Fate of Aorullu, A Warhammer 40K Fan Fiction

Post 20 - Home, No Home

They were all seasoned hunters in their own rights. They had fought against furious animals, had hunted them down, had been hunted. They had braved the perils of the nature, had seen the deaths of friends rampaged by wild beasts. But they had never been in a real battle against such a shockingly brutal foe, whose only intention seemed not only to kill but kill grossly. As the heat of the battle wore off, the true terror of what they had just experienced had sunk in: They had barely been saved from being slaughtered to a man by an unimaginably strong and savage foe.

Beaten and humbled, the group trod through the forest, now looking even more ominious. Ryu could not revel in the joy of seeing his kinsmen for the loss of so many of his friends. He had only seen the greenskins being killed by the space marine so far and could not be prepared for the real savagery of them being inflicted upon his brothers. It was only the greater fear of the larger threat that kept them going despite all the fresh pain. So along the way, Ryu recounted to the Chief his tale of meeting the giant human who called himself a lord of space marines, or more accurately space wolves. The giant was walking alongside them, with an easy gait, slowing down to match his pace to those of these lesser humans.

His super senses scanned everything during their walk. He constantly sniffed the air for smell of more orcs, his eyes saw much further ahead and his ears were continuously hearing and filtering the variety of ambient sounds for anything out of ordinary. What constituted ordinary in this alien world was yet an unknown but he relied mostly on his instincts to separate threat from normal. Among all these sensory data, his ears also picked up the hushed conversation between the Chief, Tosun and Ryu. Yes, he was still an enigma to them, a towering giant clad in an armor they could not even have dreamt of and possessing such god-like strength to smash even the green skinned monsters which were making easy sport of Nrell’har’s team. Such power made Nrell’har uneasy, he declared, and could not bring himself to trust their savior right away.

Good that you don’t trust anyone, little chieftain, mused Greynar to himself. In a universe full of terrors unimaginable, that will be your only asset to help you survive: Being suspicious of everything. In the universal scale of civilization, these humans here were not even out of the cradle yet. They had remained pretty much primitive and would not stand a chance unless they developed at least the basic survival traits . Top in that list of survival traits was “be suspicious of anything, trust no one but the Emperor.”

Finally they crested a small rise at the edge of the forest and Greynar spotted their village about less than a mile ahead. It was a collection of small earthen houses, all single-storey, boxy and cosy. Some boasted proper wooden roofs but majority was just thatched type. He mused to himself that the priests of the Adeptus Ministorum would love to lay their hands on this primitive human colony. Uneducated minds, yet childish in terms of galactic wisdom, fresh and raw for filling with imperial truth. Though the how and why of it was still a mystery, here was one human world and it had to be brought under the Imperium of Man. Later… Somehow.

Greynar caught Nrell’har staring at him, eyes narrowed.  He looked like he was trying to judge something but after a few moments, he shrugged his shoulders and kept on walking.

As they neared the first houses, Greynar noticed the stillness and the utter emptiness in the village. Except several animals loitering in the streets, there wasn’t any human being around.

“Yo Chief,” called Ryu, “Where is everyone?”

Nrell’har was as dumbfounded as the next guy and could not utter any answer to the question.  He was suddenly thinking maybe the greenskinned monsters had already reached the village but the village did not look damaged or abused as it would be if it was attacked by those creatures. It just looked…. deserted.

“Let’s check the council hall.”

They trod among empty houses along empty roads. The eerie silence of the village put them on edge and several had their swords and arrows out. It certainly did not look like a disaster had befallen the village. There was not any sign of violence around. The doors were closed, nothing broken or spilled on the streets, and a couple of houses they checked along the way for any inhabitants yielded a disturbingly normal condition. It was like a perfect model village, except somebody had forgotten to put the human models in.

As they approached the council hall, a single figure emerged from the door and slowly came towards them. Nrell’har could see that it was the boy they had sent running in advance, to inform the village about their situation.

“Keirn! What the hell has happened here?” asked the Chief, as they came across each other.

“They’re gone, Chief, they’re all gone.”