Imperial nobility - The Mistress

 

Whenever she slept, she slept in desperation. Her dreams were filled with broken dreams and shattered hopes and visions of a future taken away from her by destiny. 

To whatever realm she was brought by the minions of her slumber, she could then hear the melodies of her cage, both natural and far more esoteric in origin. The subsonic purr of the surely cursed Gyptian cat he had brought back for her from his countless unholy travels. The quiet whirring of the cruel beauty apparatus that eagerly tortured her form into something pleasing to him every dim and gloomy morning. And the painfully slow, rhythmic dripping of the gilded tap, ticking like a faulty clock that dragged seconds into degrading hours of shame. There were no folly birds singing in the morning light — only moaning gusts of wind, bringing no novelty and no soft relief, their whispering voices broken by the sharp and cruel corners of millennia-old walls.

She also re-smelled the chemically altered sweat of her unwanted lover, the most expensive perfumes exhaled by his seduction-augmentations constantly and the alchemical odour of his rejuvenated skin. On top of this there was always the scent of toxic industrial fumes, of smoking furnaces and unwashed masses way below, desperately creeping through the filters of the air recyclers placed in the highly decorated ceiling.
 
But worst of all was feeling the waning memories of lustful grasps and scratches of passion on her genetically sensitised skin again, the lulling softness of the silken sheets soaked with bodily fluids and the tearing reaction of her body to the ebbing power of her drunkenness and the abating ultra-amphetamines. Reliving those moments of sickly desire and inhuman cravings she had felt when he was with her filled her with hatred and loathing. For him. And for herself.

She remembered her father collapsing to his knees and begging her through tears on the dreadful day the herald of His Highness Chuttrak Mane — Grand Baron of the Western Mega-Watt Clans, Alumni-Seneschal of Ursh Sector Theta-4, and former Lord Commander of the Imperial Contingent at the Dyatlov Pass District — came to her family’s home to court her as a mistress. 

Back then she had been a proud young woman. Many a man had fallen for her charms and good looks and had ruined himself through scandal and debt while pursuing her as a lover or as a wife. None had been good enough for her — no war-crippled hero, no cosmetically perfected suitor, no gem-enriched trader in forbidden goods. And this gluttonous, eccentric hog of a man was none of those things. He was merely a forgotten warlord of the past looking for a new sensation. But he possessed what all the others before him had lacked — something she desired more than lofty titles, lush hydroponic gardens, and jewellery brought from alien worlds: Access.

He resided in an elaborate mansion within the Imperial Palace, got weekly invitations to the highest social gatherings there, and friends in positions so secret they would never even be mentioned to a despicable lower noble such as her father. But all of this – the pleading of her parents, the illustrious society she would get to be a part of, or the standing making her untouchable for almost everyone – would not have been enough. No. Love. True love was the only thing she even had considered worthy to take such a step. 

And there was true love in her life, though she found it so recently back then, that the uncounted arms of fate must have wrestled themselves to make such an occurrence. Just two weeks before the emissary of Lord Mane had arrived, on a quite boring and inappropriate feast to honour one of her long discarded paramours she had met a man who conquered her heart with the first look of his dark and mysterious eyes, broke her will with just a hint of a smile and inflamed her soul so thoroughly that she never recovered. His name was Lord Astrides – or so she thought back then - and he was no regular man at all. He was enormous, as tall as the mountains of Ural, but not so rugged and derelict. His muscles moved under his dark skin like snakes and vipers crawling beneath a blanket made of woven bronze. His fearless eyes were dark as the black hole stars she had read so often about in scholastic books of her childhood, and he towered over her friends and acquaintances like a dark marble statue of the Emperor himself would always tower over the pathetic figures of her ancestors in the dark crypt of the mundane mountain tower she had to dwell in. The mediocre festival hall in all its inexpensive splendour looked like it was illegally built around him, shaming his powerful physique and unsuccessfully trying to diminish his presence. Only the most powerful man of the region had been allowed near him and even those conveyed their unimportant successes and irrelevant achievements only in a faint voice, cracking from respect and fear. Because he was no simple man, he was a son of the Emperor himself, one of a new kind of humanity, an Angel from beyond, a god walking between vermin, an Astartes warrior of the Imperium. 

