Board Thread:Warhammer 40k Roleplay/@comment-14745711-20150116231447/@comment-14745711-20150307010736

Thanks Sang, it's good to know I at least have one person following this.

The twisted figure of Tantibus, black armour with shadows wrapped around his form, strode through the now deserted streets. There were bodies piled against the walls, most dead from being crushed in the rush, others had been clubbed to death. And that small pile just there had bolter wounds. Those three were cultists, as was plain by the chaos stars tattooed on their foreheads. Their weapons had been taken away, but Tantibus remembered them trying to rally the various civilian rioters around them, weapons firing wildly into the oncoming line of Arbites, riot shields held aloft. Tantibus disliked zealots; they were always so irrational and gave a sense like panic, but they were rarely truly afraid. It was only when they realised that their gods had deserted them that they were truly terrified, and that was but a brief flash in the pan of galactic terror.

The civilians however, had been a delight. It had been a long time since Tantibus had had such a feed, for most gains had to go to his lord, simply to keep him alive. In return Tantibus had gotten the occasional taste to slake his thirst, but that had been rare. Umbra said that he was almost Slaaneshii in his ravenous hunger. Not that Tantibus gave a dam about what that stuffy old coot thought; he’d lost his respect a long time ago. Ten thousand years ago in fact. Now days though, Tantibus had an almost constant stream of nourishment, and this had been a feast for him. The arrival of the space marines had simply gained him even more fear to feed on, and the screams of the dying had been as music to his ears.

What was this? One of the bodies was moving. Its right arm had been broken and hung limply by its side, while its ribs had been kicked in viscously and its head had been gashed open, a huge amount of blood pouring out. A normal human would have felt pity, or at least revulsion at the sight, but the looming black clad spectre couldn’t have cared less. He carelessly gave the figure a kick to the side of its head. The almost dead man howled in pain, but kept struggling on. “Oh just lie down and die,” grumbled the sorcerer. “All you’re doing is hurting yourself unnecessarily. Your wounds are fatal after all.” The man ignored him, grabbed hold of Tantibus’s leg and started tugging on it. “Get off!” The man went flying several meters into a wall, and lay still.

There was no time to waist on the dead and dying, the battle was still raging, far into the belly of the city. With the arrival of the space marines things had changed quickly. The Arbites had rallied around the newly come astartes and had pushed the rioters back in most if not all locations. However, that was about to change. Reaching out with his powers, Tantibus felt the thin boundary that separated the material world from the warp, and delicately slit it open. There was a sudden flash of warp fire and ten horned red humanoids practically fell over each other into the streets. The Bloodletters growled and looked around, trying to find the one who had summoned their presence. When they failed to find him they simply scampered off into the streets looking for enemies whose blood they could shed. The sounds of fighting would lead them right, Tantibus thought, as he wandered away into the darkness, leaving the warp fissure open behind him.

The retreat had been choppy at best. The Thunderhawks had escaped into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and the path seemed clear when various daemonic aircraft had ripped past. The various weapons of the sanctified transports had brought down some of the attackers, but one of the Thunderhawks had been destroyed, its precious cargo of battle brothers lost to a plume of fire. Once out of the atmosphere things had only gotten worse.

The void had been filled with the silent roar canons as the starships hurled what could only be seen as bright streaks of fire at each other. Through the view ports the mayhem was easily witnessed as attack craft whirled amongst the wrecked hulls of lighter battle craft. The transports had taken as much of a roundabout route as possible, but they had on more than one occasion been pursued by attack craft and had only been saved by friendly fighter intervention. Once all fifteen transports were on board (they’d picked up various other craft on the way that had been gathering survivors from other parts of the planet) the Imperial fleet began to disengage itself. There had been protests but as the highest ranking commander present Avatus insisted that the Imperial ships could not hope to win a sustained battle against the chaos fleet when a warp storm was bearing down upon them.

In the end the other various commanders had listened to reason and the ships had begun extracting themselves. That hadn’t been easy either. One of the lighter destroyers had been left behind, caught amidst the tendrils of warp energy. The fleet had then regrouped over Nibeon the system’s capital hoping to establish a firm defence against the encroaching horde of traitors. Instead they’d found a series of riots gripping the planet, as well as innumerable small warp fissures in various locations that had released packs of daemons onto the streets. Now, action was being taken.

The wall came down with a mighty crash, a roar that blotted out all other things in the mind of one who heard it, and left a kind of heat at the front of the brain. Dust came up in a rush, as if a dam had been broken and washed over to ranks of tightly clustered Arbites. The riot shields had been wall to wall in the street up until this point, but now the mass of rubble had broken apart to the left side of the line. One man fell backwards into the rank of those behind him, his skull shattered by falling rubble. Most had been spared death at the hands of the collapse however, having been quick thinking enough to raise their shields. Then great tongues of flame leapt up through the massive hole which had been blasted in the side of the warehouse, hungrily consuming those unlucky enough to be in the front rank. A howl that chilled the blood echoed off the tight walls and back into the faces of the fighters on both sides. The cultists scrambled backwards, clutching their weapons, most were improvised close combat weapons, but a few lasguns and a shotgun were spread out between them.

