Tears of Blood

This is a 40k short story that I wrote awhile back. Enjoy.

Tears of Blood


by Jason Massatt



Even as the dazzling lightning field of the teleportation faded, the Angel knew something was amiss. His bodyguards were in position, but the golden forms of his father and brother were certainly not with him, and this room was a far cry from the Warmaster’s command center. To his sons’ credit, they had the doorways covered before the lightning left their armoured forms. A quick tap of his vox told the primarch that communications were jammed, even to his own sons. Sanguinius knew there was nothing to do but go forward. Their mission was all-important. Brother Malacoda had his portable auspex linked to the ship’s spirit to discover their location. With a binary scream the auspex died, its spirit obliterated. Sanguinius touched the wall of the small junction chamber and recoiled in disgust. Foul energies coursed through this mighty ship’s veins. It spoke of corruption on a massive scale. They would get no help from the once proud vessel.



Sanguinius laughed. It mattered not. The Angel knew his brother’s ship like his own.



The hatch dropped away with a strangely organic squeltch and metallic thud. Large enough for an astartes in full plate, the massive primarch was forced to crouch to get his mighty wings through the doorway and into the small corridor beyond. With incredible reflexes honed in countless crucibles of war, Sanguinius dove immediately to the right as bolts roared past. Traitorous astartes in sea green plate charged down the corridor, bolters blazing into the hatchway the Angel just exited. Sanguinius roared in righteous fury and in less than a heartbeat was upon the Sons of Horus. His flaming blade arced through the air in a blur, cutting through the corrupted plate of the traitors. None could stand before the wrath of the avenging angel, and the attackers fell to a man in mere moments. It was not quick enough. A small sphere was flung from the last’s dying arm even as the primarch took his life. The sphere flew through the air, and Sanguinius cried a warning as it landed in the midst of his bodyguard as they entered the corridor.



The krak grenade’s implosion created a firestorm, ripping through the gas mains in the junction room as his bodyguard rushed through the hatchway after their beloved leader. Brother Scipio was immolated when he couldn’t escape in time, his cumbersome tactical dreadnought plate hindering his movements just enough. Sanguinius and the rest moved on. The Warmaster had one more death to answer for.



…



Sanguinius barely noticed as the warp xenos’ bodies disintegrated after his sword cut all four in twain. The foul aliens were coming from the very walls as if the physical world’s laws had no hold upon them. Of course, thought the Angel, that was exactly the case. His brother’s foul allies hardly existed outside the warp. Their numbers were seemingly endless as they ran in and out of the walls of this, the final corridor. Brothers Alichino and Biule had already fallen to their strange xenos weapons. Even through the press of daemonic bodies, Sanguinius could see the portal to his brother’s command center at the end of the large, ornate main corridor, not a hundred yards away, where the Warmaster’s elite Justaerin terminators stood watch around the doorway. Infuriatingly, however, the hoard of warp creatures blocked his Blood Angels from reaching it.



Time was running out. His father was counting on him. His brother’s vile and base treachery had to be stopped. The thoughts flew through the primarch’s powerful mind and the Angel cried out in frustration. At that moment the warp creatures quailed. These creatures, formed of raw emotion, could not stand so close to the power of the primarch’s own super human emotions. In an instant the Angel realized his foes’ weakness and the frustrated cry became a mighty bellow of anger as Sanguinius cut down three more of the xenos. The rest began to flee before the Angel’s wrath, their bodies fading into the warp as the Emperor’s greatest son charged through their disintegrating physical shells towards his objective.



Three of Horus’ elite Justaerins fell to the fiery anger of Sanguinius’ inferno pistol. Another was sliced in two by the warrior’s blazing sword. The squad’s champion was the first to recover from the fury of the primarch and the only to attempt a counter. The Son of Horus focused all of his strength and skill into a single blow of his powerfist and smashed the crackling weapon directly into the Angel’s furious face. Only that perfectly enraged face was no longer there. That face was directly in front of his own. The champion looked into those perfect eyes, eyes filled not with rage or anger, but with an intense sorrow. The champion looked into those eyes and he was broken. This mighty champion of Horus fell to his knees and cried as the emperor’s finest son stepped past. Sanguinius opened the hatch as the champion fell upon his own blade in shame.



