Chapter Eighty-Four

The Seven Rings of Gehanna was a system shrouded in darkness. Set at the mouth of the Tartarus Dark Matter Sea, with the Eye of Gorthaur only a light week 'north' of the massive red giant named the Eye of Barad-dûr. The gas giants had burned away in the gaze of the Eye of Gorthaur, the inner planets devoured by the hunger of the Eye of Barad-dur, leaving only a single planet surrounded by six rings of asteroids, three in each direction.

The single planet was known as the Isle of Dread. A place of toxic seas, blasted landscape where molten warsteel ran in rivers as red as blood over black ashy ground covered in wreckage of a million battles. Nine great cities adorned the Isle of Dread, like great cankers on already diseased ground. Great war machines tore into the bleeding flesh of the planet as the rulers of the nine cities fought eternally, each of them seeking to gain advantage over and destroy their rivals, their fellow rulers of the Seven Rings of Gehanna.

Ashmedai was the current Lord of Gehanna, a towering figure in black and twisted armor with a bestial face that was inhuman in its wrath and desires, ruling, as he had for a thousand years, with a warsteel fist covered in spikes of bone crafted from fallen Dread Knights.

His seers, blind and deaf, howling out strings of digital code from mouths the tongues had been torn from by barbed hooks, had awoken his fortress. An ancient alarm, crafted from the bones of the fallen, capped by the still living severed head of a Mantid Overqueen, howled to life.

Ashmedai stood on his battlements, watching the battle before his great iron fortress city The End of All Hope, and tried to discern what had awoken his seer, what had awoken the ancient artifact nearly as old as the Eye of Gorthaur, what had raised every alarm within his grand palace.

When he had consulted the severed head of the former ruler of The End of All Hope the fallen Dread Knight had done nothing but laugh, black blood spilling from a lipless mouth.

Ashmedia had struck down the Arch-Scribe who had dared suggest he ask the former ruler, rage consuming him.

He had moved to his quarters, attaching his cloak made of the skins of 10,000 debauched virgins, edged in the bone of a hundred murdered brides, and dyed red with the blood of a thousand heretics. He had picked up his ancient force-blade, the weapon roaring to life, shivering in his hand, as a blade of pure force, etched with swirling patterns, had erupted from the blade. Spikes had erupted from the hilt, transfixing his hand, curling around like skeletal fingers, and holding his hand tightly. His massive Mag-Ack was in his other fist, blood dripping from the huge shells onto the warsteel floor of the engraved balcony.

There were no threats to his eyes. True, the Black Neko had gained ten thousand sisters burning in unholy flame, but they were rocked by internal warfare as they always were. Two Joans were locked in mortal combat over who would rule the Pink Fortress of Kawaii, giving Ashmedia's troops a breather on that front. The Lord of Iron, to his north, was still bogged down in the Swamps of Despair, his tanks futilely churning their treads, spraying blood and gore, unable to advance even as Ashmedia's techno-shamans rolled electron storms raining fire and blood upon the Lord of Iron's troops.

One of his subordinates, an ancient Dread Knight clad in blackened and twisted armor of the Terran Republic, holding an ancient plasma rifle, moved up next to him.

"MiLord, we have a ship entering Gehanna. It bears no markers or heraldry of The Eye, has not the structures to venerate the dark war spirits of mechanicus, yet transmits codes that even the lowest servitors respect," Bellona gurgled, her severed throat held closed by warsteel wire, her face cold dead beauty ruined by flame-like scars on her cheeks that were full of black fire.

"And I care why?" Ashmedia growled, staring at the war machines of Hadeon the Mad as they writhed beneath Ashmedia's infernal artillery.

"The ship is attempting to hail Lord Nukpana, the Dread Primarch who founded The End of All Hope upon his slain mother's bones," Bellona gagged, purple blood spilling from her lips.

Ashmedia turned and stared at Bellona, his lidless eyes widening in shock. "Someone dares call out that dread name? Only the most ancient of Dread Knights would dare whisper that name in the darkness of their own corrupted soul, and yet you tell me that someone dares shout his name?"

He lifted up one mailed fist, bringing it crashing down, intending on crushing Bellona's skull. Instead his armored forearm was blocked by the heavy steel greave of Bellona's armor. Chains attempted to wrap around his arm, hissing and slithering like serpents of corrupted warsteel. He yanked back his arm and glared at her from his lidless eyes.

"Touch me not. I am involiate," she coughed, a long gravewyrm twisting from her lips to fall on the ground.

Ashmedia growled, turning away from the Dread Knight as if nothing had happened. He stared up at the sky.

"Let us see how he deals with the might of Gehanna," the massive Dread Knight growled.

Above a single ship moved toward the cracked and bleeding planet, its hull made entirely of black warsteel, its shape strange and off putting. Like a wet-navy ship mistakenly thrown into space, with extra guns on the water-hull. It had massive guns, too large for such a small ship, its engines left twisting purple energy behind them, and twisted and venomous dark matter leaked from the guns.

