Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Vernius Malik slipped nimbly in through the window. Power armour was heavy, yet his movements carried a gentleness wholly at odds with its bulk.

Silent as a bat, he stole into the room, and in an all but imperceptible instant he had already concealed his presence within the chamber's shadows.

But Ephron Hasdrubal spotted him all the same. "You should use the front door, Malik. I've said as much many times."

"I prefer a bit more flair."

"Then you might as well hang upside down from the ceiling." Ephron sighed, his darksight letting him make out the dark brown substance draped over Malik's power armour. "Truly, you ought to rein in that little 'hobby' of yours."

"I have never once felt shame over it."

Malik emerged from the shadows, proudly displaying the sickly masterpiece upon his power armour—a swathe of brown human skin, its veins still visible, which he had only just flayed from a gangster who'd been slaughtering civilians amid the chaos. "Fear is the way I survive."

Ephron shook his head. He knew he could never talk Malik around.

He would probably never be able to accept this hobby of Malik's.

But at least the man was better than those "brothers" who shrieked that a Fallen Angel ought to be cut down where he stood.

And besides, he had to admit the method was genuinely effective.

Ever since the Raid Commander had issued his orders, Malik had single-handedly checked the underhive gangs' assaults on the settlements of the underhive dwellers—though the folk in those settlements were hardly saints, they had at least accomplished the task the Commander set for them: to unite the lower gangs and launch an attack upon the now-swollen Life Cult.

As a Dark Angel who could do nothing but stand watch, stewing helplessly inside the safehouse, Ephron figured it was best not to lecture a Night Lord who'd been doing all the "hard, meritorious work."

"Just don't leave any loose ends for those Imperial Fists to grab hold of," was all he could caution. "Those gangs are finished. The underhive isn't your private slaughterhouse anymore."

"Those whelps of Dorn are as dull as stones," Malik said scornfully. "All they know how to do is huddle together and advance slow and steady, ticking off their preset objectives. If that's all they've got, they'll never catch us in a lifetime."

"But they've already discovered the Ritual Circle," Ephron countered.

"Isn't that exactly what we need?"

"I only worry there'll be some variable among them that we haven't accounted for."

"I imagine that's precisely what our Raid Commander would love to see."

Neither of them spoke again, and the two fell silent for a moment.

After a while, Ephron resumed his questioning. "This Mechanicus sage—how much do we actually know about him?"

"Not much. Only that he has some peculiar means of suppressing machine-spirits," Malik answered. "The last word the Raid Commander received about that sage was that he was plotting to seize the Cath Maximus Forge World. After that we lost contact with our informants on Maximus. Still, given that he's turned up here without a scratch, it means Maximus must already have fallen to him."

"No wonder he could pinpoint the location of our ritual so easily. A sage capable of seizing a Forge World is no small thing... I think we should adjust the plan a little."

"Let's hear it?" Malik was intrigued.

The leader of their warband granted them immense autonomy. So long as it served their ultimate goal, the Commander permitted them to make any temporary alterations to the plan they saw fit.

"I'll use my informants to make contact with those Chaos devotees and tell them the Imperial Fists already know the location of the circle. You go and make contact with the Imperial Fists who've set out—use their pursuit to lure them into noticing certain details they'd previously overlooked. That way they'll both converge on the heart of the circle at the same time."

The Caliban Knight's reasoning was clear, and in the broad strokes the Night Lord was willing to follow his arrangement. "What's the time frame?"

"We need this done before the Imperium's relief fleet arrives."

"Then we move now."

The two left the safehouse and split up to act. Through Ephron's manipulation, a Nurgle worshipper who had "accidentally" learned of the Imperial Fists' movements came stumbling toward the Bishop.

"Bishop, this is bad!"

The Nurgle worshipper wore a mournful face. "Those retreating lackeys of the False Emperor have started moving again! They've left their defensive line, and no one knows where they're headed!"

The line was now held only by the Planetary Defence Force—an unmistakable opportunity to break it. Yet somehow the Bishop was seized by an ominous premonition.

"Which direction are they going?" he demanded sharply.

"The southeast!"

