Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The ignited axe-blade swept up from below, aimed straight at the daemon's avian jaw. The Tzeentchian Greater Daemon wrenched its head aside with all its might, yet nearly a third of its skull was still shorn away.

Even though he was an insubstantial being formed of pure Psychic energy, a blow like that was a grievous wound. But he choked down the agonized shriek rising in his throat and instead declared with emphasis:

"That's right — this is all part of my plan!"

Now that his forcibly slimmed-down head could pass freely in and out of the rift, he crooned in low, pained whimpers even as he proudly announced: "Didn't see that coming, did you? This is my escape route!"

Such a hard mouth on him.

Lin raised his battle-axe once more, and the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon — who had just been proudly craning his neck — instantly shrank his head back down.

He hurled out a parting threat: "You just wait, if you've got the guts!"

"I'm afraid you're the one without the guts."

"Then you'll see!" the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon screeched in fury, and vanished into the fissure without a trace.

Tzeentch's hold on everyone present was completely released, yet the control lingered as though it had never faded — every last one of them stood staring blankly at Lin. In this era, not so long after the Horus Heresy had passed, these warriors still possessed a certain knowledge of daemons. A Psychic presence this immense clearly belonged to a Greater Daemon. The kind of thing that usually required several companies to banish, at the cost of horrific casualties...

It had withdrawn just like that?

Was he a Blank?

No — Lin carried none of that soul-crushing oppression peculiar to a Blank, and besides, no Blank could ever banish a Greater Daemon by his own strength alone...

Aside from the men of the Second Legion, everyone looked at Lin with something indescribable now mixed into their gazes.

They had taken Lin for nothing more than a Mechanicus sage who had risen above base pleasures and would go to any length for the Ultimate Wall. But now his standing had to be ratcheted up yet another notch atop that, growing all the more unfathomable.

Lin noticed their stares, but he had no wish to discuss such things right now. He merely clapped his hands, drawing every Astartes' attention.

"The mission isn't over. Get moving — we have an altar to destroy!"

Only then did the others snap out of it at Lin's reminder. They set about burning everything here connected to Chaos, and began laying explosives throughout the warren.

By devouring every scrap of Nurgle's profane force and all the cultists' souls in this place, the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon had actually done them a great favor. The warriors, who would otherwise have had to stay vigilant and hunt down the remaining Nurgle cultists, could now throw themselves wholly into the work of demolition.

Lin took the chance to touch the opened Warp rift. The rift did indeed shrink by an inch the moment he made contact — but it quickly recovered its size under the driving force of the ritual.

Lin gazed with regret at the fissure, slow yet steadily expanding, and realized that however special his constitution was, it was not omnipotent.

There was still a great deal of the sorcerous power throughout the warren, conjured from the sacrifice of Nurgle's cultists. If he wanted to seal the Warp rift with his own body, he would first have to exhaust or disperse the remaining energy here.

That Tzeentchian Greater Daemon's "just you wait" hadn't been mere bluster. Some smaller Blue Horrors and Pink Horrors had already crossed the Warp rift into realspace. Squawking and shrieking, they charged the well-prepared Astartes, only to be sent mercilessly back into the Warp by bolter fire to load up their resurrection bars.

The Horrors grew a little afraid, but the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon's merciless rebukes came from beyond the rift, and the Horrors had no choice but to shove and jostle each other onward in their advance.

The daemon was trying to deplete the Astartes' ammunition this way — but the Astartes, having finished setting their bombs, were about to tear up the Changer of the Ways' very roots. As the Astartes withdrew in orderly fashion, Tzeentch's daemonic host finally seized a foothold in the material universe.

Trusting in the countless lesser daemons holding the line before him, the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon smugly poked his head out of the fissure once more.

"I told you I would return!"

But he looked left and right, and nowhere could he see any sign of Lin.

"You were never even at Port Sanctus — where in the world are you?!" Feeling his emotions had been toyed with, the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon roared. He searched the entire underground warren in a menacing fury, only to find a heap of ticking melta bombs.

The flash of the explosion lit up the Changer of the Ways' mutilated, twisted face: "Machine-priest, I'll f—"

His figure and his voice alike were buried together beneath the collapsing rubble. The treacherous Warp ritual was destroyed by pure physical phenomena, its very foundation of existence stripped away.

The Warp rift began to contract, and the Psychic energy — no longer running along any set pattern — was violently unleashed, forming a heaven-spanning blue pillar of light above the ruined warren.

Everyone in the hive city witnessed this astonishing sight. They stared at the scene before them in fear and unease, and nearly all of them gathered toward the God-Emperor's chapels. The handful of Psychics on the planet sensed Tzeentch's taint within it, but the governor's palace had ordered them under strict command to keep silent.

Ayash, the governor's steward, stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of the governor's palace, admiring that heaven-spanning pillar of light. In his eyes, this energy was the crystallization of his own genius.

Secretly nurturing Nurgle's cultists as Tzeentch's sworn enemies, luring in the planetary governor, then having the governor deceive the Astartes. In the end, drawing the Astartes to slaughter those very Nurgle cultists, offering up their souls to the great Weaver of Fates...