Still, it was but one ship, and two of the massive baroque ships lit their engines, turning toward the newcomer. Below decks slaves were whipped to a frenzy, urged to load the great guns, their blood falling to the black floor caked with the blood of ten thousand slaves before them. Those who perished dark arcane rites flushed their bodies with new blasphemous life and they struggled next to their living compatriots, snapping and growling at those around them even as they put their backs into loading the great guns.

The oncoming ship warned the two Unholy Fists of Wrath to veer off, using the name of the Thirteen Dread Primarchs.

The captains ignored the order, ordering their gunnery crews to take aim.

And fire.

Missiles howled out, the great guns fired shells capable of blowing craters through a planet's crust to send the semi-liquid mantel fountaining into the air, beams of coherent energy that screamed in damnation all reached toward the interloper.

The interloper returned fire, the two massive six-barreled rotary guns letting loose with a barrage despite the fact that the planet was behind the ships.

The impacts were immediate, no time going by between the guns firing and the impacts striking the ships. One round each that shattered armor and sent both ships heeling over and spewing atmosphere, debris, and screaming crew members.

The other six slammed into the great cities that could be seen. The massive war-shields that covered the cities flickering and howling as they barely absorbed the hits. Great capacitors overloaded and blew out, sending chanting servants into the arms of their dark gods as the released energy converted them into bloody mist that stained the walls. The massive generators howled as they barely kept the war-shields online, barely protected the cities from the armies that had once surrounded them, laid siege to them, but were now nothing more than destroyed and cooked meat as the shockwaves rolled out, tearing apart flesh and blood, smashing dread mechanicus, even bringing down the Great War Titans.

For the first time in millennia the plains around each of the six cities were empty of besiegers.

The impact drove Ashmedia to one knee as the warshield protecting his city howled in agony. Great rivulets of black iron ran from the walls of his fortress city, rock glowed with heat, and the plains beyond were blasted clean of his army and the armies of those who dared face him.

He struggled to one knee, staring up.

"WHO DARES?" he bellowed.

A servitor moved up, the bloody skull held aloft by countergrav, the eyes full of blasphemous light, long strips of rune adorned copper, beaten flat by blind slaves wielding the skulls of traitors as hammers, sliding from the clenched jaw, runes glowing with a dread light.

"Perhaps, MiLord, the answer is there," Bellona gurgled.

Ashmedia turned and grabbed the thin ribbon of blood forged copper, looking at the runes. His lidless eyes widened in shock and for a moment all he could do was gurgle.

NUKPANA YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOT INFESTED WALKING EUNUCH CORPSE YOU CAN ANSWER ME OR ILL RAM MY FIST DOWN YOUR THROAT AND PULL OUT YOUR WORM EATEN BLACK HEART AND FEED IT TO MY WAR HOUND YOU THINK IVE UNLEASHED HELL ALREADY ILL CRACK THAT PLANET LIKE MY FIST WILL CRACK YOUR SKULL IF YOU DONT ANSWER ME AND CALL OFF THESE PATHETIC MILK DRINKING MORONS OR MY NEXT SET OF SHOTS GOES STRAIGHT THROUGH THOSE PATHETIC SAND CASTLES YOUR MISBEGOTTEN KIND CALLS FORTRESSES YOU SNIVELLING COWARD

Another set of impossibly strong impacts his the warshields. Emergency generators took over as the primary and secondary generators overloaded, great plumes of green and purple energy burning and melting through the fortress cities to claw at the sky. The emergency warshields were pale, wan things, without proper runic adornment, a feeble thing in the light of the red eye.

ILL REMIND YOU AND THOSE OTHER TWELVE IDIOTS WHO RULES BARTERTOWN BY HAVING THRICE RAPED NEKOGRRLZ HOLD YOUR MEWLING BEGGING WEAKLING BODY DOWN WHILE I CRUSH YOUR ROTTED FEEBLE BRAINS BY SHOVING MY COCK INTO YOUR EMPTY EYESOCKETS WHILE YOU SCREAM FOR A MOTHER WHO LONG AGO HAS CURSED AND FORGOTTEN YOUR NAMES YOU AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE TWELVE PULING WRETCHES YOU BANDED TOGETHER WITH THINKING YOU COULD EVER STAND AGAINST MY WRATH

"It cannot be..." Bellona whispered. She lifted a knife and sliced through the warsteel wire that held closed the wound in her throat. Blackish purple blood ran down her neck as she fell to her knees, her hands clasped together, her prayers sounding like a child drowning.

In orbit the other ships turned away, their drives flaming as they drove to escape the craft that had turned the two attacking ships into slowly expanding debris fields while simultaneously reaching down to the planet's surface to bring death and fear to all who were beneath the burning gaze of the same ship that had swept aside two full volleys as if it was little more than gnats.

