# The Compact of Ruination



## Shacklock (Dec 15, 2009)

Really wasent feeling Loyalists so I decided to take a break and thrash out the fluff for my Renegade Slaanesh force. C&C welcome, really need to sharpen up my writing.

WIP




*The Compact Of Ruination*
_Master of deceitful treachery, his silver-tongue has enchanted the dispossessed souls of a thousand worlds. True paragon of our glorious Prince._ 
*~Alexandus Corvandur, Veteran Sergeant of The Emperor’s Children*



*Chapter One*
_Truthful Realisations are rarely conceived willingly. _



_‘Give praise to the blessed Lady of Truth, for her holy tenants are sixthfold. Offer yourselves in naked truth to Her illuminating glory,’ _
The stale air kilometres below the hive spire of Terendus Prime was ripe with the stench of corruption and chaos. The ecstatic cries of the heretical preacher echoed down the dripping service-tunnels, all the way to the crouched form of brother-captain Salius Delanter hidden amongst the plasteel conduits. 
_‘Cast off the suffocating trappings of the Corpse-Emperor’s dogma and unchain your souls, through the experience of physical pleasure do we achieve spiritual freedom!’_ Salius grimaced in disgust, intoning a silent prayer to the Emperor of Mankind, as if seeking to wash off the blasphemous stench of the preacher’s beguiling sermon. Finally locating this particular nest of heretics, having waded through endless kilometres of snaking tunnels infested with rad-mutants and heretic scum, every moment the cultists still drew breath galled him considerably. The muted clank of an armoured giant silently shifting up beside him forced Salius from his irritable reverie. 
_‘The men are in position, brother-captain, do we strike?’_Asked Davrik, alpha squad’s veteran sergeant.
Clenching the haft of his chainsword eagerly, Salius nodded curtly, not trusting his voice to betray his excitement. Many of his brothers, Salius had oft noticed failed to share his appreciation for the emotion of battle. Warfare, the captain firmly believed, was a complex thing of intrinsic beauty, there to be embraced in every conceivable way. The emotions one felt coursing through them both directly proceeding and in the midst of bloody combat were experiences to relish. _‘Aye brother, we strike,’_ he replied

Springing to life, the nineteen men of the Scything Talon’s 4th Battle-Company crept towards their objective. With another nod, this time to the warrior on point, a trio of frag grenades soared silently into the murky depths beyond the workshop hatchway. Followed a heartbeat later by a deafening roar of shredded flesh and mangled limbs. Eating up the last few metres to the hatchway, Salius barrelled through the portal, the coughing report of his bolt pistol merging with furious cries of _‘The Emperor’s Scything Talons!’_ A manically grinning figure rose up out of the smoking maelstrom, swinging a makeshift cudgel; it collapsed backwards in a spray of crimson mist before being replaced by a dozen or so more maniacal cultists. Barrelling onwards, Salius dispatched them with disdainful ease, stowing his depleted pistol and hefting his whirring chainsword as it roared into motion. Hacking and cutting his way indiscriminately through the bloody scrum of ragged chaos-worshippers, the brother-captain’s attention was locked firmly on the architect of this situation as he weaved in and out of Salius’s view. Capering wildly upon a makeshift pulpit the arch-recidivist sought to impose some form of organised chorography on the chaotic mêlée unfolding before his eyes. Gesturing with grand sweeps and swings of his arms, like some demented composer to little effect. Disorientated and confused by the suddenness and staggering fury of the Scythes assault the cultists fell like so much chaff as more Scything Talons flooded into the cramped confines of what had become a merciless slaughter-house. 

