Warhammer 40K Fan Fiction ❯ On Matters of Bloodlust ❯ Chapter 1

Her desperate cries had stopped just under an hour ago. Taking a deep, calming breath, a dark robed figure stepped forward into the light. Chained by her wrists and ankles to a smooth stone altar, the human girl's eyes darted around like those of a doomed animal. The twelve similarly robed figures paid the desperate glances no heed, continuing with their murmured ritual chant.

 

The thirteenth figure pulled a long blade from the sleeve of her robe and ascended the steps to loom over the girl. She looked down, studying the features of the latest offering and letting a grin break her icy countenance. The chants rose in volume, and the blade wielder joined, repeating the words again and again.

 

“Kaela Furmiekh Mensha Farmiekh Khaine…”

 

She flipped the dagger in her hands deftly, continuing to chant as she raised it above her head. By now her heart pounded in her chest with overwhelming excitement, adding her overjoyed shriek to the woman's terrified scream as she plunged the blade into the chest of the human. As the fresh blood began to cascade slowly out of the corpse, the woman's killer backed down the steps, leaving the dagger inside the body, and lifting her cowl to reveal her sharp, angular features, typical of many Eldar. The chanting slowly died down as the other twelve Eldar rose from the kneeling positions they had adopted.

 

Lillyth smiled. Khaine would pay her well for this latest sacrifice…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I woke slowly, sitting up in the bed and rubbing my eyes. Sleep had been easy, waking never was, however it was necessary. I cast aside the blanket, looking over at the chrome clock sitting on the table as I grabbed a heavy stormcoat and slid into it. I was still far from dressed, lacking pants, shoes and a proper shirt, but it would do until I could bring myself to the task. There was the sound of typing in the next room, and I smiled despite the fact that my recently healed ribs still hurt. Probably my master's savant hard at work on the latest minute trickle of clues we had managed to scavenge. As I made my way to the small but decently furnished kitchen, the sound of his murmuring came to my ears.

 

“A single blade wound to the heart with the weapon remaining in the body, bruises around the wrists and ankles suggest shackles…”

 

It was perhaps the fifth time in the last few days that I had heard him murmuring the same lines, as if he was trying to find some hidden meaning in the words. The maddening assortment of scrawled paper notes scattered around his room and pinned to walls was enough to dissuade me from walking in.

 

By the time I set the pot of water to boil I was mostly awake, shaking a spoonful of grainy caffeine grind into a cup. Heavy, decisive footsteps alerted me to the presence of another, and I turned my head to see who it was.

 

“Awake?”

 

“Getting there, sir,” I replied, turning back to my cup and pouring the boiled water into it. “Would you like one as well?”

 

“No thank you.”

 

The man took a seat at the small table, and I joined him after a few moments.

 

“We'll investigate the southern manufactories again today, the abandoned ones,” he said, “We'll pick up where we left off before. Hopefully we can get it finished.”

 

I nodded as I sipped from my cup. Inquisitor Silas Leonel looked me over, and I met his stare. “Is anything wrong, sir?”

 

He leaned forward, “Are you sure you're alright?”

 

I placed my cup down on the table and waved dismissively, “The wound has healed…”

 

“I can tell it hurts.”

 

Again, I waved dismissively. It wasn't usually easy to convince him that I was fit to continue working after getting hurt, but I had begun to get the knack for dealing with pain, although he openly disapproved of some of my methods. “I can deal with the pain, sir.”

 

“How many do you think you will need?” he pressed, referring to the hi-grade painkillers I carried for when the situation required it.

 

I briefly considered lying, but to him there was no point, “Two. At the very most.” It was a good enough estimate.

 

He sighed deeply, sitting back. His large weight made the chair creak. “I suppose there's no point in worrying about you, Interrogator.”

 

He grinned as he spoke my inquisitorial rank, and I stiffened, grimacing as my ribs yelled at me for the sudden movement. It wasn't that I hated being an Interrogator under Leonel, but for some reason the title had always irked me.

