31st Millennium
During T̶h̶e̶ ̶Gr̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶C̶r̶u̶s̶a̶d̶e̶ The Horus Heresy.
Ash storms howled across the nameless frontier world, scouring blackened rock and the carcasses of cities long-dead.
The sky was the color of rusted iron, lit by distant fires beyond the horizon, and through that ruin strode the ancient god-machine.
—
First came its banner: a field of sable black, split by a blood-red stripe, bearing the hooded golden skeleton—its skull bowed, its grin eternal, its bony hands clutching scales that forever hung uneven.
The symbol of death weighed and measured.
Then the war machine itself followed, titanic and deliberate.
Its name was carved into adamantium plates along the breastplate, engraved in curling High Gothic script picked out in flaking gold leaf:
THANATOS — THE ETERNAL TOLL.
—
The Knight's frame was a cathedral of war:
A Paladin with carapace of black iron trimmed in red and filigreed gold, every panel scarred by centuries of battle. From its left arm hung a massive reaper chainsword, its teeth wreathed in caged flame as it idled, growling like a predator in its sleep.
Its right bore a thermal lance, a sun-hot relic cannon built into the armored limb, the muzzle shrouded in heat-scorched scripture plaques.
Along its shoulders, curved brass pauldrons rose like the wings of a tomb statue, each inset with ossuary reliefs—hundreds of skulls etched into gold, names long forgotten.
Power cables trailed like black veins from its spine into the cracked earth with every step, hissing steam where they touched. Its stride was slow, inevitable, as though time itself bowed to let it pass.
Its head was painted in a stark parting of color—half black, half red, the line cleaving clean down the helm's crest.
A crown of aged gold framed the helm's visor like a ring of jagged laurels, shaped from sharpened bone and engraved with fading scripture that caught the dim light like whispers from an age of fire.
The Knight's eye-lenses glowed a cold amber, unwavering and unblinking, as if the machine itself judged all who dared to stand before it.
And within its Throne Mechanicum, bound to the ancient Throne-Circuitry by oath and blood, sat its prince.
The machine knew his name.
"Obol Kharon V.
High Scion of House Kharon.
Master of the Eternal Toll."
It whispered it in pulses of code-light and scrapcode hymns through the Throne Mechanicum, the way it had named each before him.
The machine-spirit remembered every prince and princess who had knelt here, and it spoke to him in all their voices, overlaid like a choir of ghosts.
Within the Throne Mechanicum's sanctum, reality narrowed to a single point of control.
—
Black adamantine ribs curved overhead like the inside of a great beast's skull, etched with oaths so old their High Gothic had fossilized into rune-script. Between them, brass noospheric spines hummed with a constant droning cant, a hymn of awakening.
Obol sat upon the throne-altar, a seat carved from the fused bones of the first Kharon to bond with this machine.
Gold-inlaid MIU spines pierced the sockets along his spine and shoulders.
Electro-cherubim floated around him, feeding sacred oils into the ports, keeping flesh and circuitry whole.
Data-petals unfurled from the throne's arms like steel flowers, their surfaces scrolling with the combat-visions of every Kharon who had ever ridden the Eternal Toll.
—
Blood and oath-locks bound him to it, mind-threaded to every circuit, every piston, every killing-nerve of the colossus around him.
The Throne did not merely obey him.
It remembered him. It had shaped his ancestors. Now it shaped him.
"Obol Kharon the Fifth," it intoned again, in the secret vox-language of the noosphere, its tone deep as mountains shifting,
"Scion of oathbound flesh. Bearer of the Eternal Toll."
—
Obol's eyes, sealed behind gold-filigreed augmetic lenses, did not blink.
"House Kharon endures," he murmured back, voice static-flat.
The noospheric storm deepened in approval, and the machine's reactor-heart rumbled like distant thunder.
"Alas, our brethren join us," Obol intoned, his vox carried on a tide of machine-hymn.
"Stand and be known."
—
The smoke peeled back like a curtain.
First strode Cinerion — The Ash of Crowns, a Paladin,
ridden by Scion Maeric of Sub-House Maeryss.
Black plates rimmed in blood-red, twin reaper sabres held low as if to receive a kneeling head. Upon its pauldron, a golden coronet burned to grey ash.
