For Whom The Bell Tolls...

[LinnScarlett]

Now I, for one, draw ideas for (short)stories/vignettes from the most random and seemingly unrelated things. It tends to jump me, really. I wrote this a while earlier, but haven't been satisfied with it until now. I am now, in part thanks to pointers provided by Isaac, who patiently egged me on. It is, you see, not just the very first Space Mariney (...) thing I have written but also the very first fluff about my DIY chapter, the Storm Hounds. And I wanted their entry into the great yonder of the interwebs to be something memorable, something that suits them. So be gentle, please.

As to what it was that made me write this, here you have it - a line in Donne's Meditation XVII from 'Devotions Upon Emergent Occassions':

"No man is an island, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine [...]; Any death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee."



FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS


'Nunc Lento, Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris.'
"Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me: thou must die."




The watery sun dawned pallid. Its pale rays crept around the undulating hills as a cold, winter wind howled across the frozen tundra. Though the sky was stark blue overheads, dark clouds gathered around the craggy mountain peaks looming along the horizon. The arid landscape was a solemn backdrop to a sombre occasion. A storm was brewing, and in more ways than one. The skirmish had been won but the price had been great: one of their own had fallen.

* * *

They had set forth before the break of dawn and come here, to this lonely hillock in the shadows of foreboding mountains. The filmy morning mists gave the war-torn tundra around them a softer, more flattering focus. Ten in all, they were, and tall as giants they stood against the filtered morning light, wrapped in their cloaks and furs and mighty power armour. None of them wore a helmet. The two surviving novices stood together among the senior Captains. Their unadorned scout armour made them seem slight amid the veterans in their ancient wargear. Throrgar and Kanin were their names, the last two of 6th Company's third-to-youngest squad.

No, not quite the last. There was one other.

He had been their Sergeant, their battle-brother and, very nearly, their doom. Their warteam would be sundered, its two only remaining members separated and seconded to new ones, lest the soulrot they had been exposed to spread. Yorrick Windrunner had been his name. A good name, for a fleet scout – a name and quality to be proud of. He had forfeited that name the moment he had turned away.

Now, he was simply craven.

* * *

As dawn broke a hunting horn's deep call echoed across the endless tundra, and before long the hunters returned with the hunted. They loomed up through the mists as they crested the hillock. Two dark figures, tall and foreboding as the mountain peaks behind them, carrying between them a third. The two veteran Captains dragged the craven along. He growled, when they dropped him to his knees in front of their Lord, but he did not resist. Not anymore.

"Brothers," their Lord spoke as he stood before his Captains. His gravelly bass broke the deceptive peace of their silence like the rumbling of distant thunder. "Whelps," he added after a moment, when his gaze found the two novices. He inclined his head barely noticeable.

His name was Orthrus Wolfsworn, Great Captain and Chapter Lord to the Storm Hounds. Some called him 'the Black Hound' but seldom in more than a whisper and never within earshot. His appearance had earned him that moniker, for his countenance was ever ominously grim. And although he was not truly tall, he was broad in the shoulders and solid of chest. The staggering robustness of his physique amplified by his ancient Terminator armour and fur swathed winter cloak. It was as if one of the distant mountains had grown legs and come to walk among them, his sheer presence giving him ten times his size. And when he grimaced as he observed them, the light of the pale dawn seemed to dim under the force of him. "Today is a bleak victory." The two novices stood quietly, uncertain as to what was to come next.

Throrgar was tall, even for an Adeptus Astartes; proud and tenacious and hot-blooded like a wolf. His features were a mirror to the Chapter's unspoken ideal – broad and chiselled with cliff-like cheekbones and an aquiline nose to wide-spaced eyes the colour of winter, a smattering of copper flecks across the pale blue irises like a spout of spilled blood upon immaculate ice.  His dark hair was shorn up and bound in a tight top-knot, tugged at by the ever blowing wind.

Kanin seemed slighter beside him, shorter perhaps, but just as sturdy. Kanin was more agile; fleeter of foot and swifter of reflex, quieter and slier, like the wolf's little brother: the fox. The Chapter's blood was strongly reflected across the features of the second novice too. It was taken as a favourable omen and indeed, most of the Captains around them showed a likeness to them far stronger than the passing familial resemblance common to all Chapters. Though beside Throrgar, Kanin's features seemed a fraction more genteel; a faint roundness to the eyes and a curve to the lips that the taller novice lacked.

"You have shown your true colours today," Orthrus spoke to their former battle-brother,  who kneeled before him. "And their colour is unwanted."

"The reaver runs hot in his blood," Yorrick retorted blatantly as he jerked his head in the direction of Throrgar. "And yet you do nothing."

Orthrus' frown deepened and the pale morning seemed darker for it. "He did not abandon his charges."

"He will and you know it," Yorrick growled defiantly. "Do not think I do not see it, Orthrus, you favour the reaver's blood!"

