Of Gods and Madmen

The whine of laboring retro boosters. Three loud clicks. A sudden blast of compression seals, and the storm bird touched down. Two Astartes stepped out into the burning remains of what had been the urban pilgrimage site. 

            Silence.

‘What has befallen our comrades, Lord Keto?’

The Word Bearers Chaplain removed his distorted helm slowly, revealing to his disciple his true and terrifying aspect. If a servant of the primordial powers was capable of fear, it was spoken clearly in Keto’s eyes. What were once hid behind a baroque mask of horns, spikes and otherworldy script, was now – like a child – plain to see.   

Dark chaplain Keto stared at the sea of fallen Astartes. Two score virtually melted into the surrounding urban landscape, frozen in time. The fires of hell returned to claim vengeance.

The ravaged flesh of his once perfect Astartes countenance barely moved as his voice wavered, his eyes staring deeply inside, as if towards some distant thought. 

‘The Wrath of Gods,’ he finally spoke, ‘Ira Deorum.’

Keto’s disciple, an Astartes himself, knew the words, the name, the parable.  As if stunned, his mind went numb with overwhelming realization. Like a mantra he spoke it, as if motivated by some unspeakable, terrifying truth.

            ‘The God-Emperor will rise, from ash and pain.

His body dead, his mind aflame.

The meek shall flee from their wicked forum

The Wrath of Gods. Ira Deorum.’

‘We were wrong, the Dark Lords have deceived us,’ he replied, as if finishing some long lost discussion.

The sound of crackling volcanic flame and thunderous collapse snapped the silence. As if from nowhere, an eerie incandescence lighted the once dark landscape. A hab-block complex just several hundred meters away vanished in molten wrath. Behind the smoking and smoldering remains of the once vast complex, there strode a Warlord of an unknown Legio, its aura aflame in gentle green and azur. At its feet strode Astartes, deepest black armour alight in the same green and azur, faces of the dead and damned upon their helms. Like phantoms, both titan and Astartes appeared from nowhere, moving in great strides as if servants of some righteous savior.

And they shall know no fear, yet somehow complete and utter terror overwhelmed Keto and his disciple. All that they knew to be true of the primordial powers was but a cheap trick. The Warlord, as if powered by something more mighty than human princeps, turned its dark gaze, as though in sorrow for the fate of the Dark Chaplain. The gradual, familiar sound of the volcano cannon’s ignition foretold the Dark Chaplain’s destiny. 

‘Ira Deorum,’ Keto spoke. Like an eternity, but in less than an instant, his once cruel and perverse soul was purged in the light of the God-Emperor.