Chapter 464: Death Guard: "Sire, the Time has Come for Your Sons to Save You"
BOOM!
Another Great Unclean One fell, its mountainous bulk dissolving into a shrieking pile of liquefying filth.
Simultaneously, a Lord of Change collapsed, its iridescent feathers turning to grey ash.
Though both were spiraling toward oblivion, their countenances were polar opposites. One was a mask of despair and agony; the other bore a mocking, delighted grin—reflections of the differing attitudes of their respective masters.
This was but a single gear-turn in the Great Game, yet its nature had fundamentally shifted. The battlefield that would decide the fate of this war was neither here in the void nor on the surface of Macragge, but behind them—
At Calth.
As he was dragged back into the command sanctum of the battleship by his battle-brothers, Caipha Morarg lifted his heavy head.
His body was regenerating. The Chaos Sorcerers had exhausted every malefic ritual to mend his frame, only to find that the most effective remedy was the ancient medical residues they had discarded in the apothecarion millennia ago. As the writhing muscle knit itself back together, a torrent of thought flooded his mind.
It was unprecedented.
Why are we fighting here? Do I bleed for my Gene-father or for the Grandfather? Does Nurgle truly care for us?
The Death Guard were drifting further into a state of vegetative stupor, and Morarg pondered the cost.
Since plunging into the Garden of Nurgle, he had rarely allowed himself such introspection, such doubt.
Morarg rose from his brief recovery, his hand instinctively brushing against the leather-bound tome gifted to him by Vorx, Lord of the Silence warband.
Vorx's death weighed heavily on him. He was one of the few souls within the XIV Legion Morarg could still speak to with any semblance of kinship.
Since the end of the Great Heresy, the Legion had been festering under the influence of Typhus—a creature whose arrogance was as nauseating as his stench. During the long aeons when Mortarion had stepped away from the direct command of his sons, the "convert's zeal" of the newer members had become repulsive.
They wallowed in sorcery, served the Plague God with fanatical devotion, and in their madness, had forgotten they even possessed a Gene-father. Most were so numb they no longer recognized their own existence, leaving Morarg with no one to share his burdens.
If the Legion had become this... were they truly acting on Mortarion's will?
Had the Grandfather betrayed the pact He made with the Death Lord?
A fog of doubt, thicker than any miasma, enveloped him.
Morarg moved to the edge of the command dais and keyed the vox-arrays, desperately seeking a link to Mortarion, craving strength from his Sire.
Unlike the other Legions, the Death Guard had always prided themselves on their singular loyalty to Mortarion. The sons of Barbarus were, and always would be, the Death Lord's most faithful children.
BOOM!
Another spell from a Lord of Change struck home.
Pink, unnatural flames lashed against the hull, igniting vast sections of armor and vaporizing the micro-organisms within the living ship-flesh, rendering the superstructure as brittle as dry parchment.
Then came the Flamers of Tzeentch, tearing through the bulkheads to systematically purge those warriors who shared the deepest metaphysical links with Mortarion and Nurgle.
These Tzeentchian daemons fought with a strange confidence, as if by pinning the Nurgle host here, they were facilitating an event of cosmic significance.
Morarg looked up from the glowing screens, surveying the command deck.
The Death Guard were fighting back with a numb, mechanical efficiency. The living corridors of the ship sprayed digestive ichor; various creatures crawled from the darkened vents to crash against the intruders.
He lowered his head again, waiting for a reply that never came.
Had his Sire failed?
Or was this simply another layer of a grand strategy, another cycle of waiting for the world to reset?
Something has changed.
The crushing weight that had sat upon their shoulders for ten thousand years had not vanished, but it had shifted. It was now laid bare. Morarg could feel something breaking. His mind and body were left with only the physical exhaustion of weeks without sleep, and—
Clarity.
The malice had withdrawn.
The voices in his head had gone silent.
The book at his side trembled, emitting a strange, pulsing radiance. He saw his brothers moving around him—the old veterans of the fleet, the true sons of Barbarus.
Though their faces had been eroded by rust and rot over the long millennia, Morarg found he could suddenly recognize them. He could see through the fungal growths and the pitted ceramite fused to the bridge consoles. He remembered their names.
They had always been there, but only now did he remember who they were.
He knew when they had arrived. He knew whom they had replaced.
His vision was clearing; the mist was receding.
This filled Morarg with an instinctive dread. Something fundamental had been altered, but he could not grasp the thread.
He shifted in his command throne, desperate for a word from his Sire. He adjusted a control valve, entering a private encrypted frequency. Military reports flooded in, encoded in a cipher only he could break, from sources only he could reach.
Suddenly, the tactical map before him looked like a scene of absolute chaos. The Plague Marines were fighting in isolation, without coordination or communication. The discipline and resilience the Death Guard once prided themselves on had vanished in this state of stagnation.