And then his eyes had met hers for the first time. His eyes pierced into hers like the unworldly darkness of the long-sealed, hand-hewn well shaft deep beneath her ancestral halls — the one her father had shown her when she was just a child. She remembered his wicked smile as he teased her about how easily it could become her final fate if she ever betrayed or dishonoured their House. And though the well had been sealed days after her mother’s mysterious and untimely death, and ordered forgotten by her father, she never did. Instead, she started to use it in her thoughts as a bottomless vault for her unhallowed wishes, her most cancerous thoughts, and her vilest secrets. Secrets she now saw openly displayed in the vast and gloomy expanse lurking behind the black irises that gazed sternly down upon her — a sight shockingly different from the times she had looked into a man’s eyes before, always admiring only her own reflection in them, fascinated by the seductive power she had imprinted upon the poor souls standing before her. None of that was true any more.
 
Even in her dreamscape she kept no tangible memories of the rest of the evening, not of his deep and thought-provoking words spoken beneath the ever-clouded stars of Terra, the gentle touches of hands made for murder and destruction and all those unrememberable secrets whispered in her ear. 
He never left her mind from that night onward, and she met him — though far too scarcely for her taste — in secret during all the time she had been handed over to Lord Mane, living in his mansion amid splendour and riches while enduring his disgusting company through seemingly endless nights of depravity and soulless affection. And so she brought her love the breathed syllables of the old man’s drunken and exhausted sleep, the muttered words of triumph he tried to impress her with while mindlessly abusing her, as he was accustomed to doing with all his possessions — except for the ancient weapons and war machines he prized above everything else.

And through all that time she hoped only for one passionate kiss or one intimate touch, knowing those moments would most likely never come. Her love was forbidden by the highest and most secretive rules of the palace, and so her soul shattered anew every morning when she awoke into the nightmare of her life. Desperately she would touch the tiny symbol of the multi-headed serpent he had carved into her thigh the night before — the only solid thing left, for even the memory of the time she had spent with him was already fading. She must have been closer to him than ever, and so silently she whispered his naming phrase — a sentence he had taught her never to memorise: "I am Alpharius."

On the history of the Legions - The XIXth

It was the rising of the sun above a horizon still shimmering with heat haze that marked the moment the Baphometadon horns were blown, signalling every living creature — wild or half-tamed — to leave the surface of Terra and seek shelter in the darkness below. And so did Chian Shen, after an exhausting night watch over his slave lord’s most favoured communication post in the midst of the vast ruins of the Asiatic Dust Fields. A slight breeze accompanied the rising light, whirling powder-fine sand into chaotic spirals and shifting patterns.

For a short, pain-filled moment, he stared at the pale, cloud-hidden orb of heat, risking his highly sensitive eyes, before descending the broken steps into the recently excavated basement of the ruined structure. Soft and soothing shade welcomed him until he left the morning glare behind and the shadows of pillars and shattered inner walls, cast by a pale glow-globe, began to dominate. Chian’s underground lair was sparsely furnished: two worn blankets — now neatly folded in a corner — a ticking fluid recycler, and a stack of nutrition bars stashed in a hollowed niche in the wall. Not much — yet for a people accustomed to carrying the totality of their possessions upon their bodies each day, it was already considerable.

Though Shen was scarcely thirteen years of age, he was a slave-prince of the Dust Scorpion tribe. Begotten by his master and borne by a certified wombress, he stood high above the common masses of the regional Xeric tribesmen. Most trusted by his lord, he had been raised and trained to undertake the pilgrimage down into the Great Pit and, in time, to be elevated by those awaiting him there.
Being chosen would bring the desired prestige and honour to his slave-masters household ... and a live beyond restrictions for the boy.

The Dark Solstice — the longest night of the year — was soon to come, and he would begin his third trial.

Completion upon the Third was said to prophesy a great future in the service of the Sun Lord — the one dwelling in a palace of white marble and shimmering gold upon the highest peak of Terra in the West, radiant in his glory. A march of only a few days would bring the boy to what the followers of the Golden Emperor, in their stone-crafted palaces and lush gardens, referred to as the Falls — desperately ignoring their existence even as they looked eastwards to watch the sun rise, just as the boy had done. Of course, there was no water left to fall there — only cold, dry air and gusts of icy wind. It was simply the place where the mighty heights of the Himalazians fell to their knees in reverence before a hostility truly meant for the sons of men. They bowed their ice-capped heads to the Dust Fields — a land so barren, so inhospitable that it was almost impossible to fathom how life could exist there at all. Yet it did. Chian and his people were proof.

