NationStates Jolt Archive

Lieutenant Sager Radel gasped awkwardly in the rapidly cooling air as the sun disappeared over the western horizon. His tabard and armour reflected dully in the orange light, flickering across battle scarred fabric and metal that shook and wavered as the soldier moved as quickly as his tired limbs could carry him through the rocky outcrops. Ahead of him sat the far distant peaks of the eastern Cursed Mountains, massive purple snow capped titans ruling over the low sandy foothills ahead and the dunes behind him.

Desert sounds disappeared leaving only silence, leaving Radel feeling terribly vulnerable, lacking now even preliminary stealth in sound as well as sight, though the lack of following footfalls gave him some strength. He kept moving forward, stopping for brief glances over his shoulder to ensure he wasn’t being tracked even silently. The deserts of the Freethinker Commonwealth held many dangers, some natural, some imaginary, most were lethal to one extent or another. But what hunted the Legionnaire Officer was something far more determined and malevolent than any of the creatures who’s calls echoed in the sunset.

Radel carried little save his canteen and a hidden package, lined in rough cloth and held against his breast, the sharp edges of the covered item cutting into his armoured gloves but belied little of its identity. It had cost so much blood to get it this far, a blade or a bullet through the hearts and necks of many former friends, but to get his message out and its importance to the wider world was now the only objective in his mind. Voices echoed and anger fired within him, distracting and disorientating but for the moment held at bay through both instincts and training induced mantras that were dug from the core of his distant memories.

He stopped as slow, dull footsteps echoed from the rocks ahead. Radel’s heart jumped as they drew nearer, hard to identify in the distortion from the gullies and caverns of the rock formations and praying they were not those of his hunters. His fears subsided slightly as more animalistic growls emerged, but this presented a new problem as some large, sleek form appeared in the shadows. An Anklebiter. A smaller draconi reptile the size of a decent off-roader appeared in the light, the last rays of sun disappearing into its dark scales as its nostrils vented, searching the air for prey. Reaction overcame thought as it neared Radel, and a dull clunk echoed as a small solid object landed at the beast’s feet before exploding in a puff of smoke and dust, though little sound was hirred save for the fast release of gas.

The Anklebiter sniffed the decoy, and then bit into it, reacting as expected to the foul mixture. These breeds of reptiles were notorious as manhunters, its smaller size meaning humans made an actual worthwhile meal and yet remained big and vicious enough to prove a suitable match for even a power armoured soldier. Some Legionnaires took a cleaver kill of one of these beasts as an initiation right, something that Radel had done once but now had neither the strength nor the time to repeat the feat.

The huge reptile moved on after a short while of trying to remove the taste by biting the nearby rocks and sand, bigger footsteps of another, giant beast in the distance alarmed it to the point of pressing cautiousness and it wandered off in the opposite direction. Radel moved as fast as he could as the Anklebiter disappeared from sight, making sure to move as quickly as possible in the vulnerable open. Lacking a weapon save for his now nearly empty pistol, the broken and useless hilt of his former cleaver and a couple of remaining decoy pods, he hurried along the outcropping of rocks to his hopeful destination.

His eyes had earlier spotted faint reflections coming from this spot, and he felt his heart rise as he saw the moderately sized but well dug in encampment ahead of him. The Fifteenth Company of the Pelios Rangers, one of the numerous small regiments of Crown Free Legions that provided the closest thing imaginable to a government force in the region. To Radel, they were deliverance as he moved near, survival ensured for the moment perhaps.

The Crown Free Legions were something of a distinctly Freestian force, a ‘private’, division sized band of desert warriors under the nominal guard of the Monarch but loyal only to the freedom of the Freestian people rather than to the government of the country. They received their budget not from the MOD but rather ‘contracted’ themselves out to the Department of the Interior to provide security out here where no other force could truly survive let alone operate.

It was this informality which perhaps led some outsiders to believe that these were little more than militia nutcases, Allanean survivalist wannabes with more guns than common sense. Some would agree, but none who served with them would. Indeed quite the opposite was true, and between the harshness of the training and the cruel, horrifically violent world in which they lived turned them into a band of warriors a league apart from anything else in terms of sheer raw will to survive. They were sons of the desert, all ghouls, the stronger, leaner crossbreeds of human and vampire mating that were now synonymous with the frontline Freethinker infantry. The huge bulls found in these regiments were the toughest of them all, some rumoured even to be strong enough to stand toe-to-toe against a humanform vampire, though in his four years of service in the Legions he had never quite seen one big enough for that, but many he had once counted as comrades came close.

Radel ran as much as much as his wounded legs could carry him, ignoring the seemingly lax security, the guard figures barely seeming to react in their hides to his arrival, though some figures in the staging area of the camp did turn and bark a commanding greeting requesting identification. He now felt his steps falter as he neared the square in between the lines of tents, and could only utter back a short, sharp, hoarse cry as he neared enough for them to hear him. He heard, from a little distance, guns turn towards him, though the few visible guards did barely move at all, merely watching and, secretly to themselves in Radel’s mind, providing targets for the hidden marksmen.

“Lieutenant Radel…twelfth company, the Pelios.”

Radel struggled to stay on his feet at first, peering up at the Legionnaire captain who returned the gaze stiffly and almost without emotion. Whether through unfriendliness or pity he did not know, though he had to admit none of the Legions were famous for their perceived inhospitality towards anyone save familiar Outbackers.

“My unit, it’s the twelfth company…they…have…” He struggled to find the words, though now he noticed something new, a tremble in the hands of the Legionnaires before him, the captain shifting his eyes from Radel to his companions, though his body itself remained awkwardly stiff. He clutched at the artefact in his chest, wanting to reveal it but somehow afraid to, his subconscious, still affected by distant cries that now suddenly grew louder and clearer, trying to gauge the coolness of reaction against some unknown fear, a feeling that grew as something faltered in the senior officer’s glance.

“What…captain?” Soundless words appeared now, and the Legion officer had begun to shake. Radel peered closer, trying to read into the movement of the man’s weather beaten lips, silent though he tried to hide his glances and peered at the soldiers standing at either side of him. They too clutched at their weapons uneasily, and a sudden fear of dread filled the air. “No...”

“RUN….” The captain yelled before he and his comrades dropped into the sand next to him as high calibre bullets tore into their bodies. From the tents emerged other soldiers, in the Legion armour but decorated not with the desert pattern and the Freestian Olympia but strange and twisted scarlet symbols and intricate blood soaked patterns across their bodies. They quickly moved around the desperate Radel, who had tried to get to his own feet only to feel his strength give way anew. The voices in his mind grew stronger and finally clear, urges to strike and kill suddenly flowing through him. Hand went to the cleaver at his side as he turned to face the nearest threat.

But before he even had the chance another bullet tore into his sword arm, splattering blood across the sand and sending the blade flying. From the tents behind the dying Fifteenth officers stepped his hunters, four armoured, terrifying blood soaked figures, and among them sat his former commanding officer, Captain Yare, a female ghoul who’s features lay, like those of her staff, hidden behind her desert goggles and head scarf. Her huge staff sergeant, a massive seven and a half foot monstrosity know as Keonye, and a pair of seemingly disfigured privates moved with her.

Yare moved over the corpse of her Fifteenth’s counterpart, who though with several bullet wounds still breathe and shuffled on his belly in the sand. She kicked over the struggling Legionnaire, raising a soft murmur of protest before she finished the job of her soldiers with her cleaver. A pathetic blood-strangled cry arose from the impaled captain as he finally succumbed. Then she turned to Radel himself, peering with penetrating eyes at her former subordinate.

She stepped closer, and she suddenly smiled in an almost innocent childlike manner at odds with her warlike and blood splattered body. His vision disintegrated into a black fog, and then he remembered nothing for a very long time.

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

The first thought that arose in Radel’s head was how cold he was. Lacking vision or touch all he knew was that coldness had overtaken him, not the lack of warmth from the desert air but something else entirely. His mind felt vaguely clear now, no voices but his own weeping in the blackness. His other senses slowly crept in, however, sight revealing the red glow of burning fires casting shadows over the corrupted imagery of the stone halls that his ears discovered in the clanging echoes of surrounding footsteps. His carriers, two sets of claw like fingers and rock hard muscle pressed harshly against him. Blood dripped to the floor from unknown wounds.

He was brought, through the new mix of shadows that seemed to appear in his still cloudy vision, into a larger hall, a place that was cold from something other than the desert night outside. As a ghoul himself, he recognised the stench of death and decay and the horrific aroma of burnt flesh. His skin seemed to crawl with the malignant fear as distant voices screamed out into the night. Radel stifled a frightened gasp as he found himself brought before a massive stone slab in the certain of the ruined hall and dropped unceremoniously by his carriers. Faint footsteps rounded him and revealed themselves as belonging to Yare as she moved ahead of them and turned to look at him without saying a word.

There was an unnatural aura to her, something that seemed supernatural. Looks that normally would be considered attractive now seemed skull like and terrible, and dried blood from earlier still clung to her face. She held the stare for a while, before she nodded at Keonye (who from the sound of his heavy nearby grunting Radel could tell had been one of his carriers) and turned back to face the slab.

“Your fate is known. You will soon regret both your own cowardice and blindness and in your punishment you will regret the mercy of the Captain.” Keonye’s voice echoed in the chamber from behind Radel, who didn’t dare turn to see him. He had seen the horrific fates of others. Even normal Legionnaires did unmentionable acts to those they perceived as traitors, the vile habits were now most likely enhanced by this new association that had arisen from what should have been a standard reconnaissance mission. The past before the change in loyalty now seemed like a distant myth in the darkness that penetrated here.

For there was nothing now, no movement from either Captain Yare or the hulk of Sergeant Keonye. Only blackness in the shadows and the laboured breathing of Radel moved or changed in the night, before something, or rather someone, moved into the faltering red light ahead.

Yare stepped forward and kneeled before the altar and the figures behind it. “The traitor, my Lords.”

The visions swirled in front of her, thousands of separate threads, all linking together to form potential futures. Here a world burnt from fires of war, there a species was born and fell into extinction. All of them adding to the tapestry of time, but none of them in a way that changed the fate of the Keigh all therefore where ignored. She shifted deeper, Iyanna had felt something, something that would start small and grow. A threat and now she looked for it.

There, in Sol, on Earth the great enemy stirred, and laid its plans. Khorne and the ruinous powers had established a foothold, small now but it would grow. She followed the thread of fate forwards; a nation claimed by the darkness of disorder, spreading, mass armies dedicated to war and blood, striking out at their neighbours, claiming more peoples. A world consumed in the fire of war, until even the eternal empires of their allies where engaged in daily warfare, as forces struck from all sides. The never ending tide of war, and the steps needed to save them, changing the elves for ever, and still the tide continued. It spread, until the earth was consumed.

The death of Billions was in the future, the essential nature of Keigh on earth would change, they would harden their hearts, and they would loose something, deep within them. A part of Iyanna could accept this change, but she recognised deep inside that the something that would be lost was something her people desperately needed to reclaim, and without the Quenya to lead the way, they would fail.

She could act now, and prevent that thread, prevent the bloody victory of Khorne, yet she had not the people. All of the Kionash and Exodites of Yvresse prepared for another war, her people where stretched. She could not speak to others of what she saw, for it would take too long, they would have to investigate for themselves, she had to place assets on the ground quickly. For a while she sat in consideration, her thoughts darkening.

