Mago, Captain of the World Eaters' 18th Company, walked into the Conqueror's Triumph Hall, his gaze sweeping over the tattered banners hanging on the walls.
They were the battle standards of defeated enemies, the honors of the War Hounds.
Since this vessel was built, this place had always been a hall of glory.
From the Legion Master down to the newest recruit, anyone could walk here and review the glorious victories they had won.
Mago clenched his fists. This ship was no longer called the Adamant Resolve. He was no longer a War Hound.
Now, he was not here for glory.
They were assembled because of failure.
The hall was deathly silent. The World Eaters' armor was cracked, stained with the oily, amber blood of the Ghennans.
Everyone awaited their gene-father's wrath.
Angron gripped his long-handled chainaxe, the Widowmaker, and paced like a beast searching for prey.
Every man felt the contempt and dissatisfaction in his gaze, the soul-shattering terror of a Primarch.
"Failure," Angron mocked. "Failure again."
"Kharn, I told you." His bloodshot eyes fixed on the Captain of the 8th Assault Company.
"I told you to kill them all."
"I gave only a simple command. Everything must die."
"Men, women, old people, children. Even a single dog. Everything! It must be utterly annihilated."
Angron's gaze shifted to the entire Legion. "You so-called World Eaters. You cannot conquer a single world. There are over ten thousand of you. It's pathetic."
He looked up, far away, towards Nuceria.
"What do you think, my brothers and sisters?"
The Butcher's Nails whirred. Angron laughed loudly.
"Look at these inferior imitators."
"We were nothing but a band of runaway slaves, weak with hunger. We fought the High Riders with sticks and stones. We burned entire cities to the ground."
"And we did all of that between the rising and setting of the sun. One day on Nuceria, thirty-one standard hours on Terra."
He drew himself up. "We are Eaters of Cities!"
He looked down contemptuously at the World Eaters.
"You have warships. You have armor. You have weapons!"
"Your so-called Legion warriors, your so-called glory, none of it can compare to us."
Mago clenched his jaw in humiliation. In all his years since joining the Legion, the sum of all the disgrace and failure he had suffered was less than what he had experienced since Angron joined them.
Angron exhaled and subjected the captains to his usual humiliations.
"Draw the Blood Cord. Take responsibility for your failure."
All the captains stepped out of formation and began the ritual.
They removed their armor, peeling away the blood-stained ceramite plates until each bared his torso.
Mago drew his combat knife. He felt along his spine, finding the dark red line, like a serpent, formed by the scarred cord.
Finding the end of the cord, he drove the knife deep.
To resist his body's healing, he had to cut deep.
Mago pushed the knife through his flesh until the tip scraped his black carapace. Blood trickled down his hip.
He reached for the pouch on his belt, opened it, and pushed the Ghennan soil into the wound.
The pain of the cut meant nothing to Mago. The real hurt was internal.
When the scar formed on his healed flesh, it would be a dotted black line.
The shame would be permanent.
The Blood Cord was one of the few traditions from Angron's homeworld that he permitted the World Eaters to emulate.
The World Eaters constantly sought any opportunity to connect with their Primarch, even a bond forged in failure.
As Mago rose, the wound had already healed.
The captains silently donned their power armor.
"You call yourselves conquerors," Angron roared with fury. "You dare to call yourselves World Eaters."
"You are not even half of what my brothers and sisters were. You are nothing but failed pretenders."
Angron gripped the haft of the Widowmaker and paced forward.
His bronze armor creaked. His sons bowed their heads, dreading the punishment to come.
"My Legion?" he sneered.
"I look at all of you. I see all your weaknesses."
"I will not tolerate weakness. Weakness must be purged."
Angron stopped and pronounced his final judgment: "Decimation!"
Mago looked back heavily at his company. They had all fought for him.
Now, one in ten would be tortured to death by their battle-brothers, to appease their father's broken heart.
"No!" Mago's voice was a discordant shard in the silent hall.
"Quadra Ni. We failed to conquer within a single day. You ordered us to punish ourselves."
"Bucho. Tricatton. Systres IV."
