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Man Alone The planet Korros. A brazen desert wasteland, dominated by the harsh Kultur of the Ork Warboss Gornob Grimskragga. In an effort to destroy the Orkoid presence, the Black Templars Korros Crusade was formed, among its number Darius and Gideon. In battle against the Orks, Dark Eldar raiders ambushed their squad and Gideon was felled in battle – perhaps dead, perhaps captured. The unconscious Darius awoke to find the force wiped out, himself the only survivor. Finding an intact bike, the Neophyte has set off to find his mentor and rescue him from the Dark Eldar… The bike sped down the cavern passage, Darius’ hair blowing back in the slipstream. Driven by hate and need to avenge his mentor, Darius was going to rescue his master or die trying. A spare boltgun was slung over his shoulder in addition to the bike-mounted weapon. He also carried a chainsword he had found on a dead Templar and had replenished his supply of frag and krak grenades. His plan was simple. The Dark Eldar must have a secret route onto Korros and he would follow them home. If Gideon was alive, he would be either escaped and wandering the caves or imprisoned – either way, Darius would find him. He had to find him. His thoughts were disrupted by his arrival in a massive cavern, easily a mile across, carved out of Korros’ sandstone. A mass of rock supported the ceiling and buried in its heart Darius could see a huge glowing mass of purple light, projected by arcane machinery, doubtless alien in design. This must be the warpgate! Darius thought. Here we go! “Marshal, Battle Force Imperious was ambushed by a force of Dark Eldar raiders. We found three Initiates, two Neophytes and Techmarine Ferrus wandering the desert, picked up by a patrolling Razorback. Their reports were garbled, probably due to shock, but they all agreed that they were the only survivors, apart from a Neophyte called Darius. He was knocked unconscious by a splinter shot and abandoned.” Voss nodded before waving for continuation. “If he’s alive, he could be anywhere. I suggest we search for the Dark Eldar’s webway portal. There must have been one somewhere in the mountains.” “Modification. You will also search for Darius, and any other survivors. Even if there are none, their gene-seed MUST be recovered! It cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Dark Eldar.” Fulgar turned his comm.-link to internal and began to relay the orders for a rescue mission. What Darius saw on the far side of the column terrified him. A great, cold, dark chamber, lit in some hellish, green, twilight glow, the walls smooth and dark. All around were discarded weapons and Black Templar and Ork corpses littered the floor. High above, a skylight looked out on some perpetual darkness, an utterly alien sky. The walls were dedicated with runes in red and green – runes of blood, human and Ork. Only one rune, the most common, meant anything to him, a strange combination of the Mechanicus signs for male and female. The sign of Slaanesh, the Chaos god of pleasure and pain, or an unholy merging of the two. Some sixth sense spoke in Darius’ heart and he knew Gideon was near. He revved the bike and ploughed through the hall of charnel, the wheels sending up sprays of blood and rotting flesh. His heart pounding in terrified agony, Gideon was forced to kneel before a plush, padded couch that stood before him in the vast hall he found himself in. Lying on it was a Dark Eldar woman. Slender, sensual, sinuous, with a harsh, cruel beauty of pallid, almost white flesh. Her full figure was embraced by vicelike armour, black and form-fitting, enhancing her attraction. Gideon’s faith and training made him free of desire, but he could tell this woman would have enslaved a lesser man. Around the room were more of the black-armoured Incubi he had seen on the battlefield, and at the side of the terrible, beautiful woman stood one taller and greater than the rest, his armour decorated with stylised bones. The woman stretched out one languid hand and gestured for him to be brought closer. The two Warriors hurried to obey until he was a mere foot from her. Some eldritch scent assaulted his senses as she leant towards him. As she came closer still, Gideon lashed his head back and spat, the globule of weak acid landing on her bare shoulder and smouldering. Instead of the scream he had expected, she moaned in pleasure, her eyes rolling back in her skull, her head lolling back, her hair falling around her body. She reached out again to stroke his face, her voice a thrilling sound for a man of any lesser mettle. “This one has spirit! Always so refreshing in a captive, is it not? I think I want this one. Yes – I’ll enjoy this.” She licked her lips and