He knew that no one had ever succeeded upon the First, and only a handful upon the Second — legendary men whose honoured names would never be forgotten. Val Umbrion. Ash Varruk. And, of course, Arkhas Fal — the most prominent among them, all living legends in their own right. Chian had nearly followed in their silent footsteps, but he had closed his eyes too early in order to behold the Umbra configuration in all its light-swallowing splendour, stumbled upon the narrow path cut into the mining pit’s wall, and fallen, breaking both legs and several ribs in the descent. He had tried desperately to crawl the remaining few hundred metres, but the sun had already reached its zenith, and light poured into the depths of the pit, extinguishing his hope of success. 

This time would be different.

He had honed his night vision to near-perfect acuity, rendering the darkness no longer an obstacle to his descent. His reflexes and muscular strength had been driven to their limits by constant combat and wrestling against his peers and older battle-slaves for days without end. He had steeled his will by remaining outside into the morning hours, enduring the crippling pain. 

He had also modified his needle-gun to fire farther and faster, and with frightening precision. For days on end, he had hunted the most vile, venom-swollen Glass Spiders, harvesting their toxin to prepare his ammunition. During long hours of the night, he reforged the shade-algorithms of his combat mask, forfeiting much-needed sleep and rest. He had also saved the combat-drug rations handed out by his master on special occasions, storing a considerable supply of Krrf to accelerate his nerve conductivity beyond human tolerance.

Now he was ready to face the deadly traps and blinded assassination-slaves under the watchful eyes of the Pale Ones deep in the lower pit once more. 

And this time, he would not fail.

This time, he would become one of them ...

                                                                                           -

Garvus Xarchys was an experienced fighter. He would not have reached the age of thirty-one had that not been the case. His clan was famed for forging the most cruel and merciless murderers from the gene-enhanced carcasses of young boys sacrificed upon the thorn-altars of Myconae. An heir to the old Spartians, he was — the most ancient and most legendary warriors of Boetia’s lost history. As a Vrykolakas, he had been and should always be the alpha predator in any conflict. Armed with an entropic infuser replacing his right hand and a serrated plasma-axe sizzling with raw destructive power, he was the living epitaph of death incarnate.

But now he felt like a whelp fresh from the graveyards.

His hyper-induced adrenal gland pumped potent meta-epinephrine through his veins as usual, yet he still could not follow the movements of his opponent. This cursed slave-serpent of the Golden Tyrant moved as swiftly as gunsmoke ejected from a ballistic mass accelerator, and the veils and strips of cloth decorating his armour made him resemble a mystic Erincian manifesting from Garvus’ darkest nightmares.
The man had slain a dozen of Garvus’ personal blade-serfs before the corpse-gladiator had even readied his weapons — and he was upon him now.

All his experience in the cult pits and upon the burned battlefields of Mediterraneum counted for nothing as he was struck hard across the face by the grip of his enemy’s pistol. Blood burst from his mouth as his jaw splintered and his iron teeth were torn from their sockets.

Garvus raised his fire-arm — the crude fusion of flesh and weapon still pulsing in constant pain — in a desperate attempt to shoot his foe when he felt the superheated suppressor of his opponent’s weapon forced into the open wound of his bleeding face, cauterising the flesh for a split second.

He was already dead before the coughing report of the M77-S Union bolt pistol reached his ears, his cranium rupturing under the explosive force of the igniting mass-reactive round.

Before his broken body had even collapsed, his killer was gone — as silent as he had appeared.

On the history of the Legions - The VIIIth

As soon as he saw the man limping into the light of the glowing fungus upon the tunnel wall, the boy hid all his weapons but the knife in a narrow ravine. Then he stepped slowly towards the newcomer. And a newcomer he certainly was — still walking upright, still squinting to see, not using his sense of smell at all. Laughable.

The moment the man noticed him, the boy threw himself onto his knees and began begging for mercy, sobbing in his most desperate voice. The man stopped, relaxed his clenched fists, and stared at the pitiable creature on the plascrete floor. Then he bent down, his voice rough but not without mercy: “Get up, lad. I can’t give you nothing, ‘cause I have none.”

Cautiously, the boy rose again, still hiding his armoured-glass blade tucked into the old bandage tied around his waist: 

"Plzzz… syre… plizzz, dunot kill me!”

The man let out a hard but hopeless laugh. “I won’t, little one. I won’t,” he said, stretching out his hand in greeting. Of course, the boy did not take it. Shaking hands was a long-forgotten custom down here — and for good reason.

“What ’r u?” the boy asked.

“I’m Exertus, lad. A soldier in the armies of the Man in Gold.” He pointed to his chest, where the boy saw a strange bat tattooed there. “See? The Aquila of the Emperor. I was one of the good ones. Once.” He slowly reached out for the boy again. "You can trust me, lad. Really!” he whispered, forcing a wry smile.