 

Another figure, leaner than my master and a few shades shorter, shambled wearily into the room. “I smell caffeine.”

 

“Make it yourself,” I grumbled, and returned to my sipping.

 

“Always so cold towards people,” the newcomer whined with mock offence, “Damn winter weather.” I listened to the sounds of him putting the remaining water back on the stove before he took a seat between Leonel and myself. “Back to the manufactories again today?”

 

“Yes,” Leonel replied, “Hopefully we can finish what we started.”

 

“If only it was that simple,” I murmured.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My name is Tanesha Sohrabi, Interrogator of the Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition, serving under Inquisitor Silas Leonel of the Ordo Xenos, Helican subsector. To give the long winded explanation, that is.

 

To the day it had been three months since we'd arrived on Lethe Eleven, assigned to investigate a string of killings involving a growing number of highborn citizens. At first I was dejected at being assigned something that should for all intents and purposes be left to the local Arbites, until we learned that the Arbites had been on the case for another two months before us, and only recent developments had led them to alert the Inquisition. The presence of Dark Eldar, and that they were most likely behind the killings, for example. And so, here we were, on a densely populated world whose economy was funded via steelworks and shield technology.

 

Sitting in a passenger seat of the borrowed speeder, I thumbed through the information on the data slate in my hand while my mind wandered to the fact that even on a busy manufacture world such as Lethe Eleven there were places like the abandoned manufactory we were heading for.

 

“No connection,” I muttered, flicking off the display and dropping the slate into a small compartment next to my seat.

 

“What were you reading?” Leonel didn't look up, continuing to load shells into magazines for his bolt pistol.

 

“Case notes,” I replied, reclining slightly in my seat. “Written by Inquisitor Eisenhorn when he was here investigating Beldame Sadia.”

 

“Hmm, there was the involvement of several Dark Eldar in that case wasn't there?” Kurtis Carcano said from the driver's seat.

 

“As far as his report goes, only one Homonculus.”

 

I yawned, adjusting one of my bootstraps. “Not much of a possible connection to go on, but then again we're not going on much anyway.”

 

There was a metal on metal impact as Leonel slapped a primed magazine home, racking back the slide and holstering the heavy gun. “Also considering the in that report it also stated that the Beldame was killed. But, as you noted we're not going on much. At least not yet.”

 

“We're here,” Carcano announced, and the speeders engines whined as they decelerated.

 

I paused for a moment to stretch my legs after I had disembarked. It had been a two hour trip from where we had billeted, and my body had never liked staying still for too long. Wiping my palms on the thighs of my bodyglove, I fidgeted with my underarm holster in an effort to make it press against a different and preferably unpained part of my ribs. In hindsight I really should have brought the belt holster instead.

 

Leonel stepped up beside me, a massive figure made all the more daunting by his heavy storm coat with its armoured shoulder panels. His keen eyes traversed the view of the manufactory, probably seeing if anything had changed since we were last here. I did the same.

 

“We'll split up for the sake of making this quicker. I'll take the administration building, see if I can dig up any records that I might have missed,” Leonel said, turning to us. Carcano snickered at the possibility of the inquisitor missing a detail, “As far as anything else goes, just find what we can. Anything will do, provided it's somewhat helpful. Chances are the vox won't work for that same odd reason as before, but keep it switched on anyway. Either way, I'll probably send to you so be ready.”

 

Carcano and I nodded. By “send”, my master had meant speak to us telepathically, a skill that was barely the tip of the iceberg when it came to the extent of his powers. Hence why it was utterly pointless to lie to him.

 

“We'll meet back here in three hours as a default,” he continued, before making his way into the nearest of the buildings. A blackened hole was in place of a door from when we blasted it open before.

 

“Understood,” Carcano said, slinging his sniper variant lasgun over his shoulder and heading for the east wing.

 

I followed him as far as the first of many smelteries before breaking away, muttering a gift of luck to the mercenary turned Imperial servant.