—
Beyond it thundered Morphael — The Bloom of Ruin, a Gallant,
piloted by Scion Isera of Sub-House Isyrr.
Crimson bloom, gold-trimmed plates; a thunderstrike gauntlet flexed, thermal spear smoking.On its shield, a flower of barbed wire and teeth unfurled—beauty made into a weapon.
—
The ash turned to sleet under Morvhar — The Feast of Bones, a Crusader,
driven by Scion Thrykos of Sub-House Ossivane.
Black hull with a bone-white jaw stenciled large, Avenger gatling already cycling with a hungry purr. Its sigil—a serpent devouring a femur—winked in hazard lights as spent casings rattled at its feet.
—
High on the ridge, servitors bowed as Vorgane — The Iron Lament, a Warden,
took its mark, guided by Scion Caldrin of Sub-House Chalyth.
Iron-grey and sorrow-marked with painted red tears, the Knight's battle cannon elevated in benediction, siege claw locking with a clank.Its emblem: a cracked bell weeping molten iron.
—
Banners snapped as Phorxys — The Hollow Herald, an Errant,
broke from the squall, commanded by Scion Vaeleen of Sub-House Dolmarch.
Dark crimson, filigree of gold like scripture; twin lightning lances thrummed in its fists.Its badge—a jawless skull screaming without sound—seemed to swallow the wind.
—
Last, the line anchored under the shadow of Kaelthorn — The Quietus Prime, a Preceptor,
piloted by Scion Vaerin of Sub-House Dolmarch.
Black-and-gold, cape-banners tugging in the gale; its stormshield generator rolled out a low thunder like distant surf.Seven chain-seals crossed its tomb-sigil, each lock aglow with warding script.
—
Obol Kharon V—Obol the Fifth, as the Throne named him — let the machine-spirit's pride settle through the link. Seven giants, seven seals of revelations.
The Covenant of Endingstood assembled.
"House Kharon," he said, helm-crown catching the furnace light of the horizon,
"the toll is called."
Their reactors answered—seven notes, one chord. And the world seemed to hold its breath.
—
Static flickered soft along the noospheric link—like silk tearing, like a choir drawing breath.
Then, through the storm of machine-chant, a voice came:
"Greeting, High-Scion."
It was Isera. Her tone carried poise, each syllable precise, balanced with a grace entirely at odds with the brutal silhouette of her crimson war-engine.
Even now, as Morphael's thunderstrike gauntlet flexed idly at her side, her words moved like a practiced bow—measured, ceremonial.
"It is well to stand beside you once more."
Her machine's reactor hummed lower for a moment, as if bowing too.
—
Across the link, Obol inclined his helm.
The Throne Mechanicum translated the gesture into a deep roll of static across the noosphere, formal and resonant.
"Scion Isera," he replied, voice like iron striking marble.
"House Isyrr remains steadfast, as I knew it would."
—
A faint smile ghosted at the corner of her real lips within the cradle of her throne — but the machine did not show it. Only a ripple of gold script across her display acknowledged the praise, before sinking back beneath the surface of war.
—
Phorxys strode forward, its twin lightning lances panning lazily across the stillness, arcs crackling in their wake like caged serpents tasting the air.
"Isera really does enjoy being praised by Lord Obol," Vaeleen's voice lilted through the noosphere, silver-sweet and sly.
Even the static seemed to smirk as she spoke, her tone light enough to skate over the hum of her Knight's machine-chant.
—
Before the crackle of amusement had faded, her twin's voice followed—lower, drier, cutting clean.
"Yes, sister dearly. Her eagerness to please is plain to see. Even the xenos would notice,"
Vaerin said, and there was the faintest grind of her Knight's servos as Kaelthorn angled its helm toward Morphael, as if watching for her reaction.
Their laughter—Vaeleen's sharp and bright, Vaerin's like gravel caught in wind—twined through the noospheric chorus for a heartbeat before fading beneath the drumbeat of reactors.
—
Morphael's thunderstrike gauntlet flexed with a hiss of vented heat.
"Mind your tongues," Isera's voice cut through the link, crisp as shattering ice.
"You will address him as High-Scion. Such familiarity shames your crests."
—
Phorxys tilted its helm aside in a pantomime of feigned chastisement.
