"I must be insane."
Kurtah muttered quietly inside the back of a cargo truck.
A few days earlier, Lorgar had liberated Trantis.
He abolished slavery, granted every slave their freedom, and even shortened their working hours.
All the freed slaves were filled with gratitude toward Lorgar, but Kurtah was a believer. He gained nothing from the liberation and so harbored resentment deep inside.
Lorgar not only freed the slaves but also made the believers house them, letting them eat and live together. Three former slaves now shared Kurtah's once-single dormitory.
Their skin was dark brown, their half-naked bodies covered in dust. Their broken fingernails were packed with grime, their hair matted with sweat and sand, their smell a mix of rot and acid.
They had never once bathed in their lives; their only water had always been for drinking.
Kurtah resented them, but he dared not speak ill of Lorgar.
Nor could he pray to the gods, for the slaves would surely report him.
Lorgar forbade worship of any higher power, forbade prayer of any kind.
The slaves obeyed willingly; Lorgar had given them freedom.
The believers didn't wail or protest either. The truly devout had already died in fire.
Those who survived were the impure, the fearful.
They dreaded both Lorgar's wrath and divine retribution, living each day in trembling uncertainty.
Once, Kurtah's duty had been to suppress slaves with a musket.
Now, he sat beside them in a truck, part of a rebel force marching to assault Melson.
He wanted to beg the gods for forgiveness, but didn't even dare to whisper a prayer in his heart.
Beep-beep!
The Crawlers' horns blared, the signal for attack. Kurtah gripped his flintlock tight.
He heard shells cutting through the air, explosions splitting the sky.
The rebels' Crawlers were clashing head-on with the Covenant army.
Melson was a plantation, its defenses far weaker than Trantis's.
Trantis could build fortifications from nearby mines; Melson had no such resources.
The thunder of the Crawlers' cannons made Kurtah's ears ring.
He couldn't hear the commander shouting beside him; he only realized what was happening when other slaves dragged him from the truck.
Stumbling in a daze, Kurtah followed the rebels in their charge toward Melson's gates.
The roar of steam engines and the shriek of clashing metal filled his ears.
The Covenant army was caught unprepared.
The Crawlers' main cannons ripped through Melson's decaying gate, its rusted hinges screamed in death.
Kurtah looked at the slaves beside him.
Just days ago, they'd been miners wielding pickaxes; now, fumbling with rifles they barely knew how to hold.
Their shots were wild, uncoordinated, hopelessly inaccurate.
The Covenant's return fire was no better.
Panicked defenders scrambled to set up barricades, their trembling hands barely able to hold their weapons.
These were pampered men who'd only ever used whips on slaves, not guns.
Bullets whizzed randomly through the air, striking walls more often than flesh.
This wasn't some epic clash of armies; it was two terrified mobs blindly clawing at each other through fire and blood.
When the rebel tide surged forward, many Covenant soldiers dropped their weapons and surrendered.
The makeshift line collapsed like a sandcastle in the wind.
Kurtah's boots squelched in blood; every step made a nauseating wet sound.
The stench of iron and rot made him gag.
Half-dazed, he simply followed the crowd, shooting blindly into the smoke.
Within a kilometer, the Covenant line crumbled entirely.
Their disorganized defenders broke faster than the rebels attacking them.
Kurtah saw Covenant soldiers trip over each other as they fled, rolling in the dirt like frightened rats.
But just as victory seemed certain, Melson's gilded temple doors burst open.
Kurtah froze mid-charge.
A silver giant, over two meters tall, stood in the doorway.
Its right arm had been transformed into a weapon platform, the dark, circular barrels of a rotary lumber gun glinting coldly in the sun.
It was the Covenant's deadliest secret, a relic of the old world.
A holy war machine said to have wiped out an entire city in a single night.
The freed slaves didn't understand what they were facing.
They charged on, bare feet slapping the burning sand, rags fluttering in the hot wind.
"Run." Kurtah tried to shout, but his parched throat could only rasp.