Is this new? Morarg frowned.
Or has it been this way for a very long time?
He began to override the commands of the scattered squads.
He would take charge himself.
There were no other commanders nearby. Ku'Gath was preoccupied protecting his Godblight on another vessel. Morarg gathered what forces he could, directing them toward what he believed to be a relatively secure vector. His makeshift army grew rapidly—warriors from seven different brotherhoods and a significant number of warships, all relics of the Great Crusade era.
Under his direction, they began to claw back some ground, though the progress was agonizingly slow. Under the fleet's cover, they destroyed preset defenses, allowing the infantry to surge from the shadows to finish the survivors.
They repeated the cycle, again and again, ignoring their wounds, ignoring the energy they expended, ignoring the damage their physical bodies endured.
Morarg felt as if he were being guided by an unseen hand.
As the command structure stabilized, more and more warriors converged on his position. For the first time in centuries, they looked like a Legion again. Void-ships ascended and descended on powerful gravity platforms, ferrying troops to landing zones carved out of the chaotic reefs of the Warp.
Upon one such reef, Morarg led his troops to regroup. They maintained a low profile as the walls around them thundered with the impact of naval macro-shells.
The floor was a carpet of the dead—incomplete, charred, reduced to ash.
He heard the sound of clashing blades and gunfire ahead and ordered his men to double their pace.
Someone was waiting for him.
A Plague Sorcerer of the Silence warband lay slumped against a massive support pillar, his life-force guttering like a candle. His staff was scorched black. The lenses of his helm were dark, and the writhing tentacles on his armor were either dead or shriveled into husks.
Morarg ran to him, kneeling in the oily filth to lift the sorcerer's head.
"Vorx," he said with deep respect.
He knew this body did not belong to the true Vorx, yet he recognized the soul within.
Morarg respected this noble brother. Compared to the Death Guard who had lost themselves in the long dark, Vorx had remained temperate, loathing mindless strife, a thinker who even authored books.
Even Nurgle had praised his writings, for life had been birthed from within his compiled pages.
Daemons.
It was a rarity. Most of the Death Guard were so "blessed" by the Warp that they were effectively senile—forgetting who they were or even who they were fighting mid-battle.
Morarg still cherished the gift this brother had given him.
"I thought you were dead," Vorx coughed weakly, reaching out to find Morarg.
He seemed to be blind, or perhaps the vessel he inhabited no longer possessed the function of sight.
Morarg grasped his hand.
He knew these brothers had fallen in battle against the Dawnbreakers, and those caught by the 1st Legion were destined for oblivion. But a brother was a brother.
"I am... for the most part, dead," Vorx said with a tragic smile.
"Perhaps the Lion is more merciful than the other four Lords. At least he granted me a moment of clarity before the end."
"Clear thought," he emphasized.
"That joke isn't funny," Morarg replied, his voice tight.
Unlike creatures like Typhus, who used the Primarch's favor to act with impunity, these veterans held a genuine, heart-felt respect for Mortarion—not just for his power, but for everything he symbolized.
The idea of the Lion choosing "mercy" was as absurd as Lorgar converting back to the Imperial Truth.
"Ha. Treat it as a joke then."
Vorx looked at Morarg, who seemed unchanged by the ages, and the sorrow in his eyes deepened.
Look at what we have become.
They still yearned for beauty, for unity, yet reality was a meat-grinder.
"Have you escaped?" Morarg asked with concern.
"I told you," Vorx replied. "I am dying."
It was the bottom line of the Dawnbreakers: they did not torture their fallen kin. That principle was being inherited by the Legions they influenced.
They would die, but it would be quick.
No chance for atonement, no need to face their mistakes like the Dark Angels.
"...Then why did you find me?"
Morarg guessed his companion's intent. He was able to contact him likely because of the book he had been given.
It wasn't strange. Vorx's book could birth daemons; it would only be finished when he passed away.
In this kaleidoscopic universe, someone always had a unique trick. No one—not even the Gods—could claim to fully understand the Empyrean.
"Order them to leave," Vorx said, gesturing toward the fleet behind Morarg.
"You must come with us."
"No. No." Vorx shook his head.
"There is no time."
He tried to stand, and strangely, blood began to gout from the seals of his armor.
"The Death Lord... he is fighting Lord Karna. It is a war that cannot be won."
He began to explain, his words spilling out with the blood.
"Our Father is in danger. Nurgle intends to sacrifice him. You are too slow. You must all go to him. You must. Quickly!"
The dying Lord's soul was drifting away, his speech becoming a slur.
Morarg leaned in, trying to catch the fragmented words.
"Where is he? Where are they fighting?"
"Calth. Still at Calth."
Vorx's helmet lolled against the pillar.
