# The Price of Heresy



## nightmarine (Mar 30, 2007)

Hey guys, one day i sat down and decided i was feeling IGis that day, so i got to writting the invasion of a chaos stronghold by IG. This is in no way my finnished product, it is the wire frame and needs much more fluf before it is really done. I could not resist including my own chapter a bit in there, who is being written about too. More fluf on the Nightmarines may come. Comments, questions, ideas, suggestions, variations, corrections, and anything else you can think of is very welcomed. TY.


The Price of Heresy
The putrid stench of rot and mold reached Commissar Fredrick. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. He wanted to get the battle over with so his boys could leave this corrupted place and return to the safety of their chimera transports. Off in the distance, the reassuring rumble of Leman Russ Battle Tanks could be heard as their heavy support rolled into position. He gripped his plasma pistol and power sword tighter and pushed on. His personal command squad of imperial guardsman followed behind him obediently. The heavy bolter team lugged their weapon. The standard bearer held his banner proudly. The vox officer listened intently for any communications from their command. All around him squads of other guardsman prepared to attack the unseen fortress that loomed inevitably ahead of them. His feet sank ankle-deep into the marshy floor of the ancient swamp that surrounded the heretical fortress. The entire platoon of guardsmen shivered slightly because of the unnatural cold that surrounded the chaotic stronghold. 
The micro-bead that Fredrick kept close to his ear hissed with static, followed by a voice. “Leman Russ, open fire!” the disembodied voice shouted. In response, loud bursts of cannon fire could be heard, each cataclysmic shot reverberating off of the knotted trees. Grabbing his magnoculars, Fredrick searched through the mist in the hopes of seeing the fortress. 
Amazingly it swam into view, in all of its daemonic glory. From every wall glared the faces of daemons, beings that could only have been created in the twisted depths of the warp. The walls shone with the rusty color of dried blood that had come from the thousands of sacrifices needed to make a monument as large as a fortress an unholy monolith in the name of chaos. 
The shells of the tanks impacted with awesome power. The walls crumbled away as heretics, cultists, and traitors fell to their death from the pitching walls, but the fortress withstood the first wave of blasts. 
Fredrick raised his left hand and tucked the magnoculars away with his right. 
“Charge!” he shouted. The ground rumbled with thunder as the loyal servants of his Eternal Majesty the Emperor broke into a run and charged toward those who had turned from the guiding light of the Imperium and had found refuge, instead, in the arms of the evil daemon gods of the warp. 
Lasguns pierced the low mist that hung over the planets surface, their red beams like divine rays of retribution. Autocannons roared as they sent slugs hurtling toward the cultists that stood steadfast on the ramparts of the Emperor forsaken compound. Soldiers fell as the traitors returned fire, but the platoon would not falter. They had made up their minds; the corrupted traitors would fall, even if it meant their own death. Sentinels stalked out of the brush they had been concealed in one hundred meters away, like two-legged creatures stalking their prey. Their hunter-seeker missiles soared toward the wall and blew the weakened, daemon-possessed stone into rubble. Their lascannons fired over and over again as they attempted to clear the way for the charging platoon. 
As the Commissar’s platoon reached the breach in the wall, they shouted holy passages of hate and divine judgment. Thumbing the activation switch of his power sword, Fredrick slashed at a cultist that challenged him. Its head rolled cleanly off of its shoulders as the energy sheathed sword cut through its heavily armored neck with ease. Traitors and daemons were cast down before him as he continued to roar litanies of purgitation and hate. No enemy was too much, no foe would survive, and no heretic would ever see the light of day again! 