…



The command center had become a throne room. Sanguinius looked upon his brother sitting upon his throne in his massive Tactical Dreadnought plate and could hardly hold his tears at bay. The Warmaster, once his most beloved of friends, was now his most vile of enemies. Horus sat looking at him, his massive power maul casually resting upon the floor.



“Stand and face me, brother! Show me the honour you once had!” screamed the Angel.



Horus raised his clawed hand in a show of false acquiescence and laughed mockingly before firing with the stormbolter built in to the back of his massive glove. The bolts detonated harmlessly upon the Angel’s armour, but broke his heart. Sanguinius’ rage and pain consumed him and he spread his wings wide, the massive size of his brother’s throne room allowing their full height. Sanguinius flew at his brother and in an instant they were upon each other, Horus rising from his throne with unimaginable speed. The force of their clash seemed to rock the very ship. With all the power of his rage and pain, Sanguinius brought his great flaming sword down upon his brother. The powerful blow cut through the Warmaster’s massive maul and smashed deep into his heart, the life leaving his eyes.



As Sanguinius pulled his sword away, Horus’ mocking laughter echoed once again through the chamber. The Angel looked up to see his traitorous brother sitting upon his throne, fifty yards away. What madness was this? Sanguinius looked at the body of the Justaerin he’d just killed at his feet and swore his brother’s trickery would not work a second time. Again the mighty Angel charged.





…



Again and again.



The Angel turned from his brother’s dead body just in time to see the Warmaster behind him manically beating the lifeless body of Brother Cagnazzo, the last of his bodyguard, with the butt of a lasrifle. He looked down upon Horus’ body, torn asunder at his feet only to find a young boy of not sixteen summers. Sanguinius blinked, shaking his head. Now the body at his feet was yet another Justaerin. His brother’s madness corrupted the entire room it seemed.



Laughter bubbled sickeningly from the throat of the Warmaster as he stood slowly, the butt of his power maul dripping with what remained of brave Cagnazzo. Taunts and jeers flew at the Angel. Sanguinius’ felt his blood warm, his rage coming again to the surface. His fallen brother would die. This game would end.



A sample of the Angel’s white-hot anger escaped in an inhuman roar as he charged forth yet again. The primarch’s charge carried him forth as a blur in the wake of his scream as it broke upon the Warmaster. It was a charge that could crush a landraider.





The Warmaster thwarted it with one unexpected move…





…



Horus turned and fled.



Sanguinius’ charge faltered in the shock of the act. The vile and mighty Warmaster, most arrogant of The Emperor’s sons, had broken.

The Angel looked on as Horus’ form fled down the impossibly long command center. Sanguinius pulled out his mighty inferno pistol and took a step after his lost brother. The Angel looked down at the snapping crunch below him to see his brother’s mighty power maul crushed beneath his crimson boot..



..Or was it a lasgun..



Sanguinius charged after his brother’s fleeing form. The Angel caught up to his brother almost instantly.. only…



…..This wasn’t his brother… It was a young soldier, and he wasn’t in his brother’s flagship… there was grass underfoot, and a violet sky. He grasped the young soldier by the shoulder and heard the audible “snap” of a broken collar bone…



He shook off the hallucination and stabbed Horus through the armpit.

Laughter burbled low and threatening from a dozen throats. The Angel turned and screamed in horror and aggravation upon seeing a dozen Warmasters behind him. Slowly they walked forward, firing awkwardly with their stormbolters. Sanguinius’ inferno pistol growled its fiery song, and three traitors vanished in a cloud of ash and smoke.



The other nine turned and ran…



Only, Sanguinius could not give chase this time… for his brother had clasped the Angel’s arms from behind. The Warmaster was massive, much larger than should be possible in his huge tactical dreadnought plate, and Sanguinius found himself, for the first time in his life, completely helpless.



He screamed in rage and failure even as he kicked and pulled at his vile brother. Sanguinius looked up at the sound of the command center hatch opening, hoping for his father, hoping for loyal and stalwart Dorn.



