The colonel of the Ceyzane regiment glared at me defiantly, his hand gripping the hilt of his power sword. The blade flared blue, its power field crackling threateningly.
I was not intimidated. Not because I was made to feel no fear, but simply because the mortal could not hurt me. All I needed was to wave my hand and I could fling him across the ruins of the mausoleum, shattering every bone of his body.
The colonel knew that too. Even so, he chose to confront me courageously, a weapon in hand. I was impressed.
"I do not intend to hurt you."
The colonel snorted. "I'm sure you don't, traitor scum."
The men behind the colonel formed ranks, their lasguns held at the ready and pointed at me. Once again, I did not feel intimidated. Even if they fired a barrage of las-beams, I could easily deflect them with a kine-shield. They posed no threat to me at all.
Leaving my helm mag-locked to my side, I regarded the colonel and his men. If I wanted to persuade them, it had to be done face-to-face. I wasn't naive enough to believe they would buy my sincerity, but at the very least it made me seem more...human to them.
"You don't have to believe me," I said. "But I am here to offer you a choice."
"What makes you think we'll listen to it?" The colonel scoffed. I sighed.
"Because if you don't, your men will all die." I raised my hands, which were bereft of any weapons. "Do not misunderstand. I am not threatening you. You have already suffeered the wrath of the Adeptus Custodes. I do not know why they are purging you. Perhaps you have witnessed something you should not have."
The Imperium was a vast and cruel place. They fed men and women to the grinder of war, only to slaughter them after the victory over something as trivial as witnessing the Grey Knights or Chaos Daemons. The Inquisition would justify it as cleansing the taint, and they were often correct in doing so. Most mortal men were driven insane just from seeing the foul visage of warp-spawn, their minds corrupted by the silhouette of Daemons. They would never be the same again, and just by bearing the knowledge of the existence of the true form of Chaos, they risk becoming portals of madness that opened up to the Immaterium.
"However, if you follow me, I can offer you a chance at survival. I cannot guarantee that all of you will live, but at the very least your regiment will not be decimated."
"We would rather die than betray the Imperium," the colonel spat.
Honestly, I doubted that. They had not allowed the Custodes to slaughter them. They had not stood still and waited for their deaths. Instead, they had taken the fight to the golden ranks of Custodian Guard, defying the Emperor's bodyguards to the last. That spoke volumes of their desire to live, even more so than their loyalty to the gradually decaying Imperium.
Even so, I admired them.
"I am not asking you to betray the Imperium," I assured him. "I am asking you to serve the Imperium, but in a different manner."
Now I had captured his attention. The colonel stared at me.
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I mean. I may look like this, but I'm actually a Loyalist in secret."
"...huh?"
I didn't need my powers of telepathy to tell that the colonel didn't believe a single word of what I said. I was telling the truth, but it didn't bother me that he didn't believe. Nobody in the Imperium had believed us...ever since the day the Wolves burned our world. That didn't matter. He was tempted, and I knew I had ensnared him.
"I continue to serve the Imperium in secret," I continued. "I am loyal to the Emperor, despite having been cast out by the Imperium. I cannot say the same for my brothers, or for my father...the resentment they hold toward the Imperium is too great, but I was in a similar predicament to you. I wanted to serve, yet I was condemned along with my Legion. Even so, I found a way to serve the Imperium. Even if nobody believes me, that doesn't matter. I allow my deeds to speak for themselves. If you follow me, you will witness those deeds. If not, you can rebel, and I will kill you. You will still die, either way....the difference is that you will at least die fighting the people you think are traitors."
The colonel considered this. He glanced at his men, who looked skeptical. I didn't blame them. My proposal must have thrown them off their guard.
"Take your time to consider," I told them. "But try to be quick. The Custodes will return shortly, and in force. For now, they are occupied by the Death Guard, but they will eventually prevail. And I have no wish to fight them. As I said, I am loyal to the Emperor. I would rather not attack Imperial forces if I don't have to."
"Really," the colonel scoffed, but I could see him weighing my proposal. He turned to confer with his officers. As he did, I raised a hand.
"Before you discuss, I would like the honor of knowing which regiment you are from. And your name, Colonel."
The Colonel turned back to me. "Nephilus," he replied. "I am Colonel Nicholas Nephilus of the 99th Ceyzane Dragoons."
I nodded. "Well meet, Colonel Nephilus. For now, my brothers and I seek to excavate a relic. When we finish, I will return here. I hope you would have made your decision by then."
