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Hello Dakka, this is my first attempt at fiction placed here on Dakka Dakka, so your support, criticism, and comments are vastly appreciated. This multi-part story focuses on the history of a Dark Eldar Kabal I made, the Kabal of the Bitter Hand. please enjoy part one, thank you for reading!

Stillborn: A Dark Eldar tale of the Kabal of the Bitter Hand

Part One:
“Truly, something evil was born this day… fetch me my tools, slave. It is time” –Na’vandus, Haemonculus Ancient of the Dead Void

There is a great legend amongst the Dark Eldar about the infamous Archon Ireth the Stillborn of the Bitter Hand. It is said that, in the vassal realm of Commoragh he was born in, the stolen sun that belonged to the city burned cold and a great chill was fallen upon the city. It is only a legend, and even if it was true, the sun still stands there today without problem. However, some old Dark Eldar who lurk the alleys of that dark and twisted city can feel that cold that occurred that day.

He was born to a noble family of Commoragh, a trueborn to one of the skilled politicians of Vect’s court at Commoragh’s heart. However, upon his birth, the newborn Eldar had no heartbeat: he was a stillborn child and a shame upon his parents. Immediately, they panicked and searched for a way to dispose of the baby’s corpse, to avoid the shame that would occur from giving birth to a worthless child. It was then, they decided to give the child to the twisted Haemonculi of the Dark City’s underground in secret for a high fee. Immediately they were approached from the dark alleys by a twisted, horrifying slave of a haemonculi, one of his wracks. He told the mother that he would take the child, no fee, by command of his dark master. Irish’s mother happily obliged, and abandoned her only child to the swollen and deformed hands of the wrack, uncaring for her child’s fate.

The wrack slave brought the dead babe back into the dark underground of the twisted haemonculi, to one of the ancients named Na’vandus, who had sent the wrack to get the babe. The haemonculus looked at the dead child and smiled, turning around slowly to grab something of his most vile creations he had yet to conceive: the Void-heart. When Na’vandus had heard of the story of the famous Archon, Lady Malys, had replaced her own heart with an orb of mysterious power, Na’vandus felt a sting of extreme jealousy of the lady, and vowed to create something even more powerful than that illusive source of power. So he created the Void-heart: a heart from a trueborn Dark Eldar tortured to his death, mixed with the blood from the hand of an avatar of Khaine and the essence of the void of, according to what Na’vandus claims, a black hole.

Na’avndus, too fearful to try the heart on himself, looked for a suitable subject to try it on. This stillborn eldar was his choice, sending his wrack to retrieve the child when he heard about the rumor. However, Na’vandus could not operate on the baby; he had to age the boy while he was still dead to get him to a suitable physical condition to be operated on. So, the haemonculus put the stillborn child within a growth tube and, within a dozen years, the corpse had grown to a suitable sized man. It was then that Na’vandus took the body out and tore out the dead heart, then proceeded to gruesomely graft the original heart with that of the void-heart, and placed it into the Ireth’s body.

Ireth had awoken immediately once the void-heart had joined with his body. Ireth knew nothing; he had only just now opened his eyes for the very first time. The haemonculus saw Ireth now as a tool to gain standing amongst his haemonculi brethren: if he could bring Ireth to power, he too would gain power in return. So, he tutored the child in the ways of the Dark Eldar and the ways of war. The supernatural status of the void heart made Ireth extremely intelligent, more so than many Dark Eldar, and the blood of Khaine made him an adept of war. The void-heart though did have negative consequences, however. Ireth was very cold to the touch, as though he were a dead corpse. And indeed, the void heart did not beat in his chest, so the blood in his veins did not circulate normally. And he had an extremely cold personality, even compared to other Dark Eldar. The hatred in his veins burned colder than the void in his heart. After 50 years of learning and training, Ireth was ready to join one of the Kabals of the Dark City...

I should have part two posted up soon!

Not bad, liked the idea of the Void Heart, cool concept in combination with the still born, very dark.

Archon Ireth the Stillborn of the Bitter Hand.

Irish’s mother happily obliged,

?
Some busty red haired Celt on your mind?

Pretty darn good. I really want to know what happens now...reveng on mom and pop for abandonning him maybe?

Ratius wrote:Not bad, liked the idea of the Void Heart, cool concept in combination with the still born, very dark.

Archon Ireth the Stillborn of the Bitter Hand.

Irish’s mother happily obliged,

?
Some busty red haired Celt on your mind?

Nope, but I think microfot word was thinking of a red haired lass It mustve corrected it and I did not notice.

