Red Bull

january

HomeComing

VasHarr handed Varr a dataslate. On it was a depiction of a truly frightening figure. Anthropoid in shape, but heavily armoured in ice-blue plate both baroque and barbarous, the scale on the image seemed to indicate it was roughly the size of a fully-armoured Astartes.

"Who or what is *that*"
"That's who we're here to meet."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"It's an Ice Demon"
"A what?"
"You know how Gelonus is an ice-world?"
"No?"
"I thought you were from there."
"I was. It was not entirely pleasant in winter, but it *had* seasons!"

VasHarr shot Varr a look of raised-eyebrow scrutiny/incredulity, which swiftly softened with remembered understanding.
"How long were you frozen on that asteroid for?"
"Five thousand years, give or take a few centuries."
"Ah. So before the Scouring, then."
"Yes. When I Ascended to the Star-Eye-Barrows, Adamantia was still mighty and strong. I've caught myself up on ... various developments hence, but deliberately avoided reading of my homeworld. I figured it'd be a bit of a shock, seeing how unfamiliar it all was underneath all that progressing march of Time."

"Right, well it's not so much Time it's buried under."
"What do you mean?"
"When the Scouring came, and the war-fleets of the Darian Ecclesiarch, the Crimson Aquilae, the Minotaur-Demons, and others besides descended upon that part of Adamantia, they found themselves in a quandry. They knew that they were being harried upon their flanks by a formidable foe - yet one who refused to be brought to direct battle; instead striking them with devastation from the dark of the night-between-worlds and fading like specters afore the dawn when the solar-dispatched gold-clad main retributor fleet arrived."
"You're waxing lyrical."
VasHarr drew himself up. "Of course! It is a tale which deserves it! We are not all so taciturn as you, sentinel-spirit!"
"So what happened, then. How does this relate to Gelonus?"

"Eventually, the Haruspiciae determined through the reading of the entrails of their comrades' shattered ships, that the harrows had emanated from the ice-clouds about the Gelonus system; but they could not pinpoint exactly where. The Darian EcclesiShah was a prideful man, and doubtless under the sway of the bull-headed demons amidst his train. He ordered a broad-channel message to be sent out; hoping to head off the campaign's escalating losses via either bringing the deathly wind to decisive battle or securing once more their allegiance to what he thought he represented - the wider Imperium as a whole. He declared that should they continue to evade him, they were either cowards or traitors. And if they were not the former, to seek him out in full force, to meet their fate against a greater host in honourable warfare; or if they were not the latter, to make the symbolic offer of blood, earth and water and harry him no more."

"And what reply did they send him, the Gelonians?"
Despite his earlier trepidation, Varr was enjoying learning what his folk had been up to in his long sojourn of stasis-cence. And further despite himself, Varr even found himself enjoying some of the colourful phrasing VasHarr was using to tell the story. It reminded him of the mythic tales his Grandparents had used to tell him as a boy.

"They responded in kind. A message sent from multiple quarters at once, as if to make the invaders feel surrounded and cut off. I've got it memorized;"

VasHarr cleared his throat in mock preparation for a dramatic rhetorical recital:

" 'This is Our way, Darian. We never fear men nor fly from them. We have not done so in times past, nor do We now fly from thee. There is nothing new or strange in what We do; We only carry on as We had ever done afore thy coming, and as we shall ever do long after thine shades lie fled forgotten from mortal ken.

Now I shall tell thee why I do not at once join battle with thee. We Ghosts have no haunts amongst the worlds of the Living which might induce us, through fear of their being taken or ravaged, to be in any hurry to fight with you.

If, however, thine longing for the nearness of death and doom is so great as to be irrepressible, then look you now:

Find thineself amongst the Tombs of our Forefathers; attempt to interfere with Them, and in so doing choose a grave station for thine own lack-of-future.

Then ye shall see whether or no We will fight with you. Till ye do this, be sure We shall not join battle, unless it pleases Us.

This is Our answer to the challenge to fight. As for the imputed challenge to Our Honour .. We shall perhaps take it more seriously when the accusation is made by one who possesses some to know what it is.

You have sought to term us Traitors, and demanded that We hail you as the rightful lord and master of Our hearts, blades, and fealty. This We shall not, cannot do; even if you made yourself seem more worthy of the claim.

We kneel only before Two - The Emperor, the Spear-Lord, our Ancestor; and Adamantia, the Goddess of the Steppe-of-Stars Whose presence you now seek to so wretchedly despoil.

The 'tribute' thou hast askedst for, We do not send. You shall have no claim upon the Earth and Blood and Water which you so desperately seek as safe-assurancy.

Yet do not think Us Miserly. For thou shalt soon receive more suitable gifts.

