A world of grey and
black. That is what the world seemed
like to Champion Nyrtus. Ash billowing
everywhere, swept for miles from the carnage of the battlefield, creeping into
filters and vents. Some cultists nearby
coughed as their low grade oxygen masks were overwhelmed in their attempt to
create clean air out of the tons of waste flying above the ground at all
levels.
It wasn't supposed to go this way.
Nyrtus couldn't help
but wonder what had happened, what had gone so wrong with the mission. Events were unfolding as had been scripted by
the thrice-damned Tzeentchian witches… thrice-damned they may be but they were
always accurate.
It was supposed to
be a simple raid for some top notch supplies.
Their fleet was going to come out of nowhere, hopping onto world from
which some Eldar pirates had laid claim to as their base, deploy some troops on
the ground to overwhelm the unsuspecting forces, grab the gear and make their
swift exit. 24 hours tops.
So why are so many dead?
Shaking his head in
a doomed attempt to dismiss his own questions he thought about how the mission
had started to go awry just 48 hours ago…
______________________*****___________________________**********___________________________*********___________
Landing their strike
force was laughably simple, it was obvious that the Eldar had no idea what was
going to hit them. Lord Bontav was
leading this expedition, and he welcomed Nyrtus and his men, from Chabtor to
Zaiyan and even the narcissistic Garman; every one of them good men, though
they all had their flaws of course. Of
course some cultists had been brought along to do the menial labor - someone
had to gather the boxes and load them up; the rest of the forces were in charge
of securing the landing zone and taking out potential hostiles. Safety had dictated that some of the cursed
brethren be brought on the mission as well, though no one had wished to burden
them with the task: 6 bikers and 7 Terminators, all of Nurgle. They had been afflicted with the 'blessing'
of one of the Chaos gods.
Nyrtus always found
it odd how the Chaos gods' favor was sought after actively by so many other
renegade marines, the warp and Chaos embraced to the fullest. The Virtue Forsakers had never wanted to be
involved with that lot…
Nyrtus pushed such
thoughts to the side, they would only interfere with his operations in this
mission. Not that it was going to be
difficult. Well. There was one who might make it difficult.
Tzeentch blessed
Sorcerer Yurfalk had deemed this strike force's potency as equivalent to 'a
toddler bearing a lollipop' and so he was accompanying them to try and make up
for the lack of ability so that the rest of the Forsakers present wouldn't feth
everything up.
Everyone kept their
distance from Yurfalk, he was always unpleasant to be around. Not only was his personality ghastly, but he
was one of the few Forsakers who believed in devoting more members to the Chaos
Gods. And if that wasn't bad enough, his
reasoning for it made him ten times less tolerable: he thought that they should
be devoted simply because the Gods deserved to be worshipped.
oNyrtus banished
Yurfalk from his mind to focus on the task at hand. With the unloading of the horrifying Helbrute
- he dared not go close enough to find out which of the Forsakers' had been
deployed for fear of his life and sanity - it had become time to move out. Calling out over the vox he hustled to meet
up with his team of Chosen, 6 strong including himself. When they had all consolidated together, they
waited; the order to move out would be coming very soon.
Looking around in
this momentary lull, Nyrtus could see this had once been an Imperial Industrial
World, and if the debris and machines visible through the various walls that
were crumbling and seared with blackened marks of lasblasts and plasma fire this
world had once produced all sorts of clothing for guardsmen. Half-made backpacks, ripped shirts, knee
pads, a multitude of these items littered the ground and inside of once running
factories. But none of that was what
they were after today. Further up this
hard black asphalt would be Eldar weaponry which could be used by the Forsakers
in their efforts several systems away against the Ork Waaagh! that was
developing.
Seemingly out of
nowhere Lord Bontav appeared, nodding to Nyrtus and settling on knee before
grimacing behind the Chosen champion.
Nyrtus glanced around and saw Yurfalk hurrying towards them, apparently
intent on accompanying the commander in this endeavor.
As Yurfalk came next
to Lord Bontav, Nyrtus thought about asking what their new orders were. Being accompanied by both commanding officers
had not been in the plan, but they hadn't been assigned to any squad yet either,
so maybe it should have been expected.
Nyrtus decided to go ahead and confirm their previous orders with Lord
Bontav, who was in charge of the whole force - no matter what Yurfalk thought
or said.
"Sir, are
we-"
A series of
explosions suddenly erupted northeasterly to his position, and Nyrtus looked
around suddenly confused and worried.
Had they been discovered? None of
the units had even gotten out of position and all were still in hiding. And the immediate vox communications showed
no one had even been shot at. But that
was even more worrisome.
Lord Bontav was
yelling at someone over his vox, and whatever he said must have worked. Almost immediately they had a bird in the sky
sweep once, twice, three times over the nearby vicinity and then it took off in
a flash. Nyrtus waited the long 30
seconds in agony, praying that the bird's scans wouldn't show any nearby force
of considerable size.
Nyrtus was sure that
it was some Eldar Pirates just having fun and blowing up some leftover
guardsmen vehicles in their spare time.
But with a sinking feeling he knew that wasn't the case. That wasn't the sound of an exploding chimera
that someone was taking pot shots at.
That sounded an awful lot like a Leman Russ Executioner, firing a full
round of searing hot plasma at someone very near the Forsakers' positions.
Nyrtus nearly fell
from shock at the scans the bird sent down.
Evidently the 'surprise' strike force was just another force entering an
escalating battle. The explosions that had
sounded from the northeast had in fact come from a Leman Russ Executioner. And evidently those sounds had drowned out
everything else that was present as well, being what appeared to be an entire
company of another faction of Chaos.
But that wasn't even
the worst of it. Not only was there a
company of Chaos Marines with their Traitor Guard, but they had been firing at
a very sizeable Ork army, complete with Lootas, Nobz, and Boyz of all shapes and
sizes. And then those Eldar that the
Forsakers had been intending on slaughtering were fully battle ready and moving
out, venoms, ravagers, and raiders gliding across the already wrecked landscape
as they went to face off against these two other factions. None of them yet seemed to be aware of the
presence of the Virtue Forsakers, but that state wouldn’t last forever,
especially not with the bird that had just flown in the sky.
Barking orders
quickly, Lord Bontav deployed spotters to all sorts of positions to keep him
updated on enemy troop movements.
Explosions and screams still tortured the air all around the Forsakers
as they burst from hidden positions and rushed towards the enemy troops. With such heavy firepower their only hope was
to get close and show these folks who was going to lay a claim to the precious
gear.
Nyrtus was lost in
the battle now, shots fired uncertainly from the Eldar pirates as they suddenly
realized that a completely unaccounted force had arrived on the scene, and they
diverted some vehicles towards him. The
time for fighting had arrived.
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