You are browsing the archive for 2009 March.

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by Mike Toper

Lost Regiment

30/03/2009 in Warhammer 40K

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$100 Contest Entry by Mike Toper

He didn’t exist. There were no thoughts, no emotion. He didn’t feel the leaf litter under his belly or the heat on his back. He was dimly aware that his squad were around him, but he only saw them as surrounding terrain. They weren’t friends, they weren’t even men. Colonel Envoyer had lost all sense of self.

All he saw was the clearing in front of him and the shadow-dappled orks stamping through it. All he heard was the roar of their engines and their hoarse cries. The only parts of his body he felt were his trigger finger, and the shoulder where he had jammed his stormbolter.

The warband were twenty yards away, surging through the forest. They had no inkling of what was waiting for them – they only felt the rage in their blood driving them on. Envoyer grudgingly admired their sense of purpose, but they’d do better to move slower and look around them occasionally.

Ten yards…

“Now,” he whispered into his vox-caster.

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by Drakdylon

The Inquisitor’s Resolve

26/03/2009 in Warhammer 40K

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To serve without question.
To be loyal, honest, and true.
To stand by your master’s side.
Always, no matter how perilous his quest.
Or how dangerous and long his wanderings.
That, is the greatest thing a familiar can aspire to.

Inquisitor Montrath sat at his desk, writing. His pen scratched along the page, the sound was comforting to him. Montrath finished the page, only a few more pages left to go. His life’s experience was poured into this tome, all his years of fighting the Dark Powers. They needed to be chronicled.

The Inquisitor dunked his pen in its ink-pot, but when the pen re-emerged there was no ink on it. Frowning, the Inquisitor handed the empty pot to his diminutive familiar, a hooded individual who stood faithfully by Montrath’s chair.

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by Mossy Toes

Blood Tribute

23/03/2009 in Warhammer Fantasy

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$100 Contest Entry by Mossy Toes

—–

With a flutter of black wings and a raucous cry, the raven settled on the ancient skull. A hundred years or more in the past, the skull had belonged to a predecessor of Alvar’s or one of their worthier foes-now, though, it was yellowed and crumbling. One of the raven’s scaled black talons curled roughly around the rusted spike that stuck through it.

The raven watched Alvar with wary, intelligent eyes. The Blood Champion spat. Such an omen needed no doddering soothsayer to decipher. The raven atop a broken skull?

“If that is,” he murmured, “then so be it. My skull is the Bloodfather’s.”

“What?” asked Durm beside him. His rough, unguarded voice broke the white silence and the raven’s calm. It clamored away, beating its wings noisily.

Alvar cast his gaze to his fellow sentry, his second-in-command. In a time of war, it was traditional for the Blood Champion to keep the watch. Out of their bond of brotherhood, Durm, his Bloodseeker, had offered to stand beside him in this vigil. He was grateful for the support.

“Nothing, good friend,” Alvar replied. “I merely ponder the battle to come.”

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by Dae

Esther and Her Rings

19/03/2009 in Warhammer Fantasy

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$100 Contest Entry by Dae

—–

It was the smell, most probably, thought Jonathan. Nowhere, during his many journeys, had he found the same distinctive odour these streets have at night. Day after day, the same play is endlessly repeated: as the sky over the eastern horizon gradually turns blue, the early morning wind begins to blow and washes everything away towards the sea, cleaning the town before the sun rises.

But the smell always comes back. The first hints can be detected when the wind changes in the late afternoon: the trees stop rustling for a few hours before the sun sets down, and the howling noise of the wind is reduced to a whispering breeze. One after another, as if cautious and afraid, the peddlers begin pushing their carts through the town, seemingly appearing from nowhere. If you follow them, and let yourself be carried away by the flow of people, you will soon find that they all trace their path to the same place.

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by Mossy Toes

Spyderweb

16/03/2009 in Warhammer 40K

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Kay ran, a constant string of profanity cycling through her mind. Every other step, every time she pushed forward with her left leg, her pistol pressed an ‘L’ into her side. Her breath came in torn, ragged gasps, slicing through her teeth and dry mouth. Her eyes were wild and her shoulder-length black hair whipped across them. A glance over her shoulder told her all she needed to know—that they were still right behind her.

She was afraid. Afraid for her twin, for both her brothers—but mostly just afraid of what Chesken’s men would do if they caught her. She dove between two ancient dumpsters into an alley and bit her lip in pain as one of her feet landed awkwardly and twisted.  She gasped, and stumbled on.

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by Firewing2

Five Little Lines

12/03/2009 in Original

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And there it was in my hand. My whole existence boiled down to five little lines:

HARPER
JASON A
535-09-1312
O POS
PROT-NO-DENOM

My name, social security number, blood type, and how I wanted to be buried. Everything the Army thought anyone needed to know about me. I was never so proud in my life as the day they handed me those two pieces of stamped metal most people simply called “dog tags.” Somehow that was the day I was a soldier. The uniform, the gun, the training, none of it was as important as this.

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by Brannick

Reunion

09/03/2009 in Warhammer 40K

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I was up and dressed so early on the morning of Saint Stefan’s Day. My foster parents had bought the beige blazer especially, so that I could wear it for the evening parade. The blazer matched well with my light brown knee-length shorts and my neatly polished mahogany brown boots. I remember allowing myself a smile as I looked in the full-length mirror, at the same time thinking that I wouldn’t get a beating from Haltek today. The mirror didn’t lie; the left side of my chest was already a gorgeous swirl of black, purple and yellow bruising from the previous evening’s pounding. All that I had done was to spill my drink across the table at dinner. My foster mother, Anna, never stepped in to help despite my tears and screams. The neighbours were just as bad; they must have known what was happening, yet they also did nothing. Still, the bruises had soon gone away, they always did, my body had become accustomed to fighting them and usually they were gone within a week.

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by LIRR

I Stand a Heretic

05/03/2009 in Warhammer 40K

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”Will you aid us?”

It was a direct question, but at that moment, it was the only one I could muster. My mind could not work, all chains of thought dull and numb. To stand next to something so utterly alien turned my stomach. There was no grasp of it. No hint, nothing to hold on to. To watch it was a marvel in itself, to stand next to it was the stuff of nightmares. Enigma personified, in the flesh, a mystery incarnate. And our only hope of survival.

I am Scribe Overlord of the Adeptus Administratum, Adept Marckush van der Falsch. I was a humble servant under Imperial Governor Osric Hammel of Mespys for many a decade. I shall tell you of the time when we, humans, were in dire need of aid; A shadow had emerged out of the darkness and was threatening to consume us all. Two months before, surveillance-satellites at the edge of our system had detected a large splinter fleet of Tyranids heading our way. It was slowly emerging out of deep space and was perhaps less than a year away from reaching the systems outer reaches. Defenses were being prepared, but Imperial aid is not to be relied upon; Out here, in the Eastern Fringe, the dominion of man is fragile at best. Instead, the system of Mespys had reached out for support at an unexpected quarter.

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by LIRR

Legionnaire

02/03/2009 in Warhammer 40K

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Hope.

I’ve lost it. I lost that a long time ago. I lost hope the moment the Enforcers grabbed me over the neck, broke my nose, three of my ribs and dislocated my shoulder. Twelve I was at the time. Twelve standard Terran years.

How old am I now? I don’t know. Twenty-five perhaps? I know I spent nine years on a penal world. Which one? I don’t know. They don’t tell convicts these things. We simply slave like servitors, without their bionic enhancements. We slave until we die; A life of servitude that will wash away our sins.

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