Characters of the Rancid Blade: The Lady Hosphel

The Lady Hosphel 

The Lady Hosphel is often known as the Mistress of the Dragons.  She is the leader of the Screaming Dragon Wych Cult which makes it home in the many arenas of the Cabal of the Rancid Blade.  She and the Archon Actev Nu have had a long and profitable relationship through the years.  She and her wyches are happy to entertain and provide a never ending parade of victims for the amusement of the cabal. In turn the wyches are sheltered and honored amongst the minions of the Rancid Blade.  

The lady first rose to prominence in the arenas of The Cymbel.  As one could imagine she became used to the finer things in life while fighting in the arenas of the most privileged.  Cymbel is a small  arena circuit reserved for only the most powerful and wealthy of Commoragh’s denizens.  It was in this most elite circle that she came to be noticed.  When she struck out to form her own cult she did not want for wealthy patrons to support her and her clan.  The Archon Actev Nu was the most wealthy.  

None would call the lady a servant of the Rancid Blade because it if often unclear who in fact is in charge of the cabal.  Her and Actev vie for ultimate control.  Some years he is undisputed and others she is of clear prominence.  One of the closest warriors to Actev once said that the Lady and the Archon lead the cabal as though they were in a constant knife fight with each other.  The Lady is amongst the most powerful of leaders, especially in these dark days when for several years it was rumored that Actev had been slain.  The lady is a highly skilled martial artist and performer favoring an Agonizer as her weapon of choice.  Often she rides to war bare breasted on a reaver jet cycle.   However, recently she has been seen with a phalanx of Incubi.  Her fortunes must have increased indeed to have such assistants at her side.  

Lady Hosphel is an Archon. She is an HQ choice and an independent character.  She carries an Agonizer, a Shadow Field, a close combat weapon, and takes combat drugs.

Lady of Speed  Special Rule

Lady Hosphel is an ace at fighting at speed from the seat of her reaver jet bike. She may ride a Reaver Jetbike into battle for a cost of an additional 25 points.  She benefits from the following Special Rules: power through pain, acute senses, fleet (if on foot) or skilled rider if mounted.

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part thirty six: His primary creditor

Burgoful had seen the body.  His crew had carried it, dripping, from the streets of the old city back to the oubliettes of Archimedes.  It was here that the old Homunculus had begun his cruel work.  His lonesome work.  It was here that the old Archon was reborn.  There were so many deals that the old one had made.  So many plans and schemes and bargains.  None of the partners on the other end of the deals, and the plans, and the schemes were prepared to let Actev Nu get away from their bargains through something as easily as being shot through the skull and having his heart cut out and stolen.  They paid in saves and in dark favors to make sure the old Homunculus brought the Archon back from the dead.  Despite what Burgoful knew about the dark ways he was still amazed when watched the Archon walk through the crescent door into the dank light of the antechamber.  It was him.  It was the man grown young.  

The Grand Archon, as he was known, had been the lord of the Chalice Pit, the Nightmare of the Chill Worlds, and the curse of a thousand million brothers.  He who had once been the old Archon of the once mighty Cabal Rancid Blade and lord of the Screaming Dragon Cult, now stood before Burgoful as a young man.  His head was shaved clean and the fine princely features of one of the sculpted class now only held a shadow of the old man’s face~ but a shadow was enough.  He wore a long dark robe, a dank green, and held a white cloth in his hand.  His eyes were the color of a glacier~ cold and blue.  They met the Sybarite’s and Burgoful saw the old man deep down.  Behind the Archon shuffled the form of Archimedes.  His long leathery head moved mechanically as the horror merchant stepped into view.  His hand curling out, from within long blue robes, two of the six fingers were scalpels.  

“My old steward” Actev said revealing a grim of evil energy “I see you are surprised.  You should not be.  Death and time have made me stronger.  Stronger than I have felt in an age.”

The Sybarite nodded. “You look young”.

“I feel it.  I feel as though a metal grip were released from me.  I feel as though I am as young as when I was in the elder days.”

“You are younger...” Hissed the Haemonculi “Your body and heart is that of a Trueborn who sacrificed himself for his master.  The form of your old body has been...” the creature thought of an adequate term. “... retired”.  Actev held out his hand, stretching his fingers, inspecting his nails.  

“It feels as though these are my own fingers.  My own hands.”

“It should.  The body hasn’t changed.  Just the brain.  All that remains of your old self is your brain”

“Then why does he look so similar to the man he was?  I mean his foes will know it’s him”.  Burgoful asked.  The horror merchant turned away  snarling at the question.  

“Do not ask of that which you choose not to experience”.  The sybarite was silenced.  “The lord of the Rancid Blade has many friends...  and they have paid well to see he has been restored to his former greatness.”  

Actev looked into the crimson darkness the surrounded them.  He knew he had no friends.  There were none who had friends in the dark city.  

“Tell me Archimedes,  what to I owe thee for this service?”

Silence for a moment and then: “Nothing great one...  nothing today... ”

Nothing today.  The Archon nodded.  He mentally added this item to a new list he was forming in his head.  Nothing to be paid to the Homunculus Archimedes.  He was sure that he would find out what compound interest would be paid to his creditors.  Those who would not let him be slain by a human’s pistol.  Those who would not let deals be undone and plans unravel so easily.  He nodded to himself in confidence.  

“Burgoful, what of my domains?” he asked as he began walking confidently from the Homunculus’ door.  Their footfalls echoing through the dark passageway before them.  The old leather face watched them leave with an evil smile on his maw.  He listened to their footfalls.  “What of the Lady Hosphel?”  

“She has been watching over your domains my lord.” The Sybarite replied  “She has secured your realms during your... convalensence”

Actev Nu nodded again considering the wych.  For a moment he was glad of her loyalty and then he reconsidered.  She, it seemed, was now his primary creditor. 

Cemephon Campaign Turn 1.7

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part thirty five: The Silvery Hand

There are many who can claim the mantle of greatness amongst these stars.  Many who can be called heroic, or gigantic, or even mighty.  The heroes of the Space Marines live to fight a thousand wars and that is heroic.  The ageless lords of the Eldar strive for the remnant of their race and that is timeless.  Even the flicker of greatness can be seen in an Imperial officer or a Tau colonist for the moment of his life.  But there are some beings who cast a longer shadow than those.  There is one who casts a shadow that the ages can not measure and time is fearful of.  The Silvery Hand is his name and he is bringing his children together.  