His plan was exquisite beyond compare, each link tightly interlocking with the next!

He raised both hands high and fervently proclaimed his triumph: "All is offered—"

"Ayash, look at what you've done!"

A thunderous rebuke rang out inside his mind. Ayash recognized the voice — it was that Lord of Change he had allied himself with.

"This? What's the matter?" He still didn't grasp what had actually happened.

"See for yourself! If you still have a brain in your skull!"

The blue pillar that had once soared skyward grew faint as its last thread of Psychic energy was spent, and finally dissolved into nothing. The commoners gathered in the God-Emperor's chapels cheered; under the Priest's guidance, they took it as a great miracle by which the God-Emperor had dispersed the threat looming over them.

Ayash watched the vanishing pillar in stunned disbelief, and could only confirm: "You failed?"

"You should ask yourself just what sort of enemies you found for me!"

"They were only some Astartes, weren't they?"

"Only?" the Tzeentchian Greater Daemon roared. "You have one last chance, Ayash! It was I who granted you the chance to shed your steward's identity, who bestowed upon you that transcendent knowledge! Fail again, and you will be the first thing I devour!"

"But my lord, didn't you say you were one of Tzeentch's most cunning servants? With you at hand, any plan would be flawless — I still remember the moment you proclaimed your own name..."

The Tzeentchian Greater Daemon stroked his mutilated face: "Get out!"

His voice vanished from Ayash's mind, leaving Ayash alone and at a loss in place. The steward hesitated for a long while, then at last let out a long, murky breath.

"I haven't lost yet."

His resolve set, Ayash turned and left. He knocked on the governor's chamber door, and inside found Governor Egrimm, who was toying with a handmaiden in a most "artistic" manner.

Facing this governor he had once looked down upon, Ayash bowed deeply.

"My lord, our plan — though still within my control — may have encountered a small variable..."

"A variable?"

Egrimm, right in the thick of his amusement, had his mood spoiled. He waved a hand in disappointment and dismissed the handmaiden, her face full of fawning smiles.

"You'd better give me an explanation, Ayash. Your fine performance before does not entitle you to disturb me so presumptuously now."

A flicker of disgust passed through Ayash's eyes.

But he mastered his emotions well: "My lord, this truly is an urgent matter. Those Astartes have partially wrecked our plan. They have destroyed the great ritual to offer the corrupt cultists to the Lord of Pleasures..."

"Ayash!" Egrimm slammed the table and shot to his feet. "You swore to me that everything was going according to plan!"

"I risked my very life to fool those Space Marines into going down to the underhive — and this is how you repay my efforts?!"

The steward buried his head lower still: "Yes, yes, my lord... but we have not yet strayed entirely from the plan. All of this remains within my design."

It was a lie, and yet not a lie.

Egrimm had no idea that the man had long since sworn himself to the great God of Intrigue. In this governor's eyes, Ayash was still nothing more than a lowly steward carrying out his bidding.

The green tide swept across the whole of the Imperium, the orks' spearhead pointed straight at the Throneworld. Mankind's Imperium, long at peace, had already concentrated most of its strength on further outward expansion, powerless against this enormous threat suddenly festering within its own borders. The Solar Segmentum could not even muster a single fleet capable of meeting the orks head-on.

The nobles neighboring the Terra system were all seized with dread. They sold off their estates for nothing more than a single berth on a ship bound for Terra — for that, in their eyes, was already the safest place there was.

But Ayash was different. In his view, this was his chance to rise!

Ayash had served the Horst family far too long — long enough for treacherous notions to take root in him.

He had served this family for nearly a century. He knew the family's secrets, at the very least far more than that green boy who had only recently taken up the mantle of family head.

If he could depose Egrimm, he would surely do far better than that governor drowning in women's flesh. With Port Sanctus as his foundation, he would accomplish an undertaking beyond imagining!

But such treason could not be spoken aloud. All he could do was pray in the chapel in the dead of night, pouring out his ambitions to the God-Emperor. Alas, however devout he was, the God-Emperor never granted him any revelation or reply.

"Every human, the Emperor included, ought to remain in the place where he belongs." So the Priest had said. "All is as the God-Emperor wills."

Hah — so it was the old man himself who had decreed that he stay a steward for his whole life?

He ought to have a far broader stage!

When a daemon calling itself M'Kachen sought him out, he agreed to its offer without the slightest hesitation. As payment for the knowledge provided, Ayash was required to devise a scheme grand enough to please a being of the Warp — one that must contain sweeping, tortuous reversals, and that must offer up to the Warp a sufficient tally of souls.

It was no easy demand, but to Ayash it was hardly difficult. Having swiftly mastered a few Warp tricks through the daemon, he peered through the flow of Psychic energy and glimpsed the cosmic order about to be turned upside down by the Beast War, as well as a traitor Inquisitor soon to arrive at Port Sanctus.

For this he had made meticulous, foolproof preparations.

