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I've written stories for 40K for many years but never before on Dakka. I've had this idea in mind for a long while so I thought I'd post it up on here and see how it goes although if anyone does read along I will say that the updates will be infrequent due to real life problems. Anyway...

EDIT: Any comments can be posted here in this OOC thread - link

CHAPTER ONE


The Animal, Part i

Feel the rage, the fascination, feel the hate, and the retaliation.
Hide away in your lies, a necessary evil to silence your cries.
Born a beast, a sinful thing, born an angel with broken wings.
Live in fear.
Live in hate.
Live in agony.
This is your fate.


Rain lashed down, spearing the cracked concrete like iron rods hurled by some baleful and mindless godling. A brilliant flash of lightning struck the towering form of a skyhab, an ugly, lumpen conglomerate of tower blocks and municipal buildings crushed and crammed into every available space, and the jaundiced yellow lights of ten thousand windows flickered and blinked out before sputtering uncertainly back to life.

The inhabitants of this dire and squalid place were as mishappen in both body and mind as the buildings they infested. They did not live, for to call what these creatures had 'life' would be a travesty; they existed, caked in the grime and filth of their own mortality and crawled along blindly, picking over the detritus like insects on a mountain of guano, a great heaving mass of vermin. They were human debris this carrion breed of city-dwellers that fought and rutted like beasts, devouring the weak and naïve with rapacious appetite.

An overhead rail-wagon screeched past, doleful, pale faces staring out over the roofs just a few feet below them. Along the length of an entire carriage in bright red graffiti gangers had scrawled 'Last Stop: Hell' and the words seemed to dance and shiver in the air long moments after the thundering, clattering beast had gone, following its silvery tracks like a slug. It had kicked up sparks as it went that chased it lazily along the rails like a pack of hoodlums stalking a young mother and they sent fitful shadows dancing like wild phantoms that cackled madly, scattering discarded cans and papers like confetti that rattled and hushed their observers into complicit silence.

A low, ebbing throb stuttered up out of the wretched earth and stamped its way through the mortar of the building as if the very planet itself churned beneath the parasites that feasted and defecated upon its surface. A transformer sizzled and howled and a twisted knot of electricity lashed the air like a fist before flooding back over the machine, killing it, and plunging the poorly illuminated rooftop into stygian blackness.

The brief searing pulse had backlit a hulking silhouette that crouched like a malefic gargoyle on the edge of the crumbling hab. Slicked with greasey rain it stared down into the abyss, just a simple alleyway, rivulets of water pouring down the long, thick strands of its hair that hung past the living mask it wore; the Nomad.

The Animal, Part ii


Below, a pink neon light buzzed above a battered entrance. Two squawking harlots rapped upon the observer's slit which was drawn back with an impatient thud. A few grunts issued forth and the hateful whores babbled back, tottering about and laughing like hyenas. The portal opened and a languid fog fell out of the entrance wrapping itself around the two women like a sleazy lounge lizard. The two tarts bobbed inside and the doorman, a heavy set brute wearing a lobsided leather mask with a grinning zip mouth slipped a packet down the inside of the garish, fishnet top of the more buxom of the two, his thick gnarled fingers lingering over her breast. The women were not repulsed at the gesture, merely continuing with their aweful, gleeful laughter and the portal swung shut with a heavy thump mercifully cutting the noise off.

The respite did not last long before the portal, a wide heavy metal door, swung open and two more human dross exited the establishment. It was a male and a female, the latter looking anxious. The female was pulled along the alley, centemptably ungraceful on her high heels, the male tugging her at such speed she looked sure to fall. As they almost reached the pavement at the alley's end he backed her up against the rough brick wall, her feet rustling through heaped bags of trash and he smiled luridly as he crushed his lips against hers.

He pulled up one of her legs, her short skirt unable to contain her modesty and though she protested feebly it was only a matter of moments before she was mounted. The two fornicated unabashed and heedless of the rain and as the girl's pittiful moans of pleasure escalated the male reached into his waistband and pulled out a long knife.

The Nomad could tell by means of the Mask of Azarath-Naraseethe that while the girl was on the verge of orgasm the male was not. To the enhanced site and hearing of the Mask the male's brain pulsed a pale blue, alpha waves stuttering like rotary blades. He was calm, despite the physical activity, and the Mask whispered his thoughts into the Nomad's mind. He was going to slay the girl mid-orgasm and as he drew back the knife his brain activity finally began to spike.

It would have been a simple matter to save the girl from such a loathsome fate but such hollow human lives as these were not worth saving and their suffering meant little. The knife slipped into her flesh with far more tender affection than had the male's other weapon and then more rapidly until it was possible to hear ribs cracking like tinder under the force of the blows. She moaned all the while until finally she was done and her fragile, delicate body, ragged and torn, slumped into the garbage at her feet; where she belonged no doubt. The eyes of the Mask were black, unblinking and expressionless as they took all this in, beads of rain running down the unfeeling lenses which reflected the scene in shades of grey.

The male bent over and cleaned his weapon on the girl's soiled clothes. It was a gentle action but more for the respect accorded the blade than the corpse. He pulled his blood drenched trousers down and with a grunt leant back preparing to lose himself over the body and this was the moment the Nomad chose to make his presence known. The great, solid mass of him dropped to the ground like a cannon ball, throwing up a geyser of puddled water.