Anywho, I'll try to get up the second installment this weekend. Thank you for the support!

Part Two is Done. Its a tad longer than part one. Enjoy!

Part II

“Kneel, Human.” -Ireth addressing a Grey Knight on Xixis

Ireth began his time as a Kabalite as a trueborn in the Kabal of theSerpents Fang, under the command of the Archon Ka’vhem. When Ireth was examined to see if he truly was a trueborn, however, the dracon found the scars of the surgery that gave Ireth his unnatural heart and found the stretch marks from the rapid growth from the growth serum the haemonculus gave him, the dracon refused Ireth as a member of their ranks. Ireth scoffed the dracon, declaring that he was inferior in every way to himself. The dracon, enraged, attacked Ireth with a knife in each hand, falling right into Ireth’s trap. Ireth sidestepped and broke the dracons arm and then stabbed him with the dracon’s own knife, in front of Ka’vhem himself. Ka’vhem, impressed with Ireth’s ruthless nature, made Ireth the dracon of the trueborns right then and there, much to the loathing of the other trueborn. However, none would dare doubt Ireth in person after that display.

Ka’vhem was, as many archons are, very ambitious in nature. He would launch almost suicidal raids against large scale targets, like imperium spaceships, just to get a moment of fleeting attention from the high lords of Commoragh, especially Overlord Vect himself. Ka’vhem was successful, but success was not enough for him: he wanted the world, and he was hellbent to have it.

Ka’vhem launched many a raid with Ireth as dracon, some of the more famous ones were the infamous slaughter of the hive world of Steelix, coming in at night and stealing and slaughtering thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians before the guard could even begin to launch a counterattack. Or the great raid of the Waaagh! Thudstompa, hauling away untold numbers of the brutish orks to the dark city for torture, including the warboss himself. All of these things, and many more, would have made an army of the imperium legendary. But in the excess and contempt of the high lords of Commoragh, they were but insignificant raids. Ka’vhem was furious, and decided to plot the most ambitious raid yet: to lure and capture a Tyranid swarm and bring it back to commoragh.

Ka’vhem was not content with any sort of sane attempt at the raid against the weapon beasts. He would have his greatness or he would die trying. And indeed, the massive raid was almost his undoing. He hired the help of 2 wych cults, a smaller kabal, and several incubi and scourge squads to aid him on his attack. And if the amount of hired help he was taking was not enough, the plan to capture the Tyranids was even more insane: he wanted to actually lure the beasts into the webway itself and trap them there. In order to do this he had to sacrifice the lives of an entire vassal sector of Commoragh, for the Tyranid beasts would certainly kill everything within. Ka’vhem, uncaring for the lives he would destroy, decided to use the sector of his rival kabal, the Damned Eye.

Ka’Vhem first found searched for a large enough spacecraft to lure a Tyranid hive fleet, and Ka’Vhem eventually found it in a long derelict eldar craftworld that’s residents had been killed by an ork Waaagh. Ka’Vhem then began to set every device of the craftworld to maximum output. The Craftworld’s entire system shorted out in the matter of a few short days, but it was enough: the high energy from the craftworld had attracted a small splinter of Hive Fleet Levithan, and the coordinates to enter the webway was already set. Soon the Tyranids arrived and attacked the Craftworld to find the wych cults, hired by Ka’vhem, awaiting inside. They were not there to defeat the beasts, but rather to stall them. When every mycectic spore had made landfall into the craftworld, Ka’Vhem immediately sent the ship into the webway, on a crash course with the sector of Commoragh doomed to death.

The plan worked brilliantly: the wych cults evacuated as soon as the craft had made it into the webway. With the last of its life spent, the craftworld floated aimlessly above the sector. The beasts within felt the vast amount of life below them and changed their course of attack to the ground, where they slaughtered the entirety of the Kabal of the Damned Eye. Now Ka’vhem and his hired help had to simply make sure none of the Tyranids escaped, and once the Kabal of the Damned Eye had fallen, Ka’vhem sealed off the sector of the webway, trapping the massive Tyranid swarm inside.

The raid impressed the high lords of Commoragh, impressing even Vect himself. Vect called for a conference with Ka’vhem and gave Ka’vhem one last mission to prove his worth: Ka’vhem was to bring Vect back an Astartes warrior for Vect’s own personal amusement. And Vect demanded not just any Astartes, but the most legendary Astartes chapter of them all. The Grey Knights.

