The Game of Favor: Part One

[CultistxChaos Spawn, Tentacles (consentacles), DP, mild TF]

They all had Gothic names once. Percival, Lucas, Collette, Erwin, Quint, Berlinda, the list went on. But when Khünbish the Breaker and his warband, The Tarnished Spears, had visited their world they had thrown off their Imperial names and the shackles that bound them to the False Emperor, taking the names they formerly only uttered in their cult meetings. Scalps, Puzzlemask, Dragon, Eye-Biter, these were their identities now that they traveled with the Tarnished Spears, making their filthy homes in the lower depths of Khünbish’s battleship. They called themselves the Breaker’s Falcons, imaging themselves as his loyal, swift, deadly servants. In truth, the Chaos Lord barely acknowledged their existence, mere humans beneath his notice.

Despite his scorn, Noose idolized Khünbish, even going so far as to construct a tiny shrine in the cluster of twisted pipes and wires she called home. Noose had hung a framed picture of the Chaos Lord; a blurry portrait of him she had captured with a simple image recorder. She could stare at it for hours; Khünbish’s features showing the signature gigantism of an Astartes, his slanted eyes and thin black mustache a legacy of his former chapter, the White Scars. Black lightning bolts were tattooed shooting from his eyes and mouth, his overly-masculine and powerful features decorated by numerous scars and abrasions. She had placed beneath it chips of his ceramite armor she had scavenged from battlefields past, searching for the tiny shards with a disturbing obsessiveness. They were white, speckled with red, his once pristine armor desecrated with cursed crimson pigments splashed haphazardly over the alabaster plates. She had drawn his insignia; a black lightning bolt shooting out of the Star of Chaos, in blood on pages of imperial dogma, their profaned pages marking her shrine as honoring the Ruinous Powers.

Noose had similar tattoos on her bronzed skin; her eyes, belly-button, nipples and elbows all shooting thin black lightning bolts of ink in every direction. A cruel falcon was tattooed at the base of her spine, clutching more lightning bolts in it’s inky talons. The Falcons all bore markings in reverence to The Breaker; black lightning bolts, ritual scars in the shape of The Eight-Pointed Star, tattoos of spears and daemonic horses. All of them, dressed in scraps of scavenged armor and cobbled together protective clothing, carrying the crude weapons they armed themselves with, marched up the halls of Khünbish’s cruiser at the behest of Burkhart, the marine burdened with the task of liaison with the cultists. The mutant Astartes, his mouth replaced with insectoid pincers, trudged at the head of the group, his speckled armor reflecting the dull light of the hallways. The entirety of the Tarnished Spears had been summoned at the behest of Khünbish; the Chaos Lord preferring to harangue his force in person then rely on impersonal voxcasters. It was another thing Noose admired about him; his charisma, his machismo. How he made his force feel like one great whole, rather than a horde of unconnected ruffians, even the worthless cultists that lurked in the bowels of his cruiser’s heating ducts.

They followed Burkhart into the colossal chamber at the bow of the ship, a gargantuan hanger that dwarfed even the hulking daemon engines that were chained within. The entirety of the Tarnished Spears could assemble here; nearly a hundred fallen Astartes, thousands of human cultists, numerous daemon engines of blasphemous and infernal design. Warp-beasts, their wings like a bat’s and their bodies like snakes, soared through the air, kin to the innumerable permutations of daemons that flitted in and out of focus around the hanger. At the center of the cyclopean chamber stood The Kalmyk, a corrupted Warhound Titan, it’s cockpit cast to resemble an enraged stallion’s foaming head. The room was filled with noise as well, thousands of voices and footsteps, the screech of the daemons and the terrible screaming of metal-on-metal the daemon engines constantly made. Noose had to put her hands to her ears; even at the far end of the hanger the noise was deafening. Suddenly, a noise even greater, so loud it caused Noose’s hearing to cease to function for a moment, blasted the hanger. It sounded like the terribly distorted bellow of some plains animal, amplified a hundredfold through daemonic means; The Kalmyk’s battle horns. As the titan’s siren died down, the room fell to silence, as Khünbish and his entourage appeared on top of the equine war machine.

She could barely see him from here, but could pick him out by the long, grey spear he carried, standing half again as tall as the gigantic Chaos Marine. Beside him was Nekhii Myy, the Chaos Lord’s trusted sorcerer, aide and right hand man. The sorcerer’s armor was crowned by a tall, horned helm, an iron perversion of some hairy beast of burden from the White Scar’s home world. A trio of terminator-armored Tarnished Spears, their helmets horned and painted black, flanked the pair, carrying ceremonial oversized hunting bows in their power fists. The weapons were merely for show; none among the assembled would dare harm Khünbish, and should they try the hordes of his warband would make short work of them before even the elite terminators could respond.

The Chaos Lord spoke, his rough, uneven voice amplified through The Kalmyk’s deafening speakers. Even the animalistic demons fell silent when he spoke.
“Horde of mine, heed my words. The time of the Game of Favor is upon us again, divined by Nekhii Myy.”
Noose’s eyes widened, the Game of Favor causing her excitement to rise. A sporadic competition between the Tarnished Spears and their rivals, the warband known as Serei’s Sons that happened only when both warband‘s sorcerers agreed upon an auspicious date they could both be present at, Noose had seen it thrice in her time with the warband. The Chaos Lords of their respective hosts would enter a ritual pool completely naked, up to their knees in the blood of those sacrificed for the occasion. The sight of Khünbish’s naked body alone was enough for Noose, but the competition was a time of celebration for the winning host. From the cursed blood would rise demons of all kinds, from frolicking Nurglings to Tzeentch’s soaring Screamers. Once, an enthusiastic Keeper of Secrets had appeared, wowing the assembled crowds with its sensuous, profane form. For eight days and nights both Chaos Lords would wrestle with the demons, neither allowed to touch the other Lord. Hundreds of servitors created specifically for the purpose would track how many each competitor had defeated, and the one with the most slain would be crowned champion. The winner was said to be favored by The Four, and would be invincible in combat and successful in conquest. In it’s five hundred year history, that belief had been true.

For the last one hundred years, Khünbish had won every game, only driving his rival Serei to try harder each time they met. Serei was no Astartes, but a colossal abomination, standing nearly twelve feet tall at his shoulder. His lower body long since replaced with a system of six metal, arachnid legs, each bearing it’s own weapons and bound daemons, the warlord was a monster to behold. He was said to be blessed by a great Daemon Prince, and his talent in combat and good fortune backed up that claim. It was he that bested the Keeper of Secrets that partook in the Game of Favor, all his inbuilt weapons disarmed and removed at the time.

Khünbish continued: “The Four have decreed we will meet the Sons of Serei upon the world the servants of the corpse-god call Goshen V, and we will make the blood-pit with the entrails of his dogs!”
The crowd cheered in response, waving their arms and weapons until Nekhii Myy gestured for them to quiet down.
“As is tradition, one of the host will carry my helmet, to crown me victor when again Serei is humiliated!”
Noose swallowed, blushing slightly. The past three Games she had tried to be that lucky person, even going so far as to try to rig it in her favor. She had sacrificed a fellow cultist to The Prince of Excess, served as a slave (of many uses) to Nekhii Myy‘s acolyte Drusus, even offered the skulls of a handful of brain-dead slaves to Blood God, but every time she had been passed over. Nekhii Myy was said to select the bearer of Khünbish’s helmet on portents he witnessed to bring the warlord the most auspicious fate, but it was rumored he really just chose them at random. The chosen bearer would polish the helmet for eight-times-eight days, anointing it with unholy oils and inscribing the words of the Liber Chaotica inside it so that when Khünbish won (which he always did) he could be crowned winner in a fashion to embarrass Serei to maximum effect. The spidery warlord lacked the great resources the Tarnished Spears had, dressing his army in rags and crude metal plates. Everyone knew how much he envied the Astartes for their armor, and every time Khünbish donned his resplendent helmet the assembled forces could see the rage in him, the warlord furious enough that Khorne would take notice.