laughed, a high soprano sound. He shivered; long-buried feelings and desires awoken by her voice and touch. She came closer still, her lips inches away from his, her cool breath blowing over his features – and then she reached to her left and her hand came back clad in a gauntlet, a gauntlet with long, pointed, glowing-green fingers. Her forefinger extended to pierce Gideon’s forehead and drew a line through his eye and face as far as his jawbone. Gideon screamed. His pain was far greater than anything he would have expected, the agoniser amplifying his nervous system’s sensitivity and response. His left eye winked out, his vision halved in a single stroke. Blood flowed down his face as she pushed him away, his face ruined with three more scars from her free fingers. Deep within him something snapped and he began to sob at her rejection. Why no more? The pain had been so great, and yet something within him longed for more. What the hells was this woman doing to him? Two Razorback APC s and a Land Raider ground slowly up the mountain valley, searching, searching, either for survivors or for the tell-tale warp trace of a webway portal, invisible to human eyes but not to an Auspex scanner. The infantry on both sides and the Land Speeders above regularly reported in to the Raider’s built-in comm. Centre, but there was nothing. +++Squad Alphus, nothing yet+++ “Understood. Continue searching to the northeast, that’s where we found the others. Fulgar out.” Castellan Fulgar paced the Land Raider’s armoured floor, watching and waiting for any word. Boltguns blazing, Darius took the guards in the huge chamber completely by surprise. Of ten Warriors, only two survived his initial volley, and they were dispatched by his chainsword before they could scream an alarm. Darius knew his one advantage was not surprise, they’d hear the bike long before they saw it, but shock. Having a lone Marine, travelling at speed, appear in your midst was no doubt unusual even here. Briefly he wondered if he would be enough, and then he remembered the fall of Gideon. The hate pounded through Darius, his whole body throbbing with his need for revenge, driving him on without rest or nourishment. Before him he saw a canopy, only a few metres across, enclosing a room filled with drapes. Dimly he saw a man screaming, being dragged down the entrance steps, a couch on which lay a dark shape, a voice laughing icily, black armoured guards standing motionless. Darius kicked the brake and spun the bike to leap off and charge towards the podium. In his agonized delirium, Gideon was sure he could hear the sound of a bolt pistol firing and the sound of a familiar voice. He dragged himself half upright, only half aware that his guards had dropped him, only to see… “Darius! It’s me!” Darius paused in hacking down an Incubus who had charged him to see his master, half dead, a physical ruin, his left eye slashed evenly through. Seeing Gideon like that, the man who had trained and guided him, let loose the pent-up hate. Darius screamed, a primal sound of rage, and swung his chainsword two-handed to decapitate three Incubi in a single blow. “Gideon!” he cried, all thoughts of rank forgotten. “Catch!” The boltgun flew into Gideon’s hands. Now he was armed! A weight rose from the old Marine’s shoulders and he stood, ignoring the pain, resting the weapon in his arms. He opened fire on the Incubi, gunning two down and wounding a third. Darius, free from the press, ran for him to support him on his shoulders. “What have they done to you, damn them? WHICH ONE DID THIS?” the Neophyte yelled, seeing his master’s mutilated face. Gideon looked up into his eyes, his mouth framing a reply that was never said. “I did.” The voice pierced Darius’ heart. He swiveled around limply, all thoughts of revenge forgotten as he gazed on the dreadful, alien woman, her form, her voice, her very being flooding his senses, filling him with desire. He staggered towards her, into her outstretched arms, eyes alight, soul enslaved. Gideon groaned inwardly. Darius’ training had yet to advance to the level where his humanity was compromised truly, and he was not yet immune to this woman’s unearthly charm. Unnoticed, Gideon pulled himself up on the pole of the canopy. The Eldar noblewoman’s lips locked over Darius’, flooding his being with pleasure, her hair falling over their faces. Her arms caressed his shoulders, massaging the hate away. He felt her breasts bulge under her thin, tight armour, gazed helplessly into her immeasurably dark, hypnotic eyes, all his thoughts directed into desire. Her voice seemed to speak within him, whispering, reassuring, and eroding his thoughts and training. “You belong here…give yourself up to me. Give yourself to pleasure.” The image vanished as her face