"There is no place for you here, craven," Orthrus returned, his voice low and dangerous. "Not for you and not for your discord mongering." The once sergeant spat. Orthrus scowled but did not retort further. Instead, he beckoned one of the novices, and Kanin approached uncertainly. Their Lord was broad and solid, a beast of a man, even among the Astartes. Beside him, Kanin seemed so very small, so very young, in his great shadow. They all did.

"Your accusation is a grave one, Kanin," Orthrus said formally.

"It is true." Kanin replied stoically, though the novice's hands were clenched into fists so that none would see how they shook.

"There is but one answer to the craven," Orthrus continued. "You know this."

Kanin nodded once, curtly, in acknowledgement. "I do."

Orthrus nodded too, but more slowly, resigned. He held up the blade he had brought, 'Keening' was its name. It was as wide as an Astartes' palm and half as tall as Kanin was. It was forged of the finest steel, sharp even without its power field engaged.

Kanin looked at the erstwhile scout sergeant for a long time before addressing him formally, one final time: "I hear your words."

Yorrick grinned as he looked up at Kanin, his teeth glinting in the pale morning light. "I have seen what hides behind your eyes, little whelp. We are not so different, you and I."

Kanin scowled, pale eyes narrowing, but did not respond; it was neither custom nor necessary: his words were his own to choose, a final statement, a final honour – to the memory of the battle-brother he had once been, and in defiance of the stranger he had become and who deserved it no longer. 

The young novice took up the ancient blade with both hands and wielded the mighty weapon on duty and determination alone. It keened mournfully as it fell, straight and true, its call carrying far on the never abating winds. And it was cut off abruptly, by the dull death knell of metal upon flesh.

Somewhere, from a perch shrouded in the mists, a lone crow cawed.

* * *

"Kanin, walk with me," Orthrus said when the deed was done. Kanin nodded and followed, the blade now streaked with red running in rivulets from its hilt like so many crimson tears. It seemed to weigh even heavier now.

They climbed the hillock until they stood upon its precipice, the mountain peaks before them.

"Do you know why it was your duty, and not mine?" Orthrus asked after a long moment.

"I do not," Kanin admitted; eyes on the mountains before them. Their looming presence felt judgemental now, as if they were frowning down at them, their heads crowned in clouds.

Orthrus glanced sideways at the young novice from the corner of his eyes. "To end a brother's life, is to wound every one of us, to diminish the Chapter and to put a grief unto the Emperor, Lord of Winter and Father to us all. But it must be done, do you understand?" He halted then, and the novice glanced at him in turn.  He caught Kanin's gaze, his expression grave. "A fallen brother may not be permitted to live, for where one goes others will surely follow."

Kanin nodded slowly, frowning deeply, and clearly troubled. Regardless, Kanin replied: "I think I understand, Lord."

Orthrus returned his gaze to the eternal mountains as he shook his head lightly, though whether in disagreement or sadness was not clear. Perhaps, it was both. "A brother's death must never be decreed lightly. If you are to take his life, you must look him in the eyes and hear his final words." Orthrus eyes squinted slightly, as if he tried to spot something among the mist shrouded peaks of the mountains. "He who passes the sentence, must swing the sword. Lest he forget what death truly is."

Kanin absorbed the wisdom of his words in silence as the Chapter Lord turned to leave.

"My Lord," Kanin said suddenly, and Orthrus halted. "The blade?"

"Wield it firmly, but never rashly," Orthrus replied, and as he inclined his head briefly, a hint of what might have been a smile momentarily broke his stern features. "Brother."

* FIN *

[BigToof]

Hi Linn,
Really liked this one. Great characterization, and the mood was very well done.

I feel there's a lot of history behind this one.

Do you have anything on the characters already, or is this the first appearance for them?

Best,
-BT

Oh, and I hope people don't mind, but it's been a while, and I have to encourage fine work like this.

So... Karma'd!

[LinnScarlett]

If there is one thing I am good at, it is turning a prosaic mouse into a glorious, overblown unicorn! Hehe.

There IS a lot of history behind them, but most of it is pure head-canon, this is the very first thing I have written about them and I have been sitting on it foooooooreeeevvveeerrrr until I thought it felt right.

I find writing about Space Marines with Space Mariney plotlines incredibly difficult. You know me, born and bred Inquisition-gushing-mystery-stories is what I do. Full frontal war plotlines do not come easily to me. Yet!

Throrgar and Kanin will form the duo the tales will be mostly about. These two yet cognomen-less novices will grow into First Captain Throrgar Godslayer and Second Captain Kanin Orkbane, and lead the veteran companies of the Storm Hounds. They are fleet-based and their history is partially a big mystery to them and partially a big mystery kept by them.

Suffices to say, if the Inquisition ever drops by, they're likely going to have a field day purging the Storm Hounds. 

OH~!
Omnomnomnom! Karma! Nomnom! <3