The mighty Actev Nu was not the first of his minions.  One of the greatest Archons of the fallen Eldar kin.  Perhaps the greatest.  Actev's greatness was born, like so many others, out of the fall.  But unlike his dark brothers something changed him as he fell.  When the birth scream of the Thirsting God occurred all those millenia ago Actev was but an Eldar.  At the moment he slipped toward the vortex of Slanessh, pulled into the horror, a silvery hand stretched out from the cosmos and caught him.  A molten dream captured him and carried him away.  He fled from the horrors of that moment and as he did a living silver crept into his eyes, crept into his mind and hid there.  It hid there and helped him carry his domains to the great crimson city of the webway.  The Silver Hand hid there and through its shiny influence Actev became a mighty master of the dark streets, an overlord of the horrible neighborhoods.  Through the millenia the Silvery Hand secreted away...  waiting... growing.  

When the great Confessor Sylax was but a preacher he was lead by the Silvery Hand across the blasted sands of Mordia.  His trek brought him renown and took him to the Sororatas that were cloistered in the mission there.  As Sylax marched across that furnace landscape he was sustained and changed by the melted glass and molten that existed there.  The spirit that lead him was the same that guided Actev Nu, unknown, for the millenia.  Unknown it sustained Sylax through his pilgrimage across the wastes and through the decades of war and conspiracy and tricks and schemes.  Sylax, guided by the Hand manipulated the 27th Mordian Iron Guard for two hundred years advancing schemes, unknown even to himself, but known by the Silvery Hand.  When the Inquisitor Gulofil learned and revealed Sylax’s true nature the Confessor fled.  Few believed the claims of Gulofil or his minions but Sylax was driven out, stripped of his titles.  He fled to and hid in Commoragh.  He was sheltered by the same Silvery Hand that had brought ActevNu to power so many millenia ago.  The Silvery Hand protected its own.  

Sylax returned to the real world hundreds of years later. The Mordian 27th regiment was long destroyed but the Sisters of the Cloistered Heart were yet to be unleashed.  Sylax continued the schemes of the Silvery Hand with the sisters at his side and none as faithful as The Nurse.  She stood by his side, bore his child, Sylvie and raised her to be a sister of the Adeptus Saroratas.  The Silvery Hand was at work in the universe through Sylax, preparing the way... Getting ready.  

Through the generations Actev Nu was also working the will of the Hand.  Though he only knew a faction of what he did.  His actions and the actions of the Confessor built the path the Silvery Hand needed.  Actev Nu’s eldar pirates disrupted trade fleets and delayed colonial settlers so they would not reach the Sleeping Worlds.  Sylax destroyed the moon of Palthanx so that the gravitational vacuum would activate long lost technology, technology frozen by those who once moved the stars and moons at will.  The minions of the Actev Nu included the corrupted Etherial Ari’Ashi who is but now leading a vast invasion on the Cemephon System to divert Imperial resources from discovering hidden worlds.  The attention of Inquisitor Nelthas was diverted so easily by the Tau invasion fleet.  She had been so close to finding the long hidden tomb of the Cyiontyr and all it’s secrets.  But the Silvery Hand knew best and it had for bllions of years before any of these character’s races had been born.  It’s manipulations had stretched though the eons, protecting, working, nurturing those who slumbered. 

Until one night both Sylax and Actev Nu were struck down on the field of battle~ the same field of battle.  Thrice wagered schemes played themselves out to that moment.  Sylax and his companions fled the field of battle with his broken body.  They cut the Archon's heart from its corpse and carried it in the bloody helmet of the Archon.  Sylvie, the daughter of Sylax, and her lover, Yanaloo, a minion of Actev Nu’s arena, carried the servants of the Silvery Hand back to the dry sands of Mordia.  They were lead down the winding stair by the Nurse, the last and most faithful of the sisters that dwelt in the old Mission.  

Down down down into darkness they ran.  Their feet falling on old stone.  Flaming torches held aloft they strode through dark passages carrying the bodies past watching eyes inscribed on anchant walls.  In the oval Chamber of the Eclipse The Nurse took a vial from the dusty shelf and as Sylax drank the universe groaned in horror.  The silver flowed into Sylax.  His old eyes expanded while the channels of his brain filled with quicksilver.  He grasped the dead heart of the old Archon and absorbed it's evil core into his new body.  It seemed to melt into his chest.  As the silver engulfed him he rose from the arms of his daughter, floating above the ground, lifting to center of the oval chamber.  His body expanded.  A dark green light flowed from his eyes while face reveled in the power of his new form.  His body expanded and his mind awoke.  The Silvery Hand was born into the world.  It lifted up and placed the old Archon's helmet atop it's head.  It swept the Nurse aloft with a broad long arm capturing her and cursing her to live with him forever.  

Sylvie and Yanaloo fled the chamber.  As they ran they saw the dark metal eyes of the newly awoken, the long sleeping, the Nercontyr reborn as the Necrons.  They stood and came to life.  The Silvery Hand was their lord of long ago, a son of the Star Gods, and imbued with their power.  His millenia of plans and works, orders, machinations, and schemes was almost fulfilled.  His minions were almost ready.  His silver tide would sweep through the universe.  His carefully laid schemes would now unfold.  He would prepare the way for the horror of the Necrons.  Few were left to stand in his way.

The Dolgath Legacy Part 15: despite the doom

The Adeptus Astartes fleet dropped out of the warp right on top of them.  Every alarm on his battle cruiser seemed to go off at once.  Dolgath sat down heavily in his chair and pressed his palms over his ears.  A flurry of functionaries swarmed his audience chamber, all babbling incoherently.  He turned away and gazed through his expansive viewport at the arriving fleet.  The looming bulk of the newly arrived strike cruiser – like some massive shark with its fins spread wide and its jaws gaping – dominated the vista, surrounded by multiple escort craft like remoras swarming, he watch as a shuttle instantly launched from the strike cruiser’s black maw and headed for the docking bay of his ship.  He turned back to the gibbering mass gathering in front of his desk. 

“Cancel the alarms!  Receive our guest promptly and courteously, and show them here at their convenience,” Dolgath said with and effort at calmness.   

The functionaries receded, taking their cacophony with them, leaving only a tall, solitary, silent figure shrouded in shadow.  Dolgath seemingly ignored the figure as he rose, walked to the viewport and stood gazing at the newly arrived fleet.  

“I have a feeling our lives just got a bit more complicated…” Dolgath spoke, as if to himself. 

“You did not expect the Tau to give up so easily?”  The shadowy figure spoke.

“They are annoyingly optimistic, aren’t they?” Dolgath chuckled. 

He turned as Nelthas glided forward and simultaneously reduced her height; the sight was strangely disconcerting as if she was racing toward him from a great distance.  She was attired in black underlain in creamy lace; her psychomorphic mask was rosy ping with lips as darkly crimson as newly shed blood.  He felt a great surge of happiness at the sight of her despite the doom the fleet’s arrival brought with it. 

