Chapter 316: Recording a Death Guard Campaign—Against the Eldar
"Warmaster? Not interested."
Mortarion said slowly. From beneath his hood, his eyes flicked toward Ferrus and Vulkan, then drifted away again, as if he couldn't be bothered.
It was hard to tell whether he was deliberately provoking Ferrus or not, but Vulkan could feel the magma stirring faintly beneath Ferrus's cold, metallic shell. He sighed and changed the subject.
"Perhaps we should review our next target—Planet 154-4. In the local tongue, it's called Ibsen."
"Wait."
Mortarion raised a hand.
"I need to be clear about who's in command of this campaign—it'll save me a lot of trouble later."
Vulkan spoke.
"I am."
Before the words were fully out, Mortarion narrowed his eyes. His gaze moved back and forth between Vulkan and Ferrus, clearly doubting that Vulkan was the one leading the operation.
From the aura of the two Primarchs, Ferrus seemed much more like the leader.
In truth, Vulkan himself didn't quite understand why he had been chosen—Ferrus would've been the more logical choice. But the Departmento Munitorum had decided otherwise.
Mortarion fell silent for a moment, memorizing this strange bit of bureaucracy. Then, his sharp gaze slid away, and he spoke again, casually:
"Whether or not you're a Warmaster candidate—as long as the strategy is sound, the Death Guard will follow your orders."
Vulkan pressed his lips together. He recalled the last time he had seen Mortarion—the burning hive cities, and the rumors… of human worlds wiped clean under Exterminatus.
Even now, Mortarion gave the impression of a scythe wrapped in filthy rags—seemingly subdued, yet always glinting with venomous cold light in the smallest, unguarded moments.
"Mortarion—you're not to use chemical weapons, or any kind of area-denial toxins. Avoid civilian casualties. Even though this planet is currently under Eldar control, the Imperium needs it intact. We need its resources."
Mortarion said nothing. The miasma coiling around him seemed to thicken until it almost swallowed him whole.
They heard two slow, heavy breaths from behind the respirator. Mortarion looked ready to argue—but then,
"Fine."
The Lord of Death agreed at last, giving them a grim look.
"Send me the rest of the tactical data."
And he turned to leave.
"Well said," Ferrus clapped Vulkan on the shoulder.
"He needs to understand that war isn't his playground. We have to think about attrition rates."
Vulkan smiled faintly—but then Ferrus added:
"And perhaps the Salamanders could cut down on their use of flame-based promethium weapons, don't you think, Vulkan?"
Vulkan's smile vanished.
"…Fine," he muttered.
. . .
The Death Guard were deployed to Ibsen's polar ice fields. The good news was that aside from a few fur-clad primitives, there were no signs of other human presence, which spared the Lord of Death considerable trouble.
Mortarion still remembered that first meeting with Vulkan and Ferrus—Ferrus, the efficiency-obsessed bastard, and Vulkan, whose misplaced empathy was so at odds with his rugged appearance.
That first encounter between the three Primarchs had been a disaster. Mortarion had no wish to recall it. The past was past; Galaspar was stable now. All that mattered was the mission—and the fact that he had to cooperate once again with those two damned brothers.
Their enemy this time was the Eldar.
Eldar.
Mortarion rolled the word on his tongue slowly. Of course, he remembered what the Eldar had done. And Mortarion was a man who never forgot a grudge.
He would tear them apart—and the thought of that, at least, made the prospect of working with his brothers slightly less unbearable.
The Lord of Death cast his gaze across the frozen continent before him.
The grotesque and vast Eldar constructs rose from the blinding white plains of ice, their towering obelisks etched with alien runes and studded with gemstones the size of fists. Under the auspex of servo-skulls, a haze of psychic energy shimmered faintly around those profane monuments—making it impossible for the Imperial forces to land directly.
Mortarion now understood why the Death Guard had been assigned to this world.
Psychic energy? He and his Legion were well suited for that.
He casually marked his pristine map with a stylus, connecting points, calculating—then fell silent.
The obelisks guided him to the truth: the nexus of these psychic nodes lay deep within the rainforest—in the Salamanders' operational zone.
Mortarion briefly recalled the Salamanders' fleet strength and troop numbers from their earlier meeting.
Then the realization struck him—the Death Guard would have to move faster.
These psychic nodes were often interconnected. Mortarion had no interest in witnessing failure, least of all someone else's failure interfering with his own plans.
When the final recon squad returned, the Lord of Death began his war.