Her options where small, war was not possible, and indeed would turn others against them, while speeding the growth of the problem she faced. Her choices where limited, and for a while all she could see was the destruction of the entire nation, the oldest of weapons, the darkest of technologies. Cut the cancer out with a blunt instrument, and yet the futures from that action where dark ones for Yvresse. The entirety of Sol turned against them, even the Keigh of the Quenya looking upon them with deep disgust. It would ruin all they had built, and place their own dreams in jeopardy. It might be the only option she had through.

She almost gave the order, almost committed herself to the destruction of the peoples involved, and then she paused, a slow smile crossing her features. A solution was possible, the Kionash and the Exodites could not spare the people to cleanse the taint subtly, but she had another choice. The call went out throughout Yvresse, silent, carried by the Infinity Matrix to the mind of the Shadowseer, of the troupe ‘Masque revealed’ a smaller Harlequin troupe that had came to Yvresse to meet with others to prepare for the coming events.

I would speak with you and your leader

The dance had begun.

"You have done well Captain Yare...well enough in relying on the weakling Changer of Ways to return dear Lieutenant Radel to us."
The speaker sniffs disdainfully, the sound oddly cultured for the monstrous size of the man making it, standing easily taller and broader than the ghouls but giving the impression of speed as well as bulk somehow.
"I am not impressed Captain, and you should be trying to impress me Yare, lest the God remove its' favour from you."
The hulking figure moves forward, continuing to speak, cloven hooves clopping across the stone floor not interrupting an unnaturally smooth gait. It stoops over Radel and smiles down, high-crested helmet unlatched to display a classically handsome countenance, smiling pleasantly at the unfortunate Lieutenant, a hint of fang evident in the pale features.

"Still, not a complete loss. Hello Lieutenant, still unwilling to heed the voices of the true God I see. You should have listened Lieutenant. Then you'd be able to hear what they're saying to me. They're saying "Ormr, give him to us Ormr, give us his soul and lifeblood. Ormr give us his heart."
The giant kneels down further, light flickering across elaborately decorated plate armour, sparkling on gems that dance with an uncanny light, to whisper into the writhing Lieutenant's ear.
"And do you know what differentiates me from you Lieutenant? When the voices speak to me, I listen!"

Ormr straightens, gesturing and speaking a single word.
"Hrothgar."
One of the figures still wrapped in shadow moves forward, even larger than Ormr, hair and beard stiff with dried blood, reeking of gore and fouler things, moves to Ormr's heel, an expression of dog-like devotion on his face.
"Ah Hrothgar. There's a good boy. You may give the Lieutenant to your patron now."
The other man turns and grins down at Radel, eyes manic as he jerks the ghoul up by his throat, holding him in mid-air without apparent effort as mad eyes wander over the Lieutenant's frame, before a convulsive jerk snaps Hrothgar's closed fist through Radel's torso, opening on the other side, fingers flicking blood off in a parody of daintyness.
A gout of blood bursts from the unfortunate officer's mouth, spattering the beserker with a fresh mask of gore and the mad-man grins all the harder, pulling his arm back and dropping Radel to the floor to pry his ribcage apart even as the Lieutenant convulses in his death throes, Hrothgar plucks his heart free and turns to his master, grin still fixed, panting happily.
"Yes Hrothgar, it's very nice."
That lukewarm approval seems to be enough, as the blood-soaked giant reverently lays the still-beating organ on the altar, leaving Radel to spasm and twitch as life leaves him.

Ormr ignores the by-play, wandering back to a throne-like chair and slumping into it, armour grating on stone as the Chaos Lord swings one leg over the other, the pose insouciant but a quiver of ever-present rage giving the lie to its' casualness.
He leans forward beckoning Captain Yare to him even as Hrothgar begins to chant over the altar, the words awful, more barked than spoken.
"So Captain, now that you have finally managed to bring me the traitor, perhaps we can move on from this wretched little backwater and bring the gifts of Chaos to more of your brethren? Or would you prefer it if we stayed here until Hrothgar manages to dye himself completely red in the blood of your weakling countrymen?"

Yare did not seemed fazed at first by the words, or at least choose not to show it in her stance or gaze. She remained impassive, merely looking down as a sign of deference, even as Radel himself met his inevitable fate. She had supposed that it would have been drawn out more, but then time was of the essence. She saw Keonye eye the body hungrily, and her own appetite for flesh was also rekindled at the sight, but first she had to remonstrate before her Lord before daring to risk asking for such a favour. Military sense reminded her not to question the man’s judgement, a feeling backed by the fate of the traitor Radel. She stepped foward and knelt.

“I apologise for the deficiencies in my leadership, my Lord, and I take full responsibility for the failings of my men and myself. We will not disappoint in our service again sire.” She paused, taking one more glance at the blood trail that led up to the Berserker in the background. “I can say in regards to our plan that our operation to recover Radel allowed us to track and eliminate the Fifteenth company as a threat and through the blessings of the Gods we were able to not just remove the threat of our discovery but indeed to find sympathetic ears and new and willing recruits.”

“We have discovered that the feelings of resentment towards our former weakling masters is shared by many, and our scouts too have found followers in other nearby companies and even within the higher sections of the Desert Warfare Cadre of the army itself. The seed of dissent and the worship of strength and might is far more widespread than we had first thought and perhaps even hoped. By the time of Silent Spring we will be tens of thousands strong, and in the aftermath of that exercise we will be in the position to bring most of the finest units in the land under our banner.” Good news perhaps, but there was one more thing to say as she nodded for Keonye to remove the body of Radel, essentially to reduce it to garbage or the next mess celebration.

“I am afraid to report though, that we believe is a Reaver in the area, sire, not under orders but on pilgrimage. We’ve been tracking her for a few days, though the last patrols took a while reporting in. We need to avoid her if necessary, she is a potent threat if she discovers us.”

In the cramped Orbital space above earth the satellite network of the Eldar launched a single craft, joining the many craft in orbit, without too much fanfare. The small craft soon joined the many ships, and then disappeared, Holo-fields masking its presence. Passing over the earth a few times, it waited, bided it’s time. During the many hours it spent orbiting the earth the Network watched and waited, trying to pick up a moment when the Traffic control systems might be at their slackest, when one such moment was spotted the signal was sent.

Effortlessly the pilot plunged the ship into the Earth’s atmosphere, the ships entire power output was spent split between two functions now, one it’s engines of course and the other the Holo-fields in an attempt to mask the obvious signs of ship in re-entry, eventually it levelled off, and the rear hatch opened. An item was dropped silently onto the land below before the Vampire class vessel left the Airspace of the target nation and rejoined the many vessels in orbit, hours later the ship once more docked its mission complete.

***Freethinker Commonwealth***

For hours it sat not moving, out in the deep parts of the desert, a small box studied with carvings and then it flickered into life. A portal seemed to grow from the box, eldritch energies swirling around. If a person had passed in that moment and looked within, what they would see would have seemed impossible, a tunnel seemed to stretch on from that portal, and beyond the walls of the tunnel strange creatures beat their fists impotently against walls of flickering colours. Such a person wouldn’t have had long through to stop in wonder of such a sight, as now people emerged from the gate, One after the other a strange collection, of seemingly on the first glance foppish figures, yet they carried themselves as ones who where used to battle. They moved without making a sound, and the only sign of their presence left behind was the flicker of colour as they moved amongst the desert, and then that too vanished, as the Dathedi’s changed to camouflage them against the night-time desert.

After fourteen of such figures had emerged, and one who seemed similar yet covered in bone, came at last a person that was very different. She was of an entirely different species, and moved with less precision less grace, every step seemed heavier. She was to be the face of the group as they moved throughout this alien landscape, chasing the ancient foe of the Eldar. She would ask the questions an Eldar would be best not seen asking. Her name was Yuthura ban; she had been a prisoner of the Council, a research subject and now at last was their puppet.

Eventually the Harlequin troupe seemed to judge the area secure and took down the gate that had brought them to this place. One stood out amongst the rest, his moves slightly more graceful his presence seemingly greater. ‘Jester, take the Mon-Keigh, according to the Farseer’s visions, the cultists have already started to spread. You will find some of these splinter’s in the nearby company, bring me one alive, kill the rest. The great enemy attempts to hide the location of it’s servants from us, so we must dig them out slowly. Solitaire the Farseer saw something else, a presence in the desert that may be of use to us, go find it, find her, and bring her to me.’

He did not look at the man he ordered, which seemed strange, nor did the man respond, he simply vanished as if he had never been there. ‘The rest of us will head to the west, for one day. When you have completed your objectives we will meet you here…’ A map was pulled out, gained from orbital observations and a point was shown.

And then the Sixteen faded away, no trace of their passing remained.

Ormr dons a lazy smile, the chittering daemonic faces adorning his armour stretching in a disturbing mirror of the expression.
"Avoid? the God does not favour those who avoid conflict Captain. I think disposing of this 'Reaver' would be an excellent exculpation of your failures with Radel."
The Chaos lord cocks his head, rubbing his chin with index finger and middle, before waving lazily.
"Of course I understand that you may find this task onerous, so you may simply dispatch whomever you deem necessary for it. The glory in the eyes of your patron will be theirs of course, if you shy away from the risk. However, if you do go yourself, you may borrow Hrothgar."

The beserker looks up from his bloody ritual, alert to his master's bidding, but Ormr waves him back to his work before continuing to lecture Yare.
"Your 'reaver' aside, you bring welcome news. The God hungers and the sooner we can sate that hunger, the more exulted we shall find ourselves."

Ormr stares past the Captain for a moment, black eyes fathomless, brooding on hurts millenia old, before his smile returns.
"With that said, and with the tasks I have pressed upon you, the God speaks within me to urge a gift upon you."
He snaps his fingers, and an other of the hulking shapes of his bodyguard steps forward, this one seeming to rot on his feet, the hand that has not degenerated into a pincer holding a scabbarded scimitar, the pommel a snarling, horned beast-man that seems to writhe under the Nurgle-blessed warrior's hand as the decaying, greenish-white liche stumbles forward to present Yare with the weapon.
"This is for you, dear Captain. A token of the God's esteem, and a reminder of the price of failure. Do be careful with it now, won't you?"

Eyes watched the falling star, animal cunning nonetheless, sharp, narrow, predatory orbs of a thousand huge and hungry hunters that reflected starlight in the night, shining reflectors gazing out into the quiet stillness. In the deserts of the Mainland there lay creatures and titans of almost unimaginable prehistoric terror and power, all evolved in the same horrifically terrifying and lethal environment. Nothing wanders here that did not have to fight for survival a hundred times over and for life itself out in these abandoned, godforsaken lands, death sat in every crevice, behind every outcrop and dune, ready and waiting for their quarry to make the one final slip-up that would send it to the grave.

These were dead lands, lost to the world. So though the visitors were gone immediately to human observers, they were neither safe now nor indeed for their time here would they never truly be. All who came and trod the shifting sands here were prey in the end, to whom and to what being the only things for fate to decide.

The huntress stalked the watering hole, nuzzle sniffing the air with snorting nostrils, picking up the scents of half a dozen beasts lying in wait around the area, some seeking the water’s vitality, others waiting for such drinker’s momentary but inevitable lapses as the chance for a relatively easy meal. She counted herself among the latter, her huge half ton bulk moving along slowly around the dunes, careful to keep out of sight as long as possible, ears and peripheral vision trained to pick out anything that in turn was stalking her.