Kaelthorn remained still, though Vaerin's dry amusement buzzed faintly across the shared band.
—
Then came a low sound from Thanatos, deep and resonant as the earth itself shifting.
A chuckle.
"They are but children, Scion Isera," Obol said, and though his tone stayed level, the smile in it was unmistakable.
"Knightlings should be acting as such."
The noospheric choir rumbled as his throne-circuitry approved the levity, golden script flickering across his canopy like drifting embers.
"Besides…" Obol continued, helm angling slightly toward Morphael,
"…your ruthlessness in combat outweighs us all."
—
Morphael's pauldron-vents hissed again—whether in annoyance or reluctant pride, none could tell, its thermal spear hissed softly as Isera's voice returned, sharper yet tinged with resignation.
"You spoil them too much, Milord."
—
Thanatos shifted its helm toward her, the crown catching the furnace glow.
Obol's reply came smooth, faintly amused, yet with the flat finality of command.
"I don't know what you are talking about. I have never done such a thing."
Across the link came a ripple of restrained snickers from the twins—swiftly stifled when the air itself seemed to grow heavier under Thanatos's reactor pulse.
—
Then, Morvhar moved.
The Feast of Bones lowered to one knee beside Thanatos, its massive form settling with a hiss of cooling pistons. Avenger barrels rotated idly as if tasting the air. Its sensors swept low across the horizon, lingering on the distortion that stained the ash-storm distance.
Thanatos's helm turned fractionally. Amber lenses glimmered.
"Thrykos," Obol said, the name clipped, acknowledging.
—
A pause.
"High-Scion," came the reply—deep and quiet through the link, like stone breaking under pressure.
The ground shuddered faintly beneath them. The ash winds carried a strange static crackle.
Something was stirring ahead.
—
Thanatos loomed still, its crown gleaming faint in the rust-light as Obol's voice rolled across the link, level and cold:
"Are they xenos of our knowing?"
—
Morvhar's Avenger barrels stopped spinning.
Thrykos's reply came after a pause, the weight of generations behind it, low and gravelled like distant rockfalls.
"Negative, my lord. Even my predecessor never encountered them before."
—
The Feast of Bones straightened from its crouch, servos groaning as it rose to its full height. Ash cascaded off its pauldrons like sand from a shifting dune.
For a moment, none spoke.
The ash-storms hissed against their void-shields, and somewhere far beyond the horizon, the air seemed to ripple—as if reality itself strained to hold something back.
—
"An unknown xenos race?"
Caldrin, husband of Isera, his voice cracked across the link, hard-edged and eager, like iron striking an anvil.
"That would be a boon. I shall add their skulls to my collection."
—
The Iron Lament shifted beside Thanatos, its siege claw flexing once with a rasp like chains dragged across stone. Red warning runes blinked briefly along its frame, as though the machine-spirit itself stirred at its master's hunger.
—
Static laughter bled faintly through the comms—Vaerin's, quick and sharp.
"Always the collector, Uncle Caldrin. You'll run out of trophy space long before we run out of wars."
—
"Then I will carve new space into my hull," Caldrin replied, unshaken, the words ringing with a cold certainty.
—
Obol listened in silence, the Throne Mechanicum humming around him like a vast heart.
He let the sparks of their banter flicker—embers of humanity guttering in the steel storm—before speaking again, his tone the low toll of a bell.
"Boast later," he said. "Survive first."
The line of Knights fell silent once more, and the wind howled across the ash.
—
Obol turned, helm-crest glinting as his gaze swept the ridge.
There, perched like a silent monument above the others, stood Cinerion—motionless, twin reaper sabres crossed before it like an ancient judge.
"Is the astropathic communication stable?" Obol asked, his vox-voice carrying like distant thunder.
—
For a long moment, only the ash-wind replied.
Then Maeric of Maeryss spoke, his tone clipped and quiet, yet resonant through the noospheric link:
"The choir strains. Something beyond the veil troubles their sight, High-Scion."
A pause.
"The astropath reports… distortion."
—
Static rippled faintly through the noospheric link—just a tremor, barely enough to flicker the runes dancing across their shared tactical field.
Obol turned his crowned helm slightly toward him.
"The link to Segmentum Command?"
