1 Descent

?|M30

Nuceria

Province of Desh'ea, Northern Desh'elika Plateau

It was close to year's end, winter was nearly over.

The weather had already started to grow warmer, and the snow began to melt. Sleet, a combination of rain and partially melted snow, began to pour over the province of Desh'ea. It started out as a gentle and light drizzle, but the clouds gathered up in the sky were dark like ashen cotton, and soon they unleashed a heavy torrent over the land like a basin brimming with water.

The rains were not welcomed by the people, as it remained as chilling as the winter that passed. The storm remained for some time, and its showers masked the presence of an alien spacecraft flying low over the horizon. Its translucent silhouette, invisible to most eyes, appeared every now and then as the droplets cascaded over its surface.

Stealthily, it glided across the air, heading for the mountains. As soon as it reached the top of the Desh'elika Plateau, it descended.

Upon landing, a band of warriors disembarked the ship and performed a quick scan of the area around them. Girded on with sleek-bodied armor and slender oval helmets, these warriors were not human but eldar. They were led by a Seer, a lesser-known xeno psyker by the name of Laftan Moonsinger.

She stepped out of the craft, hand on the hilt of her sword as she braved the torrential rain. The cold slap of the sleet against her face helped keep her senses sharp and alert, a fact that she took comfort in as she knew she would have need of it given her task.

Moonsinger had long been plagued by visions of a coming storm, a storm of blood and steel that would threaten the galaxy itself, which led her to gather a band of her trusted allies and set off to find the source of her nightmares. It brought her to Nuceria, an advanced human world tipping over into self-indulgence and hedonism just as her people had done long ago.

For all its towering spires, swarming hives and massive complexes, the world of man remained rooted in decadence. For once, in her long search, it started to make sense.

The storm was brewing there, right there on that barbaric world. Whatever was to come, she would snuff it out for the good of all.

"Get into position." She said simply, as there was no need for lengthy orders. Her warriors knew what needed to be done, they've had centuries of experience on their side. Moonsinger hoped it would be enough.

They waited, patiently, for what was sure to come next. No one doubted the seer's visions, for foresight had long remained the greatest gift the Aeldari possessed, and they had long mastered it into an art form. Moonsinger herself, although quite young for a seer, was a talented mystic. She couldn't be wrong. And yet, as the hours ticked on, the faint pangs of uncertainty wormed their way into the aspect warriors' minds.

The storm curtain lifted, and the heavens bathed the land in light. The eldar warriors relaxed themselves, but kept their guard up. The nagging feeling came back to them time and time again, until later they saw their patience bear fruit. Lifting their eyes skyward, the eldar beheld a ball of red fire streaking across the clouds. The errant falling star headed straight for the top of the Desh'elika mountains, just a few kilometers away from Moonsinger's position.

Immediately, the seer gathered her warriors back to the craft and pursued the star.

It left a burning path in its wake, a burning scar across the face of the earth where it landed. Visions, blurred snippets of the bigger picture, distracted Moonsinger along the way. It was as if the Warp bled into realspace in that place, the thinning veil giving way and the air growing thick with eldritch energies.

"Ready yourselves." She told her warriors, "This may be more than we can handle."

The ship touched-down just a few meters away from the landing site, and the eldar disembarked for the final time to investigate the burning object. Broken and charred branches littered the massive trench. Stone and lime had been torn up among upended trees, and the very ground had been reduced from dirt to hot glass.

Moonsinger approached first, at the helm of the formation. She drew her saber from its scabbard, then raised her hand against the steaming black orb sitting snugly within the earthen basin it had made for itself. Peering into the surface of the object, she realized that it was no ordinary star but a transport pod. Seeing an opening, and with a hand crackling with energies from the Empyrean, she forced the pod open.

The lid popped off with an audible hiss, and Moonsinger hurled it away with a flick of her wrist to reveal the pod's contents.

The eldar expected to see a monstrosity, a lurching composition of otherworldly death, to spring up from the pod. They were surprised to see, instead, the swaddled form of a young human boy emerge from the smoking wreck.

He climbed out of the pod, clutching tightly to the white cloth as he looked around with wondering wide eyes. He was the most beautiful little thing Moonsinger had ever seen, he was hardly the monstrous being that plagued her dreams and every waking moment since the prophetic runes first spoke to her.

"I've held my peace about this entire venture, but now I cannot any longer." One of the aspect warriors spoke up, "Seer, what manner of jest did your visions play us this day?"

"Young one, let this be a lesson to you." Moonsinger replied as a teacher would chide her student, "The visions never jest, nor are they ever wrong."

She approached the boy, sword in hand and ready to strike him down. As she closed the distance, their eyes met.