“Prepare your arms and steeds my horde, for when we land upon Goshen none of it’s inhabitants will survive. Once the Imperial cowards lie dead the bearer of my armor will be chosen, and I will show the gods Serei’s incompetence!”
His boldness, his fury, his voice, all made Noose swoon. The Chaos Lord dismissed his assembled force to make their preparations, Noose walking back to The Breaker’s Falcons’ lair with a giddy smile on her face. It could be her this time, she knew it! She had to make preparations, to make sure she would be selected. As she entered their territory a trio of inbred hounds barked at her, pulling themselves to the end of their crude chains. The cultists were not given rations by their masters, and Burkhart confiscated things he thought looked too good for them, so they had taken to raising the dogs for food, clothing, defense, and to those more taken to the Dark Prince’s paths, companionship. She would invoke The Prince of Excess this time, he would surely make her the chosen! She unhooked the hounds, needing them for the ritual to attract his favor.

The conquest of Goshen V had gone perfectly; The Tarnished Spears and Sons of Serei annihilating the planet’s defenses from orbit, the terrible daemonic presence in the warp preventing any escape or astropathic communication. The hordes of chaos assaulted the planet, rounding up all it’s inhabitants into death camps where Nekhii Myy, his acolytes and Serei’s numerous sorcerers butchered them, enchanting their blood for the Game of Favor. It had come time to select Khünbish’s armorer. The sorcerer gathered the leg bones of a diseased stallion, infected with Nurgles rot and offered to the Plaugefather. He scattered them in the blood of the thousands of sacrifices, consulting the ripples they made in the ichor. He sighed, scratching the helmet that had long since bonded with his scalp. A cultist, and not one talented in armoring at that. Oh well, the purpose was purely ceremonial, it was only for Khünbish’s ego. He notified his acolyte, an abhuman psyker the Tarnished Spears had taken from a raid on a Black Ship, to bring her the ceremonial helmet.

The acolyte barged into the Breaker’s Falcon’s camp, his psychic miasma causing the normally vicious guard dogs to shy away from him. Two cultists; Dragon and Scar Oxheart, leapt from beside their campfire and drew their lasguns on him before they recognized his garb and clumsily saluted.
The acolyte, his eyes white and without pupils, raised his hand, causing the cultists to flinch in fear.
“The woman who goes by Noose. Where is she?” His voice sounded like it came from very far away, like it was blown by chaotic warp-winds over to the cultists.
Dragon stammered, his dozens of facial piercing jingling as he did so.
“Si-sixth tent on the right, th-the one with the picture of the m-master stitched into the side.”
The psyker nodded, a tiny arc of red lightning leaping from his bald head to the ground before making his way through the camp. The few cultists still awake at this late hour fled from the unbound psyker, the stories of what they were capable of only less terrible then the truth.

Noose’s tent had a poor drawing of Khünbish’s face stitched into it’s side, the acolyte smirking as he strode inside. The cultist was naked, kneeling on the packed earth and drawing blasphemous runes in the shape of an eye. The acolyte didn’t make his presence known, pausing to ogle her nude form. She was a deep brown, coming from a hot world that orbited a bright blue sun. Her head was shaved with the exception of a mohawk died white that hung over the left half of her scalp. She was thin, with piercings decorating her eyebrows, septum and, to his knowledge, both her nipples. She wasn’t particularly attractive, more a tomboy in appearance than anything, but her plethora of chaotic tattoos and scars, both from battle and ritual, gave her an air of exoticism. The acolyte coughed into his mailed fist, startling the nude cultist as she leapt to her feet in a fighting stance. Upon seeing the psyker she relaxed, but not completely, staying in her defensive posture.

“Drusus” she said, dryly, giving the bald acolyte a cynical look.
“Isabel. And before you object, I insist on calling you that. Noose is a ridiculous pseudonym and you know that.”
“Well its what I call myself and that’s that. If you came to fuck I’m not in the mood.”
“I wish I had the time for it Isabel, trust me. I’ve been practicing, and I can keep my abilities subdued in the act, no more worrying about a stray arc frying your brain or a daemon joining in.”
“Come to gloat, is that it? I’m sure there’s plenty of Imperials left you could force yourself on, if that’s what your after. Or can you call those Slaaneshi man-women-things now?”
“Daemonettes, Isabel, they’re called Daemonettes, and I’ll have you know they make very fine company, much better then you.” Drusus paused and collected his thoughts; he was dangerously close to doing something rash, and he was not in the mood to accidentally incinerate his former slave. She had offered herself to him not two years ago, fulfilling whatever purpose he asked of her. He was still a boy then, not even twenty, and he had immediately satisfied his baser needs, but found that in the throes of passion his gift would activate, causing awful things to happen around him. Noose had been rendered unconscious for three days from an errant bolt of warpfire, and feeling guilty, the psyker had nursed her back to health, enduring the jibes and mockery of his peers. He had looked into her mind while she had lay there, seeing her past and her soul. He knew her name, her parents, why she had gone to Chaos, her dangerous obsession with their lord, all of it. She had been more like a sister to him since then, he had found someone to confide in in her; someone he could talk to and tell his secrets without fear of reprisal. Nehkii Myy would punish him if he caught him complaining, and he knew any of the other Tarnished Spears would use anything he told them against him. But the weak, subservient cultist he could tell the nightmares that constantly haunted him, the horrors he had to endure at the sorcerer’s hands. He had released her on amiable terms, and they rendezvoused now and then.

“Lord Myy asked me to see you,” he said, producing a bag made of flayed human skin.
“I didn’t know that my lord knew I existed, much less my name. There were plenty of slaves around, I was just one more,” she said as she fished a dogskin tank top out of the pile of clothes in the tent’s corner. It was ripped and torn in places, but it was one of the few comfortable pieces of clothing she had. She pulled it over her head and looked for the black panties she owned, the ones she had stitched Khorne’s icon into so she could make offerings to him once a month. The underwear had been pillage from an Imperial space station, something she had to fight and nearly kill another cultist for. Comfortable clothes were a rarity in the Tarnished Spears.
“Lord Myy knows many things, but I doubt he remembered you. In his wisdom, Lord Myy divined you as the one to care for this,” he opened the sack of flayed skins, producing it’s contents.
Noose’s mouth hung open and her eyes went wide. It was a beaked space marine helmet, nearly the size of her ribcage, a black topknot of ox hair protruding from the top of it. Etchings of Bloodletters riding bareback on steeds of all kinds lined the pointed face, and the cables and tubes that ringed the base of it seemed to pulse as if alive.
“Is that, is that-he chose me? He really chose me to carry it?”
“He didn’t; the gods did. You are aware of your responsibilities, Isabel, and the consequences for ignoring them? I would honestly hate for anything bad to happen to you.”
“Anoint it eight times a day with the dark unguents your office will provide; inscribe the entirety of The Litany of The Four from volume two of the Library Chaotica on the inside, clean the oxygen tubes, polish the lenses, bring it to Black Magos Chimeros to pervert the machine spirit, never let the sun or any impure eyes see it until it is revealed and offer blessings to The Gods through it every night, I got it.”
“You remembered all of that?”
“Ive been waiting for this moment a long time, I’m more than ready witch boy.”
Drusus nodded and rubbed his head in embarrassment. He knew Isabel’s fascination with their master. It made her loyal. It made her fanatical. He should have known the gods would have chosen her to carry Lord Khünbish’s helm sooner or later, he was sure Lord Myy would have known. Red sparks flew from his hand as his mind wandered.
“Well, it seems you’ve got this under control Isabel, I guess I’ll be going now.”

