A 40k/fantasy/sci-fi web-novel draft.
The Watch
The atomic clock struck midnight as Tyren walked past the dim lit cemetary of fallen Heroes of Mankind on his way to the watchtower. It had been 5 months since he and his squadron had been assigned to the protection of a captured humanoid city named Beliar. He could not for the life of him understand the reasoning for it: a town straight out of the earlier millenium, with more farms and taverns than barracks and modern structures.. Where was the steel, the neon-lit downtown areas, the cybernetically enhanced populace? All you could hope to find in this ditch were weak and powerless human lifeforms, going about their mindnumbing business with fear and hatred in their eyes for their captors. “What an uninspired lot of insects..” he mumbled as a group of drunkards swayed past him on their way to the next intoxication station.
None of it made sense, was he and his men being punished for accomplishing their mission on this planet? Was it their fault if it ended up being a less-than-desireable vassal to the empirium of mankind? As he pondered these recurring questions in an quasi-systematic way, the watchtower came into view, as he rounded the town tavern.. It was completely dark, only visible thanks to the 2 moons casting their reflections on either side. Wasn’t Bren supposed to light and tend to the system of torches at all times? As he was lost in thought analysing every possible scenario, a hollow, but loud thud resonated out of the tower. Tyren took out his chainsword and began to run.
Paradoxically, you could see more of the tower and its surroundings under the moonlight than usual, and Tyren could have sworn that the structure looked more imposing than usual. It was almost as if an Aura was emanating from it at a constant interval, straight out of a children’s tale. With the entrance in sight, Tyren slowed his pace down to a halt, taking each step as stealthily as his Astartes armour allowed for.
As the adrenaline was being pumped harder and harder thanks to his 2 hearts, Tyren tried his best to regulate his breathing while forcing his way through the narrow entryway to the tower. Looking around, the old wooden planks making up the walls, and the stairway to the right looked the same as ever; and it wasn’t until he turned his gaze upwards towards the spiraling staircase that the horrorshow began. Mouth agape, dangling form the railing like a puppet, Pyron, one of his most capable and trusted legionaires. Without giving himself the time to process what he just saw, Tyren vaulted the winding staircase 4 at as time, determined to get a handle on the situation and find what freak of nature had bested his men.
At the top of the tower, with the moonlight shining through glass panes, lied another of his comerades.. “Falton.. my brother.. how is this even possible?” He cried in disbelief. It was clear from a glance around the open empty deck that whomever had done all that was long gone by now.
“Tyren.. is that you..?” a feeble voice startled Tyren as he was finishing his tour of the crime scene. “Falton! I’m here brother. Who did this to you?” His comerade looked as though he already had a foot in the grave, and could only answer with incoherent weak sounds: “The Villagers.. tyrannids.. shapeshifters.. I.. You must search… .. .” His face slowly lost its colors, and his armored hand slipped from its grip on Tyren’s shoulder pad. The proud warrior Falton was now in the arms of the leader of Mankind. Tyren felt as though both of his enhanced hearts skipped a beat, as the reality of the loss of his closest brother started to sink in.
“This will not go unpunished.” Tyren’s blood was boiling as he stood up with his dead brother in his arms, after slowly walking down the spiraling staircase, he kicked down the door to the watchtower, and resolutely stomped his way to the townsquare, where the annual harvest festival was still in full swing: The smell of cheap beer from so many drunkards, laughter and shouting out of every caravan.. The Astartes could not bear to hear or see any of it. Not after what he had just seen and heard from his closest friend. These people that he’d been tasked with protecting, now looked like the source of Evil that he’d spent his life eradicating. After shoving his way to the center stage setup in the middle of the square, and earning himself quite a few confused glances and worried looks, Tyren got up on stage, and, looking the mayor squarely in the eye, dropped his fallen comerade’s body before his very feet.
“Sir Astartes.. w-what is the meaning of this? Is that Sir Falton?? How can this be.. I-“ “-Save it, little one. You and your breathren have a lot to answer for tonight. Whatever sick betrayal you’ve all come up with will come to light, and I WILL HAVE MY ANSWERS!” Not many creatures can brag to have remained unshaken when faced with the shouts of an angry Astartes, and our villagers were certainly not amongst their ranks.
