit would have concurred with him, except for the odd fact that a rainstorm had sprung up that day and choked off their progress, leading them to stop on exactly the spot that the status report said that they would.

As Narl opened his mouth to begin another explanation, Veenit cut him off. "Big Defender Grun" he began, "thank you for your assessment of Defender Narl's scouting competency. It puts me in mind of a statement in the General Orders concerning scouts."

Grun looked bored as the Hmeen scion began to quote the General Orders. He had little understanding of the Buckler's tradition, and couldn't grasp how witty Veenit was being by including a recitation of an earlier recitation within a newly forming tradition. Any Buckler would have got it though, Veenit awarded himself high points for cleverness as he recited. "Those individuals tasked with gaining information on the enemy are frequently quirky and individualistic fellows, and must be allowed their lattitudes."

"Do you understand, Barack Grun?, 'Quirky'!" He emphasized the word. "They are riddled with quirks, positively quirk-prone. Now, since I must have an oddball for a scout, on the words of the sacred General Orders, I might as well have one whose peculiarity is that he scouts too well!"

Grun settled down, looking somewhat resentful. Well, let him resent. It would be replayed forever by the official Grun of the Bucklers (as Veenit was imagining the post would be called), and the Great Defender was heartily sorry for whichever family got that role.

Looking back at Narl, Veenit understood enough of military matters to know that he was on the cusp of a momentous moment. Conventional wisdom, espoused in this case by Barack Grun, was that the two enemy forces moving together were doing so in order to join forces. The War People and the forces which had taken Big Mountain would make a potent combination, perhaps capable of matching even the Buckler's numbers. On the other hand, the scouting reports of the oddly capable Narl indicated that they enemy were converging for the purposes of assailing one another. He said that the Bigmountain forces and the War People were different kinds of Chaos, or something, and that they would battle each other even more fiercly than they would fight against the New Codexian PDF.

So there it was. If they were joining up he needed to strike while they were split. If they were fighting he needed to wait until they'd weakened each other. He needed to pick an interpretation and order his army into action.

Such a pity that his life's first real decision would be such a difficult one. Fortunately, the tradition of the Hmeen provided even for such indications. Great Defender Veenit Hmeen reached for his sacred Coin.

"Heads, we-". He didn't get any farther. Barack Grun pulled out a laspistol and shot him in the face.

The New Codexian's were somewhat intimidated by Gungahr Silverpelt.

It wasn't so much the Silverpelt's size, nor its intricacy, nor even the knowledge of its sheer destructive potential. They'd been around tanks before. It wasn't the uncanny articulation of the several ton behemoth, they simply thanked the Machine God for sending them such a canny mechnism. It wasn't even the fact that Gungahr spoke, and commanded, as ably and flexibly as any entirely flesh and blood leader. No, it was that he did so in the Emperor's Name.

As ranking leader of an Astartes force Gungahr was unquestionably the Emperor's chief representative on the planet. While theoretically outside of the chain of command, in practice his troop's first act had been to reveal Archenemy corruption in one of the oldest and noblest Houses on New Codexia, and then to gun down the traitors wholesale, crushing their leader in his enormous fist. The nobility of New Codexia was used to measuring their service to Him on Terra in terms of orls sacrificed, tithes met, votives recited. The air of sacrifice and heroism that clung to the Space Wolves, thick and primal, was utterly at odds with their calculated piety. Such raw faith, so carelessly displayed, was deeply shaming to a leadership caste that was supposedly only leading on the Emperor's behalf and in His name.

Consequently, the meeting of the hastily assembled Third Swamp District Siege unit's leadership was a subdued one, dominated by the great metalic Sepulchre of the Space Wolf's leader.

"I understand", rumbled the auto-voice of the Silverpelt, "that the first attempted breakout of the Archenemy forces has been contained?".

The words hung in the air for an instant, before Gerrik Bulsome (a survivor of the Bulsome purge which had followed their discovered treachery), responded on behalf of the New Codexian military. "That's so, Lord, our Quarantine unit performed admirably, repulsing the enemy thrust and inflicting heavy casualties."

"Indeed", answered Gargahn, "yet cases of infection are being reported in Yonder and Yet, well beyond the periphery. This suggests that the Third Swamp District's aquifer has been tainted. It's my considered opinion that this was the real reason for this unit's descent in this area. I believe that rallying the leprous was merely a byproduct of their actual endeavor, which was intended to sour the entire region's water soruce. I further judge that they have succeeded in this endeavor."

It is a measure of how subdued the officers were that this pronouncement was met by a solemn silence. With any other presiding official, even Governor Shastler himself, such a blatant statement of failure would have occasioned an immediate and likely long-lasting hunt for a scapegoat. The Swampers and the Quarantine unit would doubtless have had their reputations savaged for their role in the affair, and overall command would likely have shifted. Before the gaze of the Wolf, however, no one raised their head or their voice. They all understood, instinctively, that the warrior before them had no patience for their games.

Into this silence, the Silverpelt's speakers sounded once more, as Gargahn told them precisely what they were going to do.

In the Warp space which corresponded to New Codexia, a throng gathered.

Delight and Joy thrashed about in great currents, comingling into the Daemons of Tzeentch. Pink Horrors, forged of the pure pleasure of Change, winked into being at a frenetic pace, their frenzied gyrations and cavorting mimicking with a strangely apt precision the convulsions of a battlefield casualty, or a seizure victim.

Ambition and Avarice forged themselves into the Screamers, mindless and predatory. Narl's ambitions, Dhuurocks ambitions, even the desperate plans of the New Codexian defenders mixed and blended, grew teeth and horns and praised the Changer of Ways. So feral, so furiously hungry to alter the world were these monsters that they immediately set to gnawing on the materium, concentrating around the dull, cancerous lesion which indicated the presence of the Icon of Tzeentch.

The Furies too were present, great bat-lizard-bird creatures, beholden to none of the Ruinous Powers, or to all of them. This was far from ordinary. The presence of the Four clung to New Codexia like a shroud. Normally furies would be set upon by the Tzeentchian horde, blasted and burned from the Immaterium for their temerity, but this swarm went unmoleseted. Their path went unchallenged, for it went over the Prepared Ground, the Vi-Dhuurock.