The acolyte turned, brushing open the tent flap when Noose grabbed his elbow. He turned to face her, raising an eyebrow above his pupil-less eyes.
“Maybe I lied a bit, I had a bit of The Changer in me,” she said, pulling down the neckline of her tank top to show off her tattooed breasts.
“But now Im feeling The Prince, so if you want to stay…”
Drusus smiled, thinking of all the tricks the Slaaneshi daemons had shown him.

The sixty four days passed quickly, the blood pits swelling to grotesque size, nearly a half a kilometer of stinking, red viscera in between Seri’s and Khünbish’s camps. Their starships were refueling with what they had stolen from the planet’s space ports, and most of either force spent the months looting whatever they could find and satisfying their twisted desires on what remained of the planet’s population. They turned on each other when the survivors became scarce, but any deaths among the chaos forces were added to the blood-pits. Though she wanted to join her fellow cultists in defiling Goshen V, Noose spent every waking hour preparing her lord’s helmet. She had taken it to the few Dark Mechanicus members among the Tarnished Spears who bound a lesser daemon to it in order to control it’s machine spirit. In the blood of a priest of the false emperor she had written the Litany of The Four on the inside of the headpiece, lovingly tracing every perverse sigil. Every duty that was required she did with gusto, relishing the opportunity to finally serve her lord directly. She would fall asleep after offering her prayers to the dark gods through it, placing it so the red lenses looked at her as she slept. She liked to imagine it was Khünbish himself, watching over her in her sleep.

The day finally came when the Game of Favor would begin, the colossal pit of wretched gore attracting not only scavengers, but the entirety of both warbands, who had constructed massive balconies and bleachers to watch the spectacle. Noose, as the bearer of Khünbish’s prized helmet, sat among the Tarnished Spear’s honor guard. Though they were without their massive terminator armor, they still towered above the excited cultist, and they observed her not unlike she would an almost stupidly friendly dog. The kind that would jump up and lick daemon if it was holding a treat. The prized helmet was hidden away in its sack of human skin, only to be shown when Khünbish won and humiliated his rival yet again.
Anointed in unholy oils and naked from his head to his toes, Khünbish walked into the blood pits until he was waist deep in the stuff, confidently striding past his assembled horde. Noose’s heart swooned at the close-up view she got of him; impossibly muscular, looking almost bloated from his towering physique, making his head look comically small by comparison. His body, like his face, was decorated with numerous scars and wounds. What was once the yellow lightning bolt of the White Scars was tattooed on his sternum, now inked over in black and lined with ritual scars that formed a stylized Eye of Horus. His opponent, astride his mechanical legs that clanked through the muck, naked as well, though he possessed no genitals to conceal; everything below his waist was a perverse machine. His skin was sickly and green, and pus leaked from numerous sores, clearly a mark of Nurgle’s blessings. His face was contorted into a grimace, long red hair hanging in matted dreadlocks from his scalp. His fingers were unnaturally long, and it was rumored that the Blood God himself had graced him with a touch that could kill. Despite standing far taller than Khünbish, the Chaos Lord seemed cowed by the Astartes’ presence, his confident machismo at odds with the sickly cyborg.

A coven of sorcerers from both hosts converged, chanting blasphemous prayers to call forth the daemons that would test the chaos lords. They sorcerers would not tell the observers, but the daemons were far weaker than their normal incarnations, an enchantment created to make the Lord’s kill counts rise to astronomic numbers. Without any further ceremony, they arrived. They appeared at random around the pool, indistinct at first as the blood congealed, giving them physical forms. Bloodletters were the first to arrive, as usual, screaming towards the contestants with razor sharp claws. Soon creatures far stranger arrived; ever-changing servants of Tzeentch, playful Nurgleish monsters that toyed with the dark warriors, winged furies that shrieked through the skies as they sought for necks to tear, and creatures from even deeper depths of the warp. The sight of them stung Noose’s eyes, an overt wrongness to them as though they didn’t belong in reality. And of what little she understood of the warp denizens, they didn’t. Both Chaos Lords battled the daemons, relishing in combat and demonstrating centuries of skill and talent in the art of war. Those among the assembled more devoted to Khorne were in ecstasy, the perverse bloodshed bringing them to unnatural highs.

The contest would rage for eight days and nights, and though some watchers would leave for sleep or food, Noose and the Astartes stood vigil; the Chaos Marines out of duty to their commander and Noose out of obsession for him. She passed out from exhaustion numerous times, but Drusus took the responsibility to wake her up and bring her food and water, the gruff marines around her allowing Nekhii Myy’s acolyte to walk among them out of respect and fear of the sorcerer. As the Game of Favor went on stranger beasts appeared, though nothing as great as the Keeper of Secrets from so long ago. Buxom Slaaneshi Daemons, their perverse forms combining the traits of men, women and beasts accompanied Khornate Juggernauts that tangled with Seri and Khünbish.

By the time the gorefest ended, both warriors were coated in blood and ichor as well as fresh wounds. Serei had lost three of his legs and a beast of iron and flesh had bitten a chunk out of his torso. Khünbish’s arm hung limp at his side and his chest had long ago been eviscerated by a cyclopean plaugebearer. Lesser warriors would have fallen days ago, but the two Chaos Lords were veterans of thousands of battles, favored by dark gods and enhanced by forbidden sciences. The cogitating servitors lining the blood pits hummed, counting the amount of slain daemons. The crowd waited with baited breath for the result, and Noose clutched the dry skins holding her lord’s prize, anxious for the moment she could present it to him. One by one, the animate corpses counting the kills withdrew to present their findings to a special servitor, it’s torso hollowed out for a colossal magnavox. They fed sheets of punched holes into this servitor, it’s expressionless face unmoved by the scale of the gore it was analyzing. After agonizing minutes, it sounded its speaker to call the assembled hordes to attention.

“The Game of Favor is over. A winner has been decided.” Rang the servitor’s emotionless, mechanical voice.
“Serei, the favored of The Four, the father of carnage, the heretic of a hundred stars, has slain 1706 daemons. Khünbish, the scourge of the scars, The Khan’s nemesis, the champion of the Game of Favor for one century, ”
Noose bit her lip so hard to draw blood, the tension higher than she could imagine. Even the stoic marines by her side were on edge, their faces betraying nervous anxiety.
“has slain 1690 daemons. Serei has won this Game of Favor, may The Gods favor him as a true champion of their wills.”

The Tarnished Spears were silent. Across the massive pit of blood the Serei’s Sons were uproarious, shouting and convulsing in ecstasy so extreme Slaanesh was sure to be attracted by their actions. Noose’s face turned pale, looking with fearful eyes at the Astartes flanking her. They seemed just as shocked, though they expressed it through their perverse passions rather than her stunned silence. Some were taken by melancholy, others rage. Some shouted accusations of cheating, others looked longingly into their knives. Noose stared at Khünbish, the wounded warrior’s fists balled in anger, his wounds forgotten. Serei was prancing around on his remaining legs, hands raised in celebration. The Chaos Marine moved with unnatural speed. He leapt into the air, grabbing his rival by the torso and wrapping his limbs around him. Before the cyborg could react, Khünbish seized Serei’s neck and with a swift movement, yanked it backwards.

