On the Shoulder of Martyrs (Black Templars 40K Quest)

+THOUGHT FOR THE DAY+
The Great Enemy demands blood for their false gods. We shall give them their own in droves.
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Oaths and purity scrolls fluttered as the Thunderhawk's hatch opened. Wind howled into the aircraft, lashing at every member of the crusader squad. Heads were bowed as Theobald led his squad in prayer.

"Ready yourselves, brothers," he finished. "There will be death this day - whether it be ours or our enemies, only the Emperor knows."

He fastened on his helm, a white templar cross on its black visage. He locked the seals with a hiss, then stood at the precipice of the Thunderhawk's opening. He stared down a warzone that festered with heretics and rebels, a tide who crashed into the implacable lines of Imperial Guardsmen and Planetary Defense Forces.

He turned to face you and the crusader squad. "No pity. No remorse. No fear."

Then he leaped off the Thunderhawk. The entire squad echoed his words with zeal, leaped off roaring. You plummeted almost ten meters, the shock reverberating throughout your superhuman physique.

"For the Emperor!"

Immediately you were beset. Heretics with machetes charged in blindly, and in the distance their black-hearted brothers spat rounds of autogun fire. Their faces were bloody, pitted, and scarred. You scowled in disgust as you saw the blasphemous brandings etched into their blighted skin.

You drove a bolt round through the skull of a heretic. Gore spattered his traitor comrades as the mass-reactive round detonated inside him. Wisps of smoke rose from your boltpistol, strangely serene, replaced immediately with blinding flashes as you fired again and again.

Chainsword teeth tore ravenously into the flak armor of a heretic, ravaging his body as he died screaming. You kicked the corpse away, swinging once more with your sword. You felt the sting of autogun bullets thumping dully into your neophyte armor.

The hail of fire stopped as Emmerich and Gottfried retaliated against the shooters. Traitor after traitor had gaping holes in their chests as Emmerich picked them off with his bolter. Gottfried devastated the barricades they cowered behind, his heavy bolter annihilating the sandbags and the traitors behind them.

You turned, saw Nimrod at your back fending off cultists with his own chainsword. Bayard reduced a heretic to a bloody ruin with his shotgun.

In the few minutes that the crusader squad had landed, the traitor mob had been broken utterly. In the distance, loyal Guardsmen cheered at the sight, and advanced with renewed energy.

Then, something you had thought impossible happened. An Astartes had fallen.

One initiate had chased after the fleeing heretics, disappearing into a cloud of dust. He staggered back a moment later, a chainaxe buried from his shoulder to his stomach. Your battle-brother collapsed, his blood-flecked death throes ringing clearly in the squad comms.

His killer emerged from dust. Towering, tainted, and utterly terrible. His warplate was red blood on red armor, gilt with brass, chains wrapped around his arms. He tore his chainaxe from the fallen Templar with ease, laughing maniacally as he noticed the rest of the crusader squad.

The traitor Astartes charged, howling madly, and his war cries were joined by more. A squad of bloodstained berserkers stampeded towards you, trampling heretic bodies beneath their heels with callous apathy.

You knew no fear, but the sight of such foes charging towards you gave you pause. Could you take them?

"No pity! No remorse! No fear!" came your instinctive answer, hypnotically drilled into your mind.

"Bolter fire!" roared Reynauld into your ear. "Take them from a distance, savage. Don't let them get close!"

That had been the first piece of advice Reynauld had given you. You fired into the charging berserkers, your bolt rounds blasting flecks off of their power armor. Emmerich turned his bolter onto them, taking one in the neck and another with repeated shots into the torso. Gottfried's heavy bolter pummeled one into the ground, his firepower devastating even Astartes warplate.

It hadn't been enough. Five of the eight berserkers were on the squad now, and Reynauld's warning rang true. A berserker cleaved a neophyte in twain, his chainaxe feasting hungrily. Another berserker and an initiate were locked in a duel, chainaxe against chainsword. The traitor kicked with savage strength, knocking the Templar back, then followed with an overhead strike that crushed the Templar's helmed head.

"Regroup," ordered Theobald, his voice as calm as always. "Disengage and fire as you fall back."

The crusader squad did as ordered, disengaging from melee as best they could and falling back. You slammed a new magazine into your bolt pistol, fired again as you fell back. You turned for a moment to see the where you were going. Your eyes widened.

"Brother Theobald," you called. "Enemy forces have regrouped and circled around us. We're surrounded."

There was a click of acknowledgment on the squad channel. "Very well. Crusader squad, split fire. Brother Gottfried, loose your heavy bolter into the cultist rabble."

The foe closed in on both fronts. Berserkers slavered in front with their chainaxe, and behind a huge mob of heretics awaited with machetes and autoguns. To make matters worse, your teeth ached and your palms itched - something warp-tainted was afoot.

Fire engulfed the crusader squad, burning purity seals to ash and setting tabards alight. You turned to see a witch amid the mob, hovering in the air, her eyes glowing with cold light. You felt bile at the back of your throat, so disgusting was the sight, the thought, of witchcraft.

The berserkers crashed into the squad once more. The initiates took the brunt of the attacks, forcing the berserkers to attack them rather than the less armored neophytes. The massed volleys of autogun fire tore into the backs of the Templar crusaders.

The earth rumbled. You suspected more witchcraft, but its source was something more terrible. A hulking warrior entered the fray, taller than his berserker comrades. He carried about him the air of a tyrant and the movements of an apex predator. Loyal Astartes helmets decorated a rack on his armor's power supply.

Theobald engaged him, roaring with fury. The Sword Brother's martial prowess was exemplary, but he met his match with the red armored champion, whose bloodlust belied a near-faultless fighting style.

A war was won by choosing your battles. A battle was won by choosing your fights. That's what you had learned in the past grueling months; now was the time to put it into practice.

You knew you would be most effective fighting with:

[ ] The neophytes against cultist mob.

Despite their numbers, they were the simple enough to defeat, and easy to rout.

[ ] Reynauld and the initiates against the berserkers.

The mass-reactive bolter rounds were wasted on poorly armored cultists; the power-armored traitors were worthier targets who offered greater glory.

[ ] Nimrod against the witch.

Your brother Nimrod held a distinctive hatred for psykers, even more than the average Templar - and he'd had remarkable success against them. The witch must die.

[ ] Theobald against the champion.

Even a swordsman like Theobald couldn't survive against that black-hearted champion for long. Not alone.​