Cool evening breezes brushed against her flanks, slowly shifting sand whipping around her giant clawed feet, taloned hands too sinking into the soft dunes as she moved slowly along the crest of the rise, eyes finally coming to rest on her target, a giant megaprimatus, spines running along its back and sides, massive hands spread out as the creature drank heavily, its apelike face snorting near the water, ears pricked for predators. A big bull of a troll, as the humans called them, three tonner maybe, at least twenty foot upright and with arms as thick around as the huntress’s torso.

But he still represented by far the easiest meal there, for the other occupants left her with a choice of feral Wyverns, individually easy but they never travelled alone, indeed it was likely the five or six examples in her view now were merely the leads for a hundred strong pack, and further along the huge forty-ton Greyfoots were simply untouchable. Something slivered among the plants at the water’s edge too, a smaller basilisk perhaps, another danger that lurked, though far enough away from her and her quarry to safely ignore for the moment.

She began her run, massive spread out feet well suited for desert canters, picking up speed as she did her best to streamline her body, wings folded back against her sides, spine locking in a straight edge from her skull to the tip of her tail, turning her into a living battering ram. She charged forward ever more, hitting a speed that transferred to her momentum gave her the strength of a charging rhino, eating up the space between her and the troll with unnerving and unearthly speed.

The huge prey turned soon enough however, immediately shifting to face the new threat and, teetering on its small rear legs reared up to its full twenty foot height and bellowed, pounding its chest in an effort an intimidation. Intelligent enough to ignore such tactics, the huntress continued on, widening her huge and powerful jaws as she neared the mega primate, the beast dropped to all fours and counter charged.

With a huge heave she shifted her momentum slightly, allowing her to pass to the side of the fierce troll, her quarry roaring past and flailing at her with an outstretched hand, solid fingers missing her vulnerable wings by inches. She turned on the spot, bleeding her speed into the turn and then launching herself at the back of the creature before t could turn to face her again. She dipped her talons across the back of the beast’s legs driving deep and hard before launching her self up against the sharp shoulders as they turned about to bring the troll’s head against her. Her feet followed, but given her height they instead worked far more effectively, the sharp razor like claws digging down to the tendons and causing horrific damage to the suddenly greatly incapacitated beast, struggling to remain afoot now hamstrung, before she moved up the body, twisting and curling around the flaying hands of the troll.

The huntress manoeuvred back to back with the beast, the spikes along the back of the quarry ripping into her wings, but blinded and reeling her prey could do little as the huntress’s tail whipped and wrapped round one arm and her own massive forelimbs round around the other, twisting them both back against the impressive vice like movement of the creature’s massive biceps. Industrial sized forces compressed and contracted against each other, bones and muscles strained, painful beyond measure and yet to give in was to accept death itself. Yet the huntress knew how to draw upon strength, how to call upon all reserves not with anger but with cool practise, and with a grim countenance she pulled the limbs and with a sharp and satisfying crack the troll’s arms bent and snapped under the force of her catlike twist.

Now barely able to move without immense pain, her prey moaned and roared in agony as she moved against it again, lifting the troll’s hulk with a levered shift of her body, finally carrying the weight of the giant beast across her shoulders, its height allowing the broken arms and hamstringed legs to dangle futilely before she dropped her shoulders and the wings, curving and breaking the spine of the giant primate as it let out one last horrific, blood strangled roar.

The huntress let the soon-to-be-expired body roll to the floor, the last moans of life emanating from the toppling beast. But something else caught her eye even as the huge body slide off her shoulders. A light in the skin, almost discernable against the stars, only instinct telling her to watch it more closely. Giant eyes watched the falling star, drawing a line to the ground in the distance. Trespassers.

Prey.

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

Yare momentarily recoiled as the stench of decay reached her nostrils, natural reactions to the pestilence issuing forth, though quickly overcome and recovered without so much as a grimace. She took the blade in her hand, doing her best to show the reverence she felt for such a beautiful gift. She twirled the blade in her hand, feeling the power flow like a strange warmth across her body, the chorus of voices in her mind rising to a crescendo. She withdrew the blade from its scabbard, watching with sharp blue eyes as the hilt continued to writhe under her own gauntleted fist.

“It is beautiful my lord.” She ran a finger along the length of the inside curve, feeling the wickedly sharp and corrupted metal tear at her flesh, a line of red appearing along the underside of the sword and her hand despite the armour. “It will taste pain,… it will know the sweet flavour of torn flesh…it will in these hand so I swear place all who oppose us on the altars to the gods themselves.” She bowed again, nearly prostrate this time, exalted with both the magnificent weapon and the honour that it carried with it. She cried with near ecstatic glee again, voices rearing once more and anger flowing through every portion of her flesh and blood before she forced herself to regain control.

“Thank you.” Heavy breathing now as her mind ran over both her tasks and the offer of Hrothgar, the thought of the individual glory thought against rational expectations of what such a feat would require. Yare would after all to have any hope of succeeding, for even personal glory could take second place to the importance of their victory which would require the assured elimination of their potential discoverer.

“I will hunt her and kill her by my own hand, my lord. And I also accept Hrothgar’s presence if you permit it so. It would be useful to have someone of his…raw brutality…for such an objective, given what other beasts also inhabit these realms.” She cared little for the giant guard, and though she understood the call and thirst for war and death, for the same feelings ran in her own veins ever since she had come to learn the sacred truth, but her deep rooted training, her soldier and survival instincts thought of him more as a liability for such a plan as theirs. But to physically kill a Reaver with anything less than a mechanised monster would require a meat shield capable of lasting more than a heartbeat toe-to-toe, something that the Berserker could certainly be useful for. “If this is thou will, I shall take my leave. You shall have the blade and the skull of the Reaver upon my return.”

As with all things the Harlequins where a part of the dance, they had their parts to play and knew them well, from the Mimes to the great players, every actor in the troupe knew his part. The Great Harlequin the master of the dance, the Death Jester what it represented was obvious, the Shadow-Seer fate itself, and the Solitaire the great enemy; both in the form of She-Who-Thirsts and the larger form of the ruinous powers. The Solitaire travelled the web alone mostly, only gathering with the others for the most important of causes, the most vital of dances, both on the stage and here, against their ancient foe.

Condemned to a fate worse than death, he was cursed, and in that curse gained strength, what could terrify one who knew his fate was to be tormented for all eternity upon his death, and had accepted such a fate, shouldered such a burden already. This was why he had been selected to wander the desert alone, seeking a single jewel amongst the sands.

It would not be exactly an easy pilgrimage, an easy hunt many times over the coming days would he fight off lesser creatures, striking and retreating, his part in the dance was not to slay the hunters of this land, so he wouldn’t. His was merely to evade and find the secret aid.

*****

The Death Jester meanwhile and his Mon-Keigh aid made their way across the sands with a purpose, the first thing they would need to do would be to find the scum that had fallen to the whispers of the forces of disorder. For that purpose the Mon-Keigh would be used, she would watch the camp, watch as scout groups left and seek a cultist or two, once found they would strike.

It was going to be a long couple of days it seemed. So they set up and watched, for days on end, they followed clean scouts and memorised patrol routes, they selected ambush sites, and laid down mines, they noted patterns in the patrol with great interest. Twelve men teams in groups of four, each one covering the others to an extent and able to give supporting fire when something seemed off. It was all in all very impressive, which made their job harder.

Eventually through a dirty group left the camp, two of the twelve had the feel of the Ruinous powers, a slight darkness to them, with a nod Yuthura pointed to one, and then another.

With a shake at the first he was in the lead group watched by the other two far too closely, he selected the second. Then set himself and Yuthura up. The advantage of the Mono-Filament webbing mines was simple; he could set them off with a thought. Now he and Yuthura buried themselves in the sand and waited, for the Jester his suit provided air, and for Yuthura, her needs where vastly reduced by other means.

An hour passed, and still they waited, and then she felt them above her, first the lead group then the selected targets, with a slight twist of her powers she leapt out from under the sands, two power swords, one in each hand leading the way to swipe at the figures on either side of her, crackling bands of energy tearing into flesh and through armour as if it wasn’t there. As she rose the Jester made his first strike, not by appearing but by thinking, from all around the others the mines exploded. Webbing filled the air, slicing through flesh, uncoiling wherever it met exposed skin to bury itself within the target, and then liquefy the insides.

Then from half a meter to the left of Yuthura the Jester rose, grinning skull mask dripping with sand the first sight from this darkened figure to be revealed, followed by his body, covered again in bones, the sand falling off it slowly as he twirled towards the third in this group that was clean and let lose a single blast from his Shrieker cannon tearing towards the man. A horrid scream rippling through the air as the Shuriken fired, air holes throughout the round causing the sound.

The round itself was secondly, it was the compound within that did the damage, a tiny drug injected into a persons system that turned internal organs against the victim. Acid bubbled and churned, blood pumped faster and mixed with the Acid, the brain’s electrons fired randomly, and all the person felt was pain throughout their system until they exploded outwards covering the surrounding area with their blood and organs.

Not even bothering to see to the eventual fate of his victim he turned to their target and gave grim laugh ‘Mon-keigh surrender. You have trucked with the Ruinous, and it has led to this your fate.’

All this had taken but seconds and it was time for Yuthura to scan the field and respond to any that survived their initial strike.

*****

As for the others, they too walked the desert sands, and fought off the hunters, staying out of reach of claw and stinger. Dancing between foes and twirling with a singular grace, not to say it was an easy dance, it was not but the Mimes and the other players where not here to dance with the hunters. The Kiss struck out, powersword, and plasma pistol shined, and the Troupe ran.

Fight or flight.

For a human, civilian or military the sight and sounds of what occurred would have driven them to panic, hysterics maybe. The blunt shock of the attack, the silent slice of the blades through the titanium alloy plate, the gargled screams of his compatriots passed by in a blur, followed by the hideous but to the cultist almost beautiful sight of blood erupting from the round’s entry into his system, the massive bulk of the soldier hit contorting in agony and deathly roars, scarlet fluid oozing out through the gaps in the plating and dribbling onto the sand below. It was unearthly, inhuman. But then none of the players in this little game could truly be classed as a mere human in reality, though genetics or choice.

Which is why perhaps the expected panic didn’t quite set in as expected, the horror of the scene and the situation as life scans flashed in warning and then disappeared from the cultist’s HUD didn’t fully break him. Close, breathing up, eyes flaring, but something strong and core held firm against what he saw.

He was, after all, a ghoul, an Outbacker, a being to whom death even before his conversion was a constant companion, be it in the shape of a stalking figure of draining heat or in the sharp talons of the various desert dwelling titans. Shock and awe were things he knew from his life even before he donned a uniform, hell, the government and command he once pledged allegiance to got some sick thrill of nuking and orbital bombarding him and his companions on a fairly regular basis for the purposes of quite literally being prepared for anything.

His thoughts therefore remained clear, even if his attacker was an unknown to him. Legends of death prayed in his mind as the literal interpretation of the figure walked up to him and spoke, words short and threatening had they not arrived from what looked like a guy who had missed Halloween and invested too much in the costume to remove it. Had it not just reduced his comrades into blood-soaked piles of flesh he would have laughed.