. . .
As the prelude to the campaign, flash grenades and low-grade chemical stench bombs were hurled into the human tribes that lay along the Death Guard's path of advance.
Expressionless, Mortarion watched those miserable primitives wail and scatter across the tundra. Driven by the wind and the acrid gas, most of them fled into corners of the ice fields that he simply didn't care about.
That was enough.
Then, as the storm clouds that had covered the plains finally thinned on the auspex display, tanks adorned with the six-ringed skull sigil thundered onto the continent.
The Mechanicum had fitted them with extra-wide, crude treads that carved deep scars into the snow. Between the vehicles, the dull bone-white of the Death Guard's armor flickered in and out of sight.
Above them, Stormbird engines roared, maintaining a fifteen-kilometer lead over the armored columns. Their mission was far more perilous: under clear skies, the glare of sunlight reflecting off the ice made visual control a nightmare for the pilots.
Red sonar-like rings rippled outward across the aircrafts' auspex displays as the flyers marked every suspicious landmark and structure across the tundra. Unlike more straightforward enemies, the cunning Eldar hid themselves within the endless whiteness—only the obelisk nodes showed clear signs of garrison.
From the secure landing zone under orbital protection, the Death Guard advanced at maximum marching speed toward the first target node.
. . .
Aboard the Endurance, Mortarion stared at the data-saturated tactical display.
His gaunt fingers rested on the comm switch.
The high air was growing turbulent; the icy winds turned erratic.
Then Mortarion's voice came through, overlapping with the warning klaxons of the forward Stormbird.
"Garro, D3."
A moment later, space itself twisted—dazzling distortions rippled through the air, and a barrage of psychic lightning struck straight into the Death Guard's formation.
The flight immediately broke apart. The lead Stormbird rolled sharply, dodging most of the bolts, but one wing was scorched and trailing smoke—it began a controlled descent.
The following craft instantly adjusted formation, targeting the point of psychic distortion—Heavy bolter shells rained down like steel hail.
Then came the screams and a flurry of beating wings.
A flock of crimson-scaled drakes burst from the clouds, their metallic hides glinting.
Atop the largest beast stood an Eldar warlock, raising his staff high and chanting in a shrill, piercing voice.
The Death Guard flyers began to withdraw, hoping to widen the distance and rely on ranged firepower—but the drakes were faster, far more agile.
The dogfight turned savage. The creatures clawed and tore at the gunships, latching onto their hulls where the gunners couldn't bring their weapons to bear. Fire erupted in the sky; one by one, the metal behemoths plunged burning into the tundra below.
While the battle raged above, on the ground Garro stood at the forefront of the armored spearhead. He raised his one-handed sword high.
Behind him, the tanks slowly elevated their cannons. The Death Guard squads moved in disciplined groups of three—the foremost warrior carrying the heavy missile launchers on his shoulders.
"Fire!"
Missiles screamed through the air, tearing open the sky and leaving long white trails behind them.
"Foolish mon-keigh! You rely only on your brutish machines of iron!"
The Eldar warlock spat his curse, waving his staff as he commanded the drakes to weave aside. Graceful and swift, the winged beasts twisted away from the missiles streaking toward them, preparing to dive once more upon the Stormbirds.
Boom!
The first explosion blossomed like a brutal firework, and fragments of scorched drake flesh rained down from above.
The warlock turned in shock—his trembling pupils reflected the image of the descending Fire Rains as they reoriented.
He would never know that the Death Guard's missiles systems were forged on the Forge World of Graia, later modified by Hades himself.
And Graia's most famous contribution to Imperial weaponry? Automated target-tracking systems.
The Eldar raised his staff again, chanting feverishly as ripples of psychic energy wove into a shimmering web around his formation. Garro's eyes locked on him; dozens of explosions flared in the smoke, but the enemy's life sign still pulsed faintly on the display.
Garro's voice came over the comm, steady and cold, as he gripped his sword tighter.
"Enrique, now."
"Yeah, yeah—stop rushing me!"
The gruff voice of Enrique crackled back through the vox. Garro ignored him and lifted his blade, shouting, "Fire!"
The second salvo roared skyward.
In the middle of the armored formation, Enrique knelt beside a launcher larger than any other Death Guard trooper's, grim-faced as he braced for recoil.
Behind him, Bast stood motionless, visor lenses glimmering as they recalibrated targeting data, locked on the Eldar warlock high above.