“They expected this planet to fall easily.  When it did not and the rest of their advance thrust past it, they realized they had a glaring weakness in their flank.  They are turning now to address it,” Nelthas analyzed. 

“Makes perfect sense,” Dolgath nodded.  “I just didn’t expect reinforcements so soon.” 

“Treyquil...” Nelthas offered. 

Dolgath rubbed his temples.  “Could be, although I heard a remnant Imperial Dragon force struck the Tau as a target of opportunity with some success several months ago.  Perhaps the Astartes have taken a personal interest in the prosecution of this campaign?”    

Nelthas glided up to the viewport to stand close to him.  “They have arrived in force to be sure…”

Cemephon Campaign Turn 1.5

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part 34: Fragments

Fragments.  Wood shards.  Stone chips. They floated in the air before him.  Slowly.  Light reflected off plaster dust as it splayed through the air.  It had been punched from the wall beside him.  The wall had erupted in a riot of noise and fragments and pain.  But he watched it move in slow motion.  As he must have been moving.  Moving through the air.  What once had been an abandoned room in a derelict building now became like the contents of a snow globe, swirling moving, rearranging.  As his body moved through the air his mind flashed thoughts through his head.  

He saw the recent arrival of two drop pods, Space Marine assault vehicles that plunged from the sky, delivering a monstrous payload.  Maturn remembered watching a mechanical coffin lumber from the pod, gout's of flame issuing from its arms.  He was embarrassed to recall that he was relieved the monster had moved off to focus on a team of Crisis Suits rather than toward his fellow Pathfinders.  His relief hadn’t lasted long.  The stationary Drop Pod’s auto sensors detected his team immediately and began launching shells into his position.  The wall beside him dematerialized, blowing outward and knocking him off his feet.  As his body crescented though the air his mind cast about trying to catch something familiar.  

Analop stood in a field.  It was a long time ago and the red Holhok grasses waved in the slight wind.  Trees and their yellow foliage waved and caught her attention.  She looked up in slow motion.  A long dark pony tail curved as underwater.  Her spring dress frolicked about her long body.  He watched the curve of her neck.  The skin, a slight blue, was dotted with the finest freckles.  It had been one of the first things he had noticed about her.  He had thought that they were like tiny river rocks amongst the stream of her skin.  Her attention was drawn back toward him now.  Her large dark eyes widened to see him approach.  It was Millliltan, the festival of the dry season.  He was meeting her to picnic in the field.  Six years ago.  As he approached her face brightened and her glands blossomed.  A roar swept over them and at first he thought it was a wind in the field...  but the fragments drew together and he was back in that building.  What remained of that building.  

He crashed to the floor and felt fragments in his shoulder snap apart.  Pain seared into him.  He genuinely thought his life had been flashing before him.  The sound roared back and he heard the punching of shell impacts.  He looked around and saw the bodies of several of his team mates.  He saw a pulse carbine, his, some distance off laying on the floor.  Then, he felt a presence nearby.  He looked up and saw the huge form of a Broadside Suit standing above him.  Its massive arms, supporting railguns,  faced away from him out the blown windows of the building.  It's dominant white form hadn't been touched by the impacts from the drop pod at all.  He followed the barrels to where they pointed.  The yellow of the morning light was still on the building across the street.  

Bolts ricocheted from the street below and another explosion threw debris and fragments across the room.  Maturn flinched at the concussion and tasted the thick of blood in his mouth.  His eye glanced back at the Broadside.  It’s relatively small head had turned to look down at him.  He saw the green of the optic lens looking at him from the tower of it's body.  Just as he thought the robot might say something it’s shoulder mounted smart missile pods opened.  Blunt missiles spewed from the pods, screeching and creating clouds of snaking exhaust that curled and twisted, following the missiles as their instinctive programming sought a target.  The suit looked on at him as though it were ignoring the fusillade that it was creating.  The missiles were gone in an instant, the smoke swept after them.  And the raucous detonations could be heard a moment later.  He could imagine what the recipients were going through. 

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Thirty Three: For the greater good

The crest of the hill was rocky and strewn with brooms of brown tall grass.  The sandy dirt was a dull yellow color.  A brilliant blue sky reached from horizon to horizon interrupted only by the occasional dry rise in the land in the distance.  If one were to have cast an eye at the hilltop without a detailed inspection or the assistance of a view enhancer one would have missed the two small figures crouched amongst the rocks at the hem of the bluff.  A shelter field masked and distorted the colors of their uniforms so that they appeared yellow and brown as the surrounding landscape.  They had been crawling about on the bluff for a few hours now that so much of their clothing was the same dusty yellow of the earth.  Maturn sat amongst the Rockey outcroppings with a scope that he’d detached from his weapon held up to one of his large dark eyes.  His view carried him down into a slight sloped valley before them.  Nearby, Atticus, another Pathfinder in his team, cradled his pulse carbine in his arms while keeping an eye out for movement close at hand.  He would occasionally look through his scope toward the valley below and then shift back to the surrounding area.  

Through the scope Maturn watched a column of Imperial tanks advancing.  He pondered the many behemoths as they churned up the yellow earth.  The column was lead by three large battle tanks.  They were followed by six or so armored personnel tanks and then several dozen humans on foot.  He watched them march.  There was a spring in their step. It was a confidence that he hadn't seen on a human’s face since the start of the war on this world.  They were advancing on an enemy position.  Also something that hadn’t happened for them in a long while.  He tapped the top of his scope with a stubby blue finger as he considered the column.  He noted several preachers walking along behind the foot soldiers chanting as they went.  One of them held a censor. The smoke of their faith could be seen wafting from its innards as the holy-man swung it.  He could see some of the foot soldiers chanting along with the priests,  their mouths moving.  They were too far away to hear a sound.  He also observed several artillery pieces moving along behind the foot soldiers.  Large tracked guns.  

“If this is a typical column their advance will be slow” Atticus noted while viewing the slow progress of the foot march.  

“Yes” Maturn said slowly not taking his eye from his scope. “A giant can move slowly and blunder about and still wreak havoc all around”.  They both sat in silence for some time as the column passed them by.  The sound of a stutter bird’s call echoed in the distance.  Shhhii,  shhhi, shii.  They ignored it.  

After some time Atticus turned quickly to the east.  He pulled his weapon into an aiming stance. Matrun lowered the scope from his eye slowly and turned his head to observe an approaching human.  He was a soldier from the column.  The tau had been waiting for him.  Maturn rose from his seated position and walked toward the human under the watchful eye (and barrel) of Atticus’ weapon.  The man wore a camo green grey uniform and a green cap.  The insignia of an Imperial infantryman, standard barer class, hung at the man’s shoulder.  Maturn nodded as the human approached.  

