They fall in droves, and yet they still fight on, their feral lust for my blood overiding all sense of self-preservation. How strange it is, that these proud and stoical sons of Russ can become as animals when presented with an opportunity for violence. Little wonder then that the weakling Imperium fears them, as it will soon fear me. I can still sense their vessel lingering above the heavy, pregnant cloud-cover, it's innards churning with the filth of their existence. Perhaps I will visit them later, and give them the gift of fiery oblivion. Then again, maybe I'll leave them to their cowardice, so that they might spread the word of my ascension and instill fear into my enemies. It matters little, either way.

Their commander and his most trusted veterans lie wounded and dying at my feet, their life-blood mingling with the fine, silvery dust that litters the streets of this once verdant city. Their weakling psyker managed to relay a frantic message to his brethren above before his body exploded into fiery conflagration, his armour melting ;like hot wax and fusing with the skin below before it's power source exploded in the heat. A fruitless gesture, on his part. They have no defence against my sorcery, no weapon that could do me harm. They know not against what they fight. My daemonic flesh sings beneath the warm coat of coagulating gore that enshrouds it, my senses quicken as lightning flashes from my finger tips and cooks the mortal flesh of my foes. Soon there are non left standing, and the streets run crimson with their vital fluids, glistening in the hazy half-light. I scream the ecstasy of my righteous victory to the skies, the same fires that fuel my hatred flashing forth from my eyes and mouth, lapping at my lips as they burst into incandescent life. The column rises onwards, piercing the low-slung belly of the clouds and rising yet further, into the vastness of the black, star-specked void beyond.

Once my ire has expired, so too does the pyre, and I am left amidst the ashes of my victory, alone and purposeless. Where now shall my destiny take me? What should be my next course? I pray to whatever divinities will heed for guidance, but am answered only by a hollow and bitter wind. What purpose did this mindless slaughter serve, save to deify the blood-lust; the bestial yearning for carnage that beats within my daemonic heart? I swear a silent oath to myself that never shall such chaos possess my soul again. When next my enemies cross my path, they will die quickly, and without pain, so that their souls may reap a greater bounty of retribution upon their transition to Hell. As I wander, lost in a malaise of moral relativism, a sudden, awesome roaring fills the skies, as of a thunder storm suddenly grown monstrous and unruly, and the clouds burst asunder as a celestial body of titanium falls from the heavens.

I had seen space-fairing vessels before in my previous existence, but non such as this. The design was fantastically intricate, and it's structure archaic in nature; most unlike the clean and unadorned style of craft that the Imperium favoured in this degenerate age. It's hull seemed to writhe as if composed of flesh, it's every pore marked with a menagerie of unintelligible runes that shifted and squirmed as if skewered by my gaze. One such symbol seemed to dominate the rest, concieved as it was with much more meticulousness and care than the others, and alone amongst it's brethren this was one which I recognised. never before had this thrice-blessed symbol graced my eyes, but I knew instantly that this was the mark of The Great Conspirator; that most cunning and infallible of the Dark powers, and holder of the great realms of chaos beyond time and space. What divine circumstance had driven his servants to this most barren of worlds? What purpose could the decimated dirt-ball that i called home serve in the infinitely complex designs of the Lord of fate?

As I approached the craft, the heat of it's entry doing little damage to my daemonically augmented flesh, I began to discern a faint trace of the power of those entombed within. Before my mind's eye swirled a tangible pool of blackness, it's recesses unfathomable even to my daemonic perceptions. Never had I felt a power before that could possibly rival my own, and I found myself intrigued by the prospect. My approach had not gone unnoticed; a series of gantries had swung open along the vessel's flanks, alllowing a cold, unnatural light to spill from it's interior and conspire with the slowly thickening blood festooning the streets.