Even as I turned toward the mauloseum, I already knew what their answer would be.
The 99th Ceyzane Dragoons would eventually become the Ninth Sons, a pseudo Imperial Guard regiment dedicated to my thrallband.
*
"Ignatius."
"Father."
Aboard the
Honor of Tizca, I knelt in my meditation chamber. My father stood before me, a majestic figure of red and fire. This was not his real form, of course. His main consciousness remained in the Planet of Sorcerers, scheming whatever new nefarious plans he had for the ascendance of mankind into their psychic awakening.
However, the Crimson King was the most powerful psyker in the galaxy, and he was able to project a shard of his being all the way into Segmentum Tempestus. Even though this was but a mere projection, I could feel the potent empyrean energies emanating from his blazing figure. I could not help but bow clumsily in my bulky Terminator armor.
"You have been busy, I see." The Cyclops studied my chamber, noting the tome I had pilfered from the mausoleum in Ceyzane. "Your collection grows yet again."
"I do my best," I said, affecting an air of modesty.
"I'm sure," he responded. For a moment - a very brief moment - he was back to his old self again. Before the razing of Prospero, and before the Lord of War and Winter broke his spine and shattered his psyche beyond repair. His paternal gaze rested upon my respectful posture, and he smiled slightly.
Then the paternal affection was gone, replaced by dreadful coldness that caused the blood in my veins to freeze.
"You are to cease your little excursions for now," he ordered. I shut my eyes for a second, suppressing a sigh.
"If that is what you will, Father."
"Do not be dismayed, my son." That kindly smile was back again, before it vanished, engulfed by a burning hatred. "I require your assistance."
"I will do my best to carry out whatever task you have in mind," I promised him.
My father regarded me coldly, that single eye of his as dark as a black hole. For a while, I felt as if I was being sucked into its abyssmal depths, but I managed to gather my psychic strength to eerect a mental barrier. Magnus the Red was fond of testing his sons, often exerting incredible pressure upon us. He had no time for weaklings. I had seen brothers blasted into oblivion for their incompetence, no matter their psychic prowess.
Raising a hand, my father conjured a globe. Blue and green, with white clouds swirling around it, it looked like a jewel.
"This is Hastron. It's supposed to be a death world." The Crimson King sounded amused. "Which is probably why there is a company of wretched Wolves on it. Apparently, they are fighting off a xenos incursion. The Orks have landed in their millions to claim the world, but in doing so, they seem to have triggered awake a Necron tomb."
"I see." I waited for my father to tell me my objective.
"Ahzek has captured a Necron, and along with Ignis, interrogated it. There are secrets to their technology...especially the substance the Imperium calls Blackstone. Noctlith. I want you to secure a supply of Noctlith, as well as whatever xenos technology you can, and bring it back to Sortiarius."
"I will do my best." I kept my head bowed.
"Before you do, however..." My father studied me, his one-eyed gaze shifting to rake across my chamber. Even though there was no one else with me, his stare was able to penetrate the reinforced ceramite walls of my battle barge and scrutinize all of the residents living inside the city-sized vessel. "You might want to bolster your forces. Even though you appear to have recruited a company of renegades to your thrallband, the forces of greenskins number in the millions. The Necrons will also possess a sizable contingent to protect their tomb. Your renegade brothers and guardsmen will not be enough. Even if you did recruit a Knight to your cause. Which, I must admit, I am very impressed."
He was right. I also possessed a very small army of Rubricae. While I did have more Scarab Occult Terminators under my command than most of my sorcerous brothers, that came at the expense of Rubricae. I was hoping Satoru and his Knight suit would more than make up for it, but it seemed that even his vaunted armor would be insufficient.
"Might I suggest you visit Azeroth before you head to Hastron?" My father grinned. That gentle nature of his leaking out once again, an echo of what could have been. Before he made his final decision in the dungeons of Terra and proceeded down a path where he couldn't turn back.
"Azeroth? The daemon forge world?"
"Indeed. You may find what you need for your upcoming expedition in the domain of the Dark Mechanicum." My father nodded, and then he turned away. "I'm sure the twisted tech-priests are itching to send their latest daemon engines out for field tests."
"Understood." I watched as the figure of my father flickered. Rising to my feet, I exited my meditation chamber and headed toward the Navigator's room.
We had a new course to plot.
