[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

III

Arbites started screaming. It was not a warcry, or someone bellowing an order to charge. It was a scream of pure terror. Something was very, very wrong.

Hassel Niedderberg was moving immediately. He grabbed his vox-piece and opened the door. The sight that greeted him was like nothing he had seen before.

Pasty-white lithe shapes darted around the Arbites briefing amphitheatre, putting only the choicest wounds into the Adeptus Arbites trying to shoot and kill them. They were wyches, part of the xenos species that were dark kin of the Eldar. Wyches were warriors who practiced gladiatorial combat in their dark realm of Cammorragh. Only the best survived.


But that was not what disturbed him.


The thing that nearly unhinged his mind was the tall, slender, and impossibly beautiful creature that was using its clawed hands to tear apart the Arbites and lap up their blood that sprayed over its face. It was then that Niedderberg realized that the wyches were merely massacring the Arbites in an attempt to flee the monster that would tear them apart just as easily.


Niedderberg was stunned, but only for a moment. He quickly lunged straight through the swirling melee. He lashed out at the wyches with his sword, a finely-crafted blade forged in one of the most prominent blacksmith’s smelters on Nocturne after Nidderberg had greatly aided his master, Inquisitor Krustyef, discovering a malevolent xenomorph that fed on the pure heat and the molten metals of the lava that flowed all over the planet. The “Fiuro” as they had been named, were subsequently exterminated, and the people of Nocturne were very grateful, gifting each of Krustyef’s party with a carefully and beautifully crafted weapon. Niedderberg had named his sword “Vulcanus”.


As he sliced and eviscerated his way through the chaos, he suddenly found himself in front of the tantalizingly frightening thing that made the Arbites howl in a disturbing manner as it tore out their entrails. It stood over him, a head and shoulders taller than his two meters. It had two elegant, wickedly-curved horns protruding from its temples, and smaller nubs around the circumference of its head, like a crown of pure malice.


Without a chance to think, Niedderberg’s reflexes made him lunge forward and stab the entity in the abdomen. His sword slid through its flesh effortlessly, and a burst of steam and light erupted from the wound. He plunged Vulcanus into the abomination up to its inlaid-gold hilt. The thing hissed at him and swiped the back of its hand at him, knocking him backward into one of the wyches about to execute an Arbites officer. Niedderberg quickly rolled off of the female warrior and whipped out his autopistol. Despite her lightning reflexes, the wych was not able to reach her weapon in time. Niedderberg filled her face with shells, and the nearly-headless body fell to the floor.


But the terrible beauty was upon him once more, Volcanus still stuck in its abdomen, and Niedderberg scrambled out of the way as it slashed the space he had just occupied with its claws. He reached out his hand and tugged Volcanus from the mass of bright fluids and mutated organs that it was stuck in, emitting another hiss.

The fluids leaked over Niedderberg’s blade and down over his hand. They felt warm and he felt a sensation like he was still at home, all those years ago, peacefully laying in his burning house, the scorching sun playing over his charred face.

The feeling of peace was washed away in a tide of burning as Niedderberg felt his hand become hot, as if it were on fire. He saw the fluids burst into flame, and sizzle away. He could tell, in another part of his mind, that the pain was intense, but he felt more focused, his mind now clear.