His thoughts in the few spare seconds then turned to what he should do, instincts fighting with curious consciousness. This enemy recognised chaos, the secretive ruse suddenly blasted wide open. A warning then, but how. Then a mental smile, for it was so easy. The deaths themselves would trigger an emergency request, a one word trigger even if he didn’t meet the same fate just yet.

He did not have to do anything at all but whisper into the comm module.

Beneath the cracked visor the scarred and tattooed face could almost be made to smirk. And though he gave no response to the words of the approaching figure, he prayed a silent prayer and a hand wrapped around the helm of the cleaver beside him. Teeth along its chain jiggled as he stared at his opponent, the massive ghoul frame allowing him to stand almost eye to eye with the lithe figure of death. Surrender, to death in one form or another, wasn’t an option yet.

And through every local communications relay and command station, a warning flashed up across various monitors and displays, and into the powered armour of the huntress herself.

*********

Yare and Keonye moved back through the corridors and stairs they had descended earlier, the heavy footsteps of Hrothgar behind them echoing throughout. They passed out into wider halls, starlight visible now through cracks in the ruins and cool evening winds brushing through the night.

They walked quickly into what appeared to be a large equipment bay, where most of the heavy gear of the company and other cultists lay. Though mostly a light mechanised force, there was still a fair load of decent heavy weaponry, massive Behemoth battle suits, six metre tall, ten ton power armoured giants, dune buggies, some missile and gun artillery pieces, all redecorated and dedicated, some wheeled, heavily desert-modded APCs and row upon row of heavy duty personal anti-tank weaponry among other items and martial equipment. Technicians and Legionnaires alike milled round the huge machines, maintaining what was a limited resource for the expected future battles.

There were new arrivals too. The survivors of the Fifteenth, among others too, Desert Cadre scouts in lighter clothing and sporting huge rifles, and Space Marine Corpsmen (a phrase that elicited an interesting reaction from the Chaos champions until fully explained), heavily armoured and well equipped fighters sent to the surface to prepare for the upcoming exercises. All valuable additions, all powerful ghoul warriors who saw the light, all terrifying examples of the changes wrought upon once human genetics. Priests and chaplains scorched off the Olympia, and the soldiers themselves redecorated their armour in the patterns and insignia of their new masters, bedecked in trophies ripped from the desert and their unbelieving former comrades. The elite of the elite of the country’s troops, now dedicated to its destruction and resurrection under the auspices of their patrons.

Yare selected two from the newly-minted arrivals, old comrades who’s loyalty and determination she could be assured of, given the nature of their task. A lanky but tall Scout named Tyrell with a huge flamer tank on his back (flamethrowers never fully went out of style for an army who’s primary opponents were usually organic and could be relied upon to react instinctively against fire) and a smaller, stockier individual in the Fifteenth’s former colours named Adel, female but tall even for a ghoul of her gender and indeed only discernable as a woman at all through the thin curving of her heavy plate armour. Trusted troops in hand, Yare then sought her mount.

Wyverns were ubiquitous in the Outback, the one killer here that succumbed to domestication. Related to the Freestian vampires as humans were to the great apes, these beasts were well suited in pack numbers to survival. Bonding within packs to human riders was common, and a rancher or a soldier would have a single mount for their entire life despite the extended lifespan the ghouls enjoyed. Yare spotted her own, mutated with various gifts of the gods, talons tearing through the stone at its feet like paper. Other too showed signs of being blessed, additional horns and teeth and armour among others things sprouting along their bodies.

“We’ll take the gifted Wyverns, I don’t know how long we are going to have to search for this thing.” The beast beside her still recognised it’s mistress, and peered up through its blackened sets of eyes with recognition and the closest its twisted features could come to understanding. It knelt down awkwardly, ready to take its rider as she turned to the surrounding figures.

“Keonye, I wish for you to remain. I trust you not to do anything too stupid. Keep the Lord informed and appraised, and be alert too. I need no more Radels.” Keonye nodded. No words were needed. Fire leapt inside her again, her need for blood forcing brevity. She turned to her companions.

“Take your own, and Hrothgar, what do you wish for a mount?” Her hand glanced over the stable-area, across a variety of beasts both familiar and warp spawned.

OOC: I’m going to assume time wise that Yare’s bit happened a couple of days before the signal is sent out.

Approaching the man now cautiously the Harlequin paused a second to stare at the man gesturing to Yuthura she nodded a second before raising a hand towards the ‘prisoner’ lifting him from the ground with her ‘gifts’ and holding him there, as if a hand clutched at his throat, not enough to choke him, but enough to make movement difficult.

With this done the man strode forward removing his helmet now, to stare at the Ghoul eye to eye. Slowly he started to speak ‘Listen well Mon-Keigh, I am going to tell you a story, and then the three of us are going to go on a little trip together to meet some friends. When we get there, the Story will become a reality for you, so if you wish to know your fate, show wisdom here. I am, in the pitiful tongue of your people, known as a Death Jester. I serve as the face of death. To every Troupe there is a Death Jester, we train our replacement, serve as friend, Mentor, guide. When we die, our still cooling bodies are taken by our pupils, as I did to my mentor, and carefully, slowly, lovingly we slice away at the flesh, through the muscle, to the bones underneath. Then we remove each bone; carefully reassemble a complete copy of the skeletal structure of our friend. ‘ Pausing a second he gestured towards the bones adorning his armour and nodded, allowing the obvious suggestion to sink in. ‘The now empty body is re-sown together and buried. The process takes days, so as to disturb the body as little as possible. The care and time taken is remarkable, can I tell you something else… I am sure, I can perform this operation on the living, and keep them alive, well until I reach your skull anyway, imagine the agony through, as I remove a toe bone, or a finger bone, your rib cage, and so forth.’

Pausing he made as if to turn away, then stopped and smiled a moment longer. ‘Now picture this, amongst my friends, is the face of fate, to him is granted the ability to make the pain, the agony, and fear so much stronger, so much more forceful. He will raise you to heights of pain you have never known, are currently incapable of feeling. No Mon-Keigh will have ever felt more pain that I promise you. That is your fate, oh servant of the ruinous powers.’

With that said Yuthura tightened the grip on the ghouls throat a little more, tightened it and began to deny oxygen to lungs, a carefully controlled action the goal being of course to render unconscious without killing. Then slinging him over his shoulder the Jester and the alien ran fast ran to meet the others.

Eventually he would be stripped of his armour and clothing of course, and the communications gear lost amongst the rest of the gear; it gave a brief guide as to the direction the three had gone. Yet it would be a journey of a few days before they reached their destination, days in which the Ghoul was left to think on his fate, and fed carefully manipulated meals, filled with Hallucinogenic drugs, all to prepare and soften the Ghoul for what was to come.

Hrothgar grins his empty-eyed grin, staring at nothing for a long moment before he speaks.
For such a huge man his voice is oddly faint, as though coming from impossibly far away, rusty with disuse and ragged with screamed chants at the same time.
"I...will call...her...yes. Bound she...is...come...she...must."
He smiles strangely, triumph flickering across his face pursued by mad grief, wiped away into his usual blank snarl as quickly as the emotions had appeared, the beserker raises his fingers to his mouth and whistles, looking for all the world like a man calling his dog.
In response a huge cat ripples into being, ink black with vivid, crimson stripes along its' massive sides.
It snarls at Hrothgar, shimmering into the form of a filthy, crouching woman, then back into the cat, lashing out at the Khornate champion, paw jerking back just before it can connect.
Hrothgar laughs, an incongruously cheerful sound and he grips the great cat by the loose skin behind its' broad skull and stares into the hot red glare of its' glowing eyes, smiling widely at it, not his manic grin of earlier, but a genuine, sane happiness.
"Bella...yes...how I have...missed...you. So long...so long."
His grin fades and he looks over his shoulder to the two ghouls.
"Remember...this. What is given...can be taken away. What is...done...can be undone...all that matters...is the will."
Hrothgar swings himself onto the vast cat's back, and it/she snarls with a sound like wood tearing.
"Let us...ride."

The Ghoul hadn’t expected, not surprisingly, what was about to happen, and gurgled and gasped in shock as hands seemed to form in the air without sight or sound and lifted him up, his own limbs flailing uselessly as they forget the blade and tried to wrap around the not-existent fingers strangling him. He snorted and writhed, only calming as the figured neared and began to speak with him.

The words were smooth and deadly, but their effect seemed strangely tranquil even as the horror of the tale unfolded in its conclusion. The ghoul merely stared back now, only reacting as the grip tightened once more, his mouth forming silent words, indistinguishable as either prayer or a curse before he slowly drifted off into unconsciousness, his massive limbs and armour useless and deadweight now. But within his shattered helmet, the silent beacon still emitted, its data transmitting in encrypted bursts to everything that could hear it.

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

Yare, Hrothgar and their two companions rode quickly, the usual limitations placed on travelling by day ignored as their skinsuits and armour prevented too much in the way of dehydration or heat exhaustion, and undoubtedly the Gods favoured them with supernatural speed as they raced across the dunes, the menacing air protruding around and effectively driving the simple-minded giants around them away from their mounts, charging forward without pause or respite for many hours at a time.

Few words were exchanged since Hrothgar’s warning, Yare having the sense not to enquire about the possession, their Lord’s own words regarding the sword that now sat neatly upon the saddle echoing in her mind as to the price of failure. She had mused on plans, her mind running over every strategy she knew and had developed that could be applied with any chance of success.

Two days on the northern march, taken at a canter had left them, from the suddenly halting and sniffing Wyverns beneath them, at the original location or at least the path of the Reaver, the beasts growling as their noses followed the faint trail. Shifting sands had covered up whatever tracks had been left, but the wyverns, enhanced even beyond their former formidable selves, snarled almost triumphantly as they caught the trail, just as the warning of the beacon filtered through.

The signal appeared in the HUD of their desert masks, green flashing highlights over some unseen patch of desert hundreds of miles to the south.

“Our friend?” Muttered Tyrell, fingering his flamer as his nervousness showed, as if expecting the great beast they hunted to suddenly leap out of the rocks and dunes surrounding them.

“Too far south, doubt even she would be able to make that distance. That said…” She flicked through some of the background comm traffic, automatic signals that indicated the locations and status and forces of nearby (a relative term that encompassed everything within a thousand miles of them, which quite frankly amounted to less than ten thousand living souls at this point in time). “No… team got spooked, badly given it’s a total failsafe call. Don’t think we have raiders though, not for a clean kill like that.”

“Bandits got lucky?” Tyrell offered, more fierce and angry this time, his rage amplified by the whisperings that followed them. Vengeance for fallen comrades had driven Ghouls to some pretty horrific acts in the past. Crucified, mutilated Midlonian corpses still turned up and had to be hidden from wars a century in the past.

“No, not the Sixteenth,..." A flash of rage caused an audiable gasp before she continued, in a lower growl, "we have allies in there, our brothers. That beacon, I guess, is where our Reaver was heading too.” The wyverns seemed to support her assertion, their noses and growls pointing a path straight to the highlighted site, though that meant little in theory over such a distance. “A complication, maybe.” She leaned back over her shoulder to peer at Hrothgar. “Something else is here, is it possible something could have found us from beyond this land?”

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

The Reaver slammed her huge footpads into the ground, the hydraulics and pseudo-muscle of the armour straining as it compensated for the shifting momentum as she ground to a sudden and impressive halt, sand flying up around her into a whirlwind that hid her from view for a few moments from the desert eyes.

