---
Purgatory's skies were the color of clotted blood.
Ash drifted down in lazy spirals over the scorched Administratum square, clinging to Inquisitor Horst's black coat. The air stank of burnt promethium and old stone. Even through the filter of his rebreather, Horst tasted ruin: metallic and bitter.
He stood at the edge of the shattered vault where the Hand of Darkness had been kept, only it wasn't there anymore. Just a crater, half melted bulkheads and scorched prayer plaques blackened to unreadable slag.
Horst's jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
He didn't say a word.
He didn't need to.
Behind him, his acolyte, Illyra, shifted her weight from foot to foot. Young, pale, shoulders hunched in her robe, as if she could shrink out of sight. Her gaze kept flicking to Horst, searching for words.
"Speak," he snapped, voice like cracked glass.
Illyra jumped, swallowed, then said, "Th-the Mechanicus teams confirm it, my lord. The vault was breached with thermal charges. No obvious corruption or glyphs left behind. Nothing but… scorched metal."
Horst's breath hissed between his teeth. His gloved hand curled, knuckles whitening around the hilt of his cane. He forced himself not to slam it into the decking.
Instead, he turned, coat sweeping through grey ash. "Who?"
Illyra flinched under the stare. "No clear markings on the attackers, my lord. Witnesses say black and brass armor. Not Death Guard. Lighter build. Possible Corsairs.
Horst's eyes narrowed. "Corsairs," he repeated, voice low, dangerous. "They'd have the nerve. And the skill."
He spat a curse under his breath something crude and old in High Gothic the words tasting like blood.
Horst stepped closer to the ruin. The heat still radiated, tickling the skin through the leather of his gloves. His reflection wavered in a patch of molten ceramite, ghost-pale and grim.
All those safeguards. Centuries of secrecy. And it wasn't enough.
He felt the old knot of frustration tighten in his chest, thick as a barbed chain. It wasn't anger at the enemy it was at the Imperium. At its blindness, its slow turning gears, its faith in stone walls and oaths instead of vigilance.
For a moment, the weight of years pressed down. The compromises. The burnt worlds. The prayers that hadn't saved anyone.
His breath came ragged. He slammed the data-slate he carried against the twisted vault door. The crack of plasteel on scorched iron echoed, sharp and final.
Illyra winced, took a step back, eyes downcast.
Another acolyte approached: an older man, broad shouldered, with vox implants glinting along his neck. Veritas, the voice they called him for his gift of memory, and for the fact Horst trusted him more than most.
"My lord," Veritas began, measured, "we recovered partial pict records from the outer servitors. It shows a squad in black and brass plate. Close formations. They moved like they'd done this a hundred times before."
Horst didn't look up. "And nothing from inside?"
Veritas hesitated. "Inside vault pict feeds were… scrubbed. Like they never existed."
Horst let out a slow, tight breath, fighting the urge to snarl. "They were inside the system before they breached the walls," he muttered. "Or had help."
He turned, fixing Veritas with a stare sharp enough to flay. "Go through every file. Cross check every name that's had access to the vault in the last century. Ecclesiarchy, Mechanicus, Administratum, Inquisition. Everyone."
Veritas nodded once. "It will be done, my lord."
"Start with the priests," Horst added, voice scraping low. "They kneel easily to new gods."
The square felt colder as the sun dipped behind blackened towers. Smoke drifted in slow, oily sheets.
Horst turned back to Illyra. "The Eye of Night," he said. "If they have the Hand, they'll go for it next. It's too clean a pattern."
Illyra's lips parted. "Ornsworld, my lord?"
Horst nodded, a short, sharp gesture. "Signal the Ascendance. Prepare to break orbit. We leave as soon as the warp currents allow."
Illyra swallowed, gathering courage. "My lord, the Navigators report the warp is... unsettled. A storm rising."
Horst's gaze snapped to hers. "Chaos doesn't wait for calm seas," he growled. "Let's go, we do not have any time."
For a second, something like pity flickered across Illyra's features. But she bowed her head and hurried away, robes whispering across scorched stone.
—
Left alone, Horst exhaled, breath steaming in the ruin chilled air.
He felt the burn of exhaustion in his ribs, the ache of old scars deep under the coat. The years caught up with him in moments like this. Not in battle, but in silence.
He touched the Inquisitorial rosette at his chest. Its weight felt heavier than ever. So many had worn it. So many had failed.
Will I join them?
His hand trembled, just for a moment. Then it stilled.
"Not yet," he whispered, the words ragged. "Not yet."
—
They reached Planet Ned days later, warp had rejected them due to turbulence. On arrival, Horst barely paused to eat, his mouth dry and throat raw from hours of curt orders.
Astropathic vox picked up the first reports: a small Chaos landing force near the ancient god statue where the Eye of Night lay. Black and brass armor again. Chaos.
An Imperial Guard recruiting force nearby had counter attacked, outnumbered but desperate, and forced them back. For a heartbeat, hope flared in Horst's chest.
But hope in the Gothic Sector was as short lived as a candle in a gale.
—
A month later, the real strike came.
Night Lord warships barbed, predatory, painted in blue and tarnished bronze blockaded Ornsworld. Then they descended, methodical as a butcher's blade.
Horst watched the hololithic feed in the ship, each red rune marking a burning settlement. Villages flattened by orbital strikes. Whole hills carpet bombed until nothing living remained. Ratling civilians fled in panic, tiny figures on grainy pict feeds, swallowed by flame and shell.
His jaw clenched so hard it ached. A muscle under his eye twitched. He tasted iron where he'd bitten his tongue.
