Disclaimer: This piece is Warhammer 40,000 fanfiction, derived from intellectual property created by Games Workshop. I am in no way affiliated with Games Workshop. Additionally, discretion is advised when reading this piece. Instances of graphic violence, blood, and gore are present throughout.
Antarius remembered the exact moment he had heard the first whisper, the moment his life had changed forever, and the memory replayed itself constantly whether he willed or not:
He was on his home ship, a rogue trader vessel known as the Celestial Raptor. A new shipment of supplies, mostly corpse starch rations, medical supplies, and a few lasgun batteries had just arrived, and as was normal, he, being one of the ship’s drudges, had been tasked with putting it away. Alone. He was the frailest of the laborers, being a young man of sixteen Terran years with a lanky build, white hair, and red eyes that only served to further accentuate his lack of muscle mass. It did not help that he was naturally clumsy.
Even though he had been born and raised on the Celestial Raptor, or perhaps because of it, the other drudges, men and women who had no prospects for better lives on their homeworlds, always treated Antarius worse. Many were the nights he went to sleep with bruises that they had inflicted.
As he put away one of the crates of corpse starch, a push from behind caused him to drop it, spilling it all over the receiving bay. Of course, a snorting chortle followed. Antarius turned around and saw one of the other drudges, a burly Catachan with a missing front tooth, snickering.
“That’s a big loss, pasty,” he said. His voice bore the savagery of the jungles from which he had come. “You might be going hungry for a few days now. You should be more careful next time.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t push me,” Antarius retorted.
“You think anyone’s going to believe that I pushed you? You fall all the time, pasty.”
It was then that two words came unbidden into Antarius’s mind:
Kill him.
The voice that spoke them sounded so utterly inhuman, but it was not just one voice; it was a choir of them. Yet, they all seethed and snarled with a singular, hate-filled purpose. Perhaps the scariest part was that the words sounded so… right.
Antarius glared at the drudge, who was no better than he was. If anything, the Catachan was worse; Antarius knew that he had deserted the Astra Militarum, surviving only because his life was insignificant amid the millions who fought and died for the Emperor every single day. He was a heretic. Antarius was not.
Kill him. The voices came again, this time stronger.
Antarius’s hands clenched into fists as his whole body began to shake.
“You gonna cry, pasty?” the Catachan chortled. “That’s probably the only thing you can do right other than falling on your face.”
“Enough.” A scowl came over Antarius’s face as he glared at the Catachan.
“Or what?”
“Or I’m going to kill you.”
The Catachan burst into laughter. “You, kill me? Right! You can’t even throw a punch.”
Saying nothing more, Antarius’s eyes suddenly began to glow, and the Catachan began screaming as the skin upon his face began to bubble. The bubbles soon burst, spraying blood all over Antarius and the surrounding floor. The revealed flesh, raw and bloody, then sloughed off until only the skull beneath remained, and the Catachan fell to the ground. He had screamed until he was no longer capable of doing so.
It did not take long for the other crew members to see what Antarius had done, and he soon found himself on one of the Black Ships of the Inquisition. Those who took him told him only that he was a psyker and that he was being taken to Terra for sanctioning. Then, they put him in a ceramite cell that contained only a chamber pot and a cot. His only source of light was the glow-globe in the ceiling, and the only contact he received with others was when the servitors came to deliver his corpse starch rations, twice per Terran day. Most of the time.
Other than eating and sleeping, Antarius spent most of his waking hours wrestling with the voices in his head that had only become more frequent since his arrival on the Black Ship. Every day had become a war, and the darkness that came with the glow-globe was his only reprieve. In the darkness, he found not only solitude, but silence… and peace. He hoped that he would reach Terra, wherever that was, soon, but only because it was a change from his current circumstances. Any meaning that came with that would be a luxury.
For the time being, however, Antarius had resigned himself to his fate.
* * *
A scream tore Antarius from his sleep, though the accommodations provided by the Inquisition made it easy to sleep light. However, Antarius did not look for the source of the scream. It was rare for the voices to wake him up in the middle of the night, or, rather, the time when the glow-globe was not lit that passed as night. Yet, it still happened every so often. Without bothering to stifle his next yawn, Antarius laid back down on his cot and made an attempt to sleep once more.