Cut, parry, riposte and gut. It had become a pattern of depressing familiarity to Salius Delanter after almost a quarter millennia of waging war across the cosmos. Wide eyed, frothing mortal after mortal fell before him in rapid succession, leaving Salius with a keening sense of disappointment with each insultingly easy kill. Their will broken, the cultists streamed back seeing no escape; they formed a ragged screen before their lord and master, waiting with a resigned defiance for their imminent doom. 
_‘Foolish are the Angels of the Corpse Emperor,’_ the preacher suddenly crooned, taking advantage of the brief lull, reproachfully eyeing the advancing Astartes interlopers with crazed intensity. _‘In their childlike naivety they stumble and destroy that which they truly crave!’_ The acrid tang of metallic ozone dripped off each sibilant word.
Several of the Marines had slowed in their advance, ensnared and awaiting the Preacher’s next line. _‘We are all one and the same brothers, flesh and blood and pleasure and pain. The path to joy lies in the revels of experience!’_
Salius blinked in dazed shock as cautious comprehension slowly dawned. Coming to a stop, the Astartes captain gazed up shocked to realise that he was, with every fibre of his being, willing the sermon to continue on. He was not alone in this revelation; the entire squad had paused, transfixed before the charismatic force of the pysker’s silken words. 
_‘Your true enemy is constraint and order, there are those that seek to keep you locked in your prison, you alone possess the keys to your freedom, open your eyes and see their lie for what it is!’ _
Finding himself nodding alongside his brethren, utterly oblivious to the hesitant approach of the bloodied cultists, emboldened by their enemy’s sudden passivity, Salius laughed inwardly. As if a shroud had been lifted from his eyes he now saw the truth. The stimulation he so desperately craved had become stale and lacklustre, his brothers sought to deny him the honest pleasure earnt in battle. They were the true enemy, conspiring to keep him confined in chains of tedium. The conclusion of the pysker-heretic’s speech would forever remain a mystery however as before he could deliver the final syllables of his ensnaring charm the man’s face crumpled inwards with a sickening crunch, bolt round punching clean through his skull. A collective moan of despair reverberated about the blood-spattered walls whilst the Marines shook their heads in confusion. Pushing the unsettling realisation far from his thoughts as he lowered his smoking bolt-pistol, Salius roared an encouragement to his men and leapt forward into the panicked heretics, assuaging his doubts and fears in a wash of justified gore. 
_The Emperor see’s all._

*Chapter Two*
_The wheels of intrigue are ever turning, a deadly game of thrones._


_‘So many, oh surely not? Oh my...’ _
A far cry from the depths of the hive, the opulent state room of Planetary Governor Shoniel troubled Salius non the less. The aristocracy of Terendus lived far too comfortably for the captain’s liking. It was little wonder that degenerate cults thrived across the planet. Shoniel frowned in feigned surprise; raising a delicately pale hand to her mouth as she stifled a shocked gasp. 
_‘Oh, I had no idea the threat was so serious. Thank the Emperor you are here to deliver us, Captain Delanter.’_ 
Salius knew the governor’s current demeanour was for his benefit alone, pleasant enough to look upon, the captain supposed she would have been considered nothing short of beautiful to a mortal man. Sliding closer to Salius’s side, Shoniel lightly rested her hand upon an armoured shoulderpad. 
_‘You will root them out, wont you captain?’_ She enquired softly with a practiced tone of sultry promise. 
Clearly Governor Shoniel had never dealt with the Emperor’s Space Marines before. Shaking his head with a sardonic smirk Salius plucked Shoniel’s minuscule hand from his armour, swallowing it within within the enormity of his right gauntlet. The governor’s slightly puzzled expression rapidly twisted into a grimace of agony as the Astartes captain forced her to her knees, bending the extremity threateningly close to breaking point. 
_‘C-captain Delanter, please!’_ Shoniel stuttered. 
After an unexpectedly rare moment of deliciously sadistic pleasure, Salius replied icily, savouring every violence infused syllable as he uttered it, _‘For your own continued wellbeing Governor Shoniel I suggest you tell me the truth, quickly now.’_
Limbs trembling, a look of pure terror plastered across her features, Salius was thrilled to see, Governor Shoniel marshalled her thoughts and replied haltingly, whimpering as a fresh surge of agony shot through her entrapped limb. _‘P-please...captain, I have told you everything....A rumour! A rumour though...’_ she hurried, catching Salius’s expression. _‘My intelligence agency picked up on it some weeks ago.’_
_‘Go on,’_ the Captain prompted.
_‘A bordello...in the upper mercantile district, Lucunditas,’_ emboldened by Salius’s interest, the quaver in Governor Shoniel’s voice had disappeared now. Releasing her from his grasp, the Brother-Captain gestured for her to continue as Shoniel gingerly massaged her bruised wrist. 
_‘Rumour has it, my dear captain that it is somewhat more than it seems.’_
_‘Speak plainly, woman,’_ Salius grunted.
_‘It is likely to be a major coven of the pleasure cults. There, now you know everything that I do, Captain.’_ Before he could reply, Shoniel pressed onwards._ ‘I did not tell you sooner because of the clientele of this establishment. Many of those that move around the upper echelons of aristocratic society frequent it. Please Captain Delanter; I implore you, approach this with digression.’_ 
With a snort of amused disdain Salius tapped a finger to the comm.-bead nestled within his left ear already striding towards the doorway, _‘Sergeant Davrik prepare to move out, Emperor be praised we have our next target.’_