The governor he currently served, Egrimm, had originally been no different from any other noble. This incompetent, who had only recently taken over the family, had already, upon learning the orks were coming, hastily readied a private vessel to flee toward Terra.

He had meant to bring Ayash along, but Ayash — who had long been scheming to use this planet as a stage for a grand theatrical piece dedicated to the Changer of the Ways — declined the proposal.

On the pretext that the family's holdings on this world would still need someone to manage them to the very last moment, he packaged himself as a foolishly loyal steward. The spineless Egrimm was, sure enough, persuaded. Before fleeing, he conferred his authority as planetary governor upon Ayash, then abandoned his steward and ran off alone.

But just as Ayash was about to make grand use of that authority, Egrimm came back.

This planetary governor, his body long since hollowed out by wine and women, was naturally frail in complexion, yet his step was light — as though his heart had found some powerful thing to lean upon. He summoned Ayash and asked him: "Ayash, do you understand the history of our family?"

Ayash understood, of course: "The great Horst family was granted dominion over Port Sanctus by Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children himself..."

That name had long since become taboo within the Imperium, and even within the Horst family it was never mentioned — for Fulgrim, as one of the Emperor's own sons, had ultimately betrayed the False Emperor and thrown himself into the embrace of the great Four Chaos Gods.

But it was precisely this taboo that had bred Egrimm's present confidence: "I shall offer this planet up to Fulgrim, and in exchange win a ticket into the realm of Chaos!"

He proclaimed smugly: "That place is far, far safer than Terra is now!"

For an instant Ayash was stunned — but by the time he came to his senses, he could very nearly have laughed aloud.

Was there truly such good fortune to be had?

This drama meant to be offered to the Changer of the Ways had grown even more turbulent and treacherous under the governor's intervention, and the feeling of that change intoxicated Ayash. He discovered that although the governor claimed he would throw himself into Chaos, he understood nothing of Chaos — all the man could offer was knowledge of a few rituals Ayash had studied long ago. And he ordered Ayash to set them in place with all haste.

Ayash went on making a show of loyalty to the governor who had declared for Chaos. Even in embracing Chaos, Governor Egrimm remained as timid as a mouse; his only aim was to sacrifice a portion of the populace and open a single Chaos passage for his own comings and goings.

But Ayash would not let it end so simply. He lied that the ritual required more extensive preparation, and that Egrimm would have to present greater "sincerity" to guarantee his standing after defecting to Chaos.

With this two-pronged approach, the steward — who already handled all the family's affairs great and small — naturally took on the heavy responsibility of preparing the Chaos ritual as well. From then on, he borrowed the planetary governor's name to carry out his own plan.

Compared to the timid Egrimm, Ayash's ambition ran far greater — not merely to offer this planet up to the God of Intrigue in a dramatic finale, but to seize this opportunity to ascend into a Daemon Prince.

Choosing Nurgle cultists as sacrifices rather than ordinary mortals. Then using the Space Marines' hands to wipe out the Nurgle cultists, making those loyal warriors into aids to his own plan — each of these parts was a link in pleasing the Changer of the Ways, so that he himself might complete his ascension.

But now that this plan had sprung a flaw...

Never mind — he was, after all, the most faithful devotee of the Changer of the Ways.

His plan might encounter accidents, but the plan encountering accidents was itself unlikely.

He need only reshape this grand objective into a form better suited to the present situation.

Facing the governor's face full of wrath, he humbly put forth his idea: "My lord, though our plan to sacrifice the underhive and be accepted by the Lord of Pleasures did not succeed, the power of the Empyrean we accumulated has not entirely vanished because of this misstep."

Hearing that there was still a way to turn things around, Egrimm sat back down, unconsciously toying with his own fingers: "What do you mean?"

"Those cultists of the Rotting Father are not the only sacrifices. If we could offer up the mighty souls of the Astartes..."

"Have you lost your mind?" Egrimm started in alarm. "Take on the Astartes — with what, us?"

To win their trust, he had already sent a good many of his already-scarce Planetary Defence Force down below. Now they had hardly any armed strength on hand, yet here was talk of opposing the Astartes?

"Of course not. We can open a passage leading here from the Empyrean, and summon the divine host of the Empyrean to aid us!"

Hearing the steward's explanation, Egrimm's expression did not improve in the slightest. He knew perfectly well what those "divine hosts" were called in the material universe.

They were called daemons!

He was, at least in name, still a governor under the Imperium — and now he was being asked to summon daemons right under an Inquisitor's very nose?

Ayash now saw Egrimm's misgivings, and explained: "Control of the Astropathic Court is in our hands. So long as we are the first to send out word that rebels have appeared on the planet — without specifying that we are fighting the Astartes — no one will conclude that we betrayed the Imperium."

Egrimm felt there was some sense in this: "We can pin the daemons' appearance on the rebels. The Imperium truly won't react so quickly... but what about the Inquisitor's side?"

"We need only draw one of them away. As it happens, Inquisitor Pavonis has long wished to head for the fleet — so let him carry word for us that a rebellion has erupted on the planet."

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