She removed the helm, a small grunt of agony as nerve clusters were released by the suits interface injectors, her own opal eyes now scanning the horizon as the signal filtered through from the emergency beacon. Three tons of power armoured reptilian titan reoriented to the direction of the beacon, south towards the site of the massacre, before reattaching the geared helmet and racing off once more.

OOC: Basically we’re now at the point an hour after the patrol was ambushed, just making sure everything is synched again. Yare has found the trail of the Reaver and is now heading south, though is still probably a couple of hundred miles north of the Reaver and maybe three hundred or so north-north-east of where the ambush took place. Fun times had by all.

Hrothgar stares back for a long moment, absently booting his cat back to stillness when it hops as his grip on the reins loosens.
"There are...some. The Warp shares its' bounty with...all."
A metal gauntleted fist drops from the reins to stroke one of the skulls at his belt. A close examination would reveal the shape of it to belong to no human who ever drew breath, the elongated shape clearly Eldar to anyone who'd recognise it.
"The Eldar could...discern us. Their witches see...much. Much that has...passed, much that happens now and much that could...yes."
He stares to the south, chewing his beard in thought.
"If...it is them, come to battle us...then it will be their...dancers. Graceful and deadly, but...few. Worthy prey for the God...dangerous as the best prey is."
The beserker grins.
"Not that...the God...cares. But hunt them we...should."

They moved silently onwards now, in time they would pass, but not see the Solitaire, he sat in silence and in darkness, unmoving alone as was his fate, silent now, awaiting the time. Some would suggest sending a being who was unable to speak, unable, by his own choice, to let a word slip from his lips a strange move, yet Iyannas directions where quite specific, it would have to be the silent Solitaire for the meeting was not one that would require words, but a person capable of surviving long enough.

So he waited at the point, waited for the time that he had been given, by his side lay a single flare, something to draw attention to his position, when the time came he would light it, and reveal himself.

****Back at the camp***

At last the death jester and the Mon-keigh arrived back, arrived with their cargo, by now he had likely consumed much of the drugs added to his food, the cocktail spreading round his system feeding each other, and playing on the images spoken about before, for days the Jester had been silent, now another came to join him, speaking lowly with the Jester and on occasion casting a glance over at the Ghoul, and smiling a moment.

Now the newcomer approached the Ghoul and sat before him, for a while all was silence then he spoke, the voice low, and seemingly coming from all around. A voice in the wind, if destiny had a voice this would be it. ‘I am the face of fate, and of doom for the two are the same, to my people, the same word stands for both. For you this is as already said a literal truth. Shall I tell you then of your fate, not the one my friend spoke of, but the one that awaits you in the next world. If you are lucky, nothing awaits you, your races souls, like that of the humans, is weak, it is likely you will fade away into nothing, not strong enough to sustain your consciousness. That’s if you are lucky, unlucky and you have failed the ruinous powers, you have failed whichever of the four powers you have been led into worship of, failed them utterly. Your fate if they get a hold of you, will make the loss of your skeletal structure seem mild, I could almost pity you,’

Shrugging as if it where no matter ‘Your mind is weak you know, I can almost see the truth I seek, the simple name, and the location of who led you into this dance. You should hate them I feel, they did this to you, better you where like those you betrayed, and left for dead back there in the desert. Better to be dead than what awaits you now.’

Pausing a moment he smiled, ‘Ahh there I am in I think, yes, here the place where fear is born, can you feel it, terror simple terror instinctive all races have it, it resides in everything. Here pleasure is born and nurtured, you don’t need that, let me cut it away, you’ll find no pleasure awaits you now, now joy either.’ It was the psychic equivalent of a surgeon’s knife as he slashed away, blocking and removing what he spoke of.

‘Hope hmm hope is a tricky thing, should I leave you it, the hope for survival, the hope for rescue, or should I slice away, would you like to die, bereft of hope, would knowing down to the very fibre of your being that you have no chance, make you fight harder or surrender faster, each is different in this regard, I leave you hope for now, am I not kind?’

He paused awaiting a response, and then went on some things he left, some he removed, emotions where striped away, some where hard to find, love, respect, buried deep, but still he searched and cut, and blocked. Then he spoke again. ‘Now to render the final touch as promised by my companion, pain, here it lies, pain, you have so much now freed from other uses, let us tie it all in, let the mind that has been saved from worrying about the good things in life, turn towards the feeling of pain, hmm I think that fitting, you have no honour now, only pain, you have no desire now, only pain. Ahh you are ready, let the cutting begin.’

Standing the Seer walked away and the Jester returned blade already out ‘It is time, shall we see what your toe bones are like Mon-Keigh, or would you prefer to start elsewhere?’

“Great…” Yare let out an exasperated sigh. “The pointy eared bedwetter brigade is upon us.” Flashes of anger, and something deep within her roared in her mind, whether in agreement or anger at her attitude. “Assuming it is them, of course, but no matter. Two great sacrifices are better than one, after all. Still…”

She flicked a switch within her helmet, flip down menus appearing and disappearing on the HUD as her eyes followed one option after another, finally settling on a commlink back to the base of the Twelfth. More problems perhaps, but even in the haze of anguish that now seemed a constant companion she knew she was going to need something…more…if the huge Marine’s prediction was correct.

Twelve seconds later, Keonye’s voice crackled over the link, weak in the distance that separated the parties, but clear enough for the battle-speak to make itself heard.

“Greyfoot responding, all as the day.”

“Excellent Sergeant. Greyfoot seeks betrothal of the twining plea.”

“Twinning’s plea confirmed, localty plotted. Legion carries weight?”

“Negative, betroth the sun delivery and the fist of Lamarro. Engage with peer.”

“Confirmed. Extremities, Nephilim, pattern unknown, party beyond, bear witness.” A sigh on both ends.

“Betroth witness?”

“All as the day. Good luck Sergeant.” Yare shut the link with no further words and turned to her companions. “Our work is still at hand. Move!” A swift kick to the mount beneath her and they head south, days of travel to cover the distance and yet once again none of them tired nor stopped from the march. It soon became clear that they were heading back to their own patrol grounds…

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

The ghoul saw only little of the journey through his hallucinating vision, mind weakened as the Eldar intended and not helped either by the remaining chaos shadows nor the debilitating effects of the desert environment. What factor played the most part he did not know, and even thoughts and memories he held dear did not seem to survive till his rest at the camp of the Eldar.

The tale of torture had done little scare to scare him, the nameless now, his rank he had held onto more than whatever syllables his parents had selected for him. Freeman, freeman, brother, free… the thoughts were all now jumbled and unsightly, images of horror flickered with the shadows of stalking beasts and the figure of the Eldar hauling him with unearthly ease across the sands.

The arrival of the seer and the sight of the camp had been unsettling to every part of his being, the voices whispering in the background suddenly flaring and screaming in his mind. He let out a scream, though not perhaps at the sight of his captors than at the flailing madness in his mind.

The ghoul settled slightly as the Seer toward over him, the assault on his mind at first clearing the confusion with his force, only to descend into torment again at the Eldar’s psychic assault. Bits of him, his mind, his few emotional crutches seemed to fall away in line with the Eldar’s soft taunts, the grizzled mind still stinging at the losses it incurred.

But the Eldar forget one small detail. That in all their arrongance, all their self-belief they forgot that for all the similarities between them ghouls were not and never were humans, and in the vniroment and heritage they had inherited far more basic and tougher things ruled them than the fleeting emotional highs that humans enjoyed. Nihilistic to a fault, dedicated beyond anything, all individuality stripped away in the horrific training and bloody rituals that defined their breed the Eldar left the one single thing intact for him to rely on. His hate.

“Failed them…failed them…” He went silent for a moment, looking up at the shadowed figure of the Jester. “Oh, oh dear, I’m sorry to say…” The little bit of hope left flared wildly. “No, I haven’t failed them, you stupid bastards. Ha! All sacrifices of blood go to him, all acts of their servants go rewarded. Oh I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams…” His words descended into maniacal laughter, followed by a horrible slicing noise as his sanity finally slipped.

It soon became obvious what he had done. Ignoring the reality of what would occur he pulled at his bounds with all his might. An order of magnitude stronger than a human the outer restraints had buckled quickly only for the monofilament within to slice through the escaping flesh and bone. Soft thumps and a sickly squirting sound told the rest.

He rose up, blood spraying from where his hands and feet no longer were. The look on his face bore no emotion, just bloodied scars and fanged jaws screeching in an adrenaline charged mix of agony and absolute blood fuelled anger as he fell forward on his knees. Fangs jutted out from the scared face, bloodlust and desperation mixing together to expel any sane or scared thought from his mind. He moved forward, awkwardly slow, trying to impale the Jester with the shattered remains of his forearms, the white bones glistening .

But he couldn’t do more than spray the towering figure with droplets of blood before the flash of light that skewered his own body with incomprehensible speed. He opened his mouth in one last cry as feeling left his mind, but no sound came out as the top half of his torso slide away and fell into the sand next to the rest of his body.

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

The Reaver moved without pause again, no sleep now for three days on end her body still glided on balanced and fleet foot, moving as fast as a running horse without the slightest hint of a break in stride or even the smallest sign of exhaustion.

Then she saw it. The flare could have been deliberate, it could have been a sloppy mistake. It did not matter in the slightest.

The camp was small, a single figure stood sentinel, indeed, seemed to be alone. Foolish. But the solitude of the trespasser seemed almost unnerving, the small camp a little island of calm in the chaotic desert around.

She stalked silently in the truest sense of the word, little desert vermin squealing as padded toes squashed them into the sand without warning, no sight in the dark, heat vented through her suit, no sound, nothing to give her away, a millennia of hunting in the most unforgiving terrain imaginable had made her a hunter of terrifying skill and composure. Hawkish blue eyes traced the environs and experience and need picked the best route forward.

The Eldar, barring some fluke of technology would have only know the arrival of his opponent with the sound of a swooping bird several yards away on the other side of the clearing. A giant black shape appearing from the night sky, discernible only by the shadow it cast over the stars. Then it landed, unfurled like a great bat-like horror, and then drew its blade.

Folded moonstone gems blazed like trapped suns along its length, casting the metallic, split blade in almost blinding white light as it left its sheaf in the right hand of the titan, its length and weight equal to the body of the watching host. Perfect down to the molecular level and priceless in the skill that forged it even the presence of the blade in the open warmed the air around it and sent out a fiery echo of the vampire’s own emotions into the minds of every nearby living thing.

The Reaver rose to her full height in the light of the drawn blade, her massive, armour clad body raising to its full, three times the height of a man, twenty foot of steeled reptilian killing machine. Soft flickers of black scaled skin and horrific diamond hard talons and teeth peeked through the few gaps in the heavy plate, monofibre mesh and carbonate panels stacked upon the alloyed base. The orange glow of the flare flicked across the slowly rising chest and shoulders, and reflected in the dull metallic gleam of the reflective wings, themselves stretching the width of the clearing with little effort.

To have stood instead of ran would have been insanity for a human, but the Eldar before merely stared up, its expression unreadable behind its mask, the silent motion of its lithe body reacting as if he had expected her all along.

At the man’s method of death the collected troupe merely sighed ‘Khornites, fools and savages, we got all that could be gained from such creatures.’ the others merely nodded, at then moved what remained of the corpse away. Content at least to know the particular shade of the taint. In a way it made sense, but didn’t, this was subtle, yes the corrupting of martial might and strength was an ideal ploy of Khorne, but to lay low, to work with such care, rare was the Khornite with that patience, most often the plots of such where, rage kill and burn. This through was slow patient and methodical, almost Tzeenchian in it’s timing.