They were shrouded in Dhuurock's oaths, bound to service by his promise of a Lord's soul to gnaw and rend. They were bound, too, by his oath that failure would see their being discorporated, their very essences would feed the Fateweaver's spawn. In truth, the threat was unnecessary, as Dhuurock well knew.

The weak would bend knee to the strong, such was the way of Chaos.

The Zepp'lin rumbled ever North, closely pursued by a second lumbering vessel.

Sylvester cracked the Lash, and the thralls who crewed the vehicle lept to their tasks. Gerrard Vance's old crew was reliable enough, once their minds had been numbed and bent by the taints and temptations of Slaanesh. They steered the ship purely for the challenge of doing so, their perceptions hyper-attuned to the excitement and illicit thrill of defying New Codexian authority. A day ago they would never have imagined disobeying the General Orders, now they lived for nothing else.

It had been an easy matter, even in his panicked state, to commandeer the vehicle. The Bulsomes, in one of their last moments of usefullness, had actually delegated its operation to him, but even had they not Sylvester was more than capable of seizing control of the unaugmented operators through raw Psyker might. Taking the very Zepp'lin which had bombed him and his squad had appealed to his monumental vanity, and as it turned out had been a useful escape from the Space Wolf trap.

It had been an incomplete escape, however, as the disgraced Bulsomes had immediately launched a pursuit, presumably in hopes of receiving absolution from the Space Wolves if they were able to destroy him. He could have told them they were wasting their time, but why bother? A little casual killing would go a long way towards improving his mood.

He paused for a second to reflect that as a champion of Slaanesh, his mood shouldn't need improving. He ought to exult in the unfamiliar sensations of defeat as much, or more, as he rejoiced in his victories, but he did not. Perhaps his fusion with his Power's purpose was incomplete, or perhaps their was simply a deficiency within his sensorium, but the fact remained that he did not care at all for the losses his unit had taken. Rather than dwell on the fact, however, he stared across space at the pursueing Zepp'lin, and raised his Lash.

In conventional terms, the pursuer held every advantage. They road the wind, blocking Sylvester's access to that commodity, and further allowing them to gain height. They had an armed boarding crew, and more than twice as many bombs as he did. In case he boarded them, their captain had even equipped the vessel with a self-destruct device. He'd been a friend of Gerrard Vance's, and seeing the flagship of the Zepp'lin fleet in enemy hands was galling to him.

None of it mattered. As they drew near, in preparation to board or perhaps to overtake and broadside, they drew within the influence of Sylvester's Lash. With a Crack he seized control of their actions, driving the boarding party over the side with a roar of rage. The pilot crew was next to fall, once again impelled over the edge of their vessel by the pitiless Lash of Submission. Several remaining crew attempted to take up the controls, but when they too plummetted from the vehicles edge, charging madly off the side as their desires and senses were flensed, the remnants of the crew activated the descent charges, and road their crippled craft to a landing.

Perhaps they hoped that Sylvester, on the run as he was and lacking in ordnance due to his hurried departure, wouldn't turn about and bomb them.

People, when facing their end, hope for all sorts of impossible things.

Glubbulous and his squad stopped, all of a sudden.

They'd withdrawn deep into the depts of the Dire Swamp, forging tirelessly through muck and mire as mile after mile fell away beneath their ceramite tread. Their rotting frames blended easily into the muck and the grime, despite the plague-yellow armor that they wore.

There were still six of them, where once there had been 10. The Swampers had done for one, and their sentinel had brought down another. The Blazer had lit up two more, one was the squad's secodary plasma gunner. Glubbulous's unit's capabilities had been sadly reduced.

Following them had come their rabble, the fallen citizens of New Codexia. The forced march had not been nearly so kind to them. Bit and pieces had fallen from them, rotting and festering, into the murky waters. They'd festered and degraded under the punishing trek, till now they were little more than the walking dead. It mattered not, when the time came they'd stop a lasbolt just fine, and that was all such fodder was good for.

Sgt. Sharnes had originally hoped that they'd been broken, defeated by the stalwart defense of the Quarantine legion and their flame-spewing tank, but now he realized the truth. With the aquifer tainted the Chaos forces had spread their filth as far as they needed to through force of arms. Now they merely had to hunker down and repel the New Codexian counterattack, and they could let the plague they'd nurtured do the heavy lifting.

Glubbulous beckoned the leaders of the disorganized horde, ex-citizens more deranged and degraded than the rest, close to him, and communicated through a series of diagrams swiftly sketched in the soft murk. Sharne's heart sank when he saw the plan, the trap being prepared for the forces of his beloved Imperium.

The part he was to play in it pained him most of all.

Deep within the Warp, a solitary figure stalked unseen and unheralded.

This was hardly an uncommon state of affairs for the Pilgrim. As often as he strode before a vast warhost he traveled in solitary desolation. As often as he ducked and pushed through crowds of otherworldly horrors he battled through grimly determined lines of defenders. Anything and everything might seek to thwart his passage, such were the ways of the Warp.

Yet, this digression was different. This was no defense of the Black Library, no machination of the Harlequins. Nor was it a test imposed by his mercurial Lord, he'd learned to sense such things. It had something of the taste of a pursuer, one of those misguided "Inquisitors" who sought their deaths at his hands, but it wasn't precisely that either.

It was something of him, something he'd left behind, forsaken. A long planned contingency, perhaps? Some portion of himself traded away to a Daemon or Godling, awakened at last to summon his greater being to dire necessity? Or maybe a memory? Could it be one of his recollections, found and stretched and worn by a malevolent entity, weaving even now a net for his footfalls?

Regardless, a timeless trek through the Warp had taught him to take care of such things immediately. He reordered his travelling rituals, modifying their immediate priorities to bring him by the site of the call. He paused as he did so, catching the place's nature in a warp-vision.

Bemused, he turned his steps along the new course and stepped up his pace. His destination might have been bucolic before, but it would soon shudder beneath the tread of Ahriman Blackstaff.

Within their tortured frame, Hraavack and the Juggernaught struggled for control.

This battle, quite possibly the fiercest and most desperate of Hraavack's entire existence, had no witnesses. None applauded his rage filled striving, nor did anyone cringe from the bellowing war crys that filled his mind. A few of the Beasts which followed him cringed back when they saw their Warmaster's eyes swell and burst with crimson ichor. That was the extent of the host's witness.