As Antarius closed his eyes, however, another scream shredded the vestiges of sleep that he had managed to obtain. His eyes widened as he realized that the scream had not been one of the voices in his head.
It had been human.
Rarely had Antarius heard human voices during his time on the Black Ship; the snarls inside his head, which were occasionally interrupted by the iron stomps of servitors, were far more familiar. Yet, he could not help but wonder what would have caused someone to cry out like that. He paused. Did he really want to know the answer to that question?
Before he could truly start to ponder it, he felt a new presence manifest in his mind. It was one of molten rage barely chained by the psychic energy from which it had formed, and its voice was eight screeching howls overlapped over one another:
Get up.
Why? Antarius asked as he steeled himself against the new presence.
Do you really want to remain here for the rest of your inevitably short and pathetic life?
When you put it that way… Antarius forced himself up from his cot. Despite the fact that he had little else to do other than eat and sleep, fatigue permeated the whole of his body; it was a lead curtain that weighed down his movements. However, he knew that the presence in his mind would not make its request again. The fact that it had done so the first time was a pleasant surprise, and Antarius had no desire to experience a hellish entity forcing its will upon him… again.
Open the door. the presence said.
I can’t even see it. Antarius replied.
Use your power.
Antarius’s heart skipped a beat. The last time he had used any sort of power was that fateful day when he had melted the Catachan’s face. While he had taken macabre delight in the experience, the fact that he had been able to do that with only his mind scared him. Praying to the Emperor had not helped either.
The burning presence in his mind intensified, and Antarius suddenly felt like his eyes were on fire. His whole head throbbed with pain.
“Stop!” he screamed out.
Make me. the presence snarled.
Mustering his willpower, Antarius lashed out at the presence. It laughed off the attack as it intensified; Antarius soon felt as though his veins were filled with fire, and another agony-filled scream followed.
Open the door. As the presence spoke, Antarius’s whole field of vision became wreathed in flames that drove back the darkness, allowing him to see the door in front of him. It was a featureless metal slab that could only be opened from the outside.
Antarius took a step toward the door. Another step propelled him into a walk that closed the distance.
“Blood for the Blood God!” Despite being distant, Antarius heard the words clearly. He had never heard of any “Blood God” before, but he had no desire to change that.
As Antarius heard heavy boots stomping across the ceramite floor, he took a step back from the door. He had a grim feeling that the one who was stomping was also the one who had screamed out those words.
Open the door. the presence commanded.
Before Antarius could respond, he felt a fresh wave of searing agony as the presence forced him to lunge forward and lay both of his hands on the door. In an instant, flames manifested around his hands and threw themselves at the door. Each passing moment saw the door start to bubble and melt until it had descended into a pile of sludge that Antarius was able to haphazardly step over. The hallway that he entered would have been as bland and featureless as his cell were it not for the fact that broken corpses, of both servitors and Inquisitorial acolytes, were strewn about the floors. The walls were smeared with their gore, and the doors of the other cells had been shredded open.
“Blood for the Blood God!”
With nothing to buffer the screamed words, Antarius heard the full depth of the hatred within them. The voice that delivered the call was an unholy hybrid of human and things that Antarius tried not to think about. Yet, as he looked down the hallway, he could not help but see the one to which the voice belonged.
It was larger than any man Antarius had ever seen, on par only with one of the fabled Adeptus Astartes that he had heard hushed whispers about while aboard the Celestial Raptor. Yet, that which stood before Antarius was not a man at all; it was a suit of dark crimson power armour with silver trim fused with rippling, muscular flesh that could be described only as daemonic. One bled seamlessly into the other: scything claws protruded from its back and shoulders, and its hands distended into more claws, each of which was the size of a chainsword. All of them were already covered in gore.
“Blood for the Blood God!” All of the creature’s mouths screamed the words. The creature’s main mouth, which was a maw of jagged teeth, sat underneath a pair of fiery red eyes that burned within what remained of the creature’s horned helmet. The other mouths were scattered about the rest of the creature’s body.
Many skulls had been impaled upon the creature’s spiked belt, and it wore a loincloth of ragged skin that had the star of Chaos painted upon it. Antarius had no doubt that the malefic symbol had been painted in blood. Human blood.
