Rictus Claw Lore
The Old Man had a name once before--a Nostraman name--but he had forgotten it over long, long years. Nonetheless, he did remember this:
The Sword of Absolution hung in the void in formation with the rest of the Night Lords' fleet, preparing for another assault against the First Legion and their subordinate worlds. The Thramas Crusade had gone well and the Dark Angels were sure to fall soon. The Night Lords did not trust in the Warmaster's promised rewards for victory but they knew that they would have their share of the spoils and the glories regardless of Horus Lupercal's whims.
The Astropath and Navigator had been brought onto the bridge of the Sword of Absolution, chained to their thrones, eyes bound with blindfolds. They were brought up to be near on hand for the next maneuvers. The Old Man stood behind them, watching and waiting with his plasma pistol and a knife in hand. It was his task to guard the psykers--not to protect them, but to ensure that the 46th Company of the VIIIth? Legion was protected from them. The Old Man had an instinct for these things, having proven himself a capable killer of sorcerers and witches in the Great Crusade.
The second before the Astropath rebelled, the Old Man's nostrils filled with the smell of his blood and his tongue tasted the bite of iron. Treachery. Without blinking, without thinking, he brought his pistol level with the back of the Astropath's head and in his mind's eye he saw the whole head melt away in a blast of superheated gas. But reality betrayed the vision in his mind--the gun did not fire. The Old Man cycled the charge on his pistol, preparing for another shot. Yet he knew the pistol wouldn't kill the Astropath. The misfire was not a fault in the gun but a fated impossibility.
The Astropath shot straight up, straining against his chains, blood coursing from his eye-sockets, staining the black blindfold red. The other Astartes on the bridge turned, readying for the dangers of a psyker turned malignant. Yet less gifted than the Old Man, they did not understand that they should have killed him and took the fact that the Old Man himself had not yet ended the Astropath's life as a sign that a few seconds of hesitation might not hurt anything.
"This is Librarian Consul Issa al-Shakur," the Astropath croaked. And each word the Astropath suffered to form boomed out across the bridge in al-Shakur's voice, his Nostraman words mangled by al-Shakur's ugly Terran accent. "I have seized command of the Revelation Lacrimae. In ninety-nine seconds the Night Lords fleet will be attacked. We will be destroyed. I have chosen the 46th company to live because of all my brothers, I love Praetor Shal Shion the best. No one else can come with us. No one else will survive. Drop your Gellar Field and engage Warp translation. Set your path on me and I shall open the way."
"No!" Came the roar of the voice in the Old Man's mind, just as it came screaming from his throat. He understood immediately. They were not passed the star system's Mandeville Point and a Warp jump would destroy the ship. Even if it did not, entering the Empyrean without a Gellar Field would draw the ire of horrors beyond Realspace. This was death, ruin, and damnation. He knew his pistol would not fire so he raised his knife and rushed the Navigator, intent on ending him before al-Shakur's hideous plan could be enacted.
In a flash of midnight blue and white lightning, one of his brother's threw himself between the Old Man and the Navigator, the whirring teeth of his chainsword catching the Old Man's Knife and tearing it out of his hand. The Old Man saw the next blow before it was struck and he threw himself onto his back to dodge the sweep of the roaring blade. He raised the plasma pistol. It fired this time but his fate-crossed foe threw himself wide to avoid the plasma bolt. He fired again and again but the other Night Lord was too fast. It kept the enemy at bay, but bought the Old Man barely more time than he needed to scramble to his feet. He could feel the heat from the plasma gun escaping its magnetic containment, threatening to burn through, to explode.
He heard the ship captain give the orders to obey Issa al-Shakur's command, to drop the Gellar Field, to prepare translation. The Old Man had precious few seconds to kill his assailant, to kill the captain, and to stop this madness. Would he survive whatever doom al-Skahur had seen? No, but it would be better to die in an attack from the First Legion than to die as food for the soul-eating demons.
The Old Man leapt down from the platform and crushed the head of the Navis officer standing before him, seizing the sword on his hip. He would need it to kill the psykers since he knew his pistol would betray him again. And no sooner had he seized the weapon than the other Night Lord had followed him, striking another blow. The Old Man stepped into it, striking the enemy's arm and dulling the force of the blow. He heard the adamantine teeth against his warplate, some teeth breaking, some cutting deep into the ceramite.