 

Inside, the smeltery was dark, a quiet murmuring that I assumed was the breeze blowing through holes in the roof in the background. Still, with all the machines inactive it was eerily quiet. I took my pistol from its holster, flicking on the compact lamp attached to the bottom of the muzzle and panning the beam of light around until I found what I was looking for. Navigating my way in the part light, I gripped the bar that was the handle to the heavy breaker, heaving it up with a grunt. Aside from the loud noise it made, nothing.

 

“Damned thing,” I muttered, tugging the big switch down again, “Why can't you just be good and work?”

 

I pushed the switch to its on position again, and something sparked for a fleeting moment. Stepping back, I switched off the lamp with a relieved sigh as the lights in the smeltery returned.

 

Now that I could see properly, I began to explore the place. It was not entirely large, but the heavy machinery and several conveyor belts made the place claustrophobic and mazelike. I turned another corner onto a gangway, a big machine to my right, a drop to a lower level to my left, I froze as I heard my foot crushing something. Backtracking a step or two, I looked down, crouching to inspect the crystalline fragments on the ground. Reaching out, I picked up one of the longer slivers, turning it slowly in my hand. When I realised that it was burning through the heavy leather of my glove I let it go with a grunt. No doubt about it, it was splinter ammunition. I rose, noting the deep scratch marks on the pillar near me, deducing that perhaps the rounds had missed their intended target and shattered themselves. I keyed my vox link with Leonel, but it returned only dead static. I tried again with a violent hiss. We still hadn't worked out what was causing the interference.

 

A disjointed gurgling made me wheel on the spot, gun raised. I fired immediately as I caught sight of it, three heavy man-stopper rounds, and the twisted, deformed excuse for a human flopped over, half its chest and most of its face missing. I looked back down the gangway, grimacing with some form of satisfaction at the shambling group of them making their way towards me, dragging or carrying some form of crude weapon, paying no mind as to how such loud creatures could have snuck up on me.

 

I decapitated the nearest one, but the others didn't notice. One almost got close enough to swing its heavy pickaxe before I pumped off the remainder of my pistol's magazine into it. The empty clip dropped from the pistol grip and I slid a fresh one into place.

 

“Who's next?” I muttered, remembering one of the reasons why I loved my job.

 

“I am,” whispered a voice from behind me.

 

Cursing, I turned, feeling my beloved pistol flung from my hand as I tightened my finger on the trigger. I leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding the serrated blade slashed in my direction, and dropped into a low combat stance, pulling my knife from its sheath at the back of my belt.

 

My latest attacker pounced forward with the insane agility that only an Eldar could possess, and I managed to just in time block a vicious down slash. I grunted as the Eldar's knee drove into my gut, and a spinning kick pitched me off a safety railing and dropping towards a steel grilled floor some three metres away. I landed, on my back, and felt what seemed awfully like my ribs breaking again. Rolling over slowly, I got to my feet as another impact, this one far more graceful than mine, shook the gangway.

 

The eldar licked her serrated shortsword with a wicked grin.

 

I dropped out of my coat while realising that my knife had disappeared somewhere. “Okay then,” I said, sliding my other knife from its boot sheath, “Let's go.”

 

“Gladly,” the Eldar wench replied in strangely accented Low Gothic, before proceeding to dive at me again.

 

I then remembered one of the reasons why I hated my job…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Good luck,” Tanesha called, before she disappeared into a slightly blackened door.

 

Kurtis Carcano smiled as he kept walking. He had a feeling that she liked him, but of course getting her to admit it would either take a disheartening number of broken bones or an expensive amount of alcohol. He sighed as he eventually found himself in a wide courtyard, and took his long-las from his back. He spied a wire-framed buggy parked outside what seemed to be an administrative building, and headed towards it at a slow run. He made it about halfway before throwing himself to the ground. Something screamed through the air overhead, and Carcano caught sight of a humanoid silhouette atop a blade edged platform.

