Merseyside, Hive Twenty-Three.
Corvus Corax gazed down at the darkness below through a narrow viewport.
The Darkwing Pattern Storm Eagle Gunship passed silently through the hive's deep-probe matrix, arriving above the industrial processing zone.
The Storm Eagle was a complement to the Stormbird and Thunderhawk, smaller, carrying only twenty Astartes in its standard configuration.
The Darkwing was built on Kiavahr, its design not shared with the Mechanicum, a unique pattern of the Raven Guard.
The quantum field suppressor took up space, reducing the Darkwing's capacity by three warriors, but allowed the assault craft to pass unseen through most surveillance areas.
A stream of runes scrolled across Corax's helmet display. He opened the comms. "Deploy!"
With Nareth's aid, breaking through the fortress, a task the Raven Guard were unsuited for, it was now time to repay him in kind.
Short-range comm pulses reached the portable radios of the Shadow Masters. Hatches slid open in silence.
Corax launched into the night, the raven-wings of his Shadow Armor spreading wide.
The Lord of Ravens glided silently, his black eyes scanning the food processing plant below.
War had not halted production. Machines rumbled, much as they had on Lycaeus before it was renamed Deliverance.
Cascades of filthy waste passed through layer after layer of shaking filters, then, along with algae scraped from the lower surfaces of reservoir pools, were fed into the open chutes of pasteurizers.
Dazed laborers, without filtration masks, breathed unfiltered ammonia, working amidst splashes of foul, stinking grime.
Corax's black eyes focused on a foreman pacing a gantry above a great ammonia pool.
A pistol hung at his hip. His whip cracked across a worker's back.
Corax twisted, diving for the foreman.
The three-headed power whip, crafted by the Mechanicum for the Primarch, crackled as its disintegration field activated, coiling around the foreman like a serpent of lightning.
"Who?" The Merseyside Low Gothic was close to Terran.
Corax understood. "No one has the right to deny another their freedom."
The lightning-serpent yanked the foreman from the gantry. With a thud, his charred remains fell.
Corax was the first to land. He hugged the shadows, racing through the factory's surveillance systems.
He did not wait for the Shadow Masters. He often encouraged his subordinates to think independently, making command more flexible, precisely so he could act alone.
He moved through the shadows, heading for the area where the high-spectral augur array showed dense flickering runes.
A rush of mixed exhaust gasses swept past him. He saw scattered beams of light firing wildly.
He caught a familiar scent, the smell of the unknown, of fear.
He launched himself skyward, landing on a water tower, looking into the distance.
Shadows darted through the grimy industrial haze, like scorpions in the desert, leaping over rubble, reaching the defenders' towers in an instant.
Corax's claws twitched. A strange, familiar-yet-foreign feeling clashed within him.
The shadows moved in a way remarkably similar to his Shadow Masters, but they were not marked on his tactical display.
They were not his Shadow Masters.
Shadow Masters were sons who inherited his gift, able to conceal themselves as he could.
He had discovered his own talent in the prison of Lycaeus as a child: by focusing completely on himself, he could become invisible.
He suspected this natural ability to hide from humans and xenos was, in fact, psychic power.
Having witnessed humanity's rejection of psykers, he kept his gift hidden from most of the Raven Guard. When his sons displayed the same trait, he took them away, training them as Shadow Masters.
He had an unwanted memory of cooperation with Konrad Curze during the Farinatus Extermination.
He had found that some Night Lords possessed similar abilities. Now, he saw them in another Legion.
His black eyes fell upon a shadow.
The dim figure quickly grew clear.
Black Mark IV power armor. On the right pauldron, a phantom-like rose.
The Shadow Rose.
The Tenth Chapter of the Shadows of Order.
Corax thought, intrigued. The Tenth Chapter's Terminators had borne the brunt of the assault on the Gate Forty-two. He hadn't expected them to excel at stealth as well.
As he watched, the three Shadows of Order pressed runes, activating their chainswords.
They slipped from the shadows, appearing behind the defenders.
Blades spun. Enemies were torn apart.
A cascade of blood fell. The surviving defenders, unable to locate the Shadows of Order, fired blindly in panic.
Corax's eyes gleamed. He leaped from the tower.
He moved swiftly between the spires, watching the Shadow of Order strike from concealment.
Even his superhuman hearing could only catch a faint whisper of air as they moved.
He watched the shadow-wreathed blades grow larger in his vision.
'Their chainswords are very different from Imperial patterns, similar to the Krakensmaw that Russ lost to Nareth, with fang-like teeth.'
Corax studied the chainsword's teeth, interlocking blades of diamond and fang.
Stranger still, the teeth, wreathed in thick shadow, seemed to pass through layers of veil, their sound swallowed.
When the blades struck, the defenders shuddered.
'The Shadow of Order also has Shadow Masters.'
'But they feel different from mine.'
'Compared to ravens, they are more like...'
Corax watched the defenders shudder and collapse, finding the right word: scorpions.
He watched the Shadows of Order strike from corners and crevices, confirming his word choice.
They were like scorpion tails, striking and then withdrawing.
He moved towards a spire for a closer look.
Suddenly, one of a three-man team leaped from a window, clinging to the spire's wall, looking around alertly.
He was the scorpion's tail of the assault squad, a true "Shadow Ascetic," more perceptive than the other two claws.
The "Shadow Ascetic's" ears twitched, a gift from his time as a "Listener."
During the war against the Nephilim, he had accidentally detected their high-frequency communications, allowing him to hear far more than other "Listeners."
The powerful, pounding heartbeat, the rush of air in flight, it made his blood run cold.
Calmly, he marked the location on his helmet. "Two seconds."
The two claws struck first, their chainswords swinging.
The tail moved, lunging above the crossing blades.
Clang!
Corax's claws deflected the shadow-wreathed blade.
"You saw me."
With a slight gesture of his claws, the "Shadow Ascetic" was hurled back.
The three "Shadow Ascetics" stared at the giant figure that had materialized before them, like a massive raven in the air.
The blast of air ruffled his feathers, his wings carrying him aloft. Like a true raven, he vanished into the darkness.
"Lord Corax?" The "Shadow Ascetic," recognizing the more powerful pulse than their own Chapter Master, spoke.
He opened a comm channel to report to his Chapter Master.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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