None of the others intervened--the prudence of the Eight Legion did not recommend trying to stop a madman with a plasma pistol if he wasn't pointing it at you. But as the two combatants wrestled, the Old Man brought his pistol point blank against the other Night Lord's chestplate, pulling the trigger. The ceramite burned through and the sweet smell of flesh filled the air as it burned, too. The shot staggered the enemy and the Old Man stepped back, firing again--a glancing blow this time. That shot was answered by a whirling knife thrown with superhuman speed.
At first the Old Man thought the thrown knife had wholly missed but when he tried to draw the next breath, he realized the thing was sticking through his throat. He toppled back and shot again. The enemy's warplate absorbed the blow this time, but not without leaving a wicked wound across the ceramite.
The Old Man smiled to himself. He'd die from the wound to his throat before the demons got his soul. This was good. This was the best he could hope for.
Spite, however, demanded retribution against the brother that had killed him. His thumb found the safety mechanism of the plasma pistol and he switched it off. As his foe came down at him with the chainsword raised, the Old Man cooked the charge just a split second longer than his training allowed. He never felt the white hot heat of the plasma pistol burn away the flesh of his face. His eyes boiled in their sockets and he never saw the way the other Night Lord combusted in the discharge, flesh melting inside his armor.
---
That was the last thing the Old Man knew.
The next thing the Old Man knew was walking through the halls of the Sword of Absolution alone--totally alone, except for the whispers of his brothers, his closest friends and bitterest enemies both, echoing in his mind. He tried to count the hours that passed, but they seemed to recur, hours slipping in or fading out of their proper place. He knew the voidship well, but the hallways stopped connecting the way they should, and sometimes they opened to strange vistas from other times and other places.
Over the course of slow centuries, the Old Man came to understand that he was lost, that his ship was lost, and that all his brothers were lost. The Warp had taken them and the distance in both time and space between each had stretched to fill the impossible vastness of the Immaterium.
And then one day, after years and years and years had been folded and stretched around him, a great bird appeared before him, irridescent and always changing.
"Now you show yourself?" The Old Man asked. "Why? I am not broken yet."
"And you never will be," the demon laughed. "But always breaking."
"So it is for everyone, always dying, fast or slow. I don't want to play games, demon. I am tired." The Old Man declared with a wave of his still-gauntleted hand.
"Nor do I, Old Man," the demon said. "It is time to set you and your brothers free, if you can earn your freedom."
"That sounds like a game, demon, and a stupid one, at that."
"You've got me there, Old Man," it laughed from its many mouths, its terrible beaks. "But I'll make it more interesting because I suppose we've kept you waiting long enough."
"How long have I been waiting, demon? It has been a long time, I perceive, and my patience has been improved considerably on account of much practice. Yet still, I am losing patience with this exchange."
The demon thought and then replied: "You would count them about ten thousand years gone by since you died in the middle of your little war, killed by your brother."
"That's the plainest you have spoken yet," the Old Man said. "I appreciate that. In the same spirit now, what do you want?"
"You were lost because a bargain was struck, between ourselves and Isshakur Ran, a great sorcerer," the demon said.
"You didn't answer my question, you just gave me lies about nonsense," the Old Man sneered, disappointed that the demon had already regressed into its deceptions and manipulations.
"The question you asked was boring so I picked a different question to answer." The demon retorted with a roll of its eighty-one eyes.
"Isshakur Ran... this is Issa al-Skahur, yes?" The Old Man asked.
"Yes," came the simple answer.
"And what was the bargain he struck with you?" The Old Man demanded.
"I do not want to tell you," the demon demurred.
And then the Old Man's mind spun with a cascade of visions. He staggered as the world whipped in circles around him, dropping to a knee and pressing his hands against the floor of the voidship to keep his balance.
"There are... so many psykers," the Old Man groaned as he saw fleeting images of a thousand faces, each accompanied by a glimpse into their maddened hearts.
"And you are so hungry," the demon chided. "You haven't had a bite to eat in ten thousand years. And not a drop to drink. And you've been so lonely..."
"My brothers are here now," the Old Man muttered, "I can feel them."
"What a blessing it is to be amongst one's brethren! See how your loneliness is gone?" The demon chirped. "Now, find the mortals. Find the mortals and eat."