He pulled with such force that the wounded marine fell off the spidery chaos lord, clutching something in his hands. It took Noose a moment to realize it, but Khünbish was holding Serei’s head, his entire spinal column trailing behind.

Everything happened suddenly. The Sons of Serei moved to attack their rival horde. The Astartes readied themselves and braced for attack. The cultists and daemon engines roared and raced to battle. But before they could clash the coven of sorcerers appeared, forcing the blood pits to convulse in a tidal wave that knocked over the assaulting masses.

It was agreed the manner would be settled by the sorcerers, as they were the ones who organized and prepared the ancient game, though skirmishes still erupted between both sides. Khünbish had been arrested by Serei’s Sons and held like a common prisoner without any of the respect he deserved as a Chaos Lord. Noose clutched the bag containing her master’s helmet close to her chest, confused and afraid. Despite the honor given her as helmet-bearer, she was just a human cultist, and this was a matter between Lords of Chaos. She was in the dark about what was happening, staying in the Breaker’s Falcons’ camp for safety as fully armored Astartes and daemonic war machines marched outside. Even The Kalmyk had been activated, heavy plasma weapons scanning the horizon in case Serei’s forces attacked. It’s enraged visage even seemed worried, pacing around like a worried dog, constantly checking it‘s lord‘s tent to see if he had returned. Eventually, Drusus came to her tent to find Noose chewing on her fingernails, staring intently at the sealed bag of skin.
“They did it,” he said, his voice melancholy. Drusus had trouble restraining the warp from spilling out of his mind, and an unnatural permafrost was spreading from his feet.
“They did it to our lord.”
“What do you mean Drusus? What happened? Is he…is he…”
“It pains me to say this, but Lord Myy has decided he will no longer be honored as our lord. He has brought shame, dishonor and misfortune to the Tarnished Spears, and acted in a manner unbefitting one of his station. But still, what they did, it…”
“Throne of skulls man, spit it out! What did they do?”
Drusus swallowed and recited what the sorcerer had decreed. It was a terrible thing to say, especially to the woman who idolized Khünbish, but he had seen the insides of her soul, and felt compelled to be honest with her. Perhaps that would be his failing as a sorcerer, he thought. Tzeentch had little tolerance for honesty.
“The former lord of the Tarnished Spears, having violated the terms of the Game of Favor by striking his opponent, has offended The Gods. I have consulted with the sorcerers of Serei’s employ, who confirm that a prince of the warp, whose name is never to be spoken outside that formless realm, is enraged that his favored has been slain. For this high crime of offending The Ruinous Powers, and to appease the prince, Khünbish has been sentenced to the ultimate punishment.”
Drusus shut his eyes and looked at his feet. The air around him was thick with static electricity, causing Noose’s mohawk to stand on end. She could hear the chittering of daemons as they scratched against reality, seeking an egress to invade the Materium.
“Khünbish is to be cursed with spawndom by this coven, so that he may forever regret his sin. As the warband is now without a leader, Lord Myy says he will retreat to consult the gods to select a new leader for the Tarnished Spears. He says he would gladly take the position, but our tradition states that no sorcerer may hold the position of absolute leader of the warband, and in his wisdom he is content to keep his station.”

Noose was stunned, dropping the fleshy sack to the ground with a heavy thud. Drusus could see tears in her eyes and wanted to say something, anything, but the words failed him. He tried to calm himself, to quiet The Warp in his mind, but seeing the raw emotion take hold of Noose was pushing him into dangerous territory. He gave her a somber nod and ran from the tent, already feeling a burst of psychic energy threatening to erupt from his mind.

Noose collapsed, shaking with awful sadness. What had the terrible sorcerers done to her lord? She turned to the shrine she had build in the corner of her tent. He no longer looked like that picture of him, did he? Those cherished shards of ceramite armor, he could never wear them again. She cursed herself for never recording his voice; whatever monster he had mutated into, it could never convey that powerful charisma that Khünbish possessed, could it? For hours she wracked herself with these thoughts, crying into her pillow so awfully the inbred guard dogs outside whimpered in sympathy.

Night fell. Serei’s Sons celebrated their vengeance, and while the monster Khünbish had become was paraded around their camp, he was returned to the Tarnished Spears at the end of the day, where those who tended to the warp beasts and chaos spawn would keep him caged in shame for humiliating the warband. The sympathy the warband had for their lord was fading; he had slipped, obviously, and was unfit to lead them. The gods obviously didn’t want him to lead if they had let him lose. He had brought shame and embarrassment to the entire warband, and regardless of who he was he needed to suffer for that. These accusations and worse circulated the camps, and Noose found herself hating her fellow cultists for betraying Khünbish the Breaker so readily. The Kalmyk watched the cage containing its former master with expressionless eyes, staring at it with its’ daemonic cockpit for hours before turning away to resume patrols. Noose dawned her battle armor; a flack jacket looted from a scuffle with the Imperial Guard and defaced with the icons of The Ruinous Powers and a ceramic mask styled to look like a daemonic falcon. It wasn’t as much for protection as it was for confidence; without it she was a debased girl among warriors, but with it she was one of them. She strapped her laspistol to her waist and sheathed her machete. She would have killed, and often tried to, for one of the chainswords the marines used, but she was just a cultist and they were not for the likes of her.

She left the Falcon’s campsite, her avian mask concealing the pained expression and lines of tears on her face. She got lost twice on the way to her destination, at first following the colossal footprints of the possessed Warhound Titan, thinking it would be standing vigil over its ruined master. Instead the equine machine was at the edge of the camp, facing The Sons across the congealing sea of blood. She patted its colossal metal foot, knowing it wouldn’t notice, but sympathetic that her master’s steed shared her melancholy. When she finally found the spawn pens she faltered, afraid of what she would find in there. The cages smelt of excrement and animal unseemliness, a smell that would make a nurgling giddy. Stomaching it, she pressed on, inspecting each horrible beast for signs of it’s former identity.

Eventually, she found the cage she was looking for. An awful creature writhed within; two squat, elephantine legs supporting a bloated, asymmetric trunk. It’s leathery skin was off white with raised red lumps, and a long, reptilian tail extended between its legs slightly off center. A single eyeball tipped the tail, and it stared blindly at the world around it. The creature’s face was a grim parody of Khünbish’s; his handsome, powerful face stretched and warped like one of the flayed skins that filled the camp. Above it was it’s true head; an equine snout terminating in mouth filled with pointed, triangular teeth. A long, slobbery tongue hung from it’s lipless orifice, picking at it’s single nostril in stupid boredom. It had an odd number of tiny black eyes that constantly flitted too and fro, watching everything that transpired around it. A pair of long, scaled tentacles, piscine fins protruding from their bases jutted from beneath it’s left shoulder, and a crooked, sinuous clawed arm that extended from it’s right supported its weight. A pair of long chains connected to hooks embedded in the spawn’s skin; one in it’s crotch and one in it’s former face’s mouth, connected it to the center of its cage.