Antarius’s whole body shook as his skin turned cold and clammy. A wave of nausea overtook him, ushering forth a wave of vomit.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” the daemonic monstrosity seethed as its gaze met Antarius’s. It then lurched into a charge with its arms and claws outstretched.
Antarius could only scream as he became paralyzed with fear.
Kill it, you whimpering cur! the burning presence in Antarius’s mind commanded.
I can’t! Antarius replied. You’ve led me to my doom.
Kill!
The monstrosity closed the distance quickly, letting out a bloodcurdling scream as it brought its claws down upon Antarius.
Yet, he did not turn to run. The will to live suddenly slammed into Antarius; his only thought was that somehow, some way, the monstrosity before him was going to die. As if on cue, he felt a wave of energy surge through him, and he let out a scream that almost matched that of the monstrosity’s as he outstretched his hands. Red lightning manifested around them before hurling itself at the monstrosity, sending it staggering back. Roars of pain burst forth from its inhuman mouths.
“Sorcerer,” the mouth upon the monstrosity’s face snarled with a singular, inhuman hatred as it recovered its footing.
“Die!” Antarius screamed as he willed more energy to come forth.
The red lightning answered just as fervently as it had the first time; two more bolts, one from each of Antarius’s hands, streaked forth and slammed into his foe. The monstrosity’s flesh then began to bubble and burst before sloughing off amid a tide of gore. Its head burst in a shower of blood, and the resulting corpse fell to the ground. The sound of ceramite and bones shattering followed.
Yet, the corpse did not remain still. Its blood and flesh began to surge to the top, overtaking the power armour that was now nothing more than a shattered husk. From the gory mass emerged a lanky, hunched over humanoid that was composed almost entirely of muscle with deep crimson skin stretched tautly over it. Its face ensured that it could not be mistaken for anything other than a daemon: long, black horns crowned its thoroughly elongated head while its eyes burned wit the same hatred of the monstrosity from which it had come. A writhing purple tongue protruded from its circular, tooth-filled maw, and one of its bony, black-clawed hands held a jagged black sword with seemingly molten edges.
The daemon’s face twisted to accommodate what passed as a grin as it lowered its sword and walked toward Antarius. “You have freed me.”
What is that? Antarius asked, reaching for the burning presence as he stepped back.
He received nothing.
The daemon’s grin widened. “I am right here.”
“What do you want from me?” Antarius’s voice trembled as he asked the question.
“I want you to kill. I want you to maim. I want you to burn.” The rage in the daemon’s eyes intensified with each statement, and it continued walking toward Antarius all the while.
Antarius found himself face to face with that which was an assault on reality as he heard its next words:
“And I am going to help you.”
“No!” Antarius screamed.
He tried to draw upon his power, but he could not. The daemon’s rage had already flowed into his mind and prevented him from obtaining any kind of focus.
“It will be easier if you just give in,” the daemon hissed as it sunk its free hand into Antarius’s chest.
He screamed as agony such as he had never felt before as the daemon unleashed an inferno that raged through him. The daemon continued its breaching assault, soon merging so thoroughly with Antarius that he found himself holding its fell sword. Maddening voices that whispered of hatreds that no mortal could comprehend radiated from its blade. Each one beckoned Antarius to kill. The daemon and its sword soon completely overtook Antarius’s mind, causing him to let out a howl that was not entirely his own as he raised the daemon’s sword and charged down the corridor.
It was not long before Antarius could hear more screams of “Blood for the Blood God!” Rounding the next corner, he saw another daemon-power-armour hybrid at the other end of the corridor. It had just finished slaughtering a squad of men who had had only flak armor and lasguns; none of the corpses that remained were whole.
Gripping the hilt of the daemon’s sword, his sword, in both hands, Antarius cried out the five words that forever severed him from the last vestiges of the life had had known before:
“Blood for the Blood God!”
With grins on all eight of its mouths, the possessed Chaos Space Marine looked back at Antarius and responded in kind:
“Blood for the Blood God!”
The two daemon-possessed men charged at each other, letting out bloodcurdling howls all the while.