“Maxwell, it is good to see you again” Matun spoke in the human language of this man’s homeworld with barely a trace of an accent.  

Maxwell nodded casting a nervous glance around.  “Maturn” he said in acknowledgement.

“I am happy that we can bridge the gap between our two races once again.  The peace that we force here will soon spread...” 

“You talk too much” the human cut off the tau.

Maturn attempted as close to a grin as his alien face could manage.  “You’re right.  Maxwell, brief as always.  I like that.”

“Sure” the human muffled and then coughed. “Did you bring the beans?”  

“Yes” he said.  At this the man’s hand shot out.  Maturn observed a quiver in the man’s hand and it sought the ‘beans’.  Maturn hesitated. “A partnership is always a trade” said the Water Caste member.  The man’s hand slowly withdrew to his pocket.  The human reached down into his fatigues and pulled a small datacard.  He presented it to the tau.  

“Troop deployment plans” he said.

“Are the Marines included?” Maturn asked taking the card from the man.  

“Yes.  I also got the communication transcripts like you asked.”

Maturn nodded.  Maturn liked to read the conversations between the human generals.  Their petty bickering conveyed so much information.  He imagined himself and his prying into their arguments as a thick viscous liquid closing about them.  He knew so much about these men who opposed him, yet they didn’t even perceive him.  The arguments between them were like the cracks in the massive wall.  He saw the cracks so clearly, so well.  Any monument can crumble with enough cracks he thought to himself.  All he needed to do was flow into the cracks and wider and wider they would become.  

Maturn took from his pocket a blister of pills.  Small plastic enclosed capsules in a bean shape.  They had a light blue color.  He handed over the blister and the man’s eyes focused on the pills.  “There are always more ‘beans’” Matrun said.  The man looked up at the tau.  A small laugh of self doubt issued from the human. “I need the communication codes next time.  I need to be able to intercept and modify the transmissions”.  The man rubbed his chin as if pondering the words.  “I need them soon” he said. “Once this war heats up again there will be few times for us to meet.  You’ll have to make the beans last much longer.”  

The man nodded. “It can be done”

“I know”.  

Maxwell started to back away slowly.  Maturn looked past him.  The light had begun to fade into the early evening.  Maturn raised his three fingered hand in a wave.  

“I think you’re forgetting something my friend” he said.  The human paused and swallowed hard.  Maxwell raised his hand in a similar fashion to the alien but in the human it seemed like a hand raised in surrender.  Maxwell spoke as a defeated man.

“For the greater good” he said

“Yes” said Maturn “For the greater good”.

The Dolgath Legacy Part 14: A voice that would haunt him for years to come

Inquisitor Trequill was feeling somewhat more charitable towards that Ordo Xenos spook, Nelthas, since she had loaned him her ship and Navigator to speed him on his journey.  The ship, the Nostramus, was a spartan thing, barely light cruiser class, but he had to admit; it had it where it counted.  His stateroom was as plush as anything he could want, but more importantly, the ship was outfitted with the most advanced Mechanicus systems available.  In fact, much of it was entirely unfamiliar to him; reverse-engineered Xenos tech, he assumed.  The command deck was a wedge-shaped structure three stories tall lined with matt-black cogitator stations each connected by a snaking mass of cables to a silent and immobile servitor dressed in the crimson and brass of the Adeptus Mechanicus.  Some of these stations would light up at unpredictable intervals as their particular functions were activated, the servitors suddenly twitching to life.  At the crux of it all was the navigator fulcrum, a transparent sphere of greenish fluid held in place by arcane field generators. 

The Navigator in question, Dom Hellaith of house Sennesh-Constantine-Matsumishi, was a horror to behold.  Yet despite the flapping gills, translucent skin, protruding eyes, bulging forehead and purplish veins; she was apparently considered quite the catch amongst the young eligible males of the great houses of the Navis Noblite.  She came with a host of suitors and sycophants – hideous unrepentant mutants all.  The worst part was she was apparently in the midst of some sort of extended copulation ritual, evidenced by the obscenely throbbing device that attached her and several of her suitors together at the nether regions.  This device, he was told, ensured that only the finest seed would be the source of the next scion of the Navis Noblite.  Just the thought of it made his skin crawl.  Never-the-less, Dom Hellaith was supremely proficient at her job.  They had made the transit from Schindelghiest to Cypra Mundi in merely six weeks, traversing nearly the full breadth of the galaxy, loosing only 22 days Imperial standard time.  Dropping out of warp after a seemingly endless stretch of boredom, Trequill was absolutely stunned to see the grand spindles of the massive space station of Cypra Mundi filling the view ports.  Not as stunned has his quarry would be, he was thinking…

The stop at Cypra Mundi was unfortunately necessary as he needed to check in with the Segmentum Obscurus Ordos command.  The wait in the foyer of the Ordos sanctum was interminable.  The chamber was vast and cold; but owing to the fact that it was limited by the confines of a space station, it was not nearly as excessive as similar Ordos edifices he had visited in his travels.  Never-the-less, the expanse of glossy black marble and towering ornate statuary was clearly designed to impart insignificance to those who waited.  No less than seven other Inquisitors loitered here waiting their turn for an audience with the High Lord.  Each was a singular presence, some surround by a host of exotic henchmen.  He recognized only one by reputation.  The massive suit of golden baroque terminator armor was an image widely circulated on the pictcasts and could only mean he stood in the presence of the Witchunter Borros. 

The hard-line puritan was flanked by a squad of stormtroopers in immaculate white carapace, arrayed in perfect formation.  Borros stood stone still reciting scripture as he patiently waited, making no effort to engage anyone in conversation.  Treyquill was extremely thankful for that.  None of the dogma Borros would inevitably spew was of any interest to him what-so-ever.  In his opinion, Borros was the embodiment of the worst the Ordo Hereticus had to offer.  That kind of blind adherence to doctrine was everything his master, Onrholt, had preached against his entire life.  Unfortunately, Borros’ aloofness was not shared by everyone… 

The wizened Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, Glaxx, endeavored to engage him in conversation nearly the moment he walked into the room.  The ancient and invalid inquisitor was held erect by a spindly brass apparatus and maintained by a host of support servitors.  He obviously had a wealth of experience to impart, unfortunately, his conversation consisted of a stream of disconnected trivialities interrupted constantly by inane contributions from his sycophantic hangers-on  Trequill heaved a huge sigh of relief when the nuncio called Glaxx into the audience chamber. 