Last of all, in return for thy calling thyself My lord, I say to thee:
'Cry harder'."

Varr sensed he was missing something.

"So how does this relate to Gelonus now becoming a ball of frozen ice?"
"The Darianashah had a cruel streak. He did not believe it when the raiders had stated that they had no holdings nor havens to occupy and despoil. He addeuced somewhat correctly that Gelonus held some measured significance to them; and rather than simply lay waste to it utterly, chose to make of it an example."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it's why clergymen often make for such poor choices as warlords. They're ever attempting to make a moral passion-play out of everything."
"So what did he seek to 'teach' Gelonus?" Varr felt a cold chill from his stomach rising.
"Well, the Darians viewed what they represented - a certain flavourng of Imperial orthodoxy, supposedly Terran-sanctioned and all bedecked in gold and Fravash-radiant solar glory - as being the ultimate source of life and legitimacy to Mankind. That they were out here on their little Crusade, to re-spread that sunlight, and damn you if you already had your own Emperor-bestowed illumination already set up. They could never really abide competition - 'specially when it was through things, like the Adamantine mytho-religion which they could hardly influence, let alone actually control. They could also be nastily literal-minded.

So when they got this message, the Darianashah immediately steered course for Gelonus. Bringing out with him several strange Mechanicus barques 'quipped with powerful gravatic impellers.

Again was the message broadcast out for all to hear. That the Darianashah was a merciful man even to his woefully misbegotten and misguided mortal foes. So rather than simply exterminate the Gelonians out of hand and show them first-finger the folly of supporting a SenHarja -" Varr stiffened at the terms of his previous rank being mentioned in such a way; he wondered if VasHarr had meant it intentionally "- of wandering ghost-battalion, he'd let their world live.

But, as a demonstration of what it meant to dwell in defiance of the divine mandate of the Darians as bestowed via the pre-Thorian Ecclesiarchy, he declared that he would move heaven and earth to make the situation of Gelonus -physical reflect that of Gelonus-spiritus. That when he was finished, this den of vipers would have become as the circling shore of frozen corpse-worlds which ringed the system and from whence he felt sure the revenant-raiders had set sail to strike. The Sun showing its displeasure down upon the Gelonians via dimming to them in the sky."

"What? How does - "
A moment's incredulity at the outlandishness and vaingloriousness of the threat gave way to sick-feeling realization. "- Ah."

"We do not know what strange gravomancy was then employed by the Mechanicus wound-wunders he had brought with him, but the orbit of Gelonus was shifted out considerably. Not enough to render it uninhabitable - that would have defeated the point. But the Darianashah was as good as his word. Your homeworld became a Hel straying far from the Sun. Ice-bound and desolate, much of the surface now shrouded 'neath kilometer-thick glacial robes.

It's still inhabited, of course -"

"The Gelonians were a hardy people"

VasHarr nodded to him; "Still are. And not just you, I mean."

VasHarr tapped the data-slate Varr was holding - "they aren't all like this; but outside of the more conventionally survivable extremes, the near infinite resiliency of the mortal form and mind has lead to some truly impressive developments."
"If you say so. But one more question about the past."
"Gosh, I thought that was supposed to be why we brought you back - acting as our 'memory'."
"I can hardly remember that for which I wasn't there!"
"I jest. Name the query."

"The Darians and their lord ... my people, the ancestors I suppose of those we're going to meet ... they were never given to let an affront go unanswered. Especially not one so grievous as this. What -"

VasHarr anticipated the question " - happened to them? You know, it is a peculiar thing. In the general chaos of the Reformation then occurring, whole swathes of Imperial history were lost, or propagandized over the top of. What we know is that the Darians withdrew, having left Adamantia in ruins and missionaries for their supposedly Solar creed in their wake.

The timescale is important, as with the post-Vandire reformatia of the Ecclesiarchy slowly rolling out across the Imperium, it meant that the old style of semi-clergy mostly-tyrants with legions of armed men personally at their service were becoming a thing of the past. The Darians therefore felt they had far greater struggles - political battles - to fight for the survival of their mode of being; and that it would not look well for them to have sought to set up a proper expansionary fiefdom in the wake of a pseudo-Ecclesiarchical crusade ... especially, given the girding of the new order via Astartes and Inquisition, over the former domains of a well-linked chapter.

So they went back to their capital, Behistus, and proceeded to begin re-organizing their pocket empire to avoid forcible re-organization at the hands of others when Terra finally caught up with them. In practice, this meant parcelling out their princelings to various more officially recognized Imperial institutions so as to shore up their currency of influence therein, and then using these as entry-points to turn Darian assets into sanctioned entities. Templar formations banned under the new laws of the Decree Passive became Guard regiments with locally sourced command. All officially above board and operating under the watchful gaze of centrally located - if distant - Imperial authorities. In fact, the Darians were shrewd enough to use this as the opportunity to expand their sway.

