The Musing of R. L. Frymire

BARON ISE’KLOSYS EYED the spoils of his latest raid, frowning. He pointed at the source of his displeasure, then flicked his wrist with a negligent air.

The response to his will was instantaneous.

Standing several yards distance, his felarch drew her fusion pistol, aimed, and fired in one fluid motion.

Blood splattered across the cheek of the nearest mon-keigh’s face, who watched the fellow before him fall. Dead. Before blind panic could cause a stampede, a whip cracked, followed by a harsh command. The humans didn’t need to know the foreign language to understand. Those closest in line shuffled around the corpse and continued walking in the direction indicated by the felarch’s pointed finger.

Dozens were being herded, single file, towards the blazing light of the web portal Ise’klosys had had temporarily erected. Once they stepped through, they would find themselves caged within the bowels of his vessel, where his ship currently awaited his return, high above the planet in orbit.

Two more humans were marched through the gate when a loud noise rent the air. Above the roar of multiple engines and the whirl of tires, a command boomed: “For the Emperor and the Khan!”

An Astartes bike squad screeched into view, emerging from the side streets of the crude dwellings that made up the humans’ overly populated settlement. Due to the large statuary scattered around the tastelessly decorated square, the oncoming enemy’s progress was slowed—but not by much.

Skillfully, the white and red armoured figures navigated the obstacles, until the crack of rifle fire burst the front tire of two bikes. While one vehicle crashed into the legs of a statue, causing the towering stone to topple on top of the downed rider, the other bike flipped, head first. The rider smashed into the paved road—and was run over by the bike following too close behind, causing another crash.

Not two seconds after the first rifle shots, Ise’klosys heard another dual report. Expert marksmen, his ghostwalkers took out another pair of riders, one of which smashed into a third bike.

Five seconds into the Astarte’s assault, and only one rider remained unharmed.

Rather than turn and flee in the face of their failure, the remaining rider came to a screeching stop and jumped behind one of the statues as cover. In his hand he gripped a long staff. Power emanated from the weapon, and a roiling fog answered the warp sensitive human.

The mist was dense, rising higher and higher, until the buildings surrounding the square were consumed by white clouds, effectively cutting off his ghostwalkers’ line of sight.

Another shouted command came from the leader with the force staff. “Leave none standing!”

The fallen riders emerged from the fog with answering war cries, all eight of them. The destruction hadn’t slowed any of the augmented and heavily armoured warriors.

At the center of the square stood the tallest statue, where the humans had been herded to await their turn in line. A few pointed, drawing similarities between the sculptures and the advancing Astartes, but before any could start cheering at their apparent turn of fortune, an armoured leg slammed into the nearest human, killing him.

The Astartes towered over the humans, their armoured bulk making even the strongest amongst them appear child-like.

Men. Women. Children. None were spared. Using their arms as clubs, the humans were battered aside, while gauntlet encased fists crushing skulls with ease. Even a child was pulverized beneath the merciless tread of mankind’s supposes saviors.

Without a word, Ise’klosys’ squad of voidscarred warriors left their positions to engage the enemy, while Ise’klosys intercepted the human psyker himself. Warp energies flared as his witchblade connected with the stormseer’s force staff. Due to the mon-keigh’s heavy augmentation and power amour, Ise’klosys used a complicated move to suspend the aggressive assault with relative ease.

He spoke in the mongrel’s uncouth tongue, eying the massacre. “An unnecessary waste.”

Behind the mouth grill, a voice spat. “Craven worms. There is no neutrality in war. When the Emperor calls, silence is never the answer. Their fate shall follow the traitor Warmaster.”

Their blades danced, glowing with aether.

Ise’klosys matched each clobbering swipe and jab with an expert parry and counter swing, his feet dancing around his lumbering adversary. “There is little value in human life. A slave, however, heralds much coin, even from one of such lowly stock.”

“A fate I will never allow.”

Ducking beneath a particularly vicious swing, Ise’klosys tsked. “You mark them for extermination. Why do you care what becomes of them?”

“Death to all traitors! Death to xenos.”

A surge of aether surrounded the stormseer, followed by an unexpected blast of lightning. The electrical charge sprung from the sudden appearance of turbulent clouds above, to strike against the ground where Ise’klosys had stood. A second blast followed, then a third. He dodged each by a hair’s breadth, only for the stormseer to appear right before him.

Right in the line of fire of his pistol.

A stream of acid spewed from Ise’klosys’ destructor, melting power armour in less time than it would take to draw breath. The stormseer’s next exhalation was a drawn-out scream as his human flesh was revealed, meat and bone dissolving beneath the merciless wave of caustic fluid. The barbarian fell to his knees, the staff clattering to the ground. When he tried to reach for the weapon, Ise’klosys was there first.

Lifting the singing spear, he stared down at the dying warrior with dispassion. “I sense your blood-madness. Did you hope to stave off the inevitable with this?”

The stormseer fell with a clatter of metal, the sizzle of acid and burning material, of flesh, was his only answer.

The void dreamer turned his full attention to the spear, admiring. Within his hands, he held the true reason he and his corsair band had descended upon this pitiful planet. To retrieve what rightfully belong to the aeldari, after seeing the priceless weapon in a vision.  

His divinations never lied.