One carried the burden of her years, scarred by a thousand battles from innumerable foes. The other held neither knowledge of the wars raging all across the spiteful universe that surrounds them, nor any malice whatsoever. The boy looked to her with an innocence so clear that even Moonsinger could not believe this was the source of her nightmares.

But she had to make sure somehow.

The seer lowered her sword and peered into the boy's soul. It was there that the visions returned to her.

Wiry, copper-red hair curled away from a high brow, pale eyes sat deep behind cheekbones that angled down like axe-strokes to an aquiline nose and a broad, thin-lipped mouth.

It was the face of a general to follow unto death, the face of a teacher at whose feet the wise would fight to sit, the face of a king made for the adoration of worlds: the face of a Primarch.

But the rage made it the face of a beast. Rage pulsed and distorted the features like a tumor breaking out from the skull beneath. It made the eyes into yellow, empty pits, debased the proud lines of brow and jaw, peeled the lips back from the teeth.

An angel's statue, desecrated by a hundred blades and left in the rain.

And upon his hands were the blood of billions, be it man, eldar or beast. A blight upon creation and a tool that would serve the Ruinous Powers.

The boy shrank back, face contorted with fear, as though he sensed the thoughts circling around the seer's head like a murder of crows ready to feast upon his flesh. Moonsinger put one foot forward and raised her saber, uttering the words with renewed conviction.

"For the good of all, I consign you to oblivion."

Autelus pulled the refueling hoses together into a loop and hung it over the little hook close to the driver's hatch. After laboring half the day trying to get the ancient heavy transporter to work, the old trader finally got a spark of life out of the stubborn machine.

The sleet did little to appease his growing ire, Autelus had to take a moment to tap the newly formed ice sheets clogging up the hydraulics. When the engines finally roared to life, he let the warmth course through the machine's body for a bit before closing in the hatch and setting down the main road.

The trader did not get far, for something heavy fell from the edge of the cliffs above him and landed upon his cockpit. The windshield shattered on impact, drawing a loud curse from Autelus. His oaths fell silent as he noticed the unmistakable red splatter of blood against the glass. When he exited the vehicle to investigate, he saw the cause for the transporter's new scars.

A bisected torso lay where it fell on the road. The blood mingled with the water, mud and snow. Whoever it belonged to or whatever it was, it certainly wasn't human.

Autelus glanced up at the cliffs and heard the sounds of energy-weapons discharge, as well as the frightened screams of some unfortunate party drawing the short straw on death's lots. He immediately went for his rifle, locked his transporter securely, then set out to find the source of the carnage.

Up the rocky path, into the heart of the Desh'elika plateau he went, with his weapon at the ready.

The shrill sounds of alien gunfire were quickly silenced, only to be replaced by the blunt and heavy blows of something hard bludgeoning soft flesh. Autelus spent a great deal of his life in many particular trades to know what those sounds were, almost like a tenderizing mallet striking butchered meat. The old trader rounded the corner and found an alien spacecraft sitting at the edge of a battlefield, although 'battlefield' would be too generous a term for one that resembled a slaughterhouse.

A dozen warriors lay scattered all across the ground, mangled and torn to pieces as though some beast came and mauled every one of them.

Autelus found the last of them, at her final strands of life which were fraying fast. The alien was muttering in her own tongue, all the while slowly drowning in her own blood. Something powerful smashed her chest, both armor and flesh failing her completely. The old trader granted her mercy by shooting her in the head. When her voice was finally silenced, Autelus heard the whimpering cries of a child somewhere in the middle of the battlefield.

Perplexed, the man shouldered the stock of his weapon and approached the source of the sound.

The child sat against an upended rock, knees curled up to his chest and with his hands covering his head. The blood of aliens was smeared all over his tiny body, and his frame shook with sobs. It was enough for Autelus to conclude that the boy was more dangerous than he seemed, and far more valuable alive, which ruled out the use of his weapon.

The old trader put his rifle away and cautiously approached the child.

"Hey." He said, keeping his voice low and even so as to not appear threatening in the least.

The boy eyed him with a mixture of fear and suspicion, he scooted further and further away from the man.

"It's alright, lad." Autelus assured him, taking off his fur coat as a gesture of goodwill. He succeeded in getting close enough to drape the thing over the child's shivering body. "They're all dead now."

The boy responded with a whimpered protest, but let himself be pulled into the bigger man's arms. Autelus carried him out of the mountain and back into the safety of the heavy transporter. The old trader had plans, big plans for the boy. But before he would act on them, he would at the very least have him clothed and fed.

The boy's worth would be measured by his looks. No one would buy a slave looking like a mountain-dweller.

No one with good coin, that is.