Monday, December 7, 2015

The Iron Host pt3

Having made pacts with the techpriests of Hastia III's forge moon, the Iron Host were asked to take care of a 'small' ork problem in a neighboring system. A couple of the Host objected to being ordered around by a machine priest. But Anthrallis curbed them by reminding them that they needes their allies for ships and equipment and running this mission was a sure way to enforce that relationship. He told the nay sayers to stay back on Poxvidrae and guard their home. Six stayed behind. Five of those that had been transformed in the stronghold, and the rouge twenty-first Marine who was utterly intolerant to the other twenty and refused to serve Anthrallis as a dog of war.
Anyway, stepping onto the planet and seeing a sea of green foliage, Anthrallis ordered scouting sentinels to lead a ground force in all directions with constant vigilance while their landing ships were guarded by artillery batteries and heavy weapon emplacements; arial surveillance had shown no ork settlements in open ground, so a ground mission was needed.
The sentinels encountered no resistance, and upon regrouping on the caravan of Rhinos and Vindicators, were bombarded by heavy artillery coming from the drop site's direction. Communication attempts were met with static, and the strike force was left backtracking to the camp, avoiding shells and anti tank weaponry
When they arrived, the place was overrun by Greenskins. Carving their way through, the Iron Host pushed the enemy back and away from the ships before any major damage had been done. The skirmish had left a Rhino wrecked and a Vindicator without the demolisher cannon. Most of the artillery crew had been slaughtered, but one mortal remained, he had held up inside a Lander and fought off the small horde from the rear when the marines showed up.
Groups of sentinels were again sent out to try to track the ambushers and stumbled upon a large group of settlements loosely clustered in a large forest and made it back to the landing site without attack.
Now knowing the location, the marines took action: the artillery was mounted to one of the landing ships, facing downward. Two groups of bikes positioned themselves on the east and west of the forest with Anthrallis leading the eastern squad. Sentinels were to the north and the remaining marines and tanks to the south.
The landing ship flew over the central ork settlement and all batteries were released, setting great patches of the forest ablaze and crumbling not only the central, but many smaller neighboring holds as well. All wings of the attack rushed in and slaughtered the orks on their way out of the burning mess.
All units made it to the central camp, each reporting they killed each ork that came in their path. All agreed they had not seen many nobs or the leader of the orks so they began a scouring mission.
Before long there was a commotion over the vox: sentinel unit Alpha had been overrun and the orks had taken over the vehicles with an exceptionally large one mounted as well.
Anthrallis and his bikes were first to the scene. The sentinels had been damaged enough to the point where they were easy to drop, but the ork leader ripped off the lascannon attached to his ruined steed, aimed it directly at Anthrallis, and fired.
The leader of the Iron host was bisected cleanly from head to toe. The rest of the attack wings approached and finished off the warboss, ending the battle.
Anthrallis' second in command, Cephalen, ordered all the bodies of the fallen be brought back to Poxvidrae. Two others of the Iron Host had fallen to slay the great ork. One decapitated the other cut down by a power klaw, along with the pilots of Sentinel Alpha.
Back in orbit, Cephalen had the voidship saturate the settlement area with weapons fire, and they returned home.
The news of Anthrallis' death was, as expected, not taken very well.  The bodies of the mortals were brought to the Garden and would become a part of it, but none among the marines knew what would happen to one of their own after death. They decided to bury the bodies in their own grove, to remain remembered.
In-fighting began over who would replace Anthrallis as their leader, for he had been chosen by the greater daemon to lead them all in the wars to come. Three weeks passed; blows had been struck against brother, lines had been drawn, and no progress had been made.
Weary of the debate, Cephalen went to the grave of Anthrallis. The two had been together since the days of the great crusade, together they had beaten their squad mate to death when Perturabo declared decimation.
And now, Cephalen was alone and at a loss. Begging Nurgle to somehow bring light to the situation, or send the daemon down to settle the matter before bolters were fired and throats slit.
Then the ground moved.
It wasn't a quake, nor had it just been his imagination, his armor had recorded the movement too. Cephalen clawed at the ground before him to see if his prayers of Anthrallis' return had been received. To his delight: it had been.
From the two halves of his body Anthrallis had grown whole. There were now two of him, each in perfect synchronization with its twin. The two stood to face Cephalen and gave a small laugh and told Cephalen that there was a great story to be told.
The other marines were dug up, each had been brought back with a duplicate. All of them made their way back to the stronghold and all heads turned to the sevem marines standing in the doorway.
Both bodies of Anthrallis explained everything that had transpired:
Upon burial, the Lord of the Host and the other two were joined in their graves by open canisters filled with the spores that had transformed their superhuman bodies, as had become tradition when planting the bodies of the mortal humans to allow a tree to take their place.
The souls of the three dead marines had been brought to the home of the daemon that had given them life after their first death. There, he greeted them as sons and told them they would return to life and that their bodies, and all pieces that had been detached, would regrow whole again and that their consciousness would inhabit both bodies; and that should any of the Iron Host lose a part of their bodies, with enough exposure to the Devourer Virus, that part would regenerate and be another extension of their soul.
Not only were the marines shocked their fallen comrades were back, but to hear that they were immortal as long as the entirety of their body wasn't vaporized had them all feeling full of drive to conquer like never before; for they had no more fear.

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