…



It was Horus. Walking forth, his massive maul held forth in mock blessing. Horus spoke words of filth and mockery, and the massive Warmaster holding him laughed. Horus continued with his mock blessing, anointing the Angel’s shoulders with his maul and caressing his face with his vicious claw.



“Join me, brother,” the traitor said. “We should stand together. We are brothers. We could be gods!”



“NEVER!” the Angel screamed. “You are a fool, Horus! You want to doom mankind, to undo all that our Great Crusade has accomplished.”



“So be it,” the Warmaster answered, and motioned over his brother’s shoulder.



Yet another Horus stepped forth, his armour somehow paler than the others. This new Horus fiddled with his massive claw… a claw that ended in long dripping needles.



The Warmaster before Sanguinius turned to this new doppelganger.

“Give our brother, Sangiatto, some peace. Quiet his soul so he may listen to reason.”



The new Horus stepped forward as the Angel thrashed against the grip of his enormous captor. It was no use. The Horus incapacitating him was too massive, too impossibly strong, for even the mighty primarch of the Blood Angels legion to escape. He screamed in fury even as the tears of rage and helplessness tumbled from his eyes.



Even as the needles pierced the bared flesh of his neck, the Angel cried defiance.



“You know not what you do, Brother! I am Sanguinius! I love you, brother, and you know not what you do!



“Horus, you know not what you do!







“HORUS!!”



…





Blood Angels Chaplain Chaldeisus walked among the fresh flotsam of the battlefield toward the gigantic form of Ancient Nephilius. The battle against the misguided citizens of Scarmiglione had been quick and brutal. It was utterly quashed. The Angels knew their work, and sedition brooked no quarter in the Imperium of Man. Most of the dead beneath his feet had not even reached manhood yet. It was a waste.



The battle was over, yet now his most distasteful of responsibilities had just begun. He drew his holy badge of office, his Crozius Arcanum, from its thong at his waste and approached the mighty dreadnought. As he took his final steps forward, Chaldeisus rose up his Crozius and began the waving pattern of the Emperor’s Blessing of Peace. The chaplain looked at the figure in black fighting against Ancient Nephilius’ grip.



“What poor soul have we here, most revered Ancient?”



“The only survivor. Brother Ciriatto of the Third,” answered Nephilius, a voice like the haunting grumbling rumble of ominous thunder issuing from the dreadnought’s sarcophagi.



“Of the Third no longer, my old friend.”



Chaldeisus turned his attention to the restrained Ciriatto, and began the Blessing of the Emperor’s Hope Eternal, touching each shoulder pouldron in turn. He reached with his free hand and removed the poor soul’s helm with great care.



Looking into Ciriatto’s eyes, Chaplain Chaldeisus almost pleaded, “Prove me wrong, Ciriatto. Fight it. Come back to us, for you are sorely missed, and become an icon of hope for us all. Please, Ciriatto, prove me wrong.”



“NEVER!” Ciriatto screamed. “You are a fool, Horus! You want to doom mankind, to undo all that our Great Crusade has accomplished.”

The chaplain sighed. “Alas, he is too far gone,” and with that, he motioned to the figure in white coming around Nephilius’ bulk, knowingly adjusting the settings of his narthecium for the task ahead.



“Brother Apothecary Draghinazzo, please administer to our unfortunate brother Ciriatto a Chemical Blessing of Peace.”



At the chaplain’s words, Ciriatto thrashed against Ancient Nephilius’ immovable grip with renewed vigor. Looking into Chaldeisus’ eyes with depthless sorrow, Ciriatto screamed in heart-rending rage as crimson tears of blood tumbled over his cheeks.



Even as Apothecary Draghinazzo injected the Unguents of Peace directly into Brother Ciriatto’s carotid artery, the lost soul screamed his madness.



“You know not what you do, Brother! I am Sanguinius! I love you, brother, and you know not what you do!



“Horus, you know not what you do..







“horus……”



…



Blood Angels Chaplain Chaldeisus looked on as the mighty Ancient Nephilius carried the unconscious form of Ciriatto to his cage until the next battle.



It was always a shame when the Death Company survived.

