The ship's lights flashed an eager green. We both turned to face the bulkhead door, heavy enough to survive even cannon fire… as it….
The machine stopped it, something was in its way.
The glistening tip of something long and alive ripped through the thick metal. Our eyes stared down a living spear.
Whatever was wielding it unleashed a high-pitched roar before ripping the spear out the door.
Fresh beams of light pushed through the crater it created. Then, the beast snarled once more and rammed the side of our ship.
I nearly fell to the floor as the vessel jolted to the side. My Cavalier companion, calm as a falling leaf, shot his arm towards his hip and drew a sidearm as big as my head.
His thumb cocked the hammer back on his purification launcher. The gun confirmed its readiness by pulsing a golden yellow.
"Open the bulkhead." The instant I shouted my command, the ship slammed the heavy doorway down.
My augmented eyes hadn't the time to scan the expanse before us. The creature wouldn't permit that.
"Father, I humbly beg you to stand back." Despite his subservient tone, I found his armored glove pulling me back and nearly throwing me aside.
He raised his gun before the beast showed itself.
Its footsteps closed in on us. The second its frame stepped before the door, the Cavalier fired his weapon twice.
The large handgun fired a single needle with each click. Each needle bore the sinful blood that the rite of absolvement purged from Torvark and his kin.
The beast stood at the doorway. Three darts now deep within its flesh, its fate sealed.
I looked at the being attentively, for the brief sliver of time I would be able to see it intact at least.
It stood on two digitigrade legs, each one the length of a man. One large on its right side bore a skeletal spear, the weapon seemingly fused to its forearm. On its left side, two sinewy, clawed arms grasped the side of the ship's open bulkhead.
Its skin was a doughy beige, yet it was segmented by thin lines that indicated a carapace.
It bore no head, no neck, no obvious weakness. This thing was designed. The umbilical cord that hung from its abdomen likely meant it was dormant somewhere and was awakened specifically to attack.
It snarled with hate, its spear drawing backwards as it prepared to strike. Unfortunately, the darts' curse had already taken hold.
The fleshy expanse of its body subtly twitched, then violently jerked.
The tissue around the microscopic bullet wounds bubbled outwards, ballooning in size. Then, with a sickening whip-crack, the stretched skin and muscle exploded.
I whipped the gore away from my face, taking the time to lap some of it up. Its blood was sour, dense with ammonia.
The Cavalier stepped towards the body. Most of it was blown apart. It was hardly even a body at this point.
My companion turned towards me. He nodded. "Your theory appears to be correct, Father."
Of course. I stepped beside him, my hand smearing the blood on his white armor. "Come on, boy, we must move. The planet's pole should be around two standard miles away from us."
I stepped outside the ship. The oxygen-rich atmosphere filled my respiration gills and soothed my sore muscles.
My eyes crawled over the jungle before me. On the surface, nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
Multi-colored avian life-forms flew overhead. They chirped their alien songs before flying out of sight.
The bark of the trees bore a smooth texture, like raw poultry. They were the color of bone.
My hand snapped outwards and caught a falling leaf. My companion held back the urge to tilt his head and look at it.
I beckoned him over and showed him its deep red color.
Color wouldn't tell us much. Much stranger was the foliage of other worlds. What was truly fascinating was that sky.
The sun above us appeared massive due to its closeness. Yet, the planet was cool and the air was refreshing.
The star's immense gravity didn't shake the world as it should have. This anomaly—it was bizarre, yet it made a twisted sort of sense. If something on this planet was pulling the star down, it likely wouldn't want to incinerate itself.
Torvark reached out for his cremation cannon. The long barrel spun before clicking backwards, orange lances of energy leaving the flanks of the mighty rifle.
The leaves around us rustled. This world was hostile—so hostile to outsiders it sent something to kill us before, and it would do so again.
"Do not fire that thing here, boy. This planet is anomalous. We don't know how it will respond to your firing." He nodded rapidly, his gun already clicked back onto his stock.
I looked over to a panel on my wrist. The sound of distant snarling was now far clearer, far closer.
I punched in the keys, and my carapace shifted to attack mode. Twin scything talons like the claws of a mantis unfolded from my back.