A larger plot was in play here, other actors involved. For now through they had other concerns, such as where to go now for the information they needed, for if this was typical of the tainted, gaining what they sought would be hard.

****Elsewhere in the desert***

It was a dance then, the Reaver was a foe not to be underestimated, the Solitaire did not even pause, his plan was simple, and his reason for being there obvious. No one else in the gifted troupe could do what he had to do, not win the fight but survive a prolonged fight against such a creature, and direct it to the others. In truth he was unsure if he could have beaten the Reaver, he estimated if he was fighting to win, it would be close, a lucky blow would decide the entire fight, but freed from trying to win he felt confident he could keep it in motion. Backing away when the time was right, using his own formidable agility and training, mixed with the benefits of technology to keep himself in motion.

He would twist and turn, and duck and strike back long enough to buy the space needed to leap, and like Falcon he would lead this warrior to the others, he would lead ‘her’ to the battle.

The Reaver had expected it to be over in seconds.

That the trespasser still stood, cool and calm, its weapon drawn, its masked face neither broken nor bowed, defied everything in her experience. She had torn tanks to shreds with less time and energy…

That which opposed her should be dead. And the time it took her to comprehend this would have let the attacker land their own blow save for their refusal to strike for the briefest moment.

She engaged again, massive muscles, backed by the hydraulics of the armoured suit she wore driving the moonstone blade through the surrounding stone like a hot knife through butter.

But she never came close enough. Impossibly fast blows cascaded sparks across the clearing, her opponent letting her expend her energy even as it darted forward, scraping and scratching but never seemingly aiming to kill. The clash drove into the minutes and the hours, and still they fought.

The it flipped, disengaged, and moved, retreating back into the night as faint wisps of cloud temporarily halted the Luna rays.

She stood, towering, sniffing and listening to the still sounds of the blackness that had enveloped them. The faintest footsteps disappeared in the distance.

And she followed.

*********

The next day

Whilst the Reaver strode across the desert in pursuit Yare and her companions followed on her trail, unsure still of the distances between them. Fury over came patience, and she nearly wasted herself against some of the closing beasts that let curiosity overrule their terror of the chaotic.

The Wyverns were panting now, but gave no heed seemingly to their exhaustion as they marched on, heavy footfalls leaving scarred and mutated footprints in the golden sands. The landscape changed slowly once more back into the semi-arid rocky foothills of the southern Carassians. Massive white capped peaks loomed on the southern horizon. But their prey was closer, and indeed the stronger trail breathed new life into the hunt as they sped south through the desert. But the anger of a god’s thirst for blood kept rising, creeping more and more into their minds, and only through a blessing of monumental proportions did they keep it from overtaking them.

The Freethinker Outback can claim to be the most desolate and uninhabited place on earth bar the sea beds, and with good reason for this aversion. Still, the vast tracks of lightly patrolled and unclaimed land presented a target for some…

Freethinker civil wars and ‘domestic incidents’ were frequently conducted and fought unseen and unreported out here in the desert. Large bands of pirates, pissed off anarchists, communists and other extremists and foreign dissidents frequently took up shop out here, often going undiscovered for years before they were picked up by a passing patrol. Some were wiped out immediately, others quietly disappearing in nuclear and orbital exercises, and others still watched and allowed to grow to give recruit formations something to shoot at during the latter stages of training.

None survived, therefore, for very long. But still they came.

Unfortunately for them.

The small group passed through the charred remains of a ‘whaling station’, a compound of buildings where up until the cult had raided and reduced it to a fragmentary shell had been the final resting place of dragged down Greyfoots, their meat, skin and bones separated and processed into various goods and materials. Dragon meat for domestic and foreign markets, bones for ivory purposes, and hundreds of other useful little things would originate out here. Not any more though. Yare groaned annoyed at the rapid change in the Reaver’s course, and hoped cutting off the corner so to speak would let them catch up. It wasn’t the best idea, dragging the Wyverns off the direct trail, but time was more of the essence, and the anger in her veins remained unabated and the voices grew now to the point of distraction.

A dull crack exploded the early morning silence, pinging off the pauldrons of Yare’s body armour, causing her not to react with panic or even calm but to let out a bloody roar as she swung the Wyvern to the direction of the shot. From behind the sheds and burnt out portacabins grey cloaked figures emerged, clutching rifles and shotguns, maybe three dozen or so in a rough semicircle around them.

“Surrender! In the name of the Questerian Communist Republic!” Yelled the most prominent figure, face barely visible in the mixed costume of desert robes and poorly chosen army fatigues. “Leave thi…” His head exploded spectacularly as a 20mm round blasted through his face from Adel’s rifle. Yare’s response even as bullets pinged the air around her was a terrifying bestial roar, drawing both her blades, one on each sides, and without any conscious command her mount charged forward.

“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!” She yelled, decapitating the nearest foreigner with a swipe of the daemon blade. They would learn.

Hrothgar just moves.
A red blur scythes into the Questarians, explosions of gore burst into the sand-filled air, shattered corpses exploding away from the hideous power the Khornate Champion is invested with.
The half-moon blades of his axe leave a trail of blood sizzling on the air with each swing, silver runes on the bronze head beginning to pulse with a red light as the bezerker hacks his way through the unfortunate infantry man, incoherent howls interspersed with throat-tearing screams of his patron's name.
"Khorne! Khorne! KHORNE!"

Splitting one man in two from crown to foot with a blow that spatters gore in a twenty foot radius, he flicks the spiked ball on a chain that fills the hand not occupied with a (now howling) daemon-axe, punching neatly through an other Questarian's torso, whirling the unfortunate corpse around as a hideous bludgeon to free up a circle around himself.
As quickly as he'd butchered the circle clear, a flick of the wrist and the corpse pinwheels free, the axe is released to hang in the air under its own power and the beserker snatches a plasma pistol from his belt, snapping off a quick trio of shots, the incandescent red ball of its blasts rupturing torsos in a gouts of steaming blood.
With the third shot the over-heated pistol emits a keening whine and is thrown, still smoking, into the face of an other soldier, who screams and clutches his face where the white-hot barrel has charred to the bone, oblivious to the re-claimed axe sweeping through his midriff.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! KHORNE! KHORNE!"
The final bellow of 'Khorne!' is followed by smashing his axe through the up-flung rifle of a screaming infantryman, the massive weapon blasting gore in all directions, drenching Hrothgar a ruddy crimson, the stinking scent of burning blood trailing in the air behind him as he rages and ravages through the most unfortunate Questarians in the world, a huge, striding, screaming crimson-daubed giant, ignoring the gunfire pinging off his armour as completely as he ignores the bullets thudding into his naked arms.
This is what it is to be a true Beserker of Khorne, to find rapture in, and only in, the slaughter of the foe, and it's a terrifying sight, as much an argument against as for his patron.
But Hrothgar doesn't care. Killing is his joy, his nirvana, his one and only business.
And business...is good.

The dance moved onwards throughout the night and into the new day, eventually even the Solitaire began to tire, being in the end simply a man, and not the beast that the Reaver was, at this point he might have fallen but.. It was done. To the senses of the great beast the unmistakable scent of the freshly dead and left to rot Ghoul filled the air, as the Solitaire at last stopped, and bowed to the Reaver before other shapes emerged from around the creature.

At last one of them spoke. ‘You have the strength it seems to play the part given to you, but have you the wits? I question this but, there are times when even the Keigh must look to the inferior for aid, and in turn aid them.’ The man who spoke was of course the Great Harlequin, his mask twisted in a grimace of disdain. A, to anyone else horrific image of distorted flesh played across it, before it relaxed into a neutral image of the half shadowed face.

‘Know then Mon-Keigh why we are here, your people have become diseased, and we have come to cut it out, a cancer grows amongst your defenders, one that turns them into a threat greater than any other in this land, one that will destroy you. You rage against the killings we performed, know they might have saved your people.’

Bowing now himself he shrugged a little. ‘As I said and now your test, you have the strength now for the wits. Will you surrender to your rage and fight us, or will you listen?’

Yare stood back, letting the last, still trembling body of the woeful Questerian militiaman slide off her demon blade with a snarled, pleasure look on her face. She drew the blade back, tasting the blood, ghoul or chaotic side fighting for which enjoyed the impromptu feeding more. She licked the blade, the scarred metal twisting and cutting her tongue, adding to the feast, the characters in its helm echoing the almost orgasmic cries of its wielder.

She stopped, and withdrew, almost in disgust, the voices being pushed back for the moment by a surge of will that gasped and won for the moment as something caught her attention. The corpses. The ghoul stopped, sniffed, moved on, slowly blackening eyes moving from body to body, or what was left in the wake of Hrothgar’s little dalliance. Dull screams and roars in the distance belied the armoured giant finding himself some new playthings for the moment. The she heard.

The figure should have been dead, lying broken and blooded beneath the head and armless torso of his comrade. Freed with a swipe, Yare lifted the battered figure up with a hand, almost viewing the body like dirt. The figure whimpered, the one eye not swollen by bruising blinked up helplessly at her.

Her hand drifted over his uniform, tugging at the dirtied, bloodied fabric, then tugging at the armour, its design. She moved her head up to his face.

“Where did you get these?”

*********

“Nephilim.” She whispered, or growled in the light, surrounded, combat instincts flared, abetted by training. She reared, making herself massive, wings spreading to the point where the shadows reached the feet of her opponents. She drew the blade again, crouching, readying the muscles to spring.

But she knew, if one was her equal, a group would be her downfall. She kept in the defensive as the words washed over her, concentrating both on the speech and the figures themselves. The wafting of a corpses caused her to renew her posture, and she espied the broken body of the ghoul in front of her.

She roared, and stamped her feet as a first response, nearly charging as her sense of honour commanded. But she answered first.

“Listen well you elven scum. You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn’t call in the entire goddamn army on your position right now. I see the corpses of my comrade, the trespass of dainty feet in lands you hold no claim on and no permission to enter. Answer me wretches, or face strength and power unimaginable as I render your pitiful weak forms asunder.”

The response of the Harlequin is unusual, laughter bubbles up from within him, followed by a slow handclap. ‘Thirty seconds you say, hmm Mon-Keigh, well I would hate to waste such a chance.’ Despite his words he seemed to lapse into silence for a second or two then lowers his head. ‘First we are Harlequins, the dancers of fate, the servants of the Laughing god, we go where we wish, we do not seek permission, we do not require permission. Where a Harlequin wishes to walk he walks, where we wish to dance… we dance.’ Leaping backwards into a shadowed outcropping the man seemed to vanish his voice fading into the night, only to picked up from elsewhere a moment later, far away from where he vanished. A second figure stepped into view, seemingly identical to the man in every aspect of his appearance.

‘So the better question is why have we chosen to pick up the dance here? This we have already answered, because you are sick, treachery grows amongst your army, it grows stronger and will soon erupt in carnage and death, and then…’ Again the new figure stepped back and seamlessly a new voice or perhaps the same picked up the conversation from a third point.