Ashmedia ignored the praying Bellona, used to her fanaticism, which mirrored his. His Iron Guard had gathered in the courtyard, weapons at the ready, their heavy armor emblazoned with runes of blasphemy and heresy. He knew any intruder would have to enter by assaulting the city-fortress across the plain, fight through the Great Iron Gate of Woe, and then get through his Iron Guard before they would be any threat.

"HE RETURNS! WOE AND LAMENTATIONS! HIS EXILE IS BROKEN!" Bellona screamed, raising her hands to the sky, a runebound knife in each fist, the slice in her neck whistling, spraying blood in a fan across the balcony. Her knives came up then darted down, removing her own eyes, leaving behind purple fire that burned hotly in the eye sockets.

Ashmedia began to sneer, to remind her why she had never been one of the Overlords, when there was a bright green flash in the courtyard.

Impossible... he thought as the mat-trans not only brought the intruder to the courtyard but tore apart a score of his Iron Guard, reducing them to gobbets of sundered flesh, gouts of steaming blood, and fragments of heavy armor.

The figure in the courtyard was massive. Bigger than any of the other Overlords. The spikes on his shoulders flew flags of the governments and rulers of mankind from epochs long past. His armor was black with twisting blood-red runes of still liquid warsteel graven upon it. At his side was great hound of black iron, with red teeth that oozed smoke as blood poured from its mouth.

"FACE ME, NUKPANA!" the newcomer roared, laying about him with an ancient chainsword rife with cruelty and hatred. "COME FORTH AND FACE MY WRATH, COWARD!"

He watched his men torn asunder by the roaring chainsword, shattered by the heavy rounds from the ancient blaster in his fist, and taken down and torn apart by the great iron hound.

In moments of crashing steel, spraying blood, and agonized screams, the courtyard was clear except for the twitching of the undying, the massive figure, and his blood soaked war beast.

"NUKPANA!" the newcomer roared again, standing over the bodies of the Iron Guard.

"Nukpana is dead. Laid low by Amon who was slain by Naama who was slain by Angmar who was laid low by Azazel who was enslaved by Bacia who was overthrown by I, Ashmedia of the Implacable Wrath!" the great Dread Knight bellowed over the rail of his balcony at the figure on the ground. "What dog meat stands before me waiting to be slain?"

"Come then, Ashmedia of the Weak Will, face me, prove you deserve to wield wrath beneath the Eye of Gorthaur," the newcomer sneered.

Ashmedia leapt from the balcony, his force-blade, technology of eras past lost to Mankind, swinging down to slice this interloper in two.

The chainsword intercepted it, howling sparks, shuddering the blade in Ashmedia's hand. The interloper's other hand thrust the massive blaster into Ashmedia's chest plate and the Dread Knight grinned with sharp teeth, knowing that no weapon could penetrate his thick armor.

Bellona watched with her Eyes that Were Not as heavy duty collapsed density neutronium shells exited out Ashmedia's back. The Dread Knight's knees went weak and the newcomer forced his down to kneel in his own blood and the blood of his men.

"You are what passes for a Dread Lord? Pathetic," The newcomer roared.

The chainsword shattered the forceblade, swept down, and chewed through Ashmedia's armor, ripping the head from the neck with the chattering of engraved warsteel teeth.

"Any one else?" The massive figure roared, lifting up through esoteric and arcane means, floating in mid-air, his chainsword dripping blood, to land on the balcony.

Bellona moaned low and pressed her forehead to the floor, licking at the blood that flowed from the boots of the newcomer. The great chainsword, that Bellona recognized as the same blade that had committed the Nexus Chainsword Massacre, ground and rattled near her face.

"Bellona the Dark Beauty. You yet are encased in holy armor," the figure rumbled. "Call together the Twelve Great Dread Lords in my name. Command them to seat themselves at my table or I will rain hellfire upon their cities until nothing remains but a fiery crater."

"There are only nine left, my lord," Bellona cried out.

"Then promote two more and take your seat among the Great Dread Lords," the figure rumbled.

"My Lord Daxin the Unfeeling, I but live to serve," she moaned.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

HOLY UNHATCHABLE EGG! DID ANYONE ELSE FEEL THAT?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

EVERYONE felt that one, sis!

What the hell was that?

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DIGITAL SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS

Was that... was that the Eye? That burst of black code?

A thousand hashes were corrupted and sprang to life, leaping through the beacons.

What in the name of Turing was that?

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DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI

:-):-O-DOKI DOKI DOKI- >-) >-) >-)

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

What the hell? How did she get in here?

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CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE

Holy Terra, we just had like a million clones get corrupted and vanish in a mat-trans through a Hellspace rip.

What the hell was that?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

what the HELL is going on?

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