My navigatory orifice pulsed before bulging outwards. With a wet slapping sound, the metal point of my Hex-flayer revealed itself.
Torvark stepped close to me, his massive frame acting as mobile cover. His left gauntlet activated its melee functionality. The side plating jutted outwards and extended into the shape of an axe-head. Grinding chainsaw teeth revved to life over the polished blade.
The fastest of the planet's beasts leaped out the trees' canopy. It was a coiled, feline thing. Its head bulbous and tipped with a sharp proboscis.
It launched itself like a living missile. It was fast, but my companion was faster.
Its torso was met with the unforgiving edge of a chain-axe. Its long arms reached for the weapon but, by then, the blade left its back, chewing up its guts and ripping the ropey, multicolored insides outwards and onto the shrubbery.
Slower, hulking beasts stampeded towards us. The Cavalier's sidearm fired off uncountably. The gun unleashed gentle whooshing sounds with each trigger pull, gas puffing out the back as each dart flew towards its target.
A large four-armed creature with a flat head was the first to die. Its armored skull softened out, stretched, then broke open.
A larger oxen beast kicked its body out of the way. Steam bellowed out its nostrils before it charged.
Such was its speed that it passed the ten-meter chasm between us in the beat of a heart. The soft trunk of a tree that separated us was uprooted and launched aside by the slam of its horns.
Torvark was already before it. An armored gauntlet met the beast's armored skull, his augmented fists cleaving flesh like artillery shells.
The beast roared as its jaw was wrenched off. Shards of bone and meat scrap fell to the forest floor.
But the biological weapon wasn't done yet. It raised an arm, like a war-mace. Spikes erupted from the fleshy heft of its limb.
But Torvark could move, and he could move far faster than anything his size had the right to.
He beat the beast to the punch, his chain-axe snarling against the crease of the beast's neck as he pivoted outwards. The beast's atack sailing through the empty air.
The mace struck the earth and shook the ground. In the next breath, the beast's head rolled.
Torvark's boot crushed it, splattering its purple brain.
My heads-up display marked the location my ship had pinged. "Now, Torvark, more will come. We must complete the mission."
My companion didn't nod in confirmation. Instead, he simply followed me. His boots hit the soil with harsh footfalls as we ran.
We left the forest clearing. The ground spontaneously gave way to muddy, warm sludge.
We found ourselves at the foot of a tall obsidian mountain. My optical sensors saw life behind the stony exterior. Grand, vast, and impossibly terrible.
Before, the sky had been clear, but now it was ashen, grey.
My eyes caught a thin beast between a rock outcropping. Its sunken eyes, like a shark's, hadn't the time to even look at us before I lifted my Flayer and pulled the trigger.
The weapon was silent, silent as it should be. Nothing was fired—that wasn't the point.
I held out my hand, and within it, beating steadily, was the beast's heart.
In the distance, the creature fell to its knees. Its eyes, so cold, were now shriveled. Its pale skin, even paler now. It was dead.
I tossed the heart aside. My foot came down on it, stomping it out like a cigarette butt. Worthless.
I turned around. What is this? Torvark was on his knees, prostrate, before the mountain and its fearsome living presence.
"His holy will, extended here. Oh, King. Oh, Lord of Lords, you have blessed me with your presence. I am your humble servant."
What—what's he doing? My breath hitched. A cold sweat ran down. I didn't even know I could still sweat.
To create them, the Cavaliers, we use the Gaunt King's power to alter density parameters.
His presence, it's…
The mountain feels like him…
"Torvark, get up… this is big. We need to cross the holy ground. We are upon something big." I spoke, reverence I have never known infecting my words.
The mountain—no, it was no mountain. It was too tall, too smooth in surface, like a pillar stretched out to the heavens.
My companion dragged himself to his feet. I could see he wished to remain knelt. He was reluctant, too humble to stand before this… thing. It is a thing. It's no God. I must remember that.
The sun above us seemed even closer now. Its red glow was pulling towards this place. A firestorm of matter, woven like a tendril, began to inch its way downwards.
Without hesitation, I grabbed my companion's arm and pulled us through the mountain's crystalline archway.
My raptorial limbs brushed against the walls, felt the warmth, the nurture within it.