—
"Flickering," Maeric answered. "Their words are… fragmented."
"Images of fire and shadow—no context. It may be flare from the warp tides."
—
A low hum passed through the Covenant's shared channel as the other machine-spirits parsed the omen.
Thrykos of Ossivane rumbled next, voice gravel-rough.
"Warp storms breed nonsense. My grandsire fought half his crusade on echoes alone.
"The Imperium endures."
—
Isera of Isyrr cut in, tone crisp.
"Aye, we will not delay for whispers. Mars will want our data, not our doubts."
—
Obol gave a single nod, reactor-heart pulsing like a war-drum.
"Then we proceed. The Golden Throne remembers the oaths of our House."
"We stand. We strike. And we return bearing marks of our conquest—or not at all."
At that, the choir fell silent again, their distortion unresolved…
…or ignored.
—
"Just another world annexing to the imperium," Caldrin added, eager.
—
"Indeed." Obol's vox carried a rare flicker of humor.
"Form up, Covenant of Ending. Lances ready. Advance on my mark."
The seven titans shifted into line, reactors humming in unison. Their banners snapped in the storm.
Ahead, the storm writhed. Strange light gathered. Something like a gate burned against the horizon, straining reality itself.
"Halt !" Obol odered.
"Isera, Link our paths and lanes" He finished, Thanatos' chainsword hung high.
—
The knights' bellowing halted as one, their reactors throbbed like organ chords, harmonized across the noosphere. Lances hummed, cannons locked, targeting runes aligning across the storm.
"Firing lane and pathway are ready, Milord" Isera reported.
—
Obol's vox cut through the chord, cold and clipped.
"Fire."
He let the words hang for a heartbeat, then continued with a trace of weary amusement.
"The faster we deal with them, the sooner we can go home."
—
At once, the Covenant obeyed.
Thanatos' thermal lance spat a sun-hot beam that ripped through the storm, turning sleet to boiling vapor.
Cinerion's twin sabres crossed and unleashed arcs of shearing plasma.
Morphael's gauntlet cracked thunder as its spear flared, hurling molten death into the haze.
Morvhar's Avenger screamed, shell-casings pouring like brass rain.
Vorgane's battle cannon bellowed, seismic claw grinding as recoil shuddered.
Phorxys lanced twin bolts of lightning, shrieking forks of white fire.
Kaelthorn's stormshield surged, anchoring the line against the backlash as its heavy weapon spat in kind.
Together, seven beams and storms of fire converged on the horizon.
The storm buckled.
The strange gate shuddered, its edges straining wider, bleeding light that should not exist.
Still Obol's command echoed through the noosphere. "Keep firing."
The firestorm raged until the air itself howled.
The strange gate buckled under the fury of seven Knights, its edges collapsing inward, light folding upon itself like a wound trying to close.
—
"Hold," Obol commanded, his voice cut the noospheric storm, low but absolute.
The cannons stilled, the Avenger's barrels spun down, lightning-lances dimmed to simmering hums, The Covenant of Ending watched.
For a heartbeat the battlefield was still, only ash drifting, the shrinking gate trembling like a dying star, then—
It ruptured.
The wound did not heal. It tore.
The gate convulsed outward in a single, blinding detonation of warp-light. Its rim expanded tenfold in the span of a breath, ballooning into a vast, searing aperture the size of a fortress.
Black rock and ashen earth disintegrated in a widening crater, dragged upward into the maw.
The sky warped.
The air screamed.
The red clouds spiraled into the new sun of the battlefield.
The noosphere howled static across every Knight-throne as the Throne Mechanicum spirits recoiled at the presence bleeding through.
—
Obol's helm turned, cold amber optics fixed upon the breach.
"Stand fast." His words fell like iron. "Form a ring!"
The Covenant of Ending formed into a crescent before the warp-rift, each reactor humming in grim harmony. The gale of the ashen world howled louder now, pulled toward the wound in reality.
Obol's voice cut across the noospheric link again, calm and commanding.
"Lances. Illuminate the void. Let us see what dares us."
—
At once, the Knights fired into the gate.
Bolts of plasma, streaks of thermal fire, and arcs of lightning flares tore into the yawning breach.
For a heartbeat, the unnatural dark inside recoiled—forced back by the storm of man-made suns.