 

“A hellion?” he blurted incredulously, as the Eldar doubled back for a second pass. Working in the employ of an Ordo Xenos inquisitor, Carcano had learnt to identify several key elements to a number of different races' military elements. There was absolutely no doubt about it now, there were Dark Eldar on this world.

 

Before he could bring his long-las to bear, a hail of crystalline splinters showered the area, and he raced to the side to avoid the deathly storm. He dived behind a line of crates as the Eldar screamed past again, snapping off a few half aimed shots before ducking behind his cover.

 

“Balls to this,” he grumbled, as a line of splinters from the rifle built into the rider's glaive shredded the edge of one of the crates. Carcano counted to five, rising and firing in the one motion before leaping over the crate and making for the better cover of a stone archway that housed a doorway. A line of splinter ammo chased his footsteps, and he turned as the hellion swooped in low for a slash with its long hafted blade.

 

The combined glaive and rifle whistled as it travelled towards Carcano's neck, and he parried desperately with his gun. The impact knocked him on his back, and he grimaced as the heat from the flying platform's thrusters washed over his face. Rolling onto his stomach, he lined up another shot before realising that the power cell housing had been jarred out of place, the power cell itself dislodged. With a loud curse he dropped the gun to the ground, getting to his feet and sprinting for the administration building. The hellion was behind him again, the rider either out of ammo or enjoying the thrill of a chase and probably looking forward to the chance of a close-up kill.

 

More fool him, Carcano thought to himself, pulling the laspistol from its thigh holster and diving forwards into a roll.

 

The hellion overshot, the rider looking around with surprise. He didn't see Carcano bracing his pistol with both hands, nor did he see the three tight grouped las bolts that emptied his chest. He did, however, see himself on an unavoidable collision course with the side of a high and very solid looking building.

 

The doomed Eldar's screams turned from triumph to terror in his last moments, and Carcano had to look away before the explosion blinded him. He'd just begun to savour his victory when weapons fire made him dive for cover again. Huddling behind the stone archway he had found before, he listened to the sounds and frowned as he recognised it as human weaponry. Leaning out and snapping off a few shots, Carcano managed to catch sight of several miner-looking types, each wielding some form of lasgun or autogun. He made out three of them boarding the buggy before a lucky shot exploded part of the stone work next to his head, and he shrank back with a snarl. He pulled one of his spare power cells from his webbing, giving it a quick kiss out of habit, before sprinting away from the safety of the archway. The buggy roared towards him, a gunman standing behind the two seats and firing an autorifle inaccurately.

 

Carcano stopped for a moment, hurling the las cell at the buggy, before firing his pistol on its maximum power setting. He hoped it would work, and was surprised when it did. Las cells were typically one of the most stable forms of ammunition in the Imperium, but the high powered shot from his pistol had managed to rupture and overload it, exploding it in the face of the driver. The gunner was crushed as the buggy rolled out of control, the passenger thrown aside to relative safety, only to be impaled through the back of the head by a piece of flying axle.

 

“I have to get myself some grenades,” he noted to himself, holstering his pistol and retrieving his rifle before crouching behind the grisly wreck and taking aimed shots with his pistol at the remaining smeltery workers - he'd seen the insignia on the dull green jumpsuits being worn by them.

 

“All in a days work,” he sighed, keying his vox link. “Leonel? Leonel! We have problems!”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Silas Leonel stepped back a few paces, and levelled the muzzle of his bolt pistol at the squat crate sitting in front of him, a broadcasting dish attached to the top of it. Close inspection had identified it as a high powered radar, but Leonel reckoned that it served a twofold purpose to also jam the vox links of anyone who bothered to come here. His first shot destroyed part of the arm holding the dish to the crate, his second, third, fourth and fifth punching large flaming holes into the crate itself. As the radar's interference died, Leonel's vox pinged immediately.

 

“…onel! We have problems!”

 

It was Carcano.

 

++I fixed the interference problem++ the inquisitor sent mentally, to both his pupil and the marksman. He formed another sentence but before he could send it, a pained yell echoed in his mind.