Free at last. Treyquill spotted a refreshment servitor and immediately snatched a glass of something and downed it in one gulp.  Absinth – and a good vintage, he grabbed another glass in each hand before the servitor scurried off.  He made a bee-line away from the rest of his fellow inquisitors and stood looking up at an ornate tapestry depicting some bloody event in Imperial history – just which one he wasn’t quite sure...  He took another drink and noticed an individual who sat silently in a shadowed corner nearby surrounded by four intimidating Grey Knights.  At that moment, Trequill realized he stood alone.  Strangely, he had brought no entourage, he was traveling light these days and he was beginning to like it. 

“Grace,” a breathy and cultured voice said from the shadows. 

Treyquill wasn’t quite sure what that comment referred too.  He let it hang in the air for a moment before he replied.

“Indeed…” he said neutrally.  

 “Nocturne, the Enigma Cabal, I remember thee,” the shadowed voice said. 

A host of memories flooded through his mind, mostly consisting of death, darkness, and desperation, yet he could not place that exquisite voice. 

“You have me at a disadvantage,” he finally admitted trying to get a glimpse of the speaker between the hulking forms of the Grey Knights. 

“We have not met, yet greatly thou have aided me, though you knew it not.  I offer my thanks,” the shadowy speaker said.

Just then the nuncio came into the chamber and rapped his staff loudly three times on the marble floor.  “Inquisitor Treyquill, the High Lord will receive you now!” 

“Fare well in your endeavors,” the breathy voice said.

“Until we meet again,” Trequill replied with more conviction than he felt.  He doubted if they would ever meet again or if he would even recognize her if they did.

As the massively tall doors parted Treyquill ventured one last look into the shadows and saw the figure stand.  Long raven hair and a finely sculpted porcelain face were the last impressions of her that he took with him; along with that voice that would haunt him for years to come…

The audience chamber of High Lord Melphas was as ostentatious and obnoxious as anything he might have imagined; and Trequill could imagine quite a bit.  It was vast and designed to be awe-inspiring; at least forty stories tall and twice that distance long, decorated with massive gilded sculpture and impossibly tall marble columns.  Surprisingly, it was not a singular audience chamber; in fact at least two other Inquisitor Lords and a half-dozen Adeptus Arbite Judges were simultaneously conducting proceedings in this chamber.  The general din drowned out most of what was going on in adjacent venues, not to mention a good portion of the critical information imparted in the individual sections.  The High Lord’s dais was somewhere several stories up, Treyquill could only vaguely glimpse it. 

Trequill knew High Lord Melphas from his youth.  While still at schoolagem, Melphas was an occasional and dynamic lecturer emphasizing the importance of deductive reasoning.  Even then, he was a morbidly obese individual.  As the years passed he grew into a nearly unrecognizable grotesque mass of bloated flesh made marginally mobile by the resources of the Adeptus Mechanicus.  On this day, only his voice bore any resemblance to the man he once knew.   

“Oliver!”  That deep, rich, jolly voice resonated in the chamber.  “I remember you well, those bright eyes, that sharp tongue…” 

“My Lord, I am honored,” Trequill bowed deeply.  

“Nonsense, let us speak intimately,” Melphas said. 

Suddenly, Treyquill found himself rising smoothly and rapidly from the floor.  When he reached the dais level he glimpsed copious amounts of Imperial splendor, but his attention was focused on the High Lord’s seat.  Melphas was far less the man than he was expecting.  His once corpulent bulk was now a pile of pale flaccid skin.  The skeletal structure of his face was actually visible beneath the sagging folds.   

Treyquill bowed once again.  “My lord, you look…  thinner…” 

Melphas gave a low liquid chuckle.  “Yes, I suppose I do.  Cenobite parasites will do that for you,” he chuckled one again.  “You look… dangerous…”

Treyquill snorted in surprise. 

“No, really, you have cultivated an aura since I saw you last, what, fifty years ago?”  Melphas said. 

“Perhaps, or maybe it is merely the fact that I’ve been spending too much time in the company truly dangerous individuals…”  Treyquill offered. 

“Hardly, I have always recognized your dangerous intellect, I think it is only now just starting to shine through,” Melphas said.  “What’s the word from the Charadon Sector?” 

“The Tau have been acting up,” Treyquill said. 

Melphas sniffed.  “Better than a Tyranid invasion or Chaos incursion, I suppose.”

“Such an appraisal would be unwise.  The Tau are a more significant threat than most suspect, but then that is a matter for the Ordo Xenos.  “More importantly for us, Inquisitor Lord Dolgath has identified a considerably more insidious threat,” Treyquill offered. 

“Dolgath… Your old schollagem mate, yes?”  Melphas frowned.  “As I recall, at the last congress, Inquisitor Yerth forwarded a motion of Excomunicatus against him.  No others backed that motion, but it stands as a serious matter none the less.” 

“Yerth is a twit!” Treyquill spat. 

Melphas chuckled, “Yerth is but a tool, to be sure.”  He took a long moment before he continued.  “However, you may be certain other, more dangerous, individuals proposed that motion…” 

“As you know, I am a true student of Onrholt,” Trequill shot Melphas a long significant stare.  “Dolgath has become a radical, that much is clear, yet his record of service is exemplary.  For nearly twenty years he has been in exile, but when the call to service came he answered the challenge without hesitation.  New Boston would have fallen by now without him.  Moreover, he has thwarted two significant threats to the Imperium – at least one of which was a truly ancient evil…”

“Yes, I read the reports.  And now they are here, all the way across the galaxy in Segmentum Obscurus, on Mordian in fact!”  Melphas exclaimed. 

“They are merely husks now; they cannot harm anyone unless they are reconstituted…  Yet, this cannot be allowed to happen.  It is my purpose to snuff out whatever remains of this evil so that their shadows never again darken the galaxy,” Treyquill said.     

“This is a worthy mission,” Melphas nodded without hesitation.  “You have authorization to access whatever resources necessary to accomplish this goal.” 

“My thanks…”  Treyquill started to bow. 

“You realize the success of this mission will likely vindicate Lord Dolgath in the eyes of the congress?”  Melphas asked.

“I do,” Treyquill finished his bow.

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Thirty Two: An opportunity to redeem yourself

Obolis reviewed the tactical data in front of him.  He shook his head slowly. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t relieved.  It was that he wasn’t sure where this fortune was coming from.  He had finally been assigned the forces from the Sphere that he had been requesting.  After six months of feign and retreat, advance and scatter, his forces had been ground down and now he was being resupplied from the homeworlds with enough resources to push the Imperials back to New Boston and off this world for good.  The main advance of the Cemephon expansion had moved on from this world months ago and he had been left on mop up duty.  Once his place at the right hand of Anemos, leader of the Cemephon Expansion, had been assured.  His public criticism of the Etherial had relegated the proud (some would say haughty) Fire Warrior to back world duty.  He had to rely on his friend Maturm, a peculiar Water Caste member who chose to join ranks with a Pathfinder unit, to bring news from the front~ light years away.