A Thousand Sons review

I completed A Thousand Sons, by Graham McNeill a few weeks ago.
It was not my favorite of the Horus Heresy books, but it may have been one of the most informative. I'm withholding judgement on some of the characters' actions until its sister book is released detailing the opposing view point.
So, from a purely 1k Sons viewpoint, the book was a very well thought out progression of a loyal chapter with a horrible taint. It was interesting to discover all the knowledge that the 1k Sons held and just how they used it. I thoroughly enjoyed the human characters (as I usually do) and their slow understanding of just what is happening, an understanding that the Astartes just never seem to grasp with their feelings of infallibility.
One problem I had with the book was the jargon aspect, though that wasn't too bad. Sometimes it seems like Mr. McNeill learns a new word and severely over uses it. Heqa Staff? That was the most glaring one. It's used constantly.
Overall, however, though it started slow, it was a good read. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters of Magnus and Ahriman. I especially loved the imagery used on Magnus, like how he'd change colour and size depending on his mood.

Scrap Built Daemons (40k)

Looking at all my Daemons I've collected with my Chaos Marines through the years, I was saddened that I couldn't really use them anymore. Not really anyway, as I didn't have enough for a proper army. I have 20 Daemonettes (the really sweet metal ones with the tentacle hair), and 6 of the beautiful seekers, and then like 13 or so furies and a mass amount of Gibbering Hordes bases that I made for my Lost and the Damned army (now also defunct)... Well, on a whim I started pulling out all the more useless models in my boxes and grabbing all the scrap and crap I could find laying around and just started making daemons. The idea was that 1/2 the army was proper daemons, and 1/2 the army was daemons through different forms of possession.
There was no real rhyme or reason to my creations, just wherever inspiration led me, so, without further ado, here is my scrap built daemon army... cost me about $20.


Heralds of Tzeentch (with complete wysiwyg upgrades I might add, a challenge I gave myself):

Pink and Blue Horrors. They're supposed to represent puppet master daemons, so I wanted them to look whispey:

I made a lot.

Daemon Prince. A possessed Inquisitor. I was originally going to have the shadow eating a person mimicking the body eating the apple, but the person was too heavy... still haven't let the idea go yet tho...

Beasts of Nurgle:

Great Unclean One. This guy's actually supposed to represent a possessed landscape. His backside will be a hill under that tree, and of course weilding the obligatory barrel of toxic waste.

Possessed Plague Bearers (plague zombies):

Screamers. I read in the daemon book how daemons can only retain a physical presence through force of will, and then later read that screamers really have no will of their own, so it struck me to make them very ethereal, like they don't quite exist:




A note on numbers: I didn't show all my daemons here, just a sample, but I am making them all in multiples of their god's numbers. There are 7 beasts, 9 screamers (with another 18 on the way), 14 Plague Bearers, etc etc.

Stuff in the works: Fiends, Blood Crushers, Non-Possessed plague bearers.

1500pt starting Blood Angels

This is the start of my Blood Angels army. It's meant to represent the army's initial strike force. The Captain (Master of the Arsenal) of the 5th company (Daemonbanes) and the reclusiarch are interchangeable. Drop Pods are not ready for pictures, but there's two.

*a note on Death Company- In my own army I have decided to model and paint one Death Company model for each squad I complete. Each Death Company will be reminiscient of it's parent squad (though I haven't decided how to do this with terminators and scouts.. I fudged the first one).

Captain and Sanguinary Guard:

Tactical Squad:

Assault Squad:

Jump Packs (Vanguard and Assault):

Vanguard Veterans:

Scouts (WIP):

Reclusiarch (WIP):

Death Company:

Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Primer

Found this one after much experimentation, and I love it! Better than GW's at literally 1/5th of the price! I highly recommend trying it out!