contorted into a snarl of hate. She shoved him aside and lunged past him, her agonizer outstretched, intent on finishing the now vertical Gideon forever. Her sharp fingers extended to a point, heading straight for Gideon’s head. Sidestepping, the old Initiate brought his hand around, grabbed her wrist and used her momentum to drag her to the floor, cracking and twisting the bones as he did. He brought the boltgun round to point at her left eye and laughed hollowly, a sound of bitterness and revenge. She gazed up at him, knowing her end was nigh. Here was a foe driven by hate of her and everything she stood for, immune to pain or pleasure, invulnerable and unseduceable. Her lips formed one last sneer. “For the Emperor?” Gideon’s own face twisted as he replied. “No. For me.” And then he fired, once, the explosion blowing her face apart. He fired again and again, battering her body into pulp, until all that remained was a smear of dead flesh. Darius pulled himself up and saw the guards pouring in. It was too late. He had done what he set out to do, but this was too much. Then he saw Gideon in a firing stance, bolter blazing, fighting on despite the pain, and he stood himself and fired. “Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds!” cried the two Marines, master and novice, reunited at last, as they ploughed through the mass towards the bike. Fulgar was still pacing an hour and a half later when the transmission came through from Squad Belial and Squadron Torrius simultaneously – +++Emperor’s Blood! We have survivors!+++ Fulgar turned to the comm.-link and spoke to his troops. The Land Raider fired again and again, the twin-linked lascannons pounding the webway gate into oblivion, the energy field dissipating as the pinpoint-precise weapons blasted device after device away. A final volley of heavy bolter shots shattered the frame of the portal and the rocks fell around it with a resounding crash. When the smoke cleared, it was as if the portal had never been. The Raider ground ponderously around, gigantic engines powering it out of the pit of ancient evil, out of the darkness and into the light. Inside the tank, Gideon lay in the small medi-bay, cramped into a bed and with a series of magnificent scars – one through his left eye and three on the left cheek. Meanwhile, Darius stood before the orbital comm.-link screen and faced Marshal Voss. For a long time, they simply stared at each other’s image, until Voss said: “You do realise what you have done? Making use of heretical items, venturing on a mission without approval and entering the realm of Commorragh?” Voss’ voice was filled with controlled anger – he knew almost everything. “Just what did you expect to achieve?” “Well, lord Marshal, since you ask, I did rescue Brother Gideon. If I hadn’t gone, we would have nothing. Two Initiates from his gene-seed are no substitute for one experienced one, if I had found him dead, that is. And I did find the webway portal.” “Your sins are still an exile offence, Neophyte! However, in view of your sterling work in saving Gideon, and in addition taking on half a Kabal single-handed, I am willing to reduce your sentence to re-assignment to another Crusade. You are to leave Korros at once, and head for the Moldion system on the Eastern Fringe, there to join Marshal Brion’s Crusade. Gideon – you too. And consider yourselves lucky. Had you failed, Darius, you would by now be exiled. But since Gideon and yourself returned alive and relatively unharmed, you are to be relieved. Voss out!" When the Raider had turned away from the ex-portal and begun heading out of the mountains, Darius bent over the medi-bay. “How are you, brother?” “Better now, thank you, Darius. And call me Gideon. After what we’ve been through, you deserve no less.” Gideon paused to rub his new scars. “What did you tell Lord Voss? I thought I’d be shot!” “Everything – except your encounter with the Eldar noblewoman. I thought that was best forgotten.” Gideon lowered his voice. “What did she do to you? You were like someone else!” “She brought out the worst in me. It was – it was like being let into heaven, every time she touched me or spoke to me. When she kissed me, I could hear her talking to me, tempting me.” Darius’ voice became quieter, hoarse, hungrier, filled with longing. “I wanted her so much, I’d have let her do anything to me, use me, hurt me, anything! I’d have given it all up, the Chapter, everything, just for her.” Gideon was all but silent himself, realising Darius may be physically fine, but psychologically he was scarred for life, still bound by his re-awoken desires, unable to transcend humanity for a long time. Finally he replied, voice hollow and exhausted. “So would I.”
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