The rift burned white-hot, shadows retreating like beasts from flame.
And in that terrible clarity, they saw it.
—
Something vast loomed within.
Not fully emerged, yet close enough for its shape to press against the veil like a hand against thin glass.
Its form was drowned in shadow—save for its chest, pale as moonlit bone.
—
There, carved deep into flesh that glistened like polished marble, was a single mark:
the eight-pointed star of Chaos Undivided.
Fresh, raw, and bleeding black.
The brand pulsed with each slow, thunderous beat of its unseen heart, as if the symbol itself lived and fed.
—
Around it, the flare-light caught only flashes:
A vast blade raised high, silvered edge rippling like liquid, shadows bleeding from it in the shapes of silent screaming faces. Chains hung behind it, each link etched with runes that bled light like torn arteries. And wings—black, tattered things—unfolded for a moment like the silhouette of a guillotine.
—
Even the noosphere faltered. Machine-spirits whimpered in static, reactor-hymns dipping to uneasy whispers.
The flare-light guttered.
And in the instant before darkness swallowed it again, the eight-pointed star glowed brighter, shining back at them from that pale chest, as if mocking their light for daring to believe it could burn away eternity.
—
What they had glimpsed refused to settle neatly into memory. Shapes that shifted, forms that did not belong together, a war-host made of contradictions.
Vorgane's stormcannon braced low, its barrels still hot from the flare-rounds they had fired into the gate. Caldrin's vox carried a crackle of grim amusement.
"Why would they be so mismatched, High-Scion?"
"All shapes, all sizes. Are these Xenos races working together?"
—
Morphael's voice followed, Isera's tone sharp but unsettled.
"Agreed. They bear no uniformity. If these are xenos, then they are of many breeds.
"No civilization binds such different flesh together."
Morvhar's reactor growled, and Thrykos rumbled with bitter humor.
"Then perhaps we face a conclave of races."
"Alien coalitions have risen before. All were broken."
—
The twins came next, their voices braided in the link—Vaeleen's teasing edge dulled now, Vaerin's tone graver.
"Coalitions do not march in perfect sync."
"Nor do they wear the same brand."
Their lances pointing at the symbol.
—
Maeric's voice then cut in, cold and steady, his words sharper than the Ash of Crowns' twin sabres.
"That thing in the middle—the pale one. Look close. A mark upon its chest."
"Some kind of star.... A compass? eight-pointed. The others seem to bow to him."
—
The vox-link hissed with silence. Unease rippled through the Covenant.
That symbol was alien, and yet it felt older than anything they had ever faced.
Obol's helm turned slightly, the Eternal Toll's amber lenses locking on the pale figure beyond the gate. The machine-spirit's hymn deepened into a dirge, as if it too recognized something profane.
"Must be the leader," Obol muttered, his voice low, more to himself than to the others.
The words carried nonetheless, bleeding into the noospheric link.
Even the ancient Throne Mechanicum seemed to echo the thought—an unbidden note of warning vibrating through every circuit.
—
As the warp-gate strained and the air rippled, the Covenant's vox-links carried more than just reactor hum and command-chatter. Thin echoes seeped through, whispers just below the range of thought.
At first, they could have been static.
Then syllables.
Then words.
Then, faintly—through the screaming static of scorched air and crackling auspex—came whispers.
Not in any alien tongue. Not the gibbering of warp-mad things.
Human.
Soft. Almost gentle. A murmur curling through the vox like breath on the back of the neck.
"…kneel…"
"…all will be as one…"
"…remember me…"
The words flickered in and out, layered over one another, too many voices in too few syllables.
For a heartbeat, every pilot went silent in the noosphere.
—
"Do you hear that?" Vaeleen asked, her Knight's optics sweeping the storm.
—
"Just vox distortion," Caldrin dismissed, voice gruff.
"Ash storms twist signals. Ignore it."
—
But for a moment, Maeric swore the whisper had been in Gothic.
A language no alien should know.
He silenced the thought, dismissing it before it could root.
"Interference," he muttered. "Nothing more."
—
And yet, the whispers did not fade. They grew, faint as breath against the ear, threading through the storm like a promise.
One by one, the others muttered affirmation runes and returned to their firing rites,their minds snapping back to formation drills.