The male fell sideways onto the corpse and hurriedly pulled up his garments, brandishing his knife at the squatting figure in the shadows. The lupine snout of the Mask snarled and its sibilant voice hissed through the Nomad's mind. At times he had lost himself, his personality so blended with the Mask it had driven him insane, many times, over and over and over again. Madness and sanity depended on time and madness found some quicker than others who often died before their sanity could return. The Nomad was ageless and so he had experienced these changes on many occasions throughout his lifetime. The Mask was a supreme weapon but it was only ever meant to be donned in battle, to enhance the senses and lend its formiddable abilitites to a warrior's own strength. But the Nomad wore it always and invariably when a weapon possesses a mind it directs it to do only one thing.

The Nomad stood and allowed his immense frame to loom in the shadows for a second, the fuzzy pink glow of the sign shimmering across the snout of the Mask like blood. The male's heart and breathing rate began to increase and adrenaline flooded his system, all picked out in minute detail by the enhanced vision of the Mask.

The Animal, Part iii



He didn't know what it was but it was big and fear ripped through him as if his scalp had just been peeled back over his skull and his eyeballs had burst. It stepped forward with a low growl, placing its foot with deliberate heaviness, splashing in the filthy, filmy water that sent ripples skittering away, reflecting its awful, inhuman features. A thrill of pure dread washed through him and the last dregs of jacked fizzed in his brain making a wonderfully intoxicating mixture.

He threw his knife from one hand to the other and crouched low, ready to pounce, his face splitting in a lunatic grin. If he could just get in around the side, he could slip the blade into its guts, he loved the way his knife pressed into a stomach, the way the skin puckered, like lips, before opening for a kiss, the feel of flesh as the blade plucked at it, the pressure on his hand as it hit belly, and the gentle force of blood rustling over his knuckles. He began to circle and the creature turned its head to follow him, its lip curling back, revealing long canines that seemed to glint dully, like metal. Just a little closer he thought and then he would have it.


*****

The Nomad watched the human approach. The acrid tang of adrenaline tinged with some other odour, a sharp, bitter smell; narcotics. The male seemed to respond, his pupils dilating wider and his brain activity peaked, higher than normal human levels the sound washing in and out like the hum of electrical wires. The human didn't realise that his every thought was laid bare by the Mask and that his feeble attempts to gain ground upon the Nomad were about as camouflaged as the storm that boiled overhead. The male began to grin. The Nomad watched, in painfully slow detail, as the human got ready to throw his knife back to his other hand, a poor attempt at distraction to conceal his attack. He flicked the knife across and the Nomad let it get half way.

It would have been an easy matter to use the Ahggatar, the shadow gun, but the human would not have seen it and would have been left confused and the Nomad wanted him fully aware of exactly what was going on. Arzjen-Kai, a blade he himself had forged aeons ago, was in his hand in an instant, slicing the knife in half from tip to haft. The two perfect halves fell to the ground with a tinkle like music and the human looked down aghast. Such vermin might expect to be shot or stabbed at some point in his miserably short life and by that meet his end but this was where the Mask came into its own. Few expected to be eaten alive by a monster of myth and deepest nightmare.

The Ahggatar rearranged with a thought, internal irises opening fully. It was like black light when it fired, a cone of darkness that stripped away all the forward facing garments of the human and left his skin raw and tender. He cried out and staggered backwards but the Nomad was upon him, leaping forward. The Nomad tucked his legs in so that he hit the human feet first directly in the sternum. Steel clad fingers bit deep into the man's shoulders, bones grinding. They hit the ground and the male's guts squashed like a jelly, a fatal, but lingering blow.
The muzzle of the Mask buried itself deep, scissoring through skin and gristle. The man did not scream, he whimpered and moaned a terrible and pitiful sound as long gobbets of flesh tore free, the wet sounds of eating underscoring his every gasp of pain. The Nomad chewed through his throat while he still lived and even as the head was severed away the mouth and eyes worked, soundless with no breath to power them. The headless body twitched, fingers clenching and unclenching and the Nomad stood to his full height. He observed the head, the eyes staring vacantly.


*****

There were three knocks on the door and Brice pulled back the viewing slit. It was that damned fool Jarreth, back again already.

“First one not enough for ya?” The imbecile just stared blankly, mouth hanging open. Moron. Still, he would be easy to control and use in this state so it made little difference. Brice opened the door and had about two seconds to make an absurd double-take that saw the slabs of fat that covered him wobble, sweat dribbling down his throat from beneath the leather mask he wore. There was a giant, a giant stood in the doorway, Jarreth’s severed head stuffed onto one fist.

The Nomad punched the disgusting, fat, doorman with the head, which split down the middle under the force of the blow. He shook it off and Arzjen-Kai cut through the tumbling human with a whisper, practically turning him inside out as his guts emptied over the floor.

There was another human in a gimp costume, all vinyl and chains, another obese blob of a man who vomited, brown slop oozing from his mask. It blinded him and he pulled at his mask, mewling in panic but the Sword sliced through his bulk, the body disintegrating spectacularly as if a grenade had gone off, limbs flying theatrically.

The Nomad was statuesque as he held the last pose of his attack, half crouched and the Sword held in a reverse grip under his arm. There was silence and after several moments the Nomad unwound. He crept down the gloomy, fog filled corridors of the club, his massive bulk indistinct, wraithlike. There would be much more killing to do before this night was out but it was necessary and the Nomad’s world narrowed as the Mask boxed his thoughts and took control.