The common room of Lucunditas reverberated beneath the warbling blare of Terendus Hive pound, issuing forth from cunningly wrought vox-speakers nestled high in the shadowed arches of the room. The flickering violet light of a dozen snaking electoo neons bathed the bordello’s patrons in a twisted macabre light, Mathias noted as he exhaled a plume of pungent sweet smoke, chuckling quietly. Mathias Trask cut an innocuous figure as he lounged against the bar nursing a glass of Cypra Mundian whiskey whilst drawing on a smouldering obscura-stick. With shoulder length ebony hair and a lithe willowy build, the hive ganger was oft mistaken for some soft noble sot which, Trask figured, worked in his favour. Never let the bastards see you coming, that was his motto. It was the reason he and his crew had been picked out for the task, Trask reasoned. Hell, it could be worse. Loitering at the bar day in and day out, ensuring no curious patrons or greedy gangers ventured where they shouldn’t. The large double doors directly opposite the lounging ganger creaked open. Tilting his head he lazily eyed the hooded figure that slipped through them. Another of the mistress’s patrons Mathias noted as it communicated the appropriate handsigns and swiftly disappeared into the backrooms. A sudden draft struck Mathias’s attention, snapping his gaze back to Lucunditas’s entranceway. For a heartbeat he stared unbelievingly, transfixed by the impossible appearance of a mythic figure made real. Nearly eight foot of thick, majenta ceramite plate concealed all but its awesome, brutal face. Its terrifying eyes imparted clear intent as the Angel of Death locked eyes with Mathias. Instinct chose that moment to kick in, instilling the overwhelming desire to flee in the terrified ganger. Hand jerking for a holstered autopistol Mathias was punched clean off his feet. A deafening roar cutting starkly through the club’s music as his chest veritably exploded in gory display. The room burst into sudden activity as the Space Marine Captain strode on into the club proper, four of his battle brothers close behind, putting down another of the bordello’s sentries with a single expert shot. Frightened patrons were riddled by careless sprays of caseless shells as the Lucunditas’s bouncers finally responded in kind to the invading threat. Lasbolts and pistol rounds pattered against the Marine’s armoured bulk, as effective as dropplets of rain cast onto a raging plasma-fire.
A hawk faced ganger rose up from behind the wooden bar, pumping shotgun shells into the oncoming Space Marines before being blown backwards in a hail of shattered glass by the combined salvo of no less than five bolt-pistols. 

With the last of the sentries disposed of, a quiet descended upon the smog filled room interrupted only by the occasional moan or whimper of terror from the cowering patrons and the heavy patter of the twenty or so Astartes fanning out to secure the common-room. Captain Salius Delanter calmly eyed his immediate surroundings before touching a finger to the vox-bead in his ear,_ ‘Brother Sergeant Mallik I want a perimeter ring around the target, nothing enters or leaves without my prior say so.’_ A terse click responded over the vox in acknowledgement a heartbeat later. _‘Davrik, your squad takes point.’_


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## Shacklock (Dec 15, 2009)

_Minor update, slow going at the moment xD_


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