[40k] The Howling
We’ve been searching all night long
but there’s no trace to be found
It’s like they all have just vanished
but I know they’re around
A cascade of dirt and chunks of slate rock tumbled down the embankment as Shagrath’s armored boots plowed down its steep incline. At the bottom his feet splashed heavily into a shallow stream of effervescent greenish water. The acidic water frothed irritatedly from the intrusion, fizzling as it ran down the armor of the marine’s greaves but to no ill effect. It had been discovered soon into their venture that the water here on… whatever the warp this barren rock was actually called, was highly acidic but given only to eating organic material. Shagrath halted there, listening to the debris shift down in his wake and feeling the agitated sizzle of the stream, its hunger denied as it lapped impotently at the thick ceramite of his boots, tickle his hypersensitive ears. Everything about this world spoke of death, even the water.
He panned his eyes across the landscape before him, the cool, sepulchral breeze of the place russling his long, raven-black hair and caressing bare, battle-scared features like the hand of a ghost. At one time long past, the broad gully had probably teemed with the strength of a mighty river that now, existed only as the sickly, corrosive stream in which he presently stood. Along the upper edges jutted escarpments of flat, brittle rock which gave way to the bowl of hard-packed dirt that comprised the riverbed. What scant vegetation there was to be seen was nothing but skeletons of whatever it used to be, dessicated and lifeless. They had found traces of human occupation on the planet’s surface and Shagrath considered briefly if those settlements had died because of this place, or because of whatever had killed it. Whichever it might have been, both were now well and fully dead. The blasted planet didn’t even have a name anymore. Or perhaps, no one had survived long enough to give it one.
That the sky had become a moderately lighter shade of grey indicated the coming of local dawn, such as it could be called. The entire planet sported a layer of dust in its upper atmosphere so uniform daylight could be measured only by the lightness of the monochrome sky above, for the sun itself was nigh to be seen. It would be near time for them to report on their progress and Shagrath did not intend to make that report and empty one, not when they were so close. His charcoal-flecked golden eyes darted about the opposite bank of the dry riverbed, hunting for the those he knew to be so near. There was a another tune of death upon the cold, dry breeze. Something lethal yet mellifluous and vibrant, certainly not borne of this bleak environment itself.
Shagrath trudged forward from the stream, trailing sizzling liquid across the parched earth and behind him came the sounds of more disturbed rock and splashing acid water as more armored figures followed suit. Clad in ancient power armor colored a deep violet and trimmed in faded gold, the hulking Chaos Marines fanned out across the basin, covering angles and advancing cautiously in the absence of any reliable cover. Some things not time nor the warp could ever dull and the martial precision of the Emperor’s Children as the Sons of Scorn embodied it was amongst them.
As they moved, Shagrath fancied he could hear every step and every movement of each of the seven other noise marines accompanying him, able to visualize their exact position and facing in his mind’s eye. Skvorjog’s precise motions as he trained his sonic blaster across the lip of the opposite bank. A contrast to the fitful, eager twitching of Irlvok and his ceaseless murmured entreats for pain and bloodshed. Close to his right there was Ktaarvad, advancing slow and steadily to keep the fanged muzzle of his blastmaster leveled at the ready. Within the potent sonic weapon the choirs of destruction and ruin primed their voices impatiently. Still, above it all, he heard the song of death which had been their shadow throughout the night.