‘You will find yourselves overwhelmed; when Brother turns on Brother who shall you trust? When the hidden cult emerges and your lands run red with blood who will you turn to?’ Sighing for a moment, the man seemed to perch and his features turned dark a cowl seemed to appear from nowhere and for a second he took on the look of the traditional image of death… ‘When your lands are overran by civil war, those that asked us to come here will have no choice, they will come themselves and with them, they will bring ancient weapons, secret terrors from before your race walked this world, and they will turn it upon this land, wiping it clear of all life, before that time then we offer you a chance to get your house in order.’

The Syren stared. Well, not so much visibly distinguishable given her helmeted encased head, but her posture awkwardly shifts, a ton of metal and flesh squealing as the weight shifted as her gaze travelled across the crowd.

“You have got to be shitting me…” She whispered, to no one in particular, though the acute senses of her opponents could probably pick it up. Her grip tightened on her weapons, the Moonstone reflecting her will, silent orange and red flames seeming to cascade along the blade, illuminating along with the full moon the scene around her in odd, flickering waves of yellow light.

“How dare you…” She finally spoke, clear, the voice a roar, only the vaguest hint of femininity, “you claim to be preventing war yet in the same breathe threaten my kin and brethren. Either your subtlety or your intelligence is vastly overstated, Nephilim.” She clutched the blade closer. “Your chance, is gone.” Her hand flicked back, activating a communication grid that chimed across the silent scene.

But no words ascended from her throat as her nostrils flared. The vaguest scent of something new, something foul descended upon them. She stopped, halted, movement suddenly reducing to smallest shift of her magnificent head as she focussed on the scent, Familiar, but foul…from the fallen corpse.

But it was smell alone that worried her.

“Chaos…” She whispered, with realisation. She turned up sharply. “Where? How? Who? On who’s orders are you here?” She asked, angry still, though less pointedly at them. She still sat ready, mind, sword the length of the Eldar standing and a half still ready in her claw.

“Answer me!”

Ormr stirs a long fingernail through the ruby surface of his wine, a happy sigh emerging from stained-red lips as the Eldar and Syren dance upon it, their speech muted but audible enough to the Chaos lord's enhanced hearing for him to smile at the content.
"Ahhh. Just as planned."
He takes a draught of the wine, savouring the flavours sparkling across senses tweaked to a fevered pitch of emotion, before lowering the goblet to swirl it around as plots, plans and machinations flicker through his brain as fast as chemistry can make them.

A decision is reached and Ormr reaches up to stroke at the badge wrought into his armour, that of his first and most generous patron, long fingers caressing the blasphemous rune that indicated loyalty to the Lord of Excess, a lord who thirsted for Eldar souls above all others, a lord who would well reward a follower who presented him with such.
He straightens on his throne-like chair, and directs a thought, summoning a follower who's form is even more blessed than his own, a face of surpassing beauty above armour of green jade, crowned with red-gold hair, the Champion floats above the ground, surrounded by a shimmering halo of power, bare-foot, cloaked with black and bearing no weapon save talon-like fingernails.

"Master?"
Even his voice is angelic, a soothing, humming baritone that seems to shimmer on the air as he speaks.
Ormr smiles upon him, and flicks a finger, lifting the scryed image from his wine-cup to hang in the air before the champion.
"The Dying Ones have come to interfere in our Lords' work. They must be...dissuaded from this..Path, a task which Yare and Hrothgar may suffice for, but the Ghoul also goes to battle one of the locals and I do not care to risk the Gods' favour should she fail before bringing the Prince of Pleasure the Eldars' souls, therefore..."

A gesture of dismissal and the wine-cloud dissipates.
"You must begin suitable measures to ensure that those elements who would suit usage here are ready to do so. Take as many of the locals as you need, but I want a suitably potent tool to be to hand if I need it. Do you understand what I mean?"
The Slannesh Champion nods, smiling a warm and beautiful smile that displays even, bright, white teeth.
"Yes lord. It shall be as the Dark Gods will."
And he licks his lips with a forked tongue, flickering like a snake's.
"Yes..as they will."

The man stared at the Reaver for a second and tilted his head at the question. ‘Orders, I come on no ones orders, I come on the request of Seers who begged a boon, and I granted it. I have but one Master, the Laughing God. I am here because this foe is our foe, has been our foe from before you where born and will be it long after you are dust.’ Stopping for only a second he tilted his head into the shadows and laughed a moment.

‘Ahh your pardons one moment, we are not alone another watches. You should not have been so bold watcher, this is not a trick of the Khornites, and so now we know your true face.’ With a nod to back into the Shadows another stepped forward turned his face upwards a sneer of disdain for the Mon-keigh attempts to watch them as he reached out with his powers. The effect would leave the watching Ormr with nothing more harmful than a headache for an hour or so still, to watch it might seem quite violent as the man was thrown back from his goblet.

The great Harlequin waited a few seconds longer before picking back up from where he had stopped. Picking back up the flow as if it he never stopped.

‘Still the posturing could go on for days I am sure, you threaten me, I threaten you, you demand answers from me, and I speak in riddles. Unfortunately we have not the time for such games. The way things are done shall have wait, then let us explain then. You have tasted the corruption in the air, the ancient foe, the darkness in the hearts of all beings. They watch and wait, revealing which of the faces are best suited to the task. I suspect the majority of those corrupted have turned to the face of Murder, piling Skulls upon his throne, but other more subtle agents will lie behind it all.’

Underneath his mask the Harlequin suddenly grinned ‘One last thing, name us true, we are not Elves nor Nephilim, nor any other word you may have for us, we are Keigh use the word call us elf again and you show ignorance.’ Laughing under his breath ‘it seems the posturing may not yet be done.’

Yare peered through the binoculars against the horizon, though little was distinguishable in the harsh desert light. Adel, grunting in the heat, did a similar sweep with the scope of his rifle. Behind them Tyrell tore through the carcass of a adolescent protodraconi with his cleaver, eating the flesh raw. Hrothgar meanwhile did his thing, somewhere, as usual accompanied by gibberish screaming as he proceeded to poke some of the native wildlife with his chain axe. Though her rage swelled anew at his thirst for martial violence, Yare did her best to try and remain level headed through her reddening sight, voices growing louder and louder constantly. Honestly she couldn’t care less if the giant Marine won or lost against the three ton coiling serpent that was circling him.

But the Questerian’s answer, such as it was before she had ripped his heart out through his skull (never bet a ghoul not to be able to prove their boast), had given her a thought, an important one, one which she knew if correct would win her no faint reward.

The armour (though not the guns, given any human who attempted to fire a gun with recoil design for ghoul muscle mass general only made the mistake once in a bloody fashion) had apparently been stolen from an out of the way armoury. Very out of the way, given even the nearest paved road was over five hundred miles away to the West. She knew of them, massive, remote dumps designed to provide supplies to resistance and field armies of the Commonwealth to help resist invasion. The locations of some but not all were known to the various different forces that called the country home, both by accident (there were, all told seventeen ground combat forces and regiments under the nominal command of the government, mostly competing) and deliberate (capture of senior officers with such knowledge was a concern given the importance of the Freestian strategic focus on localised and guerrilla warfare). And the Questerians had lucked out on finding one.

In particular, a Royal Army one, the proudest and best equipped of them.

And rumour had it there were more than guns and armour there. The Syren could wait, if the stories were true. And something greater than her own desires also seemed to push her on.

*******
The Syren tottered, her head realigning on each figure as they spoke. She started as the Harlequin spoke of their watcher, taking him literally for the briefest of moments, causing her to rear again, an act that carried her head above the height of her antagonists despite their higher ground. She sniffed the air again, the smell of the Chaotic seeming to hang there. Finally, she bent her head down, and perhaps in a desire to remove the tension at least partially, she clicked off the straps and piston grips along her helm and lifted the huge metal object off.

A visage, scarred but powerful, scaled and with her blacklids deployed gave her the appearance of age, albeit draconic, massive sabres and knife like teeth shining in the light.

“You are right, at least, in telling of their presence, but know... Elf, Kaye, whatever you choose to call yourself , that you are merely the enemy of my enemy, not my friend, and I wouldn’t trust you any further than I could throw you.” A slightly odd human expression, given the Syren could literally chuck a normal sized hominid the better part of a football field, but the tone implied the actual meaning of the message. “You are an intruder here, no matter the intention, and despite his new allegiance you still slaughtered a proud member of my kin and a defender of this realm. I am your ally, Elf, but not your comrade. And I will not hesitate to kill you at the merest inference of deceit or trickery.”

She arched her arm, returning the huge blade to its carrier, taking the opportunity to more fully scan her surroundings. “So I am compelled to ask. Where did this evil enter our lands, who's hand do we need to take for this most vile of intrusions?”

*************
Keonye grunted as he marched through the ranks of ghouls, a motley collection of force branches cobbled together into a snarling, partially bloodied and mutated fighting force hulking under various forms of armour sat or stood, dully clanging rifles and swords, snapping and braying almost animalistic at each other. The full variants of ghouls now sat together, from the almost humanlike lesser ghouls to giants high on the Herne Rating that stood a good eight foot off the ground even out of their armour. It was a broad cross section of the disparate units that formed the FRAF, all with their own rivalries exacerbated by their slow but collection submersion into chaotic worship.

But they had more than infantry, even hulking primordial giants capable of putting fists through battleship plate needed back up, and they too began to grow a small collection of that beyond the gifts of their masters. Pistons grinded and metal scrapped as massive Behemoths, six metres standing in their crouched firing positions, arms arrayed with massive gatling cannons and flamer weapons and their armoured forms dotted with scanners and missiles, rose in clouds of red and grey mist. There were no tanks, there was never the emphasis or need for their major deployment put here, but several all terrain vehicles were there, rugged and armoured against wildlife and carrying decent heavy guns of their own. And wyverns, hundreds of them, desert mounts with unmatched ferocity glistening with the gifts of the Dark Gods.

An army, one still secreted from its former masters and receiving reinforcement every day as new waves of scouts and infantry took up their ranks, swayed by the thought of power or even mere comradeship and, in some cases, the maddening bloodlust finally finding a suitable master. At the best of times cold-blooded ogres with tastes for blood and flesh, somehow the chaotic seemed to suit and inspire the ghouls of the Outback more than the sheltered leaders back in Navarre.

Like a poison dart in the landscape, the spread of corruption slowly spread across the desert. An ever growing tempest, dedicated only to the glory of their masters. A tempest in the hands of Ormr’s jade armoured herald.

“We are ready, for our masters, for you. By your command, set us loose.”

The man laughed and shrugged in response for a while standing silent. Eventually as the moments dragged on he spoke again ‘Now you know all that we know, the Seer had to steal the visions she had to guide us, wrest from under the cover of the Ruinous Powers, steal their secrets from their grasp. She could not provide us with much merely the end result of inaction, and a place to begin our dance. That place led you to us, and so, the fates would seem to suggest you will lead us to the next part of the dance.’

Turning his back seemingly unconcerned of the creature he smiled ‘So tell us, oh mighty beast of the wilds, tell us, where would you go if power was what you sought, where would you hide a secret. Or tell us which of your ‘protectors’ have fallen silent, which acts in a way that knowing what you now know, strikes you as, suspicious. These as you point out are your lands and your people, so tell us where the next act shall be played.’