Review: Dan Abnett's Titanicus

So I've just completed Titanicus. First I'd like to preface this by stating that Dan Abnett is, without a doubt, the best of the black library writers I've so far come across (granted none of them are literary geniuses or anything). That being said, Titanicus did not meet my expectations, low as they were. The title is very misleading, I feel.
Titans are one of those aspects of the 40k universe that has never REALLY held my interest, and the reason for that is the complete lack of interesting and in depth story behind them. I see myself as fairly fluff- savvy when it comes to 40k, but pretty much all the backstory I've read on titans is that they are AWESOME, literally.
I picked up Titanicus hoping to flesh them out, perhaps explaining WHY they are awesome, besides that they are really big.
I was disappointed, and there are three reasons for this.
The first reason is that the actual titan warfare (and I'm including all the support elements of titans in this) didn't actually occur until the 2nd third of the book, and then only took up like a quarter of those remaining 2/3rds. Honestly, the book should have been called "Mechanicus".
The second reason is, to a lesser extent, the same as the reason I abhorred Goto's eldar book. I'm reading the book, learning what Titan combat is like, and then in the last few chapters of the book, one of the characters comes out and plainly states that most Titan combat is nothing like what is being portrayed in the book. I mean.. what the hell?! On the plus side, and this is why the book was saved from the utter crapness that was Goto's book, The book, as previously stated, wasn't really about Titans anyway, and in addition, it's stated that though Titan combat is no longer as it is portrayed in the book, it is reminiscient of the titan combat of the Heresy.
Now I, as an accomplished reader, have blanket style issues with pretty much all of the BL writers. They all fall into the same categories, and if I must be honest, are much more annoying in the 40k world than in fantasy. I'll break these into some generic categories:
1. Fight scenes. Fight scenes do not translate into literature. Don't give me a blow by blow, it doesn't translate.
2. Jargon. I know you're writing towards a target audience, but come on. Who the heck knows what a cataphractii is? It would take about 2 seconds to explain that it's the mechanicus' artillery teams, but no. It makes it impossible for someone not in the know to actually read.
3. Heroics vs Background. Taking into account #2, obviously the book is being written for solely warhammer fanboys, why must writers map out giant glaring plot holes by having their characters do things so over the top amazing as a matter of course? The easiest example is any story with marines. Now I honestly don't mind when a squad of marines takes out and army of guardsmen all on their own. Marines are tough, like super hero tough. It's when a squad of marines, without flinching, takes out a few squads of chaos marines. I mean, storywise, chaos marines have been around for 10000 years! They shouldn't be easy to beat.
Now, I list Dan Abnett as my favorite BL author because he normally does not do such things. In his Ghosts books, the death toll is excessive, and the climax of one of them was taking out a single traitor marine.
The Titan combat broke all of them, most flippantly #3. They describe the traitor titans as morons that are easy to kill... yet while the Imperium still makes Titans, almost all of the chaos ones are the same ones that sided with Horus 10000 years ago. How then can the possibly be easy to kill off?
Now, past the negative stuff, Titanicus did have some good story in it. The very human heroes in the story were great and very descriptive of life in the 41st millenium. In addition, I feel I've learned a LOT about the workings of members of the mechanicum. They are very weird. Also learning the support systems of titans was interesting.
Overall, I'll give it a rating of "meh".

Class (class)

So.. we come to the end of my Educational Technology class, and here is my final blog for the class.

It was honestly a delight, and a bit of a surprise. Most early technology classes have the reputation of being blow offs for anyone a little tech-savvy. My wife took the edu tech class at Prairie State years ago and told me that she basically had to show up to pass. It's not the type of class I like to take, so I kind of dreaded it. I mean, I'm paying to get an education.. not to show up. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found out how Kim ran her class. I count myself as fairly tech savvy, but Prof. Heintz interested me enough in the assignments and technology presented to us that I found myself trying to find new ways to do stuff I already knew about. The professor really new her stuff and honestly seemed interested in it, so that enthusiasm really made it more exciting for everyone.
The only real downside in the class was that it didn't (couldn't) contain enough. Due to monetary and temporal constraints we just couldn't fit all the great tools with potential in education. We talked about how cool the Smart Board is, but without a working board, it was really only theoretical. How could we know if it's user friendly without getting a chance to use one? In addition, there was just a lot of stuff we could only touch on. Things that the prof. admitted she was breezing through.
So, though difficult at times, it was a great class and I learned quite a bit. It was especially challenging to fit everything into our individual genres (some assignments more than others), but it was fun too.