Profile of an Enemy - A Chaos Lord on the Rise

Grandmaster Emrys of the Grey Knights took his seat opposite the head of the long, narrow table. Already gathered were most of the Inquisitor Lord's retinue and other agents. Seated to his immediate left was Coren Lomak, a former hiver whose job it was to make sure that no unauthorised personnel were in the room. Emrys knew that the man posed him no threat, even though he was currently only wearing his Astartes robes, having given his ancient Terminator armour and weapons to his artificer for repair and restoration. But Lomak was a warrior of superb skill nonetheless, and to an non-Astartes posed more threat that any other person currently in the room.

To his right was a being whose very existence made Emrys uncomfortable. One of the now legendary blunters, or "nulls" as they were sometimes called, those with no psychic presense whatsoever, Teem Alastaire was looking her usual regal self. Emrys had grown accustomed to her presense over the years, and was surprised to find himself comforted by the fact that the Emperor had brought such beings into the service of the Inquisiton. Countless Inquisitors' lives had been saved imply by having these persons near them in times of conflict. While this sometimes got in the way of those with psychic abilities, most Inquisitors still found them useful, especially in the Ordo Malleus where psychic attack was imminent no matter the situation.

Emrys had no further time for reflection as the arrival of several combat servitors, ugly looking with gleaming weapons of like to a power fist welded to their metal and flesh bodies, heralded the arrival of Inquisitor Lord Artos Procius of the Ordo Malleus. He strode in with all the confidence of a Malleus Lord, resplendent in a fine suit of Power Armour that he wore when not in combat, guilded with gold and the Imperial Aquila. Emrys found it interesting that he had actually never seen the Inquisitor Lord not in armour. When he took to the field of battle, Artos always wore a sacred suit of Terminator Armour, gifted to him by the Grey Knights huundreds of years ago for his service to the Chapter during the Graftmar Heresy Reclamation Crusade. Emrys himself had served in that campaign, serving in the Purgation Squad of Justicar Koller as a Psycannon gunner. In a strange way, the respective careers of the two had always been connected, solidified the day that Emrys had been given command of a task force put under the direction of Artos. This meeting was, presumably, to launch the fourth of such task forces.

The Inquisitor Lord and the Grey Knight exchanged nods of greeting before Artos took his seat at the head of the table. With no ceremony, customary of the was Artos preferred to conduct his meetings, the Inquisitor nodded to his communications officer, Laine Drokonachak, which was the signal to begin the meeting. Laine stood and activated the holoviewer in the center of the table.

The viewer flickered to life, revealing a broad rendering of the Eye of Terror. To the north and east, relative to the map as it currently displayed the image, was a highlighted dot, marked Belial IV, a Crone world, deserted and left to rot by the Eldar ten thousand years ago, before the Emperor's Great Crusade was launched from Terra. Emrys wondered why the Ordo Malleus would be interested in such a world, as the Ordo Xenos declared that it should be avoided millenia ago.

"The world Belial IV, known as the Eldar Blacksword World, was abandoned by the Xenos even before the Emperor's Gret Crusade. No force currently contests this world, but it has always been believed by Malleus scholars that the world had something major to do with the fall of the ancient Eldar society. The world has remained barren, isolated, and altogether unadulterated for centuries. That is, until a routine Xenos surveying party was attacked five months ago by an as yet unidentified and unquantified threat, presumed by the Ordo Xenos to be alien in origin and a possible indicator of alien aggression in a sub-sector that has been historically quiet. Agents of Ordo Xenos were dispatched to investigate the attack, but none has returned or sent any communication after the confirmations that they arrived in system."

Laine looked to Artos after the initial brief, and the Inquisitor Lord nodded. Clearing her throat, Laine continued.

"It is well known throughout the Ordos that every Ordo keeps tabs on the others, infiltrating agents and securing a line of information that can be passed to higher Lords, able to root out heresies that crop up. One such agent of the Ordo Malleus was posted on the flagship of the Xenos fleet. He was able to get one of the astropaths aboard the ship to send a message back before their ship was, presumably, destroyed in an ambush. The pict capture that he sent showed us this."

The screen turned to a fuzzy holopict capture of a ship. Definitely not Xenos in origin, it bore the symbols of a traitor fleet, loyal to the chaos god slaanesh. Emrys recognized the despised heraldry and mumbled a prayer of cleanliness to the Emperor. His eyes locked with Lord Artos', and the two nodded in silent agreement. This is what Emrys had been called in for.

Traitor marines. That meant chaos, and chaos meant daemons.

The rest of the meeting was about logistics, tactial information and a plan of entry into the Belial system that would allow Emrys' Grey Knights to properly survey the activity of the traitors in the system.

This short fiction is an introduction into a narrative campaign that I will be doing in the near future. Stay tuned for forces, battle reports, and more story.

The Emperor protects,

D.G.