For all that it was unobservable, however, the battle was crucial to the army's fate. If Hraavack prevailed he would continue to lead the throng against the Blood God's enemies. If the Juggernaught won out it would run rampanat through the War People, crushing them to a thick red paste, or dying at their hands. Both outcomes were satisfactory to Khorne.

Prior to its conclusion, however, the battle was interrupted by a Warp pulse, emanating from almost due west. The scent on the currents was pure Tzeentch, the odious spicy musk of ambition and treachery, meat and drink to the Changer of Ways. It was nauseatingly strong, and the conjoined monstrosity paused momentarily. Such a mighty aura could surround only a potent Herald of the Architect of Fate, or perhaps a Lord of Change in the flesh.

The Daemon felt the pulse most strongly, and in the moment of surprise Hraavack struck deep. His wrath blazed like a consuming fire, and the ire of the beast could not match it. With a snarl and an oath the Berserker Champion, now a Chaos Lord, took the reins of his flesh once again.

He didn't have long, the Juggernaught was tireless, and the fight to subjugate it was one he'd wage for the remainder of his short and bloody existence, but that was of no matter to Hraavack. He welcomed such internal strife, as he welcomed conflict in any other form. The current respite, however, could be used to glory his Master, and such an opportunity was precious.

The Warp flare had to represent Dhuurock, the execrebal champion of Tzeentch. It was odd, as Big Mountain City, where his scout's placed the Thousand Sons, was northwest still, but the part of him that could consider such tactical information had been abandoned in his struggle with the Juggernaught.

He bellowed a command to his host, feeling their positions through their rage and resentment with more accuracy than his eyes had ever given him. "West! Go West! Bring the wrath of the High Handed Slayer to those who breathe. Blood for the Blood God!"

***************************************************************

Northwest of his position, sitting in a deserted bunker in BigMountain, Dhuurock sensed the command through the warp and smiled. He picked up the board and arranged the pieces, turning the green militia pieces towards his own position, and then moving the red host into its flank. He knocked over icons, seemingly at random, as the two formations mingled and jumbled. He placed the small votive candles around a small red piece that was isolated from the others, then turned the piece on its side. He placed his own pieces in a close formation around his squad badge, and plunged it into the fray. He moved the large red flag close to his piece, then paused.

Then, with a confident smile, he flicked the flag off the board.

Behind a wall of flames, the Quarantine advanced.

This made the Captain extremely nervous. His tank was built for cruising the planes which surrounded the Dire Swamp, not mucking about in it. He was used to wide horizons and clear lines of sight, not the claustrophobic confines of the mire. The fact that the bosses had seen fit to have the fire proceed them was a small consolation.

Another was the fact that the fire was being lit by infantry, poor grunts. His prometheum was being held in reserve (along with that of several Arsonist model Sentinels) for contact with the enemy. This pleased the captain.

He always felt better with a full tank, and his prometheum was too precious to waste on anything that didn't scream.

Rarka One-Eye led his fellow Blood Claws deeper and deeper into the Dire Swamp.

Despite the contamination he did so with his visor raised, trusting to the Emperor and the hardiness of Russ' geneseed. He drank in the tainted air of the swamp, and sifted past the taint for the scent of a deeper decay. No ordinary Space Marine, nor even any ordinary Space Wolf could have accomplished this, but Rarka was a Tracker.

The geneseed affected every Space Wolf differently, and Rarka had not inherited the Wulfen's dire proclivities. He didn't display the feral savagery of his fellows, or at least not as much of it, and his canines were only slightly longer than usual. His sense of smell, however, was a thing of beauty. In test after test on Fenris's steep slopes he'd outperformed actual Fenrisian wolves, tracking them to their lairs despite their best efforts, and those of their hunters.

That sense was tested to its fullest now. The flames of the advancing quarantine were ruining the odor patterns, and the interference of the Chaos Taint upon the swamp was cloying and thick. Beneath it, tantalizing, he could scent the heresy of the Dark Tusks, but it was an elusive thing, maddening and vague. It was heavy on the air one moment, a mere wisp another. This would be no easy stalk.

Fortunately, the plan did not call for Rarka and the Blood claws to stalk the enemy without aid. They numbered only 6, after all, half of the Flame of Fenris's crew. The Quarantine regiment would do the heavy lifting, flushing the enemy out of hiding and engaging them. When the Terrible Ten lent support to the rabble that they led, Rarka would take up the scent. He looked forward to that moment.

It would be difficult, to track the Plague Marines to the site of their ritual, more difficult still to remain undetected while the Silverpelt was beckoned, but the hunt was in the blood of every Space Wolf. The only worry Rarka felt was that the Blood Claws would be unable to delay their assault till Gargan's arrival. To see treason was to smite it, to scent the depraved was to scent their rightful prey. It was not in the nature of a Blood Claw to wait, patient and still.

On the other hand, if they weren't patient, they'd soon be still forever.

Xull and his Obliterators conferred.

"To take assignments from a mere squad leader, never have I been so insulted!" Xull raged. "He believes his prophecies place him above one who has stormed the galaxies finest redoubts? He thinks himself a more thorough strategist than one who has waged war on Medrengard! Absurd!"

The Obliterators kept their own council, remaining passive and watchful. Primus checked its auspex for local presences, while Secundus did a scan for intrusion devices and Tertius queried the local warp entities. They were long used to their master's eccentricities, and his rages would calm in due time. Then would come the strategizing, and finally the killing. They loved the killing, so they bore with the ranting.

"The gall of it!" stormed Xull. "The sheer, unmitigated gall, to believe that I would back down before his threats and do his bidding! He thinks I'll retrieve this relic from this Berserker, just because he's told me to do so! The warp must have swallowed his wits-"
Suddenly, he choked off the flood of venom, eyes narrowing and jaw clenching within his Terminator armor. The Daemonchains writhed in apprehension as some aspect of his mood communicated itself to them.

"Unless..." he said, calm once more, "unless this is merely one of his manipulations. He knows that I'd never take such an odious task, never do his bidding like one of the automata he calls Battle Brothers. He instructs me not to prompt my obedience, but to guarantee that I pass up this opportunity. The Berserker Glaive, he asks me to take it to guarantee that I'll led it slip!"

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. With one insulting lecture the Thousand Son could indeed command his obedience, merely by saying the opposite of what he wanted. Telling Xull to ambush the Berserker and claim his weapon was the swiftest way to insure that he would not. Elegant reverse psychology fit Dhuurock far better than blustering intimidation.