Ka’vhem was once again faced with another seemingly impossible task: the Grey Knights only would respond to daemonic incursion in realspace, and the Grey Knights would leave as mysteriously as they appeared. It was then that Ireth’s old mentor came out of the shadows again: Na’vandus. Na’vandushad been watching Ireth during his entire career, seeing Ireth as his own path to power in the dark city. Na’vandus told Ka’vhem that most humans did not know exactly what daemons looked like, and if they could play off of their pitiful ignorance, they could cause the Grey Knights to respond to an attack and fall for their trap.

Na’vandus found the Agri-world of Xixis as a suitable place. Xixis was a large Agri-world that provided food for 3 major forge worlds. If Xixis were to fall, the imperium would lose influence in several nearby systems and face further rebellions. Na’vandus brought together the thousands upon thousands of twisted creatures from his haemonculi coven, along with many twisted beasts from the cages of the beastmasters, and let them loose upon Xixis while Ka’vandus waited impatiently to see if their gamble would pay off.

The dangerous gamble worked, soon panicked astropaths were sending word of a daemonic attack on Xixis and a small regiment of 50 Grey Knights and an imperial guard regiment were sent to the world to put down the insurrection. The Kabal then sprang into action, launching an attack before the Grey Knights would quickly realize that what they fought were not daemons at all. The Grey Knights quickly found that they were in an extensive trap and fought back vigorously as they retreated the world slowly and left the planetary cleanup to the guard. Ka’vhem could not afford to let them escape, so he sent the best warriors he had, his trueborn, to attack the Grey Knights.

Ireth led the attack as several raiders darted into action, quickly surrounding a squad of ten of the fearless Astartes. The Grey Knight put up fierce resistance, bringing down each raider one by one with surgical precision. Ireth took control of his own raider as it burned around him from the Grey Knights fire and crashed it into the Grey Knights ranks, killing several grey knights and every trueborn except himself.

Ireth rose from the wreckage with an injured leg and damaged helmet, but the misery and pain of his dying comrades and the Grey Knights empowered him to the point that the pain was insignificant. Ireth strode forward and cast of his helmet, power sword and splinter pistol in hand, to meet the remaining three Grey Knights, their force weapons glowing ominously in the dark night. Their leader strode forward towards Ireth, but Ireth did not move.

“Foul xenos, you have brought us to this planet as a trick. You have wasted my brother’s blood for your own gain.” The Grey Knight Leader said. His comrades now moved forward too, their own force weapons held aggressively.

“Kneel, Human” Ireth said coldly in High Gothic.

“Your words are empty, Eldar. Your heresy…”

“I said kneel. Kneel or die.” Ireth repeated.

“Then prepare for death!” The Grey Knight roared, his two comrades charging forward.

The Grey knight’s moved with superhuman strength and charged Ireth. Ireth moved faster. Ireth first disarmed the first grey knight’s calculated stab with a sidestep, the lopped of the grey knights arm and shot the crippled Astartes at point blank. The Second Astartes swung at Ireth with furious strength and knocked Ireth’s power weapon out of his hand. The Grey Knight Leader began to fire at Ireth with his wrist-mounted stormbolter as his comrade prepared to swing again. Ireth rolled and took out his knife, leaping on the Grey Knight’s back and plunging the dagger into the nape of the Grey Knight’s armoured neck. The Grey Knight gasped one last breath and died and Ireth quickly picked up his power sword. Before Ireth could turn to meet the Grey Knight leader, the Astartes warrior plunged his sword into Ireth’s heart.
Ireth smirked at the Grey Knight, and then began to laugh. The Grey Knight looked at Ireth with a confused glare. The Grey Knight did not know about the void-heart, and its powerful void nature rendered Ireth impervious to any sort of wound in his heart. It would be like stabbing space. The Grey Knight removed his sword and glared at Ireth.

“Have you no heart, foul xenos???” The Grey Knight mocked.

Ireth smiled and shot the Grey Knight in his knee, and the other knee, bringing the powerful warrior to his knees.

“No” Ireth said as he slammed the pommel of his blade into the Grey Knight’s skull, rendering the Astartes unconscious. Ireth looked to the sky to now find a venom transport craft approaching. Ka’vhem emerged and grinned with wild glee, then trapped the Grey Knight in an energy cage. Ka’Vhem looked at Ireth.

“Good job, Dracon. You have made me proud.”

Ok at first I was WTF with the tyrannid thing but you made it and the GK parts work.

Akroma06 wrote:Ok at first I was WTF with the tyrannid thing but you made it and the GK parts work.

Yeah, even I thought it was a bit of a stretch at first, so I had to think about a way for it to at least seem plausible. Even then, I still think it may be a bit crazy. Then again, Dark Eldar like grandiose displays of power...