 

“Tanesha,” he frowned, striding out of the building and making off towards the smeltery at a sprint.

 

++I'm on my way!++

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Not good enough, damn it!” I hissed under my breath, hurling myself away from the murderous blade again.

 

I was cut in a dozen and three places, bruised in twice as many, and gradually feeling my body lose strength. My master was coming, but at this rate I'd be a shredded corpse if I didn't work something out. I gripped my knife tighter as the Eldar came in for another flurry of strikes. I ducked under a high sweep, lunging out with my blade and moving immediately to parry as I felt the impact against my opponent's weapon. Two slices and my guard was knocked open, the Eldar jumping up and kicking out with both feet to push me into a railing. She flipped back onto her feet with liquid grace, twirling her bloodied sword casually. I risked a look behind me, noting the fifty metre drop into the centre of the smeltery - as it had turned out, the smeltery itself was a large hole in the ground, with the building built up over it and a set of stairways and gangways leading down. Suddenly an idea clicked into my mind. It was a long shot, and the chance of success was pretty minimal, but it was better than what I had at the moment.

 

I rolled under the Eldar's sword, rising and slashing at her leg. I smiled slightly when I felt the impact of the blade against flesh. Then I felt something stab into the flesh between my neck and my shoulder.

 

The Eldar ripped her blade out of my body with a vicious pull, rending a perfectly good piece of meat in the process. I lost the use of my knife hand, and the knife dropped to the floor with a clang. I somehow managed to move away from a low stab that would have surely ruptured a vital organ, gripping the Eldar's arm in a grip I didn't realise I was capable of, realising that my chance had presented itself.

 

I screamed as I headbutted the Eldar, dropping my wounded shoulder and charging her into the safety railing I had been standing in front of several moments before. She grunted as she was slammed into it, her breath knocked from her lungs. I slammed her sword hand into the railing until she let it go, before leaning in close and snarling a few choice Eldar curse words at her. Letting go of her wrist and stepping back, my leg snapped out and around, connecting a high kick that hurtled her up and over the railing, screaming as she plummeted to her doom.

 

I began to sigh with relief when something else dropped to the gangway behind me, something obviously heavier than the Eldar I had just killed. I turned around to face it, dread creeping into my mind.

 

The Incubi, impressive in its heavy armour, flexed its fingers on the haft of its long hafted power weapon and pointed the tip of it at me.

 

This day got better with every passing moment…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lillyth could not help but smile once she realised that she had been beaten, and she had a clear view of the long drop to the massive ceramite basin that would have once been filled with molten metal. Thinking quickly, Lillyth struggled to pull the ceremonial dagger from its boot sheath, uttering a self sacrifice ritual desperately as she dragged the blade across her wrist. She managed to triumphantly scream the final words before she hit the basin and died with a dull splat. Her blood spread around the basin, a smile still formed on her face as something stirred.

 

Khaine would reward her well for this sacrifice…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tanesha gripped the Eldar's blade in her off hand, not sure why or how she was going to combat the Incubi. A powersword, a plasma pistol, maybe a lascannon…if she had one or all of those she might not have been so concerned. However, with her body in its current condition and nothing but a normal short sword things were slightly more complicated.

 

Its first swing sliced clean through the honed blade, and Tanesha hurled herself to the floor to avoid the rest of the deadly arc. She hit the gangway hard, feeling blood leaking from her other thus far uninjured shoulder regardless. There was a faint chuckling noise from within the Incubi's helmet as it strode forward confidently, raising its glaive for a killing blow. Tanesha closed her eyes resignedly.

 

The characteristic booms of a bolt weapon made her open them again. The Incubi reeled back as small blooms of flame erupted across the surface of its armour. It turned its head to fire the inbuilt pistol on its helmet, but that was destroyed too as the relentless hail of fire continued. Tanesha looked to the source.