Noose regretted wearing her mask, because the urge to vomit overwhelmed her. She tore off the ceramic falcon face and hurled, doubling up in pain. Two of the spawn’s eyes tracked her, its lolling tongue tasting the air around it. When she recovered, Noose tentatively approached the bars to the cage, grabbing them and trying to get closer to the thing. It’s eyes followed her, but the chained spawn didn’t seem to react beyond pawing at the ground with its claw.
Noose sobbed at the chaos spawn, mustering the words she needed to say.
“Master, what have they done to you?”
The spawn remained unmoved, dragging itself over towards her as far as it’s chains would allow.
“Do you know me master? I was named Noose, I followed you ever since you raided Padonia?”
The beast stared expressionless at her, its blind tail-eye retreating into it’s body to be replaced by a boneless human hand with eight fingers.
“Master, remember the raid on that Tau space station last year? I fought within feet of you, you even knocked me over when I got in your way. I said I was sorry, but you didn’t hear. I hope you can forgive me.”
She wiped a tear from her eye and leaned closer to the horrible beast.
“I’ve always been your loyal servant master, always! I don’t care about any shame or tradition, they shouldn’t have done this to you!”
She opened the duffel bag she brought with her and produced the few things she had brought; a few pounds of raw dogmeat, a pair of sugar cubes, and a sack of flayed human skin. The cage bars were thin, but the ceiling was open, and if one wanted to they could throw something in. Apparently some people had already used that egress to throw rocks and feces at the chaos spawn. Noose tossed the meat and sugar over the cage bars, and it fell perfectly in front of the mutant beast. The chained creature sniffed them, then ran its tongue over the food, licking up the sugar cubes before starting on the meat. When it had finished it looked expectantly at the sack of flesh, licking its lips expectantly.
“I don’t know if he told you, but Lord Myy, in his wisdom selected me to bear your helmet, for when you won the Game of Favor.”

When she uttered those last three words he roared in agony, flailing his arms and tail. His equine face split down the middle, revealing a second, vertical row of teeth, these humanoid unlike his sharp fangs below.
“I know master, Serei must have cheated, but only you were wise enough to see. I don’t know why Myy didn’t look into it, but I must trust his wisdom, as he can speak with The Four.”
She opened the fleshy sack by stretching the one mouth that hadn’t been stitched up on it, pulling it open and revealing the beaked helmet inside. Even in the darkness it seemed to glow with profane beauty like it never had; anointed perfectly as if by a master armorer. Had Serei seen he would have been driven mad with envy, how bright the white and how deep the red was. Inside one could clearly read the Litany of The Four in dark red ink, preserved by the perverse unguents coating the helmet. Even without warp-sight, Noose could see the way space bended around the helmet, a gift of the demon bound within. It’s lenses seemed alive, how polished and bright they were, and the inscriptions lining the beak stood out in amazing clarity. The thing that was Khünbish howled, beating its arms and legs against the cage floor. Its snout sealed back up and the stretched face on its chest shifted to the side of his body as he mutated. It seemed as though his ribcage was pushing out of it’s chest, the bones ripping out of it’s skin and exposing a large cavity in it’s torso.

Noose looked at it’s beady black eyes and gestured at the open ceiling of the cage, then tossed the helmet in. The spawn’s two tentacles caught it deftly, holding the pristine headgear in front of its mutated face. It made a strange sound; half sobbing and half equine whinnying, falling to the surface of it’s cage as it’s clawed arm clutched the helmet. Noose couldn’t hold back the tears; the one time she had made her lord proud, that she had done something he would remember, and it was in this form?

The beast held the remnant of his former life for a long time, turning it over and inspecting every inch of it, even trying to fit its elongated cranium inside. Eventually, it placed the helmet in the exposed chest cavity, the bones locking over the white ceramite and pulling it back inside itself, hiding it inside its mutating body.

Noose stared at her master in silence, moved by his appreciation of her work. She knew she had done well, and that her master, even in this debased form, had accepted her labors made her giddy on the inside. She waited by the cage, driving off any who came to mock the fallen Chaos Lord with a warning shot from her laspistol and staying close to her lord. She fell asleep at one point, leaning her head against the cage bars only to be woken by the spawn’s long tongue slobbering on her forehead. She was disgusted but happy; the creature that The Breaker had become, however repulsive, seemed pleased with her. She had always fantasized about her lord touching her, and even in this hideous form his attention made her swoon.

She eventually tore herself away from the spawn cages, swearing to herself that she would make sure Khünbish was treated with the dignity he deserved. The Tarnished Spears wouldn’t leave Goshen V for another month; the planet’s eastern continents remaining un-plundered. Noose spent the next few days picking through the ruins of a hive city, looting trinkets and valuables for her plan.

It had taken hours to find Puzzlemask, the corpulent Falcon having moved to the far side of the camp. Before Khünbish came he had been a banker, and his skill as a trader persisted to this day. His name came from the bizarre mutilations he made to his face; garish bits of fabric, armor and building materials grafted to his head, giving him a bizarre but unique appearance. While other cultists searched for women, liquor, valuables or weapons in their post-conquest raids, Puzzlemask looked for dogs. He knew the importance the beasts played in their lives, and he possessed the finest animals among all the Falcons. He didn’t need to hunt or fight for what he wanted; people gave it to him.

“My pack? I raised t’em since t’ey was pups, you cant expect me to part from t’em so quickly!” Said the merchant, the medley of colorful scraps attached to his jowls rattling as he did so.
“Stuff it Puzzlemask, what I’ve got is worth twice your mutts and you know it!” She had offered him a dozen charge packs for lasguns, as well as a few precious stones she had found among the Imperial rubble. She didn’t know if it was enough; unlike the ill-blooded mongrels the rest of the cult owned, Puzzlemask’s dogs were purebred, with clean fur, healthy physiques and long lives.
“Scalps’ would give me triple for m’pets. Good breeders t’ey are, and for freaks like you t’at means the price is double.”
“Double!? These are good gems, look at the cut! Remember the mines on Dvorak Secundus? We didn’t see stones like this there,” she picked up a green gem coated in white speckles, “surely that’s worth something?”
“We can go all nig’t lucky girl, but just cause y’carried T’e Breaker’s-”
“Shut up! I’ve heard what you said about him, you’re not fit to speak his name!”
“T’e Breaker failed t’e spears, t’at’s all I’m saying. Listen Noose, Burk’art’s making t’e rounds, and ‘es gonna take all your precious gemstones w’en ‘e sees t’em. Eit’er pony up somet’ing better or I keep my pets.”

Noose moaned, standing on one leg and reaching between her thighs. She fumbled, pulling down the black fabric that concealed her crotch and wiggling it out of her shorts. She ran her thumb over the red Khornate stitching. The Lord of Skulls would be displeased that her monthly offerings weren’t consecrated to him, but she would have to deal with it.
“Almost shot me for these, remember Puzzlemask? Nice new addition to your face eh?”

Beneath his clutter of accessories the merchant’s beady eyes widened. They struck the deal, a dozen power packs and a handful of gems, along with the only comfortable underwear Noose owned. She silently cursed the dog breeder, hoping the Plaugefather would visit his crotch when he tore her clothes to decorate his face. But she had a quartet of large, healthy, fuzzy dogs, their friendly eyes and wagging tails at odds with the debased surroundings.

The night was dark, clouds obscuring the sky. Noose dragged the muzzled dogs through the spawn cages; the repulsive scent of the mutants magnified a hundred times to their sensitive noses. She remembered the way to Khünbish’s cage; this was her fifth visit to her repulsive master, and the spawn now recognized her and awaited the treats she would bring. Until now it had just been choice cuts of dogmeat, sweets and bootleg hooch, but for a while she had planned on getting Khünbish the finest meats the Falcons had available. The purebred dogs, the animals that had cost her a fortune in ammunition and her favorite underpants, were pulling away from her, recoiling from the horrid monster they were being pulled towards.

