The First of the Dead

The prisoner was hideous to Gro'ors' eyes. But the way it moved... Oh, how it moved. It flowed, danced and caterwauled in the gravity- and atmosphere-true battlespace they established in the lower holds of the warship. They never gave it weapons - it was dangerous enough without them - but the way it moved was what mattered most.

"You can't hit what you can't predict," they told Gro'ors and the half a billion other recruits of the venerated Red Legion. "Learn the patterns. See the trajectories. Even the blink-beasts of Nersis-2 are bound by the laws of mass and inertia. Even they can't defeat gravity."

And she watched, long day after longer night, how the creature moved, trying to evade the barrage of slugs that the Nine Companies were directing its way. She studied its jumps, glides and blinks. She learned the trajectories, she followed it with the barrel of her gun until she was sure that she knew when and where it would appear next.

Then - only then - she pulled the trigger.

Her slug hit it between its spindly forelimbs, mid-stride, just as its right leg was touching the ground, and the puny thorax exploded. The shooting died out. Every single legionary in the b-space turned to look at her - the one to actually score a clean hit on the prisoner.

They were silent - the time for war-screams and audible communication would come later, when they would don the blessed armour that marked them as destroyers of worlds and descend on their enemies. Now, they all looked at her. They waited. They watched.

She did not know what they were waiting for. She knew that the question would not be seen from behind the plate-mask she wore. Then, she saw them fall in unison to one knee and bare the back of their necks.

She then fully understood what happened.

They bared their necks for her, as they did for the other ones. She did the same thing herself, three times before.

The body of the prisoner lay where it fell. Nobody touched the unholy thing. It was not their job. The tame psions would come soon enough. With their weirdly powerful minds, they would lift the body of the prisoner and float it away. She would exit the battlespace with them, marching as if she were on a parade ground. She could not imagine what would happen next.

The psions came. She left with them. Behind her, the creaking of armour joints told her that the rest of the Companies stood at attention, watching her go.

The familiar corridors of the ship were alien to her, as the four psions led her to their obscure destination. She followed them unquestioningly - instructions would come when she would need them most. This was the way of the Red Legion.

It was not long after they took an elevator to a level that she has never seen before. The ship was tiered, mirroring the Cabal society. This was way beyond her station - she suspected that this might even be the Command deck. Inside her armor, she felt a tremor of awe.

A lowly grunt like her, admitted to the Command deck. She did not deserve this honor.

The psions led her to a gate, flanked by two massive butchers. Their cleavers were held in the Sixth Guard of the Way of the Blade - cutting edges down, blades crossed at chest level. A good resting position, once the elbows are locked - and one that would allow to transition into any attack of their wielder's choosing.

They did not look at her. She belonged here and now. She was following her dead enemy to... where?

The gate opened, spilling pleasing crimson light. It looked just like the warm glare of the Homeworld's dying sun - and she felt an emotion welling inside. Longing to return. To bask again in the invigorating gravity falls, to ride with an atmo-quake, as she did when she was but the runt of her litter.