The townsquare with all the villagers felt as if suspended in Time, folks that were drinking, laughing and stand-hopping without a care were frozen in place, anxious to see what the giant killer they had thought was on their side would do next. To their surprise, and to Tyren’s as well, he took a deep breath and turned to the assembly for an impromptu speech. “Men and Women of Beliar, long have we shared this land under the protection of the Emperor of Mankind. You as well as I know how tragic and painful it was to fend off the near-endless onslaught of Thyrannids. We have both shed the blood of many a loved one, brothers and sisters, in the name of survival, and in the pursuit of universal principles.” His words looked to be warmly received by the audience, with many soft applauses around the square. “-This night, however, the Astartes charged with protecting and maintaining our hard-earned tranquility have been cowardly executed from the shadows. Before my brother took his final breath, he said the unthinkable to my ears: his executor was one of your own residents, the ones we have been tirelessly protecting night after night.” It was as if a layer of frost had covered the entire assembly. The residents could not believe their own ears.. How could it be that a frail villager could take out the cream of the crop of Astrartes, enhanced monsters twice their size, with senses like a cat and noses like dogs? As if to answer their unasked question, Tyren continued: “.. From what I was told, there is likely amongst your ranks impostors. Shapeshifters masquerading as everyday folk. Under normal circumstances I would not have revealed this to you until I had them unmasked, however, my grief and rage will not head reason. I want every single one of these cowards to know Fear, YOU are now the hunted, and I will not rest until I have every single one of your heads on a spike outside of this village.” The people were starting to get agitated. Murmers and soft squeals of terror could be heard across the crowd. People were mortified by what they had heard, from the prospect of being themselves the targets of false suspicion, as well as the fact that these shapeshifters were supposedly amonst their ranks as we speak, perhaps even a part of their own family.
The Search
The hike up was as tedious as it gets. “We have to keep this pace up if we want to be back before sunset.” Tyren shouted at the two male villagers that had volunteered to accompany him on this mission. It had been a full week since the events that took the life of his most trusted men, and he had finally gotten a lead that seemed credible as to the whereabouts of the assassins. A day prior, as he was going door to door interrogating every single villager (with little success) it was now the turn of the Lancester family, with which he had gotten very familiar over the years. You can imagine his surprise when instead of the happy family of 4, only the father and his son were present. “Good day, Bob. Are your wife and daughter out at the moment? I need to speak to the entire family, as you know.” Thanks to his greater senses, he could feel a lot of unease in Bob’s answer as he muttered “t-they went to visit my mother in law a village away, should be back before the end of the week, sir.” From a quick scan around the room, Tyren noticed how unkempt the whole house was, in no way, shape or form, did this place look like it was being cared for and kept clean by a woman.. Something was definitely amiss. “I see. Please do notify me personally when they get back from their.. excursion.” “Naturally, commander.”
Although he wanted to prod further, the Astartes decided against it and made his way out into the main street, a fairly bourgeois part of the village where most of the highly regarded village artisans lived and thrived. To his surprise, a little boy with the look of a hoodlum was anxiously waiting for him outside, looking very uncomfortable and out of place in the contrasting clean street while doing so. “Mr. commander sir, I think I have information about the family you just visited.. The mother and daughter, I’ve seen them morphing into beasts, the very night of the murders, and fleeing out to the mountains!” Upon hearing those words, Tyren did not waste a single second; trusting his initial gut feeling about Bob hiding something from him, he stormed back into the house and grabbed a terrified Bob by his collar, lifting him a few feet off the dusty floor to bring him and looked him in the eye. “Now pray tell me, my good friend, are the two women in this household truly on a trip, or are you hiding something more sinister from me?” The man could barely speak coherently, while convulsing and shaking from the terror an Astartes’s rage puts into mortal men’s soul. He managed to blurt out a half-coherent answer: “I-I swear! I w-wanted to tell you everything! I was t-terrified of w-what had happened, I-“ “Spare me the half-baked excuses. If your wife and daughter are the Xenomorphs that took the life of my men, we could have already put this intolerable situation to rest! Instead, your cowardice has given them days of lead time to get away from us!” His temper failing him, Tyren sent the little man flying across the room and crashing into the wooden cabinet at the other end of the room. His son, in tears, ran to his father’s side, with eyes filled with hatred and rage glaring at the Astartes. “You better save your anger for what matters, son. For example, the creatures that risk destroying the future of your precious town.”