And Antarius enjoyed it. For perhaps the first time in his life, he felt truly alive. His heart pounded as it never had before, exhorting him to greater heights of vigor that he had thought possible only for the Emperor’s Angels of Death.
But not anymore.
Antarius met his foe head on, hacking at the possessed Chaos Space Marine with his daemonic sword. It tore through the Astartes’s power armor, cutting into flesh underneath that was neither wholly human nor wholly daemonic. A roar of pain boomed forth from one of the possessed’s mouths as he drove his scything claws straight toward Antarius’s heart. He leaped out of the way with unnatural agility before carving into his foe’s thigh with his sword.
“Maim.” The word came forth from his mouth as a guttural snarl.
“Fight while you still can,” the possessed seethed, “Your skull will join Khorne’s throne soon enough.”
As if to punctuate his statement, the heretic Astartes brought both of his distended, clawed hands, each of which had eight fingers, down upon Antarius. He beat them back with his sword and swung again, striking his foe’s chest once more.
Yes! snarled the daemon within Antarius. More slaughter! More bloodshed! More butchery!
The possessed Chaos Space Marine staggered back, and Antarius took the opportunity to strike another blow, this time driving his sword straight through his foe’s chest.
“Blood for the Blood God!” The words were a triumphant cry that came forth from Antarius’s mouth as gore from his foe’s mortal wound sprayed upon him. He opened his mouth so that he could taste it.
The possessed Chaos Space Marine died soon after. Antarius pulled his sword free, and the corpse slid to the ground. Stepping onto it, Antarius let out a howl as he raised high his bloodied sword that burned with immortal hatred.
Now is not the time to celebrate. the daemon within Antarius hissed. There are still more to kill. Many more.
We will kill them all. Antarius replied.
* * *
Antarius did not remember how many lives he took, nor did he care whose they were: servitors, guards, Chaos Space Marines, and more of the possessed. All died to his eternally thirsting blade, which seemed to grow stronger with each further kill; all that mattered was feeding it.
We are drawing near… the daemon within Antarius said.
To what? Antarius asked.
As soon as he asked the question, he felt a malefic grin form in his mind, and the daemon spoke but two words:
The end.
Antarius said nothing more as he continued down the current stretch of corridor. Mutilated corpses were strewn across the floor along with sundered armor and weapons, and the walls were splattered with blood. Most of the glow-globes above had been shattered, but some still dared to provide a semblance of light. Yet, Antarius found his path barred by a pair of closed blast doors.
You know what you must do. the daemon said.
This sword will cut through those doors? Antarius replied. Though he had watched the weapon cut through flesh and power armour with equal ease, he had also seen blast doors block shots from plasma guns.
There is nothing that a Hellblade cannot sunder. Each one is forged from the embers of Khorne’s eternal hatred. You would do well not to doubt the Blood God’s power in the future; all skulls become his in the end.
With a nod of grim certainty, Antarius raised his Hellblade and hacked at the blast doors. They screeched as the sword tore into them, but they did not yield. Still, Antarius swung again.
And again.
And again.
With each further swing, Antarius came closer and closer to breaking through; he had created a jagged maze of cuts upon the door, weakening it with each one he inflicted. Letting out a howl, he raised his Hellblade to deliver a swing that had the blast doors screeching once more as they finally yielded to him. Two more strokes of his sword created a hole that was close enough to his size, though he passed through cautiously; the chanting on the other side could not be ignored.
Yet, it stopped as soon as Antarius emerged from the hole. Before him stood a pile of mutilated corpses crowned by skulls, both broken and whole. Around the monument to carnage lay shattered machinery that Antarius surmised controlled access to the cells.
“You should not have come here.” The dark, regal voice belonged to a Chaos Space Marine who wore the same silver-trimmed dark crimson power armour as the others on the ship, though his was adorned with long, flowing sheets of parchment that had line after line of malefic runes upon them. They glowed with an eerie orange light.
The heretic Astartes wore no helmet, fully displaying a pale face that had been scarred from countless centuries of endless war. In his right hand, he held high a chainaxe that was caked with gore.
