Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Beneath the blades and halberds of the Custodes, the Harlequin Lhaerial Rey would remember the afternoon he’d accepted his mission from Farseer Eldrad Ulthran.

Ulthran, Farseer of Craftworld Ulthwé, savior of countless Aeldari, was now one of the most influential leaders among his people.

He was willing to deal with humanity, and often made decisions that seemed utterly baffling at the time — decisions that, in hindsight, were usually proven right.

So when Ulthran told the Harlequins and Bonesingers that he had a grand plan requiring their help, none of them refused.

It was only after arriving here that they realized something was wrong.

“It’s already been sealed, Farseer,” the leader of the Bonesingers said. “The sacrifice needed to open it will be far greater than we imagined.”

Before them lay a crude, broken stretch of webway not built by the Old Ones. It ran only a short distance before its end was severed by four dread strands of profane force from the Empyrean.

It was deeply unsafe — even Aeldari who knew the webway’s paths intimately had never set foot on this stretch. Had it not been for Farseer Ulthran’s orders, they never would have forced their way here along the paths the Old Ones had left behind.

But finding it didn’t mean they could cross it — beyond the four strands of profane Empyrean force, this section of the webway was also sealed by a golden Psychic, blocking the Aeldari from advancing further.

“But we must. If we wait until our ancient enemy awakens, the price we pay will multiply a hundredfold, a thousandfold — it could mean the destruction of our entire race.”

“Do you mean the Necrons? They’ve already—”

“No. The Beast. It’s already rampaging across the galaxy. The monkeys are bearing the brunt of it, but several craftworlds are threatened as well. We must warn that prisoner upon the throne, and join the monkeys in checking its momentum. Otherwise, the gods of those beasts will awaken amid this calamity.”

Ulthran sighed. “Our Mother of Life is imprisoned in the Garden of Nurgle, and Cegorach, the Laughing God, has vanished without a trace. The Aeldari are too weak now — we can no longer face a greenskin race at the height of its power under the Beast, not as we once could.”

The Bonesinger leader nodded in agreement.

But at the thought of the method the Farseer had just proposed, he shook his head without meaning to.

So the way to deliver this warning is to have us blow up the toilet?

The Bonesinger leader fought to calm his throbbing temples. “Isn’t this… a bit too reckless?”

“This was the joint decision of Ulthwé’s Council of Farseers.”

The Bonesinger leader sighed, knowing he could no longer refuse.

He could only gather his subordinates. Under Ulthran’s watchful eye, the sacrifices among the Bonesingers were chosen.

The remaining Aeldari gathered around the chosen sacrifices, singing an interwoven melody that could channel psychic power.

Sorrow settled over the children of Isha like a poisonous mist. Ulthran paid their grief no mind; he turned instead to look at the Shadow’s Song Harlequin troupe behind him.

Lhaerial and his companions were there, mocking the Ishan followers’ sacrifice with a performance of their own — the followers of the Laughing God mocked everything, always.

When Ulthran’s gaze fell upon them, Lhaerial, as the troupe’s leader, ended his performance and bowed respectfully to this Farseer who seemed to enjoy the Laughing God’s favor.

“Lhaerial, take these. When you cross the webway and reach the humans’ Imperial Palace, this token will prove your intent.”

It was a beast’s tooth. Lhaerial hesitated. “This is…?”

“A tooth from a Nocturne salamander, from the homeworld of the Emperor’s most merciful son. It will make the monkeys believe your sincerity. Give it to the Emperor, and he will know where his son is now.”

Lhaerial felt a surge of respect for the Farseer’s far-reaching connections. “You share a friendship with him?”

“No. I stole it.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

The Harlequins suddenly understood, quite deeply, why Ulthran had been chosen by the Laughing God.

Lhaerial accepted the tooth. But Ulthran wasn’t finished. He hesitated over something, then a moment later drew a knife from within his robes.

It was a knife forged of blackstone — its material unusual, but otherwise, to the Harlequin’s eyes, unremarkable.

Lhaerial assumed it was another token, but Ulthran shook his head.

“If the chance arises, give it to the Void One.”

“The Void One? Who is that?”

“The answer lies upon the Attack Moon. You’ll understand when you see it.”

