# Random Iron Warrior Short



## HonorableMan (Apr 15, 2012)

_crappy short, a result of late night insomnia and boredom._

The Warsmith’s face is like a work of art, like a canvas painted upon by the gods of battle. The Warsmith bears a countenance seemingly graven from stone, hard lines speaking of the long years lived. His mouth curls up in a sardonic sneer, his single remaining eye filled with fire. The other fell orb that had once had its place opposite was missing, drawn out by the artful cuts of a Champion of Dorn’s successors, the Black Templars. The scar from this wound extends vertically both up and down from the empty socket, the most visible scar on the Warsmith’s face. Wires connect his earpiece to his throat, red, blue, and green, slightly frayed from time. His neck is strong, thick, bulked with muscle built in the fires of battle. His head is shaven, the better to fit in his masterworked war plate from the forges of Olympia. Ensconced in his relic plate,he is intimidating, well over ten feet tall. 

Today, however, he wears not his battle-gear. Instead, he sits on a throne carved of ebonite, angular and dark, placed in the shadow of his war banners. Clad in a deep grey robe of the finest silk, his great hands rest upon the arms of his great throne. To each side, the Warsmith is guarded by the sinister war walkers of the Legio Ferrum, the Warhound-class engines statuesque in the grandeur of his throne room.

A short glass of amasec rests at his elbow, the caramel liquid smooth in the clear glass. Kneeling in front of the throne is an Astartes, beaten, bloody, yet still defiant. Jeering on the sides of the room are Iron Warriors, the leaders of the Warsmith’s Grand Company, the overlords of Indomitius. Attended to by their body-slaves, they sit in thrones of their own, smaller and placed along the edges of the grand throne room. The Warsmith’s own slaves are nearly invisible, slinking through the shadows of his great throne. They carry trays, a bottle of amasec, a box of thick cheroots, an archaic plasma pistol, wires covering its sides.

The throne room itself is like a perverted, twisted cathedral, enormous, arched, colonnaded, spikes impaling those condemned by the Warsmith’s order high on the columns. The windows are as high as the two Titans watching over the Warsmith, ending in wicked points. Outside of these great windows, the rest of the Warsmith’s hellish fortress can be seen, Goloth-Shal, spiked ramparts rising fifty meters high, walls five meters thick, daemon-bound artillery in the twisted emplacements. Such an impenetrable fortress can only be rivaled on Medrengard, it seems. Goloth-Shal can withstand anything, from a siege to Exterminatus. It encompasses a whole continent. 

Within the throne room, the beaten loyalist Space Marine kneels, bound at his hands and feet with chains of black iron. His face is the very picture of hate, blood dripping from one nostril and the corner of his mouth. His back, rippling with muscle, is tattooed with a great black fist. Scars from battle trace his frame, along with fresh cuts inflicted by his tormentors. He has a bionic arm on his right side, along with a glowing red augmetic eye, both attesting to his valor on the field of battle. There is a great number of miniscule names in High Gothic tattooed on his left arm, a list of great enemies slain. The spirit of defiance burns bright in his eyes, piety in his false emperor sustaining his hatred. He looks up at the Warsmith, hatred filling his face, and, with a sneer, spits a gobbet of bright red blood him.

The whole room gasps.

The Warsmith’s robe sends up a plume of grey smoke from his sleeve as the heavy fabric dissolves under the corrosive Astartes saliva. Standing up, the Warsmith shrugs the robe off, the smile growing on his face. Gesturing the slave with the plasma pistol back, he strides up to the prisoner, clad only in his breeches.

The prisoner’s craggy face, marred by battle scars, tightens with hate as he approaches. Chuckling with approval, the Warsmith waves up at the galleries. A gladius, its edge sharp and its blade shining, clatters to the floor. A slave comes down after it and releases the chains the loyalist is bound with.

They clang to the ground, the black iron ringing as it strikes the grey floor. The Warsmith, still smiling, kicks the gladius towards the now released Astartes. His massive muscles flex as he picks it up, looking much more comfortable with a blade in his fist.

He lunges, slashing and cutting at the Warsmith. Each strike is precise, each blow one that should, by rights, slay the Iron Warrior. Yet not a single blow lands. The Warsmith, though gigantic and still unarmed, slips each strike. With increasing frustration, the loyalist lets out a roar, echoing in the great throne room, and redoubles his speed, to no avail.

The Warsmith, his entertainment waning fast, moves in for the kill. With the next thrust of the loyalist’s blade, he moves in, swiftly plucking the gladius by the blade out of the loyalist’s hand. Using the hilt of the short sword, he pulps the Astartes’ right knee with a quick strike.

As the loyalist collapses with a roar of agony, the Warsmith tosses his gladius away. Advancing slowly, he laughs maniacally, lost in the pleasure of battle. The crippled Astartes lets fly a punch, but the Warsmith catches his fist in his meaty hand and with one motion, pulls the Space Marine’s arm off.

Leaning in close to the bleeding loyalist, the Warsmith smiles.

“What is your name, Imperial Fist?”

Blood bubbling out of his mouth, the Fist replies with hate evident in his voice.

“Damn you, Ruinous filth!”

The Warsmith chuckles.

“As you wish… Die nameless then!”

Pulling his thick arm back, the Iron Warrior laughs. For a second, he sees fear in the Fist’s eyes.

The Warsmith’s fist pistons through the thick ribcage of the Fist, shattering bones and pulping organs with its passage. Closing his fingers around something, the Iron Warrior pulls his hand back out, trailing thick ropes of steaming gore. Clasped in his thick fingers is the Fist’s heart.

The loyalist shrieks once in agonizing pain, then falls still. Looking up and around at the gathered Iron Warriors, the Warsmith grins, and takes a bite out of the still-pulsing muscle, blood spurting out around his teeth and dripping down onto his chest.

Konor Ruinclaw takes his seat and waits, in his great, twisted hall, for the next issue of the day to be brought up.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Standardised FONT to make it easier to read.


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