From his seated position in his command gunship, Devilfish class, a fast moving dry landscape outside, he read the information over again.  He had removed himself and his quick escort from the front line, if it could be called that, to meet the advance force of his resupply column arriving from a transport ship in orbit.  He looked up at his tell screen in the command console.  Several feeds were coming in from the rendezvous point.  He could see large Orca dropships landing en masse.  He noted their payloads in detail notes on the screen.  His grin showed itself in a rare performance.  

The three devilfish that transported the commander and his team arrived at the large landing zone deep in secure ground.  It was a large open field, once a farm, surrounded by low hills that could be seen off in the distance.  The lead craft dropped toward the ground and landing props lowered. The side doors of the well worn drop craft slid aside.  The other two gunships took up a circular patrol orbit around the drop site.  Obolis leaped from his transport before it finished touching down.  He looked into the sky, his two escorts moving off.  Beyond them he could see several of the large drop ships lowering from above.  Several were already on the ground.  He began his walk toward what appeared to be the command post for the drop location.  Two of his lieutenants ran after him from the transport.  As Obolis approached the command post he was met by another officer.  The grim faced officer nodded and met Obolis’ eye.  

“Welcome” Obolis said. “I am Obolis, commander of all Cardres on this world.”

“Indeed” the officer spoke “I am Tanthus of the Second Flame Cardre.  I bring messages from Anemos and greetings from your master.”

Obolis nodded. The newcomer referred to the Etherial. It was clearly a reminder to Obolis of his mistake in criticizing the sacred one.  The Firewarrior took from his belt a scroll case and quickly removed the cap.  From within he pulled a shaft of paper and proceeded to read it.  

“You are directed to hereby pull all your forces back to the points described in the data manifest.  This planet is being resupplied with seven battle groups and their heavy transports.  Lady Anemos and the Etherial are returning from the front lines at the edge of the expansion to address the situation.”  

Obolis shook his head.  “What situation?” he asked “this world is a backwater.  We’ve been pushing the humans around this ball of rock for weeks”.

Tanthus looked at Obolis with unhalting contempt.  “Space Marines have landed on the far side of Palthna river two days ago. They are now striking at will and securing the the hive cities you were unable to capture.”  Obolis swallowed at the stabbing words.  The newcomer continued “The Imperials have made this world a priority again, we had left in your hands to secure.  That has clearly not occurred".  Obolis bristled at the insinuation that the world had been all but secured.  "Fire Warrior, you have an opportunity to redeem yourself in the eyes of your brothers and your master.  I hope you have the will to recognize it”.

The Bitterness of War

Captain Rexus, commander of the 3rd Company of the Imperial Dragons Chapter of the Legion Astartes, sat alone at the vox station. The glowing greenish vectors of the display were the only illumination in the dark and silent chamber. The reports from the Cemephon Theater were bleak. Xenos incursions were rapidly advancing on every front. Only New Boston had been secured thanks to the efforts of a certain shadowy Inquisitor. Captain Rexus flexed his fingers as if reaching for a weapon. Dealing with the Ordos always made him feel this way. They were a valuable asset, and yet, the price inevitably seemed too high... Despite this, the larger campaign was failing and the xenos were advancing with contemptuous ease. They struck where they wilt, driving the Imperials before them like cattle. This did not sit well with Captain Rexus. Although he was enroute back to his chapter command following a successful mission with only a remnant
force at his disposal, he saw the opportunity to strike the alien scum and give them a lesson in the steadfastness of the Imperium.

Yet, his force was weak. He had only three tactical squads at full strength. His own command squad was completely depleted and he would need to indoctrinate new members from the veterans at hand. However, he had one asset at his disposal at full strength, but which he was loath to commit – the Ancient Brothers. The Phalanx of Thermopile was a strike cruiser fitted for stealth operations. Her load-out bulk was significantly reduced to make way for fast engines and stealth capabilities. Consequently, she was outfitted to hold only a single space marine company. Captain Rexus was returning with significantly less than half of the company he had departed
with…

To be a Space Marine Captain was to be decisive. Captain Rexus saw the opportunity and he took it. Three of his ancient brothers were chosen and mated with the Ironclad Dreadnought chassis available. Captain Rexus stood in the Honored Chamber as they were each awoken in turn. The rectangular sarcophagi were strangely blank and anonymous considering the glorious heroes who resided within. Ancient brother Ulthus was the first to awake. Ulthus, the captain of the 7th company who lead the crusade against the Ork Waagh of Krull the Hammer on Julius Four nine centuries ago, was a notorious firebrand. The moment he had registered his surroundings, he has pacing about the chamber his heavy footfalls shaking the decking, his massive hydraulic limbs flexing with repressed violence…

Lucien the Lost was the next to awaken. He was slow to register his surroundings, his limbs moving sluggishly. Lucien was once a Techmarine, one who had served for over seventeen centuries; he was a literal archive of the chapter. Yet his mind seemed to be drifting, slow to grasp his current state… Rexus doubted his ability to serve and would send him in with the first wave to draw the fire of the enemy. Lastly, Bellus the Bellicose rose as if he had just woken form a short nap. He stomped around the chamber briefly, elbowing Lucien and Ulthus aside and making his way straight to the tactical display. In life, he was the leader of the Vanguard Assault squad of the 3rd Company for nearly three centuries. Rexus himself had been a member of his squad in his youth. Consequently, he knew to be sure so assign Bellus to the initial assault drop or there would be hell to pay…

The resulting battle was brief and brutal. As the thunderhawk pulled away, the xenos were in disarray. Captain Rexus stood upon the extended assault ramp and inhaled the smoke of the battlefield like the finest incense. Their losses were negligent. The sarcophagus of Lucien, who had so bravely initially assaulted the xenos, and whose dreadnought chassis was destroyed, was quickly recovered from the battlefield. Every other unit had sustained minimal casualties. They had captured two critical objectives, but in the larger scheme of things, it was merely the fact that the humans could strike at will with overwhelming force that mattered. From this day forward, the xenos would advance with caution, giving the Imperial forces critical time to retreat and consolidate.

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Thirty One: Deep in Tau space

Dry scrub lands were all about. A grand mound of tan earth dotted with brown and green scrubby plants rose before them. A vast blue sky was above with flecks of yellow clouds. A calm heat rose from the earth and its shimmer made the distances of seem farther. The broad scrubby rise was punctuated by blasts and explosions. The earth kicked up like water under pressure and blue fire rippled through the plants and sent rocks scattering. From Obolis’ stationary transport he watched the humans in full route. Their tracked vehicles were moving slowly backwards up the slope away from his position kicking earth and dust up from their tracks. As they moved away they occasionally fired light weapons to little effect. For a moment he observed one of the transports that had thrown a track. It’s bare wheels spun ineffectually casting earth and dry dust into the air while the remaining track bit into the earth and tilted the vehicle around. This only lasted for a moment before the vehicle was rendered apart by a shot from the Hammerheads along side him. His three heavy tanks, stationary, fired over and over at the retreating humans. Their massive cannons moved quietly, fired with a mechanical growl, and then repeated the process. The slope that was some distance off was quickly becoming a field of debris of wrecked vehicles.

