Tag: tyranids

The Battle of Macragge, First Tyrannic Wars, Daemon Prince Guilliman AU

The Great Devourer, the hive minds of which individuals tyranid creatures were as cells to a human body, drew in whirlpools of souls as easily as their bio-ships sucked up oceans. The xenobiologists, librarians, and warpsmiths who studied them theorised that as Chaos was the collective subconscious of the beings in this galaxy, tyranids were their own god. So fundamentally different was it in origin, it barely cast a shadow on the part of the Immaterium they were familiar with, the part that responded to beings of sentience and emotion in a way tyranids were not.

The downside to this was that Hive Fleet Behemoth was not throwing usable power into the Warp proportionate to the death and fear caused, which could have been used against it. It also disrupted communication and travel when they needed it the most.

The main bulk of the hive fleet made straight for Macragge, though it could be distracted by a juicy target along the way. The Imperium’s Ordo Xenos called this divine retribution, though the xenobiologists of Ultramar said they showed no factional preference for human flesh, and many of the splinter fleets that broke off were making due for Terra (a belief later supported by the behaviours of Hive Fleets Leviathan and Moloch).

It was the Pharos, drawing the bugs like a moth to a flame, or so the most likely theoretical went. They could turn it off, or have Sotha direct it somewhere other than Macragge, but then they’d be blind except for the distant light of Terra’s Astronomicon. Macragge was a high priority planet to protect for many reasons, but better it be threatened now than for the hive fleet to gain more power on worlds they couldn’t predict and couldn’t get to in time to save, and eventually devour everything including it.

They had won at Cold Steel Ridge, but at too great a cost. Spores still fell, and the void war continued above their heads where they were outnumbered and outgunned.

‘It must be done,’ Calgar told his command squad. He brushed off the efforts of the Apothecary trying to tend him. ‘We’ll return to the Octavius and enact the ritual.’

‘It must be done first, here, Chapter Master,’ Librarian Tigurius advised firmly, cleaning his rail rifle. Traditionalists sniffed at weapon-patterns from their tau allies, but neither Tigurius nor Calgar held with that sort of hide-bound Imperialist-sounding talk, though Calgar would never swap for anything the Gauntlets of Ultramar that had been passed down for millennia.

‘Because?’

‘Connection to the ground of a planet, Macragge of all planets in particular, will enhance the ritual’s power. Also, the soul-net funnelling our dead away from the Great Devourer is most firmly centred around the Fortress of Hera where the Pharos focal point lies.’

‘Will it be enough?’ He was not afraid, but a plan likely to fail needed more contingencies than usual, ones he admittedly did not have enough of, nor could so many resources be wasted on it. This was his gamble, all of it. Not because he was reckless, but because he had to seize the one chance he saw for decisive victory as opposed to inevitable defeat. The might of the Ultramarines had convened, as well as that of many of their Successor Chapters from across the Realm, any who could be spared and make it in time. They were only a small empire and beset by enemies on all sides, not to mention already within their borders.

‘The gods are on our side. I have meditated on this every moment I’ve had. For all that they are rarely trustworthy or reliable allies, it hardly suits them either for us all to be eaten by tyranids, to provide them no more sustenance or amusement.’

‘How quickly can preparations be made?’

‘Young Calgar,’ drawled Chief Chaplain Ortan Cassius, ‘do you really think I wasn’t ready days ago?’

‘Then we have no more time to spare.’

In the olden days, and in disorganised and amateurish Chaos cults across the galaxy, ritual magic was a haphazard and inefficient thing. Ultramarines approached it systematically, with a diligence and strictly-controlled experimentation and pattern-seeking that their code-minded allies in the Cult of Mercury could only admire. They did not burn planet after planet to bring up a simple Warpstorm like undisciplined sorcerers fresh from the Eye of Terror. They knew how to wring every drop of power and metaphor out of the sacrifices they did make, how to channel ambient currents and natural phenomena. They were as far beyond moulding grimoires as the enginseers of a hydroelectric power plant were from primitive tribes warming themselves over an open fire.

For this daemonic summoning, only two blood sacrifices were needed here, in the summoning circle of perfectly positioned and angled laser grids with blood lines drawn under it, now, in person. This summoning hadn’t been done in centuries, in Calgar’s lifetime, but it was recorded and passed down with Ultramarine-exactness.

‘I take this deed upon myself and none other of my brotherhood,’ he intoned. ‘Though my soul be damned to the Ruinous Powers of the Warp forever, that price I gladly pay.’

The first sacrifice must be an Astartes of Guilliman’s gene-line and he must be willing. He must lay down his life without hesitation or reservation. They had many volunteers and Calgar chose from the most heavily wounded. It was always tragic to watch a good and worthy life cut short, but this was the easy one, the honourable one, a good and worthy death.

The other sacrifice had to be unwilling. That was what drove the power. Not only could they not have agreed to lay down their life, they had to fight all the way. If they came to peace with their death or its inevitability, if they sought meaning or grieved, the ritual would be invalid. The sacrifice must scream defiance to men and gods to the very last breath: I refuse to die, I’ll kill you all, I will break open hell because it could never contain me.

It took many tries until the magic resounded with the harmony of a worthy sacrifice.

Blood staining his hands, Calgar knelt in obedience and shame, but not regret.

He had read the reports passed down to him by previous Chapter Masters, but he had hoped it would look more human somewhere in his hearts. More like an Astartes than a daemon.

A finger lifted his chin, pricking him with claws? shadows? ‘I want you on your feet. I keep saying this “Regent of Ultramar” business makes you sound like the Imperium with their father’s corpse.’

His eyes, Calgar thought. Though they glowed like blue searchlights, they were human. They were human because they were sad, so very sad. Looking into them, he could see, or perhaps imagine, through the shadow, to the being this once was: noble, great in war and in making war unnecessary, clad in ultramarine blue power-armour. The oldest reports about him sounded like poetry, unprofessionally so he’d always thought until now.

He looked up into the sky, seeing with more than mere eyes. ‘The Shadow in the Warp? Brief me on its nature, the tactical situation, and the theoreticals and practicals you’ve considered.’

‘Yes, my primarch.’