The figures that emerged would have driven my previous self to distraction, so commanding and bizarre was their presence. They emerged silently, the only discernable sound the robotic clanking and grating of their archaic, azure armour. Within each ghostly warrior flared a churning bale-fire that was almost blinding in it's intensity, and upon the sealed clasps of their armour writhed runes similar to those adorning the ship, but a thousand times more vehement in their unholy purpose. They were space marines, these dark warriors, but most unlike those that lay with their innards exposed at his feet. Their armour, like the ship, was of a most intricate design the like of which seemed to have been lost in the annals of Imperial history. On each was branded a large, black "M", that marked these spiritual automatans as the sons of the Great Cyclops himself, and also explained their speechless misdemeanour; they were as incapable of speech as they wre of conscious thought. Clasped in their gauntlets they carried ancient bolters and plasma weapons, their pommels pitted with rust. Some even hefted ancient heavy weapons but moved with a swiftness that belied the burden that they carried.

They stood poised, as if awaiting some portentous event that would signal their ghostly assault, but non came. I stood awe-struck as a final figure emerged from the deepest recesses of this interstellar tomb, one who's grandeur and supreme authority almost drove me to prostration. His armour was swathed in fantastic robes of vermillion, on which crawled living sigils of white fire, about his head was crafted an awesome helm crowned with daemonic horns strutting straight to heaven, though whether these vestigial protuberances sprung from the stuff of the helm or from his skull I could not discern. Clasped in one hand he held a massive staff of black, craved and re-carved with a series of macabre, leering visages and crowned with the eternal, all-seeing eye of his master.

His entire form seemed to seethe with suppressed energies, and I realised with both horror and awe that within this fragile sack of flesh was contained sorcery enough to extinguish stars with it's puissance. His eyes burned with the same fires that wreathed his staff, and the constant jabbering of distant daemons preceeded his presence as they whispered their secrets from the warp into his welcoming mind. He approached, like his companions, in silence, but unlike his cohorts within his deceptively emaciated form I sensed the capacity for wisdom and intelligence beyond the comprehension of mortals. He stood now before me, his head craned to gaze upon my daemonic countenance, his eyes burning with barely suppressed intellect, and for the first time since my ascension, I felt humbled. Within those twin pools of luminescence swirled a morass of emotion, all of it dark, all of it dead. Hatred swam next to a shoal of bitterness, whilst overhead soared broiling clouds of despair.

Just as I stood analysing him, so too was his gaze boring into me, tearing away my impotnt mental defences to scrtunise the tenderness below. I had little wish to impede his scrutiny, and I doubted whether I possessed the ability to do so anyway. His analysis complete, the superlative sorcerer, for sorcerer he was, and of the highest possible rank, proferred to me his gauntlet-sheathed hand in gesture of friendship, and I accepted it readily, dwarfing as I did his delicate appendage with my daemonic talon. As our hands made contact, my mind flooded with images and sounds. I saw the skies of an alien world, against which rose mighty minarets of awesome antiquity, a rain of fire pouring down upon their heads like a vengeful storm. I saw a plain of black ash, it's surface scored by a network of rivers of magma that spewed from a series of pock-marks and fissures piercing the very rock itself. I heard a voice that was like the collapse of mountains and civilisations casting me from my tempestuous home and leaving me isolated and alone in a hostile universe. I felt the seething hatred of a quadruple betrayal; of my Emperor, of my Brothers, of my Father, and of my God.

Then I understood. I staggered back as too did my companion, overwhelmed by the sheer gravity of the psychic backlash that scoured our minds. I heard his name escape my lips as he rose and came to my end, extending once again a hand not only of friendship, but of fraternity.

"Ahriman..." Yes, I spoke the word with reverence; a reverence that bespoke my awe of this comparatively diminuitive magic wielder. After helping me to my feet, his voice broke the oppressive silence, it's sound both melodious and weighty with wisdom and intelligence.

"Come, my friend. There is great work to be done, and I would speak much with you." So saying, he took me by the hand, as a father unto a child, and guided me into the awesome vessel. For the first time in many years, I felt at last content.