Obolis sank back from the top hatch into the cabin of his skimmer. He stepped down from the portal and walked toward the drop down rear door past equipment racks and several seated Tau. A few of his officers were monitoring screens and checking read outs in the cabin. They seemed oblivious to the demonstration of the Tau heavy firepower outside. He walked out the back door. As he walked he wiped the sweat from his neck with a light blue cloth. The heat was impenetrable even to the Tau. As he left the back door of his transport he observed several other smooth bodied Devilfish cruise past his position.They were heading toward the last of the humans on the ridge line. One of the fish, a observation unit, slowed to a stop before him. It threw dust as it settled on the dry earth. It’s engines powered down. The side door flashed an energy pulse as it depressurised. The circular door opened and swung to one side. Sitting in the portal was Matuim. The two Tau greeted each other as old friends would with a brotherly but brief chin salute. The Water Caste stepped down from the door of the gunship wearing the fatigues of a Pathfinder. He carried his carbine slung over his shoulder and distance goggles atop his forehead. As Maturim approached Obolis the other pathfinders dismounted behind him.

“The tail end of the Hadras settlement?” enquired the Pathfinder of the retreating forces.
Obolis nodded. As he did a stray round from the human tanks impacted not twenty feet from the pair. It showered dry earth over the area. Most of the Pathfinders ignored the round, some ducked, Obolis didn’t flinch. “Your negotiations with this settlement failed also” the Fire Warrior said.

“Your brutal campaign has made it impossible for the me to convince these humans to concede. Sometimes Water can not flow where the Fire has been. It is too hot” Maturm shook his head in vague frustration.

“Perhaps you just don’t make a good argument countered Obolis”

“Perhaps” Maturm said “and what’s more likely is that the Imperials are gathering at Roths Head and these humans know they are about to be the beneficiaries of a counter attack. The main columns of Imperial Troops have pulled back all along this front. The locals are offering this weak counter attack to slow you down.” Obolis knew this to be true. The Imperials seemed to be fighting a long fight. They would hold a position until the last moment and then would fall back. They fought an effective rearguard maneuver with few troops and by the time it failed (which was occurring on the ridge before them), the main forces had regrouped. This had taken months and months and was wearing his forces down. Even though he gained ground it was though he were grinding into the sea. Another round flew overhead crashing some distance off. It made a screech as it flew past.

“What news from the Expansion” Obolis asked of the wider war.

“Well” his friend said “As you know the fleet has passed beyond this world and on to the Sphere. They look to the Human industrial worlds to conquer and provide munitions for the wider war. We are left here to rid this world of resistance”. Obolis new this well. As punishment for loosing New Boston, or at least not securing it well enough, he had been assigned to finish the job he hard started. He had been given supreme command of taking this world. This campaign would probably take years and all the while the vast Exploratator Armada was moving past this world and deep into Imperial space~ and glory. Anemos and the heathen Ethetrial had left this world and left it to him. Even if victory occurred here, it would be a long forgotten victory, a sub paragraph in the record of the Cemephon Sphere Expansion. He cursed as he thought of it. He was expected to forget the fact that this was one of the most well secured border worlds, forget the fact that it was Anemos that had agreed to bring the heathen kin to New Boston, and forget the fact that she had left him with a shadow of the forces that had once been here... And now he suffered on this lonely backwater world~ his only compensation to be a forgotten victory.

“The Imperial fleet has not been so easy to dispatch as those humans on the hill” Maturn said. “My reports tell me that the expansion is languishing. Things do not progress as the Etherial had predicted. It is as though some evil saps our youth. Ships have been lost to warp storms or blasted apart by the large guns of the Imperials.”

“We’ll they may be clumsy, but when they hit they hit hard.”

“They do”. The two Tau sat on the stop of the rear ramp of the Devilfish, now clearly relaxing.

“What of your networks? What do they tell of our campaign here?” asked Obolis.

“Well, there are some who believe that this world is already won.”

“What?” Obolis gestured toward the human tanks “The Imperials are still fighting”.

“Well, the Water Caste believes that were we to withdraw the humans on this world would look around and realize that they’re deep in Tau space.”

Obolis looked oddly at his friend.

“Look” said Maturm scratching his head and taking off his earpiece “The war is long gone. Our fleets have passed this world by and the real war is far off. You’re fighting a mopping up campaign. If you withdraw the Water Caste could start working with these humans and bring them into our greater good. Right now they fight you because you’re attacking them. If you withdraw they’ll realise that they’re so disconnected from the Imperium that they’ll have little choice but to work with us”.

Obolis breathed a sigh but with some optimism in his voice he said “and I’ll be reassigned to the front~ the actual front”.

“True enough” his friend said. “I think this battle is over. All it will take is for one side or the other to realise it.”

The Dolgath Legacy Part 13: Behind it all there is always a heretic…

Dolgath reclined in his chair and watched Nelthas as she glided back and forth in front of the vast view port of his audience chamber aboard the Subjugator. She wore all black on this day, a complex and severely structured garment jeweled with rubies like glistening drops of blood. Her psychomorphic mask held a faint bluish tinge like glacial ice its support apparatus dense and spiky like a nest of black thorns. Through the view port behind her the silvery mass of the moon, Alpha Prime, loomed like a soothsayer’s orb, but Nelthas was not looking at the moon at all, her gaze seemed to stare off into the void of space beyond. Although any display of her true feelings were obscured by her elaborate façade, Dolgath could clearly tell she was agitated. The presence of two of her mysterious robed guardians lurking in the shadows confirmed it.

“Cardinal to Regent’s three,” Dolgath challenged, trying to draw her attention away from her preoccupation. His antique regicide set, the beautifully carved pieces representing historic Imperial figures, was laid out on one side of his massive desk. She had defeated him in their last three encounters and he was determined to break the trend.

“Primarch takes Cardinal, check” Nelthas replied absently without looking at the board.

Dolgath moved the pieces and then quickly moved a ephemera into a bridge position, “Crusader to Inquisitor four.”