The drake swarm wheeled through the thick smoke; psychic turbulence distorted the air, and the sun's reflection off the snow stabbed like knives into every eye.
Bastor squeezed the trigger.
A colossal missile screamed upward. Even at its speed, the words scrawled clumsily across its casing could still be read:
"HADES' GIFT."
The Eldar focused, conjuring another shimmering barrier identical to the last—
Then he saw it.
On the warhead's tip was painted a crude picture of a dog wagging its tail.
For the Eldar, there was no after that.
"Hades' Gift" found its mark. The explosion tore through the clouds, vaporizing the warlock and his mount in a blast of fire and psychic backlash. Leaderless, the drake swarm was quickly shredded under the combined assault of missiles and Stormbird gunfire.
From below, Garro felt the heat of the victory radiating down from the sky. He raised his sword and pointed it forward.
"Advance!"
His order was met by the thunderous roar of tank engines.
The steel phalanx began to move again, slowly grinding forward. Enrique laughed heartily and slapped Bastor on the shoulder. The young Techmarine stared blankly at his teacher's teacher, unsure what was so funny.
"Hades' Gift"—the missile's warhead was laced with the ashes of multiple Untouchables, jointly developed by Magos Korklan and the Armoury. Another of its creators had insisted the weapon be named "The Gift of Pluto"—but no one had listened.
Because of its rare materials, each missile's cost was astronomical.
The Death Guard pressed onward.
The pristine snowfields were churned into chaos behind them.
Their numbers and ammunition vastly exceeded the enemy's.
This was a massacre, a slow, grinding inevitability.
And the Lord of Death could feel it—the rhythm of the hearts before him growing slower and slower.
Garro led his forces through wave after wave of Eldar assaults, and though he never once altered his tactics, each counterattack ended the same way—crushed beneath the Death Guard's overwhelming firepower.
Every cunning feint and desperate charge the Eldar attempted only earned them a different manner of death.
At last, the Death Guard reached the clearing that surrounded the obelisk. The Eldar resistance there had reached its fiercest point yet—countless warriors surged from the ruins, blades flashing, while witches raised their voices in unholy harmony, weaving spells that bent snow and storm to their will.
They became living conduits, linking themselves to the psychic resonance of the obelisk.
One tall witch, her rune-sword glimmering, chanted as she moved.
From a fissure at the base of the monolith slithered forth a serpentine horror the size of a small dragon, its core glowing crimson, its hiss echoing like steam. The creature's molten eyes fixed on the Death Guard ahead with a ghastly curiosity.
Knowing the Eldar's speed and agility, Garro had anticipated their tactics.
He ordered Enrique to deploy the armored squadrons behind the front line, to act as long-range fire support—not to drive headlong into the melee, where they would become nothing but prey for the Eldar's swiftness.
Then came the thunder.
The barrage detonated across the tundra, the very ground quaking with each impact.
The Death Guard clashed with the Eldar amid fire and frost, while Garro, flanked by three Grave Wardens, moved to intercept the serpent.
Above, the Stormbirds had gone utterly mad.
Ignoring their dwindling fuel and any chance of return, they unleashed every last round of ammunition upon the battlefield below, filling the skies with smoke until they looked like man-made storm clouds blotting out the sun.
On the ground, Antaeus swung his scythe with brutal precision.
With sheer force, he parried a blade aimed for his throat, sparks bursting as steel met ceramite.
Then, hooking the curved blade forward, he ripped through the Eldar's midsection—and a cascade of entrails spilled into the snow like overripe grapes.
Panting, Antaeus took another step forward to meet the next foe. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Garro at the spear tip of the assault.
Even with maximum fire support, Garro's duel with the serpent was grueling—and the witches' psychic interference only worsened it.
Yet Garro never once called for retreat.
Instead, the vox crackled with another voice—hoarse, triumphant, half-mad with adrenaline:
"Airspace secured! Fifteen minutes! Fifteen minutes to land!"
Far above, in orbit, Mortarion gripped the haft of his scythe.
Behind him, the spectral glow of the Deathshroud Terminators shimmered in the darkness of the drop bay.
Zero Company was ready.
The ramp began to close, cutting off the last shafts of sterile white light—and the fading voice of Magos Korklan, still shouting over the hymnals.
"Praise the Omnissiah! Praise the Machine God! Praise Hades!"
"Praise Hades!!!"
It's time to give the Eldar their surprise.
Then, fire and judgment descended upon the ice fields of Ibsen.
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