The children of Isha began to fall amid their singing. The souls of those who died in this ritual did not pass into the soulstones — they were seized instead by She Who Thirsts.

The singers’ voices began to tremble. From behind, the Farseer urged them on sharply. “Success is within reach! One last push, brothers and sisters! Your deaths will tie a favorable thread to the fate of Ulthwé!”

The last of the sacrificed Aeldari fell dead, and the melody she sang in her final moments warped the psychic power sealing the webway.

“Boom!”

With an earth-shattering explosion, a crack opened in the sealed webway.

Lhaerial wanted to see what lay beyond, but what greeted him wasn’t any construct of humanity — it was a snarling, clawing Greater Daemon.

“Oh no!”

The surviving singers cried out in alarm. They began to weep, believing their sacrifice had unleashed nothing but meaningless catastrophe.

Lhaerial understood them. They were noncombatants, and beyond their singing, their greatest talent was weeping just as pointlessly as their mother imprisoned in the Garden of Nurgle.

He felt no sorrow for those kin claimed by She Who Thirsts. He knew that someday, all of them would find peace in the embrace of Ynnead, the God of Death.

Ulthran swung his staff, binding the Greater Daemon in place, and shouted to the Harlequins, “Go! Now!”

Lhaerial led his Harlequins nimbly past the daemon, racing toward the Golden Throne.

In theory, he could lead his troupe straight to the seat beneath the Emperor and deliver the tooth in person. But the further they advanced, the heavier the mental burden grew.

Their keen senses caught an indescribable sorrow.

This sorrow seemed distilled from thousands of years of human suffering, mixed with the grief and rage of the Accursed One himself, and it pressed down on every Harlequin until they could barely breathe.

The Emperor’s attention wasn’t here, but they had brushed against a threshold that was everywhere at once.

Lhaerial had once held nothing but contempt for these inferior creatures who had scorched dry the oceans of their own homeworld. But now, a corpse upon a throne made him feel a terror even She Who Thirsts had never inspired in him.

It was an all-devouring ruin, an ending that would drag the entire galaxy down with humanity.

He realized that going straight beneath the Golden Throne would be suicide.

“We need a gentler approach. Change course,” he ordered.

The Harlequins, relieved, quickly sought a branching path that could lead them elsewhere in the Imperial Palace.

They found one, but along the way they ran into Custodes who had rushed over at the sound of the webway’s explosion.

Fifteen hundred years after the Great Heresy, the shadow of webway war fell over the Custodes once more. This time, they had none of the Sisters of Silence who once accompanied them.

They had been wondering which Chaos god had broken into the webway, but the instant they saw the Aeldari, everything became clear.

The Captain in command was furious. “Kill them all!”

The order was unnecessary — every Custodian was already charging the Harlequins.

Followers of Cegorach never feared battle; they turned combat into a performance art. But the instant they clashed with the Custodes, they realized how badly wrong their “art” was.

Their strength fell far short of the Custodes’, and their skill only slightly surpassed that of an ordinary Custodian. Their finesse won them no real advantage — at best, it decorated their deaths a little.

A Harlequin was run through the chest by a Custodian’s spear; his body hadn’t even hit the ground before an armored boot crushed it.

Lhaerial seized the opening, his twin blades spreading like butterfly wings as he lunged for a Custodian’s throat.

But the Custodian didn’t even try to block. He swung his halberd in a trade-your-life-for-mine stance, the blade driving straight for Lhaerial’s vitals.

Lhaerial hesitated and fell back.

That instant of hesitation cost him. The halberd sliced through his costume, leaving a ghastly wound.

His blood splattered across the golden armor, like an invitation announcing the closing act of the show.

A chill settled over Lhaerial.

He realized these Custodes cared far less for their own lives than the Harlequins did. They didn’t even bother using their numbers to wipe them out without loss — they were willing to sacrifice themselves just to kill these xenos who’d dared invade the Palace as swiftly as possible.

Against that cold fury, their art was worthless.

Only then, his arrogance gone, did he remember the token the Farseer had given him to prove his intentions.

“Friendship! Friendship!” Lhaerial shouted, pulling out the Nocturne salamander’s tooth. But it only drew more Custodes charging toward him.