The pair of beasts that smashed out into the street, flame escaping in small rasps from their jaws were the stuff of nightmares. They were at least nine feet tall and hunched over, pale skin drawn over a disfigured muscle structure. One had four arms while his companion had three, all bizarrely long and groping with thing bony fingers. Horns protruded from their heads, drenched already in the same blood that was splattered over their claw like hands. Their forked tongues lashed as acidic saliva dripped onto the cracked pavement. Their legs were reversed at the knee like a dogs, except they bore no fur, only a translucent skin that slid over the pestilent ligaments beneath. Their shoulders and back were thick and somewhat bloated in appearance making their upper half look huge. The most frightening thing about them was the fact that there was still some trace of the human face they had once borne in their disfigured grinning maws.

The spawn bounded forwards like hunting animals and leapt upon the second rank which was still trying to comprehend just what was going on. Some men managed to fire few shots but the daemons simply let the laspistol blasts rip through them, tackling Arbites to the ground before ripping into them with long teeth and claws. Men screamed and the line broke, once confident soldiers desperately attempting to scramble away from the fiends that beset them.

“Stop!” cried a man in white robes who had climbed atop an over turned waste container. He was clutching a book desperately in one hand, and a staff in the other. “Come back and stand against the darkness of the warp! Do not let fear corrupt your hearts! We must fight for the God-Emperor!” His words which only a few minutes before had been so inspiring now fell on deaf ears. Three men did turn to fight, but where quickly seized and ripped apart. The priest starred defiantly at the two monsters which loomed over him, their jaws dripping with the blood of men who had attempted to resist. “The Emperor is my protector! I do not fear you,” he said adamantly, and spat into the face of the spawn.

The creature’s body was wracked by spasms of mocking laughter as it gazed on the old man’s defiant features. “You have, no, protection now!” it said in a garbled chocking voice. The priest’s features remained unmoved, even as the spawn seized him and hurled him several yards away into a wall. He slipped down to the ground, his breathing now ragged and hoarse. The two fiends loomed over him, jaws dripping. “Die now, and, curse in vain!”

“The curses of Akresh are never in vain!” spat the dying commander, blood running down the side of his face. “His power is infinite, his gaze far reaching, and you shall suffer his wrath!”

“Your gods do not exist fool. They are merely a conjuring of your own imaginations, created to give you comfort in dark times.”

“Taric,” Taratal snapped, giving his subordinate a harsh glare. “He’s dying, show him some compassion.”

Taric glared back at his Sergeant but said nothing. After a few moments he turned away to stand by the door looking out onto the blackened plains that stretched out for miles. In some places they were churned up into mud, in others a few sickly trees still grew, still stubbornly supporting a handful of fauna who refused to be destroyed by human warfare. The dying man’s gaze strayed to the view outside and Taratal’s followed. “This place, my home, it used to be beautiful,” murmured the man, his bright red blood in contrast to his blue-green skin. “Why did you have to come? Why did you have to fight us?”

“We had no wish for battle. It was your ships that fired on us first; such an act of aggression cannot go unpunished.”

“But, so much death, so much loss. Please, say a prayer to Akresh to send me on my way.”

“I can’t do that, I don’t believe in your gods.”

“If you don’t believe, then why does it matter?”

Taratal sighed. “I suppose you have a point. Very well then, may the great god Akresh give this man peace in his death.”

The man grinned as his breathing began to slow down. “Akresh isn’t a god. He is so much more. One should be careful when one call upon the lord of the night.” His body was quickly seized by fits of coughing and blood spurted over his chin and down his tunic. His eyes seemed to pop out for a moment, and then he fell back, his eyes gazing sightlessly up at the ceiling.

“You’re always too indulgent of our enemies Taratal,” said Brax. “You know you’re not supposed to grant them any wishes of that sort. Religion is dangerous as we well know; look at what it has done to these people, allies with xeno,” Brax spat into the dust that swirled over the concrete floor.

Taratal glowered at him, but said nothing. He couldn’t find very much space in his heart for respect for these people. They practiced things that would disturb even the most resolute of men, and their poor tactics were matched only by their cowardice. But still, they had defended their own homes with great vigour, though to no avail. The fortress bunkers had been broken open and the main defensive point overrun. Only two prisoners had been taken and those were so badly wounded they would be unlikely to survive. The unit now had to move north until they rejoined the main assault which could be seen far away in the distance as the occasional flash of fire against a tall dark object. This was the last of the main citadels, once this was taken the war would be won and talks could begin to arrange absorption into the Imperium.

As Taratal watched the explosions he saw a figure moving out in the distance. It was far smaller than the citadel, but the mere fact that it was visible betrayed its massive size. It was an Emperor Titan, its mighty guns blasting away at the high walled fortress. A second figure arose from in front of the fortress walls and moved to engage the titan, its own cannons firing rapidly. The two giants seemed to move slowly from this distance, but the Sergeant of the Deep Shadows knew better. One of the mighty machines of war swung and clubbed the other over the head, sending the Imperial titan staggering backwards. The defender seeing an advantage pressed home his attack, firing into the Emperor titan as it stumbled. But a second titan now loomed out of the fog, and fired on the defending titan at point blank, obliterating the machine’s head. The great figure staggered back before falling into the ground with a crash that was so great it could be heard even this far away.

I think this one started out trying to figure out where it was going, but it found out after a while.