The thing that was Khünbish the Breaker lumbered to the edge of it’s cage, ignoring the tearing of the hooks embedded in its flesh. It had changed slightly since Noose last saw him, his horse-like snout vanishing to be replaced by a circular, ringed mouth with dozens of tiny teeth. It’s former face was just beneath the orifice, and the bulge of the hidden helmet beneath that.
“How have you been master? Nobody hurt you, right?”
The spawn grunted, waving its arms around indiscriminately. Noose shrugged her shoulders and pulled tight on the dog’s leashes.
“I know, my day couldn’t have been worse then yours, but Puzzlemask, he’s one of your cultists, gave me a really hard time. I tried invoking The Changer to make things what I wanted, just like you said on Ururaus, but the bastard wouldn’t budge.”
“And Burkhart, you remember him right? Well he’s suspicious as to why I keep coming back to the camp smelling like shit and I don’t think I can keep brushing him off. He hates us, master. I’m sure you knew that, but he’s making this a lot harder. Its going to be harder to see you my lord, but I’ll do my best.”

The spawn nodded in a brief moment of understanding, curling its tentacles around the bars of its cage. Steam rose from where he touched the metal and he recoiled, something harming him when he tried to touch the bars.
“But I brought you these my lord!” Noose yanked the dogs to the edge of the cage, the animals panicking from the spawn’s presence. A long, slobbery tongue hung from Khünbish’s mouth as he reached his tentacles out of the cage and seized the dogs. The animals flailed, but Khünbish pulled them against the cage bars, their flailing paws doing nothing to his scaled limbs. He reached out with his clawed arm and started to pull chunks of meat off the squirming animals, devouring them piece by piece. Khunbish even devoured the bones, leaving nothing left of the animals. Noose smiled through her disgust.

Again she had pleased him, and he licked her beaming face with his bloody tongue. She pressed the gory muscle against her face, shutting her eyes and imagining it was her lord’s hand caressing her bare scalp. Whatever she could do for him, she would do it. He was suffering, anyone could see that, but like a profane saint she sought to ease his pain. But she couldn’t think of anything more she could do for her imprisoned idol then bring him treats, and she was running out of things to trade for more food. The other cultists mocked her for her apparent gluttony, thinking she had fallen into a deep depression from her idol‘s fate. She ignored them, and brought as much as she could to her poor master, and each time he gobbled up her gifts she felt profoundly satisfied. She stayed and chatted to the monster, telling it all the things she had wanted to tell Khünbish for years, everything she had dreamed of saying to him when they eventually met. She laid bare her fascination for him, the existence of his shrine, the perverse things she had done so the gods would choose her helmet-bearer. It was difficult to read the creature’s emotions, but it seemed interested, like a parent listening to its child describe their first day at schola. When she told him about the profane rights to The Four she had done to be chosen his beady black eyes had lit up, and the chaos spawn extended his scaly tentacle to stroke her face. The contact enraptured Noose, the tender moment from her lord more than she had ever wished for, even in his profane incarnation. She smiled softly and kissed his limb, blushing as she did so.

As his slimy appendage returned to his cage Noose finished her stories, describing the way of life the unworthy cultists lived, how they marveled at his feats of strength and skill on the battlefield and ritually honored him. She pointed out the numerous tattoos on her body, all icons of her devotion to him. The spawn looked on and seemed to nod , raising and lowering its crooked trunk slowly. Blinking back tears she said goodbye to Khünbish and made her way home, brainstorming new ways to aid him.

As his servant left, the thing that was Khünbish tried to think. The very action of listening to her stories and controlling his body required serious effort, his body normally warping and contorting on its own accord. Thinking was harder, causing his twisted brain to burn like an iron poker had been shoved in it. It would be so easy to stop thinking and let the madness of spawndom embrace him, but he was once and Astartes, and he was as much a master of his mind as his body. He looked forward to her visits, his bestial side relishing in the food and his remaining humanity craving her attention and company. None among his horde, save The Kalmyk, had ever expressed anything close to sympathy for him. The fanatical cultist was the only one who cared.

He disgorged the helmet, staring at its profane beauty. Khünbish was once a Chaos Lord, and though he did not posses the gift of sorcery he knew what the helmet had become. Through Noose’s obsessive, fanatical care for it, every piece of the preparations of the helmet done with zealous obsession and devotion to both the Chaos Gods and to Khünbish, the helmet that had originally served as an icon to taunt Serei had become a potent focus for the warp. The bound daemon constantly attracted power to the device, and its blasphemous inscriptions and perverse iconography enabling that power to cross over to the Materium.

Khünbish was no longer a Chaos Lord, however. He was a creature that changed and lived by the whims of The Warp, and he possessed a modicum of control of it’s powers. It was nothing compared to the most basic of psychic powers; he couldn’t fire bolts of lightning or summon daemons, he couldn’t fly or repair his wounds with his will alone. But with the helmet, a focus and catalyst for the foul magicks of the warp, he could do something.

He focused on the warp that flowed through him; the immaterial energies that invaded his body and warped it into new forms. He tried to divert it to the helmet, the effort causing red-hot bolts of pain to shoot through his twisted nervous system. His form bubbled, his limbs writhing and changing with horrible plasticity. It felt like molten iron had replaced his blood, so intense was the pain that he had to endure. But his pain was rewarded, the power of the warp flowing through his body and into the helmet. The spawn roared in pain; his bestial mind overwhelming his ability to think rationally. For hours the spawn forgot it was Khünbish, swiping at the bars of its cage and conducting itself like an animal until he could think again. It had been worth it. His plan had been set in motion.

Frantically, Noose snuck out from her tent, evading Burkhart’s watchful eyes. He had forbidden her from leaving the camp after dark when he smelled Khünbish’s foul stench on her. But the Astartes couldn’t be everywhere, and Noose had released her guard dogs to harass the breeding females, the commotion drawing the marine’s attention. She ran, clothed only in her dogskin tank top and a pair of shorts of the same material for speed and to keep her frame small. She ran the now familiar path to the spawn pens, her worn boots leaving faint tracks in the worn earth.

Nekhii Myy had decreed the new lord of the Tarnished Spears; the Aspiring Champion known as Terbish. Everyone knew Terbish was Myy’s toady, a pawn he kept under his ceramite thumb. Noose felt it was her duty to report this to her lord; he needed to know the fate of his horde. Everyone among The Breaker’s Falcons could recognize the bold power grab by the sorcerer; Terbish, despite his clear favor from Nurgle, was a poor leader and slow to make decisions. It was clear Nekhii Myy would be the one running things. She hated to bring him bad news, but there was nobody else who would tell her master, and he deserved to know.

Khünbish looked more or less the same as he had last night, though goatlike eyes had grown in the sockets of his former face, and it had shifted to lie above the bulge his helmet created; a mockery of a normal head. Panting with exhaustion, Noose caught her breath at the cages side. A trio of cultists were throwing rocks at the former lord, jeering and mocking him as they did so. When she recovered Noose pulled a tiny autopistol from her shorts. It was small and ineffective, but it was never wise to go unarmed around the warband’s camp. She fired into the air, the bark of the weapon causing the cultists to recoil in shock. They gibbered at her in a language she couldn’t recognize, angrily waving their arms and moving for their knives. She shot the ground near their feet, causing the one in the lead to leap in fear. Cursing at her, the cultists backed off, looking for some other creature to torment.