Without as much as a look back, Tyren made his way back to the townhall at the opposite end of the street, where he had setup a temporary HQ for him and his men. The sun was beginning to set, with oil lamps illuminating the way to a modest stone building. Upon seeing their commander come in, the 3 caporals looked away from the city map and stood at attention. Tyren waved them off as he took center stage in front of the tactical map. The marked locations across the village were well on their way to be completed by the end of the week, but he had a feeling it would be just a formality now that he knew who the primary suspects were. “I have news. A mother and daughter from the artisan district were seen shapeshifting and gunning it towards the mountains. They are likely hiding in a cave, biding their time to come back and finish what they have started here.” His soldiers had a sour look on their faces, no doubt as a result of this confirmation that, indeed, they could no longer trust the very people they were sworn to protect. “Captain, if they decided to reveal their true nature so easily, it stands to reason that going after them would be running into a trap!” “You don’t think I’ve considered that? What choice do we have now that our honor has been tarnished by this cowardly ambush? We depart tomorrow at dawn, make sure the town hunters are informed and ready to lead us through the mountains. That will be all.”
At the crack of dawn, four Giants the size of 3 adult men each gathered at the Town entrance: a modest wooden gate that shielded very little against the rain or potential invaders. Beyond lied a chain of high mountains, with snowy tops year-round. Beliar was blessed by its location, surrounded on one side by a vast lake the size of a sea, and on all other sides by mountains that shielded them naturally against harsh northern winds and raiders alike. Naturally they had established themselves as particularly good sea-farers and traded with Orc and Human settlements alike across Therra. What they lacked in fertile soil, they compensated for with the help of cargo ships landing non-stop in their Harbor, the largest on the globe. This geographic setting has definitely played a role in making Tyren and their men drop their guard that fateful night. In a way, a traditional invasion by sea or land was out of the question, and this incidious guerilla-like tactic of poke and run the xenos had adopted was clever and viciously effective, he had to admit that much.
The clock on his pure black helmet visor had barely struck 5, that his companions, the 2 skilled hunters, and himself made their way up to the mountain closely flanking the north of Beliar. It was a whimsical moment in Nature, where the soft glow of the two moons of Therra merged with the early rays of the sun streaming from beyond the Eastern range. To tell the truth, Tyren did not have a concrete plan of action for the day. This mission was a mixture of excitement, recklesness and a taste of vengeance that would not leave his mouth. “Sir, I hear swift movement up ahead” said one of the hunters. “likely just a deer, but we cannot be too prudent.” The Captain gestured to his men to take up a prone position and encircle the target. As they moved in unison, the rustle sounds became more and more frenetic, similar to the sound bullets make when tossed in a bucket. Inching in with care, Tyren had his combat knife out in its full silver steel glory. They were now within meters of the source, and just about the time Tyren was preparing to lunge at it, they all realised it was simply a Rabbit stuck in one of the many traps laid around Town.
Breathing away his adrenaline rush, the mercenary put away his combat knife, freed the terrorized animal, and gestured for his companions to get back on the trail. With an armour that served not only as protection but also as an exoskeleton, the Astartes had trouble keeping their pace up the mountain slow enough for the trackers to keep up. “There is a large unexplored cave about two kilometers further up-“ one of the hunters gasped in between breaths. “Very well, we’ll comb through it while you folks recuperate and keep watch at the entrance.”
Tyren and his men were accustomed to combat in low visibility situations, and narrow space combat was also quite common. However, this cave was proving to be a challenge because of their gigantic stature. More than once, at a few junctions, they had to crawl their way to the following tunnel, which left them in a very vulnerable position. All they could pray for was ironically not to run into their prey, lest they become the hunted themselves.
Deep into a large cavity, they were finally able to collect themselves and use what little luminosity their rifle leds afforded them. It was quite the marvel of nature: a giant chamber chiseled through thousands of years by water. to their left, a lake span all the way to the invisible far back of the room. Thysus, Tyren’s new right-hand man, tried throwing a rock into it, and track how long it would take to reach the bottom. By the looks of it, that lake was even deeper than their lamps could reach. The rest of the cavity was bog standard cave structure, from stalactites and stalagmites to the usually rough rocky walls, the whole place did not look suspicious outside of its unusual size.
..Tyren was so busy eating the place up with his eyes that he had not realised they were only 3: Tyren, Thytus, and a rookie by the name of Ricar. “where the hell is Callun” he exclaimed with a hint of worry to his comrades. His companions were as confused as he was, glancing questioningly at each other. “He must’ve taken a wrong turn at the last bifurcation. I can go back an-“ SHRIEK The Astartes was cut off mid-sentence by a bone chilling high-pitched scream coming from the other side of the cavern. “Men, in close combat formation, now!” The automatism ingrained in the soldiers” very being is such that all 3 were in an instant positioned and combing through the cavern with their pulse rifles in hand. Even with the combined 3 sources of light guiding them, visibility at the periphery was still a struggle. Tyren could hear his own hearts beating as all of his senses were heightened to detect the horror lurking in the dark.