"Right behind us. Go to him. All of you."
The landing zones were numerous and vast.
Their extensions occupied most of the void-reef. It might take the Death Guard days to defeat the Tzeentchian host and breach this position, and then they would have to face ninety-nine more such reefs.
"All this time... we never fought for our Father. we fought to fulfill His ambition. Our Father was forced to sacrifice everything long ago, and now, He intends to discard him. Even if you succeed, the Godblight will create a new son for Nurgle. But our Father? He will simply be abandoned."
Vorx spoke with profound grief.
Perhaps it was better to die on the spot, to not have to face this truth with a clear mind.
It was too much for a Death Guard to bear.
In the Lion's "forest," the expected resistance was often non-existent. Those Death Guard who were removed from the Plague God's immediate influence became eerily quiet, capable of calm communication. This shocked the Calibanites and Dark Angels guarding them.
But following the rules set by the Dawnbreakers, the guards did not respond. There was no pity.
Silence is the only answer for the damned.
No. Perhaps there was still a chance.
Vorx clawed at his head.
But he truly didn't know what to do.
"Save him. Go to Calth. Even if it means dying together."
He could only repeat that sentence, instinctively refusing to allow the Legion to obey the Plague God's orders again. He wanted them to resist.
Stop wasting time here with Tzeentch. Stop dying for Nurgle's commands. Think about what they truly wanted to do.
"This is too greedy! Too absurd!" Morarg cursed in disbelief. "And how can you be sure this isn't a lie woven by another god? We have seen the face of that one."
"When are the Gods not greedy?" Vorx challenged. "He exploited the Gene-father's kindness. He wove a colossal lie with Typhus. Now the lie is shattered, and He is struggling. He will choose to abandon everything and pour His malice into others."
"As for whether this is a lie... does that even matter now?"
"..."
Morarg fell into silence.
Did it matter?
Yes.
But compared to Mortarion?
No.
Mortarion had liberated them.
This was something the other traitor Legions and later rebels could never truly understand. Vorx, and many of the Death Guard, were not blind fanatics. He knew the Primarch had weaknesses. He knew the Gene-father could fail. In the war against the slave-masters of Barbarus, it was the Imperial fleet that had brought the final, decisive liberation.
But he would never forget that first struggle for freedom.
Unless you had personally gasped for air on the foul, white soil of that hell-world; unless you had witnessed the High Overlords of Barbarus treading upon the terrified mortals with impunity; unless you had seen what the Death Lord did to free them—you could never truly understand.
This was why, despite the hybridized filth that was Typhus and the countless Chaos warlords and pirate kings trying to erode Mortarion's influence to satisfy their own greed, the Death Guard had never truly broken.
Because the first generation of the Legion was still grateful. They would never forget what Mortarion did.
And Vorx was one of them.
Why did Mortarion often fly into a rage at stinging words?
Because he truly cared. He truly loved what he possessed, but he knew his own catastrophic decisions had ruined it all. His tendency to drift with the tide had harmed many.
Mortarion's tragedy was that he was a Primarch who was expected to be unshakable and flawless, yet within that demi-god's frame lived a man who was ordinary, prone to influence, and capable of error.
Vorx stopped speaking. The conversation ended abruptly.
His soul had completely departed the vessel.
"..."
There was no need for more questions.
Morarg understood perfectly.
"As you command."
He spoke the words as a vow, lifting Vorx's broken remains so they would not slide back into the filth.
"I swear it, honored Lord of Silence."
The uncrowned lord of the Death Guard, Mortarion's equerry, made his promise.
"I will see it done. I will reach the Death Lord's side, even if it is a road to certain death."
Then, he stood up.
The Death Guard were advancing ahead. The churning tracks of plague-tanks kicked up mounds of sludge as they charged an enemy position.
Morarg's warriors were right behind them.
"All units, halt."
He issued the command, ordering the offensive to stop.
"New objective."
He switched his helm-display to the tactical map of the Calth Sector.
The road ahead would be grueling.
The gaze of the Nurgle daemons around him changed. The machine-spirits of the Plague Fleet were struggling, sensing the shift.
Perhaps this was another plot of a Chaos God. Perhaps his "free will" was an illusion, another choice determined long ago. Perhaps they would arrive only to find themselves blocked by thousands of enemies. Perhaps they would have to face a Primarch...
Think, Morarg. Without coercion. Do what you truly want to do.
Try it, at least. See if it can be done this time.
"Fix a vector for the nearest shipping lane," he commanded, facing the rising tide of malice surrounding them.
"We are going back."
"This is the general situation in Greater Ultramar."
Arthur waited for everyone to finish reviewing the star charts and the contingencies against Nurgle's "sore loser" protocols.
Seeing the others lost in thought over the data, he further expanded the central holographic projection.
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