Then, once again, a thought struck. Could not the Sorcerer have anticipated this very revelation? Perhaps his was a triple game. He gave an order so that Xull, thinking himself clever, would follow it and think to thus spite the Sorcerer. It seemed obvious, in retrospect, that the Thousand Son wasn't sincere, so perhaps the proper conclusion was that he was entirely forthright, and counted on Xull to see deception where there, in fact, was none. It would be a triumph of Tzeentchian proportions to cause a foe to outwit himself while he thought he was outwitting you, merely by making a true statement.

An Obliterator buzzed, and Xull stopped the paranoid tailspin he was about to engage in. He could second guess Dhuurock's intentions forever, and get nowhere. The activity was like a failed entrenchment, better abandoned. He abandoned his study of Dhuurock's statements, and pondered the situation.

The Obliterators observed this change in him with their sensors, and transmitted appreciative scrapcode to one another. This was their master at his best, coldly calculating and deciding. They clustered more tightly around him, primed for obedience to his forthcoming directive.

Xull considered the unassailable facts, those which he'd verified through sensors, and not merely through Dhuurock's auguries. One, a New Codexian force was encamped to the south. It seemed to be undergoing some manner of internal turmoil, but nonethless its numbers made it a threat. Two, Hraavack's force was approaching from the east, quite possibly about to attack both Bigmountain city and the New Codexian force. Three, Dhuurock's objective was the overthrow of Hraavack, and usurping the leadership of all local Chaos forces. Fouth Xull's objective was the same. Under this context the approach of the Berserker Glaive appeared in the proper light. Xull's path was clear.

He beckoned his Obliterators close, and gave his orders.

Vrakk stood motionless, the Daemon raging within him, as they burned shut the coffin.

Gribbly's minions didn't dare to kill him. He'd wedded his familiar spirit too tightly into the VV's control systems, in preparation for taking the ship himself. If only he'd beaten the Lord in-

He squashed the regret immediately. Chaos was the future, taking the present and throttling it till it broke. Gribbly had bested him, so what. He'd pay back his humiliation a hundred times, a thousand! With the power he'd gain on the world below he'd make crush him in his fist.

Not your fist corrected that which lay within him, our fist! He nodded, insofar as the casket permitted him to. He would achieve all things through his sacred partner. Gribbly had no such loyal ally. His staunch independence and allegiance to his Legion's martial traditions would be his undoing!

Vrakk couldn't even recall what legion he'd come from, or what world. He had a vague recollection of some sort of pre-joining time, but he didn't like to think of it. His better half completed him, and soon they would be one. When he ascended he would devour it as he did his victims. All would be one.

They shoved his casket towards the launch slot, the sentient pod snapping and biting at them. That wasn't the primary source of their fear, however. They were leery of him, not the casket. He was, after all, a man Possessed.

Within the Rhino, Dhuurock sat motionless, surrounded by the insensate hulks which were his only companions. The Brother-Sorcerer's mind was literally elsewhere, cruising the Warpways in spirit form in order to finish up last minute preparations.

First he took a read on the position of the various parties involved in the conflict. Reconaissance was simple for a Sorcerer of his power, particularly in this Tzeentch-influenced warp climate, reinforced as he was by the Mark of his Deity, etched across the sands of the desert miles to the north. He simply scented the emotions which spilled from the Materium, and deduced from their character the nature of the parties involved. In truth, all was probably as he'd forseen, and their was no need for such caution, but he hadn't survived as long as he had by letting hubris overcome his traiing.

His own force surrounded him, the grim Terminators of Xull's unit trotting alongside the Rhino, which drove south-east at a grim pace. His own Thousand Sons squad was with him in the vehicle, turned off for the moment, their essences flitting freely through the warp.

To the South-East, in the direction they were advancing, the force they were falling upon was in no position to receive them. The Bucklers radiated discord and confusion. Assailed from two directions, and with their commanding officer assassinated by the man with the most direct knowledge of the situation, they were in a position that their vaunted tradition had no answer for. They were perilously close to breaking, and the battle had yet to begin.

East of that position, shining like a beacon through the Warp, came Hraavack's force. Their rage swept like a wave before them, hundreds of beastmen and the Chosen of Khorne. Aside from one middling Khornate Daemon, however, his warp meddling had cut Hraavack off from the daemons of his monstrous Patron. Without tactical finesse or subtlety the Berserker's horde rushed the Bucklers, Hraavack leading from the front, naturally.

With a satisfied smile, Dhuurock opened his eyes. About him, the squad reanimated, armor moving in ritual movements as they checked their loadouts in movements perfected thousands of years ago. They prepared to deploy, unknowingly obedient and silently competent. The Brother-Sorcerer felt the Prepared Ground rush upon him, his chosen future sublimating into experience.

Then, suddenly it was here. The Rhino screeched to a stop and the Thousand Sons emerged into the midst of the Bucklers, and Dhuurock began his Pilgrimage.

**********************************************************

Roaring and bellowing, Hraavack's conjoined flesh outpaced his followers. They did their best to keep up, but mortal bodies could not compete with his altered perfection. Still, they managed to keep him in sight as he came upon the followers of the Corpse God.

For his part, Hraavack felt no fear as he found the entirety of the Buckler's regiment before him. In fact, reflief dominated his thoughts. Battle was the only time the Juggernaught and he could agree, their deeper disagreements sublimated into the shared joy of mashing foes and smashing skulls.

As he cosed on the foe, however, they did some striking of their own. The Bucklers had no tradition of retreat. They were terrified of the roaring monsters which assailed them, but more terrified still of failing their honored regiment. They had no way to make their terror known, so they did as always did, they did as they had drilled. They set up a firing formation and let the Beasts have it.

The War People's front line disintegrated in the volley. Their numbers, so overpowering before, were scarcely intimidating to an entire regiment. The las bolts poured in, and the unarmored monsters were cut down. They lacked the intelligence necessary to take cover, or stop and volley themselves, so they simply ran forward into slaughter. An acrid stench filled the air.

Hraavack, however, was an entirely different story. The lasbolts bounced from his armor and Daemon half, and he was closer. A rocket, fired by a team which won an award for their accuracy last year at the Drill Competition, was deflected by his hate and exploded behind him, buffeting him with shrapnel but not materially harming him, and he was closer still. A lascannon bolt tore some of the spikes from his armor, but was too high to strike him, and he was there.