Just then a light appeared through the view port. Dolgath rose to stand at Nelthas’s side. As always, he was amazed by the rippling effect of space/time as a ship penetrated the veil of reality. The ship that emerged was the sleekest, newest pattern cruiser Dolgath had ever seen. It bore no battle scars or discontinuities from major structural rebuilds as was common with most Imperial ships that had seen service for untold millennia. It was flawless and beautiful in its traditional blue and white Adeptus Arbites color pattern. Indeed, clearly it was purpose built for the Arbite’s mission; massive bombard cannons protruded from the hull vectored downward oriented for planetary targetting. Launch bays, exclusively designed for the Arbites Justice-pattern dropships, lined the bottom of the hull. This was a ship with only one purpose: planetary pacification.

Nelthas turned her mask toward him. In the last few months she had become nearly his constant companion, almost his consort – if he ever dared to penetrate the layers of façade draped around her… The posture she assumed was diminutive, barely coming up to his shoulder, yet he sensed the intensity emanating from her. Finally she turned away from the view port and glided over to gaze at the regicide board.

“You know this Witch Hunter?” Nelthas asked from across the room.

“Treyquill? Yes, I do,” he replied as he gazed at the approaching cruiser. “We worked together on several operations during the Black Crusade.”

“Which Black Crusade?” Nelthas’s porcelain mask grinned ever-so-suggestively. “Primarch takes Crusader,” Nelthas moved the respective pieces with a delicate hand gloved in black silk.

“Don’t be obtuse,” Dolgath said with humor as he walked back over to sit down. He moved his Magos into a crux position. “We were just young bucks then, but together we broke the grip of corruption on three worlds.”

Nelthas quickly moved to intercept him. “Primarch takes Magos, check.” She turned to gaze out the viewport at the cruiser. “I know him as well, although we’ve never met. He interfered with my work infiltrating the Kyjax infestation on Galleron, resulting in six years of civil war and hundreds of thousands of lives lost!”

Dolgath clumsily blocked her Primarch with a Servitor. “Witch Hunters operate with a different imperative than you or I.”

Nelthas quickly took the Servitor with her Primarch. “Do you trust him?”

Dolgath snorted. “He is an odd bird and no mistake, but Treyquill possesses one trait different from any other Witch Hunter I’ve ever encountered…” Dolgath made a quick minor advance with a Sentinel and looked up at her.

Nelthas looked quizzically back at him, her psychomorphic mask almost seemed human to him. “Which is what?” She asked as she took his Sentinel with her Primarch.

“Unpredictability,” Dolgath moved his final piece ever so slowly. “Astropath takes Primarch, checkmate!”

Her defeat registered at almost precisely the same moment as the chamber doors abruptly parted to admit a chaotic mass of assorted functionaries, cyber-notaries, recording servoskulls and skeletal scribe-servitors trailing reams of parchment. The mass was accompanied by an equally chaotic babble of noise as voices vied to be heard above the nonsense.

Dolgath eased himself back into his chair and steepled his fingers as if expecting just such an assault. Nelthas, on the other hand, retreated behind him rising up to three times her former height like a cat bristling, her mask assuming an icy, forbidding aspect.

The mass rolled forward until it stopped before his desk, none of them seeming to notice his presence, each intent on imparting its bit of information to the particular individual at the center or the mass in the noisiest way possible. After a moment a voice began to cut through the babble.

“Psst! Bzzz! Shush!” After a moment the babble faded. “Begone! Away with you! I have important Inquisitorial business to attend!” Slowly the mass parted and shuffled back out of the room leaving only a single figure standing silently looking at them. His face was ageless and androgynous crowned by an elaborate coif that dangled a sheaf of black hair over his eyes. He was dressed in a panoply of varying attire consisting of an ecclesiarchical samite half-cape, an Arbites officer’s uniform jacket with senior commandant rank cord on the epaulets, a frilly laced undershirt, flared britches and high black boots, a dueling power-rapier was at his hip and an elaborate Inquisitor Rosette affixed to a gorget was at his throat. He promptly plopped down in exhaustion in the chair in front of Dolgath’s desk. “I’m parched…”

Dolgath pulled a fluted decanter and a set of crystal from his desk. “Zhianna, Fifty Seven?” Dolgath poured them each a drink.

“Ian, you evil little man!” The figure took the drink with a slightly trembling hand and sipped it with eyes closed like a man in ecstasy. After a moment he slowly opened his eyes and looked askance behind Dolgath. “What is this apparition? It frightens me…”

“Inquisitor Treyquill, meet Inquisitor Nelthas,” Dolgath said as he gestured toward Nelthas.

“Nelthas?” Treyquill gazed warily up at her. “You mean, The Nelthas, Scourge of the Necrons?”

Dolgath glanced inquisitively up at her. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Someone good to have at your back, or your front,” Treyquill grinned.

Nelthas reduced her height somewhat and moved to stand at Dolgath’s side.

Treyquill poured himself another drink and sat back to savor it. “Ah, I fondly recall the days we sat sipping Fifty Seven, playing regicide and pondering the machinations of the ruinous powers…” Suddenly he seemed to notice the Regicide board at the side of the desk. “Oh, did he pull that Astropath move on you? He did that to me five times; then I got wise!”

Dolgath looked at Nelthas and noticed her mask had turned slightly pink. Treyquill looked at Dolgath then winked at Nelthas.

“Don’t trust this one, he’s all kinds of devious,” Treyquill said to Nelthas. “Unless it comes to your life, then there’s no one better to trust!”

It was Dolgath then who turned slightly pink as he sat back in his chair. “Why are you here, my old friend?”

“Don’t ask me, they just send me places!” Treyquill replied innocently.

Dolgath just gazed blankly at Treyquill for a long moment. “Okay, I lied,” Treyquill responded. He turned back and uttered a shrill whistle over his shoulder. After a moment a skeletal scribe servitor shuffled up to him. He rustled through the reams of parchment trailing around it.

“Some heretic named, Sylax,” Treyquill said as he examined the minute scribbling on the parchment.

“Then you’ve come all the way out here for nothing. He died in the fighting for New Boston,” Dolgath said.

“Really,” Treyquill sorted through the long scroll of parchment. “Is this the sixth or seventh time that you’ve killed him?”

Dolgath glanced sheepishly at Nelthas. “Seventh, I think. I have a reliable report of his demise from the Adeptus Astartes.”

“Do you have his body?” Treyquill asked.

“Um… No,” Dolgath replied frankly.

“Well then,” Treyquill said. “I’ve got a whole detachment of Sororitas with me whose only purpose is to immolate Sylax body and soul; seems they are somewhat sensitive about a high ranking member of the ecclesiarchy turning foul.”

“Heretics are not the problem here, xenos are,” Nelthas spoke up.

Treyquill took a long drink and then sat peering at her from beneath his shock of dark hair.

“Heretics are always the problem. Behind it all there is always a heretic…”