But deep within the Throne Mechanicum of Thanatos,Obol felt the faintest chill creep along the old oath-scars on his spine — and said nothing.
—
The gate pulsed.Its light didn't expand so much as bleed, spilling raw luminance across the ash plain. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, bending toward the rift like worshippers bowing.
And then—something crossed through.
A clawed hand, pale as bone left too long in frost, its surface slick with a sheen that was neither flesh nor metal. The fingers were elongated, jointed too many times, each movement trailing shadow that did not belong to the world.
In that hand, the weapon came.
A sword of nightmare—too vast for mortal scale, too wrong for earthly geometry.
Its blade shimmered with overlapping edges, each one a reflection of slaughter past.
Veins of ember-glow ran beneath its surface, like magma trapped in crystal, and runes crawled along its fuller, writhing as though desperate to escape their own confinement.
The hand raised the weapon high, unseen muscle rippling in the silhouette beyond the rift.
—
For a moment, the gate itself seemed to buckle, widening as if straining to contain what lingered behind.
Then the sword leveled.
Straight at them.
—
The Covenant of Ending felt it at once.
Their noospheric link flared with static, the machine-spirits shrieking protest, binharic wards spitting corrupted syllables.
The gesture was not just a threat—it was a declaration.
The ash storm went still.
—
The gate shuddered, and the first shapes spilled through.
They were not uniform, not disciplined, not of any known kind.
Bodies twisted in mockery of life—some loping on all fours, others upright with too many limbs, their hides a patchwork of scales, fur, and iron plates hammered crudely into place.
Their eyes burned with coals that spat sparks when they blinked. Mouths split their faces in jagged lines, some vertical, some horizontal, filled with teeth that dripped molten spit.
Weapons jutted from them as if grown rather than forged—blades fused to wrists, spines grown into spears, chains dragging from their shoulders like leashes cut loose.
Their screams were not words but jagged sounds, half-animal and half-mechanical, every cry carrying the rhythm of drums struck in madness.
—
To the Scions of House Kharon, they were simply xenos—a horde unlike any catalogued by the Cartographia Imperialis. But there was no denying the wrongness that hung about them.
"Xenos," Thrykos spat through Morvhar's vox, his Avenger cannon spinning to life.
"Ugly ones at that."
—
"Ugly or not, they bleed the same," Caldrin added, his voice sharp with eagerness as Vorgane's battle cannon tilted downrange.
—
The tide poured closer, shapes writhing out of the gate in shrieking waves.
For an instant, unease bled through the noospheric link—Scions whispering to themselves about the strangeness of their foe.
—
Obol cut across them with a voice like iron striking an anvil:
"Formation!"
The command rang through their thrones, louder than thought itself.
Thanatos raised its reaper chainsword, teeth growling to life, and pointed it toward the oncoming horde.
"Cinerion—flank left, sabres ready."
"Morphael, anchor right, keep that spear hot."
"Morvhar, your cannon—sweep their front line."
"Vorgane, sight in, I want bombardment on my mark."
"Phorxys—forward screen, carve their charge."
"Kaelthorn, shields high, brace the line."
Every reactor pulsed in unison, their thunder rolling across the ashen plain.
Thanatos' amber eyes narrowed, locking on the writhing tide.Obol's voice dropped, cold as the ash storm around them.
"House Kharon—the toll is called. Let them pay it."
—
At once, the Covenant obeyed.
Thanatos's thermal lance spat a sun-hot beam that ripped through the storm, turning sleet to boiling vapor.
Cinerion's twin sabres crossed and unleashed arcs of shearing plasma.
Morphael's gauntlet cracked thunder as its spear flared, hurling molten death into the haze.
Morvhar's Avenger screamed, shell-casings pouring like brass rain.
Vorgane's battle cannon bellowed, seismic claw grinding as recoil shuddered.
Phorxys lanced twin bolts of lightning, shrieking forks of white fire.
Kaelthorn's stormshield surged, anchoring the line against the backlash as its heavy weapon spat in kind.
Together, seven beams and storms of fire converged on the horizon.
The storm buckled. The strange gate shuddered, its edges straining wider, bleeding light that should not exist.
Still Obol's command echoed through the noosphere.
"Keep firing."