“Lord Khünbish,” she said as she holstered the weapon. “They’ve decided your successor. Or rather, if you excuse my rude tongue, Lord Myy has chosen your successor. The oaf Terbish is to be the new lord my liege! Terbish who lost three of your men to the imperials because of his indecision! Terbish the glutton who spends no time preparing his weapons or practicing his skills, just gorging himself on pillaged food!”
Khünbish growled, glaring at her.
“Everyone says that my lord, I’m sorry to insult your champion, but its true! Myy just chose a pawn so he could lead our-your warband in your stead! It isn’t fair!”
Her face felt hot with indignation, taking it upon herself to be offended on her lord’s behalf. She stared at Khünbish, expecting a response, but all he could do was blink or groan in protest.
“Im sorry master, I didn’t mean to be rash, please forgive me. Its just that, well, their wont be another lord like you, and Terbish will never lead us to the glory you did.”
Her nose started to run as she ranted at the spawn, his tortured visage unchanging.
“Its just not fair! You were-I mean ARE- the greatest warrior in the host, Myy has doomed us by doing this to you, and now he and Terbish will ruin us! If only he stood up to those sorcerers, if only he-”

Khünbish growled, deep and low, banging his clawed arm against the ground.
“What is it master? You don’t think Terbish will…” her mind raced, what did he want her to know? This was all because Lord Myy had gone along with the sorcerers of Serei’s army; the assembled coven deciding Khünbish’s fate and stalling the violence between the sides. It was Lord Myy who chose a lax successor after Khünbish was removed.
“Do you mean-and please forgive my loose tongue lord-do you mean to say Lord Myy means to ruin us? That he meant to this to you from the start?”

The chaos spawn scratched its back, slowly drawing its tail back and forth. It shuddered and writhed, convulsing for a moment. He nodded, in as best a manner a contorted creature like him could. Noose fell to her knees, resting her head on the bars of Khünbish’s cage.
“I’m sorry my lord, I’m so sorry. If there was something I could have done, anything, believe me I would have done it. I-I-I don’t know what to say.”
The creature stuck it’s scaled tentacles through the bars, resting them on Noose’s head despite the pain contact with the bars caused him. With surprising dexterity it played with her mohawk, flipping it to one side then the other, tying and untying loose knots in the dyed strands. Was it sympathy it was showing? Was Khünbish just as blind-sided as she was?

Her hands shaking from her sobs, she held onto his arms, squeezing the muscular limbs and holding them close to her face. They smelled awful, of animal urine and sweat, their texture coarse and rough. The creature gibbered, nonsense babble-words the only things it could articulate.
“Oh master, please, if there’s anything you need of me, anything at all, let me know somehow. If there’s something I can do to make this better, to ease your suffering, make it known,” she whispered into his tentacles, hoping the creature could hear her. It gurgled something, wiggling as close to the bars of it’s cage as it could. One of it’s limbs snaked down her chest, pushing its scaly mass into her shirt and between her tits. Noose’s eyes opened wide in shock. This was he lord, Khünbish The Breaker, touching her sensitive areas. How many nights had The Prince been invoked and she had touched herself imagining this situation? Didn’t she ride her favorite toys looking at the shrine she dedicated to Khünbish? But this thing, this slimy bloated beast that was groping her, even now it’s arm moving further down her chest, the length of the scaly limb scraping her breasts as the tip neared her tattooed belly-button, was it still Khünbish?
“M-m-my lord? What are you-I didn’t know you felt-are-oh fuck it, just keep going.”
She gripped the bars, looking into the pained, goat-like eyes that stared back. The tentacle on her head was still caressing her, tracing around the orbits of her eyes, her cheekbones, her chin and back with it’s rounded tip. Her eyes fluttered, never in her wildest dreams had this occurred, and she dreamed very wildly about Lord Khünbish.

Noose murmured pleasurable sounds, rubbing her face against the nuzzling limb. The limb that was crawling over her body, holding her tight, it’s length passing through her cleavage, had wrapped around her abdomen and the small of her back, the tip gently tapping her butt. The scaled limb reached into her shorts, making Noose glad she had eschewed undergarments. The tentacle reached around her butt until it lay beneath her vagina, teasing the bottom of her sex organ.

“Oh gods, you don’t know how long I wanted this,” she moaned, the tentacle leaving her face and wrapping around her tits, squeezing her meager bosom around it’s partner. Above her Khünbish noticeably writhed, scratching himself furiously with his clawed hand and flapping his tail wildly. His strange, flayed face seemed to be mouthing something, but no sounds came out. The pressure from the constriction of her breasts caused her nipple piercings to dig painfully into their sockets, exciting the debauched cultist and causing her sex to drip with fluids. Every little movement from the tentacle between her tits caused her excitement, and her breathing became hoarse and needy. Having wrapped her bosom enough times, the tip of the tentacle prodded her mouth, which already hung slightly open. She gladly allowed the arm entrance, it’s thick scaly mass mimicking a lover’s tongue as it danced with hers, a perversion of a kiss that originated on hated Terra.

Her loins gushed with arousal and she gripped the bars tighter, looking up longingly at her perverse master, her eyes darting from him to her crotch. Wordlessly he obliged her, the limb in her pants pressing its rounded tip into her eager cunt. It was a rough, somewhat unpleasant fit, but Noose had served The Four for many years, and was used to the unusual perversions it’s followers celebrated; she had after all adopted quite a few of them. She squeezed her hips on the slowly penetrating member, lubricating the arm with her vaginal fluids. It was like a dream; her master Khünbish stroking her body and giving her such erotic bliss. He was rewarding her, for everything she had done for him, for the helmet, the dogs, the attention, the news, everything.

The tentacle in her mouth pressed deeper, prodding the back of her throat. Though its taste was repulsive, Noose tolerated the foul flavor and even rocked her head back and forth, as if she was blowing a human’s cock. Saliva coated the few inches that had penetrated her mouth, the scales cold but the limb’s movements perfectly calculated; a perfect balance between force and softness, just enough to be in control, but not too much to be uncomfortable. Its partner that was pressing into her cooch was just as precise, wiggling around inside her as she tried to press back against it. Spit-roasted on Khünbish’s tentacles, she rocked back and forth, taking more in her cunt and letting some of him out of her mouth, then doing the reverse, squeezing the bars so hard her brown knuckles turned white. Mouthing her thanks to the four, especially Slaanesh, for this gift, she yelped as the tentacle in her sex started thrusting faster, it’s bumpy, uneven surface scratching the sensitive spots in her inner walls. She redoubled her efforts on the oral tentacle, trying to match pace with the rapid arm in her loins. Each thrust from the tentacle fucking her nethers caused it to abrasively scrape her bound breasts, and each time the one in her mouth pushed in deeper it squeezed tighter on her bosoms.

Noose bucked her hips, almost losing her footing as she was reamed by the former Chaos Lord. Above her something was changing; Khünbish’s face contorted in gruesome pain, a faint light shining from behind his face. Noose couldn’t bear the sight of him in pain and shut her eyes, the colors that played behind her eyelids pulsing with her rapid heartbeat.