The Reaver twisted on one foot as she curled her body around, two tons of muscle and metal creating barely a whisper. “As useful as ever.” She muttered. “Their regiment, given you seem to have only plucked one from their mist, is still ignorant of the taint, but…” She swooped again, bringing her head round to look once more at the Great Harlequin as he turned away. His image itself seemed to flicker in the light of her armour. “There must be more. I know mutations are meant to kick in after a while, nothing like that here.” She sheathed and unsheathed her talons as a fidgety gesture, almost human as she muttered distractedly, if somewhat threatening in and of itself. Almost as if she was constantly reminding her fleeting audience of her dormant power.

“The problem” She stated slowly, her tone slow and deliberate, “is that in the here and now our forces at best are vicious, stand alone barbarians, the manner one would normally spot Chaos cults, as far as I am aware. Up until the point they act in open rebellion I just…couldn’t say. There hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary here…” She turned her head again, looking now at her own footsteps. “This land is hell at the best of times. It would be like looking for a blade of grass in a haystack.”

*********

Adel peered down her scope, the beast between her legs not making a move, standing absolutely still on her command despite the gnawing agitation that drove them both on. She let it go easy, pressing her eye against the lense, her breathe slowing, her heart rate dropping to just ten beats a minute.

She had it in her sight.

And something more, too. The Reaver seemed to have stopped. A mile and a half separated scope and target, an incredible distance and one that afforded them some discretion and stealth.

Beside her, Tyrell silently spun the pump cylinder on his cyclone. The massive flame weapon seemed ridiculously clean compared to the dirt and blood encrusted figure of the ghoul himself. On the opposite side of him, Hrothgar sat astride his own riding beast, indignant and as always seeming to boil over in silent rage.

Adel grimaced. They, whoever they were, and she wasn’t telling yet despite Tyrell’s inquisitive glance, outnumbered them. She had four extremely powerful rounds loaded, sabotted penetrators capable of closing the distance in seconds. But she didn’t know the enemy, they were…pixels on the digital display, barely recognisable only by movement as living creatures. Something instinctual told her to halt her fire, to keep watching, to tell the others.

But something else, something even more primal, roared like a demon itself. And she embraced it.

She squeezed the trigger, the sound erupting from the barrel following the supersonic round itself, the twenty millimetre bore exposing itself as the sabot round fired into the night, its discarded casings flying off to the side to land red hot into the cold night time sand. The round flew into the night, ahead of it warning roar, sweeping death in the middle of the night, straight at the hulking mass of the Reaver.

*********

Yare head set out alone, almost slipping the others with a faint instruction based on what she had told them was a prophetic vision.

It was a prophetic realisation, anyway, and she was acutely aware her presence or lack thereof would not go unnoticed. But time was short, and the potential reward was staggering, and somehow she knew what she was doing was right. Let Hrothgar worry about the Eldar for now, she muttered, although she doubted he needed her help even if she offered. Just be one more corpse at the end of the day, and she spoke of spilled blood and sacrifice as a fate for others above herself.

She just hoped she was right.

The ghoul smiled as the Wyvern’s claws tapped something hard just below the surface of the sand, and, turning the beast on its heals, she headed to the East, towards the base of the Cursed Mountains now rapidly looming on her horizon.

For a moment the Harlequin was silent then another stepped forward, the stench of the Ghoul was all about him, the remains may have been washed away but to a creature with the senses of the Reaver it was likely very noticeable. The bones seemed pale in the light and the grinning skull that adorned his helmet gave him an unusual look ‘When you look for the agents of Disorder and death, look where you least want them to be.’

Despite the fact the evidence was all around him the Jester appeared unconcerned as he stood there under the creatures gaze. ‘Wouldn’t you agree? Our foes are guided by dark powers, they will manipulate them as much they can to increase their power, so if you cannot say where they are now, we shall go to where they will be in time.’

At last a third spoke up, the pretence of the Great Harlequin gone. ‘We shall be forced to hope then that the fates will give us the time we need, for our options grow shorter. I will not be alone in seeing this, the Seer who sent us will be monitoring the same futures, and the paths to a simple solution to this problem close even as we speak. It will soon all come to a head.’

As Adel's weapon roars into the night, tongue of flame licking out after the bullet, Hrothgar booms his approval, waving the bulk of his axe like a child's toy he claps heels to the ribs of his mount, the cat-creature leaping into motion, a flowing, bouncing gait eating up the dark sands between Hrothgar, the cluster of Eldar and his target, the bulk of the Reaver.

The bezerker bellows the bestial name of his master as his mount pounds across the sand, calling him to witness the slaughter, calling him to take up the skulls and souls reaped in His name, no matter whose they should be, Hrothgar offers them to his patron with the traditional war-cry of his ilk.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

One last bounding leap and the great cat is airborne, arching through the air to close with the Eldar, Hrothgar leaping from the saddle to hang in the air above the Reaver, a daemon in bronze and chalky woad, the axe scything down to strike black, tearing flame from the sand when the massive creature dodges.
Hrothgar grins, eyes alight, exultant, circling the beast, mouth agape in the unholy joy of battle, a harlequin rushes in and is slapped aside, the brute strength of the bezerker's free hand spinning the Eldar away, the xenos twirling acrobatically to land on its feet as Hrothgar makes a darting rush at the Reaver.

Blows are exchanged in a blur, strength is tested and Hrothgar drops back, dancing from foot to foot with glee, an opponent who is actually a challenge, face to face and one on one is a gift, a blessing from the Lord of Slaughter.
He shouts joyful gibberish and surges forward again, axe sizzling as it cleaves through the air.

An other Eldar tries its luck, the Khornate champion slides past its skittering rush, the Kiss tube uncoiling uselessly past the brass of Hrothgar's breastplate, his free hand snapping down on the Eldar's extended wrist, the fist clutching the leather-wrapped handle of his axe smashing into its jaw as he yanks in the opposite direction, a horrific tearing noise follows and Hrothgar and the harlequin spin apart, blood gouting from the Eldar's ruined shoulder, the sheer brute strength of the bezerker tearing its flesh asunder as though it were paper.

Hrothgar's leap lands him facing the alien, the wreckage of its arm still clutched in his gnarled fist, he takes two quick steps forward, and before the still-stunned Eldar can lift its remaining hand to staunch the flow from its horrific wound, smashes the alien's skull in with the ruins of its own limb, a casual swing of his axe removing the shattered head even as the corpse falls in a spray of crimson.

The Chaos champion backs off a step, fixed grin still in place, dropping the arm, panting like a dog, bright-eyed at the flowing of his lord's sacred fluid, he booms the second part of his credo and charges the Reaver again.

"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"

The Reaver recoiled from the stench as the grinning skull approached. “Least wanted….here…”

Something heavy and sharp slammed into the armour beneath her neck, causing her head to roll away from the force and for the entire scene to suddenly become bathed in sparks. “What the…” She barely was able to cry as the Eldar around her became agitated.

“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD” Echoed across the site, the cry seemingly familiar and yet almost horribly alien. She moved her feet, realigning herself to face the oncoming foe, balancing her weight from snout to tail in a single sweeping movement.

She brought her blade across her, crashing it against the whirring axe of the Berserker, a horrific grinding sound as the blade flared with power against the brunt rending of the chain axe. She roared, bring her teeth down to snap at the Space Marine, impressed by his agility as he turned the attack and bought his axe round to crash into one of her gauntlets. The chain ripped into the soft joint meshes, tearing through even the monomolecular webbing with ease, stopping only when the hilt of her sword crashed into the pauldron on Hrothgar’s opposite side, hitting with sufficient force to invert the curve and smash the insignia spread across it. The force pushed the armoured superhuman away for the moment, and the vampire recoiled as the fleet elven forms swam past her to engage the raging Marine.

The Reaver clamped her teeth around her broken gauntlet and tore the casing off, her teeth crunching through the inches thick titanium alloy with practised ease. The metal dropped to the ground with a dull thud. She stood back, left hand plain and dripping crimson blood whilst her right gripped tight on her blade. She watched the death of the Harlequin with detached feelings, having come so close to mirroring the encounter with them herself. The sight of the corpse of the alien dropping into the sand bought the two giants face to face once more.

She turned in one motion to face the returning Berserker, her massive frame tensing as her claws dug into the ground and her upper body shifted as she rose onto her hind legs again, the act now a purely instinctual challenge, letting her wings curl out to their bat-like prominence and peering down at her charging rival. She stood tall, vastly taller even than the armoured giant charging her, glittering brilliantly in the dawn light. Her blade shone in glory, and she roared in a sound that made the ground quiver.

“I will teach you fear.” She whispered, and tore her body forward, ramming into the Berserker with her huge shoulder, dismissing any pain as she hit home with the force of an speeding tank. There was a horrific dull crunch followed by angry screaming as the axe came back up to meet her, scraping across her own chest plate as she recoiled away from the chain, drawing blood where it skimmed her neck.

**********

“Alarm just flipped.”

The young tech glanced at the intermittent red icon flashing across the holographic display in front of him, set in a twinkling see of lights that were scattered seeming haphazardly over the area of the Southern Desert. “Tony, you want to have a look?”

The half formed image of a man appeared above the map, speaking in a slow monotone as his eyes traced the landscape below, a move required only to show the human operators the AI was listening, though given he watched the data coming in he already had done all the preliminary guesswork and analysis before the slower solders and technicians around him were even able to process the icon’s appearance.

“Confirmed as a cachet, Army registered, door triggered with a valid code. Free Legion.”

“Any of the inventory been touched?”

“Not yet. But that’s not my main concern.” The eyes of the AI head looked through the projection of the head to stare back at the technician. “There’s something your CO needs to be made aware of. Extremely urgently.”

**********

The female ghoul opened one eye at the beckoning of her aide, standing a distance away from the bed to allow some discretion. It was obvious through the light fabric it would be best to keep eyes averted as the Premier’s feminine but well-built form turned in the sheets. A dark haired companion, petit against her lover, curled beneath Sarah’s protective embrace.

“What is it?” Farahind asked sleepily, grimacing as cold air swept in from the open verandah that surrounded her suite.

“Cachet in the Southern Desert indicates an unauthorised entry in an error with other suspicious activity.”

Farahind looked at the aide, rolling beneath the sheets to the murmured protestations of her companion as she took the slate and browsed over it. “So someone nipped into a arms dump, I should be concerned because?”

“It’s the storage facility for a Leviathan class Echo, my lady.”

Farahind’s eyes opened sharply with a quick intake of breath.

There was no panic at the sudden attack, even as one of their own was slain before them. It was all part of the dance for the Harlequins, the play had moved on, and one of their actors had played his part. Instead they moved into the new rhythm effortlessly, picking up the tempo as easily as if they had been ready for battle. Each member of the troupe knew the others around him or her, knew where they where expected to be.

No one stayed in one place for long now, they moved around and over each other in bounding leaps. The Dances of the Harlequins where never pretend, and this carried through into combat. When Harlequins duelled each other it was with real power swords, a single mistimed blow would kill those they acted with, as surely as in actual combat, and each performance was unique in the flow of the duals within it. The Harlequins knew each other, they could anticipate each others intentions, so that they appeared where a comrade struck moments after their hands occupying spaces where mere moments before a blade had been moving. They tumbled over each other in a blur of movement, each knowing when and where to move to support their comrades.

The Dance was as always mostly led by the great Harlequin; it centred upon him, yet occasionally new centres would spring up without warning, the focus of the dance shifting to other major players. Sometimes it would take on the Aspect of the Destroyer, sometimes fate and other times it would seemingly transcend even this, as the Solitaire took to the stage, moving between the players, returning the loss and fear he faced upon those who dared oppose him.