The Nurgle worshipper answered, and upon receiving the reply the Bishop's eyes flew wide.

The southeast? That was the very site of the ritual by which, upon their deaths, they would surrender themselves unto the Grandfather—

The Bishop did not for one moment believe it mere coincidence that these lackeys of the False Emperor were heading southeast. They must have discovered something!.

Such a thought sent the Bishop's sense of urgency surging. Whatever their aim, returning to the embrace of the True God was the thing these Chaos fanatics craved most.

Now, learning that the Imperial Fists might destroy the ritual site that would let them return to the True God, the Bishop had no wish to rest and regroup, even having only just suffered enormous losses. "Assemble! We cannot let those lackeys of the False Emperor ruin the ritual that will return this world to the True God!"

But his command met with scant response.

Aside from the core faithful who gathered toward him, all the rest gazed at them with eyes full of dread.

"Bishop," one at his side murmured in warning. "We may already have lost the support of those mortals who once followed the Life Cult."

The Bishop cast his gaze about: the nearby mortals had, the very moment they laid eyes upon the Chaos Spawn, undergone irreversible mutation. Now they were nothing but a slop of flesh, moaning mindlessly upon the ground, exuding the power of the warp.

The mortals further off, who had not directly witnessed the Chaos Spawn, likewise looked in terror upon these Nurgle worshippers who no longer hid their mutations—their aesthetic sense had not yet been twisted by the power of Chaos, so even at a mere glance they could sense that something was deeply wrong with these boil-covered "people."

Especially those Nurgle walking corpses...

Gods above, they had joined the Life Cult only to scrape together a meal—how could there be monsters here that rose again from the dead?!

Unburnt embers drifted through the air, settling upon the Bishop whose expression flickered dark and uncertain, like a bloody snowfall.

The scene formed by these ashes together with the mortals instinctively drawing away from the place seemed to proclaim the impending doom of the Life Cult.

The Chaos Spawn was gone now—the brimming power of Chaos could mutate a Chaos worshipper into a mighty Chaos Spawn, but flesh unable to bear so much of that power would swiftly march toward death.

If these mortals were no longer willing to serve as their cannon fodder, they would have no hope of victory in what came next.

But there was no time now to sweet-talk them anew, or simply to corrupt this crowd of mortals outright.

"Those who will not offer themselves up for the True God are unworthy of the Great Father's blessing," the Bishop decided. "Drive them to fight the Planetary Defence Force. Let these people who cannot comprehend our mighty power render us their final worth!"

"Bishop, your order is...?" the Nurgle worshipper beside him confirmed in a low voice.

"Have them surround the Planetary Defence Force's line. I do not want those lackeys of the False Emperor receiving support from the Planetary Defence Force while we face them in the final reckoning!"

Upon receiving the order, the Nurgle worshippers detached a few of their number, and they drove the mortals off to hem in the line held by the Planetary Defence Force. For the sake of a scrap of food, these refugees had little objection to fighting other humans.

The Bishop turned back, looking upon the remaining Nurgle worshippers. "As for those angels of the False Emperor? Hmph, they're formidable, of course—but all told there's only so few of them... I shall harness the power of the ritual and annihilate every last one of these blasphemers against the True God!"

The Nurgle worshippers, who had only just witnessed the might of the Astartes, fell somewhat silent.

Seeing their morale sag, the Bishop could only brandish his sceptre and rally them once more: "We shall fight to the last within the ritual. No matter what befalls, every one who is martyred in guarding the ritual shall surely return to the embrace of the Great Father! We shall dwell in harmony with all other living things in the Grandfather's garden, and revel in the boundless love and eternal serenity the True God bestows upon us!"

These words struck the heart of every one of the faithful. The feeling that death alone would grant them what they craved set them alight. Even knowing this venture was in all likelihood a one-way trip, they still cried out in unison:

"For the unity of all life! For the Great Father!"

At the far end of the underhive, the Astartes had yet to learn that the cultists had already begun to move.

Through numerology, Lin deduced that this circle must be deeply connected to the Nurgle worshippers—but this result did not quite square with his earlier reckoning that these Nurgle worshippers were merely pawns.