The first soldier he came upon raised his bayonet as though to impale the furious Lord, and was knocked soaring through the air by the Juggernaughts hooves. A pair of troops behind him froze in horror, and were split by his axes. The remainder of the subsquad convulsed in panic. The bucklers had no way to express their terror, but humanity as a whole was ill equipped for the sight which confronted them now, a raging Daemon of Khorne, covered in the blood of their friends and squad mates, and coming right for them.

Behind the slaughter the second line of War People was meeting much the same fate as the first, but they had a crucial pair of advantages. The first was that Hraavack had hit the Buckler's line close to a heavy weapon strongpoint, and the operators had rather unwisely slackened their fire as they maneuvered for shots on the Lord. The second was that the remaining Berserkers were driving their rhino back and forth in the space before the second wave, smoke launchers laying down a trial of crimson vapors.

A brave Buckler raced into the mists, melta bomb in hand, and blocked the Rhino's path. The vehicle slowed momentarily, long enough for the pilot to emerge and aim the combi-bolter, long enough for the bolter rounds to rip the hero apart. Then the Marine was back inside the rino, and it was accelerating again. But it had slowed too long.

A lascannon team took aim during the brief pause, and fired right after the rhino. A shining line connected the lascannon and the rhino for an instant, and then the vehicle which had started life in the forges of Mars came to an end on the plains of New Codexia, taking with it the life of a corrupted Space Marine.

The Bucklers cheered the tank kill wildly, but then the second wave pounded through the smoke, seconds away.

**********************************************************

Sylvester watched the battle erupt, and exulted in the slaughter. Not being able to take part was painful, but the emotions of a spectator were something that he hadn't sampled in a long time, and had a special grandeur all their own.

Besides, he'd participate soon enough. He concentrated on his satisfaction and amplified his self-awareness...preparing to use the Lash of Submission. Then his concentration was broken by the stench of the Warp.

He snapped his gaze upward as the Furies descended on his Zepplin. One, Two, Thre-, there were too many to fight. It would be redundant to commend his soul to Slaanesh, but he'd do his best to enjoy the trip.

When the Lost and the Damned launched their counterassault, the Captain was more relieved than anything else.

They'd been scorching their way through the Dire Swamp for what felt like forever, soldiers of the Quarantine shouldering their burdens and bringing up load after load of the smelly burning fluid, to toss upon the rank and fetid vegetation.

His role had been merely to sit, patient and waiting, and watch others do the burning. It wasn't what the voice in his dreams promised. It wasn't the Emperor's plan for his Captain, and he resented it. It was the Ironpelt's plan, however, and only a fool would disobey an Adeptus Astartes.

The Traitors came from all sides, including the burning frontal quadrant. They rushed headlong towards the Quarantine's lines without cover or armor, or even much in the way of armament. Their weapon was their frenzy itself, the force which animated them was decidedly other than natural.

The Captain was waiting for them, he slewed his Hellhound through a quarter turn, and an arc of beautiful radiance transfigured the rushing wretches. They could run while ablaze, but his special prometheum unleashed the energy within them, freed their potential from the husks of their flesh and rendered them blazing angels in an instant.

On the other fronts the Quarantine did its bloody work, lasgun units firing and falling back in disciplined ranks while flamer subsquads made short imitations of the glorious swathe that the Captain was cleansing. Orders were barked and obeyed, the Quarantine weathered the rush, and shortly the traitors had run out of manpower.

The God Emperor was triumphant, as always. The refugees turned heretic littered the ground, or their ashen silhouettes did. Not a man from the New Codexian ranks had fallen, not a man had broken. But for one unanswered question it would be a great victory.

The Captain voxed the query that everyone was asking within the comfort of their own skin. "Where" he asked, "were the Terrible Ten?"

The crackling of the fire and the stench of the swamp were the only response.

The furies swept over the Zepp'lin, screeching and howling. They blotted out the sun and their screeches thrilled every tortured membrane in Sylvester's altered hearing apparatus. He vibrated to their hate, the sensations of his assailant's bloodthirst as delicious to him as a fine meal, or the desecration of an Imperial shrine.

He strove to thin their ranks with his bolt pistol, firing once, twice, and a fan of shots. The ancient weapon's shells tore through the air, but rarely impacted with one of his Daemonic assailants. The Furies were creatures of thwarted visions, and their ability to determine the path of a desperate defender's attacks was one honed over untold centuries. No meal was sweeter to them than one that thought itself safe in the blessing of one of the Four, and to tear down a chosen of Slaanesh and violate his sacrosanct nerves with their undivided talons was an unimagined pleasure. They would not permit him to strike them down.

The first to pounce was the largest, a fury so vast it called into question their classification as scavengers. This creature was swollen with the frustrations and vicissitudes of the New Codexian psyscape, and went one on one with an Astartes with no hesitation. Against an ordinary Space Marine, it might have had a shot.

Sylvester was a Noise Marine, and beyond that, he was a Noise marine fully blessed by his deity. His speed was in an entirely seperate category. He stepped into the arc of the creature's pounce, and in a subjective space where his time was without limit he orchestrated the intersection of his power blade with the creature's center of mass. Its bisection was a symphony in red and black, draping him in the sacred warp stuff like a second and awful baptism.

The Fury's orbited him, then the talon-leaders of the vanquished predator closed from opposite directions. These were two near-copies of the leader, and their velocity and orientation precluded a fully conventional response, no matter what Sylvester's speed was. Fortunately, he was not lacking in esoteric resources.

He concentrated and the Lash manifested, pushing the arc of one of the Talon-leaders up and over his back as he warded off the other with his drawn blade. It swept up as well, dodging his strike and anticipating the moment when its partner struck him down from behind. It's shock to find the other compelled into its flight vector was total, and the Furies struck one another with a bone crunching thump. Sylvester returned to guard position.

This time 4 Furies took his challenge, two scampering in along the ground while the others assailed him from the air. He had but one shot, and immediately went for his sonic blaster, sweeping it off his back and launching a blaring arc in a full spin. Three of them were tossed back, but he was finally too slow to catch the last, and it grappled him and smashed him to the deck.

Embroiled in a wrestling match with a Daemon, Sylvester knew his time was at an end. No more nations would scream his name, no lands translate his title as a gutteral curse. He would go to his Patron flopping like a gutted trout. Nevertheless, it was not in the Astartes to yield, and however debased, the Noise Marines were still of that ancient lineage. Sylvester strained and squeezed the Daemon...and was surprised to find it went limp.