Together, they hewed a path through the sea of daemons and cultists until they reached the very center of the fortress. There, upon a plinth overlooking the courtyard inside, stood a warrior. Corrupted power, like that of the damned warp, cascaded from his presence. Many of Fredrick’s loyal troops leaped onto the ground and began clawing at their head, as their weak minds were lost in the torrent of unholy warp energy. Around the berserker walked, ominously, an uncountable amount of defilers. Their corrupted metal frame glinted with sculls and marks of impurity. Their spider-like legs sank a meter into the ground with each step. Their cannons all pointed toward the commissar’s surviving platoon, and yet they held their fire as they slowly encircled the platoon. 
The chaos worshiper slowly walked down the stairs that extended to the ground and waved his hand, ordering the defilers out of his way. The Chaotic machines formed a circle around the warrior and the platoon. 
A soldier next to Fredrick lunged forward, but Fredrick grabbed his flack jacket and held him. “This battle is mine, and mine alone,” he said in a firm voice, “This heretic is obviously possessed, should I fall, do not engage him. Instead try to get out of this Emperor-forsaken place and lay siege to it until they are ready accept the Emperor’s divine judgment.” 
“You must have gone through hell and back to make it this far!” Shouted the heretic for all to hear, “I give you credit, I never expected anybody to make it in hear alive.” 
“The Emperor guides and protects, heretic! Your gods will never be able to do that!” Fredrick replied. 
“You believe your precious emperor can save you now? For even making in this far into my fortress they will label you as unclean and eliminate you. Either by my sword or theirs you shall die.” 
Brining his sword up for an attack Fredrick shouted, “You know the price of heresy traitor! It is not death! Oh no! It is utter annihilation! So long as it means the end of you, then by their sword it is!” 
The Heretic grinned an evil smile under his horned helmet and broke into a run. Fredrick jumped forward as well. Their swords met in the air, but the power sword was unable to slice through the metal of the chainsword. ‘It must be possessed!’ he thought to himself and swung his sword in a high arch and sliced the horns down to stubs, ‘that’s why my sword won’t slice through it.’ The heretic’s chainsword swept high in the air and missed Fredrick by inches. The possessed, warped human was fast, but his ancient, and slightly obsolete, imperial armor was bulky and more cumbersome than the flack jacked worn by the ‘guard, so Fredrick was more agile. He made a conscious effort to stay light on his feet and continually dart to one sides or the other to make the bulky armor work against the heretic. The chain sword leveled out and sliced through the air right where Fredrick’s waist would have been hadn’t he crouched down for his strike. Grabbing the hilt of his sword with both hands, he lunged up and cut a straight line through the center of the heretic from between his legs to his neck.
“Impossible,” the heretic muttered as blood began to seep through the would that would have instantly proved mortal to a normal man. The ancient bioengineered organs were obviously at their limit trying to save him. “How…how!”
“The Emperor you pitiful heretic. You had your chance and you damnation. Rot in whatever Hell your soul will go to and remember my words. ‘The Emperor protects’!”
The heretic looked skyward and, with that, fell into a bloody heap on the ground.
Fredrick staggered away from the corpse that lay in a bloody heap at his feet. He had done it. The cultists were leaderless. 
It took him perhaps two seconds to recover from the shock of the battle, but it was too long. Bullets began chewing up the mucky ground around him and he sprang forward in an attempt to avoid them. A single round impacted with his flack jacket, but it was of no protection against the daemonic weapon. Fredrick felt the warmth of his own blood as it seeped through his battered, muddy camouflage. The survivors of his platoon jumped into action. The lascannon teams spat their fury at the heretical behemoths that had dared attack their Commissar. A squad of storm troopers that had accompanied them into the fortress ran through the mud and up to a defiler and planted melta bombs all over it. As the explosions rattled Fredrick, he felt the comforting grasp of his personal medic as he tended to Fredrick’s wound. After treating Fredrick by using a makeshift bandage made from his own clothes to bandage the hole, the medic helped him stand and, together, they limped from the keep as all around them the remaining imperial forces fought tooth and nail to get their beloved commissar to safety. The advance was slow and tedious, as daemons appeared left and right as if from nowhere. Finally after almost a half hour of ferocious combat, the commissar staggered out of the compound and into the open hatch of a waiting Chimera. The Chimera reeked of conversion and all around the interior were medical equipment that had been fixed into the transport with no great care. A stretcher sat in the middle and in it laid Fredrick. A space marine chaplain stood over him. The chaplain’s bulky dark blue and gold armor shimmered in the dim Chimera light. Purity seals and holy text adorned his blessed armor and the skull-masked helm he wore made it seem as if his holy Emperor were hanging over his dieing body and giving him is righteous judgment. 
“May the Emperor praise you. I already know of what deeds you have done. A powerful force of heresy disappeared from my conscious shortly after you entered their fortress. I commend you and the Emperor shall smile upon you.” The chaplain spoke with the softest yet most serious voice Fredrick had ever heard.
“Just doin’ my duty sir. May the Emperor be praised that I killed that damned traitor.” Fredrick said through his wince of pain from the wound.
“Truly through your deeds shall He know you, brother”
“And forever shall I serve Him. Through death if I must.”
“I’m sure you shall serve Him faithfully forever, my friend”
“I will. Tell my boys that I’m gonna miss them.” Fredrick said. And with that he smiled and closed his eyes forever.

Message Received by the Nightmarines battle barge Purifying Beam from the planet surface:
Chapter Master Grodon Versaill. I hope all is well upon the Purifying Beam. The Chaotic stronghold has been taken and destroyed. It shall take many decades until the area is cleansed of its taint however. I would like to give the credit to the renowned Commissar Jacob Fredrick. Alas the wounds were too much for Commissar Fredrick. He passed in the medical vehicle. He shall be given a hero’s burial and his name shall exist in the records forever. To his account, add the death of a daemon possessed space marine. The Imperium has lost a great and glorious man. Please forward the news of his death and the destruction of the fortress to the Imperial Guard High Command. Long live the Emperor!

Chaplain Magnius of the Nightmarines
Master of Sanctity


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## Viscount Vash (Jan 3, 2007)

Nightmarine:


> This is in no way my finished product


Your not kidding  

Nice enough short story overall, but lots of work needed on grammer, puntuation and such ( paste it into word and run through it again).

My main suggestion for now is to organize it with smaller paragraphs big blocks of text put people off reading stories, you might get more feed back if you do.

Couple of other points:
Chaplain in blue and gold, is this a Chapter thing?
If so say something like ' in the distinctive blue and gold armour of the Nightmarine Chapter' because it makes me think of Librarians as Chaplain usally wear black.

Guardsmen attacking a Defiler will take a couple of casualties before the get to attack.

Keep at it you story is good just need a good polish  
VV


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## nightmarine (Mar 30, 2007)

OOPS!! Big mistake! My bad. I must have forgotten about the black armor when i wrote this. About the paragraph thing, it was paragraphs but it looks like i lost my tabs during the copy-paste process. Maybe they could be smaller though... yeah, still a work in progress, just wanted it down on paper when i thought about it.


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## Hespithe (Dec 26, 2006)

I like your work, and find it odd that you write about the army you find most difficult to face. That's just great!

I've tried my hand at it as well, so I'll post it in just a moment. Maybe we can get a few ideas off of each other. My story is still WiP as well.


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## dink666 (Mar 26, 2007)

i like it but make the chaplain in black armour.


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## zahariel (Feb 28, 2008)

i really like it especially the 1 on1 fight near the end but still guardsmen dont usually suceed in taking out a defiler without being annihilated by it before they get close


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