Day 2 Morning

[Okor]

Okor looked up from his gruesome meal, crimson staining his blackened beard as a torn ribbon of horseflesh slipped behind bloodied fangs. The derisive declarations of this new deception still rung around the clearing, echoing off titanic trees and the newly revealed bones of his prey.

Why did their captor insist on this charade? Sorcerers, Warlocks, Heroes. All of these meant something, back when they still dwelled in reality. Psykers bent the fabric of the universe to their will, manipulating the aether to borrow the powers of The Gods themselves. They were Demiurges, warping the world to their whims, burning down the expired edifice of the Imperium.

The only thing comparable to this sacred power, this Theurgy of the tempestuous winds of Chaos was the poor excuse for magic The Smiling One had cursed them with. He had heard tales of a sorcerer within the twisted strands of fate that composed the Cat’s Cradle who had forged a labyrinth to torment those unfortunates who stumbled across him.

He savoured the coppery taste of blood on his torn tongue as he reflected on this. Perhaps there was a fragment of truth to Teucer’s tale. Two powerful primes, turning their field of battle into an eternal prison, both unaware that their own scheming had trapped them within a web of their design. The only mystery was the seeming defiance of all that constrained them: the ‘Hero’ was unable to return to the fountain, unable to receive the blessed release of death, but was somehow powerful enough to reach out across the Omniverse and steal Primes. It was an enigma.

He did not deal in enigmas. He tore himself from his respite, carious phalanges clasping at the decayed environmental seal of his discarded helmet, raising the putrescent-green wargear to his jaundiced skull. With a hiss of his poisoned atmosphere pressurizing, he hid his malformed, horned visage from the world once more.

His ceramite-clad cranium turned to the east, fixating his gaze upon the cracked earth spawned by the latest release of this purported Warlock’s magic. Rents had torn themselves into existence upon the distant hills, great boulders thrown across the landscape like mere playthings, pounded into pebbles, and shattered into shards.

This world was dying. With every step they took, every mystical lock they broke, they tore apart the essence of this prison. It was a realm constructed to torture and trap, and with every instrument of agony, with every guardian, the primes destroyed, it fell apart.

An entire reality was crumbling beneath his very feet, and he had nothing to do with it.

Was that the reason he had been brought here? To participate in some farcical parody of his true purpose, to wander aimlessly until he became mere collateral damage? From what he had gathered of The Smiling One’s sinister designs, that was a definite possibility. Was he watching him now? His eyeless mask spread into that manic grin, an all-consuming howl of laughter echoing across the nothingness it inhabited?

He refused. If Omni wished him to die a meaningless death in the dark, then that ivory bastard would be sorely disappointed.

He took a lurching step forward, crushing the detritus of leaves and shed bark covering the forest floor under his weight.

The ‘Warlock’ had a relic. It was foolish to announce such a thing to an island of treasury-hungry primes, desperate for glory. He needed this, his every neuron burned with the desire for violence, with the ever-burning hunger for recognition.

He refused to have a repeat of that damnable Abyss, to be butchered amongst his dead allies as he became a mere victim in every battle he encountered. He would leave his mark, brand the rune of Nurgle onto the flesh of the heretics, and turn their dreams of conquest to ashes in their mouth.

He stared into the thin black trail of smoke rising into the sky, a distant taint to the otherwise pure blue of the sky.

He may be Damned, but he was far from lost.