"Our blades have been stained with our own brothers' blood for no other reason than to placate your anger."
"Because you failed," Angron said coldly.
"We did not fail!" Mago felt the waves of fury crashing upon his face, tinged with the smell of blood.
He knew his life was measured in seconds. He must say everything he thought before he was torn apart.
"We conquered those worlds. We won those wars."
"And now we stand here, about to butcher our own battle-brothers."
"No!" Mago roared.
"No more!"
The hall fell silent for several seconds. Every World Eater watched the two men in terror.
Angron laughed, a rumbling sound. "I like you, Captain."
"At least you have the courage to speak your mind. I will give you a choice."
His smile vanished. "Now choose, or I will choose for you."
Mago clenched his teeth, pleading: "This Legion is your Legion. The warriors carry your blood."
"Enough have died today. I beg you!"
"My Primarch! My father! Please, do not do this!"
Angron grunted. His expression twisted.
"Again and again, you tell me, 'We are your sons, you are our master, our lives are yours to command.'"
He turned his cold gaze to Kharn. "Wasn't that what you told me in the cave? To get me to come back here?"
"Are you all liars and cowards? Am I your master or not?"
"Since I am the master of your fates, you will embrace your fate."
"This is madness!" Mago shook his head.
Kharn walked to Angron's side. His voice was cold with warning.
"Mago, watch your words."
"You will choose," Angron repeated, "or I will choose for you."
He stared at the warriors of the 18th Company behind Mago.
"I will." Salir stepped out of formation. He dropped to his knees before Mago, straightened his neck, and bared his throat.
Mago stared at the neophyte. He was the future of the World Eaters. He should not die like this.
"For the Legion. For Angron!" Salir said calmly.
"For the Legion," Mago hesitated, drawing his short sword from his belt.
"No..." He dropped the sword.
Angron interrupted him. "Your courage is commendable, but you talk too much."
"As punishment, you will strangle him with your bare hands."
Mago's hands trembled. He looked at Angron in disbelief.
This went beyond punishment, beyond humiliation.
What father could hate his own children so much?
Lord Corax had exiled his sons, cold as that was.
Lord Nareth had given the Reapers chance after chance, helping them change.
But Angron wanted him to kill his own battle-brother with his own hands.
"Impossible!" Mago hurled the sword forcefully onto the deck.
"Impossible, father!"
"You dare refuse me?" Angron's eyes turned bloodshot. A bone-chilling growl rose from his throat.
His head began to tremble.
His scalp tightened and pulled with a creaking sound.
A linking cable atop his head tightened, fused tightly to his skull.
The World Eaters heard the sound of the Butcher's Nails. They retreated in fear.
Barto walked towards Angron, trying to calm him.
Blood sprayed. Angron tore off Barto's arm and smashed his head brutally against the deck.
An arm flew to Mago's feet.
Angron leaped into the World Eaters. In an instant, thirteen were dead.
The Widowmaker danced. Eight more were dismembered and broken.
Blood stained the deck red.
Dreger, Captain of the 9th Company, charged Angron with his Honour Guard, trying to overwhelm him with numbers.
Angron howled and threw them back.
Angron grabbed a World Eater, slammed him to the ground, and crushed his head under his foot.
Teth stood at the back of the Triumph Hall. As soon as he arrived, he had left the 18th Company and stood with the Librarians.
The Librarians were a special case, required to stand as far from their gene-father as possible.
Their father made no secret of his extreme hatred for psykers.
Teth gritted his teeth, joining his thoughts with the other Librarians in telepathic communion.
"He's killed dozens. This is the worst it's been."
"We have to intervene." Teth gazed at his battle-brothers of the 18th Company, waiting in terror for death.
"It's too dangerous."
"We have no choice." The powerful mind of Chief Librarian Vorias drowned out all others.
"If his rage continues, how many more battle-brothers will be butchered?"
"No time for argument. We act now!"
Vorias gathered the consciousness of all the Librarians and spoke to the young Scribe: "Teth, follow our lead."
Teth drove his will to suppress his fear and unease. He had studied the dangerous ritual, but never thought he would use it.
Around Vorias, all the Librarians knelt on the deck.