Veritas stood beside him, silent. Illyra hovered near the hololith, knuckles white where she gripped her data-slate.
"The Eye?" Horst forced the word past clenched teeth.
Illyra's voice cracked. "It's… it's gone, my lord. Torn from the statue. The Night Lords withdrew as soon as they had it."
Silence hung, heavy as the grave.
Horst stared at the shifting runes, barely seeing them. He wanted to scream. To curse. To do something. His hand trembled. Instead, he turned it into a fist, nails digging into his palm until they bit flesh.
"They've got them both," he whispered, voice shaking with restrained rage. "The Hand of Darkness and the Eye of Night."
Illyra swallowed. "What… what will they do with them, my lord?"
Horst turned on her, eyes burning. "If I knew, I wouldn't be standing here helpless!" The words cracked out, sharper than he meant.
Illyra flinched, shoulders curling inward. For a moment, regret flickered across Horst's face then vanished, buried under iron.
He exhaled, the breath shaking. "I'm sorry," he muttered. Barely audible.
---
Alone later, in his darkened chamber, Horst pressed fingers to his temple, trying to knead away the ache. His mind replayed every report, every rumor, the pattern taking cruel shape.
The Gothic Sector was the throat of the Imperium in the north. And the Blackstone Fortresses were the knife pressed to that throat ancient alien constructs, their purpose barely understood, but rumored to be weapons capable of cracking planets.
If Chaos meant to awaken them...
Horst's stomach turned. His chest felt tight, breath shallow.
---
Veritas entered quietly, as he always did. "My lord," he began, voice low. "The warp storms are worsening. Astropathic contact with Segmentum Command may be lost within the day."
Horst nodded, voice hoarse. "Then send the message now."
He dictated, slow, cold, words like falling blades:
"To Segmentum Obscurus High Command. Chaos forces have secured Hand of Darkness and Eye of Night. Gothic Sector will likely be be targeted. Reinforce Blackstone Fortresses. Prepare for full scale incursion. Act immediately."
Veritas bowed, turned to leave.
Horst just watched him go.
---
As the days stretched into weeks, the reports grew darker.
Scourged warbands spotted raiding supply convoys near the Hadex Anomaly. A traitor fleet glimpsed near the Orbal Asteroid Belt, then gone again like smoke.
But no open battle. Nothing the Navy could pin down.
Horst's frustration turned acid. He felt it in his bones, old anger mixed with dread. Every hour he paced the strategium decks, cloak stirring the incense‑heavy air, mind gnawing at the same bitter thought: They're waiting for something.
---
A solar month after Horst's arrival in the silent cold watch between ship night and ship dawn the Warp itself shuddered.
It began as a low, stomach‑knotting pressure, like standing too close to an unshielded reactor. The deck vibrated underfoot, faint but growing.
Bridge crew exchanged wary glances. Even the Mechanicus adepts paused, runes flickering across their augmetic eyes.
Horst felt the pressure too: a sense of something vast, hungry, awake.
"What is it?" he barked, voice cracking the hush.
A junior Navigator, face ashen, whispered, "My lord… the currents are folding in on themselves. The Warp is… convulsing."
Then the shockwave came.
---
The sector was swallowed
The hololithic display flared white‑hot. Vox channels shrieked, a tortured chorus of static and machine spirits howling in fear. Servitors slumped in their cradles, data‑feeds bleeding nonsense runes.
For one heartbeat, the entire Gothic Sector on the hololith seemed to vanish drowned under a sea of flickering Warp storm glyphs.
Illyra staggered, catching herself against the plotting table. Horst barely kept his feet, every scar on his body burning as if remembering a hundred past wounds.
When the glare faded, the hololith showed only ruin.
A vast tempest, swirling with sickly Warp light, engulfed the sector: systems cut off, trade routes drowned, astropathic beacons gone dark.
The Gothic Sector stood alone, a fortress now sealed inside a hurricane of raw immaterium.
---
Horst's mouth tasted of old copper and bile. He steadied himself, breath ragged, hand braced on the brasswork.
Veritas's voice came low, almost reverent in its dread. "The Warp has turned against us, my lord. We've lost contact with Segmentum Command. No astropathic reply. No reinforcements coming."
Horst forced words past dry lips, the weight of them crushing.
"Get me a drink" He ordered. As he sat and started thinking as wine was placed near the Inquisitor, he nursed his wine as he started thinking.
For a few heartbeats, no one spoke.
On the bridge's upper gallery, a choir of robed adepts knelt before a cracked Aquila, chanting fractured litanies to soothe the terrified machine spirits.
Below, the cogitator banks pulsed an eerie red, as if bleeding.
Illyra looked at Horst eyes wide, face pale, sweat matting strands of hair to her brow.
"My lord," she whispered, voice cracking. "What now?"
Horst straightened, shoulders screaming with old pain, breath coming harsh.
"Now?" His voice was hoarse, cold iron under the exhaustion. "Now we prepare to meet them."
He turned back to the hololith, its runes swimming, the Gothic Sector ringed in storm fire.
Deep in his chest, beneath fear and weariness, a spark of grim purpose flared. He would not let the dark have them easily.
They would face the coming night standing. And if the stars themselves burned… they would burn with them.
—
Word Count: 1900
Hey, if you're enjoying the ride, do me a solid follow, review, and favourite this story. It keeps the fire burning on my end and makes sure it doesn't get buried under a mountain of other fics.
Thanks for reading and if you're hungry for more, check out my patreon.
patreon.com/Kratos5627