The pain was awful, nearly unbearable for Khünbish. He had drawn so much power from the realm of chaos into his former headgear, but disgorging it through his body was like spitting lightning bolts after one had swallowed a battery. Bolts of red hot pain shot through him as he forced his tentacles to mutate, their rounded tips flaring and changing. He knew in his warped mind it would cause her discomfort, but she had gone this far and would have to tolerate it. The helmet, which his former face was stretched around, glowed in every color of the rainbow, and then some more that only existed in the warp as the tips of his tentacles expanded, tiny holes forming at the ends. Noose shrieked into his arm, but he fucked faster, not caring for her comfort. The easy part was over; now he had to disgorge the massive reserve of power contained in the focus. Noose’s work had made the helmet into a potent icon of the Chaos Gods, just as powerful as a Dark Apostle’s Crozius or a sorcerer’s staff. Perhaps more so, now that it was embedded in the gullet of a warp-beast, whose connection to the warp constantly brought more power into its unholy reserves. It felt like a bolt shell had exploded in his chest as his reserved power exploded outwards, directed through his tentacles and into Noose. From the holes at the end of his tentacles it flew, taking the form of a partially physical, partly insubstantial ooze that shot into the cultist’s gullet and womb, causing her to convulse in heretical bliss.

His job was done, his plan had been set in motion, but he kept thrusting, his stupid bestial side craving more and some long-dormant part of his other half wanting to reward his servant. Her hands were white from how hard she squeezed the iron bars, her eyes shut tight and her lower body quivering. He withdrew both his limbs so only the very tips remained in Noose, then thrust them both simultaneously as hard as he could. The force of it knocked her off her feet, her lower body falling into the dust as she gripped the cage for support. He did it again, sending tidal waves of perverse ecstasy through Noose. Her loins clamped down and were flooded with her own fluids of orgasm, her mouth raw and ragged from the bumpy tentacle that slowly pulled out of it.
“Th-th-thank you master. You are tr-truly the greatest lord in th-the Ruinous P-Powers’ service.” She coughed, her throat sore and her pussy aching. Khünbish used what little sanity he had left as he released her to mutate his mouth into a close approximation of a human one.
“Duty. Repaid.” He hissed, his voice only containing traces of the charisma it once possessed. “More. To. Do. My. Gift.”  The spawn said as it crawled its way away from the edge of the cage, exhausted and in extreme agony, dragging its slick, wet arms behind it.

Noose blinked in amazement and confusion. The lights that normally played at the backs of her eyelids; remnants of colored lights that bounced between her eye and the flap of skin that covered them, were alive and everywhere, walking and moving like people. Everything had a corona of colored light around it, and she could see the daemons of the warp walking unobstructed by the physical world all around her. She shivered, and as she did so her skin burned, something pushing up from inside her limbs and bursting out of her skin. Around her elbows, the outsides of her eyes, her hips and her feet were bony red spines, most shorter than a centimeter, all thinner than that. She howled in pain as they pressed forth from her skin, her shrieks causing crimson clouds of color to appear around her. Her mind was on fire, warp-energies coursing through her, driving her to flee from her master as fast as she could.

Drusus found her hiding, curled into a ball by the vehicle he made his home in. Something was wrong with her; a mutation had taken her and her body had warped. He had seen it before, but never to a human he cared about. Her eyes were wide and her pupils dilated, looking just above his head in bewilderment.
“Isabel? What in Khorne’s name happened to you?”
“I don’t fucking know Drusus!” Screamed Noose, leaping to her feet and swiping her arms around her, as if trying to swat a cloud of flies.
“Cant you fucking see them? Why wont they leave me alone!”
“Isabel, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Come inside, lets talk about this in private.”
“Nowhere is private! Their everywhere! Cant you do anything!?”

Drusus realized what she was on about, invoking warp-sight like Nekhii Myy had told him. Immediately he could see the indistinct forms of daemons crowding around Noose, following her movements like a horrid parade. He grabbed her and dragged the spiked cultist into his ore-hauler, its cargo compartment converted into a small living space. The vehicle was decorated with sorcerous icons and the paraphernalia Myy’s acolyte had acquired from his master, their ritual purpose controlling and focusing his psychic powers.
Drusus pulled Noose onto a stained cot, turning on a hotplate to brew some coffee for her.

“Isabel, I don’t know how to tell you this. It should be impossible, considering the amount of exposure to the warp you’ve had. That blast I hit you with when you served me, that alone should have catalyzed it-”
“Drusus, what the fuck are you talking about?” She whined, scratching her pointed spines.
“Isabel, you’re a psyker,” Drusus grabbed a charred Star of Chaos, red gems embedded in half of the rays shooting from its center.
“Hold this, I need to see something.”
Noose complied as Drusus gurgled something; the words of activation Nekhii Myy’s training had ingrained in him. All four gems glowed, so bright that Drusus had to snatch the icon away from her lest the light blind him.
“Oh lords, there must be some mistake. It’s a trick of Tzeentch, that’s all it is…”
“Drusus, stop. You’re scaring me.”
“Isabel, listen to me,” he seized her shoulders, making sure to avoid any spines.
“Whatever happened to you it made you a psyker. Not just any psyker, Isabel, a very dangerous one. Alpha level, that means really, REALLY powerful. This is very dangerous shit Isabel, both for you and everyone around you. You need to tell me Isabel; what happened to you?”

Drusus was never truly human, belonging to a splinter race of humanity from a far flung star. A transparent third eyelid blinked over his eyes. Noose blushed, watching the blue shadow of a Horror that lurked in the warp fly sporadically from corner to corner.
“I cant really say. It just sort of-happened.”
“This is serious Isabel, you know that, no time to be a goddamn kid about this. I‘ve seen your soul Isabel, there was no way in the warp you were a psyker then. And you‘re a terrible liar Isabel, I hope you know that.”
“Shit, this is really bad Drusus. I think this might be Nurgle, or maybe Tzeentch punishing me for calling on The Prince so much. Would you know if I’ve offended them Drusus?”
“Calm down. Explain to me clearly what happened. How you changed.”
“I-oh gods-promise me you wont tell anyone. Swear by the gods Drusus,” her eyes tracked a formless shape that faded through the wall, “they’re watching.”
“I swear Isabel, now please tell me what’s going on for their sake.”
“Lord Khünbish. I went to see Lord Khünbish. I’ve been doing it for a while.”
“Why would you do this that yourself? Lord K-”
“Don’t you dare say his name! He was your lord not so long ago, show some godsdamned respect!”
She leapt from the cot, nearly hitting her head on the low ceiling, hands balled in fury. “Why didn’t you go see him? Why didn’t you do anything to help him?”
The crowd of spectral daemons surrounding Noose leaned in on Drusus, mocking him with their translucent forms.
“Lord Myy-”
“I don’t want to hear anything about that slime ball! That piece of grox shit had this planned from the start, he always meant to do this it Lord Khünbish!”
The daemons frenzied, a riot of colors and shapes exploding around Isabel, hurting Drusus’ eyes despite his extra lid.
“Ok. Sorry, lost my cool. Anyways…”

She told him about the night’s rendezvous, the psyker remaining stoic. His former lover seemed on-edge from his silent reaction.
“Was it good?” he asked.
“What?”
“To fuck him, did you like it? I know you‘ve been after him for years, and, well, fucking a spawn isn’t the worst thing someone in the Spears has done for their lusts.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah it did. But that’s not really the issue here Drusus. The issue is that letting him fuck my made me this,” she tapped the sharp tip of one of the spines near her eyes.

The crowd of indistinct daemonic figures all stepped one by one through the wall, their multicolored forms passing through the solid metal like it were mist. The last one turned and looked at Noose, beckoning for her to follow.
“Drusus, did you see that? Do they want us to follow them?”
“I think, Isabel, that this is a sign from the gods.”