 

A flick of his thumb ejected the spent sickle-pattern magazine, and Leonel already held a fresh one to slide into place, proceeding to empty that one too. The huge gun - which Tanesha had joked to be large enough for her to use like a carbine - continued to roar in the inquisitor's equally large grip. The Incubi hissed, more with rage than with pain, as it was driven back, finally breaking through an eroded barrier and falling. Leonel dropped his spent bolter, drawing the force sword from his waist and channelling his psychic energies into it. The Eldar was far from dead, and judging from the loud clank it had made, the drop was not necessarily a large one.

 

Leonel stood at the edge of the jump, and looked back at Tanesha for a moment, before stepping off the gangway.

 

Tanesha got to her feet slowly, spying a familiar shape on the other side of the gangway. She approached, groaning as she picked it up.

 

“So now I find you,” she grumbled, gripping her pistol in her left hand and grabbing her master's in her right - it was empty, so it didn't matter that her right arm was useless - before running as fast as she could in the direction Leonel had come. He had sent that the smeltery was set to be obliterated in five minutes, so she imagined that leaving the place was a particularly good idea.

 

She hoped that Leonel imagined the same…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Cirith panted excitedly despite the fact that the Incubi had not yet found the strength to move. The big human's weapon had done little internal damage, despite the fact that the outer surface of his armour was now scarred with scorched blast holes. He reached for his Punisher, and as his fingers closed around its long haft he felt bloodlust return to him. With a howl he flipped to his feet, twirling his crackling weapon. There was an impact behind him, and he turned to face the human, levelling his energised blade.

 

Leonel flourished with his weapon, before advancing with a speed that his size made deceptive. The duel escalated immediately, each slice parried, each parry riposted, each riposte parried again. Cirith marvelled at this human. He had known other Eldar to be no match for himself even without his armour, yet here was a human, matching him blow for blow. Cirith swept his blade low, and Leonel skipped over it before copying the move, hoping to catch the Eldar off guard. Cirith leapt over the psychically charged blade, and the duel continued. Gradually moving towards the edge of the gangway, it remained even. A sharp swing knocked aside Leonel's blade, and Cirith dove in for a kill without realising that the force sword had sliced open a pipe. Cirith screamed - this time in pain - as a jet of boiling steam engulfed his helmet, blinding his vision. Out of instinct, he raised his weapon to block the human's, before spying what seemed to be an opening and lunging forward recklessly.

 

His vision returned a few moments after he realised that his body had stopped reacting to his brain's commands. He looked down in disbelief at the shining silver blade protruding from his chest from behind. He hadn't even noticed that his hands, still gripping the glaive, were lying on he floor, disconnected from his arms. Blood filled the inside of his helmet as he retched violently, and he collapsed as the blade was freed from his corpse.

 

Leonel relaxed his mind as he pulled his energies back from his blade. He checked the chronometer sewn into the wrist cuff of his armoured under jacket as he headed for a way out of the smeltery. He had two minutes at the most to get the hell out before the low orbit starship began firing its weapons. There was far more happening here than a few Eldar sacrificing people to their Murder God. There had been evidence that their gleeful bloodlust had inadvertently attracted the attention of a Khornate daemon host, far to dangerous to deal with. And he had the luck of having an Imperial battleship stationed above the planet in low orbit. It had taken a lot of string pulling that would likely cost Leonel a fortune in expensive alcohol later, but he was glad he'd managed to get the ship for backup, overkill though it was.

 

He made it outside with fifteen seconds to spare, getting a safe distance away just as the first spear of ice blue power descended from the heavens. Tanesha blurted out a string of obscenities as the shockwave of the first explosion knocked her over, and she scrabbled to the cover of a staircase leading to and underground bunker, holding her hands over her ears and hoping that it was enough for her not to be deafened.

 

“Damn it Leonel!” she screamed, “Are you trying to get us all killed!?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lillyth got to her feet slowly, noting the tumultuous rumbling of the building around her. There was glistening blood everywhere, and she caught sight of her reflection. Her screams of horror at the presented image were drowned out by the shrieks of massive weapons fire, and her world erupted in flames around her…