Puzzled though he was, Lin had no time to hesitate. To confirm the situation, they had slain too many Nurgle worshippers who served as sacrifices; this ritual, whose purpose remained unknown, might already be nearing its end, and their only choice was to press forward.

Whatever this ritual was being conducted for, what Lin had to do was lead his force to advance to the very heart of it and shatter the ritual!.

Having rested briefly, the Astartes replenished their ammunition, then mustered and set out once more, following Issaga's guidance straight toward the eye of the circle.

But just as the force was advancing unobstructed, an unexpected visitor threw their plans into disarray.

The Leman Russ swung its cannon about, blasting the enemy's hiding place into powder with a high-explosive shell—but that dark figure had already leapt nimbly clear before the bolt round arrived.

Still, the rubble flung about in the explosion slightly hampered the shadow's flight. Thorne charged in with blade raised, and the strike he swung forced the dark figure to twist back and parry the attack. A massive lightning claw caught Thorne's power sword, and in the shrieking clash of metal on metal, everyone finally saw clearly the form of this unexpected arrival.

Lightning-bolt markings like tracks of tears, the crest upon the helm rising like bat-wings, and the human skin and bones draped over the power armour.

"Night Lords!"

Thorne roared, hewing down his sword with all his strength. "This is the sacred Solar Segmentum—not a place traitors like you may lay your filthy hands upon!"

"Is that so? But we were already here fifteen hundred years ago."

Malik bled off the force of the blow. This veteran before him was no opponent he could match, so his fighting consisted only of evasion. That did not mean his tongue would concede any ground, however. "It's fine if you've forgotten. I'll make you remember, once again, the terror we bring."

"Is an entire Night Lords warband at your back? What in the end is your purpose?!"

Malik began to laugh, and the brilliant smile looked especially unnerving upon his pallid face. "We came for you!"

Against a Night Lord bent solely on dodging, who would by no means give battle, even Thorne could not secure a victory in short order. What made it worse was that the Night Lord deliberately controlled the range of his evasions, leaving the other warriors—who ought to have provided ranged fire support—too wary to shoot, terrified of gunning down their own Chapter Master along with him.

Yet this Night Lord was but one man; so long as they left a small squad to keep him occupied, they could bypass him and continue their march to the eye of the circle.

But Lin's logic-analyzer alerted him that this Night Lord's trajectory was deeply deliberate.

Feeding the enemy's movement data since his appearance into the panel and rendering it into a visualization, Lin realized that from the very moment he'd appeared, this Night Lord had been consciously steering them toward a particular direction.

Lin was most intrigued by his purpose.

"Thorne, don't just blindly give chase," he advised over the comm. "Slow the pace. Let us see what this Night Lord wants us to see."

Thorne, who had originally feared the Night Lord would flee, obeyed and slowed his rate of attack. Sure enough, the Night Lord did not turn and run. He held to a position of tantalizing near-and-far, not in the least concealing his intent to lure them on.

If he meant to draw Lin and the others into an encirclement, then this move was rather too bold.

The pace, in this eerie tacit understanding between both sides, quickened greatly, and Lin was at last led into a ritual ground formed of an eight-pointed star and Chaos incantations.

The Night Lord seemed to have completed his task. His figure melted into the shadows of the buildings and appeared no more. Lin narrowed his eyes and surveyed this ritual ground, his gaze finally coming to rest upon the shattered inscriptions within the circle and the faded bird feathers.

Issaga stepped forward to inspect it, and he soon understood the situation. "This was once a node linked to the eye of the circle as well... but it's been abandoned for a very long time."

Kurande found it strange. "What did the Night Lord bring us here for?"

"I don't know..." Issaga shook his head; this was clearly beyond his comprehension too.

"Do not try to fathom the mind of a traitor," cautioned Thorne, who had returned—yet he himself turned to look at Lin. "Sage Lin, what have you discerned?"

"I've discerned that this abandoned eye of the circle is probably not the only one," Lin answered. "And... the waters of Port Sanctus may run deeper still than we thought."

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