Brotherhood of Tears - Warhammer 40k Short Story
“To me, Darius!” His Brother Captain’s voice crackled over their private vox channel. He tried to respond, but the storms the heretics had summoned were disrupting communications. A miasma of psychic energy pulsed around him as he searched for his battle brothers. All he found was a hurricane of whispers in pink and blue. It would have been beautiful if not for the taint of corruption. Darius’ power armor protected him to a point, but he could still feel it. Miniscule particles of the shimmering dust penetrated the grille of his Mark IV helm. It tasted like nightmares. Darius stared down the sights of his bolter and let loose a three-shot burst as a daemon of Tzeentch leapt through a wall of dust. The creature was half the size of an Astartes. Its squat body was a gaping maw that spit fire the color of children’s wishes. Darius kicked it aside and ran deeper. He needed to find his brothers. They had arrived on the feudal world too late. Their Thunderhawk gunship had been swiped from the sky by the winds of magic. He’d only come to a few minutes’ prior, but by then they were gone. Darius had fought his way through dozens of cultists and daemons, but there had been so sign of his brothers.
“Come meet death, heathens!” The words were followed by the booming rhythm of an autocannon. Darius ran over a hill and saw Brother-Captain Aurelius Tristis stomp the head of a cultist into the sand. His commanding officer was an intimidating figure. His dark yellow Terminator plate stood ten feet in height, dwarfing even the stoutest space marine. He bore the heraldry of their chapter on his right shoulder plate. A bleeding heart on a bed of checkered black and white. The Brother-Captain spun on him, leveling the auto-cannon in his direction.
“You heard my call, brother!” Aurelius bellowed. The red eye lenses of his helm dimmed as he lowered his weapon.
“Where are Constantin and Velios?” Darius asked.
“I have not seen them, but it is a blustery day. Have you not noticed?” Aurelius was odd for a member of their chapter. Lamenters were not known for their sense of humor, and yet Aurelius tried. “They are most likely dead.” That was more like it. Darius stepped up beside his commander and surveyed what little he could see. The ground was littered with dead. Aurelius had been busy.
“What are your orders?” Darius was hopeful that the answer would not be what he expected.
“We kill as many as we can,” Aurelius said. “We live to serve; we die in service.” He threw the autocannon to the ground and pulled his two handed power sword from its sheath. The Birth of Sorrow was an ornate curved blade the length of a standard human. It was black as night and when its power cell activated it glowed like an ocean of stars. It is said that It was claimed after a great battle with a long dead xenos race, but Darius had never cared much to investigate further. The weapon made him uncomfortable. It radiated sadness.
“For the Emperor,” Darius said. His voice was low, weighed down by fulfilled expectation.
“For the Emperor.” Aurelius roared into the sky. Then, he calmed. He looked down at Darius. “Fret not brother, for those we cherish, we die in glory!” It had been over a century since they had thrown their lot in the Astral Claws. A century in the warp fighting the forces of chaos as recompense for standing beside the only chapter that showed them their due respect. There were so few of them left. Darius wanted to fight, wanted to prove his loyalty, but he also wanted the chapter to survive. The whispers in the winds grew louder, something was approaching. Darius steeled himself. He threw his bolter to the ground and freed his chainsword from his hip.
“From blood born, to blood evermore consigned.”
“That is why I always appreciated you, Darius. You honor the old ways.” Lightning struck the ground in front of them, knocking Darius off his feet. Aurelius staggered back a step as the enemy force emerged. They were surrounded. Cultists, daemons, and abhuman wretches closed in around them.
“Brothers, we need not fight.” A sickly voice came from above. Oberon Talakos descended from the sky. He rode a disk of purple flesh. The thing wiggled and slurped as the tentacles around its base slapped at the sand. Oberon oozed corruption in an aura of greenish blue. Hs armor was a midnight plate trimmed in gold. The trim extended into needle like spikes all around him. He wore a kilt of living eyes that lolled in their cloth prison. His helm had mutated into the appearance of a raven. Its eye lenses pulsed with blinding luminosity as its ceramite feathers twitched.
“You are a heretic Oberon,” Aurelius boomed. “You will face the Emperor’s justice.”
“After all your chapter has faced, you still cling to that withered corpse? The imperium betrayed you, murdered your brothers, and cast you out into the warp. As the emperor burned Prospero, so did he burn you. Join us brothers. My god is generous. He will change you! He will turn your despair into something… else.”
“We are not your brothers!” Aurelius charged, his blade leveled at the heretic’s beak.
“Fool.” Oberon flicked his hand in the Brother-Captain’s direction. Lightning leapt from his fingers. The cords of dancing energy lashed Aurelius’ shoulders, licked at his chest, and caressed his back. His armor sizzled darkening from mustard to black as the righteous champion fell to his knees, dead.
“No!” Darius screamed and ran at the sorcerer. A lance of energy bolted towards his chest, instinct threw him to the ground in a somersault. Lightning struck all around him, but he dodged it effortlessly. His rage was pure. He could feel the light of the Emperor upon him. Fiery lashes seared gouged in his armor. The pain was excrutiating but he was undeterred. He jumped at Oberon and spun, bringing his blade down upon Oberon. The sorcerer materialized a staff in his hands to block the attack, but Darius was clever. The the snarling teeth of his chainsword missed the staff by a breath and the last Lamenter drop his weapon into the disk of Tzeentch. The creature screamed, bucking Oberon onto the ground. The scream was like needles massaging Darius’ senses. He dropped his sword and clamped his hands over the sides of his helmet. His battle plate should have been able to mask the cry, but it couldn’t keep up to the rapidly changing pitches. The noise was every horrible memory from Darius’ life. Every failure, every betrayal, every misspoken word, it all flooded into him. He fell to the ground convulsing.
“You, you have potential.” Oberon lifted himself from the ground with a snap of his fingers. “It would be boring for you to find peace in death.” The sorcerer’s staff evaporated and he held his hands over the Lamenter. Words flowed from his throat that made Darius’ skin ache. He was being suffocated by the power the heretic had invoked. A black pool formed underneath him. It was cold like the void. Darius’ power armor was useless against its pull. His chest plate groaned and cracked as the cold embraced it. He crawled to Aurelius and pressed his helmet against his fallen brother’s.
“I have failed you, my friend.”
“Touching. Know this slave of the corpse god. When your guilt has bled you dry, when you have nothing left, not even your beloved melancholy, I will find you. On that day, I shall kill you, Darius Spero.” The dark pool beneath Darius shattered like an obsidian mirror. Darius felt the rush of great height as he descended into the abyss, but heard nothing. The speed of the fall was immense, but there was no buffet of turbulence or roaring crosswind. The G-force of his descent increased and he felt his consciousness wane. Just before he joined the darkness, he saw himself in the throne room of Terra. He was resplendent in golden armor. The heraldry of his legions as gone, replaced by symbols the likes of which he’d never seen. Darius wanted to call out, to ask what it meant, but it was too late. Darius was gone.