An ancient staff had been struck through the Daemon, glancing off of Sylester's armor and pinning it to the deck like an insect. The Brother-Fether's rescuer hauled him to his feet with one sudden movement and strode to face the fury horde.

Initially Sylvester thought his sudden rescuer doomed. He'd been bought a moment's respite at the price of this impossible savior's existence. An instant later he knew better. He relaxed his grip, and let his weapon's drop to the deck, realizing that to go to the stranger's aid would have been unecessary, an insult.

He opened his senses as wide as they could go, and devoted his being to witnessing Ahriman Blackstaff at war.

Traak bit through his lip as the armored figures appeared before him. His hour had come.

In an instant, the dreams he'd treasured, of beheading Hraavack and replacing him as the favored of the Slayer on New Codexia, of wielding the weapon he'd retrieved in honorable battle and solemn ceremony, of simply existing, these dreams disappeared.

To his credit, he didn't waste an instant on regret. The Obliterators weren't about to give him any time for such things. He sprang sideways, using the relic as a shield, in case they sought more than his existence. Tracking their weapon arms he raced for a nearby stone, a momentary refuge.

They tracked him, weapons swiveling and warping as they sought a way to bring him down without his shield being damaged in the process, but took no shots. Good fortune, certainly. He had great respect for their accuracy, and had initially thought a multi-melta shot could have taken his head. He shook off the extraneous thoughts and dove the last few meters, dropping krak grenades to obscure himself yet more.

Still they didn't fire, and he took up his covered position, hunching behind the cover and estimating the firepower necessary to destroy it. They lacked it, he was certain. They couldn't destroy the stone before he could start moving again, he was confident in his speed. He'd wait for the sound of their fire, then charge them rapidly. If fortune was with him, and his recent escape augured well for it, they'd be recharging from their initial shots. If he could get in melee things would look much better. He'd-

The Daemonchains snagged him from behind, each grasping one of his limbs, pulling them away from his body and holding him in a spread eagle posture. Xull! The Obliterators were merely a decoy, to keep his attention forewards while the Chaos Lord approached from behind.

Xull gazed upon his prisoner, considering options and dialog, then shrugged. The Daemonchains strained slightly, and tore the Berserker asunder like an insect. An instant later Xull's hands grasped the Bloodfeeder, and New Codexia took another step towards its fate.

"It's a trap!" yelled Sgt. Sharnes as the hulking one-eyed Space Marine ripped the gag from his mouth.

He'd watched, eyes bulging, as the Space Wolves approached, picking their way carefully through the swamp with a stealth and a malice that only the Emperor's Angels could possess. Their woodscraft had put his Swampers to shame, and the fact that they could call upon it while clad in heavy power armor increased that shame to a disgrace. Compared to these Blood Claws, his Swampers had been ignorant children.

For all their stealth, however, they seemed to be too unmindful of danger to question discovering a bound prisoner within the depths of the Dire Swamp. How did they think someone they'd last seen attached to the standard of the Terrible Ten would come to be here? How could they miss this trap?

For it was a trap, and most horrible in nature and execution. When they'd planted him he had a moment of hope, thought that perhaps the vile Glubbulous and his men could carry him no further in their hurried retreat. He had dared to hope that they would kill him here. Instead, they'd planted him and, steadily, stealthily, began to take up their ambush positions. He was to be the bait that would suck in the Emperor's warriors, he was to be made a Traitor against his own will.

Even as he yelled his warning, the trap was sprung. Some rose from the depths, like blobs of excrement bubbling up through a soup. Others dropped from the trees, descending like Vultures on the Space Wolves. Glubbulous burst from the midst of a tree like a blister popping, ranclid fluids splashing through the air as his ancient Power Fist rent the ancient strongwood asunder.

But the Blood Claws weren't caught by surprise, far from it. Even as the Dark Tusks fell upon them the Space Wolves counter assaulted, with a swiftness and ferocity that no one could replicate. They were wilier than Sharnes had given them credit for. They'd understood the nature of the trap from the instant they'd seen him. They'd sprung it on purpose, taking the fight straight to the corrupted Space Marines.

"But why?" he whispered, uncaring that he spoke only to himself. "Why not simply surround the trap and invert it? They could have guaranteed their victory by just leaving me to my..." He trailed off, the answer self evident. They were Space Marines, Adeptus Astartes. To leave him to the torments of such a fallen wretch as the Plague Champion was foreign to their very nature. They were the Protectors of the Imperium. They would prevail.

In his soul, hope burned bright, as he watched the Blood Claws battle the Dark Tusks, bright and flaring. It pierced the darkness of the warp like a clarion call, an emotion which could never give birth to a Daemon. In that instant, lashed to that rude icon and plunged into that vile muck, Sgt. Sharnes was cleansed and sanctified into the Emperor's radiance.

His body, mouldered and infected, breathed its last. The battling giants didn't glance his way. They knew, however, one and all. A faithful son of the Imperium had resisted Chaos to the last, and died in grace.

Every sight, every sensation, every shudder of the ground and roaring explosion was ultimately familiar to Dhuurock. This was his hour. He'd been laying the groundwork for this battle for centuries, it remained merely to play it out.

His shadow play with Xull earlier had been the last turning point, now this conflict was unalterable. He stood erect on the speeding Rhino, helmet raised and face bared to the fury of the struggle. He feared no bullet, no las blast. Given time, he could recount where each and every shot of the struggle would go. His Rhino was in no danger, his squad was in no danger, and most importantly his ambitions were in no danger.

The Terminators led the way, plowing into the rear of the Bucklers with such fury and implacability that they barely slowed on contact. It seemed impossible that any band with such smaller numbers could defeat a battalion, but that was exactly what they proposed to do.

They were aided by many factors. The Bucklers had been betrayed by Narl, inevitably, and had no rear guard. Their concentration was wholly on the Khornate horde, and the fact that the hammer blow came from behind was wholly unsuspected. Further, their heavy weapons were primarily fixed position, and were presently squandering their fire on the rushing fodder, leaving lasguns as their only defense against the Terminators.