To my surprise, as we weaved around the corner, Torvark spoke clearly, out of his self-defined turn. "Forgive my insolence, Father. When you came to my world to seek new kin, why is it me you picked?"
"Getting daring now, are we…" But the vulnerability in his words caught me off guard. I sighed. "Listen, do you want the truth?"
He nodded his head, and so I continued. "Very well. You were decently healthy and had no one left, no one to mourn you."
The crack we moved through was too narrow to let me turn and read his body language. His voice rang out from behind me. "Some will mourn me. Brothers in arms will mourn my death as I have mourned theirs. And Father, I know you will mourn me too."
"Petulant child," I spoke to him. To my surprise, there was no venom in my words.
Then we left the crack in the living stone. We stood in an inverted dome. The sky above us smote with the nuclear fire of the star.
The tendrils of light that had extended down to this planet—they beckoned to the call of the altar that stood before me.
Mycelial threads lined the coppery walls of the dome. They reached toward a smooth structure, veined with blue blood-vessels.
The tendrils fed into large fungoid vents, each one sucking away at the plasmic, stellar soup.
I hadn't realized it till now: my legs were shaking. We shouldn't be here. Something was churning inside that altar—something far beyond what any of us had the rite to witness.
Landing like a draped cloak, a blackened figure stood stark before us.
Its shoulders were like pauldrons, spined and armored. Four holes bled out a dark brown mucus. The holes were positioned like eyes across its alien visage. It was tall—taller than Torvark.
Four membrane-coated wings folded neatly behind it. Its mouthparts clicked like those of a beetle as it spoke in raspy, broken syllables. "Mother… Womb… youngest…"
Torvark began to rev his saw. My weapon raised. The long talons that made up the creature's fingers reached into its chest and ripped away a writhing chunk.
The tissue began to solidify, and a rough, spindly greatsword formed.
Its exoskeleton clamped tightly around its muscle, tension building within them. Then it sprang out.
Just as quickly, Torvark drew his handgun and then… The weapon fell in two halves. The greatsword carved an otherworldly, ionized trail through the air.
I aimed my Flayer then… Keen as an eagle, the beast caught on. Its wing curled and transformed into a curved blade. My own rifle was cubed before I had the time to even let go of it.
However, I had distracted it—and distraction is the gravest sin one can make before a Cavalier.
His chain-axe was dodged by the narrowest margin, the beast losing balance and stumbling away.
It countered with its own swing, the hefty blade smashing through Torvark's armor and spilling his divine blood.
Torvark clutched the wound at his side. The beast gave him no pause, unleashing a kick with all its coiled power.
However, my comrade was no fool. He understood that this wasn't something he could best through brute force.
With a spontaneous burst of motion, Torvark smashed his elbow downward and batted the kicking limb aside.
He had feigned agony. The pain centers of a Cavalier are one of the first things we remove. The beast fell for his trap.
It slashed horizontally, but by then, Torvark was already too close. The sword's crossguard caught on his right arm. With the blade halted, he cleaved downward.
Blackened blood sprayed as the grinding edge of the saw ripped through its tough hide.
Its head was split down the middle, yet it moved, it still fought.
Its other three wings shifted to recurved blades. Before it could bear them down, Torvark slammed the axe over its chest.
As it pulled away, Torvark grabbed hold of it and forced it flush against the saw's teeth.
The creature hit the ground in two halves. Tendrils from its innards hissed in agony and tried to reform. It was futile. As its lifeblood spilled, they grew still.
I shared a glance with Torvark. My chest rose and fell like an aircraft spalling out of control.
We felt it. Something… heavy, crushing. A scream of the soul. A psychic declaration that weighed as much as a capital ship.
My breath came in faster, if that was even possible. Once more, Torvark fell to his knees.
This time… I hadn't realized… I was on my knees too.
Something shifted behind the altar. Something large we hadn't given much thought to—until now.
The energy drawn away from the scowling sun above us pulled away. No, it wasn't pulled—it was being drawn toward the oblong, oval altar.
It was not an altar… this was—this was an egg.
Lightning flashed across the sky. The jolts of heat and light shone through the thin casing of the egg. Something… beautiful, many-limbed and wild, cast itself through the shell.