The rotary gun's barrels spun to life with a mechanical whine.
Sixteen barrels spat blinding flame, unleashing a metal storm that could tear through anything in its path.
Kurtah waited for death.
But just then, one of the slaves beside him leapt toward him, tackling him down.
Time slowed.
Bullets screamed through the air, then stopped.
They froze just a meter before his face, suspended in shimmering blue psychic ripples like insects trapped in amber.
Before Kurtah could grasp what happened, a white-robed figure darted forward, faster than sight.
The giant moved like a phantom, sidestepping the war machine's crushing punch.
His robes traced a perfect arc through the dust as he slid behind it.
With iron fingers, he gripped the armored neck joint, click, and snapped it clean.
The holy warrior's head fell limp.
Steam hissed and died.
The machine toppled like a felled puppet, crashing into the sand.
Bang!
"For truth! For Lorgar!"
Cheers erupted.
Hundreds of bullets fell harmlessly to the ground.
The freedmen screamed in triumph, faces shining, lips cracked from joy and exhaustion.
They surged toward the temple behind the white-robed giant, believing nothing could stand before him.
Kurtah didn't follow.
He turned instead toward the boy who'd saved him, barely two and a half years old, like himself.
"Why did you save me?"
The question was pointless; they should've both been dead.
If it were him, Kurtah knew he wouldn't have had the courage to save anyone.
"I… I don't know," the boy said, scratching his head sheepishly.
"Maybe because we're comrades. Lord Lorgar said we should protect each other."
"Kurtah Saed."
"Huh?"
"My name," Kurtah said.
"I know that." The boy blinked, confused. He'd known since moving into Kurtah's dorm. Why say it now?
Kurtah said nothing more.
He just started walking toward the temple. The war wasn't over yet.
The boy hesitated, then stumbled after him.
"My name's Jarrulek. No family name, because I was a slave."
Kurtah glanced back. "You're not a slave. You're a worker."
"Right. A worker." Jarrulek smiled broadly.
He had been a slave, but no longer.
They followed Lorgar not for ideology, but because they now owned something,
a cow.
"Filthy peasants! How dare you defy the gods!"
A priest, fleeing with his guards, stumbled into a rebel patrol.
His guards were shot dead; a few rebels died too, but they cornered the priest.
He was bloodied and trembling, yet still arrogant, screaming insults at these brown-skinned "slaves."
"For freedom!" cried Ecodas, his voice hoarse but firm.
He raised his rusted pickaxe, kept hidden and sharpened for this very moment.
Crunch.
Bone split.
Blood sprayed across his calloused hands.
"One, two, pull!"
Under Lorgar's command, thousands of years of oppression exploded into action.
Slaves-turned-rebels hauled thick ropes looped around the neck of a towering divine statue.
Their backs arched, muscles straining.
With a deafening crack, the statue's base split, and the god fell.
Stone shattered.
Silence.
Then someone sobbed.
So the gods could bleed.
So faith could break.
Why had they not rebelled sooner?
Lorgar lit the sacred oils. Erebus led the men in burning every religious scroll, turning lies to ashes.
"I have an idea," Lorgar said to Caelan.
"You too? Let's hear it," Caelan chuckled.
Lorgar emphasized the word too, a reference to his brother, Curze.
But Lorgar no longer cared to compete. He would surpass him.
"You once told me humanity will reach the stars," Lorgar said.
"That countless lost human civilizations await salvation. Colchis is not unique. Even on Terra, religion festers like cancer."
"We must cut it out, precisely, surgically. And for that… we'll need a special corps."
Caelan smiled faintly. "Do you know your legion's name?"
Lorgar shook his head. Caelan rarely spoke of the legions; he hardly knew them himself.
"Not all were named at birth. Curze's Eighth never was."
"But your Seventeenth Legion was personally named by the Emperor himself, Imperial Heralds."
"Also called the Apostolic Herald or Missionaries of the Imperium."
"During the Unification Wars, they purged every heretical text, every tainted work or person in the name of Imperial Truth. It earned them a nickname, Iconoclasts."