It wasn't enough, not nearly. The Changers stampeded forth, trampling and blasting any infantry insane enough to strive to block their path. An antiquated Chimera tried to roll them over, but the Terminators moved smoothly to link arms and flip it over, discharging a combi melta into the underneath and detonating the tank in a mighty blast.

Behind the Terminators, Dhuurock hopped clear of his Rhino, as his men disembarked on the other side of him. They had their orders, imperatives really, and would unfailingly carry them out. They would make their way to the position of Hraavack's execution, while he would need to go forth as the bait.

Dhuurock had no worry about the Terminator's loyalty. As planned, Xull was elsewhere, taking up the blade which would ruin him. The triune of squad leaders wouldn't dare to act against him, lacking the confidence that each other would back their play. He could afford, indeed must afford, to break away from his Thousand Sons if he was to draw Hraavack to the Prepared Ground.

As he left the vehicle, ducking a blast he'd first glimpsed centuries ago and shooting a bleeding casualty as a reflexive sacrifice to his patrons, Dhuurock finally noticed something he hadn't forseen, something entirely beyond his expectations. He hadn't guessed how much he would enjoy this.

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Hraavack rampaged through the Bucklers, casting their corpses in all directions, robbing them of their lives through superior force and exerting his superiority in the ancient manner. This, and this alone, could ease his inner torment.

The Daemon within him couldn't mount a sincere offensive when it was enjoying itself so much. It coudldn't agitate for control of their joint flesh while lauding his use of it to this extent. Surrender was beyond the nature of a creature of Khorne, but the Juggernaught joined its power to Hraavack's for the time being. It had eternity, after all.

Beyond the whirlwind of carnage that was the Chaos Lord's personal battle the Bucklers had begun to falter. The forefront of the Warp People's horde had reached their line, and a fierce battle begun. The horrible noises filtering from the back, where explosions and screams rather than reinforcements were evident, played a large part in eroding their morale, as did the Berserk Daemon in their midst. The careening of a Zepplin over the struggle didn't help much either.

Barack Grun organized the main counterattack, breaking out of the field stockade where he had been imprisoned for his mutiny, and leading those men he could muster in a furious rush. With Narl's disappearance there was simply no one in charge, as the Bucklers had never needed a field promotion before, and Grun foresaw calamity if they were not rallied then and there.

A wave of men, bayonets flashing in proper parade ground polish, followed him, charging into the tide of Warp People with a bloodthirsty scream of their own. Furious battle ensued.

Hraavack, his martial instincts dimmed but not gone, saw that he was needed, needed to shred the enemy champion and break their morale for good and all, but then he saw something else. Something that blew all thoughts of tactics or strategy from his vestige of a mind. He saw Dhuurock, the champion of the Great Changer.

Roaring the war cry of his God, he launched a frontal assault

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Dhuurock saw the monstrous form of his foe, just as he had in a thousand visions, he saw him roar his war cry, a cry that had wakened him from a thousand dreams, and he saw him cross the ground that Tzeentch had made ready. A smile curved his lips, and he impelled his Rubrics to fire the Inferno Rounds. Brought to this planet, for this purpose, they would penetrate the armor of the Berserker where the Daemon had not yet replaced it, a bolt to the left eye socket would be the end of Hraavack.

No fire answered his mental command, the battle tumult took on a different tenor. It was impossible. He was hearing explosions he'd never heard before, bullets no longer forseen, his Rubrics not present and not shooting! Hraavack took another two steps nearer as Dhuurock turned his head. The indignity, to see with his eyes! He turned his head to see what had befallen his Rubrics.

They were engaged in melee combat, with a squad of Bucklers. Preposterous, they should have been a dozen feet too far back! How could...his gaze rose, pulled upwards by a power stronger than his own. The Zepplin! And on it was Sylvester...and the Lash of Submission!

The wretched Noise Marine had moved his unit, driving them into Imperial Rabble and depriving him of their ranged abilities just when he needed them most. How could that be? He'd sent twenty furies, more than enough to kill a simple...his gaze traveled further still.

There, standing behind Sylvester, watching him from high above, was Ahriman. He'd protected his Rubric, changing Dhuurock's designs and altering the attained future. Even as the Brother Sorcerer saw him, Ahriman turned and stepped into an opening portal, gone to other schemes and other places, this conflict of no further interest to him.

All this, in the space of an instant, then Dhuurock's vision returned to his own terrible situation. Through a space unforseen, through the treachery of his own superiors, through the machinations of a perverted squad commander and a squad of valorous Guarsmen, Hraavack came for him.

There was no time for pondering, no time for scheming, Dhuurock abandoned his strategies, plans and auguries, shaking his mind and energies from them and leaving them, hanging and vacant, to wither in the warp. His energies turned to survival, to the one power that might give him a chance against the Blood God's avatar. He turned to the Warptime.

The fog was lifting.

From the Dire Swamp's twisted branches, from its vile depths, the clinging miasma was dissipating. The cloying warp-spawned vapors were swiftly dissipating into the air. For the first time in living memory the sunlight would reach the tainted ground.

Glubbulous realized what was happening immediately. Their sacrifice had failed. The insect who was supposed to have represented the region's slide into total despair had drawn from his would-be rescuers a hidden reserve of courage, and had died with hope in his heart. It was offensive, a defeat on the psychic plane. The Ten's patron had no taste for shame. The Grandfather had withdrawn his protective embrace from this place.

He tossed the Blood Claw he had been fighting aside, the strength in his powerfist too much for the novice Space Marine to withstand or counter, and rushed towards the next. Victory, and only victory, would bring Nurgle's blessing back to them. The Squad had merely to restore the human's despair, and the tide could yet be turned.

His next foe struck at him with a chainsword, but Glubbulous was in too much of a hurry to parry, he simply took the strike on his armor and gripped his enemy's arm. The fist's field energized as the chainsword whirred and cut, and, as always, his the loyalist yielded first. None could match the Dark Tusks for sheer resilience, sheer determination. From his first traitorous step to this, that fact had never changed.

Glubbulous was suddenly caught from his side by Rarka's rush, the Dark Tusks were prevailing over their foe, the corrupted resilience of their rotted forms blunting the Space Wolve's frenzy, and the Blood Claw leader had seen the only way to take a victory. He ducked his should and toppled Glubbulous into the mire.

As he fell, the Plague Champion saw the glint of the power sword held aloft, saw its arc towards his flesh, and realized that no action he could take would allow him to parry in time. He lashed out, but not with his body, instead he fell back on the greatest advantage of the Traitor. He used the powers of a Psyker.