The temperature plummeted. Thin ice formed on their armor, accumulating into thick sheets of frost.
"Brothers, begin the meld!"
The Librarians' soaring consciousness combined, forming a colossal psychic warrior.
He was the size of a Primarch, but only those with warp sight could see him.
He shot over the heads of the World Eaters, leaving trails of frost on their armor where he passed.
Rumble!
"Demonesses! Begone!" Angron roared. The Primarch's will erupted violently.
The psychic shockwave reverberated through every Librarian's soul.
"His rage is too strong. We cannot control him," Teth said, his face pale.
"You are our father. You must stop this. Your rage is killing your sons," Vorias shouted.
"You are not my sons! You are weaklings forced upon me by him." Angron roared in fury.
"My only family is dead. They died when he took me away."
During the psychic clash, Teth glimpsed his father's thoughts.
Teth saw flickering images, a lifetime of abuse and horror.
Unending torment, cycles of it, tearing at a shattered soul.
The flickering light struck Teth's psyche, irresistibly seizing his consciousness and pulling him from the psychic warrior.
His consciousness was seized by Angron's turbulent mind, trapped within.
Teth's sense of self blurred. Trembling, he saw himself become a child running across the snow, rocks cutting the boy's bare feet.
Just as Teth's consciousness was about to be overwhelmed, Vorias suddenly raised a pistol and pulled the trigger.
A syringe shot towards Angron.
Their gene-father, locked in mental combat, could not move for an instant. The syringe plunged precisely into his neck.
Thud!
Angron's majestic form crashed to the deck.
Teth's consciousness snapped back into his own body with a whoosh.
'The gene-father's will is far stronger than I imagined. Thank Gahlan for his warning.' Vorias thought, shaken.
"Vorias, what are you doing?" Kharn barked.
"Stopping him from butchering our battle-brothers."
Kharn's gaze turned cold. He drew his chainaxe.
"Kharn." Chief Apothecary Gahlan Surlak stepped into his path, speaking calmly to the enraged Captain of the 8th Company.
"Don't forget why we came to Ghenna."
"Once we acquire the bionic operating techniques, we will earn the Primarch's acceptance."
"Now, he is unconscious. We have plenty of time."
Gahlan walked to Angron's side. "I will keep him asleep until we succeed."
Kharn's cold gaze lingered on Surlak for a long moment, then passed to the assembled captains, finally settling on Mago.
"Quickly!"
"We cannot fail again. We cannot disappoint him again."
Three Terran hours later, on the Conqueror's lower deck.
After injecting Angron with a full vial of Nucerian anesthesia, Gahlan hurried to his altar and prayed to the Black Emperor.
Moments later, an ethereal gate opened, and black mist billowed forth.
"My Lord," Gahlan knelt on one knee. "I have obeyed Thy command..."
Nareth, high upon his throne, listened to Gahlan's report and nodded with satisfaction.
'One-third of the World Eaters' Librarians spared from death. Teth's consciousness not lost to Angron.'
'It was worth having Gahlan remind Vorias, to prevent the decimation.'
Nareth already considered the World Eaters' Librarians as his own. To avoid the ritual burning of one-third of their souls and Teth's consciousness being trapped, as in his memories, he had instructed Gahlan to warn Vorias.
"Once you successfully research the Butcher's Nails, offer them to me immediately."
"Mago will awaken Lhorke to stop you from implanting the Nails. Do not kill him. Implant the Nails I gave you into his skull instead."
Although Gahlan had changed after Nareth's "corrosion," and was no longer as cruel as in the memories, Mago, unwilling to see the War Hounds devolve into butchers like Angron, would still, as in the memories, awaken the former Legion Master, now Dreadnought Lhorke, to attack Gahlan.
Because Mago was one of the few clear-headed men among the World Eaters, Nareth decided to give him a chance to live.
Gahlan's safety was not a concern; he was already a Sequence 5 "Scarlet Scholar."
Even without Kharn, he could subdue Mago, Lhorke, and the others.
"You must convince him to be patient."
"By Your Will," Gahlan said respectfully, then was swallowed by the black mist.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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