The egg pulsed once, then twice… then...
I stood up. I couldn't allow this. This was wrong. Something wicked was going to emerge. It would be the doom of us all. It was vile, unnatural xeno life that had no business existing.
I stumbled to my feet, my legs pulling feverishly. Then, as I arrived…
The planet's eye opened.
At the top of the obsidian tower, a single cyclopean eye glared at me—and me alone. A yellow glow, like a ship's searchlight, was my new companion.
My arms were shaking. My legs grew weak, too weak to do anything but bow.
Its pupil, a jewel among jewels, reflected the whole universe. I could see far-off constellations, galaxies untouched by man, glowing within its rutile depths.
I bowed, in worship. For the first time.
However, my companion—my son, whom I had taken care of, taken for granted—he didn't see what I saw.
His mind was with his own squalid king, and his own mission. This thing was the future. This being, so ancient, that met my gaze—it was the next step.
He raised his cremation cannon. I needn't tell him to stop. A man—no matter who that man is—can never defeat divinity.
The scent of ozone hit my nostrils as he began the heavy trigger pull.
The egg, in that same instant, hatched.
It took less than a beat of the eye for the weapon to fire.
A portal, deep within the planet's core, tore itself into reality. That same portal led to the barrel of the cannon.
The pressure the molten metal of a planet's core is under is nothing short of ludicrous. And now that pressure was unleashed.
The deepest rumble I have ever borne the displeasure of hearing blasted through my eardrums.
My eyes squeezed shut against the searing heat. My skin scalded and peeled off my cybernetics at its thinnest points. Even with closed eyes, the orange scream of raw kinetic and thermal force violated my sight.
I opened my eyes. Flames flickered in the distance. The western quadrant of the dome was nothing but slag, and so was the stone for a mile past it.
The walls were layered with a carbonized strata where the mycelium once stood. The corpse of the creature we slew was little more than a pile of ash now.
But this was not the end. No, for weapon of man can snuff out what had been birthed.
The shell—a sacrificial lamb. It absorbed the incandescent force of the blast, as it should have. And from it...
She was born.
Snarling, hungry, hateful, beautiful—she was a goddess made flesh.
I clasped my hands together and I prayed… I prayed.
She stood no taller than me, yet she was a giant in all ways. I could feel her glory like a warm blanket against my skin.
My horror had long faded. I was at peace as I stared within her four alien eyes. Her six limbs—lean as a shark, with muscle beneath like steel cable. Oh, she was glorious.
Her white fur, marked with tufts of black so deep they made the night sky look like a blank canvas.
The Cavalier—his feigned ordainment, his fleeting sanctity—it didn't matter now. This was perfection.
He saw her as an affront, an insult to his crumbling divinity. She stood unimposed.
He fired once more. Superheated iron ripped from the mantle carved a porthole window through the stone.
She was upon him. Her sinewy arm swatted the cannon upward. The orange ray of brimstone punched a hole through the clouds.
Then her other two right arms locked against my son's own. With a feral shriek, she arched her back and ripped his arm away.
The Cavalier wasn't immune to pain—but she didn't need him to feel it. She cared not for him.
As the Cavalier's own fist came down, she struck him with an uppercut so fast, so fierce, I couldn't even see it.
The air exploded like a hand grenade and tore at my robes, such was the force.
My child fell to his knees, his brain rattled and his consciousness severed. I felt sorrow for his suffering, yet it was sanctified.
I raised an arm, my mouth opened as if to speak. She met my gaze, unflinching.
I looked into those eyes, their golden depths. I was a bug, a mere insect not even worth killing... and so was my boy.
She squared away from us. Her two long tails, ending in blades like a harvestman's scythe, slashed away at the arm she claimed.
She bit deeply into strips of meat she tore off, and as she swallowed, I understood my purpose.
This world was an end to our crusade. This world wasn't ours to take.
Lord Antonius, forgive me. I am a renegade now. Next time we meet, it will be as enemies.
Praise the Mother of Metastasis.
Praise the Holy Mother.
Praise the Final Daughter, Lady of the Scythes.
Praise Sh'ukt'a.
End prologue