Antarius looked upon the Chaos Space Marine with unbridled hatred in his eyes. The words he spoke next were not entirely his own:
“It is your blood that shall be offered to the Blood God, and your skull that shall be added to the Skull Throne.”
“Then let our battle begin!” the Chaos Space Marine snarled back, “Khorne, Lord of Eternal Rage, may this final offering be pleasing in your eyes. Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!”
“Blood for the Blood God!” Antarius raised his Hellblade and charged at the Chaos Space Marine.
Leaping over the macabre corpse-altar that he had created, the Chaos Space Marine met Antarius head on; the revving of his chainaxe tore through the air as he swung his weapon at his foe. Antarius whirled out of the way, though the chainaxe still grazed his shoulder. He snarled in pain as his blood began to flow.
“You are not worthy to wield that Hellblade, pathetic mortal,” the Chaos Space Marine said as he punched at Antarius with his free hand.
Antarius’s only response was a guttural snarl as he parried the Chaos Space Marine’s armored fist with his Hellblade.
Blood for the Blood God! the daemon within him screamed.
“Blood for the Blood God!” Antarius screamed back as he lunged forward and swung his Hellblade at his foe once more.
The Chaos Space Marine moved to dodge, but Antarius moved faster. His Hellblade hit home, cleaving through his foe’s power armour and carving into the flesh underneath. Flowing blood was soon visible.
Antarius then spoke with a voice that was not at all his own, but rather that of the daemon within him:
“Have you forgotten me already, Kazaphael, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers?”
“You,” the Chaos Space Marine hissed back as he regained his footing and assumed a defensive stance. “I sent you back to the Warp!”
Antarius’s body grinned, and the daemon continued to speak: “The veil between reality and the Empyrean grows thin, and I have returned for vengeance.”
“Doing so was a pointless endeavor. I have already slain you once, and I shall gladly do so again. Blood for the Blood God!”
“Blood for the Blood God!” Antarius’s voice intertwined with that of the daemon’s as he spoke the words.
Revving his chainaxe, Kazaphael gripped the weapon in both hands as he cleaved at Antarius with it. He beat back the weapon with his Hellblade, though such was the daemon sword’s wrath that it shattered the chainaxe’s head. Kazaphael let out a snarl of frustration as he stepped back and drew his bolt pistol.
“Khorne cares not how the blood flows,” Kazaphael said as he pointed his bolt pistol at Antarius, “only that it does.”
A pull of the trigger sent a bolt screaming toward Antarius. As he ducked to dodge it, he pointed his Hellblade at Kazaphael and charged. The Chaos Space Marine fired his bolt pistol again, but the shot streaked over Antarius’s head, missing him entirely. Kazaphael did not have time to fire a third shot.
Letting out a howl that served as his foe’s death knell, Antarius impaled Kazaphael’s chest upon his Hellblade. “Blood for the Blood God!”
“Blood for the Blood God indeed,” Kazaphael groaned as the light began to leave his eyes, “I will see you in Khorne’s realm soon enough, A’ggdrok.”
Collapsing upon Antarius’s Hellblade, Kazaphael moved no more. Antarius ripped his Hellblade free and let out a howl of victory. Yet, it turned into one of agony as searing heat wracked the whole of his body; he then felt as though his flesh was being torn apart.
A’ggdrok, the daemon within, stepped out, taking its Hellblade with it. With a swift hack of the weapon, it decapitated Kazaphael’s corpse so that it could take up the Word Bearer’s head with its free hand. A nimbus of infernal flames then burst into existence around the head and devoured the flesh, leaving only a pristine skull behind.
“Thank you,” A’ggdrok said as it turned around to face Antarius.
The daemon’s words lifted the veil of rage from Antarius’s eyes. In that moment, the weight of everything he had done came crashing down upon him. All the blood spilled, the lives taken, the daemons unleashed… Truly, he had pledged his soul to Chaos.
He vomited as the whole of his body began to shake. “Please… Kill me…”
A’ggdrok gave a smile that was surprisingly human-like. “No. You have served the Blood God well this day and so have earned a modicum of honour. Use it wisely, mortal, and know that I will not be so merciful next time.”
The daemon disappeared before Antarius could protest.
Therefore, he sat down and waited for a deliverance that he knew would not come.
The End
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