Forced to keep fighting, he shouted, “My name is Lhaerial Rey, Shadowseer of the Shadow’s Song troupe! I come by the order of Eldrad Ulthran to deliver an important message to the Emperor of Mankind! Friendship! Friendship! Stop your attack!”

No one cared what he said. His troupe-mates were already falling in droves.

The surviving Harlequins realized they couldn’t survive this. Without a word, they closed around Lhaerial, hoping he might break through the Custodes’ encirclement and reach the throne where the Emperor sat.

He nearly made it.

In the final antechamber before the Golden Throne, Custodes who had finished off every Harlequin covering the retreat surrounded him.

Lhaerial looked back and saw the bodies of his companions strewn across the floor. Their all-out effort had cost the Custodes almost nothing. His pride as an Aeldari crumbled, and he raised his hands in surrender.

But he still remembered to raise the Nocturne salamander’s tooth high. “Peace! Peace!”

No one paid him any mind. He heard only the Captain’s cold voice.

“Silence this filthy xenos. See that he never speaks another word.”

Drakan Vangorich realized the battle was already over — only a few dozen Custodes remained, beating on the last Harlequin left on the ground.

Vangorich had never before seen the Custodes fight. This was his first time watching them in battle.

Their exceptional skill as warriors left him unsettled, but it also stirred a subtle resentment toward them.

If the Custodes were this outstanding, why did they shut themselves away inside the Imperial Palace? The Imperium of Man was suffering a catastrophe, and yet they sat here, indifferent to it all?

Regardless, the crisis of the Aeldari incursion was over. Vangorich meant to relax, but the sight of the Custodes apparently intent on beating the Harlequin to death sent his heart into his throat.

He hurried forward, but four Custodes blocked his path, their crossed spears barring the way.

“Let me through! I am Drakan Vangorich, Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum!”

That title caught the Custodes’ attention, and their leader stepped forward. Vangorich recognized him.

“Beyreuth.”

“Vangorich. What are you doing here?”

“Forgive me, but I heard him speaking of friendship. I suspect their purpose here is more than mere invasion.”

“Whatever their true purpose, the fact remains that they invaded the Imperial Palace, and for that they deserve death.” The Captain refused Vangorich sternly. “‘Friendship’ is only a pretext they use to try to deceive us. It’s been that way since the Great Crusade.

The Great Crusade — what a distant phrase that was. Vangorich realized these Custodes were still lost in the past, steeped in their old glories and old failures alike.

But this was no longer the past. With Terra facing a crisis, Vangorich needed to gather every scrap of useful intelligence he could. He had to keep this Aeldari alive.

“Captain of the Guard, please don’t execute him. He’s the only surviving Aeldari left. Only from his own mouth can we learn their true purpose.”

Lhaerial realized this might be his only chance to complete his mission and survive. He screamed with everything he had: “I brought a token! A Nocturne salamander’s tooth! It belongs to the Emperor’s eighteenth son—”

His voice was quickly drowned out by the beating the Custodes gave him. Beyreuth turned to Vangorich, his eyes plainly full of contempt and distrust.

“You, King of Assassins, pleading for a xenos? Does your kind only kill humans?”

“And what if what he’s saying is true? We must proceed with caution.”

“Are you in any position to say that, Grand Master? It was precisely your lack of caution that let the orks arrive in the first place. We Custodes will not make any mistakes again.”

The Captain waved a hand, signaling the Custodes, their fury spent, to execute the Aeldari on the spot. Vangorich panicked. “I order you to stop!”

“Only the Emperor commands us.”

The Custodes raised their blades to strike Lhaerial down. At the critical moment, a voice Vangorich knew well rang out.

“Then in the Emperor’s name, I demand you stop!”

Veritus, who had earlier declared his intent to meet with the Custodes’ commander, had arrived. He raised his Inquisitor high. His agents fanned out on either side of him, encircling the Custodes among them.

“I am the Inquisition’s representative among the the Twelve High Lords of Terra, and I wield the Emperor’s authority by that office! While he sits upon the Golden Throne, the Inquisition has the right to act in his stead — for we are the extension of his will!”

[Author’s Note: In this book, the Custodes get a boost and a bit of narrative compensation (in the original lore, the Custodes generally had the upper hand but still lost quite a few to the Harlequins, and were ultimately stopped only by the two Warhound-class Titans guarding the Golden Throne).]

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