They actually wound up with further military assets in theory under their subtle auspices thanks to the diffusionism of their men and lords out into the wider Imperium. And that's eventually what undid them as a dynasty. Some time after the expurgation of Adamantia, something triggered a mutiny of various Guard regiments and naval officers under their command. We don't know whether it's fully accurate, but the official history suggests it was partially driven by the Darians refusing to pay their men as they'd been diverting the resources to other more self-serving ends, and partially a theological matter - a perception having spread amongst the mutineers that the Darians were anti-Thorist reformation and quietly attempting to cling on to the hope of restoring the old order. As it happened, this was probably not far from the truth; and so no doubt facilitated by some higher-ups pointedly looking the other way when the Darians found themselves under siege, and refusing to provide aid to them or sanction upon the mutineers, Behistus was looted and reduced to ruins. All that was left of them were a few fiefdoms here and there about their old stellar dominion, scattered orders of their versions of priests and revivalists still going through the motions of their shattered creed, and occasional trading houses and lordships able to trace their linage and their traditions back to the Darians of old."

"I was more interested in the particular fate of the man who ordered the freezing - the frost-burning - of my world."

"Ah. Him. Well, as I said, the records of that time are fragmentary. But there is a record of a Darianshah - Kurus was his name; often thought to be a grandson, a grandfather, or possibly even a grand-uncle of the one you are interested in. The history is tangled, not only due to the age but also because there appear to have been some rather peculiar marriages amongst the Darians designed to keep power all in the family ... and concentrate some of the 'powerful genes' at the same time, if you get my drift.

In any case, something about Gelonus and Her neighbouring worlds must have caught his or his kinsman's eye, for he set out once more upon a stellar crusade in this direction. Only this time, without the initial intent of taking by conquest what he could have via other means. It is recorded that he made a proposal of marriage to a Sauromatriarch of the region; whether because she was supposed to be a beauty of fine mind and superior genetics who might have refreshed the ankle-deep Darian heredity pool ... or whether because Kurus thought that a dynastic marriage would give his line a legitimate claim of suzerainty upon the worlds they had been too frightened to simply occupy via conventional force, it is unclear. Probably a bit of both.

Whatever the motivation, the Sauromatriae had other ideas; and Kurus was most incensed to find his proposal curtly rebuffed. He therefore prepared for war; and the Sauromatriae, to repel via missile what mere missive had not."

A proximity alert tone, and the abrupt jolt experienced as their craft entered Gelonus' upper atmosphere suggested the time for stories was shortly to be over.

"We'll be landing soon. You should make ready for your 'Homecoming'."

Varr rolled his eyes. "So am I going to be waiting another five thousand years for the conclusion to that story?"

"It's a slow kind of torture, living without closure, isn't it. Very well, we got a few minutes before we land. I'll give you the short version.

Kurus assumed that the Darians had left behind a wrecked sector the last time they had moved through; that after what they'd done to Gelonus amidst the other former Adamantine worlds, they'd have an easy time of this campaign - basically just decimating the occasional tribal militia and frightening quasi-primitive natives with propaganda about blotting out the Suns and freezing entire worlds.

He declared that his thirst for blood had not been sated the first time around. And that he was here to drink his fill.

And that's exactly what happened. The crusade turned into a blood-bath. Although not the one which Kurus had over-eagerly anticipated. The Darians thought they'd be facing superstitious savages. They weren't wrong. It just didn't matter.

After a string of unconventional clashes, in which the superior numbers and supposed technologic advantage of the interlopers counted for less than nothing, Kurus was ropable. He issued the same challenge as before. Stating in no uncertain terms that those who had arrayed themselves against him were either traitors or cowards; and that to answer the charge they should either offer honourable decisive battle or submit.

The Sauromatriae accepted; and it is said that Kurus personally took the field in buffalo-bull panoply to drink in the triumph. A great victory was indeed won - but it was not Kurus'. The Sauromatriarch Herself ended him. Had his body carried off, exsanguinated through the neck while dangling upside down by the heels as one would a slaughtered pig, and then took his decapitated head, still in its buffalo-bull helm-casing, and cast it into the pitcher of blood which had been drawn from his cooling corpse.

She then asked him rhetorically, having picked the head back out of the bucket to stare him in his now-glassy eyes ... whether he had in fact now slaked his thirst for blood."

"Intense. So if these folk are so formidable as you say, why are you bringing me along to liase with them."

"We figure they respond better to their own kind."

VasHarr punched Varr playfully in the shoulder-plate.

"Looks like you're pretty impressed with your kinsfolk-descendants. Time to go see what they've done with the place while you've been away."