Caelan remembered being warned long ago: Beware the Missionaries.
Had the Emperor not found him first, they might've split his skull open one day.
Lorgar tossed a gilded tome into the fire, eyes shining with longing and tenderness.
"I'm glad my sons walk the same path as I. But the burden of conquering the stars has stretched them thin."
"The Imperium still needs a force dedicated to cleansing faith's poison."
"Will you support me?" Lorgar asked, eyes bright with desperate hope.
"I will always support you, so long as you remain human," Caelan said.
"The right to define that… is yours."
Caelan chuckled. "Then I'm honored."
Lorgar smiled softly. He preferred Caelan's judgment to that of the Emperor himself.
"The Circle of Ash," Lorgar said, gazing at the rising embers.
He caught one in his palm, its warmth seeping into his skin.
"That will be their name."
"And your legion?" Caelan asked.
"Don't you like Imperial Heralds?"
"Not really, but all the Primarchs rename their legions eventually."
"I haven't decided yet."
"No hurry," Caelan said. "You have time until the Emperor comes."
Lorgar fell silent.
If he could, he wished the Emperor would never come to Colchis.
But he couldn't be selfish.
Worlds waited to be saved.
"Two days," Espaea said. "Covenant reinforcements will reach Melson by Coldfall."
Akshida replied, "They can't fight in the cold. Even Crawlers will freeze in the night frost."
Erebus frowned. "But so will we. We'll be trapped inside Melson."
Kurtah, Jarrulek, and other young fighters stood straight by the wall of the command tent, silent, barely breathing.
Their valor at Melson had earned them a special promotion.
"What's your name?" a boy asked.
"Kurtah. That's Jarrulek. You?"
"Ecodas. I killed a priest. You?"
"Not that impressive," Kurtah admitted sheepishly. He hadn't even fired much; Jarrulek had done more killing than he had.
Kurtah noticed Jarrulek gazing admiringly at a young man standing among the commanders.
"That's Erebus, the first to follow Lord Lorgar."
"One day," Ecodas whispered, "I'll stand where he does."
The commanders continued planning.
"We'll strike," Lorgar said, tracing lines across the map.
"Ehexer-Huk Plantation lies two days from here; Triku is closer. We must take both before the reinforcements arrive."
The others hesitated, too few soldiers, too little rest.
But Lorgar shook his head.
"You still think like slaves. You see yourselves as weak. Yes, the Covenant has ruled for ages, but now we hold the initiative."
"They know nothing of us, only that Trantis fell silent."
"Their reinforcements will be small, sent to investigate, not reclaim."
"If we seize Melson, Ehexer-Huk, and Triku, we'll cut off all supply lines from Vharadesh."
"We must strike now, before they realize our strength."
His words hit like thunder.
"Lord," said Akshida, kneeling, "leave Melson to me. It will not fall while I still draw breath."
"No defense," Lorgar said calmly. "Total offense. You and Espaea will each lead a force, Akshida east to Ehexer-Huk, Espaea along the dry river to Triku."
"What about Melson?" she asked.
"Leave it to me, and the Circle of Ash."
She bowed, wordless. They had seen his miracles.
The Circle of Ash, a new order.
All its members were children between two and two and a half years old.
Weaker than men, but far more malleable.
Erebus led them, under Lorgar's direct command.
In Lorgar's vision, they would form the foundation of a future Legion, one that would, upon the Emperor's arrival, become his new warriors.
He would teach them himself, why humanity must be free, why it must never again worship gods.
Cold wind whipped his white robes.
He stared into the dark horizon, where lights drew near.
"Did I do the right thing?" he whispered.
"Do you really need me to tell you that?" Caelan sighed.
"I want to hear it from you."
"Lorgar… you did well."
"If someday they condemn me for it, will you still stand with me?"
"Do you even need to ask? Of course."
Lorgar smiled faintly, the firelight gilding his face in gold.
Erebus lowered his gaze.
He didn't like Lorgar much anymore; Caelan loved him too much.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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