The boy took a step back, feigning shyness and fearfulness while using the movement to grasp his blade.

“Oh,” he hushed, “Den take me wiv you, mazzter… yeah?”

His eyes seemed to close, though he watched through his lashes. The man took a final step closer, his hand closing firmly around the boy’s bony shoulder. “Well, well—”

The boy moved with lightning speed, driving the knife upward into the man’s lower jaw. It did not require much force; the glass shard was sharp — terribly sharp. Bone cracked. The blade pierced upward into the brainstem. The boy’s victim fell to his knees, shocked, staring into nothingness yet still breathing… as he heard the whispered words:

“Welcome t’ the Underdark, zzoldier.”, the boy smiled, “Alwayz wondered wot a ‘good one’ fetch down ‘ere?”

                                                                                             -

Deep beneath the scorched crust of a war-torn Terra, forever unseen by those who do their utmost to forget them and never destined to walk beneath the pale light of the Sun, live those who still pay for their ancestors’ crimes — the forgotten sons and daughters of darkness, the heirs of despair and nightmare, the Children of Eternal Night.

As long as mankind has walked the Earth, there has been law — from the unspoken codes of the earliest societies to the complex scientific statutes of a forgotten Age of Technology. And as long as mankind has walked the Earth, there have been those who broke them. And they had to be punished.

For countless generations, outcasts, lawbreakers, dissidents, and criminals of a broken age were banished to caverns and dungeons far below the surface — places so dark, so vile, and so hopeless that a death sentence would sound merciful compared to the fate of these prisoners. Those poor souls are forever barred from natural light and fresh air, fed on leftovers or corpse-starch rations at best — and on subterranean vermin and one another at worst — and ever vigilant against the dangers of the hostile environment in which they are forced to survive. But there is no life in prison, just existence.

But if one thing is true of mankind, it is that it is hard to kill, surviving like cockroaches even under the direst circumstances. And so those prisoners endured, clinging to life until their last breath was taken, forging a brutal and merciless society of their own. And they continued to exist. And to procreate. Spreading like a virus, lifeless but most dangerous. Contained only by the cage doors, the concrete the walls and the automatic gun turrets.

Violence is the bloody coinage of these societies, with sexual favours, bonded labour, and sometimes even their own flesh and blood serving as small change in their cruel economy. Love and mercy are weaknesses that have to be forgotten, suppressed beneath an ugly shell of anger and instinct for survival. And so those poor souls, born of violence or coerced lust, never have a chance to understand what being human truly means.

Most infants die regardless — often together with their mothers — during childbirth. Those are the fortunate ones, for they never have to witness abominable men burrowing their filed teeth into the flesh of the newborn and sucking the sweet marrow from their bones.

Those unfortunate enough to survive for weeks or months endure the humidity and stale warmth of long-forgotten tunnels, where their mothers hide them from human hunting packs. Others suffere the misfortune of being sold to the Raiser clans and are raised by wet-nurse slaves in an environment filled with the constant crying of the hungry and unfed, and the stench of hundreds of children left to soil themselves.

Growing older is no easy achievement either, for in times of famine and want even the most underfed children were highly prized commodities. Yet in every litter there were some stronger than the others, more resistant to pain, infection, and malnourishment than their brothers and sisters. These were destined to endure, learning to see in the near-utter darkness and to move in absolute silence.

They are tought the cruel, mutilated tongue of the Underdark, hissing and whispering to one another, and they later memorise the strange signs painted upon the walls — runes so ancient and unholy that almost perfect eyes alone were not enough to perceive them, but rather a hardened soul and a twisted mind.

And so the years pass for those born into such misery, raised in confinement though never convicted of any crime. In time they gather together, forming packs, or flocks, or murders, or — in imitation of true society— gangs and syndicates. And what they had once lacked in sin and criminal guilt, they soon accumulate in abundance.

Those desperate few who reach their teenage years are soon fully confronted with the harshness of their surrounding society — its cruel politics, its lust and desire, and its corruption. They are required to rise continually in power, brutality, and cunning in order to survive and see another day.

But some of them — some of them are lost. Never to be seen again by their peers, and never spoken of thereafter. Those are the truly fortunate ones: the ones chosen by the most cruel, most despicable, and often most effective fighting force the Imperium has to offer — the Cursed Ones, the Children of the Night… the VIIIth Legio Astartes.