Rarka's blade was inches from its target when he felt the impact of Glubbulou's mindblast, a well of dark energy unleashed upon him which staggered him even as it rotted his determination. The Despair saved up over Glubbulous' long lifespan hit the Space Wolf as a concentrated burst, in one instant striving to convey him to the same dark warpspace as had claimed his enemy's spirit. Rarka resisted with all his strength, and all the ferocity of the Space Wolves, and a moment later the attack's strength was spent. But it had taken a moment too long for him to throw it off.

Glubbulous had grabbed his bolter, and as he sat up from the swamp he opened up on full auto, shredding Rarka's power armor and perforating the meat beneath. He shot the Blood Claw 10 times as he toppled, screaming, into the Grandather's feculent waters. Even as the loyalist toppled, the Traitor re-emerged, standing tall and strong, sourced in the vile and polluted waters, and unafraid of the sudden sunlight.

Around him, his force was prevailing. They had never doubted the outcome of the leader's duel, and they were heavy infantry, while the Blood Claws had been reconaissance troops. This was no lasting defeat. He had merely to take stock of the situation, recover from this reversal. The Grandfather's...a shadow fell across him.

Glubbulous looked up...and up. Between him and the sun stood the shrouded shape of a Zepp'lin, a Zepp'lin which could see, at last, through the thinning vapors and behold the Terrible Ten, exposed in the light. A Zepp'lin which bore on its back the Emperor's fury, Gargan Silverpelt.

Glubbulous commended his spirit to his patron, as Gargan fired the his assault cannon. Such was Glubbulous's tenacity, armor, cover and vile resilience that it would take a hundred rounds to slay him. Gargan hit him with six hundred, bolt after bolt hammering down to obliterate the abomination, and with it Nurgle's hold on this world. Gargan's howl of victory and loss echoed over the dire swamp as the mist blew away, purged at last by the fury of the rightous.

Deep within the Villainy Victorious, the green candles went out.

The future closed before him, innumerable possibilities limiting themselves to two. He slew Hraavack, or died by his hand.

Dhuurock was a creature ancient in his vanities, set in his ways, it took tremendous strength of mind to force himself to accept this new reality, to accept that Sylvester's actions had forced him into this duel, but he did so. Not for nothing had the Librarium of his time taken him in, Magnus had not been in error in complimenting his flexibility of mind. Without losing another instant, Dhuurock threw himself into the duel.

A Space Marine, with power blade in hand, against a Daemonic Khornate monstrosity would have had no chance, but Dhuurock was more than a Space Marine, and less. His mind seized the very fabric of time itself, willing it to slow to a crawl, and his warp self grappled with possibilities.

He ducked the opening swipe of Hraavack's power fist, and was kicked down and trampled by his Juggernaught underbody. He leapt over it, with a vaulter's discipline and grace, and was struck down midleap by the other swinging arm. He threw himself back, and was outpaced by his foe's relentless charge. He removed his helm and strove for parley, and was struck down before he spoke his second word. He blocked the powerfist with his blade, and shot his inferno pistol, but it was deflected by Hraavack's daemonic nature, and the Fist tore his blade away.

All of his future's were blocked. His moment was over, Hraavack reached for him, fist groping, and Dhuurock threw himself on it.

If the Lord of Change disdained to show him a safe path, then he'd forge his own. His blade flashed, a blow aimed not for the body of his foe, but for that selfsame powerfist. A piercing blow, and successful, he slid the blade through Hraavack's palm and down into the meat of his arm, even as the Skull Champion's other hand gripped his throat and he was raised into the air.

He had gambled all on this, that the Khornate savage would allow him a glancing hit to take his head, now it was time to reveal another aspect of the Warp Storm's meddling. It was no mere power sword he held, but a force weapon, preserved from his dimly recalled past as Librarian. He concentrated, and sent his will flashing down the blade, to engage Hraavack's spirit, and end him in the Warp.

But he had reckoned without the Juggernaught. Daemons were proof against such energies, and it acted with the instinctive loyalty that the Lord of Skulls demanded of his minions. It saw, within the Warp reflection, the psyker wave he had generated, saw that it would slay its God's champion, and Khorne would not allow it. The Juggernaught did what its nature screamed against, and submitted wholly to Hraavack, merging and gifting him with the power of a Daemon Prince.

Against such an Eternal Warrior the force blade's effect fizzled and failed, while before Dhuurock's horrified stare the flesh of the Juggernaught enfolded and surrounded the the Skull Champion. His Armor and Daemon flesh merged, he became a nightmare wrought in brass, and baleful and enormous presence. He grip on Dhuurock's throat tightened, cutting off his air and straining his spine.

Hraavack looked down at the puny blade embedded in his palm and laughed aloud. "Choke, worm!" he bellowed, "and know the power of Khorne!". He lifted Dhuurock into the sky, 4 feet, 8 feet, a dozen feet, and throttled him.

Dhuurock's gaze dimmed as he looked on the newborn's leering skull-face, and within the warp, he gazed upon its atrocious true form. His master had abandoned him, his powers failed him, there was naught left but to deny his foe the final victory. He raised his bolt pistol to his temple, braced himself and-

A beam of light came and took his relief away. Xull lowered his meltagun and watched as the smoking stump of Dhuurock's hand waved feebly, as his gaze roamed hither and thither. It took him minutes to die, choking helplessly and kicking and striking at an arm of corded brass.

When at last the Sorcerer's struggles ceased, when the sacrifice had been performed in its entirety, the Daemon Prince tightened its grip, and popped his head off. It turned to regard Xull, and the burden he bore.

All his long life, Xull had been a strategist, a patient reducer of the fortifications of his foes, a devotee of Chaos Undivided, a loyal Iron Warrior. Survival demanded that this change. Only one action would see him through this minute, and he was a survivor before all else.

He raised the BloodFeeder, and carved the Skull Rune upon his shoulderpad, erasing the sign of his Legion, he carved it upon his harness, severing the 3 strands of his Daemonchain that the rest of the Pantheon had blessed, and he carved it across his face, obliterating the visage of a tactician and replacing it with the mask of slaughter. Then, he turned from the Daemon, and, aware of its eyes upon his back, took up the pursuit of the Bucklers, howling his new patron's name like an animal.